This explains an awful lot about certain members of deeply conservative religious right who tout such winning ideas as: Creation science Women not being able to get pregnant by legitimate rape (Rep. Todd Akin) Windmills using up non-renewable wind resources (Rep. Joe Barton) Carbon dioxide not being a harmful substanceContinue Reading
Last week I was facing a variety of headlines addressing new finds concerning the Black Death. In USA News, for example, the headline is London Skeletons Reveal Secrets of the Black Death, which nicely introduces the associated story. (As a note, the article is incorrect saying the Black Death killedContinue Reading
I have a love-hate relationship with historical movies. I don’t expect them to be documentaries, and if they get someone interested in a person or event or time in history, terrific. (One of my issues with Reign is that it references nothing historically important and puts most of the focusContinue Reading
The house arrest of Galileo Galilei in 1633 is commonly put forth as an example of how religion, and particularly the Catholic Church, is against scientific progression. The issue of science and religion in general deserves its own post (or many), but this specific example has gained its own uniqueContinue Reading
The problem with the Internet is that it has so much Internet in it. The Internet has put us into information overload. It provides us a huge amount of relevant information, but it also subjects us to an increasing onslaught of bad information. Some comes from people with a deeplyContinue Reading
I, like many of my friends, greatly anticipated the restart of Cosmos by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I like many things Tyson has done in the past, and he has a reputation for explaining sound science in language average people can understand and enjoy learning about. But he’s no historian. HisContinue Reading
You wouldn’t believe it from my posts so far, but originally steampunk was meant to be one of the major topics of this blog. Guess I got carried away with the fun of weird history. After all, there’s a reason I went to school for six years studying it. IContinue Reading
In its early years, the History Channel was full of historical programming. Most of it was about World War II, so damn near everyone called it the Hitler Channel, but it was actually history. Today, not only do I not watch the History Channel, I actively warn people away fromContinue Reading
A couple of months ago, I did a post about St. Valentine and how he has nothing to do with modern, secular celebrations of Valentine’s Day. I mentioned how hard it was to find good info online because so many sources mix-up folklore and urban legend with actual history. AndContinue Reading
In an amazing fluff piece on ABCnews.com, Noah (“It’s Like the Bible…with Explosions“) designer Mark Friedberg explained the effort put into creating the ark: In a featurette released by Paramount, Freidberg described the ark’s basic construction. “The ramp is meant to serve one function, for reptiles to be able to getContinue Reading