Useful URLs[Links Only]

[The Grim Squeaker]

Debatabase
A resource for debates, contains pro and against arguments for an extremely wide range of topics (Including Religous, Moral, and a plethora of other themes).
The arguemnts are only a few paragraphs long each but can be useful for those too lazy or bored to write an original retort to idiots with by the book claims (Gay marriage is evil, etc')

[momochan]

<a href="http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/">Why Won't God Heal Amputees"</a>

The quality of argument on this site is on par with Darth Wong's!

[Dominus Atheos]

SciAm: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

[Enforcer Talen]

I find I keep handing these out:

http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report ... mplete.pdf Water situation
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/3/1/3402/63420 Oil Trends
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf IPCC report on Climate Change
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/8AC ... ummary.pdf Stern Review

[metavac]

John Baez's Stuff - Includes Usenet Physics FAQ, Relativity on the Web and lots of other good stuff

Citebase - If there's a pre-print (on arXiv or elsewhere) or a self-archived post print available for free, you'll find it here. Use common sense and a little background checking to weed out the crackpottery.

[metavac]

Nasa TV

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

<a href="http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/">Why Won't God Heal Amputees"</a>

The quality of argument on this site is on par with Darth Wong's!

Epic fail. HTML DOES NOT WORK. Try this again...

Why Won't God Heal Amputees

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

An interesting resource on the cost-benefit of nuclear power harvesting. This should help people understand the cost benefits of nuclear power relative to to other energy harvesting formats.

Uranium Information Network

[Medic]

2-hour documentary (NOVA) on the Dover "intelligent design" trial. Separated into 12 chapters from 7 to 10 minutes each.

This is all old news to many people but it's a good view for anyone ignorant on that specific trial and to a lesser degree the general history of the teaching of evolution, creation science, and intelligent design in the United States.

[PeZook]

Something from another topic: Moonbase Clavius, a site dealing with moon-hoaxer idiocy point-by point. Just in case you need a reference for some reason.

[Drooling Iguana]

Fish Out of Water, a nice article pointing out some of the ways our design is decidedly unintelligent, but which makes perfect sense when evolution is taken into account.

[Surlethe]

Here is a handy resource on climate change arguments. In fact, "handy" is probably an understatement -- I'm going to call it "invaluable".

[Paolo]

1. Sean Carroll's General Relativity Primer, which includes links to his three part, three hour lecture on GR. I can't emphasize how helpful and insightful the vids are. No pop sci here, this covers every mathematical tool start crunching on your own. Be warned, Carroll assumes you have a background in multivariable calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra. If you feel comfortable in these areas, then it's very little work at all to pause the video at any unclear point, do your due diligence, and work out any of the math you don't understand. You really should chase down the few bones he tosses to particle physicists during Q&A. For example, you can get a much richer appreciation for what Carroll's doing with geodesics if you stop at a particular Q&A in the first hour and look up on affine parameterization. This tutorial is easily the most demystifying GR resource I've ever stumbled on, and I especially recommend it for those doing multivariate computational stuff who want a nice and clean formal introduction to different geometry. Also, once you get through it, you'll be able to at least follow the math done in something at least as exotic and interesting as this.

2. John Baez's tutorial is not so helpful as Sean's, but it also assumes nothing more than calculus, diff eq., and linear algebra and keeps the focus geometric.

EDIT: On second thought, even if you do have a grasp on calculus, hours 2 and 3 of the lecture probably require some comfort with actions and Lagrangians. Here's a good tutorial. The point is that you don't need a lot of analysis or topology (although it definitely helps speed things up) to negotiate general relativity. You access it with no more than sophomore or junior year exposure to engineering maths. And Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms are good to know if you find yourself having to work out specific applications of mechanics (i.e., rotations) without the headache of deriving them entirely from geometry.

[General Mung Beans]

Some religious websites that nontheless debunk Young Earth Creationism without attacking religion itself (which many websites do).

http://www.theisticevolution.org/

http://www.biologos.org/ Run by Dr. Francis Collins.

http://www.answersincreation.org/ Old Earth Creationist but debunks YEC arguments and is open-minded about evolution (a good first step).