Skepticism
Skepchick Quickies 9.4
- Bill Donohue vs. Penn & Teller – Because Penn & Teller are total Nazis, right.
- Health warning: Exercise makes you fat – Or so the media has been proclaiming recently, based on the results of a couple studies. Ben Goldacre finds some flaws in the argument.
- “The disappearing male” – Harriet Hall responds to a CBC documentary by that name.
- 72-year-old former Olympian subdues teenage burglars – Dawn Fraser also credits her titanium knee with helping her defeat her attackers.
- Cute Animal Friday! What’s a pudu? Answer: pure cuteness.  Behold the unholy allegiance of Autotune and kitties. And you have to love the interspecies lurvefest of a kitty and a fennec fox.
- http://grassrootsskeptics.org/ – In conjunction with Dragon*Con 2009’s SkepTrack, Grassroots Skeptics is unveiling their official website today, September 4. Be on the lookout for event updates, and contact [email protected] for any additions to the listings.
Go, Bionic Granny!
I wonder if the “Six Million Dollar Man” theme song played as she kneed the the attacker in the groin in slow motion. You’d never see Lee Majors doing that…
Even if “The Disappearing Male” had any basis in fact, with a population close enough to 7 billion that you can round up without very many people calling you on it, I can think of a lot of things that are a more likely threat to the survival of the species than a decreasing sex ratio.
Hmmm… Maybe this will lead to new opportunities for those of us who still shoot good ammo.
@Peregrine: This has been in and out of the news for close to thirty years. Harriet Hall has a good break-down on this in her post at SBM:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=1122
Boy, I’m an idiot… Forgot that was the original post. Gotta stop posting at work…
If the water in the pool was warmer, you wouldn’t have to worry about the disappearing male.
Reading the article on exercising making you fat, I wonder if the reporter writing that bothers differentiating between gaining weight and gaining *fat*. Because when you first start exercising after being sedentary, you’re going to *gain* weight, but *lose* fat. Because you’re, y’know, building *muscle* with that exercise.
You know, I don’t remember The Telegraph ever being accused of getting the story right. That’s not their MO.
Isn’t it obvious why males are on the decline?
Mother Nature was actually Father Nature. He discriminated against women, by having more men being born. He had gone on vacation, so his wife has taken over.
Hell, Skepotter, I’d rather like a decreasing sex ratio. I gotta look good somehow, since apparently I can’t not exercise my way to hotness. I’ll take looking good compared to someone who doesn’t exist. ;-)
Men aren’t necessary. Women can just clone themselves.
And, in addition to the joys of copy degradation, lose the benefits of sex to the individual and the species.
72-year-old Subdues Attacker
Hehe. Love it!
As to where the males have gone? I’s ri-cheer!
On the ass-kicking granny… didn’t we see something similar to this a few months ago? Something like a former boxing champion beating the crap out of his neighbor when the guy broke in?
@JOHNEA13: Aha! I think you’re on to something here — The women are conspiring to make men infertile so THEY don’t have to worry about birth control any more, and can simply clone themselves when they want babies.
You don’t see too many fatties at bicycle races, as opposed to, say, $12 buffets.
@mxracer652: Your avatar reveals you as part of the great bicyclist conspiracy to conceal the massive porkitude of the two wheeled.
The emporer has clothes Sir, but they are tight and ill fitting.
Heh – I’m about to get my second titanium knee next week. I’ll be doubly good at taking on burglars. [We olde ladees iz tuff!] A mugger once attacked my 89 year old great aunt. She beat him with her cane.
My son was told by a doctor that, according to “the charts”, he is obese – yet, strangely “has the heart of an athlete”. Yeah, because most of that there tissue is lean muscle tissue developed through physical activity. By the weight charts, half the works-out-a-lot Hollywood heartthrobs are “obese”.
@DominEditrix:
It seems to me that BMI-base dobesity tests need to be two-staged:
Stage 1: take off your shirt and look down, can you see your abs? If so, you’re not obese. If not, go to stage 2.
Stage 2: Check you BMI against the normal metrics.