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Happy Birthday, Carl Sagan

On this day 77 years ago, Carl Sagan was born. He would become one of the greatest promoters of science, curiosity, and outright happiness that the world has ever known. His life is one we should all strive to emulate: a never-ending thirst for knowledge, and thus, perpetual childhood. There's probably no god, and even less of a chance of an afterlife, so this is ultimately meaningless, but I guess it just makes me feel a little better to type it out: thank you.

Ann Druyan, widow of Sagan:

“When my husband died, because he was so famous & known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me — it still sometimes happens — & ask me if Carl changed at the end & converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage & never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief & precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive & we were together was miraculous — not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance… That pure chance could be so generous & so kind… That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space & the immensity of time… That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me & it’s much more meaningful…

The way he treated me & the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other & our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.“

Sunday Youtube Post

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Leaving tomorrow morning for Michigan and I likely won't have internet access for a week, here's the youtubez

CASSINI MISSION from Chris Abbas on Vimeo.

Sunday Youtube Post

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Here's a classic. Parts 1 and 2 of "The Second Renaissance" from the Animatrix. I can't tell you how many times I watched this when it first came out. This short was my favorite, by far. I always loved it because it was a good enough story on its own even without being in the Matrix universe. It's a friendly reminder that the farther our science and technology advances, the more necessary it will become for us to develop a sense of responsibility towards it. These were really hard to find.

Video Games | | Animatrix-Second Renaissance Part2

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Sunday Youtube Post

"You've got to have the knowledge. Seeing is only half of it."

"In religion faith is a virtue; in science it's a vice."

Author and biologist Jerry Coyne wrote an opinion piece in USA Today arguing that science and religion are simply not compatible with each other.

In all honesty, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. It's not that I disagree with him, because logically, I can't find a single fault with what he said. He's right. It's just that drawing these "either/or" lines in the sand will only serve to turn religious people off towards science altogether, and then nobody wins. I mean, everything about science is fucking beautiful, and there's no reason why it can't be enjoyed and admired by everyone. I know plenty of Christians who love science. I know a believer who's going to be a biomedical engineer. I just don't think coming out so strongly and so openly helps anything if your goal is to convince others. It will only turn people away. (This rule is ignored if Christopher Hitchens is speaking, because come on, that shit's just hilarious.)

But you can't really argue with Coyne's main point: religion and science view 'truth' in two completely different ways.

Science operates by using evidence and reason. Doubt is prized, authority rejected. No finding is deemed "true" — a notion that's always provisional — unless it's repeated and verified by others. We scientists are always asking ourselves, "How can I find out whether I'm wrong?" I can think of dozens of potential observations, for instance — one is a billion-year-old ape fossil — that would convince me that evolution didn't happen.

[...]

And this leads to the biggest problem with religious "truth": There's no way of knowing whether it's true. I've never met a Christian, for instance, who has been able to tell me what observations about the universe would make him abandon his beliefs in God and Jesus. (I would have thought that the Holocaust could do it, but apparently not.) There is no horror, no amount of evil in the world, that a true believer can't rationalize as consistent with a loving God. It's the ultimate way of fooling yourself. But how can you be sure you're right if you can't tell whether you're wrong?

The religious approach to understanding inevitably results in different faiths holding incompatible "truths" about the world. Many Christians believe that if you don't accept Jesus as savior, you'll burn in hell for eternity. Muslims hold the exact opposite: Those who see Jesus as God's son are the ones who will roast. Jews see Jesus as a prophet, but not the messiah. Which belief, if any, is right? Because there's no way to decide, religions have duked it out for centuries, spawning humanity's miserable history of religious warfare and persecution.

In contrast, scientists don't kill each other over matters such as continental drift. We have better ways to settle our differences. There is no Catholic science, no Hindu science, no Muslim science — just science, a multicultural search for truth. The difference between science and faith, then, can be summed up simply: In religion faith is a virtue; in science it's a vice.

If you value your non-existent soul, do yourself a favor and avoid the comments. Or, go ahead and read them if you want to laugh at idiots. And I'll plug Coyne's book on evolution while I have your attention, it's probably the best crash course introduction to the subject short of The Origin of Species.

Stephen Hawking is a terrorist

"Science Akbar!" -Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking recently published an excerpt from his upcoming book. I'm sure the excerpt had many interesting things to say, but it was all ignored because three sentences ignited a shitstorm.

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

This is similar to how Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein viewed God. Far from endorsing positive atheism, they simply felt that the question of God was distracting, and shouldn't be dwelled upon in matters of science. Since there's a lack of evidence for God, unbelief should be preferred. Occam's razor.

Sagan: "If the general picture however of a big bang followed by an expanding universe is correct, what happened before that? Was the universe devoid of all matter and then the matter suddenly, somehow created? How did that happen? In many cultures it is customary to answer is that a God or Gods created the universe out of nothing. But if we wish to pursue the question courageously, we must, of course ask next question: where did God come from? If we decide this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe always existed? There's no need for a creation, it was always here."

Naturally, it the response to this truly despicable claim by Hawking has been complete outrage. I spent a good deal of time reading comments left by readers on a number of articles covering this. You'd be surprised at the number of people who are inspired by God's love to make fun of paralyzed people. These are real:

• ‎"Ha, Ha!!, This is not really news. A statement like this would come from an athiest. Why is this suprising? Stephen Hawking is probably a bitter man because of his physical condition and God never restored him."
• ‎"Hawking is an idiot. His attitude and beliefs, and his insistence on spreading his poison, explains why he's in that wheelchair. He should have gotten the Message when God took away his voice; He did it for a reason."
• "Just a bitter, crippled, little man filled with wild theories that never been proven. I find him appallingly arrogant. If he weren't in that wheelchair, he'd just be another little known, wacko academician. He fancies himself in the same league with Newton and Einstein; which he is certainly not."

Of course, they weren't all this bad. Most of the other critics simply had opinions about science without having a fucking clue of what science actually is.

• "Stephen Hawking's faith in his ideas appears to be much greater than the faith many have in God. “Because there is a law such as gravity... Spontaneous creation”! The highest proof of evolution is found in the evolution of Science “facts”. “We have to work our way back from the present” over merely several decades of discarded science text books as proof positive. Scientific “facts” die off and are replaced more “advanced facts” which we very well may observe to evolve again in the near future."
• "regardless your belief or disbelief in God or creationism, starting with a conclusion and postulating a theory backwards to support it is always bad science. add this to his latest on E.T.'s and I would have to wonder if he hasn't taken a walk off the map."
• "The one problem I have with scientist and those who esteem them is that they can only believe in what they can prove. They can't prove the spirit world so they feel it does not exist. They are unable to say "we can't prove their is a spirit world...but it may still exist"."

But I guess claims like "crippled people are a bunch of cunts" and "science is always wrong" isn't enough for some people. Did you know Stephen Hawking is now the Taliban? It's true.

[Hawking] also attacked philosophers for failing to keep up with modern developments in physics and biology so that “their discussions seem increasingly outdated and irrelevant”.

Lady Greenfield said: “Science can often suffer from a certain smugness and complacency. Michael Faraday, one of the greatest scientists, had a wonderful quote, he said: ‘There’s nothing quite as frightening as someone who knows they are right’

“What we need to preserve in science is a curiosity and an open-mindedness rather than a complacency and a sort of arrogance where we attack people who come at the big truths and the big questions albeit using different strategies.”

Asked whether she was uncomfortable about scientists making comments about God, she said: “Yes I am. Of course they can make whatever comments they like but when they assume, rather in a Taliban-like way, that they have all the answers then I do feel uncomfortable. I think that doesn’t necessarily do science a service.”

She was also critical of Prof Hawking's comments about philosophy, saying: “Scientists have a duty, if they want to have people who aren’t scientists to appreciate that value of what they are doing, if they want to place it into a wider social and moral context, the duty is on the scientist to explain in words ordinary human being can understand. What is dangerous…is to make sweeping assertions about a whole category of academia.”

She later claimed her Taliban remarks were "not intended to be personal", saying she "admired Stephen Hawking greatly" and "had no wish to compare him in particular to the Taliban".

I don't even know where to start tearing into this shit.

Welp, you heard Lady Greenfield. From this point on, nobody is allowed to have any opinions. As Lady Greenfield established, every person who thinks he's right about anything is now arrogant. See, the problem with holding opinions is that you're going to think you're right. And people who think they're right are smug. Therefore, anyone who holds an opinion is smug. That goes for you too, Lady Greenfield! How dare you believe in God!? How arrogant! You should use different strategies in trying to understand the universe! Be more open minded!

And of course, Hawking "attacked people" too! It's more than obvious that when he said "It is not necessary to invoke God," Hawking actually meant, "Good news, everyone! I concluded with my latest experiment that you're all a bunch of dipshits!"

She was also critical of Prof Hawking's comments about philosophy, saying: “Scientists have a duty, if they want to have people who aren’t scientists to appreciate that value of what they are doing, if they want to place it into a wider social and moral context, the duty is on the scientist to explain in words ordinary human being can understand. What is dangerous…is to make sweeping assertions about a whole category of academia.”

It's okay to make sweeping assertions about science though. Hawking is right about the philosophy comment. They taught us about Paley's watchmaker analogy when I took philosophy classes. William Paley!

Asked whether she was uncomfortable about scientists making comments about God, she said: “Yes I am. Of course they can make whatever comments they like but when they assume, rather in a Taliban-like way, that they have all the answers then I do feel uncomfortable. I think that doesn’t necessarily do science a service.”

[...]

She later claimed her Taliban remarks were "not intended to be personal", saying she "admired Stephen Hawking greatly" and "had no wish to compare him in particular to the Taliban".

You know who Lady Greenfield is like? Hitler. Every word that comes out of her mouth is literally another Jew being thrown into the ovens. But I'll also say that while this woman is literally Adolf Hitler, she is also not Adolf Hitler at the same time. You can't argue with me now.

I will never understand what it is about atheism that makes believers go so unbelievably batshit. Remember how the general public used to respect Stephen Hawking as a world-renowned cosmologist? Now he's a bitter, know-it-all member of the Taliban, all because he doubts the universe had an intelligent creator. Why is it okay for people to say these things in public? Why is that atheists are one of the only minority groups in the west that are socially acceptable to trash?

So apparently someone made a movie about Charles Darwin

It seems to focus on the struggle he had of whether or not he should even publish the theory. It did quite well in the UK, but was never picked up in America because of the "controversy."

Exposed scientific dishonesty illustrates why science is so great

Jen McCreight wrote a great blog entry called Exposed scientific dishonesty illustrates why science is so great. McCreight is famous for organizing Boobquake, an event in which thousands of women pretended to be scientists as an excuse to show off their tits.

In spite of that well-intentioned stupidity, Jen really made an excellent point with this entry. I won't even bother summarizing it, just read it.

Exposed scientific dishonesty illustrates why science is so great

That title may sound counter intuitive, but give me a chance to explain.

You may have heard about the bit of academic scandal that's been happening at Harvard recently. Marc Hauser is a Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Organismic & Evolutionary Biology, and Biological Anthropology. He was the leading researcher on the evolution of morality and moral behavior in primates and humans and an author of a number of books, including Moral Minds and (in progress) Evilicious: Our Evolved Taste for Being Bad.

In a somewhat amusingly ironic twist, he was found guilty of scientific misconduct, including fabrication of data that will result in several papers being retracted.

This is a very serious situation, especially since Marc Hauser was such a big name in his field. His career is effectively over, and now reseachers in the field have to rethink everything they've learned from him (and cited from him). It's even more serious for his students, whose futures are uncertain when their graduate advisor has such a black mark on his record. It's upsetting to the field of science as a whole, which does rely on a certain level of trust for practical reasons. We peer review to the best of our abilities, but you still have to hope everyone else is being honest like you since it can take time to expose problems.

It's also a little jarring to me personally. Not only will I have to reexamine what I read in one of his books that I greatly enjoyed, but I almost went to graduate school in one of the departments he teaches in. Academic scandals aren't the best way to start your graduate career.

But we have to remember this is what makes science so great. Science is not dogmatic. It's based on peer review and constant criticism. Scientists are still human and make errors, sometimes purposefully and sometimes not, so it's important to have these checks in place. Hauser was a giant in his field, but even he was not immune to scrutiny. It was his own graduate students who brought these problems to our attention at great personal risk.

Some people are using this as a chance to pooh-pooh the whole field of evolutionary psychology. I'm sure it's only a matter of time for creationists like Ken Ham to squeal with glee and twist the facts for their own "Never trust science!!!" agenda. But I really don't think this is quite so tragic. Isn't it good to know that we still expose bad science, even when we may have political reasons to not? Would we rather have evolutionary psychology trucking on without criticism, or get the fraudulent data out in the open? I'd be more concerned with the field if it was just being swept under the table. While it's sad such dishonesty occured, I'm happy to know that we can still sniff it out, correct it, and punish those who perpetuate it.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic (I know, unusual for me). But I think it's good to use this as an example of why science is the best way of exploring the world around us: Because when our findings are wrong, we'll admit it.

"We need to be skeptical of ourselves as much as we are of any claims made by others."

A debate within the atheist/skeptic community that has been silently brewing for a long time now has finally been brought right out into the open. Every year, the largest gathering of skeptics and critical thinkers in the world go to Vegas to what they call The Amazing Meeting, named after James Randi's stage name, The Amazing Randi. This year, the keynote speech was given by Phil Plait, the founder of BadAstronomy.com.

Plait's message to his fellow skeptics was this: stop being dicks. He's taken note of how terribly the skeptic community can treat other people, often throwing insults or scoring cheap points instead of trying to sway them. The general public is going through enough without us insulting them: we are telling them that their magical world is a sham, that psychic powers and their new age bullshit is not real, that there is no afterlife, that the Judeo-Christian God does not exist; and these are things that people would really rather not hear. In addition, society at large has painted anybody who's skeptical of anything at all as spiteful or emotionally dead, and so people usually dismiss what we have to say before we even say it. People have a hard time understanding exactly what skepticism is, and simply view it as cynicism rather than a passion for truth. In Plait's own words, skepticism is a hard sell.

Plait believes we need to look at our ultimate goal -- getting the world to think reasonably -- and examine the best ways of accomplishing it. Instead of calmly debunking every claim one by one, over and over again, we should instead be encouraging people to think critically for themselves, so we can stop treating them like their hands need to be held. That old saying about teaching a man to fish is the perfect metaphor for this. If people know how to think -- by not accepting things outright before demanding a good reason to -- our job will already be done because reason will come to them naturally. They will already have all the tools in their head.

It was a really brilliant speech, and the full half hour is right here if you have the time to spare.

Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

The skeptic community is divided. Calling it a "community" is a bit generous, because when we're so few, internet blogs and youtube videos are the only things we have going for us. And there are actually a lot of big blogs discussing this, as Plait illustrated himself in his... blog. The voices against this are either motivated by mental masturbation, or simply don't understand what Plait was trying to say, so I won't comment on those morons any further.

Plait made another entry describing the positive reaction he got, and this passage alone is why we need to be doing this.

As we left the auditorium and went out into the hall, someone beckoned to me. I went over, and they told me that an old friend wanted very much to talk to me. Down the corridor I saw Kitty, indeed an old friend and someone very active in the skeptical community in general and the JREF community specifically. As I approached her, to my distress, I saw she had been crying. Concerned, I rapidly went to her, and over the next few minutes, between sobs, she told me how much my talk meant to her. She is religious, in a rather generic way (you could call her a deist, someone who believes in a non-specific god) and over the years has received quite a bit of ostracism from the community. This, despite her long and strong support for speaking up against psychics, ghost hunters, UFO believers, alt-meddlers, and the rest.

She was crying because what I said was something she had longed to hear from someone, anyone, in the skeptic community for years: that we need to be less antagonistic, and more inclusive. When we exclude someone for one belief they may have, we are losing them despite whatever other skeptical drive they might possess. And that means we all lose.

She was not alone, either. Another young woman, one I had never met before, similarly approached me and told me much the same story. She was crying as well. Eventually I heard from others who told me there were several people in the audience who were crying because they had felt so alone. Many were feeling so isolated from the skeptical community — and had experienced so many encounters with other skeptics who were rude, boorish, insulting, and dismissive — that they were seriously considering leaving the movement altogether.

I also heard from hundreds — hundreds — of people thanking me for what I said. They had seen others be jerks, or had been jerks themselves, and were contrite about it.

The support I have received has been very encouraging. The drop in the level of demeanor I had been seeing was disheartening to say the least. I’m very glad to know that so many people took this topic to heart.

And, at the very least, it has helped spark a conversation that, in my opinion, is long overdue in the skeptic community. We need to be skeptical of ourselves as much as we are of any claims made by others, and we should be reminded of that every now and again.

I try to send this video to every person I know who's confused about what skeptics do, or why we think the way we do. To this day I still don't think anyone I've sent it to has bothered watching it past a couple minutes.

A conversation between Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking

Hawking: "Why are you so obsessed with God?"

Saturday Youtube Post

Leaving for camp tomorrow for the summer. Won't be back until July 19th, with a week off somewhere in there. I'll only be back Saturday nights, so Sunday Youtube Posts will be Saturday Youtube Posts for the summer.

What did come, with ever growing intensity, was the roar of Jupiter's own radio voice. In 1955, just before the dawn of the space age, astronomers had been astonished to find that Jupiter was blasting out millions of horsepower on the ten-meter band. It was merely raw noise, associated with the haloes of charged particles circling the planet like the Van Allen belts of Earth, but on a far greater scale.

Sometimes, during the lonely hours on the control deck, Bowman would listen to this radiation. He would turn up the gain until the room filled with a crackling, hissing roar; out of this background, at irregular intervals, emerged brief whistles and peeps like the cries of demented birds. It was an eerie sound, for it had nothing to do with Man; it was as lonely and as meaningless as the murmur of waves on a beach, or the distant crash of thunder on the horizon.

Excerpt from 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke.

Animals and Emotions

Human beings are animals. We're apes. Emotion first evolved to help us survive. When we feel love towards other members of the group, we're more likely to go out of our way to make sure they live, and likewise, they are more likely to go out of their way to make sure you live. Emotion became more complex (and arguably unstable) as our brain size increased and we gained intelligence. It has the benefit of getting our brains results very quickly, but at a high margin of error.



I've always thought the way animals interact with each other is the most interesting thing in the fucking world. We're essentially looking into our own past. The coolest thing is that there is not a solid line separating animals "with" emotion and animals "without" it. It's an extremely blurry line. Some animals, such as elephants or whales, are capable of shockingly advanced interactive societies, and other animals like ants are nothing but mindless drones. Very often, our desire for animals to have emotions gets in the way of what's actually going on. Dogs are a great example, owners love projecting emotions onto them when there isn't anything there. When a dog "looks guilty" or "knows what he did," he's actually only being submissive because he perceives the alpha as asserting his dominance. He doesn't have a clue what you're angry about because he's a fucking dog and dogs can't talk to humans. That's not to say dogs don't experience emotion, they can actually be quite bipolar (depression has even been observed). But it's important to know the difference between what only human beings are capable of experiencing, and what is natural animal behavior. This can be very difficult to do, because we still don't know everything about what animals are capable of.

Radiolab spent an entire show interviewing biologists about this very subject, it's really good and everybody should listen to it.

Obama plans Mars trip in two decades

This is possibly the most vital time in humanity's entire history. If our species wants to have any hope of surviving for the long haul, we have to get off earth. That is not up for debate, it is a fact. We have already surpassed earth's population cap, and if we don't do something soon, we're going to run out of food and resources very quickly. In the coming years, newer technology is very likely going to slow down our stubborn death when the cloning of food becomes more acceptable and widespread, but that can't last us forever. We need space. We're almost at 7 billion people now, and as population increases, the rate of birth obviously does as well, because there's more people fucking. At the moment, the colonization of Mars is our best hope.

Here's the story. The problem with getting to Mars is fuel. It takes a fuckton of fuel to fly up into space from Earth. After that's used up, there simply would not be enough fuel to get to Mars and back with the current spacecraft we're using. NASA found a solution to this. It's called the Constellation Program. They planned to have a permanent lunar outpost set up on the moon by 2024. This outpost, not Earth, would be the launchpad to Mars. The Moon's gravity isn't nearly as strong as Earth's, so much less fuel would be used. Voila!



And this launchpad wouldn't go away. Settlers from earth would slowly migrate, and it would grow. People would live there.



Last month, Obama canceled this plan, citing cost concerns. It's not without reason, because it would really cost a-fucking-lot. But the people at NASA (and me) were fucking devastated. An open letter decrying the decision was sent to the White House, signed by 27 astronauts, including Armstrong and Lovell. This should be pretty significant, because Armstrong, who's usually a really shy person and very rarely gives interviews, has been going around speaking out about it.

President Obama spoke at the Kennedy Space Center today about NASA's future. Here's the entire thing if you have half an hour to spare.



Here's a transcript.

"And by 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the Moon into deep space. So we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it.

[...]

I understand that some believe we should attempt to return to the surface of the moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here, we've been there before. Buzz has been there. There's a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do."

Buzz Aldrin supports the new plan. There's a lot of outrage about it, and I have to admit, I was pretty pissed off at first too, but I'm cautiously optimistic now. As cool as the moon is, Obama really does have a point, there's not much there for us if the goal is ultimately Mars. But you also have to keep in mind that there are other countries that already have plans in the works to go back to the moon, and Obama's decision is basically giving it to them. I'm talking about that moon colony. China's gonna be scdattling around on the moon searching for helium-3 deposits, while America's gonna be scrambling to find a decent plan to get to Mars. This is all-or-nothing, if we can't come up with a fuel-efficient way to get off Earth, then America's prospects in space are finished.

The good thing is that we have a fuel-efficient way to get off earth. I'm going to take a wild guess and assume Obama has the Mars Direct plan in mind. This was dreamt up in the 90s by David Baker and Robert Zubrin, and it's pretty brilliant. It won't send just one craft, it will send one after the other, in two year intervals. Each crew will spend a year and a half there. The purpose of each landing would basically be to help prepare the landing site for the next crew, so that the colony will slowly grow and grow over the decades. Here's an awesome video that sums it up pretty well.



And good ol' Fox News is opposing it with flatout lies, which probably means it's a good idea. They said Buzz Aldrin is "blasting Obama" when he actually supports the plan. They said Obama is "slashing" NASA's budget, when he's actually increasing it by $6 billion dollars. And blonde-with-tits asked "Are we even going to have a NASA program anymore?" We'll probably need a space program if we're sending people to Mars, so my guess is yes.



Envisage - Contemplate or conceive of as a possibility or a desirable future event.

James Randi is gay

James Randi has been a hero of mine for years. He's a magician. His stage name is The Amazing Randi. He's also a strict skeptic, and he's been going on television debunking pseudoscience for his entire career (reminiscent of how pissed off Harry Houdini would get when people tried to pretend magic was real). Along with Carl Sagan, I'd say he has had the most influence on the modern skeptic community. I was first introduced to him on Penn and Teller's Bullshit!, I can't remember which episode, it was one of the earlier ones back when it was good. He was awesome, and I've been following him ever since.

In 1961, Randi put up a thousand dollars of his own money to be paid to any person who can show objective proof of the paranormal. Over the last fifty years, that amount has grown to $1,000,000. It's called One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. It's still up. Not a single person has been able to pass it.

Randi was diagnosed with cancer last year. At The Amaz!ng Meeting 2009, where he revealed he'd be going through chemo, he said, "One day, I'm gonna die. That's all there is to it. Hey, it's too bad, but I've got to make room. I'm using a lot of oxygen and such—I think it's good use of oxygen myself, but of course, I'm a little prejudiced on the matter." He continued, "I want to be cremated, and I want my ashes blown in Uri Geller's eyes." (A world-famous psychic he helped expose in the 70s). His chemo was successful. Doctors put his five-year survival rate at 50%.

Earlier today, he made this blog post. At 81 years of age, he has officially come out of the closet.

Well, here goes. I really resent the term, but I use it because it’s recognized and accepted.

I’m gay.

From some seventy years of personal experience, I can tell you that there’s not much “gay” about being homosexual. For the first twenty years of my life, I had to live in the shadows, in a culture that was — at least outwardly — totally hostile to any hint of that variation of life-style. At no time did I choose to adopt any protective coloration, though; my cultivation of an abundant beard was not at all a deception, but part of my costume as a conjuror.

Gradually, the general attitude that I’d perceived around me began to change, and presently I find that there has emerged a distinctly healthy acceptance of different social styles of living — except, of course, in cultures that live in constant and abject fear of divine retribution for infractions found in the various Holy Books… In another two decades, I’m confident that young people will find themselves in a vastly improved atmosphere of acceptance.

Before publishing this statement, I chose to privately notify a number of my closest friends and colleagues — none of whom, I’m sure, have been at all surprised at this “coming out.” I’m prepared to receive the inevitable barrage of jeers and insults from the “grubbies” out there who will jump to their keyboards in glee to notify others of their kind about this statement, which to them will be yet further proof of the perfidy of the rationalist mode of life that I have chosen. Those titters of joy will be unheard over the murmur of acceptance that I confidently expect from my friends.

This declaration of mine was prompted just last week by seeing an excellent film — starring Sean Penn — that told the story of politician Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. I’m in excellent company: Barney Frank, Oscar Wilde, Stephen Fry, Ellen DeGeneris, Rachel Maddow, are just a few of those who were in my thoughts as I pressed the key that placed this on Swift and before the whole world…

I should apologize for having used Swift as the venue to publish this note, an item that is hardly the focus of what we promote and publish here, but I chose the single most public asset I have to make this statement. It’s from here that I have attacked irrationality, stupidity, and irresponsibility, and it is my broadest platform. Here is where I have chosen to stand and fight.

And I think that I have already won this battle by simply publishing this statement.

Okay. So he says he's gay. But can he provide any conclusive evidence for this claim?

Here's an awesome video explaining the Uri Geller drama. Near the end, he also sums up pretty well why I personally choose not to drink.

On his chemotherapy