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Skepticism
Biodynamic Wine: My Favorite Pseudoscience
It seems every one of my skeptic-leaning friends has a pseudoscience for which they have the teeniest bit of sympathy. Whether it’s because they used to believe it, because they understand the appeal, because they hate the way skeptics have approached the topic, or perhaps all three, I’ve found almost all of us have at least one “guilty pleasure” hiding…
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Featured
How to Fake Your Way Through a Wine Tasting
I’m currently in the final preparation stages for a wine course and subsequent certification exam that, if I pass, will render me a WSET Level 3 sommelier and thus eminently qualified to impress your parents. To this end I’ve assembled a weekly study group over the last few months, and it’s about as nerdy as you’d expect from a bunch…
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Featured
Articles About Beer You Should Stop Reading Immediately
A list of eight beers “you should stop drinking immediately” went around earlier last year and even ended up in my inbox a few times, but I didn’t imagine something so silly could have serious traction among the pretty geeky and science-savvy scene that is the craft beer drinking community. It seems I was wrong. The article has been making…
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Activism
Not All Cops.
Yesterday a grand jury decided that the only person indicted in the killing of Eric Garner, an unarmed Black man choked to death in broad daylight in New York City, would be the person who filmed his death. This morning the St. Louis Police Department posted a social media update titled “Kids will be kids?” I hoped, for one fleeting moment,…
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Religion
The Silencing of Richard Dawkins
EDIT: The original introduction to this post contrasted Dawkins’s feelings of being “silenced” with the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which occurred at the same time that I wrote the piece. It has been brought to my attention that the trans community has been frequently used by various atheist factions to make points that come at their expense or have nothing…
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Feminism
Guerrilla Feminism Founder Takes On Victim-Blaming Campus Police in Madison
TW: Sexual assault Lachrista Greco, founder of the organization Guerrilla Feminism, experienced rape culture firsthand when she was sexually assaulted on the UW-Madison campus in her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, ten years ago. When she caught the UW-Madison campus police spreading victim-blaming “advice” in the form of a public service announcement this week, she took matters into her own hands, drawing attention…
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Skepticism
“First World Problems” versus Checking Your Blind Spots
I’ve written a few posts in recent months for which I received the common logical fallacy response that we at the Skepchick Network not-so-fondly refer to as “Dear Muslima.” It goes something like this: “Stop talking about this problem because there are worse problems.” I have also written about inconsistent application of principles: the fallacy of avoiding Trader Joe’s wine…
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Skepticism
In Which I React to Tom Flynn, With Help From Nicki Minaj
Last night I read Tom Flynn’s post on the use of the pronoun “their/they/them” as a non-gendered singular pronoun. He picked a nit, to use his parlance, with the use of a pronoun he considers inherently plural for individuals. (EDIT: He was responding to an excellent post by Greta Christina in The Humanist, which for some reason he couldn’t be…
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