Remember what Mariette DiChristina @mdichristina said a week ago about why Danielle Lee’s SciAm post was taken down?

Re blog inquiry: @sciam is a publication for discovering science. The post was not appropriate for this area & was therefore removed.

Kate Clancy, one of the SciAm bloggers, wrote a post the other day that was not about discovering science. You can tell this if you look closely.

This is not a post about discovering science. This is not a post about discovering science. This is not a post about discovering science. This is not a post about discovering science. This is not a post about discovering science. This is not a post about discovering science. This is not

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

From Andy Borowitz at the Borowitz Report -

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Acknowledging that the government shutdown was coming to an end, an emotional Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took to the Senate floor today to make an impassioned speech, telling his colleagues, “The dream of keeping poor people from seeing a doctor must never die.”

His eyes welling up with tears, Sen. Cruz said, “I embarked on this crusade with a simple goal: to keep affordable health care out of the reach of ordinary, hard-working Americans. And while this battle was lost, that dream—that precious, cherished dream—will live on.”

What could make Ted Cruz a better human being? Skepticism?

No.

 … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

My friend Author of Jesus and Mo did an interview with the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain Forum a couple of days ago.

CEMB started with a summary of the recent nonsense over Jesus and Mo at LSE, then linked arms.

In a spirit of solidarity, the ex-Muslim forum would like to praise Jesus and Mo and state our admiration for his empowering, important and deeply progressive, not to mention hilarious cartoon.

And then the interview.

Could you tell us a little about your influences as a cartoonist and stylist, and in a wider sense, who influenced you in terms of your sense of playfulness towards the conceits of religion, and your satirical sensibility?

I’m still a bit reluctant to

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I’d better go back to the beginning, and explain very carefully, for the inattentive. (Not you, obviously.)

There is such a thing as skepticism about morality. There really is. There are people who ask why we should care about [the poor, immigrants, people who fall through the cracks, victims of natural disasters, all of the above in Bangladesh or Ethiopia or DR Congo, animals, climate change, future generations, other people's children, schools, famines, droughts, factories that collapse, slave labor, forced marriage, stonings, for example]. There are people who ask why we shouldn’t just take as much as we can of everything for ourselves or for ourselves and our families or for ourselves and our tribe. There are people who say … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Chris Clarke has 10 reasons you should stop being so irrationally upset about your hair being repeatedly set on fire.

6. Because some people prefer their hair bright red, and they deserve respect and not shaming.

7. Because that man’s head is cold and he says that if someone set his hair on fire he would take it as a compliment.

8. Because if we just start putting out every fire we see without going through a calm and measured deliberative process in which we consider all the facts at hand, we will eventually be unable to cook food or smelt useful alloys.

9. Because you really ought to be used to it by now. It’s just the way

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Hmm. American Atheists is having a hard time finding a billboard company in Salt Lake City willing to take one of their billboards to run during next year’s convention. This one for instance:

 So it’s taboo, apparently, to say (conspicuously) that you were once a Mormon and are now an atheist.

Well if it’s taboo, how voluntary is the religion then? If you can’t do something as simple (and, admittedly, visible) as announce that you have left a particular religion…is that religion really fully voluntary? It seems to me it’s not. If there’s that much social disapproval, then it’s not.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Manboobz tells us that mainstream media in the form of ABC’s 20/20 is airing a long-awaited show on the manosphere tomorrow.

It’s here at last! After numerous delays, the 20/20 story looking at the manosphere — and the part it plays in the online harassment of women — will be running on ABC this Friday, October 18, at 10 PM EST. Among the featured participants: the always charming Paul Elam of A Voice for Men; Anita Sarkeesian, the much-harassed feminist video game critic; and Jaclyn Friedman, the ass-kicking founder of Women, Action & the Media.

Here’s a teaser story on the ABC website which suggests that the 20/20 piece isn’t exactly going to be a triumphant moment in

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

One of the comments on The Troublemaker really stood out for me, because I’ve been thinking the same thing. It’s by one ADHDJ:

There is a huge overlap between skepticism and mansplaining.

I find cowardice in so much of what skeptics spend their time on — writing a 20 page article debunking a photo of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster and believing you did something intellectually valuable, like that makes you some kind of big thinker.  Considering whether or not fairies exist is worthy of great study and serious analysis, but whether some drunk dude acted like a creepy asshole at 3AM is so unlikely as to never merit a thought.

To quote the great Harry Frankfurt, “one

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Oh, please. Oprah.

Winfrey asked Nyad: “You told our producers you’re not a God person, but you’re deeply in awe?”

Nyad replied: “Yeah, I’m not a God person. I’m an atheist”, prompting Winfrey to question: “But you’re in awe?”

Nyad said: “I don’t understand why anyone would find a contradiction in that. I can stand at the beach’s edge with the most devout Christian, Jew, Buddhist and weep at the beauty of this universe, and be moved by all of humanity. So to me, my definition of God is humanity, and is the love of humanity.”

Winfrey, who has spoken about her Christian faith on television before, replied by telling Nyad that her beliefs did not fit with traditional

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Guardian published the not yet released Ofsted report on Al-Medinah school. It’s grim.

Overall effectiveness: Inadequate.

Achievement of pupils: Inadequate.

Quality of teaching: Inadequate.

Behaviour and safety of pupils: Inadequate.

Leadership and management: Inadequate.

The Guardian sums up:

An Ofsted report, due to be published imminently, declares that the Al-Madinah Islamic  school in Derby is “in chaos” and has “not been adequately monitored or supported”.

The report, which has been leaked to the Guardian, says teachers at the faith school are inexperienced and have not been provided with proper training.

Pupils are given the same work “regardless of their different abilities” and the governing body is “ineffective”, according to the report which was commissioned amid reports of irregularities

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Things that are not good in coffee:

• olives
• anchovies
• cauliflower
• shrimp
• pineapple
• mustard
• onions
• smoked salmon
• pumpkin

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Hannah Waters has been where Monica Byrne found herself.

At the time of posting a year ago, Monica didn’t call Bora out by name. But she updated her blog post this week with his identity after recent unprofessionalism on Scientific American’s part, seemingly linked to unrealized sexism and racism. Bora didn’t deny what happened.

The reaction on Twitter was one of disbelief and anger from his network of science bloggers and friends. “Science blogosphere, I am tweetless… I can’t even retweet what has left me so stunned.” “Enraged children with a persecution complex are out on a witch hunt, it’ll blow over eventually…” “My closest friend is @boraz. I know him better than almost everyone. I

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Bora Zivkovic has resigned from the board of Science Online.

Since its earliest days, ScienceOnline has sought to gather, grow and support a community of diverse faces, experiences and voices who share a desire to celebrate science, improve our communication skills and collaborate for a better world.

Bora Zivkovic, a cofounder and member of the ScienceOnline board of directors, has been an integral and vital leader in this community. Recent events, though, have identified actions on Bora’s part that are not consistent with the ScienceOnline values he himself vigorously promoted. Bora has taken steps to address these issues, and we look forward to any further clarity and resolution he might offer.

Our lives are full of overlapping communities – personal

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Another one of those times when a look at the stats turns up an interesting link I wouldn’t have seen otherwise: B. Spencer at Lawyers Guns Money on The Troublemaker.

Often when I post about Rebecca Watson, I am helpfully reminded by someone that she is a lightning rod, a troublemaker, looking to stir shit in the skeptic world. From what I have read of her Skepchick blog, this just doesn’t ring true to me. What I’ve been able to gather from following her for a year or so is that she was just a young woman and a skeptic who was rudely introduced to sexism and misogyny in the skeptic world and responded to that by talking about

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Originally a comment by Chris Lawson on Folk remedies with lashings of meridian.

With due respect, I am becoming increasingly frustrated at seeing this argument trotted out repeatedly against acupuncture. I’m just about the strongest possible advocate for evidence-based medicine you can find and I think the vast majority of “alternative” medicine is bunkum, often dangerously so, but this particular argument has broken legs and ought to be taken out the back of the stables and put out of its misery.

What is true: there is a lot of published evidence favouring acupuncture, but most of it is very poor quality. The traditional Chinese theory behind acupuncture — that of Qi and meridians — is utterly wrong. We know … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Oh good god. Another one.

Read this, from last year: This happened, by Monica Byrne.

When you do the first thing you’ll see is the update today, naming the guy in question.

UPDATE, 10/14/13: The man is Bora Zivkovic, Blogs Editor for Scientific American. There’s no reason for me anymore not to name him publicly, which I’d long wanted to do anyway. Reading about this incident is what reminded me (independent of whether or not he had anything to do with that post’s original deletion, which I don’t know).

So you know what’s coming.

A month ago I met with a prominent science editor and blogger. He’d friended me on Facebook, and given his high profile, I was delighted,

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Massimo Pigliucci and Maarten Boudry on why pseudoscience is dangerous. (I’m reading their edited collection The Philosophy of Pseudoscience.)

There is no question that some folk remedies do work. The active ingredient of aspirin, for example, is derived from willow bark, which had been known to have beneficial effects since the time of Hippocrates. There is also no mystery about how this happens: people have more or less randomly tried solutions to their health problems for millennia, sometimes stumbling upon something useful. What makes the use of aspirin “scientific,” however, is that we have validated its effectiveness through properly controlled trials, isolated the active ingredient, and understood the biochemical pathways through which it has its effects (it suppresses

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)