Thanks to Tristen Tristan for the photo.

At the last BASS meeting, I made a presentation called  “Quantum Mechanics for the skeptic: How to recognize quantum nonsense without being a physicist“.

Quantum Mechanics for the skeptic

Featuring appearances by: Professor Farnsworth, Professor X, the Great A’Tuin, Richard Feynman, and Deepak Chopra.

Back in January, at a general BASS meeting, Steven gave a presentation on the separation of church and state.  Enjoy!

Presentation: Separation of Church and State

TMZ: Kirk Cameron — Mauled by a Bruin in Darwin Fight

Huffington Post: Kirk Cameron Confronted Over Evolution (VIDEO)

Here’s the video:

UPDATE: A commenter on Pharyngula by the name of “Dorkman” was kind enough to transcribe this video.

Here is what the record looks like. Click the image to see the large version.

I am a bit disappointed that the side with the Voyager record etching isn’t made to look like it’s gold, but overall I like this record. I bought 3 more and will give them out as nice science gifts.

Here are the lyrics:

[Sagan]
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch
You must first invent the universe

Space is filled with a network of wormholes
You might emerge somewhere else in space
Some when-else in time

The sky calls to us
If we do not destroy ourselves
We will one day venture to the stars

A still more glorious dawn awaits
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
A morning filled with 400 billion suns
The rising of the milky way

The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths
Of exquisite interrelationships
Of the awesome machinery of nature

I believe our future depends powerfully
On how well we understand this cosmos
In which we float like a mote of dust
In the morning sky

But the brain does much more than just recollect
It inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes
it generates abstractions

The simplest thought like the concept of the number one
Has an elaborate logical underpinning
The brain has its own language
For testing the structure and consistency of the world

[Hawking]
For thousands of years
People have wondered about the universe
Did it stretch out forever
Or was there a limit

From the big bang to black holes
From dark matter to a possible big crunch
Our image of the universe today
Is full of strange sounding ideas

[Sagan]
How lucky we are to live in this time
The first moment in human history
When we are in fact visiting other worlds

The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean
Recently we’ve waded a little way out
And the water seems inviting

Former BASS president Joe Creason shot some video of Ray Comfort at UCLA today.

Check out the previous post for more information.

This photo appeared in the UCLA yearbook.  (And underneath, they misspelled my name.)  Some of these people are not coming back next year!  Aww.

On Friday June 5th, we had the last meeting of the year.  There was pizza!  Pie!  Chips and soda!  You may get the impression from my minutes that we’re all debate, discussion, and gossip, all the time.  Not so.  A lot of the time we just spend hanging out.  And if someone wants to talk about something which is inordinately nerdy or philosophical, we’ll do that too.

Andrew came up to give an impromptu presentation on Alan Watts Buddhism.  Alan Watts used to be a Christian, but he became interested in eastern religions.  Andrew says he’s very entertaining to listen to.  So we started discussing the question: what is a life?  What makes you you, despite your constantly changing nature?  If you died and got resurrected, would you really be the same person?  If you got teleported, as in Star Trek, would you be the same person?  Or did the original you get destroyed?  What happens if the original is not destroyed, and you just create a copy?  It seems that we can’t answer this, because life and identity is an illusion of sorts.  Our genes want us to care about our future “selves”.

Unfortunately, at this point, I had to leave the meeting early.  But I still have an idea what happened through rumors and other supernatural postcognitive powers.  So you know my account is completely true.

Afterwards, Joe gave a presentation on why we should argue with crazy people.  He then proceeded to argue with the rest of the group, with a generous application of his new Loveline/Zelda soundboard.  Then Spencer confessed his deep, entirely heterosexual love for Christopher Hitchens.  After a very clever segue from Joe, Roy performed an interpretive dance inspired by the bacteria living in his bathroom.  He had apparently prepared this for weeks, repeatedly bleaching his bathroom for inspiration, rather than getting us t-shirts–and it was worth it!  Robin discussed Star Trek and North Korea, showing a collection of youtube videos to demonstrate a point he may or may not have had.  Matthew told us all about dating methods for dinosaurs, and how we can use them in our own lives.  Shaun and Deja presented a sock puppet show about Neo-Nazis.  A collection of people headed by Paul, Leilani and Steven performed a full production of Fiddler on the Roof.  Then we all crashed a Healing Touch Therapy lecture and… no wait, that never happened.  The rest is all true though.

Remember The Professor and the Dominatrix?  The author sent copies of his book to many secular student groups, including BASS.  In an earlier meeting, Deja presented her review of this horrible book.  I summarized Deja’s review in the meeting minutes, but I didn’t really do justice to it.  Now we’ve decided to make Deja’s PowerPoint presentation public in a PDF.  Enjoy!

The Professor and the Dominatrix