Posts
May 15, 2013
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12:33 PM | What is Natural Selection?
Hurray! There is another video in the “Stated Clearly” collaboration with Bird and Moon Comics explaining evolution! Enjoy. You might also like their earlier video, What is Evolution?
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4:00 AM | When Too Much Help from Parents Hurts
As a parent, how much should you help pay for your child's college education? How much should you help with their homework? The parent-child relationship is based on parent's helping their child. But sometimes parents can help too much. A recent article in the New York Times examines "helicopter parents" and how parents can help so much, that it actually hurts the child.
May 14, 2013
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7:00 PM | AI: War just makes me so uncomfortable
In today’s Quickies, Amanda posted a BBC article about Japan forcing women to serve “comfort” roles for Japanese soldiers during WWII. It’s sick. And the Mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, is unapologetic about it, describing “comfort women” as a necessary need for soldiers. At first I was shocked and horrified. How can you promote and justify sending women on a tour of duty that involves doing nothing but being raped for several years? I’m still […]
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6:39 PM | Will This Look Good on my CV?
This is a question I was asked recently in the context of outreach work (I answered yes), but it applies across the board. For those climbing the academic ladder specifically, it perhaps amounts to ‘does anything other than research count?’ … Continue reading →
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Yessenia of Queereka and SAC City Freethinkers want to help send 10 students to the Secular Student Alliance Conference in Las Vegas this June. Considering how amazing SSA is and the importance of supporting the future of secularism, we want to do whatever we can to help them out. The Skepchick Challenge: If we can raise $2,500 for travel, lodging, and conference fees by June 4, Yessenia will shave her head (and of course post about it, with pics). If you can spare a little cash to help them […]
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This poster created by a pest control company claims to show dangerous American spiders. It is full of bad information. Half of the species on this chart don’t even occur in the USA. Please, don’t share it anymore! Please don’t rely on this chart for meaningful information about American spiders. This chart is the result of a […]
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11:52 AM | Skepchick Quickies 5.14
How “slut-shaming” has been written into dress codes across the country – From Arturo. Japan WWII “comfort women” were necessary, says Osaka mayor – From Michael. Scientology is as bad at Photoshop as it is at not brainwashing people Sexual assault rife in psychiatric hospitals, says Australian report – From Jack99.
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image source: carmenlaffon1.blogspot.comOf course, those of us here at ScienceOfRelationships.com don't need convincing, but a recent article over at The Atlantic details some of the evidence for the claim that relationships matter more than ambition (and all the good things that come with ambition).
Read our related articles on The Need to Belong here, and what types of regrets tend to hit us the hardest here.
May 13, 2013
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5:15 PM | Skepchick Quickies 5.13
On May 13, 1861, John Tebbutt discovered the Great Comet of 1861, which was visible to the naked eye for three months. Scientology Is as Bad at Photoshop as It Is at Not Brainwashing People – From Amy. Churnalism: US Tool for Journalistic Accountability – From Jamie: “You can paste in text from a news article and it searches through press releases for a match (using an algorithm to avoid false positives) so you can easily tell when a news article is actually just a rehashing […]
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4:30 PM | The Fetish For Dialogue
Today on Twitter, Jeff Sharlet (author of great books like The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power ) let loose with some choice words for those who believe that most if not all disagreements can be resolved through dialogue: Harvard Crimson scolds Dartmouth protesters for failing to pursue “dialogue.” Student self-repression.thecrimson.com/article/2013/5… — JeffSharlet (@JeffSharlet) May 13, 2013 The assumption that “dialogue” solves […]
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4:00 PM | Skepchick Auctions: Original Surly Art, Elyse’s Penis, Skepchick Goblet, Custom Cocktail & More
Contrary to MRA mythology, Skepchicks don’t think there’s anything wrong with owning a penis. In fact, this week, you have a chance to own the penis you’ve always dreamed of, custom made to your specifications in MS Paint by El Mofo herself, Elyse Anders. That’s just one of the many items we’ve got up for sale on eBay as part of a new weekly series of auctions hosted by Skepchick Events. This week’s auction proceeds will go toward helping Skepchick Network […]
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Heeeeeeey. I compiled some Skepchick Network posts for you to nosh on. Just some stuff I thought you’d like. NBD. Enjoy. Teen Skepchick Suspension of Disbelief: Iron Man 3 Eddy reviews the latest Tony Stark adventure. Why I Go to the Chiropractor Olivia goes to a chiropractor and she doesn’t care what you think about it. Cultural Attitudes Toward Atheism Beccy explores the differing attitudes toward atheism in Europe and the United States. Mad Art Lab Steampunk Costuming: The […]
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12:14 PM | The second book of Naomi (1994)
I know, it’s out of sequence. I thought it was a bit too flimsy to include. I changed my mind. “I broke up [with my high-school boyfriend] because I figured there must be better guys than this out there. … Continue reading →
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The notion that people prefer similar others is as empirically-validated a research finding as they come in our field (see here, for example). Similar people make us feel better about ourselves, and who doesn’t like somebody that makes us feel better about ourselves? In fact, the preference for similarity is so common that it is considered a general characteristic of the human condition, and it’s not hard to imagine how preferring to hang around similar people, and avoiding
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May 11, 2013
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Reddit user Pyyio posted a brilliant illustration of the difference between the way Redditors treat men and women. This is something that seems obvious to those of us who have been on the site for a long time and have seen the ridiculously fallacious graphic that gets posted to any woman who dares include her face in a photo (see featured image), but this example should clearly spell out the problem for those who are unfamiliar with the social network. Nine months ago, a man posted this […]
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4:01 AM | Jetpack Solves Everything
From swiss-miss.com. Read more about avoidant attachment here.
May 10, 2013
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10:00 PM | Everything Sucks, but Not How You Think
Dave McClure might not be a familiar name in the skeptic community, but he’s pretty well known in tech. A self-described “late bloomer,” he’s a guy who held various software industry jobs before founding the popular accelerator 500 Startups. He blogs and speaks at conferences and the like, typically with eyeball-peelingly bad slides and some foul language to boot. And today, he called a woman a bitch. Or least that’s what it looks like from the Twitter stream for […]
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3:56 PM | Beware Your Bedfellows
Back when I first joined Facebook in 1953 or whatever, I just added anyone who asked to be my friend. At the time, I saw Facebook as an easy opportunity for marketing Skepchick and The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe; a way for fans to hear what was going on and say hi. When I hit 5,000 friends a few years ago, Facebook prevented me from adding anyone else, so I stopped and only added people I knew in real life whenever someone got defriended for randomly posting racist, sexist, or […]
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I've been discussing myths about giving presentations. A lot of myths deal with fear of public speaking. The recommendation to imagine your audience naked or in their underwear or sitting on the commode is meant to allay the speaker's fear of being on stage. Supposedly, a naked audience is less intimidating. Rumor has it that this idea came from Winston Churchill, who used this technique (among others) to overcome his fears of speaking in public (he also apparently recommended that people […]
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11:32 AM | Skepchick Quickies 5.10
West African black rhinos are now extinct – It’s not just people that are harmed by alternative medicine. From Rosaire. Merida from Brave gets an unnecessary makeover – Yes, of course, they sexied her up. From Michael. Texas judge rules cheerleaders can put Bible verses on banners – From Moniqa. Depression, part two – Allie, the creator of the comic/blog Hyperbole and a Half, suffers from depression. Her portrayal of what it’s like to be depressed […]
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Should men go for the clean-shaven look, a full beard, or somewhere in between when trying to attract a woman,? To answer this question, researchers showed heterosexual women and heterosexual men photographs of men with full beards, heavy stubble, light stubble, or cleanly shaven faces. Importantly, the pictures were the same men but with different facial hair styles. Women found heavy stubble more attractive than the other styles. Interestingly, men thought full beards and clean-shaven were
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As someone who takes comfort in reducing highly complex human experiences into single-line mathematical equations, let me share my latest shiny new toy: a formula that predicts the breakup percentage of a given sample of dating folk over a particular period of time.
Isn’t that intriguing?
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1:55 AM | Okay Oregon, it’s time.
Thirteen years ago I moved to Portland from San Francisco. I told myself that I would wait at least ten years before I started venturing into writing about local politics and for the most part I have done so. But dammit, Oregon, it’s about time that we follow the example of 12 other states and legalize marriage equality. Look, we already know that the world isn’t going to end. We already know that babies will still be born, heterosexual couples will still get married, the swallows will […]
May 09, 2013
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Meet Skepchicks, Freethought Bloggers, and tons of special guests at SkepchickCon, the science and skepticism track of CONvergence, a sci-fi/fantasy conference held July 4-7 in the Minneapolis area. If you register by May 15, you pay only $60. That’s it. Sixty bucks gets you access to four freaking days of panels, cosplay, multiple nightly themed parties, interactive workshops, and more. A ton of Skepchick Network contributors will be there, joined by PZ Myers, Stephanie Zvan, and Jason […]
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Yesterday, I posted on twitter and FB that I really “like that Charles Ramsey fellow.” For those of you living under a rock, Charles Ramsey is the man who pried open a door to help kidnap victim Amanda Berry (and ultimately two other women and a young child) escape from a decade long kidnapping ordeal in Cleveland, Ohio that is so completely awful that I don’t even want to write about it and I almost decided to do laundry while simultaneously poking my eyes out instead. But […]
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A recent article in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) by Elizabeth Bernstein, How Often Should Married Couples Have Sex? What Happens When He Says 'More' and She Says 'No', created some controversy. The article focused on Chris and Afton Mower, a heterosexual couple who share the details of their previously sexless marriage. At one point in their relationship, the couple went one year without having sex. The husband, Chris, desired more sex, whereas his wife, Afton, had no interest in sex.
Over time,
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3:30 PM | Politeness as Manipulation: Ray Comfort
In addition to helping fund-raise for the Orange County Freethought Alliance Conference this year, I’ve been a volunteer for the con since its first year and spoke there last year. People who knew I was there asked me if I ran into Ray Comfort. When I’ve told them that I left during the dinner break, they have lamented the fact that I missed out on encountering the infamous Banana Man (he doesn’t like talking about that particular yellow, phallic fruit anymore). The truth […]
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1:09 PM | Skepchick Quickies 5.9
Gender and media video by U of Saskatchewan students – They did a great job flipping the usual gender roles seen in media. See their video at the end of the article. From Angela. Policing their own – A fantastic post from Greta Christina. Read it and Weep: The Mystery Method – That’s right, I had to read a pick up artist book. But, as always, it was a great time ripping it to shreds with the Read it and Weep guys. North Carolina bill requires notarized parental consent […]
May 08, 2013
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6:39 PM | The Viva Experience
I’ve seen a few posts around recently from anxious PhD students approaching their vivas in fear and trepidation or discussing the experience in the immediate aftermath. For instance, here is @hapsci discussing things after the event in a state of … Continue reading →
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5:34 PM | Ender’s Game Film May Not Suck?
Yesterday, the Internet orgasmed with the release of the first trailer for the screen adaptation of Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi classic about a boy who murders things. Here’s the trailer: I’m so glad they used the Inception horn blast. I was scared for a minute that there would be one sci-fi blockbuster that didn’t use the Inception horn blast. As some of you who follow me on Twitter know, I recently read Ender’s Game. To borrow from the late, […]
