There Are Four Lights

This year was pretty amazing for me! Here’s a roundup of all the events, media, and work that came along in 2012.

• I produced a few silly science videos called The Never Ending Cosmos
with Sciency Sadie
• Typesetting for Digital Manga Publishing (NSFW)
• Q&A session for Canadore College students in Graphic Design.
• Interview on Exploring the Well.
• Interview on The Invisible Sky Monster.
• Interview on Sci-fi Saturday Night podcast.
• Cover and featured article for Skeptical Inquirer magazine.
• The Amazing Meeting 2012 talk “A Life of Art and Skepticism“.
• Speaker at CSICon in Nashville.
• Opened Etsy shop.
• Speaker at Eschaton in Ottawa.
• Special Guest on Virtual Skeptics #18.

Great stuff is coming for 2013, too! Including more Legend of the Ztarr.

I purchase a lot of my clothing from Asian fashion sites and have seen this cute (or as you say in Japanese, kawaii) stickers. Some are from a cute Korean brand of stickers and day planners with a character called “Momoi”. These are the journals I use for keeping track of my schedule, so seeing these special gold versions caught my eye. I finally got around to asking what “anti-radiation” meant and my pseudoscience spidey-senses were right.

The Anti-Radiation Sticker is a highly advance breakthrough in technology which can successfully reduce the harmful effects of EMF radiation by up to 90%.

One of the key ingredients used is Bio Ceremies from Japan which is able to emit Negative Ions, FIR and Scalar Energy. In addition, the Negative Ions, FIR and Scalar Energy provide many other health beneficial properties as mentioned in the information regarding Negative Ions, FIR and Scalar Energy

My first thought was that this is a product that solves a problem that doesn’t exist: EMF from our wireless gadgets like cellphones and wifi hotspots don’t produce harmful radiation. Another red flag is that the product doesn’t just claim to protect you from radiation, but also produces health benefits; the same vague benefits you hear from pseudoscience products like power balance/ion bracelets…fights fatigue, chronic pain, improves “well being”. But here comes the major pseudoscience jargon!

What Is Scalar Energy?

Scalar energy is a subtle energy that can be harness to produce healing energy frequencies which is beneficial for our health and it also has the ability to abrupt direct current electrical charges. It is an energy which has existed since the beginning of time.

Just…wow…

Atheism+ is an attempt at a new movement that takes an existing one, atheism, and adds social justice issues. As a designer, skeptic, and humanist, I have some critiques of the pseudo re-branding from each of these perspectives.

There’s something about adding a “plus” to atheism that rubs my design background the wrong way. It’s a bit cliché and sounds a bit like a parody (which might be why a google images search brings up so many). Adding a “plus” feels as lazy as adding “super” or “extra”. It’s brings up images of typical marketing labels on products that advertise “+Vitamin C”, “100% Real Fruit”, or “Flavorblasted!”. You could make the argument that the ambiguity of what the “plus” in Atheism+ means could encourage people to ask more about your ‘product’, and get them in the door. But, to me, it feels like sloppy marketing.

As a skeptic and humanist I find Atheism+ redundant. Skepticism is applying critical thinking to all claims, so I’ve viewed atheist organizations as devoting their efforts to applying skepticism to religious claims; things like teaching ID/creationism in schools, separation of church and state, and using religious beliefs to oppress others. Secular humanism is the philosophy that humans are capable of being moral without religion or divine power and valuing human equality. Both skepticism and humanist emphasize using reason to continually question theories and update ideologies based on new evidence or rational ideas.

Packaging certain ideologies into a plus sign and placing it with atheism seems to actually take away from atheism. It takes away the notion that atheism is for everyone, no matter what your political or social values might be. Not only does it alienate non-believers with different political or social views, it alienates those who share these same social justice goals who happen to also be believers. The PLUS in Atheism+ seems to have the intent of excluding certain people (those who believe in a god) from getting involved in important social causes or defending science. Humanism or skepticism doesn’t.

I can’t help but see Atheism+ as little more than Humanism-.

My Master Sagan tees have arrived! I’ll be wearing mine in Nashville at CSICon along with a matching black version for my boyfriend. (aaww!)

I also have a men’s large and women’s large available. I’d like to auction them off, signed, at some point. They’re custom screen printed versions I had produce by a Canadian company (as opposed to the tees available through Zazzle).

Let me know what you think!

A few days ago, I posted a response to io9′s The Great Geek Sexism Debate in order to point out that the interview with Amy Roth failed to mention anything about Dr. Harriett Hall’s “I’m not a Skepchick” shirt, which Amy took issue with. They also erroneously stated that TAM (The Amaz!ng Meeting) has had no anti-harassment policy (they were actually the first skeptic conference to put one in place). I felt both these points were important matters, overlooked by the piece.

Most of the feedback on my post was positive, and many commented (both publicly and privately) that they were glad to see me raise these points. Many remarked that they are afraid of receiving vitriolic responses and malicious labels for voicing any critiques or disagreements with the opinions and methods certain self-proclaimed feminists have applied to the issue of women in atheism, skepticism, and freethought communities.

Two women who work for feminist values within these communities chimed in with responses that used gender-based stereotypes. At the very least it was mean-spirited name calling…despite the fact that the article was denouncing exactly this type of behaviour.

Skepchick Amy Roth, of Surlyramics, reduces me to a vain shoe-obsessed stereotype, and Melody Hensley, CFI-DC Executive Director and organizer for The Women in Secularism conference, implies that I further my career as a professional skeptic by garnering attention and approval of men.

CFI’s Ronald Lindsay responded to me about the issue, pointing out that Hensley doesn’t speak on behalf of the CFI in her personal twitter account, and that they disavow the implication in her remarks.

Both Hensley and Roth deleted their tweets, without apology, and have blocked my account. While I wouldn’t hold CFI or Skepchick responsible for what their members say on their personal accounts, I do believe those who present themselves as activists and community leaders should hold themselves to higher standards than using personal attacks.

This is not a matter of “tone trolling”. The irresponsible manner in which the terms misogynist, rape apologist, gender traitor, “chill girl,” “sister punisher,” and accusations of MRA affiliations are having a negative impact on the issue. The malicious language is harming people; those the insults are directed towards and victims afraid their reports of harassment won’t be taken seriously.

When women want to speak out against the hyperbole, misinformation, and unfairness surrounding the issue, they aren’t dismissing other women’s experience. It’s not a matter of “I had a good experience and that trumps your bad one”. I can believe there is a problem with harassment at events while also believing the online narrative is painting an exaggerated picture of these events if some women aren’t attending because they believe it’s outright dangerous.

The consequence of the belittling language and treatment, like Hensley and Roth demonstrated towards me, is that many women conclude that they too will be subject to intimidation if they are outspoken–even if they communicate their disagreements rationally and tactfully.

It’s unacceptable and it needs to stop. When you see it happening, I encourage you to speak up. If you keep to being calm and rational against the vitriol, in the long run, you can’t lose.

My boyfriend asked me “Do you really want to get into this mess?”. Well, not when you put it that way…then again, not wanting to get caught up in the nastiness that has been “The Great Geek Sexism Debate” is exactly what has kept many rational voices out of the conversation. Anyone voicing even a hint of critique towards the accusations that freethought meetings have a problem with widespread sexual harassment has been demonized and labelled misogynist/gender-traitors. Even if, like me, you don’t disagree that harassment occurs at conferences and policies need to be put in place to deal with it, but are concerned with the hyperbolic rhetoric and with-us-or-against-us attitude toward the issue. I want to see harassment taken seriously and dealt with, but I don’t agree that calling the president of the JREF a “douchebag” who doesn’t care about “vagina owners” is a helpful approach to the problem. Just because I don’t agree that TAM is an unwelcoming, unsafe, place for women doesn’t mean I think there is no problem at all. And voicing my opinion that the issue is nuanced and the debate has become polarized shouldn’t result in me being called a “lying fuck face” “Stepford wife” “gender traitor”.

This is why I came to admire Harriet Hall for her controversial TAM2012 shirt. Women who have felt unwelcome at events shouldn’t be afraid to raise their voice in concern for fear they’ll be ridiculed. But it’s also unfair to paint all women as having the same experience, that we all fall under the same umbrella, and you can assume that you can take one approach to a group of people simply because they share the same gender. The women who feel welcome and safe at freethought events shouldn’t be ridiculed or subject to malicious labeling either.

The message of Dr. Hall’s shirt resonates with me because it addresses the most important thing to me about feminism and equality; that you can’t make assumptions about my thoughts, feelings, and experiences based on my gender. I don’t consider myself part of a subset of skeptics because I’m a woman. What I want is to be viewed as a human individual. My experiences aren’t going to be the same as yours just because we share the same gender.

I don’t like the lines being drawn in the sand. I don’t like losing friends (that share many more opinions, interests, and goals with me than what we disagree on) because they label me as on “the wrong side” of one issue, and treat me as if we are enemies on all issues.

io9′s recent article “The Great Geek Sexism Debate” incorrectly stated that The Amazing Meeting didn’t have an anti-harassment policy, “Many atheist meetings (though not TAM) have created anti-harassment policies.” Not only is TAM not an atheist event, it was the first skeptic conference to implement a harassment policy, in 2011, at TAM9. The article also failed to mention Dr. Harriet Hall’s TAM2012 shirt, which was one of interviewed Amy Roth’s reasons for “feeling humiliated and shamed for speaking out about feminism”.

When I’ve voiced my opinion online about the issue, I received many private messages of support from people saying they’ve felt the same way, but were too afraid to add their voices. I would’ve like to have seen Dr. Hall, a great science role model, interviewed in io9′s piece, as a strong voice on the other side of what they title a “great debate”.

UPDATE: 

Some of the responses to this post are examples of exactly the kind of attitude that has become divisive in this issue.

As you can see, Amy makes fun of my appearance by taking a shot at me for having matching shoes and taking instagram photos of myself (aka, I’m vain). Her later justification for the mean spirited tweet was that she was responding to my attack of her. But in the above post, you can see yourself that I mention Amy only once; to point out that the io9 post neglects to mention the “I’m not a Skepchick” shirt that Dr. Hall wore, which Amy took issue with.

CFI-DC Executive Director, Melody Hensley chimes in to proclaim that I get my speaking gigs by sucking up to “boys” and attacking Skepchicks. This is the kind of attitude I’m tired of seeing. I don’t disagree that harassment happens, I disagree that name-calling, line drawing, and demonizing is a helpful approach to the issue. In fact, I think it’s harmful. I haven’t attacked, belittled, teased, or treated Amy, Melody, or any other voice in the discussion as my enemy that I can justify being mean to. But their tweets show that they believe I deserve their malicious remarks.

The cognitive dissonance is overwhelming…that women who claim to be fighting for feminism and defending hatred against women would think to reduce an international award-winning author, CFI and TAM speaker, and TED Fellow, to a vain shoe-obsessed girl motivated only by seeking attention and approval of boys.

In a few days, I’ll be heading to Las Vegas, NV, for the biggest skeptic event of the year, The Amaz!ng Meeting. The conference runs July-13-15th and I’ll be speaking Saturday morning. Don’t miss it!

This fall, I’ll be in Nashville for CSICon, CSI and CFI’s second awesome skeptic conference and Halloween party. I’m super excited for this one, so make sure to register and come party with us.

For my fellow Canadians, I’ll have details on some events I’ll be doing here in Ontario in the fall as well. Stay tuned.

I came across this adorable comic (I genuinely like the talent behind Kate or Die) in the condescendingly titled Pharyngula post “Here’s the Situation“.

What bothered me about it, though, is the phrase “how fucking scary it is to be a girl”. The character in the comic talks about how she’s saddened by misogyny and rape culture and is fearful when going out in the evening and/or alone. She also mentions the statistic that 1 in 4 women have been raped and that women and LGBT people are at greater risk of being victims of rape.

Now, this is a webcomic, so I don’t expect this to be a deep discussion with citations, but I’d like to express my thoughts about these claims.

First, like the title says, I’m not scared to be a girl. That doesn’t mean I don’t get scared in certain situations, only that I don’t feel it’s scary to be a woman or attribute my fear of a situation to the fact that I’m female. If I’m in a situation where I fear being alone and possibly getting raped, kidnapped, mugged, etc., it’s typically based on how safe I evaluate the environment I’m in. The biggest factor in evaluating the safety of place isn’t how misogynistic it is, but how violent it is.

Consider some countries, like Japan, whose culture could be argued to be more misogynistic, yet have lower rates of rape because they have lower rates of violent crime in general. Canada may have a less misogynistic world view, but higher rates of violent crime than Japan, and therefore higher instances of rape. Then, there’s war–women are at highest risk to be raped by a stranger in a war zones.

I feel pretty safe in my little remote northern Ontario town walking alone at all hours; because I feel that rates of violence in general are low here. When I’m in Toronto, I don’t feel quite as confident alone in the streets because I feel the chance of being the victim of violence is higher in general. But, if you asked me about the difference in culture, I’d say my little hometown is likely to be a bit more misogynistic than the progressive views of Toronto citizens.

So, it seems like the best way to lower rates of violence against women is lower rates of violence in general. When it comes to violent crime, men are at greatest risk to be assaulted by a stranger. You’re far more likely, regardless of gender, to be raped by someone you know. And when it comes to that someone you know, it seems you’re just about as likely to be raped and sexually assaulted by a woman you know than a man you know.

A look at the subject of female sex offenders shows that rates of abuse and rape by women is shockingly high. “For a variety of societal reasons, female sexual abuse is likely to remain unnoticed. Some researchers have found that the incidence of sexual contact with boys by women is much more prevalent than is contended in the clinical literature (Condy, Templer Brown & Veaco, 1987).” link. This makes me believe that lowering misogyny might not have a strong impact on lowering rates of sexual violence.

If women want to feel safer in their communities, lowering rates of violence seems to be a more effective approach. Whereas, fighting misogyny might most likely have a stronger impact on human rights issues, like pay equity, and views of women in pop culture.

It doesn’t make much sense for me to be scared to go outside because I’m a girl if the reality is that I’d be more likely to be attacked if I’m a man. When it comes specifically to sexual violence, focusing only on women victims by male offenders is ignoring the very non-trivial issue of female offenders and male victims.

Canadians may be familiar with these types of cases by remembering one of the worst cases of serial rape by Karla Homolka and her husband Paul Bernardo, which included their rape and murder of her own sister. The deal The Crown made with Homolka to ensure Bernardo’s life sentence is often referred to as the worst bargain in Canadian legal history, as later video evidence show her to be a very willing abuser, rather than a victim herself as originally purported. Most recently, male victim Lin Jun was murdered and sexually assaulted by accused Luca Rocco Magnotta, a gay porn star from Montreal.

Overall, I don’t like hearing things like “it’s fucking scary to be a girl” when we’re talking about rape because it perpetuates assumptions about the profiles of victims and offenders. And let’s say, for some reason, you only care about rape of women victims by male offenders; high rates of violent crime and wars are your main culprits, rather than misogyny. But when it comes to rape, the reality seems to be that there are large numbers of male and female victims whose abusers are women. This makes it very “fucking scary” indeed for these individuals, living under the myth that rape of men, boys, girls and women, by women is rare and trivial (in some states, legally impossible).

And when it comes to fighting misogyny, the best approach seems to be reinforcing the idea that women are human individuals and you can’t make assumptions about people’s character or experience based on gender.

Here are some of my favourite recent articles. Two girls may share conscious thoughts because of rare conjoined part of their brain. Is a new designer drug called “bath salts” connected to violent psychosis? New evidence suggests Amelia Earhart may have survived as a castaway weeks or months after her disappearance. An isolated tribe relates the passage of time to terrain, rather than direction.

Enjoy!

Do these conjoined twins share consciousness?

Scans show that the two girls have brains that are interconnected by a never-seen-before “thalamic bridge,” an indication that they might share conscious thoughts.

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This Is Your Brain on Bath Salts: What It’s Like to Do the Scary Drug du Jour

The mass-marketed fear comes complete with anecdotal horror stories of people’s behavior under the drug’s influence, each more disturbing than the last, and the hysteria reached its crescendo this week when bath salts were blamed for a Miami man’s turn as a face-eating cannibal.

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Amelia Earhart May Have Survived Months As Castaway

Amelia Earhart, the legendary pilot who disappeared 73 years ago while flying over the Pacific Ocean in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator, may have survived several weeks, or even months as a castaway on a remote South Pacific island, according to preliminary results of a two-week expedition on the tiny coral atoll believed to be her final resting place.

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For an Isolated Tribe, Time Follows the Terrain, and the Future is Uphill

When we say “I knew him way back when,” or “the best years are still ahead of you,” we’re using space to set up a timeline, with the past trailing behind us and the future stretching forward. Scientists long assumed that all people envisioned time that same way. But more recent studies have shown that’s not the case.