Skepticism
Quickies: Academia needs emotional women, father sues to keep adult daughters from getting birth control, and a fossil four legged snake
- Why academia needs emotional, passionate women – “There is the beginning of a passionate, emotional rebellion in the academic world. Researchers are starting to realise that allowing your emotions and passion for your research to be seen in your academic work might not be such a bad thing after all.”
- Father who sued to keep his adult daughters from getting birth control wins key court fight – From mrmisconception.
- Video game women with more realistic bodies as Photoshopped by anti-eating disorder group – “Video game designers and their companies have complete control over the female bodies in their games. So why is it they so often opt to make these characters into unrealistically idealized versions of their human counterparts?
- Four-legged fossil snake is a world first – “The creature’s limbs were probably not used for locomotion, the researchers say, but rather for grasping prey, or perhaps for holding on to mating partners. Such speculation inspired the snake’s name, which loosely translates as ‘four-legged hugging snake’.”
- Cute Animal Friday! Heaps of sphynx kitties interfering with bed-making. And I can’t be the only one who thinks these deep sea fish larvae are cute.
Normally, paleontologists avoid the term “missing link,” so I was surprised that David Martill used that phrase. But reading the article, I have to admit it’s apt in this case. Fascinating.
I doubt this will convince my fundie friend who contends that the “evidences and proofs” of evolution don’t exist, however. Yesterday, she went apeshit on my public Facebook page over my recovery blog post about the science of my coma recovery. I dared to suggest that evolution played a role in the relatively minor effects of my watershed-area stroke damage (as I mentioned in my Skeptical Inquirer article.)
I doubt she’s read the article, considering that she keeps harping on the name Skeptical Inquirer. Apparently, the magazine, to her, is skeptical about everything except evolution. As I explained to her, skepticism demands proof, and evolution is one of the most extensively proved areas in science.
She’s become my private fundie troll. So why have I not defriended her? Well, she’s provided me a lot of support during my recovery. Damn you, Facebook, you’ve ruined another good friendship!
PS: I know that most of this is off topic, but I needed vent somewhere!
It’s always uncomfortable when a kind friend turns crazy. I see so many stories about it on the internet.
There was a recent study that online people’s opinions tend to drift to the extremes of their interest groups. But I suspect she was always this way. I was only exposed to this side of her when we became Facebook friends. We were friends on a mountain dulcimer site, but when I left the site, she said that she was going to friend me, as long as I didn’t mind her Christian posts. I said, as long as you don’t mind my skeptical posts. We had interacted many times on a Facebook dulcimer group, and I think it’s funny that we were both obviously hanging back on friending each other because of our differences. It seems like we were both right.
Personally, I’ve ignored her Christian posts and blocked Answers in Genesis, which she posts often. The problem stems completely with her reaction to my skeptical and atheistic posts. The worst part is that she keeps posting the comments on my public, not my private page (I post the blog links on both). I can’t leave those unanswered, especially when she posts that American will reap God’s judgement after the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling. The next time she does it, I’m going to warn her. The time after that, if it occurs, I will have to choice but to start deleting them.
FWIW in the video game women article, I found the version on the right more attractive in every case. I just like athletic more than anorexic.
Dude (I’m guessing dude)–
When talking about representation of women’s bodies in the media, making it about your sexual/aesthetic preferences sort of undermines the point. Using a description for thin bodies that’s usually derogatory when applied to the body (anorexia nervosa is a mental/emotional condition, not a body type) doesn’t help.
Signed, A Guy Who’s Made That Mistake
Four-legged snakes? You mean there’s a transitional form?
Yeah, that story about the dad and birth control demonstrates just how litigious the family values crowd is. And how much the government bends over backward for them.
Yeah, I posted this on Facebook, but I doubt my fundie friend/troll, who contends that, “The evidences and proofs for evolution don’t exist,” got it. Sure, the evidence doesn’t exist if you put your hands over your eyes and say, “La la la la la la la.”
I’ve always wondered what a passionate article about algebraic topology would look like.