Blag Hag

Blag Hag has moved to Freethought Blogs

2011-09-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

Just in case you haven't changed your bookmarks or RSS feeds yet, here's a friendly reminded that this blog has moved and joined the Freethought Blogs network. You can now find me here, at http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag. Update those bookmarks! And if you follow me using an RSS feed, make sure to switch over to the new feed. I see lots of you are still following the old one.

You know you don't want to miss out. Why, I've already blogged about Blasphemy Day, hilarious hatemail, vile misogyny in the atheist movement, my run in with the Jesus Fan Club, nerdy statistic suggestions for OkCupid, and if religion is a dating dealbreaker.

Go! Join me in my new home.

Blag Hag has officially moved to Freethought Blogs!

2011-09-20T17:06:00.000-07:00

Fairwell, Blogger. Blag Hag has a new home over at Freethought Blogs.

Well. A new secret home. I'm still waiting for my banner to appear on the front page. Consider this a VIP pre-release showing or something like that. Because you all are extra special!

What does this mean for you guys? Not much content-wise. I'll be blogging the same sort of stuff at the same frequency. ...Well, more frequently than this last week - I've been a bit busy. But you do have to update your links and such. freethoughblogs.com/blaghag is now the place to be!

I answer a lot more questions in my introductory post, including:

Q: Will the same RSS feed work, and if not, can you post that in large bold comic sans until my dumb ass gets the message and switches feeds?

I can’t figure out how to make things Comic Sans, but…

NO, THE OLD RSS FEED WILL NOT WORK. YOU MUST UPDATE YOUR RSS FEED TO THIS.

Got it? Good. Again, new RSS feed here.

The only posts I'll be making here from now on are things like, "Have you changed your RSS feed yet?" and "Heeeeey, where'd you all go?!"

See you at the new digs!

I hate technology

2011-09-19T14:41:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I've been spending all the time I usually allocate towards blogging to transferring over my archives to Freethought Blogs... and I'm having a hell of a time. The posts themselves transferred, but I still can't get my Disqus comments here on Blogger to transfer to Disqus comments on Wordpress. And then I have to get those Disqus comments to export to Wordpress, since we're not using Disqus there. And basically the Disqus instructions and functions are a steaming pile of poop, so I can't figure out if it's me doing something wrong, or Disqus.

Seriously, I hate crap like this. I want my archives on Freethought Blogs. Is that too much to ask?

I can't even imagine how much I'd want to bash my head into a wall if I attempted to set up redirects...

Halp?

On the sexist failures of geek culture

2011-09-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

Read this piece. It's long, but worth it. Seriously, go, shoo.

I know far too many male (and female) geeks who slip into the type of hypocritical, misogynistic vitriol this article describes. But before you think I'm out to slander all geeks guys, I also know plenty that are kind, thoughtful, and - dare I say it? - feminists.

Oddly enough, those are the geek guys I date. What an peculiar coincidence!

More on my weird life

2011-09-16T00:13:00.000-07:00

I went to a Weird Al concert (awesome) and returned home to find healthyaddict, Thunderf00t, and the hosts of Ask an Atheist in my apartment. I have an atheist videoblogger infestation. Send help.

...No, they did not break into my apartment. It is a long and not very interesting story. I rather perpetuate idea that atheist videobloggers come to be via spontaneous abiogenesis.

The sacrificial atheist?

2011-09-15T11:04:00.000-07:00

Spoiler warning: This post contains discussion about the season finale of True Blood and the movie The Ledge.

Atheists are popping up more and more in the television and movies. And like any minority group engaging in a civil rights movement - which, admit it or not, is what we're doing - portrayals of atheists are becoming less and less stereotypical. We're no longer nothing more than communist villains.

There are certainly stereotypical tropes about us being overly rational, cynical, heartless, selfish hedonists. Dexter, anyone? As much as I love House, he's not exactly the poster child of atheism. But even within that show, you see another atheist (Cameron) who is un-House-like in every way. And the number of human-like atheist characters is rising - Ellie in Contact, Kurt in Glee, Malcolm in Firefly, Bones.

But I've been noticing something recently. I hesitate to call it a trend, since I only have two data points so far. But this came up during a panel discussion I was on at the Midwest Humanist and Freethought Conference after we had watched The Ledge. The Ledge is a thriller revolving around the romance between an atheist, Gavin, and a woman, Shana, who is married to an emotional abusive religious zealot, Joe.

I really enjoyed the movie and highly recommend it. So if you haven't seen it, read forward at your own risk - because I'm about to give away the ending.

Joe eventually discovers the affair and puts Gavin in a situation were either he can die, or Shana dies. And surprisingly, the film doesn't have a predictable happy ending. The police don't find Shana at just the right time. Gavin doesn't have some quirky trick that makes it looks like he jumped from a 30 story building. Nope, he sacrifices himself for this woman.

And during this Sunday's season finale of True Blood, we see the same sacrificial atheist. Tara, who apparently everyone hates except me, is asked by her best friend Sookie if she thinks Gran is in heaven. Tara replies that she's always considered herself an atheist, but if there is a heaven, Gran would be president of it. Sookie then says that she wants to grow old together with her best friend, which let me know that Tara was almost certainly dying by the end of the episode.

And would you know it, in the last minute of the show, Tara jumps in front of Sookie to save her from a point blank range shotgun blast from a crazed werewolf lady. (You know, I never realized how dumb this show sounds until I have to type out what happened). People are discussing how she's probably going to be saved in the first 30 seconds of the new season, or turned into a vampire, or be a ghost for Lafayette to channel, or whatever...but you can't deny she sacrificed herself for her friend when half of her head was blown clean off.

When we were discussing the Ledge, we couldn't agree if portrayals like this were heroic or tragic. Is this showing atheists in a good light - that even though we don't believe in heavenly rewards or the afterlife, we're willing to give up the thing most dear to us for people we love? Or is it showing atheists as these tragic individuals who never have a happy ending?

I lean toward the former. As much as I don't want all of my atheist characters meeting untimely fates, I think it means something to give up your life when you're certain no afterlife is soon to follow. It shows that we do care about other people and have greater value and purpose in our lives, even if it's not handed down from a supernatural being. And I think it's the first step to portraying atheists as real people - and soon enough we won't have to keep dying to prove that point.

But again, not everyone agreed. What do you think? Do you know of any other atheist characters that fit or fight this trend?

Well, this was an odd day

2011-09-12T23:12:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day of my parent's visit to Seattle. We were walking down to grab some Piroshky Piroshky for lunch, when a young man came up to me.

Guy: Excuse me, but... were you the one who did Boobquake?

Me: ...Yes.

He sheepishly waved hi and then ran away. And then tweeted at me that he was a blog reader and was sorry for being creepy. My parents thought it was fantastic, and wouldn't stop talking about how famous their daughter was.

I wondered what the odds were. I'm used to people recognizing me at godless or nerdy events, but randomly on the street seems way less likely. It had only happened once before, when I was on a terrible OkCupid date at the College Inn pub, and a random guy came up and asked if I had ever been on the Savage Lovecast. A potentially confusing question if the answer was "No," but he ended up being a fan of the blog.

Of course, Seattle is pretty godless and nerdy in general, so maybe I should just expect it.

After lunch, my dad and I wandered off to the Underground Tour and left my mom to spend an hour taking photos of the stupid fish throwing. Our tour guide was really funny, and I thought the tour was super interesting. About half way through as we were walking through some of the underground tunnels, she turned to me:

Guide: Have you been on the tour before? You look really familiar.

Me: ...No, but I live in Seattle.

Dad: (to me) I bet she reads your blog too!

Sure enough, at the end of the tour she very excitedly said she figured it out, she reads my blog, and omfgwtfbbq could she have my autograph!?! My dad couldn't stop talking about it - he thought it was the coolest thing ever. I assured him I wasn't paying these people off to make me look good while they were visiting.

Anyway, these little things totally make my day. Don't be shy if you ever see me roaming around. I'm happy to say hello!

On the flip side, they make me feel extra guilty when I realize I just spent another weekend not updating. Whoops. I've been having a life lately, which is a bit unusual. I'm sure I'll go back to my boring internet-fueled existence soon enough.

Welcome to Seattle, Mom & Dad

2011-09-09T20:09:00.000-07:00

Within hours of my parents arriving in Seattle, my parents witnessed a pimp making a deal with a john by shouting a phone number and instructions out of his car while stuck in traffic on Broadway on Capitol Hill.

Me: ...I swear that's the first time I've seen that happen.

What else will they see on their adventure out of the Midwest? No one knows! Hopefully not any homeless people's genitalia!

Oh Purdue

2011-09-09T11:06:00.000-07:00

I feel like I should fight this, saying there's only room for one internet meme to come out of Purdue...but it involves cute guys being stupid, so I can't resist:

My thought of "And then they fell and snapped their necks" flitted away once I laughed at the guy hanging off the Amelia Earhart statue outside of the dorm I lived in for a year.

How to speak Hoosier

2011-09-08T19:32:00.001-07:00

These videos crack me up. Not every dialect oddity applies to me since I grew up closer to Chicago, but it is pretty stereotypical for the rest of Indiana:

...I do this all the time. I always have to edit "anyways" down to "anyway" when I'm blogging. Mumble "prolly" instead of "probably." And I learned from this video that it's Meijer, not Meijer's. Dammit.

Pop is the correct way, not soda. ... and I have to try really, really hard not to pronounce "milk" as "melk." I've given up pronouncing eggs correctly - they will forever be aygs for me.

Damn youuuuu Indiana!

The science of calling out sexism?

2011-09-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

A lot of people, male and female, are often afraid of calling out instances of sexism. They don't want to be perceived as oversensitive or troublemakers, or they're afraid of angry backlash.

I say "they," because I obviously don't have a problem with blowing up the whole internet in order to call out sexism.

But is this an accurate representation of how men respond to accusations of sexism? One study says otherwise:

In a recent study, conducted by Robyn Mallett and Dana Wagner at Loyola University Chicago, male participants were teamed with a female partner (who was actually a confederate in the experiment). Their assignment was to read a set of moral or ethical dilemmas and discuss together how to deal with each situation, including one in which a nurse discovers that a hospital patient has been given tainted blood.

During their discussion, the female confederate confronted her male partner either for sexism (i.e., having assumed the nurse in the story was female, which every male participant did) or in a gender-neutral way (i.e., disagreeing with the male’s suggested solution to the dilemma).

As expected, men had much stronger reactions to being told that their remark was sexist than they did to mere disagreement. But the reactions weren’t what you might expect. The men accused of sexism smiled and laughed more, appeared more surprised, gestured more often and with greater energy, and were more likely to try to justify or apologize for their remark. But they did not react with more hostility or anger – in fact, they reported liking the female partner in both conditions equally well, and were generally pleasant across the board.

At first, that sounds great. Yay, men who were called out for the sexism smiled more and didn't respond with hostility! Time to go politely tell MRAs how they're wrong!

But I have a couple of concerns about the study. For one, their sexist remark...isn't that sexist. Assuming a nurse is female is based on pure probability rather than assumptions about gender roles. The vast, vast majority of nurses are female, therefore a nurse in a story is much more likely to be female. It's not like 50% of nurses are actually male, but it's still perceived as women's work.

This may seem like nitpicking, but I have a feeling men would react differently depending on what type of sexism is being addressed. It's easy for a man to go "Whoops, yes, I suppose some nurses are male." But it's hard for a man to go "Whoops, yes, I suppose I do have (insert any type of male privilege I've never thought about and vehemently disagree with here)."

I'd also like to see results from how the men felt long after the exercise concluded. Were they just acting nicer when they were in immediate social interaction with the woman? Was in genuine? Did they turn around and start telling their buddies about how she's a stupid oversensitive bitch, or did they really change their minds about sexism?

And finally, I'd love to see this repeated in the setting of blog comments or a forum. What happens when you put the internet between two people, and you have the drug of anonymity in your system? I know it's anecdotal evidence, but I don't exactly see people skipping together through e-fields of daisies after an accusation of sexism.

More science! We need more science!

Non-religious arguments for being pro-choice?

2011-09-06T17:46:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine who's in med school is looking for some good, credible resources on non-religious arguments for being pro-choice. Obviously the logical move was to ask a feminist atheist blogger, but I've failed him since I 1) Live in Blog Land, where good, credible resources are elusive creatures, and 2) Have a horrible memory and suck at recalling good things I have read.

But I know non-religious, humanist arguments for being pro-choice are out there. I could spend a couple hours writing a huge post myself on my own humanist arguments for being pro-choice. Oooooorrrrr I can be lazy since I know I have an intelligent well-read readership who likes to help me out (especially when I suck up to them by saying how intelligent and well-read they are). So what do you recommend? What are some good articles or books that address this subject? And I suppose blog posts are fine if they're from a more reputable individual.

And if you just want to throw in your own godless 2 cents on the abortion issue, consider this an open thread. I'll be hiding in the corner behind some bullet proof glass.

Reparative Therapy

2011-09-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

A must watch for all of those straights who have been brainwashed into their heterosexual lifestyle:

Skepticism in supernatural universes

2011-09-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

Spoiler Alert: This post talks about last night's episode of True Blood. Read at your own risk if you haven't watched it yet.

For those of you who don't know, I'm a bit of a True Blood fanatic. It's a guilty pleasure. I love the campiness, the puns, the one liners, the cliff hangers, and all of gratuitous sex and beautiful people (Mmmm Eric, Alcide, and Jessica). All of this entertainment is enough to outweigh the sometimes frustratingly bad plot, Sookie's dues ex machina lightning fingers, and, well, Sookie herself.

But sometimes I overanalyze things, because that's what I do. Like when, in the last season, the hospital claimed Sookie didn't have a blood type. ...You can't not have a blood type! Blood type is determined by antigens on the surface of red blood cells. If you lacked all antigens, you'd just be type O and negative for every other type, like Rh factor. Extremely rare, but not "no blood type." Hell, even if Sookie didn't have any red blood cells, she'd still come up negative on all of the tests.

The thing that stuck out for me during last night's episode was something that I think of more and more when I watch the show. Andy Bellefleur, the town's sheriff, was walking through the woods alone at night. He had been dumped there by his cousin and told to walk home alone because he was sobering up from V - vampire blood - which is a powerful drug in the series. In a poof of light, a beautiful fairy pops in front of him and seduces him in return for him pledging to protect her. And they do it right there in the woods. ...Which thankfully we don't see, because it's Andy.

Me: Come on, would you have sex with some random hot person who just popped up in front of you in the woods?!

Male Friend #1: ...

Male Friend #2: ...Probably

Me: This is so goddamn stereotypical.

That wasn't really my issue, though. When Andy finally gets home, his cousin's wife Arlene asks what took him so long. He recounts the story of how a beautiful woman appeared out of a ball of light and they had sex. Arlene thinks he must be hallucinating because he's coming down from V.

This is the same Arlene who just saw a spirit exorcised from her possessed friend who stole her baby. The same Arlene who was possessed by a maenad into having crazy orgies. The same Arlene who went to a witch to abort her potentially evil baby. The same Arlene who knowingly serves vampires synthetic blood in the bar she works at. The same Arlene who knows her coworker Sookie can read minds.

How can you live in a universe where it's common knowledge that vampires, werewolves, werepanthers, shape shifters, ghosts, telepaths, and witches exist, but a beautiful woman appearing out of a ball of light is obviously a hallucination? If someone recounted that story to me in that universe, my reaction would be "Holy shit! You obviously just banged some new supernatural being we personally don't have any knowledge about, since we keep discovering new supernatural beings all the time! Let's do some investigation on what it could possibly be!"

Because really, skepticism is based on the scientific method, rationality, and logic. If we lived in a universe where we know magic is real and that numerous types of supernatural beings roam the world...well, it wouldn't be "super"natural anymore. It would be natural, and we'd need to figure out where we went wrong with the laws of physics. I'd love to research the biology behind vampires never dying by feeding on other's blood!

But if we lived in such a universe, where would we draw the line? Was Arlene right to still be skeptical about the fairy, even though we, the viewers, know what it is? If we lived in a universe where physics and biology didn't work as we expected, how would we establish between "real" supernatural things and "fake" ones? For example, many characters on the show are very skeptical about religion or God - but what makes angels and deities unbelievable when you have vampires and shifters running around?

...I guess you have physical evidence of the vampires and shifters.

Anyway, what do you think? Is Arlene being a good skeptic, or is she being a little dimwitted? If you lived in a supernatural universe, how would you react to a situation that described a new supernatural creature or event that you personally aren't familiar with?

You can learn a lot about a person from their bookcase

2011-09-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

What does this say about me? (click here for huge version)

Other than I obviously went shopping at Ikea.

I swear I haven't abandoned you!

2011-09-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

Moving has taken over my life this week. I have a dozen or so bruises from hauling around boxes and assembling Ikea furniture that claims to take two people. And we're having an apartment warming party tonight, so I've been preparing for that too. And by tonight, I mean it technically started 5 minutes ago, which means everyone will show up in an hour and a half. Which is why I picked an early time. I do not understand this fashionably late business.

After tonight, I only have a tiny cabinet to assemble, and then I have a three day weekend. So you will get real blog posts very soon! Until then, consider this an open thread. What have you been up to? Heck, what has the internet been up to? I haven't checked blogs all week - for all I know atheists could have finally taken over the world and the memo is buried deep in my unchecked inbox.

Geeky filler

2011-09-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately. Between PAX and moving, I pretty much haven't been on the internet at all. I went four days without checking emails, which I think in a new record for me. Anyway, I'm still unpacking and doing other apartment related stuff (woooo, Ikea run!), but I wanted at least some kind of filler. So, uh, here's me cosplaying at PAX as the main character from Pokemon Black & White:

...Not quite a 12 year old Japanese girl, but close enough.

Probably the best compliment I got was that two random people asked me where I bought my hat...but I painted it! Without tape or drawing circles! Freehand! I'm just that awesome.

I'm not the only one moving to a new home

2011-08-29T07:59:00.000-07:00

My apartment is (mostly) packed, and in an hour I'll be off to pick up my soon-to-be roommate and our U-Haul. Then the real fun begins. Blah. After some thought, I realized this will be the ninth time I've moved in five years. As much as I hate packing up all my crap just to unpack it a couple of hours later, I'm looking forward to escaping my terrible apartment. And I'm glad some of my classmates are helping us lug stuff around, since I pretty much have no upper body strength. Thankfully grad students are easily bribed with promises of pizza and beer.

But I'm not the only one moving soon. So is my blog!

In a couple of weeks, Blag Hag will have a cozy new home, and Pharyngula and Greta Christina's blog will be her roommates. That's right - I'm joining Freethought Blogs!

I'm super excited that I was invited to be a part of this project. I've been itching to get off Blogger for a while, and I'm honored to be in such good blogging company. And don't worry - nothing major will change for you guys. The content will be exactly the same, just with a better situation for me and a new layout (which I've been promised will be prettier than it is currently once all the technical and advertising kinks are worked out).

If you have any questions about the move, please leave a comment here and I'll make a FAQ post. Have to finish moving my physical crap before I start worrying about my internet crap.

My life is weird

2011-08-26T23:11:00.000-07:00

As I was mulling around some indie games at PAX, a very familiar face approached me. Very familiar, because I was certain it was Jerry Holkins, the writer of Penny Arcade ("Tycho") and half of the duo putting on the very awesome convention I was currently enjoying.

"Don't I know you?" he asked.

"Uhhhhh." I glanced down at his name tag. Yep, Jerry Holkins. "I know you, but I'm pretty sure you don't know me."

Keep in mind the expo hall was super loud with the various bells and whistles of video games going off in the background, so it was hard to hear what he was saying. Plus I was very confused. And a little fangirly.

He asked me if I had a game there, and I said no. Now I was convinced he was mistaking me for someone. But then he seemed to remember something and said something about seeing me holding up a sign, but that just confused me more. I don't remember holding up a sign anywhere.

Then he said "I followed all of Elevatorgate!"

Wut.

I then realized the "sign" he was referring to was my profile photo here. I was a little dumbstruck, and bumbled out something along the lines "You read my blog?" Yep.

We then babbled about the atheist movement for a good while and giggled about how stupid the internet can be sometimes. And how happy he was to run into me. And how happy I was to run into him.

I've oddly gotten very used to strangers approaching me (which also happened a couple of times today). Within the last year I've gotten used to famous people within the atheist or skeptical movement approaching me. But I'm definitely not used to someone from a totally different corner of the internet I appreciate approaching me.

Yeah, my life is really freaking weird.

And as an unrelated PAX update - I collected six gym badges today. Though to be honest, one was because I came up with a Pokemon haiku, another was because the IR connection kept glitching, and the third was because I was a "good sport" as I got my ass kicked. I'm going for the Ash Ketchum route to the Elite Four. I have no shame.

The church for gamer geeks

2011-08-25T12:06:00.000-07:00

Oh goodie. I was already super excited for PAX - my cosplay outfit is done and my Pokemon team is all ready - but now I have a new thing to look forward to. What could possibly top three days of the largest video game conference in the US?

Church!

GameChurch.com has a booth at PAX. The site hosts game reviews from a Christian perspective, a "Strategy Guide for Life," and a geekified version of the Bible titled "Jesus, For The Win!" From the introduction (yes, I couldn't not download it):

"But wait! How can you be a Christian and kill zombies, cast spells and shoot someone?!? Isn't that hypocritical!?!? I get that question from Churches and also from people that don't want anything to do with Christians. It's unfortunate that it's even a topic. We're ALL hypocrites. Every last human. Video games are not the problem. The problem is that we have complicated the message that Jesus brought to us. And yes, I do believe He would be leveling up with me in World of Warcraft."

I can see it now. "Starving children in Africa? But daaaad, I'm in the middle of a raid!"

I can't stop reading this thing, it's full of terrible gems:

"Jesus... many people see Him like Gandhi, or the Pope. He was a good guy, maybe even a prophet, who died before I was born and has nothing to do with me. What if you found out that Jesus is not who the world says He is? What if you heard that Jesus came to Earth and hung out with stinky fisherman and prostitutes? What if He spent His time with tax collectors and people who were looked down upon by "higher society?" What if Jesus came to Earth for the GAMERS? Despite what you may have heard before, He did! Jesus loves Gamers, just as much as He loves thieves, soccer moms, and even pastors. Jesus came to PWN the Devil and save the world for YOU."

Bahaha. I don't even need to add my own commentary, do I?

I'm not going to lie. Part of me wants to stop by their booth for the chance that they'll have some ironic free swag. I would definitely love a shirt about Jesus respawning (their words, not mine). The only difference is I realize magical Jesus is about as real as Zelda or Mario.

A new earthquake hypothesis

2011-08-24T17:16:00.000-07:00

Apparently the idea that immodestly dressed women cause earthquakes is sooooo last year. The real reason? Gay marriage, duh.

A New York rabbi claims gay marriage and the earthquake that shook the East Coast are directly connected.
In a video uploaded to YouTube, Levin says gay rights legislation, like the gay marriage law passed in New York, are responsible for earthquakes, like the one that struck Washington, D.C. Tuesday.
“The Talmud states, 'You have shaken your male member in a place where it doesn't belong. I too, will shake the Earth,'” Levin says.
He also notes that he does not dislike gay people.
"We don't hate homosexuals," he says. "I feel bad for homosexuals. It's a revolt against God and literally, there's hell to pay."
On Top Magazine reports that Joseph Farah, editor of WorldNetDaily.com, expressed similar sentiments.

Obviously I must find some lucky lady to marry me in the name of science. Or we can just stop listening to bigoted religious wackadoodles who know nothing about natural disasters. What a novel idea.

Gawker asks: "Was today's earthquake another Boobquake?"

2011-08-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

Jen responds: No.

I know I said that I didn't want to talk about Boobquake anymore, but I can't help myself when data crunching is involved. Well, it's also hard to ignore when dozens and dozens of people are tweeting at me asking if I'm wearing anything revealing. For the rest of my life I'm going to know when every major earthquake occurs via a very strange alert system.

But when a huge blog like Gawker decides to comment, I feel compelled to reply. Especially when they throw out all knowledge of statistics for the sake of giggling at boobs:

Remember when an Iranian cleric said earthquakes were God's punishment for scantily-clad women, and then a bunch of scantily-clad women organized a naked protest to disprove the cleric, but then an earthquake actually occurred at the moment they bared their breasts? Well, there is a chance that today's East Coast earthquake was a boobquake, too, because it's National Go Topless Day, and there are all kinds of naked boobs in Central Park right now.

I already established that the earthquakes on Boobquake were not statistically significant - that is, they occurred at the same frequency and magnitude that you would expect at random chance. But one of the main criticisms of my "study" was that there was only one data point. I never realized I had National Go Topless Day to add to my data!

So, does bearing some boobage actually cause earthquakes?

Being the giant nerd I am, I've spent the last couple of hours looking up earthquake data at USGS, writing simple Python scripts, and plotting things in R. I'm pretty sure this isn't how my graduate program envisioned me using the skills I've learned, but oh well.

I found the dates for the 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 National Go Topless Day. Today actually wasn't National Go Topless Day - that was the 21st. New York was doing their own thing today, so I counted both the 21st and 23rd of days of decreased modesty. I downloaded the worldwide earthquake data for those 5 days plus boobquake, for a total of 6 samples. Now, we want to compare those especially lascivious days to "regular" days to see if earthquakes actually increase. For controls, I got the data for the three days before and the three days after any event. I picked neighboring days to control for any temporal changes that have nothing to do with boobs, but may reflect overall trends.

(As an aside, apparently National Go Topless Day is run by the Raelian cult. WTF? Allah may not support boobs, but aliens apparently do.)

Do boobs increase the number of earthquakes?

Nope (t test, p value = 0.65)

Do boobs increase the magnitude of earthquakes?

Nope (t test, p value = 0.26)

Sorry to disappoint all of you, but yet again, we have shown that boobs do not have the ability to manipulate plate tectonics. Alas, it seems this is another example confirmation bias - remembering the "hits" and ignoring the "misses."

But if you're still skeptical, I wasn't bearing any cleavage when the earthquakes hit Colorado and Virginia today. Hmmm, though I was pantless. My butt isn't anything to write home about, so many that's why both of these earthquakes weren't exactly devastating.

Scientists confirm that bisexuals exist

2011-08-23T00:04:00.000-07:00

Oh science. You amuse me sometimes. File this one away in "We kind of already knew that, but thanks for getting actual data to make sure."

Well, I already knew that, at least. But from all of the straight people who have told me bisexuals are just slutty or want attention, and all of the gay people who have told me bisexuals are just closet cases, maybe we did need a scientific study.

The video of me learning how to ride a bike

2011-08-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

My part starts at 1:14:

I have to keep reminding myself that I did this for the children. Hooray for Camp Quest! Take that, PZ!

And no, I swear I'm not a chain smoker. I lost my voice from having too much fun at the Secular Student Alliance conference. And yes, that's the farthest I rode the bike. As in typical Midwestern fashion, a thunderstorm popped up and started to produce a torrential downpour.

Thanks, Ashley, for making the video!

I love my dad

2011-08-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

In case you ever wondered where I get it from.

(Yes, my dad has a blog)

I am a geek

2011-08-18T14:47:00.000-07:00

Proof:

1. I just bought this:

I love Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, dinosaurs, and surrealism. How could I not resist?

2. Next weekend I'm going to PAX Prime, the ginormous gamer festival that's the brain child of the guys who make the webcomic Penny Arcade. When I say ginormous, I mean ginormous - over 60,000 people have attended in the past. I'm a huge video game geek and haven't been to any sort of geeky convention since ACen in high school, so I'm looking forward to it. The tournaments haven't been announced yet, but I'm hoping at least something I'm good at will pop up. Mario Kart plz? Or if we're going esoteric, Pokemon Puzzle League?

And unlike the poor shmucks who are flying in and have to deal with hotel, transportation, and food confusion, I can just hop on my same ol' bus to downtown! Huzzah!

Upon further reflection, I just realized I've been reading Penny Arcade for over 10 years now. I feel old.

3. I became overly excited when I found out that there's an unofficial Pokemon League taking place during PAX. Yeeessssss! Time to tweak my party in Pokemon White, charge my DS, and prepare to get my ass kicked. Seriously, I'm great at in-game battles, but I've never played competitively. People get pretty hard core about Pokemon. IV breeding and EV training lolwut?

If you're going and can hunt me down in the crowd of 60,000, feel free to challenge me to a battle (or say hello, if you're not a Pokemon geek like I am). I'm sure I'll be tweeting the whole time, making con-stalking even easier.

4. Speaking of Pokemon... I'm currently constructing my cosplay as Hilda from Pokemon White:

Don't judge.

I have to give a shout out to my mom, who's dealing with my geekery. I made her hunt through my old bedroom for my Burger King Pokeballs (which apparently suffocated small children) and mail them to me to complete the costume. Now I'm just trying to hunt down some cheap boots and a hat that I can alter with pink paint. May have to give up on a pink purse. EDIT: Boots and purse acquired at thrift store! Now just for the hat, shoelaces, and wrist band thingies. I AM GOING TO BE SO COOL.

5. And if that's not enough, I just bought my ticket to Geek Girl Con in October.

I am in geek heaven.

That's not skepticism - that's bubbleheaded post modern BS

2011-08-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

EDIT: A couple readers have pointed out that I'm wrong about skepticism not being the claim that we can know nothing. Apparently the definition of "skepticism" that I am familiar with - and honestly, the only definition I've heard after years in the skeptical movement - is really methodological skepticism. The author at Feministe is likely talking about philosophical skepticism. I believe my misconception came from the fact that the former is the more commonly accepted, modern definition of "skepticism" alone, and that post modernism also claims that there is a problem with objective truth. But I'm a good scientist, so I'll admit where I'm wrong. She's using the term fine, though I still think her views are utter hogwash.

It pains me whenever anti-science claptrap surfaces in feminist blogs I typically enjoy. It's more evidence that feminism isn't some monolithic entity or hive mind that constantly agrees. It's also more evidence that we need to keep talking about how skepticism can aid feminism, because some feminists are writing rubbish like this:

As you may know from the numerous threads in which I’ve gone about it ad nauseum, I’m a skeptic (an fallibilist, existentialist …sort of). Without boring you to death, here’s the short version. I don’t think you can know things. I mean know them, know them. Not feel them, not experience them…but KNOW them. We (humans) cannot (probably) be absolutely certain of anything.

Skepticism is not some ideology where one cannot know anything. And before someone runs in screaming "No true Scottman!" - you could claim skepticism means you enjoy picking your nose while riding elephants, but that wouldn't make it so. Skepticism is, at the very core, the application of the scientific method. To relabel it as some bizarro philosophy in where there is no such thing as knowledge is ridiculous. I can't help but think of Tim Minchin's wonderful Storm:

Conversation is initially bright and light-hearted
But it’s not long before Storm gets started:
“You can’t know anything,
Knowledge is merely opinion”
She opines, over her Cabernet Sauvignon
Vis-à-vis,
Some un-hippily
Empirical comment made by me

Hint: You don't want to be making the same arguments as Storm.

There are a lot of reasons that Certainty, or at least certainty of the world outside ourselves, doesn’t work. There are the limits of human cognition. The limits of human perception. The unbridled arrogance of dogmatism. The centrality of certitude in the oppression of many, many people. But the one I want to talk about today is that dogma means that you stop learning, you stop listening to other people. In that sense I see certitude as antithetical to social justice.

Ok, I'm with you so far. Dogma = bad. Our brain messes up sometimes. That's why we have science, right? To get around the limits of human cognition and perception. She then goes on to talk about how this sort of dogma that's accepted as the most popular belief often gives privilege to those groups and oppresses others. Sure, I can see that. But then the argument goes back into lala land:

In my view, we can tear down all of the institutions, create perfect equality of resources or equality of opportunity, reshape the external world to our liking, but unless we reshape ourselves, address the underlying flaw in our understanding of the world and each other we will simply recreate the same power dynamics over and over again. One group will see their collective perspective as truth, as more valid than the perspectives of others, then they will once again attempt for force that reality on to others.

Which brings me back to skepticism. If we accept that we (probably) can’t know what is real, that as much as we consider, think, feel, explore we will (likely) never grasp the totality of truth, we are free to accept or learn from other people’s perspectives. We are free to accept contradictory perspectives, holding each as true for that person in that moment. We dismantle not just the current dominant narrative but also the very concept of a dominant narrative.

That to me is the goal of social justice.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

The idea that we can't definitively know what's 100% true, therefore we must accept all people's views of reality as equally valid is fucking ridiculous. You can't simultaneously accept that there is no god and that the Christian God is sitting up in the sky hating on gays, just like you can't simultaneously accept that gravity exists and doesn't exist. Reality is independent of whatever delusional ideas our brains come up with.

But her views (not valid) make a lot more sense when you see what she says in the comments:

"Science to me contains the same claims to certainty (in many instances) as the most fundamentalist religion."

Hooooooooo boy.

Science is the antithesis of dogma. We don't base our views of truth and reality on whatever idea pops into our poorly evolved ape brains. We collect evidence, perform experiments, and repeatedly try to correct our view of the world so it's close and closer to reality.

The fact that you're making the same arguments as in-character Stephen Colbert should be a giant red flag:

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Michael Shermer

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

Video Archive

Shermer: The only way to tell, really, the difference between these true patterns and false patterns is science.
Colbert: Really? You think science is the answer? But isn't that just your belief? You are a skeptic. You are inclined to believe that skepticism is - the scientific method - the right idea, so you look for evidence out in the world that evidence is a good thing to luck for. But isn't science just another belief system?
Shermer: It is another belief system, but it's sets apart from another belief systems because it has built into it self correcting machinery, that says if you don't look for your disconfirming evidence that debunks your own beliefs, someone else will, usually with great glee in a published form.

To claim that that science is bunk, or worse, just another religion, is to obviously not understand how skepticism, science, or the universe works. You may label yourself as a skeptic, but you're the complete opposite.

The Mennonite mass rapes

2011-08-17T17:13:00.000-07:00

I hate to follow one horrifyingly depressing rape story with another, but this needs to be shared. File this one away in "Proof Religion Doesn't Automatically Make You a Good Person." If you can find room, that is (emphasis mine):

Wall is among 130 women and girls of the Mennonite colony in Manitoba Colony, who claim that from 2005 to '09, the same cloudy horror visited them. They're the victims of what is allegedly one of the ugliest sex scandals in the history of the Mennonites, a pacifist Christian Anabaptist denomination founded in Europe in the 1500s, if not Bolivia and South America. In a criminal trial now under way in nearby Santa Cruz, Peter Weiber, 48, a Mennonite veterinarian, is accused of transforming a chemical meant to anesthetize cows into a spray to be used on humans. For four years, Weiber and eight other Mennonite men allegedly sprayed the chemical through bedroom windows in Manitoba at night, sedating entire families and raping the females. One of the men is a fugitive, the others have pleaded not guilty. If convicted, each faces a maximum 30-year prison sentence.

The criminal charges detail depraved acts few would expect inside a supposedly upright sect like the Mennonites. "When there were no grown women" in the houses that the men allegedly targeted, says Wilfredo Mariscal, an attorney for the victims, "they did what they wanted with the kids." Court-ordered medical exams reveal a 3-year-old girl with a broken hymen (most likely, doctors note, from finger and not penis penetration). The formal indictments list victims ages 8 to 60 years old, including one who is mentally retarded and another who was pregnant and sent into premature labor after allegedly being raped by one of the men — her brother.

If you can stomach it, the whole article is worth the read. It goes more in depth with how the women in the Mennonite community are completely isolated from the world through various patriarchal rules, and how the men on trial for the rapes have been spending the trial goofing off, laughing, and falling asleep.

...Can I ragequit humanity yet?

Girl expelled for being raped, then raped again

2011-08-17T16:45:00.000-07:00

Disgusting (emphasis mine):

According to the Springfield News-Leader, the 7th grade special ed student at Republic Middle School in Springfield, MO reported her rape in the spring of 2009. The lawsuit alleges that school officials told her they didn't believe her, and after "multiple intimidating interrogations," she recanted. The lawsuit also notes that a school psychological report said the girl "would forego her own needs and wishes to satisfy the request of others around so that she can be accepted," meaning she might have been especially susceptible to pressure to change her story. But the pressure allegedly didn't end there. The girl says she was made to write an apology note to her attacker and hand-deliver it to him. She was also expelled for the remainder of the school year.

When she came back the following year, the school allegedly refused her mother's request for extra monitoring and did not separate her from her alleged attacker. In February 2010, the lawsuit says he "was able to hunt [her] down, drag her to the back of the school library, and again forcibly rape her." She and her mother reported this rape to the police, and a rape kit tested positive for her attacker's semen — he plead guilty to charges in juvenile court. But instead of taking her seriously at long last, the school suspended her, this time for "Disrespectful Conduct" and "Public Display of Affection." Her lawsuit requests damages for medical expenses, emotional distress, and attorneys' fees, as well as "punitive damages to deter School Officials and others from similar conduct in the future."

...I have nothing to add. This atrocity speaks for itself.

Suspect arrested in Mabus case

2011-08-17T12:38:00.000-07:00

Says a tweet from the Montreal Police. Who knew an internet petition could actually do something.

I'm going to assume it's Mabus, since he's been particularly quiet lately. Unless there's a surprise twist, and Mabus's mom was the one sending all of the threats. Or if the internet was directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Mabus is PZ Myers.

I hope this man gets the help he needs.

Atheists no longer the most unpopular group in America!

2011-08-17T10:16:00.001-07:00

We're now ahead of... the Tea Party.

Oh gee. A bunch of selfish illiterate racist godbothering wackadoodles who aren't smart enough to google "teabagging" before they start national campaigns. Good to know we barely have more support from the general public than those guys.

I'm not sure whether I should be hopeful or full of despair.

Fighting religion in public schools

2011-08-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Jessica Ahlquist's talk from the Secular Student Alliance annual conference is online. I can confidently say it was my favorite talk of the whole conference - and that's competing with excellent talks by Greta Christina, PZ Myers, Jamila Bey, and David Silverman.

In other words, I order you to watch the whole thing right now. You won't be disappointed.

I wish I had been as strong as Jessica when I was a sophomore in high school.

Indiana hits new low of homophobic bigotry

2011-08-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: From the original source: "Alfarena Ballew from the Marion County Coroner's office called to offer this statement, "Her friend and her aunt are working together with the life partner to take care of the remains. We have nothing in writing from the partner asking to claim the body. Our records show that the next of kin is her aunt. Our understanding now is that they're all working together to release the body and take care of the services." Ms. Ballew described the incident as a "misunderstanding" and says the office is on track to release the body shortly."

This weekend the main performance stage at the Indiana State Fair collapsed during unusually high winds, killing five and injuring 40. You probably already heard about this, since terrifying videos of the stage crushing concert goers quickly went viral. Due to the quick emergency response and bravery of people in the audience, many lives were saved. And thankfully none of my friends or family were harmed in the incident.

But for those who lost their loved ones, you'd hope they can eventually move on from this tragedy through mourning and memorial services. Unless you're a lesbian, in which case Indiana says Fuck You:

When a stage collapsed during the Indiana State Fair over the weekend, Christina Santiago, manager of programming for the Lesbian Community Care Project at Chicago's Howard Brown Health Center, was one of the casualties. Santiago's partner, Alisha Brennon, was also injured in the tragedy.
The Marion County coroner's office is refusing to release Santiago's body to her partner; the office cited the Defense of Marriage Act as the reason why they've turned down Brennon's request to pick up her loved one's remains. DOMA allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

Indiana has its own version of DOMA that outlaws same-sex marriage. Since Indiana law requires the next-of-kin to pick up Santiago's body, but the state won't recognize Brennon as the surviving spouse, Santiago's body is still laying in the morgue awaiting a solution. Brennon, who is still hospitalized, is now working with Santiago's aunt to pick up the body and make funeral arrangements.

Nausiating. It shames me to be associated with this state at all. Dan Savage already put it best:

This is what DOMA is designed to do. DOMA does nothing to strengthen traditional marriages. It doesn't prevent straight couples from divorcing or make straight couples any more likely to take responsibility for their children. The federal DOMA and all the mini-DOMAs enacted by the states only serve to torment and persecute gay people at the most trying moments of their lives: when a partner is ill, when a child is sick, when a partner dies. And people who claim to be Christians will howl the loudest if DOMA is repealed.

When are we going to move out of these dark ages?

I think he takes landLORD a little too literally

2011-08-15T19:55:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that I hate my apartment. tl;dr I have no privacy, I'm getting ripped off on my electric bills (which he once refused to pay), I don't have control over the heat or internet, and the place is infested with spiders. Seriously, I've killed about one a day since I moved in. Last night a hairy one CRAWLED ACROSS MY CHEST WHILE I WAS LAYING IN BED.

Sorry, my terror deserves all caps.

The upside to all of this is that I'm finally moving in two weeks. Hurray! I found a wonderful new place in Capitol Hill (not Washington DC, the Seattle neighborhood that's filled with gays and hipsters and awesome food and bars). But that also means other people are checking out my apartment. I missed most of the viewings this weekend since I was in Omaha, but today one couple from out of state called me to ask how it was.

Thanks for giving my phone number out to random strangers, landlord.

Anyway, they were really nice, and I told them the truth about the place. I was in the same situation last year - moving from out of state and unable to find anything - and I wish I would have had someone to ask about the place (the current tenant had already moved out). When they asked if I felt comfortable here, I relayed the story about the time my landlord found out I was an evolutionary biologist and proceeded to debate me for twenty five minutes about how creationism was correct.

She paused. She said it wasn't surprising, since he had made some anti-Catholic remarks at the end of their phone call, and that her husband was Catholic. And he had also asked them if they were church goers - they weren't (like many Catholics?).

I shouldn't be surprised that he was dumb enough to say anti-Catholic stuff on the phone, since he's had no problem ranting to me about creationism or how horrible unions are. But the latter makes me wonder. Is it because of me? Is my landlord running around fretting that he has a Dirty Atheist living in his basement? It's obvious if you look at my bookshelf or glance at my mail that arrives in our shared mailbox - lots of letters from the Secular Student Alliance, Secular Coalition for America, and Planned Parenthood.

I better not see a fee for exorcisms or blessings come out of my security deposit.

The reason why you're single

2011-08-14T23:29:00.000-07:00

No, it's not because you have reasonable standards of attraction and Seattle is just filled with ugly bitches who are deluded into thinking they're prettier than they are.

It's because you're a self absorbed douchebag.

This seems like a brand of Nice Guy Syndrome, but slightly different. "Nice Guys" focus on how women don't appreciate all of their nice acts, despite said nice acts being shallow manipulative ploys so Nice Guy can stick his dick in you, rather than genuine kindness, empathy, or respect. No, this seems like "Not Ugly Guy," where he has reasonable standards of who he's attracted to, but a city of over 500,000 people happens to be full of nothing but ugly women. Ugly, "dumpy" women who spend their free time sitting in (metaphorical) circle jerks talking about how pretty they are and concocting plans for tricking attractive men to stay in miserable relationships with them.

Slightly different, but there is a common denominator: Passive aggressiveness and pure delusion to avoid the possibility that you, Oh Perfect Penis Bearer, could have any sort of flaw.

It really boggles my mind how so many men can't comprehend that the way to get a date is to treat women like human beings, rather than some monolithic hivemind or dungeon level that can be easily solved with a strategy guide. Or worse, an item they quite obviously deserve, despite being raging dickbags who can't take a hint when their friends are saying they have too high of standards.

Translation: That's the nice way of saying you don't deserve the women you're aiming for. Probably because you're a raging dickbag whose justification for 13 years of singledom is blogging not-so-thinly-veiled misogyny.

Oh wait. I just disagree because I'm not pretty enough. Right. I always forget that.

EDIT: The author says he received a death threat because of his post. If this is true, that's despicable. I hope it wasn't any of my readers who did that, since we just got done talking about how that's not okay. Shred someone's arguments to pieces and point out their idiocy, but never threaten them.

It's like the atheist equivalent of duct tape

2011-08-12T18:14:00.000-07:00

Hemant and I have neighboring rooms in the hotel that are joined by a shared door. We were having trouble keeping the doors open until Hemant had a great idea:

Finally, those hotel Bibles are useful!

Off to Omaha!

2011-08-12T07:02:00.001-07:00

I'm about to hop on a plane to the Midwest Humanist and Freethought conference! I'll be yet again ranting about how religion treats women (Hint: not well).

I'm not going to lie. I know nothing about Omaha. I drove past it once on my way to an Ecology conference in Lincoln. I'm sure the locals will prove it's awesomeness to me. Though we're starting off with dinner at Herman Cain's Godfather Pizza, so I'm a little wary... Is this like SSA's field trip to the Creation Museum or something? Does every slice come with a free side of bigotry?

I know I have at least one reader in Omaha who can't make stuff during the day. I'm not sure if I'll have time for other meetups, but watch my Twitter feed for any announcements about bars we happen to be in. Knowing atheist conferences, it'll probably happen.

Another Hoosier Hypocrite

2011-08-12T06:40:00.001-07:00

Indiana State Representative Phillip Hinkle (R, of course) was caught soliciting craigslist for a gay prostitute using his public email address. And if you were wondering - yes, he's a good married Christian who opposes gay marriage. Such a good Christian, in fact, that he's the person who forced the In God We Trust license plates on the state.

Before those plates just made me giggle whenever I saw a driver with them breaking some sort of traffic law or being an all-around asshole. Now they're a symbol of Christian hypocrisy. Nice.

It's not just one person sending death threats to atheists

2011-08-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

Edit: Well, apparently it wasn't 8,000 death threats - just many death threats in 8,000 comments. The correction comes from Blair himself. Shocking, can't trust the media to report things accurately...

Fox News' Facebook page was flooded with threats calling for the rape, crucifixion, and murder of atheists. The cause? Blair Scott, Communications Director of American Atheists, appeared on Fox News to defend their lawsuit against the Ground Zero cross. Just look at some of the examples one blog collected:

Frankly, however you feel about the cross lawsuit* it irrelevant - no one deserves to be treated like this. I can't get over how despicable these messages are. I may disagree strongly - very strongly - with some religious people, but I never wish them dead. I know this doesn't represent all Christians, but it certainly debunks the notion that religion automatically makes you a good person.

*And if you want to know how I feel about it... go read the incredibly well written article by James Croft. No point rehashing what he already said so eloquently.

DM's death threats covered by Canadian newspapers

2011-08-11T08:53:00.000-07:00

The petition for Montreal police to take action on Dennis Markuze's constant barrage of death threats has reached 4,000 signatures, and the local news is starting to pay attention. As someone on twitter quipped, this may be the first time an internet petition accomplished something, because the police have opened an investigation:

Monday afternoon, following an inquiry by The Gazette, a Montreal police public-relations official said: "We haven't received any complaints" about 'Mabus.'

The police tune changed Wednesday morning, with a tweet from @SPVM that "we are investigating the case." It included a plea to "please stop sending emails to our media address by signing the petition."

Lafrenière said he was not aware of earlier complaints to police about the man's activities. Complainants are "mainly from the (United) States," he added, with others "from all over the world."

Each time the petition is signed online, Lafrenière said, an email is relayed to a Montreal police publicrelations email address. By 8 p.m. Wednesday, that attention-grabbing tactic had yielded a barrage of 3,224 such individual emails.

Prior to Lafrenière's announcement, PZ Myers, a frequent recipient of threats from 'Mabus,' and a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, blogged that the St. Laurent man's tone has escalated in recent years - "his hate messages have gotten crazier, more vicious, and more frequent."

"I have reported him to the police," Myers added, and "seen these complaints climb the ladder from the local department, to the FBI, to the RCMP, to the Montreal city police, where they promptly fizzle out."

Montreal police, according to Myers, have had "this deranged man making death threats on their watch for over a decade, and have done nothing."

Lafrenière said he wasn't aware of any complaint from Myers.

Thank you for pointing out your own incompetence.

This other report is all in French, but I included it because it has an interview with Mabus's mom. The below excerpts translated by reader QoB (thanks!):

In a brief telephone interview with La Presse yesterday, the mother of Dennis Markuze confirmed that he is the author of the messages. However, she refuses to condemn the writings of her son, who still lives in her house, and ensures[?should be 'assures us'?] that he is not violent. "I have not asked him to stop, no. Why should I? It is his job, it is what he believes. Why should I stop him? " said Ms. Markuze in English.

She was promptly taken aback when La Presse told her about death threats that many people say they have received. "He never did that. He does not even kill a fly, sir. I do not believe it. You probably do not understand his messages." When some excerpts were quoted to her ("I'll put a bullet in the head," "I'm going to execute you"), she replied: "Read fully what he writes and you'll see" before hanging up.

Oh dear. Looks like Mom has typical Mom Blinders on, and refuses to believe her ittle wittle Dennis could be sending hundreds of death threats every day. I feel a bit bad for her. Apparently DM has done a very good job at hiding his obsessive hatred, so this must come as a shock to her.

Some people think this is "just internet culture," but the internet is part of the real world. If someone was sending hundreds of people five letters or phone calls a day saying he was going to cut off my head, you know damn well the police would do something about it. And DM has been getting worse over the years - more persistent, and more violent, more nonsensical, and even showing up to atheist events in person.

I think a good example of DM's decline is a post from 1994 on a chess message board (yes, chess):

Women are on a lower rung of evolution compared to men, the difference between men and women is like the difference between animals and plants. First comes God, then the Angels, then men, then women, then animals, then plants.

You can count the number of female geniuses on one hand!

Which women have contributed to philosophy, painting, music, chess,etc..? Alright, the Polgar sisters may be geniuses, but they are freaks of nature! To be a genius by defintion is to be a male (Webster, if you are reading this, be sure to add this in your next edition). A female genius is a contradiction of terms. A woman may be intelligent but never a genius,of course, exceptions do occur, like the baby that is born with twelve fingers.

P.S. No hate mail from the ladies, please. I'm safe here behind my computer,you can't scratch out my eyes even if you wanted to.

Dennis Markuze
d_ma...@pavo.concordia.ca

Holy crap! At one point in time, DM had the ability to write in complete, understandable sentences! Granted, they're misogynistic bullshit, but grammar!

I laugh because that's what keeps me sane - but this is perfect evidence of DM's escalating madness. His writing went from sentient to erratic word salad. The threats become more and more violent. The messages are obsessively persistent - he hops from internet cafe to internet cafe since bloggers keep banning his IP addresses, and he creates dozens of new email addresses and twitter accounts a day because his get banned so quickly. He has started physically showing up to atheist meetings, and repeatedly try to enter after being thrown out by security.

This is not the behavior of a mentally healthy person. DM needs to be committed and evaluated before he finally snaps and hurts someone. And if that shows him to be a sane but particularly motivated God botherer, he needs to be prosecuted for harassment, stalking, and death threats, all of which are crimes in Canada.

What used to be an annoyance is now a red flag - stop this man before he's the next École Polytechnique massacre, Anders Behring Breivik, or decides to actually cut off someone's head.

Demand that Montreal Police take death threats against atheists seriously

2011-08-09T21:20:00.000-07:00

If you read atheist blogs, you probably know Dennis Markuze. Possibly under another name, since he shifts around a lot - David Mabus, DM, Nostradamus. And if not, here's a brief introduction:

For several years Dennis Markuze has harassed and threatened scientists, writers, public figures, atheists, and their friends under the pseudonym "David Mabus". While this was previously a minor annoyance, the intensity and frequency of his contact have increased.

"Mabus" attacks now include hundreds of Twitter accounts (used and discarded as they are reported). He has threatened young boys and girls as well as adults (including Rys Morgan, 16, who was acknowledged by some in the science community for exposing a dangerous quack medical treatment). In fact, anyone who associates with scientifically and skeptically minded people like PZ Myers, Phil Plait, James Randi, Brian Dunning or Michael Shermer is likely to become a target for unsettling rants and threats to their life and well-being.

Markuze has even gone so far as to attend meetings of such people, including attending the American Atheist Convention in October 2010, held Montreal.

You don't see him around here that much because I've tightened up my comment moderation quite a bit, and probably banned every IP address in Montreal in the process. But I get at least one crazed email and multiple tweets from him every day, usually containing a variety of threats - punching us, shooting us, nuking us, chopping off our heads, references to krystallnacht.

This has become a common occurrence for any bloggers, scientists, or activists who are associated with atheism. But I've also received personalized threats, such as "feel safe, jen?" and "jen we are going to exterminate you, cunt."

And despite multiple people making multiple reports to the police over years and years, the Montreal Police do nothing.

How much longer are the Montreal Police going to sit on their hands? Until Dennis Markuze finally snaps and hurts someone? If these were religious leaders receiving constant death threats, you can be sure it would have been taken care of instantly. But when atheists are on the receiving end, they twiddle their thumbs.

I don't necessarily think this man needs to be thrown behind bars - but he has a history of mental illness and has become more and more threatening and persistent, and something needs to be done before he follows through with his threats. I especially fear for atheists he targets that live near Montreal - and I certainly will not feel safe ever visiting that city until the police take some action.

Please sign the petition for the Montreal Police to take death threats made against atheists seriously.

And if you're from Montreal...a tip to your local newspaper probably wouldn't hurt.

Good thing I'm working toward my PhD

2011-08-09T11:24:00.001-07:00

Once I become Dr. McCreight, I can finally make as much money as a man with a bachelor's degree.

Bah.

Someone knows me too well

2011-08-07T22:07:00.001-07:00

A friend said this reminded him of me:

...Yeah, pretty much.

The first ever Women in Secularism conference

2011-08-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

The Center for Inquiry has just announced an exciting new event for next year - the Women in Secularism conference. It will be May 18 - 20 2012 in Washington, DC, and the speaker lineup looks amazing:

Ophelia Benson
Jamila Bey
Greta Christina
Elisabeth Cornwell
Margaret Downey
Annie Laurie Gaylor
Jennifer Michael Hecht
Sikivu Hutchinson
Susan Jacoby
Jennifer McCreight
Wafa Sultan
Rebecca Watson

Look! Somehow my name snuck in there! Woohoo!

This conference is a wonderful idea - hats off to Melody Hensley of CFI for creating and organizing it. No longer will people be able to say that men outnumber women as speakers because there just aren't as many deserving or interesting women. ...Well, people will still say that because people can be frustratingly dense, but now we can hold up this event as evidence.

I also hope that it's well attended. The other argument I hear a lot is that we need to keep inviting the Big Names, not because they're old white men, but because they're popular and otherwise no one would come to the conference. But frankly, as much as I enjoy hearing Dawkins and PZ speak, seeing them for the 49839847th time gets a little old. I'm way more excited about seeing a bunch of people I've still yet to see - Annie Laurie Gaylor, Susan Jacoby, and Wafa Sultan. And usually I never see these amazing women all at the same time - I'm looking forward to seeing what happens when you stick us in a room together.

But really, I see the goal of this event is to make itself obsolete. We shouldn't need specific women in secularism conferences in order to get the voices of women heard. We shouldn't be shocked when conferences occasionally have more women speaking then men - we certainly take the opposite to be the norm. So while I'm greatly looking forward to it, I'm being optimistic that we won't always need it.

Of course, some people are already whining in the comments of the announcement, claiming that the atheist movement obviously has no problems recruiting women or dealing with sexism. Surprise, surprise. My favorites so far are by John D:

"A conference just for women featuring several very vocal self described “Liberal/Progressive Feminists”... I have a feeling that trouble is brewing. I suspect I will enjoy the free flowing man bashing that will come from this event. I also look forward to the blog explosion which will result."

"I will listen if only because I have respect for Susan Jacoby. Inclusion of Watcon, McCreight, and Christina insure that the pot will be stirred with great vigor and that the misandry will be served up rare!"

Stuff like this cracks me up. Yes, I am that radical, man-bashing, misandrist! And so is Greta (though we all obviously knew Rebecca was one). Seriously, do these men know that I'm kind of Feminism Lite? A Feminism Gateway Drug? I'm the type of feminist that's one of the easiest for outsiders to tolerate - I'm extremely sex positive, pro-porn, have written about how we shouldn't suspend skepticism in all rape cases... If you think I'm a man-hater, just wait 'til you meet the feminists who don't like me! Your brain will surely explode.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the conference, and the pre-freakout from insecure men is just going to fuel my fire.

Greta Christina in Seattle tomorrow!

2011-08-05T15:42:00.000-07:00

The perpetually fabulous Greta Christina is coming to Seattle tomorrow! Well, technically she's here now, but you don't get to see her tonight unless you can stalk us down and figure out where we're eating dinner (please don't). But you can see her tomorrow at the event by the Seattle Atheists:

DATE: Saturday, August 6

TIME: 1:30 - 4:30 pm, including my talk, Q&A, and panel discussion

LOCATION: 2100 Building, 2100 24th Ave. S., Seattle, WA

TOPIC: What Can the Atheist Movement Learn From the LGBT Movement?

SUMMARY: The atheist movement is already modeling itself on the LGBT movement in many ways -- most obviously with its focus on coming out of the closet. What else can the atheist movement learn from the LGBT movement... both from its successes and its failures?

COST: Free (donations accepted)

The panel discussion will be on women in the secular movement. I'll be on it as well, along with some other local godless ladies. And snacks are usually provided at Seattle Atheist meetings. What more can you ask for - snacks and awesome atheist women!

I hope I'll see you guys there!

Well, that backfired

2011-08-05T09:42:00.000-07:00

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has positive billboard campaigns popping up across the country. The most recent batch went up in Columbus, OH and were followed by a bit of controversy. Dylan Galos's billboard was removed from its original location, because said location was on church property and the church complained.

Whatever, Dylan's billboard has a new home. End of story, right?

Apparently the FFRF tipped off the county auditor that the church hadn't been paying taxes on the billboard they owned - and now they'll have to. Wah wah.

I don't believe in karma, but...

The Secular Student Alliance conference was freaking awesome

2011-08-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

The title is my tl;dr.

The SSA annual conference is something I look forward to every year. It's by far my favorite atheist gathering, for a number of reasons. One, it's for my demographic - students. Even though I'm an ancient grad student, I'm still among peers, which makes networking and socializing fun and stress-free. Two, the programming is consistently superb, and I always leave motivated to run my local groups and save the world from religion.

But first, my only complaint about the conference, which has nothing to do with the conference itself. The Revolution Books people drove everyone fucking crazy. I wish I could say they were simply annoying, but they were borderline stalker-like with their evangelical communism. They wouldn't take no for an answer when you said you didn't want to talk about radical communism (race specific autonomous regions? Businesses picking 20% of the politicians? Okkaaaay). Some people got stuck with them for hours when they followed you to student lunches and social events, they frequently interrupted private conversations, followed you down hallways, and even harassed one speaker all the way into the bathroom. Dozens and dozens of people complained to me how uncomfortable the Revolution Books people made them feel, and I hope they don't return next year.

Anyway!

The talks are slowly being uploaded to YouTube, and I plan on sharing some of my favorites. Until then, I'll list some of my top ten favorite parts of the conference. I'll surely forgot some, since my schedule got left behind in Columbus since it was being passed around the SSA board meeting to show off my doodle of some of the staff:

1. Jessica Ahlquist. It's indisputable that she gets the #1 slot, even if she may think she's not deserving (her modesty is one of her many endearing qualities). Jessica is a (soon to be) junior in high school who spent the last year fighting an illegal prayer banner in her school, and now spends her time encouraging other high school students to join her. Jessica's talk was moving, inspiring, and down right fabulous. I think she got something like four standing ovations, and she deserved every one of them. One of my favorite comments from her was the realization that "grown ups" don't always do the right thing, and even high schoolers can fight for what's right. I'll have more to say when I share her video.

2. The social events. I ended up going out four nights in a row, which means I pretty much didn't sleep the whole conference. But it also means I met a lot of awesome people and had a lot of awesome conversations. I make new friends every year at SSA. The downside to this is that every year I come back, I have more and more people I want to see, so I feel like I don't get to spend enough time with any of them! Alas.

3. Waxing JT's legs.

(Photo by Ellen Lundgren)

I love his facial expression as I pull the strip off. Mwahaaha.

4. Dave Silverman's talk on the first night really set the tone for the whole conference. I didn't necessarily agree 100%, but it was certainly motivating. The main message: We can win this fight, and we are winning it. Sometimes I need that reminder when I see all the hateful crap still being done in the name of religion in this world. It was also great finally meeting Dave in person, since we've been working together on the Reason Rally for a couple of months now.

He also knows how to pander to his audience, because every slide of his talk featured one of his rage faces:

(Photo by Ellen Lundgren)

5. Jamila Bey. Everything about her. Sometimes I meet a person and I instantly think "Why the hell did it take me so long to meet you? I command you to be my best friend right now." That's exactly how I feel about Jamila. She was amazing to chat with, and her talk was wonderful, especially considering Hemant had basically stolen her whole talk during his own, forcing Jamila to wing the whole thing.

6. Greta Christina debuted a new talk on why arguing religion is worthwhile, and it was delightful like always. It's summarize it, but she already posted an outline at her blog.

7. Hemant's talk on critical thinking in math education was wonderful. He succinctly summarized why people like me grew up hating math, and how we should be teaching math to children. I'll definitely post the video when it goes up. I wish Hemant had been my math teacher in high school!

8. Katie Hartman's talk on fundraising was practical and supported with psychological research. She's also a natural speaker. I now have a bunch of tips for the next time I'm doing a fundraiser on my blog or for my campus group. Also, Katie definitely wins the Prettiest Powerpoint Presentation award, which isn't surprising since she designed the lovely Skepticon and Reason Rally websites.

9. The terrifying baby cake Ashley made for Hemant.

(Photo by Ellen Lundgren)

10. ...The wacky adventures of Ryan getting shot with a bb-gun. I know it's horrible, but the story has already reached legendary status. And his write up is hilarious.

Sometimes I couldn't get my ass down to a talk, and I missed some awesome stuff. Apparently Kelley Freeman dedicated a whole slide of lolcats to me. I also missed Ed Clint's talk on "Transfaith" - an alternative to Interfaith work - that was apparently mindblowingly amazing because everyone couldn't stop talking about it. I'll have to watch the videos when they go online.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who said kind things about my talk on diversity. I know the topic is getting stale for some, so I'm glad that it seemed so effective for many of you. So, thank you!

And other than that...wow, I had so much fun. I'm sad that it may be another year before I see many of you. Time to go into post-conference withdrawal...

Atheists, drive by bb gun shootings, donuts, and a balloon

2011-08-02T22:55:00.000-07:00

That summarizes my most interesting night at the Secular Student Alliance annual conference. I should clarify this adventure happened after the end of the final official event of the night, which was socializing at Buffalo Wild Wings. Which also means I and everyone else over the age of 21 were a bit inebriated during these shenanigans, which explains a lot of the situation.

I was going to write up what happened, but my friend Ryan, the protagonist of this adventure, has already done so in a hilarious fashion:

[...]A group of us were walking back to the dorms where we were holed up for the weekend, when someone with a couple of ranks in Knowledge:Local pointed out that there was an Insomnia Cookies a few blocks away.

“Oooo… Insomnia! We have to get some!” said Jen (who is not to be confused with Jenny), because she always gets nostalgic after a few drinks.

So we walk down the street, and as we approached the UDF o’er on the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk, this blue beater sedan slows down — CRACK — then speeds off.

I grab the side of my left leg.

“Uph. I’ve been shot.” I said. “Pretty sure it was just a BB gun though.”

Jen looks back and smiles, thinking that I was recounting one of my wild stories to someone else, unaware that one was happening right then, and that she was a character in it. [Jen Note: I so didn't hear you say anything about a BB gun! That's why I thought you were just joking around after tripping or something! D: ]

It felt like being cracked with a giant rubber band, like in high school we tied rubber bands to other rubber bands repeated the process again and again then tied knots in the end until we had some 30 foot rubber band to crack jokers with. The shot didn’t hurt that bad, and that terrified me. I learned that the more horrific the injury, the less it hurts. A shoulder dislocation feels several orders better than a Charlie horse.

[...]Anywho, since my friends had no real intention of stopping, I hobbled on for another two blocks or to Insomnia Cookies, but it was closed, just like how it’s not supposed to be. We were all pretty depressed. Then whoever had Knowledge:Local pointed out there was this stomp-ass donut shop a few blocks away. I look at my leg and don’t see a giant blood stain, so I hobble along.

We get to the donut shop. I buy peanut-coated donut for $0.95. It was totally clutch. I ask if they have a bathroom, they send me to one in the back of the kitchen. I drop trou to get the lay of the land.

Sho’nuff, there was a hole in my leg, right where the hole in my pants was. It seemed bigger than a BB; in fact, it looked to be the right size as a .22, and that’s bad. There was bleeding from the surface, but it was a slow creep, like a scraped knee, or a road rash. There was blood on my underpants, but interestingly enough, the only holes were the ones placed there by the manufacturer intended for my legs. Since the shot went through my pants, but not my underpants, it became clear to me that it had to be a BB, because they don’t sell any bulletproof shit at K-Mart.

You really need to read the rest of it. It involves ambulances, the Saddest Photo Ever taken by Hemant, me being generally worthless after four drinks, and Jessica Ahlquist's adorable idea.

I have to give it to Ryan for staying cool during the whole situation. I would have been crying instantly and liveblogging the whole thing. Instead I was tipsily tweeting cryptic messages that nearly gave Lyz Liddell of the SSA staff an ulcer, asking people to be Meat Shields for the Important Bloggers, and whining about how I really wanted Insomnia Cookies. I am apparently a horrible friend when drunk.

Resurrection was the only solution

2011-08-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

I've bitched about American Airlines before on my blog, and had issues with them that I didn't bother to whine about publicly. Compared to other airlines I've flown (which is many), AA is the most frequently delayed and has the absolute worst customer service. I found another example of that today, but thankfully it didn't happen to me - I only had the all too common annoyance of a middle aged guy who felt the need to take up half of my seat in addition to his.

I was about to board my flight from O'Hare to Seattle. My gate was in an oddly isolated corner of the airport, and was the only one boarding. As I was getting on, I heard a commotion to my left. An approximately four year old girl was wailing near a garbage can, little brother standing nearby, and her mother was in a yelling match with one of the AA employees at the desk.

I paused long enough to figure out what was going on. Mom was holding a plastic mesh container that once housed this little girl's pet. Either a mouse, hamster, or gerbil - I couldn't tell. I say once housed because the little brown rodent was now very dead, and Mom was lifting his limp body to throw him in the trash can. The AA employee was yelling that she couldn't just throw the pet away, but Mom yelled back that she needed to make this flight, but AA wouldn't allow her on the plane with a dead animal.

At that point I had to board. We ended up sitting in our seats for an extra 15 minutes or so - I wonder if debates about dead animal disposal were going on outside. But I never saw the mom and children get on the plane.

I can understand having regulations about not being able to just put dead animals wherever you want...but seriously, could they not have come up with a better solution? Were they hoping for a miracle and Fuzzy would spring back to life? Couldn't they have turned a blind eye and claimed the pet died during the flight? Or offer to dispose of the pet themselves so the family could make their flight? Or attempt anything to make an already traumatizing experience for a four year old a little less traumatizing?

Boo hiss, American. I don't know what happened to the family, but I hope they got home alright, with or without a proper burial for Fuzzy.

The cherry on top of my AA hatred was that Katie, the main organizer of Skepticon, also just found out that my flight from Missouri to Seattle got messed up. You remember - the one you guys helped fund so I could have a direct flight and arrive at a reasonable and safe hour? Yeah, they just changed it to include a three hour delay, so I'm not getting in until 1am, after the public transportation is closed. Which I could have done for $130 less.

I jokingly suggested that she should email AA insisting that they upgrade me to first class because her speaker is a Very Important Prima Donna who insisted on a direct flight and has angrily blogged about how terrible AA is in the past and would surely do it again. Then she actually did, because why not. At best I'm expecting a drink coupon. At worst they'll stick me on the wing.

I'm adding this quote to my resume

2011-08-02T12:37:00.001-07:00

"But sometimes you have to be just a little skeptical, otherwise Blag Hag will get after you." - Dan Savage, Savage Lovecast Episode 250

I am always watching, waiting to eviscerate stupidity with my words. And occasionally lolcats.

Insert diabolical laughter here.

I'm alive!

2011-08-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I haven't blogged since Thursday - I apologize for all of your withdrawal symptoms. I was at the Secular Student Alliance annual conference and was too busy having an amazing time. I pretty much didn't sleep for four days straight and I sound like a chain smoker because I've lost my voice from all of the various merriment.

I know this is more of a meta-post, but I just wanted to let you know I'm still here. I'm currently sitting in the Columbus airport - if I decide to splurge on wifi for my flight from Chicago to Seattle, expect some posts this afternoon.

So....anyone care to fill me in on what world news happened since Friday? Or what internet news? Consider this an open thread.

My interview with Teen Skepchick

2011-07-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

My interview with Mindy of Teen Skepchick is now online for your viewing pleasure. We focus a lot on my journey from atheism to desperate spirituality back to atheism throughout my childhood, thoughts for students and student leaders, art, sex, and a pep talk for young scientists. Some stuff I haven't really blogged about here in depth, so go check it out!

Catholic Church apologizes for 150,000 forced adoptions

2011-07-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

From ABC News:

It is believed at least 150,000 Australian women had their babies taken against their will by some churches and adoption agencies between the 1950s and 1970s.

Psychiatrist Geoff Rickarby has treated scores of affected women, and says it is a stain on Australia's history.

[...]The chief executive of Catholic Health Australia, Martin Laverty, says he is sorry for what happened. [...] "It's with a deep sense of regret, a deep sense of sorrow that practices of the past have caused ongoing pain, suffering and grief to these women, these brave women in Newcastle but also women around Australia," Mr Laverty said.

[...]Juliette Clough is one of the women who says she was forced to give up her baby at a Catholic-run hospital in Newcastle in 1970.

She was 16 at the time and says she was alone, afraid and desperate.

"My ankles were strapped to the bed, they were in stirrups and I was gassed, I had plenty of gas and they just snatched away the baby," Ms Clough said.

"You weren't allowed to see him or touch him, anything like that, or hold him and it was just like a piece of my soul had died. And it's still dead"

[...]Greens Senator Rachel Siewert is chairwoman of a Senate inquiry currently examining the country's former adoption practices.

"Women have told stories about going into hospital not realising that they were going to have to give up their babies, but that pillows were put over their faces, that curtains were put up so they couldn't see the baby," Senator Siewert said.

Women have also told the ABC they were given milk suppressing drugs that have now been linked to cancer, as well as barbiturates that caused sedation and in some cases delirium.

Mr Laverty says it is not a period to be proud of.

Bit of an understatement, Mr. Laverty. I kind of don't think "I'm sorry" makes up for one hundred and fifty thousand women having their children forcefully taken away from them.

As if all the child molestation wasn't enough. Why do people still associate themselves with this evil organization? I'm starting to lose patience for the excuses of culture and community. Pretty sure you can find a replacement religion that doesn't molest and steal children. I hear the Unitarians are nice.

Dan Savage is an evil genius

2011-07-27T15:46:00.000-07:00

From Think Progress:

Sex columnist Dan Savage has offered a new threat to Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum: If Santorum continues to attack gays and lesbians during his campaign, Savage will expand his “google problem” by redefining “Rick.” Savage led a campaign to redefine “Santorum” in 2003 after Santorum compared homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia. Other people named Rick chimed in to urge Santorum to heed Savage’s threat.

Dan Savage's New Threat to Rick Santorum from Dan Savage

Brilliant.

Answers to the critical thinking puzzles

2011-07-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

Many of you took a shot at answering the critical thinking puzzles I posted during Blogathon. Now it's time for the answers! And because I'm lazy, I'm just going to copy and paste the explanations given by some of you guys!

Question 1: In front of you are four cards. You know that each card has a photo of a famous person on one side, and a photo of an animal on the other. The four sides that are visible to you are as follows: Ken Ham, Richard Dawkins, a narwhal, and a T-Rex. I let you know that all of these cards follow the same rule - that if a card has a religious person on it's famous person side, it has a dinosaur on its animal side. What's the lowest number of cards you'd need to flip to determine if this rule is true or false for these cards, and which cards would you flip?

Answer from UrsaMinor: "You would have to flip two cards to test the rule. If it is true, Ken Ham will have a dinosaur on the reverse, and the narwhal will have a non-religious person on the reverse. Since there is no rule stating that non-religious people must have any particular theme on the reverse, it is not necessary to turn over the Richard Dawkins and T-Rex cards, because no matter what they have on the reverse sides, they cannot not break the rule."

Alternative smartass answer from James F. McGrath: "Question 1 is a trick question to prevent banana-wielding creationists from winning. Anyone who embraces mainstream science will know that the categories "famous persons" and "animals" overlap. :)"

Question 2: Because I'm super nice, I give you a giant one hundred pound watermelon as a gift. You determine that this giant watermelon is ninety-nine percent water by weight. Unfortunately you let the watermelon sit out in the sun, and some water evaporates. Now the watermelon is only ninety-eight percent water by weight. To the nearest pound, what does the watermelon now weigh?

Answer from Gary Usleaman: "This one was fun! Since it started out at 100 lbs. and 99% water, then that means that 1% (or 1 lb) was Not Water (NW). After letting it rot in the sun for a bit (best thing for water mellon, if you ask me), you find that it is 98% water. [BTW, you had to weigh it to figure that out anyway, so why are you asking me how much it weighed?] Well, the 1 lb of NW didn't change, so that means that 1 lb is 2% of the total weight. That makes the total weight 50 lbs."

Question 3: While you were at TAM9, you decided to suspend skepticism and gamble - specifically, by playing roulette. But since you want to have some sort of strategy, you decide to flip a coin before each bet to decide whether to place a bet on red or on black (which should have a 50/50 chance of happening). Sadly, you lose sixty seven times in a row - that is, the ball always lands on the opposite color that you pick. If you turned your skepticism back on, it would be most rational to think:

A. You just have shitty luck
B. It's terrible strategy to flip a coin to pick what color to bet on in roulette
C. You should keep up this strategy because you've really likely to win the next bet
D. The roulette table is obviously broken, but you can't assume that's intentional
E. The casino or the staff are dirty crooks who have rigged the game against you somehow
F. You can't reasonably decide which of the listed options are more likely

Answer from Jonathan: "The probability of losing 67 times in a row is one in 2^67, ie about 1 in 147 billion billion. So this is *extremely* unlikely to be bad luck. If the game is fair, flipping a coin is no worse than any other strategy - there's no pattern to pick up on. C is for idiots, D might make sense if you were always betting (say) red, but since your choice is random and there's no sensible way your coin toss can directly affect the wheel, if must be E, and the casino is seeing your bet, then manipulating the wheel (or, at least, it's far more likely that the casino is crooked than that you've lost fairly 67 times on the trot)."

Katie was nice enough to make up some graphs of your responses:

Most of you guessed I would fail at the door question, followed by the roulette question... But I actually got the watermelon question wrong. I know, I know. The answer is obvious now that I see it, but I'm rusty and wasn't thinking. Alas.

Congrats to our winner, Jimmyrhoffa, who was the first to get all of these right! Katie should have your prize to you soon.

It's not just atheists with a diversity problem...

2011-07-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

Geeks have their fail moments too (emphasis mine):

I went to Comic-Con this year; on Thursday, I attended a panel titled “Oh, You Sexy Geek!” a discussion of the implications of “sexy women” in geek/nerd culture, and how that may or may not be used to pander to men. The panel consisted of moderator Katrina Hill and panelists Clare Kramer, Adrianne Curry, Bonnie Burton, Jennifer Stuller, Chris Gore (who almost no-showed), Clare Grant, Kiala Kazabee, and Jill Pantozzi.

I was excited for the panel, considering I am frequently frustrated by the media’s exploitative use of women (whether it be the host of a show, such as Olivia Munn, or booth babes at E3) to appeal to a market that they treat as exclusively male. However, my expectations were quickly dashed when discussion of media literacy was tossed aside in favor of accusations of jealousy. Bonnie Burton and Adrianne Curry mused that women who were critical of sexy geek culture in any way were just jealous, had no confidence, and were projecting their issues with self-esteem onto the women who felt empowered by walking the Comic-Con floor in a Slave Leia costume.

When Jennifer Stuller (one of the creators of the upcoming Geek Girl Con) suggested that women who criticized “sexiness” were more than likely deconstructing the media, and by extension a society that tells women their worth lies in their ability to appeal aesthetically to men, she was rebuffed by the other members of the panel. Later, Stuller attempted to turn the discussion towards media literacy, to which Clare Grant responded that she doesn’t read magazines, therefore the media has no influence on her whatsoever. Adrianne Curry added that women criticize one another “because we’re all a bunch of bitches.”

[...]There were many disappointing moments that had me almost leaving the panel entirely, but nothing was quite so horrifying as the one contribution Chris Gore made when he finally showed up five minutes before the panel ended. He took the stage, apologized for being late, and said “Hey, I’m here to represent all the guys in this room who want to stick their penis in every woman up here on this panel.” There was nervous laughter and a bit of applause. I don’t even need to explain how disgusting and problematic that is.

Of course, the two groups probably overlap quite a lot, so it's not particularly shocking.

Photos from the first gay marriages in New York

2011-07-25T22:56:00.000-07:00

You can see all 60 here, but here are some of my favorites:

I'm not going to lie, the older gay couples fill me with the most joy. I just want to hug them and tell them how happy I am that they made it through all the years of crap to finally see this day. I can't wait for the day where the whole country looks back and says, "Wow, can you remember when bigots used to keep gay people from marrying?"

...Who's cutting onions in here?

Blogathon raises $5,483 for the Secular Student Alliance!

2011-07-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all of you, Blogathon was a massive success! We ended up raising a whopping $5,483.01 for the Secular Student Alliance! That's going to fund a whole lot of secular activism. So thank you, thank you, thank you!

As a geeky side note...I'd like to point out that now that we have three Blogathon data points, the amount donated has such a perfect linear fit that the R squared value is 0.9999. Of course, I purposefully set a linear donation goal for this year, so that may have influenced how much people donated. In that case, I should have set the goal to $10,000!

Tomorrow I'll email those of you who won a copy of Michael Shermer's book. But until then, I'm still recovering. Heck, I don't even entirely remember what I wrote yesterday. Which were your favorite posts? Leave your thoughts in the comments, and that way all of my readers don't have to wade through 49 posts to find the gems. If there were any gems. At the very least, reading my hate mail was fun.

Alright, back to being comatose!

Blogathon 2011 is complete!

2011-07-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

For the third year, I made it through Blogathon! Made it without falling asleep or becoming (completely) deranged. And with your help, we managed to raise over $4,000 for the Secular Student Alliance. How awesome is that?

Thanks to everyone who donated, suggested ideas, spread the word, and kept me company in the comments. And thanks to my friends who helped keep me awake in addition to supplying me with pizza and cookies. In turned into an impromptu party here at La Casa de Blag Hag. You guys are awesome.

I'll post an official Blogathon total once everyone has a final chance to donate. I think some people were possibly donating based on the content of my posts, so I want them to have time to count up the number of times I said kumquat or whatever they chose to keep track of. Well, hopefully they weren't looking for the word kumquat, because I didn't exactly use it very much. But just in case: kumquat, kumquat, kumquat.

...If you still want to donate, you can do so by clicking here or using the widget below.

Thanks everyone, and good night! ...good morning! ...I'm going to sleep.

This is post 49 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Q&A Quickfire Part OMG THE SUN IS UP

2011-07-24T06:30:00.000-07:00

One last hurrah:

How do you feel about blogging after the blogathon?

Reasonable Jen will tell you I won't blog for a while. Realistic Jen will tell you I'll probably find something to blog about right after I wake up.

How badly do you want to sleep right now?

I don't know what day it is. What. Why. Why am I alive. Why am I doing this to myself. Why am I getting on a plane to Indiana in a couple days. Omfg, Indiana. It's like ten million degrees there. I'm going to evaporate. I want to just stay here and eat cookies.

...badly.

If you could dream about anything right now, what would it be?

About sleeping.

Favorite color of the alphabet?

Shreve.

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

Only if ever should do under really from when.

Also:

This is post 48 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

I just had this phone conversation

2011-07-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

You only get to hear what I said:

Why are you calling me.

Wait, what?

Wait, every time you say "children in a van" you cut out.

No seriously. I hear "children in a van" and then "shhhhhhhhhhhhhh" like this is some top secret message that's being intercepted by the FBI.

17 children?

Dancing to what?

No license plates or Ohio license plates?

That's just as bad.

Wait, I thought you said seventeen.

How do you fit seventy five thousand children in a van?

Tessellate?

Goodbye.

They're Aryan children Mark, they're coming for you.

Wait did they multiply? Are they undergoing mitosis?

I can't hold the phone.

This is post 47 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Are high school reunions a thing of the past?

2011-07-24T05:30:00.000-07:00

This question comes from my mom, who spent last night at her high school reunion (I'll be nice and not say what year the reunion was for). Will social media like Facebook take away from the "surprise" of seeing everyone at reunions? How many people go just to see if someone went bald, or got fat, or got super rich, or married someone hot, or had ten million children?

It seems like some sort of vindictiveness is the motivation behind going to most reunions, since you theoretically keep in contact with most of the people you like. But now you keep in contact with everyone. You know exactly what that old bully is up to, if the captain of the football team came out of the closet, or whatever.

So, has Facebook killed the concept of the reunion? Or will us humans keep gathering in person, even with the people we don't really like?

This is post 46 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Guerrila skepticism on Wikipedia

2011-07-24T05:00:00.001-07:00

One of the paper presentations I really enjoyed at TAM9 was Susan Gerbic-Forsyth's talk on guerilla skepticism on Wikipedia. Not everyone has the time or motivation or talent to organize events, give talks, write blogs, etc - but people frequently ask how they can help the skeptical movement. Susan's main suggestion was for people to edit Wikipedia.

It seems simple at first, but it really is important. One, Wikipedia is one of the first places people look when they run into a new term or name. It looks terrible if someone's Googling a famous skeptic or skeptical organization and their Wikipedia page is sparse or nonexistent. Two, many articles often have a very paranormal and supernatural bias. It would be great if all false claims also had information from trusted sources on why they're false. Otherwise they go unchallenged.

If this seems like something you'd be interested in, Susan has lots of practical information over at her blog. And these methods usually apply to atheist articles too.

This also seems like a good time to mention that I have a redirect, but not an article. Cough cough. And my friend Jason claims he's cooler than me because he has an article and I don't. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

Er, I mean, it's totally about increasing accurate representations of human knowledge, not a popularity contest. Right.

This is post 45 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

A challenge

2011-07-24T04:30:00.000-07:00

FearBlandness tweets:

I challenge you to incorporate PZ, ponies and yourself into a post. I guarantee you'll have a tenfold increase in donations!

Challenge accepted.

Drawn in MS Paint with the touch pad on my laptop.

NOW WHERE'S MY MONEY

This is post 44 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

How to get people to quit using homeopathic medicine

2011-07-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

From SMBC:

Come on Zach, you know this is wrong. The process of dilution is obviously very important in how the water molecules establish memory. It not just about decreasing the frequency of something. You must do the right water magi-er, mechanisms. Mechanisms. Or something.

Now, if we threw all of the homeopaths in the ocean...

Meta Blogging Moment: I had a little buffer time, so I was checking my webcomics. I noticed the newly updated SMBC was not, in fact, this SMBC. I suddenly couldn't remember how I found this particular comic. Did I click a link on twitter? No. Did someone email me it? No. Was it on facebook? No. I was convinced I had finally lost my mind. Why in the world would I choose a random old SMBC comic to blog about in the middle of the night, when I had no prompting to look up something about homeopathy?

Then my friend IMed me again, and I realized he had sent me the link.

Sleep, I needz you. I needz you now.

This is post 43 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Another dose of surrealism

2011-07-24T03:30:00.001-07:00

The following questions were left on my formspring.me account months ago, presumably by the same person. I can provide you with no other explanation:

People don't use the word "fervent" enough, so today I began a meeting with "It is my fervent desire that all employees tuck mackerel into their trousers." That failed to get me a promotion. What is their fervent problem?

Are there a lot of cats in your neighborhood? If so, keep track of them. One of them is more than just a cat. If you know what I mean.

Last night I took my girlfriend to a classy restaurant, but when I asked for ketchup the guy in the paper hat brought me some weird foreign stuff called catsup, so I sporked him in the eye. Now my gf says I haven't done enough to demand anal. Women, huh?

Whenever I hear people use a word that rhymes with postulate, it fills me with so much anger that I want to crush their skulls beneath the heels of my jackboots. Is that normal? Or did they already get to you?

I saw a sign that said "We ship anything, anywhere, anytime", so I asked them to send a unicorn to Mars in 1832. They hung up on me! Should I call the BBB, or man up and set them on fire myself?

Would you rather have the power to turn wood into eggs or control cardboard with your eye beams?

Is it safe to assume that anyone named Melvin probably isn't too threatening?

Do you think that people named Timothy probably aren't too threatening as well? Or a better question is, which is less threatening? Timothy or Melvin?

I thought I saw the abominable snowman today but it was just an abhorrent ice woman. Weird, huh? If I see her again what should I do or say?

I thought I saw the abominable snowman again, but it was just the abhorrent ice woman again. This time I talked to her and we hit it off. We're going out tomorrow night! I hear she moves fast so there's a chance for sex tomorrow. Any tips or advice?

My date with the abhorrent ice woman didn't go too well. I don't think I'll be seeing her again. After we were ...ahem... finished, it felt numb. Now it just sits there and won't rise no matter what I do or watch. I think it's useless. What should I do!?

...Five hours left. Gah.

This is post 42 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Would religion help my psychological issues?

2011-07-24T03:00:00.000-07:00

From the mailbag:

Do you think your current psychological problems would be less severe or even non-existant if you could rely on a faith? (= + faith community?) Sorry if too provocative.

Honestly, no. I've dealt with these issues since I was little. It's overlapped my naive atheism, my desperate attempt at deism, my agnosticism, and my well informed atheism. And you know at what point I was most miserable? When I was desperately trying to force myself to believe in a God that I knew didn't exist.

Knowing that I was the only one who could make things better, not some mythical being? That was empowering. It's not perfect and doesn't replace counseling, but it certainly helped.

This is post 41 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Europeans: How does religion in the US look to you?

2011-07-24T02:30:00.001-07:00

I know my European readers are awake now, so I thought I'd target a question toward you. It's the least I can do - I tend to be very US-centric sometimes.

So here's a basic question for a bit of an open forum. How does religion in the US look to you? Does the American atheist movement seem odd, understandable, necessary? How does your particularly country compare to us, or the countries around you in terms of religious belief?

...I guess that was still sort of a US-centric question. Obviously you all must care about our going ons, even though I have no idea what's going on on that side of the world. America, woo.

...Humor me, please. So tired.

This is post 40 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Jen reads her hate mail - Three Ninjas Remix

2011-07-24T02:00:00.000-07:00

This is my new favorite song.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://threeninjas.net/track/airbrush-your-balls-featuring-jen-mccreight"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Airbrush Your Balls (featuring Jen McCreight) by Three Ninjas&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Thanks Jason. I mean, Three Ninjas.

This is post 39 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Q&A Quickfire Part 2!

2011-07-24T01:30:00.000-07:00

LAN bans women to protect them from misogynists

2011-07-24T01:00:00.000-07:00

A LAN party for Battlefield 3 in Texas had this lovely bit of logic in its rules:

Nothing ruins a good LAN party like uncomfortable guests or lots of tension, both of which can result from mixing immature, misogynistic male-gamers with female counterparts. Though we’ve done our best to avoid these situations in years past, we’ve certainly had our share of problems. As a result, we no longer allow women to attend this event.

Yes. To protect the women from misogynistic assholes, we must ban the women. Instead of, you know, banning the misogynistic assholes.

...

That popping sound was my brain exploding.

This is post 37 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

The University of Arizona Med School adds Integrative Medicine

2011-07-24T00:30:00.000-07:00

From UA's website (emphasis mine):

The track will focus on integrative medicine – healing-oriented medicine that takes into account the whole person (mind, body and spirit), including all aspects of lifestyle. IM emphasizes the therapeutic relationship and makes use of appropriate therapies, both complementary and alternative, seamlessly blending conventional medical training with other modalities for disease prevention and to better trigger the body's innate healing response.

"Preventive medicine is a crucial part of a medical professionals' training and is often minimalized in conventional medical training," said Dr. Andrew Weil, center founder and director. "Receiving this additional training early in their career will give UA College of Medicine students an advantage in their residency and practice and a more comprehensive set of skills for treating and communicating with their patients."

Enrollment in the IM Distinction Track will be open to first- and second-year medical students at the UA College of Medicine-Tucson beginning with the fall 2011 semester.

It will require participation in the center's month-long integrative medicine elective rotation, attendance at grand rounds presentations and patient conferences, monthly special-topics lectures, facilitation of a "healer's art" course, completion of more than 30 hours of online courses, a capstone paper suitable for publication and an oral exam.

I have nothing to add other than what David Gorski of Science Based Medicine said at TAM9: "Integrative medicine integrates quackery with real medicine."

This is post 36 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Tall women more likely to get cancer, study finds

2011-07-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

From CNN:

Researchers followed 1.3 million middle-aged women in the United Kingdom for several years, and found the risk of cancer increased by about 16% for every 4 inches or 10 centimeters of increased height.

But the question remains, why?

According to Jane Green, a clinical epidemiologist at Oxford University and the lead author of the study, the tallest group – women 5 feet 9 or taller – were 37% more likely to develop cancer than the shortest group – women 5 feet and shorter- regardless of factors such as age, socioeconomic status, body-mass index and amount of physical activity.

There were 97,376 incidents of cancers reported among the women, and height related increases were greatest for the following: colon, malignant melanoma, breast, endometrial, kidney, central nervous system, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and leukemia.

The study did not investigate what specifically about height led to the increased risk, but the research add to other studies that have found a link between cancer and height. The study authors aren't sure what exactly increases the cancer risk, but they believe there are several theories that warrant more investigation.

For one, the authors propose that “taller people have more cells, and thus a greater opportunity for mutations leading to malignant transformation.”

Another possible culprit: Hormone levels resulting from insulin-like growth factors both in childhood and in adult life.“

Growth hormones increase cell growth and rate of division, and inhibit cell death,” Green explained in an email. “Both of these might be relevant to cancer either directly or perhaps just by increasing the number of cell divisions during which mutations can occur in the cell DNA.”

John: I thought that was because the cancer cloud hangs approximately 5 feet 10 inches off of the ground.

Well, add that to the List of Reasons Jen is Totally Going to Get Cancer, after family history, repeated terrible blistering sunburns, getting your first period before age 12, biology labwork, and hours of unintentionally inhaling lots of art supply fumes in confined spaces, and being alive.

Weeeeeeeeee!

This is post 35 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Different types of polyamory

2011-07-23T23:30:00.000-07:00

A lot atheists automatically think of Mormonism and Islam when you mention "polyamory." It tends to conjure up images of oppressed women being forced into unwanted marriages with little say. That or HBO television shows.

But that's really polygamy, which isn't quite the same of polyamory. Polyamory is focused on love and consent. Though I'm not personally interested in it, plenty of people are much happier being in relationships with multiple people at the same time.

And I have no idea what the point of this post was other than clarifying that point. ...So. Yep.

Are any of you in a polyamorous relationship? What sort of reactions have you had from the atheist community? From religious communities? Are there any frustrations you typically run into?

This is post 34 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Jen reads her hate mail

2011-07-23T23:00:00.000-07:00

For your viewing pleasure, inspired by the similar video Richard Dawkins did (though I lack the awesome accent):

This is post 33 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Harry Potter and Skeptical Thinking

2011-07-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

I already talked a bit about why it's okay to like fantasy stories like Harry Potter even when you're a skeptic. But I'll go one step further - Harry Potter has a lot of great skepticism in it.

Think about it. Even though their world is based on magic, they have their own version of supernatural, pseudoscience crap - basically everything that Luna Lovegood and her dad believe in. Most magical people easily accept unicorns and dragons and nifflers, but Crumple Horned Snorkaks? Ridiculous.

And Hermione is a wonderful skeptic. Just look at this quote from the 7th book about the Deathly Hallows:

"But that's - I'm sorry but that's completely ridiculous! How can I possibly prove it doesn't exist? Do you expect me to get hold of - of all the pebbles in the world and test them? I mean you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody proved it
doesn't exist!"

Hermione just destroyed all Christian apologetics. ...Too bad the Deathly Hallows actually existed. *cough*

...I know I originally had more examples, but my memory is starting to go. If anyone has any other skeptical Harry Potter examples, feel free to leave them in the comments.

This is post 32 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Bill O'Reilly is a misogynistic moron

2011-07-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

What's new, right? Here's what Bill had to say about the recent recommendation that birth control be subsidized:

"Many women who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex. They're not going to use birth control anyway."

Yep. Women only get pregnant because they're drunk sluts who don't care about birth control.

...I don't even have to say anything else, do I?

This is post 31 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

How effective are energy drinks?

2011-07-23T21:30:00.000-07:00

This is a question I'm pondering more and more as the night goes on. Last night when I was preparing for Blogathon, I asked people for energy drink recommendations since I usually don't try them. While recommendations for everything under the sun rolled in, a couple people remarked that most energy drinks rely on pseudoscientific claptrap, false advertisement, and placebo effects.

First of all, screw you for ruining my potential placebo effect when I need it the most.

But I am a skeptic, and this was a topic I had never really given much thought to. How many energy drinks are based on BS? Are they really anything more than caffeine and sugar?

From a cursory googling, the answer seems to be "probably not." One psychology professor at Vanderbilt says that a peanut butter sandwich with orange juice would have just as much effect as a bottle of 5-Hour Energy, and probably be way healthier for you. Most of the random ingredients in this kind of stuff haven't been shown to actually increase energy at all - it's mostly just caffeine.

Taurine? Ginseng? Milk thistle? Homophobia? What the hell did you guys recommend I buy? Boo hiss!

But I admit, I haven't done a lot of research into this, nor am I going at this moment. If anyone's more informed, please enlighten us in the comments!

This is post 30 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

A guest appearance

2011-07-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

Jason: *starts chatting on Google video chat*

Me: Who's that? I didn't give you permission to chat with anyone.

Jason: Don't you recognize his voice?

John: Who's that?

Me: That's Hemant! ...From Friendly Atheist?

John: Never heard of him.

Me: Ouch.

Hemant: I'm going to go back to taking off my shirt now, bye.

No, there's really not more context than that.

This is post 29 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

How to cure feminism

2011-07-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

According to the purported manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik, who recently confessed to being responsible for the Norway killings:

1. Limit the distribution of birth-control pills (contraceptive pills): Discourage the use of and prevent liberal distribution of contraceptive pills or equivalent prevention methods. The goal should be to make it considerably more difficult to obtain. This alone should increase the fertility rate by 0,1 points but would degrade women's rights.

2. Reform sex education: Reform the current sex education in our school institutions. This may involve limiting it or at least delaying sex education to a later age and discourage casual sex. Sex should only be encouraged within the boundaries of marriage. This alone should increase the fertility rate by 0,1 points.

3. Making abortion illegal: A re-introduction of the ban on abortion should result in an increased fertility rate of approximately 0,1-0,2 points but would strip women of basic rights.

4. Women and education: Discourage women in general to strive for full time careers. This will involve certain sexist and discriminating policies but should increase the fertility rate by up to 0,1-0,2 points.

Women should not be encouraged by society/media to take anything above a bachelor's degree but should not be prevented from taking a master or PhD. Males on the other hand should obviously continue to be encouraged to take higher education - bachelor, master and PhD.

He's right. Want to control women? Reduce them to baby making machines.

(Side note: Why is it still okay for women to get PhDs? ...Why am I trying to use logic to analyze something like this?)

The really scary part? While people while be eager to dismiss this as the crazed ravings of a madman, these are the exact tactics the religious right is using in the United States. And that's a hell of a lot more than one person.

(Via Pharyngula)

This is post 28 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat did I just watch?

2011-07-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

I know it's only 8pm, but why wait until 3am for surrealist insanity?

...WTF, Japan. WTF.

It's all downhill from here, folks.

This is post 27 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

"Men should have veto power over abortions; Women should be held criminally liable if they refuse"

2011-07-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

Put on your rage hats, folks. This one's a doozy.

Keith Ablow - psychiatrist, psychological thriller author, and Fox News personality - thinks that not only should men have veto power over abortions, but women who ignore said veto should be held criminally responsible. Why? Take it away, Keith.

I have limited the scope of my argument intentionally, in order to focus on what I consider to be a question that puts fairness front and center: If a man has participated in creating a new life and is fully willing to parent his child (independently, if necessary), why should he not have any control over whether that life is ended?

Because I man doesn't have to carry said child for nine months. When we achieve the technology to remove a fetus and put it in a mechanical womb chamber, then we can have the discussion on paternal input.

We are ignoring the quiet message that current abortion policy conveys to every American male: You have no voice in, and, therefore, no responsibility for, the pregnancies which you help to create. Your descendants are disposable, at the whim of the women you choose to be intimate with.

Or maybe you should know if a woman is pro-choice or not before you stick your penis in her, and if it's so goddamn important to you, then don't stick your penis in her. A mindblowing proposal, I know.

Giving would-be fathers a lack of veto power over abortions is connected psychologically to the epidemic of absentee fathers in this country. We can’t, on the one hand, be credible in bemoaning the number of single mothers raising their children, while, on the other hand, giving men the clear message that bringing new lives to the planet is the exclusive domain, and under the exclusive control, of women.

Whether stated or not, the underlying message of withholding from men their proper rights to father the children they create is that they are not proper custodians, nor properly responsible, for their children.

The notion that there is no emotional injury done men by depriving them of decision-making power as to whether the children they father are aborted is naïve.

Just in my own practice of psychiatry, I have listened to dozens of men express lingering, sometimes intense, pain over abortions that proceeded either without their consent, or without them having spoken up about their desires to bring their children to term and parent them.

Should we really continue to give men the clear message that that they should deny, and that we have no regard for, their feelings about the unrealized lives of their potential sons and daughters?

Isn’t it interesting that we don’t generally even ask fathers how they are feeling in the days leading to abortions, nor in their aftermath? We don’t even ask how they are feeling in the aftermath of abortions of fetuses who have reached the second trimester, even if they have been seen by their fathers during ultrasound imaging. Aren’t we at risk of suggesting that we don’t much care how they feel?

Men haven’t been taught that they should consider the lives they help create as their responsibility from conception (other than providing financially for the child if born), but I believe those lives are their responsibility. And I believe that with that responsibility ought come certain rights.

Citation needed.

I understand that adopting social policy that gives fathers the right to veto abortions would lead to presently unknown psychological consequences for women forced to carry babies to term. But I don’t know that those consequences are greater than those suffered by men forced to end the lives of their unborn children.

Um, actually, the consequences aren't unknown, because we have data from thousands of years of women not being able to have abortions. We've historically been nothing more than baby incubators, and that's exactly what you want to return to. And you know what happens when women are forced to carry babies to term? They still try to get back alley abortions, and women die.

Adult humans dying. Kind of more important than emotional consequences or the abortion of some cells that don't have feelings or memories or dreams.

And I am absolutely certain that no woman needs to become pregnant who wishes not to become pregnant. Women taking full responsibility for their sexual activity and their bodies would mean that no woman would face the prospect of being compelled to bring a child to term.

But men can't take responsibility for their sexual activity by choosing to have sex with someone who's anti-choice. Because that would restrict men's ability to have sex freely, when this issue is really about punishing women who have sex.

Seriously, if this paragraph doesn't illustrate that mindset, I don't know what will. In what world do we live in that we force people to suffer through all negative consequences instead of trying to alleviate them when possible? If you go skiing, you know there's a chance you might break your leg. If it happens do we scream "WELL YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE GONE SKIING, SUFFER THROUGH IT!"?

No, we let you go to the fucking doctor.

It’s time to give men their due as fathers—from the moment of conception. Allow men who want to be fathers, and who could be good parents, to compel the women they impregnate to bring their children to term.

Because a man's feelings are more important than control over your own body. Hear that, ladies?

Look, I do think open communication is important in relationships, and that serious issues like abortion should at least be discussed before making a decision. That's assuming a healthy relationship, and not cases of rape, incest, abuse, etc where the woman's disclosure may put her at risk. But we can't ignore the fact that there's a biological difference here - women carry children, men do not. That's why the final decision ultimately lands in the hands of the woman, even if it does cause some distress to men. There's absolutely no reason to give a man veto power other than the patriarchal idea that men deserve control over women.

I wish I didn't have to explain this, but anti-choice and anti-women sentiments are rapidly growing in the US. A fact more terrifying than any of this guy's novels.

This is post 26 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Skepticism & fiction

2011-07-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

A reader asks,

How can you be ok with all the shiny-afterlife-awaits-you and stuff in Harry Potter?

...Because it's fiction? Seriously, it's a fantasy novel that's full of magic, dragons, unicorns, giants, goblins, ghosts, elves, pixies, potions, charms, hexes, teleportation, and soul splitting... and you're worried about the concept of the afterlife? You could suspend disbelief for all of that, but not one vaguely religious concept?

Dude. Come on.

Sorry, but it's a pet peeve of mine when skeptics are so skeptical that they can't even enjoy fiction. Okay, maybe you just don't like fiction. But how do you not understand that lots and lots of people do enjoy fiction without eliminating their skepticism? We can watch a movie while still knowing it's just actors and special effects. Humans love telling and hearing stories - that doesn't mean we have to literally believe everything within them.

And I wouldn't talk about this if it was a one off question. I hear this view quite frequently. Heck, at TAM8 Richard Dawkins spent a good portion of his interview talking about how he didn't like fiction because he thought reading fantasy novels as a child contributed to irrational thinking.

Bah humbug. In my case, it was the complete opposite. I knew that The Witches, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or Harry Potter, or Greek mythology were all just stories. That's exactly why when I heard about the Bible, I immediately recognized it as just another story. Fiction doesn't erode at skepticism - it can enforce it!

So, boo hiss. Let me enjoy Harry Potter in peace without overanalyzing the religious aspects. I don't give a damn if they celebrate Christmas when people are able to magically turn into cats.

This is post 25 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

What makes men gay?

2011-07-23T18:30:00.000-07:00

The final top donor request (the rest didn't request a topic):

"blog about this"

Since this is from a friend and not a stranger, I can safely say this: I hate you for making me read a scientific paper and review it during Blogathon. Hate. So much hate.

But you have my word, so I'll do it. Onto the science!

A lot of people like to ask the question "What makes men gay?" It's pretty clear it's not a willy-nilly lifestyle choice, but scientists still aren't really sure what the biology behind homosexuality actually is. Is it genetic? Hormonal?

Research on the latter is what a recent review article in the journal Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology summarized. You probably heard about the starting premise, since it received a lot of attention in the media. A study in 1996 found that gay men had a greater number of older brothers than heterosexual men. This is known as the "fraternal birth order" (FBO) effect, and has been replicated in many studies. It's independent of potentially confounding variables like year of birth, age, socioeconomic status, and parental age. Non-biological siblings had no effect on sexual orientation.

The main hypothesis for why you see this pattern is known as the maternal immune hypothesis. Just like your body mounts an immune response against bacteria or ill-matched transplants, moms may develop an immune reaction against a male specific protein that's present during development. Those proteins are normal for a male fetus, but a mother's body still recognizes them as foreign. The immune response may then alter parts of the brain associated with male specific proteins like the anterior hypothalamus, which has also been linked to sexual orientation.

Recent research is finding more and more support for this hypothesis. One study showed that mothers of boys do develop an immune response to H-Y antigen, which is a protein expressed in the brain that is important in male fetal development. This immune response becomes stronger and stronger with each son a mother has.

This isn't a totally crazy hypothesis. This exact thing happens in terms of blood type:

A medical model for a maternal immune response underlying the FBO effect is Hemolytic Disease of the Newborn (HDN). When a mother does not have the Rh factor in her blood (i.e., a mother is Rh negative), after gestating and giving birth to an Rh positive (Rh +) fetus, she may mount an immune response against the Rh factor. This immune response may affect subsequent Rh + fetuses, potentially attacking their red blood cells and causing anemia. The likelihood of an immune response becomes increasingly likely with each Rh + fetus a mother gestates.

There's a problem though. H-Y antigen isn't just produced in the brain - it's also expressed in the gonads. Homosexual and heterosexual men don't have any major difference in terms of gonads or fertility. Is there a way that the immune response would only effect H-Y proteins in the brain, but not in the gonads?

Possibly. Mice testes can develop without H-Y. And male gonads don't reach maturity until puberty, so maybe a maternal immune response wouldn't affect sperm too much.

The most compelling point is that there are three different forms of H-Y protein. It's possible that the different forms are localized in different tissues, with only the one in the brain being targeted by the maternal immune response. However, there's currently no information on where different forms of H-Y protein are localized.

Despite all of this evidence, this still doesn't provide an actual mechanism. There's a big gap between "increased immune response" to "homosexual behavior." What are all of the steps in between? And is H-Y the only male specific protein that a maternal immune response targets? Probably not, but more research still needs to be done.

So do we definitively know what's going on yet? Not quite. But feel free to slap homophobes with some science the next time you hear "lifestyle choice."

And there goes all of the Blogathoon buffer time I had built up. Curses!

This is post 24 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Harry Potter and the end of my childhood

2011-07-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't squeed about the final Harry Potter movie yet, so...why not.

(Obviously, spoilers below)

Typing "final" is odd for me. The end of Harry Potter oddly marks the end of my childhood. Well, maybe not so oddly. I read my first Harry Potter book when I was in 6th grade. I was Harry's age - 11. After that, every time I read a new book, I was the age of Harry. It slipped a bit at the end when Rowling took more time to write the later books (I was 19 when Harry was 17), but it oddly marked my own childhood.

So seeing the last movie was bittersweet. I grew up having escapist fantasies about Hogwarts, like many kids in my generation. And the books do end on a more adult note, what with everyone dying and Harry finally stopping to be a whiny emo kid.

But the "sweet" part of bittersweet was so worth it. I saw the final movie at midnight in Vegas sitting next to Greta Christina - how does it get any better than that? And we saw it in 3D, complete with my Ravenclaw shirt and Harry Potter shaped 3D glasses:

As for the movie itself, I have one thing to say:

Omfg Snape.

Snape has always been one of my favorite characters. I was defending him from the beginning - I knew he wasn't simply evil, it was too simple. And Alan Rickman was one of my favorite actors long before he became Snape. So to finally let Rickman show his full acting potential - holy crap. Seeing Snape do the tiny smile as he's dying? Who was cutting onion in the movie theater?!

Seriously, I cried like a baby every time Snape was on the screen. The flashback?! Waterfalls. Do you know how hard it is to surreptitiously wipe your eyes while wearing 3D glasses? I don't even know why I was trying to be surreptitious, people were obviously crying in the theater.

...Of course, there could be a movie of Alan Rickman reading the phone book and it would still be awesome, so...

The other highlight of the movie had to be Neville being a fucking badass. I have to give kudos to the movie for making you think he might not get his moment - they made you think someone else was going to kill Nagini a bunch of times. I would have raged if the most badass part of the 7th book didn't make it to the screen, but thankfully it did. Props to Matthew Lewis for the superb acting.

Speaking of Neville...forgive me, but when did Matthew Lewis suddenly get super, super hot?

...yet another sign we're all growing up.

Though it was oddly appropriate ending my childhood in Vegas. After the credits I turned to Greta and said, "Alright, time for the hookers and blow."

Goodbye, Harry Potter!

This is post 23 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Q&A Quickfire!

2011-07-23T17:30:00.000-07:00

Blogathon is pretty much the one time a year I check my ancient formspring.me account. So here's a quickfire answering some random questions from the last 12 months:

Have you ever played any Pen and Paper RPG's if so, which?

I've played Dungeons & Dragons twice after my friends guilted me to no end. The first time was mainly spent drawing up character sheets for 4 hours. The second time two of the guys in the group spent the whole time trying to have their characters rape mine. IT WAS A BLAST!

Now you know why I only played D&D twice.

How do you sleep?

Actually, quite crappily. It usually takes me a long time to fall asleep, and I'll wake up a couple of times every night. I used to sleep walk when I was a little kid, so maybe that has something to do with it.

How do you play on clue Plum, White, Green, Peacock, Scarlet, Mustard

Pfft, Scarlet, no question. Professor Plum if she's taken. Yes, it totally matters.

Would you rather have sex with Ronald McDonald or the Kool-Aid man?

Oh god, terrifying clown or someone obnoxiously yelling "Oh yeeeaaaah" the whole time? ..Ronald McDonald. I can close my eyes; it's harder to close my ears.

Custard cream or bourbon biscuit?

I don't even know what either of these things are. Is this British? Is this like spotted dick? Heh heh heh, spotted dick.

finish this sentence "kids these days..."

...will in ten years be complaining about kids these days.

If you have any additional random mindless questions, feel free to leave them in the comments so I have something to blog about at 3am, haha.

This is post 22 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

A new religious type of RNA discovered?

2011-07-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

The backstory, from reader Arctic Ape, a Finnish graduate student:

Adjacent pic is from a whiteboard in a student clubroom at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry (or, as we call it, "Wood & Weed Science"). Someone had drawn a crude chart of plant floral induction pathway and another(?) person had made some additions, including labeling "mRNA" as "missionary RNA". I thought your readers might want to explain in comments what exactly is "missionary RNA" :)

Missionary RNA...I wonder what it does? Maybe this is the mechanism behind gene conversion *ba dum ching* (For the non-biologists, the correct label is "messenger RNA")

I loved Arctic Ape's PS:

(By the way, almost all our student clubs are curriculum-related, but we're still mostly not huge nerds. For example, the rest of the whiteboard featured a poop joke in Finnish.)

Poop jokes: A universal staple in graduate student humor.

This is post 21 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

An intro to the neutral theory of evolution

2011-07-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

From a top donor:

"I'd like you to write a blog entry (primer) about neutral theory aimed at the layperson."

Okay, I'm not going to lie. I've been secretly hoping someone would bump this question out of the top ten, mainly because neutral theory is kind of boring and vaguely confusing and hard enough to explain while using biology buzzwords. It's even harder to explain when you only have 30 minutes to write about it and it's supposed to be targeting non-biologists. When I shared this question with some fellow genetics grad students, the general response was "Ewwwww."

But I will try my best!

When most people think about evolution, they think of adaptations. Something in the environment puts selective pressure on a certain trait, and organisms with that trait are more "fit" (reproduce more). For example, rabbits that live in snowy climates are more likely to survive (and reproduce) if they have white fur that helps them blend into the snow. If a mutation randomly arises that make their fur white, or just lighter, that rabbit has an advantage over the other rabbits - the dark brown ones are going to be the first ones that are eaten.

There are lots of examples of adaptive evolution through natural selection, and people know them more because they make good stories. The most famous example of evolution, Darwin's finches, is a case of adaptive evolution.

But not all evolution takes place because of natural selection. Evolution is at its simplest defined as the change in allele frequencies over time. That's where neutral theory comes in. Neutral theory states that most evolutionary changes are the result of random drift of neutral mutants.

Buzzwords buzzwords, I know. So let's take it one step at a time and pretend that we're looking at a population of unicorns (if we're pretending, might as well pretend all the way).

Alleles are just two different forms of a gene. Genes are usually hundreds or thousands of basepairs long, but let's pretend we're zooming in on three bases in a gene for fur color. If you have the sequence AAA, your fur is white. But if you have AAG, your fur is pink. AAA and AAG are different alleles.

Now let's say all of the unicorns start as AAA, and then from mutation you get a unicorn who's AAG. Being pink has no effect on the unicorn. He's not more likely to get eaten, he doesn't live longer, he doesn't have more luck with lady unicorns. It's a "neutral" mutation because it doesn't change the unicorn's fitness.

That's where random drift comes in. Drift simply refers to the frequency of one allele changing due to random chance. That is, nothing is selecting for pinkness. Maybe that unicorn just happened to have more offspring. Maybe the population underwent a bottleneck and was reduced to just a few unicorns, the pink one happened to survive, and now his pinkness will make up a larger percentage of the population. Maybe a couple of unicorns, including the pink one, happened to get isolated on one side of a river, so that side eventually had a lot of pink unicorns, while the other has a lot of white ones. Through random chance alone, a neutral mutation can grow to high frequency or even reach 100% (what biologists call "becoming fixed in a population.")

When you get into the mathematics, you assume that random neutral mutations occur at the same rates across individuals. This is how biologists get things like "molecular clocks" where they can tell when two species diverged from each other.

...And I have no idea if that made any sense, but I'm out of time. You have all now been exposed to (a shoddy summary of) evolutionary theory, congratulations. If anyone would like to explain further or correct me in the comments, please do so!

This is post 20 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

My blogging persona

2011-07-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

From the mailbag:

"We all act a little differently online, as opposed to RL. Are you meaner, nicer, wittier, sillier, or more verbose in RL than in online venues?"

I certainly do have a blogging persona. I don't craft something on purpose - communicating via written word to a general audience simply has a different effect than talking in person with an individual. I think this is true of a lot of bloggers. The most popular example is how vicious, rude, scathing PZ Myers is actually a soft spoken teddy bear in person (don't deny it PZ!).

So there are definitely ways that act differently. I'm actually an introvert, which a lot of people have a hard time believing. I think that's partially because most people don't know what introversion means. It doesn't mean I'm shy - it means being around people drains me, and I need time to myself to recharge. I love conferences, but by the end I usually need to sporadically hide in my room and avoid talking to people. It's challenging being "on" all the time.

I think that's probably the biggest misconception - that I'm always "on." I'm not witty and insightful 100% of the time. Hell, that's not even true here. But at least my blog has a certain level of curation. Shockingly, I don't generally post my stupid ideas or unfunny jokes. But in person there's a lot less time to think up something profound, so I think I'm disappointingly derpy a lot of the time.

I'm also a lot less confrontational in person, which is probably true of most people. The internet gives people courage, often the courage to say a lot of stupid crap they would never say to someone's face. But I balk at saying even some of the non-stupid stuff. I hate getting into verbal debates - not to avoid pissing people off, but because I suck at them. Again, I'm much more intelligent when writing. You don't want to invite me to debate someone because I'll get tongue tied.

Other than that...many people have told me I was a lot taller than they expected, haha. I TOWER ABOVE YOU PUNY ATHEISTS! Or something.

If you've met me in person, are there any other things that are different between "in person" Jen and "blogger" Jen?

This is post 19 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Norweigan massacre vs. Amy Whinehouse

2011-07-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

Let's see how some of the major news websites shape up:

Yahoo and CNN, I am disappoint.

This is post 18 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Coopting the Norweigan terrorist attacks for Islamophobia

2011-07-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around how much of a tragedy the Norway terrorist attacks are. 92 people are confirmed dead, 85 of which are youth ages mostly between the ages of 16 and 22. They were at a camp trained to foster future leaders of Norway. Many jumped into the water in an attempt to escape the shooter's indiscriminate bullets, many to no avail.

What human being does something like that?

But instead of mourning this tragedy, the American media is already falling all over itself to blame Those Evil Muslims. Unsurprisingly, Fox News was one of the first to claim that the horrifying terrorist attacks in Norway were by Muslim extremists. This is despite the fact that the main suspect that's in custody is a right wing extremist, fundamentalist Christian, and Islamophobe.

And if that's not enough? The O'Reilly Factor directly juxtaposed the Norwegian attacks with the legal victory of the Park 51 New York City Islamic Center.

Wow, how subtle.

It's despicable how the media turns a tragedy into an exercise in irrational finger pointing. There are plenty of rational, fact-based reasons to criticize Islam - fabricating connections to every terrorist attacks is not one of them.

But the other annoying point? When it's an Islamic extremist, the attacker is a religious terrorists. When we find out it's really a Christian extremist, he's suddenly a madmen who doesn't represent other members of that faith.

Double standard much?

My thoughts go out to all of the people of Norway. If I have any Norweigan readers, I hope you and your families and friends are safe.

This is post 17 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Translating apartment hunting lingo

2011-07-23T14:30:00.001-07:00

I've spent the last month trawling craigslist for a 2 bedroom apartment in Capitol Hill. Yes, my escape from the Apartment From Hell is nigh! While I haven't found a replacement yet, I've learned a lot about what the various lingo on apartment ads really mean:

"Cozy" = Tiny
"Old world charm" = Ancient and falling apart
"Homey" = Ugly, probably wood paneling
"Basement" = I hope you're under 6 foot tall and don't have seasonal depression
"Near the bustling..." = Noisy
"Parking available on street" = Parking never available
"Unbeatable prices" = First floor apartment that will get broken into / Next to a fire station / Someone was murdered here
"Great location" = If you don't leave the two block radius around your place
"Near Capitol Hill" = A 20 minute bus ride from Capitol Hill
"Beautiful" = Not in your price range

And if it seems perfect in every way...the landlord is probably crazy.

This is post 16 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

I've relocated!

2011-07-23T14:00:00.001-07:00

The last two blogathons I was trapped in my apartment because I only had a desktop. Thankfully I have a laptop now so I'm free, free! I built up enough buffer time with posts that I was able to grab lunch at Ranchos Bravos (yes, mentioning it in an earlier post made me crave it). Now I'm settling into the corner of the awesome little coffee shop by my place:

That drink is the reason I keep coming back here. $2.85 for a large everlasting iced coffee. How is it everlasting, you ask? The ice cubes are made of coffee, so as they melt, you get more coffee instead of a sad watered down drink. And they take a surprisingly long time to melt. Perfect for when someone needs a steady supply of caffeine for many, many hours.

Now the real trick will be to still have buffer time when I need to go back to my place.

This is post 15 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

This is my new favorite blog

2011-07-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

I'm not racist, but...

Because it's good to get a daily dose of how depressing humanity can be. Protip: If you're about to say "I'm not racist, but-" just stop talking. And here's one of my favorite relevant videos:

...Yes this is Blogathon filler so I can build up enough buffer to shower and eat DON'T JUDGE ME.

This is post 14 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Should we make science girl friendly?

2011-07-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

A recent study in the British Journal of Educational Psychology found that using stereotypically feminine examples gets girls more interest in science:

After examining a wide array of science textbooks, University of Luxembourg educational researcherSylvie Kerger concluded that most present real-world examples are “embedded in masculine contexts.” But wrapping scientific subjects — at least initially — around female-friendly topics could kindle interest in scientific fields under-populated by women, Kerger says. Studies have shown that interest counts more than ability toward choosing a major or a career.

[...]Kerger gave 294 eighth- and ninth-grade boys and girls questionnaires asking them whether they would like to study biology, physics, information technology or statistics the following year. Instead of naming these subjects, the questionnaire presented each science through topics found in previous studies to be either male- or female-friendly. “How does a laser read a CD?” was a masculine way to ask about physics, while “how is a laser used in cosmetic surgery?” addressed stereotypical girls’ concerns.

The youngsters rated their interest on a scale from one (not interesting at all) to five (very interesting). Presenting these sciences in a feminine way increased girls’ interest in physics about a half-point, in information technology more than 0.75 of a point and in statistics more than a full point.

But the male-versus-female presentations didn’t affect girls’ interest in biology. (“Watch blood coagulate from a small wound,” appealed to them as much as “reflect on how skin tanning comes about in the summer.”)

“Girls are already very interested” in that science, even when presented in a male-friendly way, says Kerger.

Increasing the girl-friendly content had a predictable effect on boys’ interest. When researchers couched information technology as learning “how to order clothes over the Internet” rather than figuring out “how the inside of the computer is structured,” boys’ interest dampened in that science.

Faced with this zero-sum result, Kerger and her colleagues don’t argue for single-sex classes. This is a cross section, so while some girls aren’t interested in stereotypically feminine topics, they point out, some boys are. The reverse also holds true. So they recommend teachers offer a choice among several modules dealing with the same scientific concepts wrapped around various male- and female-friendly topics.

tl;dr making stereotypically girly science examples increased interest from girls, but decreased interest in boys

I have a couple of concerns before we automatically insert hyperfeminine examples into science textbooks. For one thing, how did they determine that some of these standard examples are "masculine?" What's masculine about reading CDs or blot clotting? Am I just one of those outliers for finding these things way more interesting?

It seems the real problem is that boys and girls are told from an early age what they're allowed to be interested in because of their gender. That's what we should be fighting. We need to destroy the notion that girls can only like science if it's about makeup and that boys can only like science if it's about blowing things up. Pandering to these stereotypes only perpetuates the problem.

But on the flip side, that doesn't mean we have to avoid feminine examples in text books. We shouldn't leave out the science of skin tanning because it seems too girly - it's still a relevant and interesting biological question. There's nothing inherently wrong with femininity, so it shouldn't be excluded.

I can understand the practical desire to get more girls interested in science, but overall this just rubs me the wrong way. Instead of trying to get them with girly things when they're almost in high school, why not cultivate a gender neutral interest when they're even younger? If we fight stereotypes when they're little, it helps both science and equality.

This is post 13 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Why I'm an atheist activist

2011-07-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

Another question from a top donor:

"I'm curious to hear more about how you first got involved with the SSA and/or what it was that made you decide to become an atheist speaker."

I co-founded the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University the summer before my sophomore year. This was after a year of culture shock down at Purdue. I grew up in a part of Indiana that was fairly secular and liberal (yes, it exists!). I wasn't used to being in such a religious environment, where people were constantly trying to recruit and convert me, or would literally run away when they found out I was an atheist. I wanted to make a club that could act as a safe haven for students like me.

But I didn't really know about the SSA when I was getting started. If I recall correctly, they found me. It took our group about a year or so to really utilize their services and realize what a big help they were. When I attended my first SSA conference after two years of running the group, I wished I would have gone sooner. It was so helpful for practical skills like fundraising, getting media attention, event planning, and networking - everything we had learned through two years of annoying trial and error.

After that, I was kind of in love. I realized how great of an organization it was, and I wanted to continue helping out. That's why I ran for the Board of Directors. It's cheesy as hell, but us young people are the future for secularism and rational thought.

As for being an atheist speaker... I think it just accidentally happened. I've always been comfortable giving presentations, and I gave a couple talks for my group. Then I started getting invitations to talk after boobquake exploded. Then I was added to the SSA speaker's bureau. Then CFI's speaker's bureau. Then I started getting invited to major conferences. Then people who saw my talks would go back to their home town and tell their local group to invite me.

And I keep saying yes because, well, they're fun! I basically get to go on little mini vacations to different parts of the US, not to mention talk to a room full of really bright people for a night. How does it get any better than that?

Well...okay, maybe if I got super famous where people would pay me lots of money to do it (...or any money, for that matter). Or if groups in Europe or Australia would invite me. That would be pretty damn cool. (Did you hear that, international readers?!)

But even if that doesn't happen, I'll keep doing it. Like I said, it's a lot of fun - I wouldn't do it if it wasn't. And I think part of my brain considers it a back up plan if the whole academia thing doesn't work out. Which isn't totally unlikely - becoming a professor is hard and partially based on luck, and I'm still not totally sure if that's what I want to do with my life. So might as well enjoy doing what I'm doing now, and maybe it'll help out in the future!

This is post 12 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

The anagram animator

2011-07-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

Reader Jessa just sent me this amusing web app that lets you make animated gifs of anagrams. Her lovely example:

And my personal favorite:

...Dear lord, it's only noon and I'm resorting to butt sex jokes. We're all doomed.

This is post 11 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Solve these critical thinking puzzles, win a prize!

2011-07-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

I love logic puzzles, and a friend showed me some particularly good ones the other day. These are based on puzzles written by the Mathematician from AskAMathematician.com.

If you're the first to get all three of them correct with correct explanations for all of your answers, you'll win a prize! Skepticon will send you either 4 Skepticon pint glasses or 6 Skepticon shot glasses. To be eligible for the prize, include the work "banana" in your comment.

And as a bonus just for fun - these questions were from a larger set of 8, and I included the only question I got wrong. Which one did I mess up on?

Question 1: In front of you are four cards. You know that each card has a photo of a famous person on one side, and a photo of an animal on the other. The four sides that are visible to you are as follows: Ken Ham, Richard Dawkins, a narwhal, and a T-Rex. I let you know that all of these cards follow the same rule - that if a card has a religious person on it's famous person side, it has a dinosaur on its animal side. What's the lowest number of cards you'd need to flip to determine if this rule is true or false for these cards, and which cards would you flip?

Question 2: Because I'm super nice, I give you a giant one hundred pound watermelon as a gift. You determine that this giant watermelon is ninety-nine percent water by weight. Unfortunately you let the watermelon sit out in the sun, and some water evaporates. Now the watermelon is only ninety-eight percent water by weight. To the nearest pound, what does the watermelon now weigh?

Question 3: While you were at TAM9, you decided to suspend skepticism and gamble - specifically, by playing roulette. But since you want to have some sort of strategy, you decide to flip a coin before each bet to decide whether to place a bet on red or on black (which should have a 50/50 chance of happening). Sadly, you lose sixty seven times in a row - that is, the ball always lands on the opposite color that you pick. If you turned your skepticism back on, it would be most rational to think:

A. You just have shitty luck

B. It's terrible strategy to flip a coin to pick what color to bet on in roulette

C. You should keep up this strategy because you've really likely to win the next bet

D. The roulette table is obviously broken, but you can't assume that's intentional

E. The casino or the staff are dirty crooks who have rigged the game against you somehow

F. You can't reasonably decide which of the listed options are more likely

Good luck!

EDIT: Katie from Skepticon adds:

"Keep posting! Even if someone has already given your response, I'm strongly considering a small consolation prize (for the first 10 correct folks), so it's in your best interest to post. Unless you don't like getting special prezzies in the mail, of course. :)"

This is post 10 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Sarah Palin adds another grandchild to her list of hypocrisy

2011-07-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

She's against comprehensive sex education. She's against contraceptives being available in schools. She cut funding for a program that helps teen mothers. She set up her daughter - who admitted abstinence is not realistic after having a child of her own - to be a spokesperson for abstinence, making hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process.

And now? She has another out of wedlock grandchild on the way:

In a not so surprising turn-of-events, the news that Sarah's son Track is expecting a baby with his wife Britta was just released Thursday.

Pictures of the new bride posted on Facebook show that she is rather obviously expecting, while her marriage took place just two months ago.

The quick ceremony prompted many to ask whether Britta was pregnant, but supporters of conservative Sarah became extremely upset, continuing to argue that the new couple was not expecting. It certainly seemed like a shot-gun wedding, and today it was finally confirmed that the pregnancy came before the marriage.

You know, I wouldn't give a flying diddly about this if Palin wasn't trying to shove her beliefs down everyone's throats. I think people should have all the sex they want regardless of their marital status, and that said status shouldn't matter if you want to have a child.

It's one thing to force abstinence only education on the public when study after study has shown it to be ineffective. When you're anti-science like Palin, I can understand that things like facts wouldn't change your mind. But when you can't even use your method effectively in your own family, you think that would be a sign that maybe this shit doesn't work.

But you know what I think is the really scary part of this story? That it's more important to have shot gun weddings to save face instead of using a fucking condom. You're going to make a life commitment to someone because you accidentally knocked them up? Really? And these are the same people arguing about sanctity of marriage. The same people who won't let same sex couples who love each other get married.

Yep, that's a great system of morals.

This is post 9 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Amy Winehouse found dead in London home

2011-07-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

Breaking news from the Washington Post:

Winehouse shot to fame with the album “Back to Black,” whose blend of jazz, soul, rock and classic pop was a global hit. It won five Grammys and made Winehouse — with her black beehive hairdo and old-fashioned sailor tattoos — one of music’s most recognizable stars.

Police confirmed that a 27-year-old female was pronounced dead at the home in Camden Square northern London; the cause of death was not immediately known. London Ambulance Services said Winehouse had died before the two ambulance crews it sent arrived at the scene.

Only 27, sheesh. The saddest part is my reaction was "Wait, I thought she had already ODed? She was alive?"

...Don't do drugs*, folks >_>

*At least not the ones that are highly addictive and will mess you up. Moderation is a good thing.

This is post 8 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.