Skeptico

Billions and billions

Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” series has been digitally remastered and is showing now on the Science Channel in the US: 6.00pm (Pacific) through 11.00pm (with presumably more to come next week), although you can be sure it will be repeated.

Of course, “Cosmos” is on my list of recommended DVDs (see the link in the left hand column).  Although I have the DVD I'm still watching it.

(I know Sagan never said “billions and billions” – he does say "billions" a lot though.)

Nostradumass

The History Channel Monday night screened a two-hour special on Nostradamus – apparently it’s 500 years since he was born, or something. I suppose that is history, of a kind. The program was pretty bad. True, they did have Michael Shermer on to debunk a few of the interpretations. Penn & Teller too. But the skeptical portion was at most ten minutes out of a two hour show.  The overall impression given was that Nostradamus really did predict the future. Which is pretty stupid because he did no such thing.

Featured DVD – Penn & Teller

This is the first of a series of occasional posts explaining why I recommend the books and DVDs you see listed in the column on the left. Today I feature the DVDs of Penn & Teller’s Showtime TV series, “Bullshit”. The first set consists of three DVDs containing the initial 13 episodes, plus some bonus items not shown on TV, such as an interview with James Randi.

The purpose of the series was to reveal the truth behind talking to the dead, Nostradamus, remote viewing, feng shui, alien abductees, creationists, extreme environmentalists, bottled water, alternative medicine and more. Undercover operatives were used to film the stories, and these location shots are interspersed with Penn’s comments (Teller remains mute), in the studio. The programs are fast paced, use a lot of humor, and pull no punches, as you might guess from the provocative series title.

       

The following is my current list of recommended books and DVDs. Click on the icon of the book or DVD to be taken direct to the item’s page on Amazon.com I have moved this list here from the front page of the blog to speed up loading of the main page.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

	An extremely interesting and comprehensive book. Reviewed here.
	Great fun. Reviewed here.
	Reviewed briefly here.