skepticism ← Alex Acks: Sound and Nerdery

Pop culture matters, and education, and history, and… 2

Feb

16

2015

On the way to Dallas for ConDFW, I started reading (listening to, actually) The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism. The book is a great read if you want a reminder of how we actually shouldn’t be in the slightest bit surprised about all the gross shit that went down surrounding our invasion of Iraq (we’ve ...

Fracking on the SGU

Mar

7

2012

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe this week (episode #346) has an interview with Gordon Maupin, about fracking. I think Mr. Maupin was very reasonable and it’s definitely a good interview to hear for a calm, measured take on the topic. It would have been nice to hear more discussion of the geological issues, but ...

Wait, don’t be a what?

Jun

21

2011

In preparation for TAM, Daniel Loxton wrote a very interesting (but non-exhaustive) review of occurrences of the “Don’t be a dick” argument in skepticism prior to Phil Plait bringing it up last year. For some reason, it just made me think of things like, “Kids today are so rude” and “We’re worse off now than ...

Creationists at GSA

Jun

16

2011

I didn’t actually go to GSA, even though it was in Denver. Mostly because I didn’t want to cough up the registration fee, and had projects I should be working on besides. And of course, no one I know heard about this at the time, probably because I don’t think people tend to get excited ...

And Then There Was This Skepticamp Thing

May

9

2011

Which I really should have posted about before I went in to full-on Loki fangirling mode yesterday, but what can I say. I must be true to my inner fangirl. Skepticamp Colorado (the sixth?) happened on Saturday, and I made certain to be there from the start. The event was at CU again, though this ...

Climate Change and Plate Tectonics

Apr

15

2011

My awesome mom found the following article on Alternet and sent it to me, with the question “Plausible or wingnutty?” : Scientists Find Link Between Global Warming and Earthquakes At this point, I know better than to accept at face value what an article claims that a scientific paper says, so I set out to ...

Enough With the Zombie Hamburgers 1

Nov

5

2010

A while ago, there was a rash of postings all over the internets about the sinister Happy Meal That Would Not Die or the utterly disturbing McDonald’s hamburger that had been preserved since, I don’t know, the last ice age or something. The conclusion of the woman with the ancient hamburger is: Ladies, Gentleman, and ...

Learning from the LGBT movement

Aug

7

2010

Friendly Atheist has posted the speech that Greta Christina gave at the Secular Student Alliance conference. It’s an hour long, but it’s definitely an hour well spent. While her focus is on the atheist movement taking lessons from the LGBT movement, I think a lot of what she says is extremely applicable to the skeptic ...

The Diversity of Skeptical Thought 6

Jul

13

2010

There was something of a theme at TAM 8, an informal one I think. A few of the speakers have said some tough things, and I think that they were very necessary. Massimo Pigliucci had a few words to say about the occasional hubris of skeptics. Carol Tavris talked about why people believe the way ...

PZ wants opinions from us womens 2

Jun

30

2010

At Pharyngula: the Woman Problem It’s actually very refreshing to see someone from the male half of the species asking this question and requesting opinions. From a feminist standpoint, I’ve long considered PZ to be an ally to the cause (and a feminist himself) so he hasn’t disappointed me here. I already voiced my opinion ...

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