social science
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Science
Does ’16 and Pregnant’ Convince Teens Not to Get Pregnant?
Yesterday, researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research released a new paper looking at the effect of watching the MTV shows 16 and Pregnant and its spin-offs Teen Mom and Teen Mom 2 on teen birth rates. They claim they have found causal evidence to suggest that in areas in which the show is more popular, teen pregnancies are…
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Science
A Primer on Culture
I talk a lot about culture here on Skepchick. I guess that comes with being a cultural anthropologist! What I realize as I surf the skeptico-atheist blogosphere is that I think we cultural anthropologists have a slightly different understanding of what culture is than most other people. In the interest of clarifying myself and sharing with others how anthropologists (whose…
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Featured
Why Gender Differences Don’t Matter (and Other Myths)
Cross-posted at Queereka. A few days ago, Harriet Hall wrote a post on Science-Based Medicine titled “Gender Differences and Why They Don’t Matter So Much.” The article left a bad taste in my mouth for a number of reasons. Aside from what I feel is a gross misrepresentation of various criticisms of Michael Shermer (which I will leave to Ophelia and PZ to deal with as…
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Feminism
Proving and Quantifying Sexism
In many areas of life, especially in cases where a person must apply to enter an organization, field or job, there are large gender gaps. Whenever feminists call for equal representation by women in a particular endeavor, detractors often claim that adding more women means better-qualified men will get bumped down. They claim that in order to get an equal…
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Featured
Ninja Infiltrates Skepchick
Hi Everyone! My name is Jamie and way back in 2008 I sent an email to Rebecca saying I was interested in becoming a Skepchick. Needless to say, I didn’t make the cut. I spent the next five years slowly infiltrating my way into the inner circle of Skepchicks, by way of alcohol and unrestrained enthusiasm, until they finally gave…
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Parenting
On the Abuse of Social Science
Cross-posted on Queereka. One of the reoccurring talking points of opponents of marriage equality is that social science research demonstrates that children do better with a heterosexual couple than any other type of parenting situation. For an example, see this exchange between CNN’s Brooke Baldwin and hate-group leader Tony Perkins. Note how she fails to challenge Perkins on his oft-repeated…
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