Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science.
Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science.
2008-06-01
6.1
An Introduction to Critical Thinking
Confident senior Jo begins the new school year by breaking her own cardinal rule: don't get involved in girl drama. but when she sees timid Abby preyed upon by Queen Bee Mandi and her minions, she takes sides in a viciously funny girl-world-war that turns North Shore High School upside down.
In this sequel to the 1980 classic, two children are stranded on a beautiful island in the South Pacific. With no adults to guide them, the two make a simple life together and eventually become tanned teenagers in love.
When characters from the movie musical “Wet Side Story” get stuck in the real world, teens Brady and Mack must find a way to return them home.
While trying to prove to her family she can be mature and responsible, teen wizard Alex Russo conjures up a spell to rid herself of her bad qualities, unintentionally creating a Good and Evil Alex. When Evil Alex gets involved in a plan to take over the world by a dark wizard, Good Alex must find a way to save her family, humankind, and ultimately herself in an epic Good vs. Evil battle.
A light hearted romantic-road comedy produced by Big Band Story in association with the French TV network TF1. The film had its world premiere in Festival de la Fiction TV, La Rochelle. The film stars popular French TV stars Rayane Bensetti, Lucie Lucas, Cécile Rebboah & Xavier Robic.
Mouri Kogoro is called to a special case in the ancient capital of Kyoto. There, Conan meets Heiji and they team up once again to solve the case, recover the stolen Healing Buddha statue, and even discover the identity of Heiji's first love.
David, a struggling comedy writer fresh off from breaking up with his boyfriend, moves from New York City to Sacramento to help his sick mother. Living with his conservative father and much-younger sisters for the first time in ten years, he feels like a stranger in his childhood home. As his mother’s health declines, David frantically tries to extract meaning from this horrible experience and convince everyone (including himself) that he's "doing okay.”
It's summertime, and Greg Heffley is looking forward to playing video games and spending time with his friends. However, Greg's dad has other plans: He's decided that some father-son bonding time is in order. Desperate to prevent his dad from ruining summer vacation, Greg pretends he has a job at a ritzy country club. But Greg's plan backfires, leaving him in the middle of embarrassing mishaps and a camping trip gone wrong.
Short film built from photographs, sped up like a traditional stop motion and is meant to be an evocation of the English Eerie and Folk Horror.
Mia Thermopolis is now a college graduate and on her way to Genovia to take up her duties as princess. Accompanied by her friend Lilly, Mia continues her 'princess lessons', like riding horses side-saddle and archery. But her already complicated life is turned upside down once again when she learns that she is to take the crown as queen earlier than expected, all while she meets a mysteriously charming young man.
Experimental film, white specks and shapes gyrating over a black background, the light-striped torso of Kiki of Montparnasse (Alice Prin), a gyrating eggcrate. One of the first Dadaist films.
Holly is tired of moving every time her mom Jean breaks up with yet another second-rate guy. To distract her mother from her latest bad choice, Holly conceives the perfect plan for the perfect man, an imaginary secret admirer who will romance Jean and boost her self-esteem.
When Littlefoot grandfather falls ill, The dinosaurs only way to cure him is a flower in the forbidding land of mist which hold unexpecting perils and danger.
Littlefoot and his friends the gang in their next when a swarm of leaf gobblers had destroyed their homes and this forces them to find a new home but yet find an mysterious island.
An adventure that delves into the dark caverns of the underworld and tells the tale of three chivalrous gangsters who attempt to escape the powerful clutch of their gang leader.
A four-member teen girl group named the Cheetah Girls go to a Manhattan High School for the Performing Arts and try to become the first freshmen to win the talent show in the school's history. During the talent show auditions, they meet a big-time producer named Jackal Johnson, who tries to make the group into superstars, but the girls run into many problems.
Set in Boston in 1978, a meeting in a deserted warehouse between two gangs turns into a shoot-out and a game of survival.
Narrates the preparation for a wedding of a Spanish couple in which everything goes wrong.
For one month every year, five highly competitive friends hit the ground running in a no-holds-barred game of tag they’ve been playing since the first grade. This year, the game coincides with the wedding of their only undefeated player, which should finally make him an easy target. But he knows they’re coming...and he’s ready.
Peter Westerveld, artist and visionary, doesn’t want institutions to resolve the problems linked to earth’s problems. Growing up in Africa, he witnessed the advance of the desert and dedicated himself to finding solutions for the ongoing erosion and desertification of the land. The film follows Peter and the NGO working with him to realise his project; to build contour trenches that capture and store rain water under the surface and replenish the desert land.
An African narrator tells the story of earth history, the birth of the universe and evolution of life. Beautiful imagery makes this movie documentary complete.
In a studio setting, Stephen Hawking, Arthur C. Clarke and Carl Sagan (who joins them via satellite) discuss the Big Bang theory, God, our existence as well as the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
Featuring Michael Pollan and based on his best-selling book, this special takes viewers on an exploration of the human relationship with the plant world — seen from the plants' point of view. Narrated by Frances McDormand, the program shows how four familiar species — the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato — evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication.
An award-winning feature-length creative documentary exploring the extraordinary world of the plasmodial slime mould through the eyes of the fringe scientists, mycologists and artists. In recent years this curious organism has become the focus of much research in such areas as biological-inspired design, emergence theory, unconventional computing and robot engineering.
Join critically-acclaimed author and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and world-renowned theoretical physicist and author Lawrence Krauss as they discuss biology, cosmology, religion, and a host of other topics.
Amidst radical changes in nicotine use globally, one filmmaker's journey through the confusion & fear leads to a startling discovery about Earth's most hated stimulant. Society may be changed forever.
Tobacco, climate change, pesticides,... Never has scientific knowledge seemed so vast, detailed and shared. And yet it appears to be increasingly challenged. It is no longer surprising to see private corporations put strategies in place to confuse the public debate and paralyze political decision-making. Overwhelmed by excess of information, how can we, as citizens, sort out fact from fiction? One by one, this film dismantles the workings of this clever manoeuvre that aims to turn science against itself. Thanks to declassified archives, graphic animations and testimonies from experts, lobbyists and politicians, this investigation plunges us into the science of doubt. Along with a team of experts (philosophers, economists, cognitive scientists, political men, or even agnotologists), we explore concrete examples of doubt making and try to understand the whole process and the issues behind it.
A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.
This film consists of three parts. The first dramatizes the life of the founder of Soviet astronautics, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky; the second describes the development of rocket technology; and the third visualizes the future with enactments of the first manned spaceflight, spacewalk, space station construction and humans on the moon.
SNIPERS: BULLETPROOF deconstructs and analyzes the little known sniper events that have occurred when no other course of action was possible. The people who planned the takedowns, or pulled the trigger, share their techniques and bring to light the many factors that had to be considered in each mission: terrain, wind speed, temperature, elevation changes... all are critical to taking out targets considered bulletproof. A sniper has one chance, one breath, to rise to the occasion and save the day... if they miss, there may never be another opportunity. As these never told before stories unfold, the viewer also learns about the high tech gear each sniper carries on their classified missions.
Unmasks fraudulent cover-ups, wild speculations, and deceitful myths that have been presented as the absolute "facts" of evolution. Should evolutionism, the foundational faith of eastern mystical thought, be taught in schools as science, when Creationism, the foundational belief of Judeo-Christianity, has been expelled?
An Honest Liar tells the incredible story of the world-famous magician, escape artist, and world-renowned enemy of deception, James 'The Amazing' Randi. The film brings to life Randi's intricate investigations that publicly exposed psychics, faith healers, and con-artists with quasi-religious fervor. A master deceiver who came out of the closet at the age of 81, Randi created fictional characters, fake psychics, and even turned his partner of 25 years, Jose Alvarez, into a sham guru names Carlos.
Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Pyramid is the only one to survive. Many believe that even with our 21st-century technology, we could not build anything like it today. Based on the most up-to-date research and the latest archaeological discoveries, here is how the Pyramid came to be.
In this two-part Channel 4 series, Professor Richard Dawkins challenges what he describes as 'a process of non-thinking called faith'. He describes his astonishment that, at the start of the 21st century, religious faith is gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth. Science, based on scepticism, investigation and evidence, must continuously test its own concepts and claims. Faith, by definition, defies evidence: it is untested and unshakeable, and is therefore in direct contradiction with science. In addition, though religions preach morality, peace and hope, in fact, says Dawkins, they bring intolerance, violence and destruction. The growth of extreme fundamentalism in so many religions across the world not only endangers humanity but, he argues, is in conflict with the trend over thousands of years of history for humanity to progress to become more enlightened and more tolerant.
Commentator-comic Bill Maher plays devil's advocate with religion as he talks to believers about their faith. Traveling around the world, Maher examines the tenets of Christianity, Judaism and Islam and raises questions about homosexuality, proof of Christ's existence, Jewish Sabbath laws, violent Muslim extremists.
In 1962, spurred by the Cold War, President John F. Kennedy famously made the bold proclamation that NASA would send astronauts to the moon by the end of the decade, not because it was easy, but because it was a challenge. The Space Race inspired a generation to pursue careers in science and technology, but as the balance of world power shifted, interest in space exploration declined. "Fight for Space" serves as an urgent call to re-awaken our sense of wonder and discovery.
As society tackles the problem of feeding our expanding population safely and sustainably, a schism has arisen between scientists and consumers, motivated by fear and distrust. Food Evolution, narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, explores the polarized debate surrounding GMOs. Looking at the real-world application of food science in the past and present, the film argues for sound science and open-mindedness in a culture that increasingly shows resistance to both.
Trees talk, know family ties and care for their young? Is this too fantastic to be true? German forester Peter Wohlleben and scientist Suzanne Simard have been observing and investigating the communication between trees over decades. And their findings are most astounding.
Let There Be Light follows the story of dedicated scientists working to build a small sun on Earth, which would unleash perpetual, cheap, clean energy for mankind. After decades of failed attempts, a massive push is now underway to crack the holy grail of energy.