Quickies
Skepchick Quickies 7.28
- Camp Quest is atheists’ answer to Bible camp – I’m not sure if the Washington Post meant to make the kids’ quotes so utterly adorable. From QA.
- Children seeking secular education may be bussed elsewhere – “Parents and children seeking secular education in Morinville are caught in the middle of negotiations between two school boards jostling for space and control.” From Angela.
- Consumer Reports drops the ball on alternative medicine – “Whatever rigorous testing methodologies CR might bring to various products, its editors clearly have zero clue when it comes to science- and evidence-based medicine if they think that a survey is the appropriate way to determine which treatments work or how well treatments work relative to each other.”
- Toronto politician tells Margaret Atwood to run for office or shut up – The politician, Doug Ford, wants her to stop trying to save libraries because no one goes to them. Also, he’s never heard of Margaret Atwood.
Looks like Doug Ford, thinks once your eleted you can be hitler :) I think if libraries are’nt used then books should be stored, digitised and made avaiolable online, with a smaller access reception tothe storage with a coffe shop peotry venue, social space where literature and knowlege are celebrated.
As a Torontonian, I can tell you that Doug Ford is not Hitler. He is, however, a huge asshole, as well as a man that looks remarkably like a slug.
And a brother to even a huger asshole our mayor, I will add. :(
I think their asshole levels are largely comparable. Rob just has a bigger stage to yell racist and anti-gay remarks from.
Bravo to WAPO!
That was a wonderful right up. Starting off what these atheist kids believe rather than what they don’t believe, forgoing, for the most part, unnecessary false balance, and not being condicending about atheists.
The only thing I saw wrong was adding atheist to the front of all the activities, while meant to be a joke?, was pretty weird.
That struck me right away, too. Couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be funny or was passive-aggressive ridicule by the reporter.
Since camp is pretty much about parents projecting their desired childhood on their kids, it makes perfect sense. The CR one doesn’t surprise. At the risk of sounding like the resident hippy…when you define human beings as consumers, not creative critical thinking beings, creative and critical thinking has to take a back seat to consuming.
“Since camp is pretty much about parents projecting their desired childhood on their kids”
Explain further, please.
“when you define human beings as consumers, not creative critical thinking beings, creative and critical thinking has to take a back seat to consuming.”
When you decide you can define a person on such a binary scale, you’ve created a bigger problem.
For my parents, camp was about getting me and my two brothers the hell out of their hair for two months a year. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Consumer Reports may perhaps have been seeking to weigh off the ‘perceived benefits’ of the different therapies, although it sounds like that’s not how the report was presented.
However, I take issue with the Scientific Medicine blog being wholly rational in all else, yet irrationally choosing to mistreat the word “woo” in their post, by assigning apparently their own meaning to it. (Whimsy? Ridiculousness? If you’re going to make up a word, make a brand new one… floopiness?)
Doug Ford seems to be a nice illustration of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, furrowing his brow in a vain attempt to understand the situation.
@Discordian
It’s pretty common for parents to encourage their kids behavior based on what they wish they could have done at that age. That doesn’t mean that it’s not what the kid wants to do, just that as a parent you struggle not to project your desired childhood onto your children. I know that I was sent to Bible camp because that was the sort of thing my parents would have like to do when they were kids. I was encouraged to hunt and trap because that was the sort of thing my dad liked to do at that age, etc.
Offering an alternative vision to human beings as consumers is not stating those are the only two visions.
That said, the magazine is CONSUMER reports. Ultimately their job is to encourage you to consume. The fact they are helping you consume with the most bang per buck doesn’t mean that they are offering you good advice. They give advice on the best fossil fuel hogging luxury car to heat up the planet with. How is that any less responsible than giving advice on the best woo to buy?
My wife and I sent our kids to camp so we could have a week alone with NO children in the home. And no projectors or cameras were involved.
@cr8tive: ‘woo’ (from ‘woo-woo’) is slang in the skeptical community for mystical/new agey/supernatural nonsense.
My parents put me in the scouts. I Then was totally unsware of how useful all those rope knots could be later for bondage so didn’tr learn any. and when I left, I became an English (non royalist) republican, sex positive and Atheist, So themed camps have no effect on thinking minds who do as they please as adults.
I’m sure my parents did enjoy getting away from me for a week. And no…ultra conservative Bible camp didn’t stick.