Duelity: Creationist and Darwinist Origin Stories Animated

Produced at the Vancouver Film School, this split-screen animation tells the story of Earth’ s origins from a creationist and Darwinist/evolutionist point of view. To make things more interesting (spoiler: stop reading now if you want to maintain the element of surprise), the scientific story is told using religious language, whereas the Biblical version is told as if it were the scientific one. The slightly confusing conclusion (its’ a zinger) shows how the language we use to present ideas influences their perception. And the ironic use of infographics tops off this visual and linguistic experiment.

On the homepage of the project, you can watch the videos separately and download them. Also, the YouTube channel of Vancouver Film School is always worth a visit.

By profession, Matthias Rascher teaches English and History at a High School in northern Bavaria, Germany. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twitter.

Richard Dawkins on the Awe of Life & Science

Here’s some vintage Richard Dawkins. Back in 1991, the Oxford University biologist presented a series of lectures for the Royal Institution. In the very first lecture (presented above), Dawkins forces his audience to confront some big questions. (What’s the origin of life? Where do we fall in the scheme of life on planet Earth? What’s our role in the larger universe? etc.) And he reminds us that we’re extremely privileged to have the brains and tools (namely, reason and science) to make sense of the awesome wonders that surround us. We’ve evolved and grown up, he says. We don’t need superstition and the supernatural to explain it all. We just need ourselves and our faith in science and its methods. It’s classic Dawkins.

The 55-minute talk is now added to our YouTube favorites, and we’ve also added Dawkins’ YouTube Channel to our collection of Intelligent YouTube Channels.

via TED

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