Science

Skepchick, Issue 6!

Now on the newstands (the electronic newstands, i.e., the interwebs) is the latest issue of Skepchick. (Please note that there are a few formatting and linking troubles that should be cleared up tonight.)

Feminist Archaeology is an interesting look at a discipline I didn’t even know existed. In fact, when I first saw the article headline I assumed it was a joke, considering Matthew Armstrong’s previous contributions to Skepchick. The actual content was rather enlightening, describing the way in which our search through human history can be influenced by what we hope to find. Matthew gives a balanced overview of the positive and negative aspects of feminist archaeology.

Donna Druchunas has a great interview with Jennifer Ouellette for the SkepLit Book Club. For those who haven’t gotten involved yet, you can check out the forum to read a new book every month and discuss it with other skeptics.

Donna also wrote a piece giving good old human emotion its due. Her True Skeptic Membership Badge will be revoked next month.

We also have two articles from skeptical mothers. Bridgitte Knudson is a mother and a teacher with a very detailed look at the importance of parental involvement in American public schools. What are your kids learning? Are schools teaching them what to think, or how to think? How can parents take more control over their children’s education?

Barbara Mervine is another mother faced with the problem of raising two skepchicks who are constantly surrounded by myths. Barbara is a rare breed of skeptic — one who is a theist, yet raises her children to question everything, including their own religious beliefs (or lack thereof). Having been friends with Barbara and her amazing family for a few years now, I can attest that she has done a wonderful job.

Frequent Skepchick contributor Lynette Davidson is back with a timely piece touching upon Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code, the Holy Grail, Templars, and Nazis. Lynette has a great writing style that makes learning about history endlessly entertaining. I’d like to see a remake of Indiana Jones with her in the starring role.

Another returning contributor is Ed Rabin with his column The Antidote. Ed is a skeptical chiropractor, which some people may liken to being a flaming gay black atheist Republican, but Ed makes it work. He’s funny, balanced, and a great critical thinker, and this month he offers some helpful advice on, er, expanding your consciousness and reading minds.

Finally, there’s the news wrap-up from Chani Overli and a super editorial from my hardworking managing editor Diane Perry, all about Linux, myths, and OMG! PONIES. Look, you’ll just have to read it.

Happy reading, skeptics!

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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6 Comments

  1. Hey, Rebecca, I don't know if it's just me, but I think your server is having some problems. I seem to rarely be able to connect to your blog – only once every few days or so am I actually able to establish a connection. I know this is a bit off topic from the blog entry, but I'd like to be able to check this place every day instead of only once a week.

  2. Not that it's my job to play web detective, but I can't resist such questions.

    I access Rebecca's blog several times a day both from my home and office and I live in a fairly rural place. I rarely have trouble accessing it. A quick round of pings shows some pretty swift replys from the server. If your using a windows platform and have any experiance at all with the command line I would run tracert on the web site. If your not familiar witht the command you can google up instructions, it's fairly simple. It should tell you where in the process your regularly timing out. That will tell you if your timing out before you get to the web site, or if the server itself is dropping the ball.

    Not sure how comfortable you are at the command line, but it's a really worthy tool to learn to use.

    Let me know if you have trouble maybe I can provide more advice.

    Regards,

    Anthony

  3. Not that it’s my job to play web detective, but I can’t resist such questions.

    I access Rebecca’s blog several times a day both from my home …

    I suppose you're the one using up all the access tokens so the rest of us can no longer access the server >:(

    (also, yeah, I'm just kidding).

  4. Actually, I usually try to access the blog in the morning when I wake up, in the evening when I get home from work, and just before I go to bed. I usually only ever have any luck connecting in the morning, but even then only about 1 every 3 days or so. Right now is the first time I’ve come to the blog from work, and I had no trouble connecting. But the next time I do run into trouble, I’ll try running a tracert to see where the problem might be. Not that I’ll be likely to do anything about it anyway :(

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