- Aromatherapy No Cure for What Ails You – “In any case, it’s an awfully pleasant way to have a placebo effect.” (Thanks for the link, a.real.girl!)
- Bulldozers Tear Down Giant Religious Teapot – “About 40 workers with bulldozers and lorries destroyed the ‘subversive’ teapot and other symbols of the pan-religious Sky Kingdom.” Note – I think ‘Subversive Teapot’ would be a great name for a band. (Thanks to writerdd for this one, and for many, many others that I’ve neglected to credit her for :) )
- Reading Infidel in DC – Girl Sailor, an active-duty Navy ensign, talks about last month’s Skepchick book, Infidel.
- Women Just Can’t Do Math – Just in case anyone needed reminding.
wow…i'm so pissed off i can't write straight.
"women just can't do math"…wow.
one day i will put together a long blog post about my opinions on gender differences.
to be brief, i find this sort of attitude completely infuriating because it automatically invalidates any woman's accomplishment in fields which have been traditionally occupied by men. it presents mathematically inclined women like me as freaks of nature, which i think discourages girls from high achievement in math and science and feeds back into the cycle and perpetuates the problem, which statisticians can in turn continue to read as "women just can't do math".
Aaargh!
Don't worry about crediting me for link ideas. There's just so much weird stuff out there, I can't help myself. :-)
Since no comment thread on the blagonets is complete without a link to an XKCD comic, here's one.
When women are told they suck at math, it actually does make them worse at it.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/57…
This is not a surprise. Anyone being told they suck at something will do worse in it. The effect is not limited to women.
In that case, we should start telling Christians that they suck at creationism. Maybe they'll get worse at promoting it, feel bad about themselves, and and start to avoid it altogether. :)
Well, I can dream…
Hmm. So, daedalus, do you think that if we tell the Daily Mail they suck enough, they'll get so bad they have to shut down? Because that would be cool. :)
While it is true that they do suck, as skeptics we can't simply assert it, we have to demonstrate it with facts and logic, even when the facts and logic are wasted on them.