The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
| — | Isaac Asimov (via alnator) |
Reporter: I have a question to Robert and to Scarlett. Firstly to Robert, throughout Iron Man 1 and 2, Tony Stark started off as a very egotistical character but learns how to fight as a team. And so how did you approach this role, bearing in mind that kind of maturity as a human being when it comes to the Tony Stark character, and did you learn anything throughout the three movies that you made?
And to Scarlett, to get into shape for Black Widow did you have anything special to do in terms of the diet, like did you have to eat any specific food, or that sort of thing?
Scarlett: How come you get the really interesting existential question, and I get the like, “rabbit food” question?
The respect given to you if you’re a man in the entertainment business, and the respect given to you if you’re a woman in the entertainment business: all perfectly summed up in one idiotically thought out line of questioning.
The cosmos was originally all hydrogen and helium. Heavier elements were made in red giants and supernovas and then blown off to space, where they were available to subsequent generations of stars and planets. Our sun is probably a third generation star. Except for hydrogen and helium, every atom in the Earth was synthesized in other stars. The silicon in the rocks, the oxygen in the air, the carbon in our DNA, gold in our banks, the uranium in our arsenals were all made thousands of light years away, and billions of years ago. Our planet, our society, and we ourselves are built of star stuff.
| — | Carl Sagan (via scinerds) |
Another area of fuzzy thinking out there is the movement called Intelligent Design. It asserts that somethings are too marvelous or too intricate to explain. The contention is that these things defy common scientific accounts for cause and effect, and so they’re ascribed to an intelligent, purposeful designer…..So let’s start a movement called Stupid Design, and we’ll see where that takes us. For example, what’s going on with your appendix? It’s much better at killing you than it is at anything else. That’s definitely a stupid design. What about your pinky toenail? You can barely put nail polish on it; there’s no real estate there. how about bad breath, or the fact that you breathe and drink through the same hole in your body, causing some fraction of us to choke to death every year? And here’s my last one. Ready? Down there between our legs, it’s like an entertainment complex system in the middle of a sewage system. Who designed that?
| — | Neil DeGrasse Tyson (via fuckyeahsexyatheists) |
no sorry santorum you have to carry your dead presidential campaign to full term
| — | kindymaling (via drinkyourjuice) |
