DangerousTalk

Project Reason has officially launched their video contest. The goal of the contest is to have people make videos which help to spread scientific thinking and secular values. Nine videos have been nominated, but only one is really any good.

When you go to the voting page, all the videos are randomized and every time you go back to the page the videos appear in a different order to eliminate placement bias. When I first went to the page, the first video that I saw was one that I already had watched on YouTube and already thought was really good. But I wanted to watch all the videos before voting to make sure that there were no videos that were better.

As it turns out, all the other videos sucked. Don’t get me wrong though, I thought many of them had great ideas and had a lot of potential. But they couldn’t end the videos well or couldn’t really get the message right.

While the Reason Project… I mean Project Reason only allows a vote for first place, I would like to share my top few videos and why.

In first place is The Values We All Stand For:

This video was done by Evid3nc3 who has an awesome series of videos about his de-conversion. I love his voice which sounds very announcer like and commanding. The themes of this video are equality and unity and he hits on those themes in very strong ways. His message is clear, powerful, and secular.

In a distant second place, I would vote for The Fairy Scientist:

This video is really highlights scientific thinking and the girl is really cute. But the end was a little weak. It feels like the video was rushed. It would have been stronger if the video went through each set in the scientific method and then the girl was much clearer about her findings.

In a more distant third place is Just a Book:

This video had a really good idea in that other people were reading books out loud to the Bible thumper, but what was the message? I think it would have been much, much stronger if the other people were reading other holy books and someone of the bus shrugged his or her shoulders and commented about how they all sound just as ridiculous. But as it is, I don’t really see a message in this video except that people should shout down Christians which I don’t really think is a great message.

My very distant forth place goes to God Records a Public Service:

I don’t really have much to say about this one. It is what it is. I think the ending is the best. I think it puts God in prospective with other deities. But the video is slow moving and doesn’t really keep people’s attention.

Please watch all the videos and vote at Project-Reason.org

Filed under: atheism, culture war, Current Events, People of Reason, science