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By calling GMOs 'poison' and 'evil,' Bill Maher poisons the well of reasoned scientific discussion with ideologically driven fear mongering.
Kyle Hill -
Imagine how many women could excel in science if not for the pernicious myth that science and math are a man's game. Likewise, fitness isn't defined by the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the world.
Kyle Hill
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Why would you envy a man who doesn't know the names of all the planets, is a 'high functioning' sociopath, and has no friends? Because Sherlock Holmes thinks in all the ways we wish we could.
Kyle Hill -
Most people would put me firmly in the nerd/geek category. It wouldn't be a change from where I've been put my whole life, but my place now has standing. Nerds are inexorably cool again.
Kyle Hill -
Picking apart a story for its scientific underpinnings doesn't diminish it, it enhances it, makes us dream of the possibilities it proposes. I think appreciating the magic of reality, going from 'can't happen' to 'could happen,' is the fundamental appeal of science fiction.
Kyle Hill -
Climate change denial, anti-vaccination proponents, creationist teachers, faith healers, fake bomb detector peddlers, psychic frauds, alternative medicine pushers... we need scientific thinking. We need a generation of kids who think an experiment is more important than a preconceived notion or an argument from authority.
Kyle Hill -
Bullets are fast - even a 9-millimeter handgun launches lead at Mach 1. And the bigger the bullet gets, the more grains of gunpowder it carries, the faster it goes. Modern rifles can fling the small pieces of metal at half the velocity needed to escape the gravitational pull of the Moon.
Kyle Hill -
When we overestimate the benefits of exercise, underestimate how many calories we eat, and overcompensate for a job well done, exercise is really a false protection from fattening food.
Kyle Hill
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Reality is on a delay. For you, nothing is now. Realizing this fact is unsettling. If we can only react to the past, how do we manage to navigate the present? It's easy to spiral into a treatise on free will while in the fetal position, overthinking our forever past.
Kyle Hill -
We brick-and-mortar ourselves away from nature. The outside world is behind glass, underneath a slab of concrete, running through PVC. Our steel and concrete are suitable enough until nature comes knocking. And when she wants to get in, nothing can stop her.
Kyle Hill -
People are misers of mental effort. If we don't have the interest or the capacity to look into the arguments, if the message isn't personally relevant, if we judge that we already know all we need to know about a topic, there is no reason to spend precious mental resources.
Kyle Hill -
Jesus walking on water is an allegory, not fluid mechanics. God destroying the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is a warning, not a historical battle. Doubting Thomas is an example, not a person. The story of Noah, with all of its scientific and historical impossibilities, can be read the same way.
Kyle Hill -
I was in China when Pokemon fever hit, and I got it bad. But as I got older, I didn't stay with it. My binder full of rares has since disappeared. I have refused to play the other games like the newest 'Pokemon X/Y' out of some misplaced hipster angst.
Kyle Hill -
Science is a highly technical and intellectual endeavor. Any theory or fact or discovery has an ocean of depth to it. You can always go deeper with science, and you can always ask a new and interesting question. That's what makes a topic nerdy: depth.
Kyle Hill
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Human atoms are the notes, their life the symphony.
Kyle Hill -
Researchers may like to think that, given all the facts, we make rational choices. Ask economists how that assumption works out for them. No, we are emotional creatures who use value-based reasoning in conjunction with our rationality.
Kyle Hill -
Evolution is ultimately why cancer is so deadly. Take two biopsies from different sides of a tumor, and they can be genetically very different, making it that much harder to fight. Variation is the toolbox of evolution, and this variation gives cancer strength.
Kyle Hill -
Whether we know it or not, each of our decisions is influenced by what we want to see or think.
Kyle Hill -
Raised on Bill Nye videos, LEGOs, and CD-ROMs of dinosaurs, I was a lump of nerdy clay waiting to be molded. 'Mythbusters' came to me at a critical time, and it transformed me into who I am today.
Kyle Hill -
The disturbing truth about science communication is that we have theories and ways of delivering messages that really are like putting a candle to the dark, as Carl Sagan would say. We aren't sure what will work, when, or how much. But for all that uncertainty, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
Kyle Hill
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If a process or adaptation seems too smart for nature, that's a failure of your imagination, not the hand of God. I can make that claim because we have a working model of life's morphing and molding without it.
Kyle Hill -
Bigfoot does not exist because there would be evidence left behind - hair, feces, bones, kills, offspring, a carcass - if it did.
Kyle Hill -
The story of Noah is self-contradictory, uncorroborated by independent historical evidence, and is generally at odds with everything we know about our planet's geology, biology, and species diversity.
Kyle Hill -
Dragons are basically our pipe-dreams of what birds would be if they still looked liked ancient dinosaurs but followed evolution's flight plan.
Kyle Hill