This week I’ll be attending The Amaz!ng Meeting 9 (TAM9) in Las Vegas, Nevada, along with many of my SheThought co-writers. TAM9 is the annual conference of The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) that brings together skeptics and critical thinkers for several days of talks, panels and myriad activities. Each year TAM gets bigger and bigger whilst expanding content, diversity and attendance.

This year’s schedule contains two keynote addresses that are open to the general public. The first is given by Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of Nova ScienceNow and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. Dr. Tyson brings a passion for astrophysics and a strong, persuasive message of the necessity for science education and communication to the general public. The second keynote is Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist, prolific bestselling author and director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation. Dawkins is a foremost speaker on the importance of evidence-based thought in science and public life. He has the distinction of being perhaps the world’s best known public atheist.

The rest of the TAM9 schedule is the most varied and diverse yet. Included are artists, poets, scientists, activists, journalists and television personalities. The full schedule is here. The program covers immense ground in critical thinking, from Phil Plait to Jennifer Michael Hecht to Carol Tavris to Sarah Mayhew to Bill Nye to Adam Savage to Elizabeth Loftus to Skepchick bloggers to the hosts of MonsterTalk, and many, many more. The schedule is full and appeals to a wide variety of skeptics, not just serious scientists and intense science enthusiasts. This program emphasizes critical thinking for people across disciplines.

Beyond the official TAM program, there’s a full slate of fringe events which emphasize the diversity that TAM represents this year. Side trips are planned to Red Rocks and the Grand Canyon as well as daredevil activities. There are meetups for myriad subgroups, including various nationalities, vegetarians, LGBT folks and others. The most notorious of the unofficial events is Penn Jillette’s Bacon and Donut Party, which is a fundraiser for JREF.

The diversity of the official and non-official schedules of TAM9 elucidates the changing face of skepticism. No longer are cries of the skeptical movement as a bastion of privileged white men accurate or productive. This year’s Amaz!ng Meeting holds promise to be one that moves beyond talk of inclusion into one of outreach.

TAM9 will be held at the South Point Hotel, Casino and Spa from July 14-17. I will be posting daily blog updates from Las Vegas throughout the conference. If you have any particular questions for interviewees or issues you’d like me to address, please leave me a comment here or through Twitter.

This entry is cross-posted at Skeptical Humanities.

=======
This post, SheThought Happens in Vegas, originally appeared on She Thought on July 10, 2011.
=======

I think a common complaint of many skeptics is the difficulty in getting anyone to “change their mind”.  It seems that even with careful and clear explanations, many non-critical thinkers insist on clinging to their unfounded, and often irrational, beliefs.   I have heard “Why bother even being nice.  I just make fun of anyone that believes something stupid.  You try to explain and they don’t even listen.”  I’ve also heard the “It’s a waste of time to even try to reach these people”.

It can be very frustrating to try to engage someone with “woo” beliefs in an educational conversation.  Sometimes I feel like I’m the big sister again trying to deal with my little brother.

Me: “Mom said you had to help with the dishes.”

(Silence. This was his “playing deaf” technique.)

Me: “Do you HEAR me?”

Little brother: “Do you Hear me?”

Me: “You are going to help do the dishes, or else!”

Little brother: “You are going to help do the dishes, or else!”

Me: “I’m telling mom!”

Little brother: “I’m telling mom!”

(He would then disappear, and I would end up doing the dishes by myself because really, it was less bother than trying to make him help out.)

I knew I was right.  It was only fair he help out with chores.  My brother didn’t listen and would disappear because he knew I was right.  However, that didn’t mean he wanted to do any work.  If he did listen to me, or acknowledge I had a point, he would have to do something uncomfortable.  Work.

I find that sometimes when I am trying to convince a non-critical thinker of something, they either don’t listen, resort to the ridiculous, or just refuse to engage in conversation with me and disappear. It’s my little brother all over again.  I often think that the reason they do not want to engage in a fair and mature debate with me is that they, like my little brother, know I am right.  At the very least, having a “woo” belief challenged can make them very uncomfortable.  Since there is no strong evidence or basis for their belief, they have to resort to behaving like my younger brother at around age 7.

“Well, because it’s in the Bible.  That’s all I need to know”

“I don’t trust scientists, they are paid by the government you know”

“You believe those astronomers, but I believe all the people that have seen UFOs.  You can’t say they were all wrong”

“Do you know how many people agree with me?  We have a petition signed by 20,000 saying Creationism should be taught in our schools.  You can’t argue with 20,000 people!”

“I don’t understand that stuff, all I know is what I feel”

This can be very hard to deal with.  However, rather than just throw my hands up, I try to remember that even my little brother eventually matured and grew up.  We now enjoy talking on the phone and enjoy visiting each other.  It did take him a few years.  Expecting instant change, especially when that change can cause the discomfort of giving up cherished beliefs, is unrealistic.  But, remaining polite and consistent over time can lead to change.  Skeptics that claim “no one ever changes” forget that very few people are born skeptics and critical thinkers.  Any skeptic get together is full of former fundamentalists of different faiths, UFO believers, homeopathic medicine users and even the odd Big Foot hunter.  (and by “odd” I mean formerly “odd”).  Every one of these people “changed their mind”.  Very few did it after their first conversation with a skeptic.

I have had many people change their minds over the years.  A few of the techniques that have worked for me are……

• Being clear with everyone I know that I am a skeptic and clear about what my belief, or lack of belief, is
• Being open to conversation, not argument, and being open to answering questions
• Being friendly and polite to people I disagree with (with some exceptions)
• Taking some teasing “Oh that’s Kitty, she’s a skeptic.  Hey Kitty what do you think about this UFO in China?” (By taking the teasing in good spirit, they actually do listen to what I have to say about UFOs)
• Not making fun of the non critical thinker or their belief.  The non critical thinker will “disappear” if you make them feel stupid for believing in something. By being careful of someones feelings with my explanation people don’t avoid talking with me about their “woo” belief.  (If they think Big Foot lives in the woods because their Uncle Earl in West Virginia saw one, don’t make a comment like “so was he doing a little too much taste testing from his still that night?”)
• When someone is ready to talk, and eventually most people I know that are non skeptics have come to me with at least a question or comment eventually, I take the time to really listen.  I try not to just jump in with an answer.
• Try to teach some critical thinking skills when you have the chance.  Rather than just giving an answer, pull out a laptop and Google some good science or skeptic sites together.  Ask “Who would be a good person to call, or send an email, to get some help with an answer to that?”  Just giving an answer is never as good as helping the person find out the answer for themselves.
• Most of all, never give up.  Some people you may never reach directly regarding a belief they feel very strongly about.  I often help very religious people with alien and UFO questions.  They have great difficulty with the idea of life on other planets, or life from another planet visiting here.  Helping them learn how to critically think about UFOs and aliens ( for instance directing them to a science site that talks about the odds of life in the universe) may one day help them think critically about Creationism.

Even Kylie Can't Always Change Minds

Expecting instant understanding and change when dealing with a non skeptic is unrealistic.  However, it’s important to never give up.  Since the skeptic has truth and science on their side, and the non critical thinker is just plain old wrong, the odds of the non skeptic coming around aren’t that bad.  The worst we can do as skeptics is to just be quiet, or to be so annoying that we aren’t heard.

=======
This post, Changing Minds, originally appeared on She Thought on June 6, 2011.
=======

There have been some aftershocks, though, from Jen’s boobquake and her subsequent rise to blogostardom. For one, getting all that attention led to some pretty hefty criticism from other people in the communities that have seen Jen’s writing. This likely wasn’t a big deal when only a few people saw what was said, but now that thousands of people know about Boobquake and Jen and maybe some of the aftermath, Jen gets to be a favored topic of discussion, and so do her boobs. This has resulted in her being somewhat unhappy with the behavior of others towards her and toward others.

As if being picked on, in general, for her complaint, isn’t bad enough, even PZ Myers is in on this bandwagon.

I’ve written about this in other places, before, but I think it needs to be restated. The problem is partly that women really are harassed and commented on in ways that are inappropriate in some parts of the community – not just this community, most communities. The other part of the problem is, people are sexual beings and have a tough time deciding when it is appropriate to act on sexual stimuli in public situations. When is it appropriate to be told one is pretty? When is it appropriate to pretend you didn’t just think that? When is it appropriate to be offended that your body parts have caused something to happen in someone else’s body parts and they somehow made this event known to you?

First, let’s talk about if it is appropriate, in a public forum, to mention if someone is pretty, since that is apparently what ultimately caused Jen to want to abandon discussing boobquake. Highlighting someone’s attractiveness in the setting of trying to highlight personal merits in an academic sense or an activist sense, as was done at the American Atheist Rapture RAM might have been bad form, at least. If you’re trying to show the world why your group is awesome, saying “hey, we have pretty things,” is really not a great way to make a case for yourself, especially when those pretty things have much to offer. Imagine if you went to a conference where Neil DeGrasse Tyson is referenced, but instead of discussing his work in making science accessible to the public, the person just says he’s got nice hair. To audience members unfamiliar with Tyson, all they know is what the speaker tells them, so they go away from this talk with only the rapidly fading impression that Tyson has nice hair and oblivious to the fact that if they read about Tyson, read his writing or saw one of his appearances, they might learn something. THAT is the problem with offhand comments about a woman’s appearance over her work in these situations.

In Jen’s situation, she’s seen as someone useful in the community, but is mostly recognized for boobquake. Boobquake now overshadows things she does, bad or good. When she does something people don’t approve of, boobquake gets thrown in as if it is an added insult that she thought of such a thing (though, participation in boobquake was actually pretty widespread and it wasn’t until after that the larger amount of mockery over it began). When she does something people do approve of, it gets highlighted as some really great thing that she did, as if that really great thing is an umbrella item of goodwill that casts its shadow over whatever else she has accomplished. I can see how that might be a problem for Jen. Then, when you top that problem off with the tendency for people to think that just because they talk about boobs, that they can be approached with specific discussions about their boobs, the problem becomes even worse. The reasoning seems to be that if Jen talks about boobs, or even her boobs, that her boobs can then be the subject of anyone’s conversation in any way that person sees fit. While that person has every right to talk about Jen’s boobs, though, that doesn’t make it totally acceptable for them to talk to Jen about her boobs in any way they like. In case you’re still not getting this, let me give you a little verbal illustration where you’re in the same or similar situation. Imagine someone you find to be completely out of the realm of people you’re inclined to have a sexual conversation with. Next, imagine that you’re trying to accomplish something important that shows the world the skill you have that you value the most. As you are trying to accomplish this thing, the person you have no intention of ever having a sexual conversation with makes a sexually suggestive remark about either your crotch or your chest. That’s what Jen’s complaining about.

So, does Jen have a right to complain? Yes. Do the women who were mentioned at the event Jen attended have a right to be offended? Of course. Does that mean that nobody should call anyone pretty or that we should complain about every compliment any person ever gives to an intelligent, attractive individual? No. Context is an important factor with these issues. Being highlighted in a public speech as an example of something is very different from courtship behavior in a bar.

Not really having discussed it with her extensively, I can’t tell you where Jen’s boundaries are when it comes to what type of conversation she’s comfortable with in regards to her body and appearance, but I would say that if someone came up to her and made a sexually suggestive comment to her without having any kind of social tie to her, that’s probably poor social behavior on the part of the person who did it. Jen, and the women who were mentioned at AARRAM (not a well thought out acronym), above, have other traits that people can give their attention to and their physical traits are already going to be apparent to anyone who sees them, you don’t have to point them out above whatever other traits the person has.

=======
This post, The Quake Heard ‘Round the Internet, and Her Chest, originally appeared on She Thought on May 24, 2011.
=======

Jack is Darwin's homeboy!

Help us raise $2,000 to bring Young Australian Skeptic Jack Scanlan to the world’s premiere skeptical gathering, The Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, this July!

Why Jack? Although he is only 19 years old, Jack is a tireless skeptical activist who has devoted his free time to debating proponents of intelligent design and creationism on his blog, http://www.naontiotami.com/, while also working with the Young Australian Skeptics to get more young people interested in skepticism. In addition to his activism, Jack also studies genetics at university, and plays a mean jazz trumpet. Ok, maybe not mean really, a quite FRIENDLY trumpet. A skeptical trumpet!!!

At The Amazing Meeting, Jack will not only learn more tools for science/skeptic outreach , but also be exposed to the largest group of skeptics assembled in the world!!! Many people have reported that The Amazing Meeting quite literally changes their life, and Jack is the perfect young person take this opportunity and use it to get MORE young people involved.

We have already raised $500 $845 $1,300 of the $2,000 needed to fly Jack from Melbourne, Australia to Las Vegas, so that leaves just $700 left!! Please donate, and encourage friends to do the same. Because as a very wise person once said “I believe the children are the future, teach them well, and let them lead the way” – Sexual Chocolate (Eddie Murphy in Coming to America.)

To donate, click on the link above, or the picture below!!!

=======
This post, And A Trumpet Shall Lead Them!, originally appeared on She Thought on May 23, 2011.
=======

Lauri Lebo was a reporter with the York Daily Record covering the trial which took place in federal district court in Harrisburg, PA. The trial became the next landmark in a series of battles regarding the teaching of evolution and anti-evolution in public schools. It gained worldwide attention.

The events before, during and after the trial changed the lives of Cyndi and Lauri and many others involved and set a new precedent. The extremely thorough and well-written decision clearly slammed the attempts by the school board to insert their religious views into science class. But it also established Intelligent Design (ID) as creationism in new, fancy but ultimately cheap, sciencey clothing documented with “smoking gun” evidence uncovered by the stellar team of scientists and lawyers working for the plaintiffs.

Lauri left the newspaper post shortly after and wrote a book about her experience titled The Devil in Dover. This was a personal story of the gains and losses she experienced over that time: family and friendships, insights and confusion.

I first met Lauri and Cyndi at a Drinking Skeptically event I organized in early 2009 and happily our paths crossed several more times.

One Friday evening, I visited Lauri’s house off the beaten path between Harrisburg and Dover. Cyndi was relaxed on the couch perusing the Chick catalog. Chick Publications produces Creationist materials for distribution. You may have seen their most famous products – “Chick tracts” – pocket-sized 3 color comic books that warn of hellfire if you dabble in the occult, how you lose everything of value if you stray from the path that leads to Jesus and how utterly laughable it is to think we are descended from apes. One day, I found the booklet entitled “Big Daddy” (about the “silly” story of our ape-like ancestors) lying on a mailbox in downtown Harrisburg two blocks from the federal courthouse where the Kitzmiller v Dover trial took place.

I sat down and checked out the catalog and we chuckled over the propaganda machine run by the anti-evolution faction. But this was serious stuff. Even after the resounding whipping delivered to the ID proponents, they have not gone away. I was interested in hearing from Cyndi and Lauri what was new on this front and what they were doing now 5 years after the trial.

Engaged in what goes on in the world – activism and journalism

Cyndi runs a family business in Dover. She has two sons who attend Dover schools.  Now a member of the Dover school board, she has lamented to me on other occasions the terrible state of our public school funding. However, you must be the change you wish to see in the world and she has taken that to heart, trying to raise her children as critical thinkers, volunteering many hours for the local PA chapter of the ACLU and serving as a board member there as well.

Lauri has also become a very active member of the ACLU, both the local and the state chapter where she serves as a board member. She is currently still writing freelance and has another book proposal in the works. She also blogs for Religion Dispatches and is working for the Newspaper Guild as a labor organizer for freelancers.

On this point, Cyndi remarks, “The very idea of self-employment does not lend itself to organizing. I’m really curious how this plays out. I can’t figure out how it’s going to work but if does and they get paid for what they do, that’s a beautiful thing.”

Lauri comments that their main target has been the Huffington Post who does not pay their writers. “We’re getting decent attention on the Huffington Post stuff,” she says. “But it’s a big learning curve…”

Current events and politics are always a topic of conversation between these two friends. Since both are extremely well-informed citizens, I’m curious where they get their news. They admit they often trade the same story links over the Internet. Cyndi favors Truth Out, Media Matters, Religion Dispatches and AlterNet. Lauri likes Mother Jones for political news and the New York Times. She expressed dismay over some sources that are more “junk food”. “Don’t get me wrong,” she says, “I still read tons of junk food. But so much is at stake now that politician sex scandals are just not…it just seems trivial. Why am I being distracted by this? That’s the problem with [sites like] the Huffington Post. You are reading a serious story and get distracted by this thing over here.” She adds, “It’s disgusting how much space they give to [serious woo].”

Cyndi admits she still goes to the York Dispatch to get what she calls “local flavor”. She doesn’t like local TV news. “…you don’t have investigative journalism going on there so is it news or just making you aware of happenings?”

What’s the state of journalism these days? Lauri is disturbed over the latest trend of not standing up to the truth. “Everyone is afraid to speak the truth about everything because they’ll be told they are biased. That’s a terrible way to approach science coverage!”

Of Pandas and Reporters: Lauri admonishes a spectator during the trial

Her early days as a reporter at the York Daily Record introduced her to new areas of interest. She describes it: “I was assigned Gettysburg and didn’t know anything about it, nothing about the Civil War! I thought I had it down which side was blue, which was grey, that’s how stupid I was. But, I just got into it, totally obsessed with it, pulling in everything I could.”

She continues, “That’s the beauty of being a reporter. There is this cartoon of ‘How a reporter starts his day’ – it’s a dartboard that says ‘what am I an expert in?’ [with all these choices such as] ‘nuclear power’, ‘politics’, ‘civil liberties’, any of these issues. It’s so much fun, the most fun job! I miss newspaper reporting so much just because of that variety.”

So, that’s how she approached the story of the Dover school board controversy. “This one stuck more than any other issue. Once I started reading I got really curious about the science side and how cool it was. That changed me more personally than anything else I learned as a journalist.”

Getting educated

Speaking of science education of nonscientists, what was their science education like in school?

“Awful,” says Lauri, “I was horrible. I was just not interested in it. I got a ‘C’. I wasn’t interested in education at all.”

“My [biology] teacher made it difficult,” Cyndi recalls. “He was gruff man and not interesting.” And she remarked that, in her memory, he reminded her of one of the defendants on the Dover School Board.

“There was a lot of that,” Lauri adds. “I was so disconnected, for all I know I could have been taught creationism and wasn’t listening! I’m so ashamed of that.”

So what changed? Is there an event that “turns on the light bulb”? In my discussions with many people, I’ve found this light bulb moment to be common – a situation or an issue that opened a keyhole, a portal, to a new understanding of life that involved an appreciation of science and the reliability of scientific knowledge. For these two, the Dover trial was that event.

“The Dover trial was a total light bulb for me,” Lauri admits. “I loved watching animal shows, loved hiking but just didn’t think about [evolution as the underlying foundation].”

Cyndi agrees, saying, “Prior to the case, it was pretty easy to be interested in nature or astronomy.” But, the effect of the case was huge. “I don’t know how you sit in that trial day after day, listening to these experts and going through that process. I don’t know how that doesn’t affect you. I don’t know anybody that it didn’t affect.” Except, of course, those defendants who stuck to their Biblical-based beliefs. NO facts could shake their faith.

Lauri, whose father was a fundamentalist believer, was open to new information. She described looking at the world differently when she accepted the understanding of evolution. “For years I’ve fed the [backyard] birds, but I never thought about how it all worked together. I would watch my goldfinches and how they would fight and thought ‘Oh, isn’t that cute; they’re fighting.’ One day I realized there’s nothing cute about this – this is survival. If one gets more seeds, he’s going to survive. Natural selection clicked on. Once you start seeing that…it was sort of like being reborn.”

Lauri and Cyndi visit England for Charles Darwin's 200th birthday event

What’s the state of anti-evolutionists these days?

The Discovery Institute, the foremost intelligent design advocacy organization advocate “critical thinking”. But that means, Cyndi says, “allowing both sides and allowing their idea. They come from the point of view that if you can’t even discuss or allow our side, how can you critically think about it? I think they come from that martyr position.”

Lauri adds, “It plays off our notions of democracy. They are so desperately trying to get creationism into class.”

She had just finished penning an article in Scientific American that highlighted the various state legislature bills active right now and what they advocate. Regarding the motives of organizations like the Discovery Institute, she continues, “I used to be more generous – I used to believe it was solely about saving the children. There’s more to it. I’ve gotten much more cynical about their behavior. I think it’s a power thing, an ego thing. I haven’t fully wrapped my brain around it.”

“Lawmakers who are working with the Discovery Institute buy into [the Creationist agenda],” Cyndi opines. “That org had a lot of money and put a lot of time into what they do.” She fully expects this will continue regardless of their epic court defeats. “There is a certain emotional connection when you put yourself into it and get beat in a fight, ‘I’m gonna get back up and I’m coming at you.’ So maybe now with these losses, they are digging in. As long as they stay funded, they are going to continue to fight.” Cyndi’s curiosity is now aroused. We speculate about who funds such groups…

Naturally curious friends

Cyndi regards herself as a naturally curious person and that feeds her need to look at issues from all sides. Lauri, growing up in a large family, tells me she always had to defend comments at the dinner table. In addition, being a journalist was a boost to critical thinking. “As I got better as a journalist, I learned to set the strong feelings aside and hear what people have to say. I have to know enough about the issue to ask the right questions and not let [the interviewees] get away with stupid sound bites.”

“So that process helps you…” Cyndi asks.

“It does,” Lauri concedes, “…constantly sifting through the information.”

Cyndi replies, “I don’t know if I have the ability…” to which Lauri barks “Oh, yes you do! I’ve used you as a sounding board!” and I marvel at how the two friends support each other.

Participation in the Dover trial has given both women a whole new circle of acquaintances. Lauri now has lawyers, teachers, scientists and other experts to consult when she needs them. Cyndi adds that there is still a continued support network of people who were involved in the case. Before the trial, neither ever had friends who were scientists.

“Everybody told me scientists were horrible to interview,” Lauri says of her journalist colleagues, “but everyone was so freaking cool! They’d start talking and getting excited. If someone is telling me good stories, I’d get excited. Scientists are like, I’ll tell you more…”

“When we know something, we like to share it,” says Cyndi. “People like to share what they know, especially if they have a captive audience.”

“That’s true,” Lauri agrees. “People like interested people.” Lauri also says she did not run into the stereotypical scientist who spoke in impenetrable jargon. Both ladies enjoy listening to science superstars like Ken Miller talk about biology. And both express unending adulation for their dear friend, NCSE director Genie Scott.

Civil liberties – a cause worth fighting for

Finally, we move to the latest focus of their interest and talents…the fight for civil liberties. The ACLU spearheaded the legal action in Dover. Lauri and Cyndi continued their involvement and support of the organization. Lately, Cyndi has been the go-to person in the neighborhood regarding civil liberties and considers it a true exercise in critical thought.

“The ACLU is a worthy organization,” Cyndi remarks. “I would hate to see what it would be like if they were not here.”

But it is a complicated topic that people may have difficulty understanding. An example was the decision regarding the rights of the reviled Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) who protest at high profile funerals about their perceived evils of society.

“Support for the WBC…” she begins, “It’s hard to say why you support them. People don’t get that. I can’t think of too much positive to say about WBC, but you have to be able to set that aside and say, ‘what’s the price here – civil liberties.’ If free speech doesn’t apply to everyone, it doesn’t apply to anyone.”

“Too many people want to react emotionally and they can’t set those things aside,” Lauri adds and continues with an example, “The tea party has no critical thinking skills.” She explains that such groups feel any legal representation for someone accused of terrorism is traitorous, regardless of the Constitution. But, again, the ACLU fights for everyone.

“When the Westboro decision came out, Cyndi was explaining to people why free speech must be protected, even abhorrent free speech,” Lauri explains. Cyndi thinks she made some points with people, one at a time, who didn’t think holistically about it but reacted in that highly emotional way. “It was an interesting day of discussions…” From employees to hairdressers, they wanted to know she felt about it.

Both women recognize and fear that “knee-jerk” reaction to news and politics we are seeing so much of. So, in their daily lives, in talking or writing, they attempt to spread a rational view, to illuminate these complex social issues with critical thoughts from people they meet everyday to as broad an audience as they can reach.

With these two, it’s clear that unexpected small events can change the course of your career, your friends, the way you look at life and what is truly important about it.

———

Sharon Hill is a geologist in Pennsylvania who specializes in public understanding of science. She blogs at Doubtful and organizes the Keystone Society for Rational Inquiry Twitter: @idoubtit and @keystoneinquiry

=======
This post, Two Women of Dover: Taking Action for What Matters, originally appeared on She Thought on May 13, 2011.
=======

Image taken from the University of Illini Secular Student Alliance

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine, student at Mississippi State University, participated in the ‘ask an atheist day’ event on the campus. This event was created by the Illini secular student alliance and is going to be organized annually by the secular student alliance and aims at bringing awareness on the existence of atheists and helping fighting myths and stereotypes about non-believers.

This year marked the first time this event was organized on this particular campus and, while Mississippi’s reputation might have justified a bit of trepidation, it went pretty well. Why, nobody even stabbed himself!

Anyway, here are some of my friend’s reflections about this experience.

Lorem ipsum

Q- How long have you been a student on the campus and when did you join the local free thinkers association? How did you hear from it? Do you have any particular role in the association?

Well, I have been here for 3 years and I joined the group around the summer 2010. I started looking online for some likeminded individuals and eventually stumbled across the group’s message board. It was fairly inactive at the time so after a few posts to the board and a meeting or two we slowly but surely “resurrected” the group. I was eventually elected to be president of the group.

Q- So, where did you first hear about the “ask an atheist day” and what decided you to organize it on the campus?

One of our members actually brought it up in a meeting. Most, if not all of us, were unaware of this event. I was fairly excited when he took the initiative, because once he stated that he was going to do it many other members started volunteering to help out as well.

Lorem ipsum

Q- Speaking of the organization, how long were you guys meeting people? How many people did participate on your side of the tables? Did any people from you association decline to participate for whatever reason?

The table was set up and going at around 8AM I believe. I arrived at 11AM and left at 7PM. Our side of the table started off with about 3 or 4 people and as the day went on it continued to grow. We even acquired a few new members that joined us in answering questions. By the end of the day, we probably had about 10-12 members answering questions. We do have a few closeted atheists in our group, so they declined.

Q- You, yourself, are still, while not in the atheist closet, at least discreet about it. Did this cause you any hesitation when organizing this event?

A little bit. Away from my hometown, I am open with my atheism. However, since I have family on Facebook I had to keep a lookout to make sure I wasn’t tagged in any photos corresponding with the event. My family is unaware of my atheism; otherwise I am open about it to everyone else.

Lorem ipsum

Q- So, I think it is fair to say that Mississippi has a somewhat less than stellar reputation for enlightenment. Did this cause you any apprehension beforehand?

I was worried that we would be trolled heavily during the event; however once we got started we only had one guy to come up and try to run us around in circles with his circular reasoning. We recognized it fairly quickly and pointed out the flaws in his argument. He was using an “appeal to authority” to try to persuade us into becoming believers. Once he realized that his tactic wasn’t working he took the walk of shame.

Q- By your estimate, how many people did come and visit your table and what was their general attitude?

I’d say over a hundred by the end of the day. Some came and went, while others stayed and had some interesting discussions. In between classes is when we had the highest traffic, and of course towards the end of the day we had a large group surrounding our table. The majority of attitudes were that of curiosity. Living in the “Bible Belt” it’s almost unheard of to not believe in God.

We did have a few people walk by and let us know that “Jesus loves us.” We thought that was nice.

Q- What were some of the most common questions that people asked?

“Where did we come from?”

We answered by starting at the present and then rewinding, we cycled back through evolution, abiogenesis, and then cosmology. We may not know all of the process but at no point is there any reason for us to immediately jump to a supernatural step.

“What is the purpose of life?”

In general, we explained that this varied from person to person; normally we find something that we are good at or that we enjoy and use it as our “purpose”. Since there is no evidence of a supernatural creator, there is also no evidence of a supernaturally assigned purpose.

“Where do you get your morals?”

One of my favorites, I just usually pointed out how being nice to others is beneficial to society. If we were constantly at each other’s throats then progress would be hindered greatly. People usually don’t like it when someone is mean to them and when there is a mean or disruptive person in a group, that person will usually be kicked out of the group. Since the majority of people want to be accepted in society, people have grown to be nicer to each other, an evolution of understanding if you will. This then plays into decision making. Usually before we make decisions, not all of the time of course, we will weigh out the consequences. The main ideas we think about are usually a few simple questions. “Will this hurt me?” “Will this hurt anyone else?” and “Do the benefits outweigh the negative outcomes?”, then we make the decision. Basically we just tend to reason things out in my opinion.

Q- All in all, what do you think was the main impact of the event? Do you think that it will help some atheists achieve a better visibility and fight some prejudice about them?

Basically we just wanted to show the public that we aren’t bad people as a whole, that we can be good without God. I think we achieved that goal. It also gave our group some very good exposure and helped us to increase our membership because some people didn’t know that we even had a group.

Lorem ipsum

Q- So, is it fair to expect that you will organize the event again next year?

Absolutely, we’re actually planning on having more events next semester. They may not be “Ask An Atheist” day, but we really enjoyed doing this so we plan on being more involved with the public in the near future.

=======
This post, I survived ‘Ask an atheist day’ and I didn’t even get a stupid T-shirt!, originally appeared on She Thought on April 25, 2011.
=======

I am very excited to link to an article by Granite State Skeptic Dale Roy, a new voice in skepticism!! She has clearly been thinking about the issue of feminism, skepticism, and sexism a lot, and has some very interesting points to make.

I have been pushed! Pushed to write my thoughts on feminism. For the past year I have heard about feminism and skepticism. Which normally, does not bother me. Feminism, serves a very important purpose when pointed in the correct direction. Today, I wonder if feminism is still going in the correct direction. Apparently, members of our own community are putting us women in a submissive and inferior role. There are several women in our community that are leading the charge vocally and thank goodness they are there to tell me how to feel about it! At least this is the impression I have been left with. I have been wrangling with and hashing out my own thoughts over the past several months. I keep biting my tongue, holding myself back. I hold myself back because; I have only been a member for the skeptical community actively for a short time. I keep waiting for someone more established in the community to speak up for those of us that do not feel the same as the popular opinion. No one has spoken up, which possibly means I stand alone… That is a very scary position to be in.

Go read the article now so we can discuss this as women in skepticism!

=======
This post, New Voices in the Sexism in Skepticism Debates!, originally appeared on She Thought on April 19, 2011.
=======

(Cross-posted on NoisyAstronomer.com)

So, this all started when one of my fellow grad students came into my office yesterday saying, “Hey! There is free ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s today! Let’s go.” And so we did. Turns out, not only was the ice cream free, but it was set up so that the Virginia Institute of Autism could collect donations and advertise their 5K taking place this Saturday.

I looked into the VIA and they are doing some pretty awesome work. It is a school in Charlottesville for children on the autism spectrum and was started by several parents of autistic children. From their website:

The Virginia Institute of Autism (VIA) is a non-profit organization providing a day-school and other resources for families, educators and health professionals seeking services, training or information about autism and evidence based interventions.

With all the dangerous misinformation running rampant about autism that has been exposed, it is important to focus on the real interventions that can actually help families who need it.

So! How can you help? You can sponsor me, or my boyfriend, or both of us in the 5K! Yes, we are getting our butts out of bed and into Charlottesville by 7:30 on a Saturday morning for a good cause. All you need to do is:

1. Email me or Tim with your name and how much you’d like to pledge.
2. Go to the VIA site and click “Sponsor”.
3. Put your donation amount under “Run for Autism 5K – Sponsor a Runner or Team” and go through the checkout process.

(Note, if you are local to either of us, you can skip the online process and just hand us a check made out to “Virginia Institute of Autism”.)

No, neither of us actually run. My knees would quit and detach from my body if I tried. However, we will be jogging/walking, so don’t look for any competitive times or anything like that. I’m not a jock like my brothers! I AM, however, really looking forward to helping a good cause and working off that free ice cream I just ate. Thanks for your support!

=======
This post, Urgent! You can help Kids with Autism, originally appeared on She Thought on April 13, 2011.
=======

“There are certain points when debating with someone where you sort-of have to walk away. [...] ‘cause you’ll just basically end up getting a concussion.”
George Hrab

We’ve all been there. Someone we know, perhaps a relative, is nattering on about something abjectly false: something so wrong it’s akin to the claim that the Earth is flat. We try to correct the falsehood by presenting empirical, credible evidence for a spherical Earth. To our immense frustration, the friend (or relative) angrily defends flat Earth. It can seem as if presenting more evidence only strengthens their dedication to flat Earth.

Political scientist Brendan Nyhan studied the persistence of false political beliefs, and the results are fascinating.  He reported these results in a paper he coauthored with Jason Reifler, When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions. If you don’t have time to read it, there’s a fantastic interview with Nyhan on the Point of Inquiry podcast.  Here are the major points.

Misinformed vs. Uninformed
Nyhan and Reifler were targeting misinfomation in particular. Misinformation is a falsehood that people think they know to be true. Misinformed test subjects tended to substitute political ideology for facts. Both liberals and conservatives resisted corrective information that conflicted with their political opinions.

Interestingly, there seems to be a negative correlation between the level of confidence people have in their particular political beliefs and the likelihood that the beliefs are accurate. Elites, who sometimes have strong incentives to misinform the public, add false legitimacy and intensity to political misinformation.

In contrast to misinformation, Nyhan provides an example of simple ignorance of facts (I’m paraphrasing from memory) :

Someone asks you to name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and you don’t know but guess Scalia. When the person says, “No, actually, it’s Roberts,” you are fairly likely to just accept the correction because it’s not tied to a particular political ideology.

Backfire Effect
An utterly fascinating discovery from the paper is the “backfire effect:”

“[...] individuals who receive unwelcome information may not simply resist challenges to their views. Instead, they may come to support their original opinion even more strongly.”

Although both liberals and conservatives had trouble letting go of misinformation, conservatives were the only ones, in this particular study, who exhibited the backfire effect.

More Detail
I emailed Nyhan with a few follow-up questions. Note than Nyhan speaks only for himself and not for his coauthor.

> 1.  Who are the elites?  Can you give me a couple of examples?  It seems to me that they hold sway both in originally providing misinformation to the public and later play an important role in publicly discrediting misinformation.  Who else in society might be a credible source of corrective information?

I’m not quite sure what you mean by “Who are the elites?” For the purposes of the article, we used “political elites” to refer to prominent political figures who were featured in the media, highly placed in political institutions and groups, etc. Elites often play a key role in getting political myths into circulation. It’s certainly true that elites *could* also play a role in discrediting misinformation, but the problem is that it’s usually one side’s elites that try to do so, and their messages are often not persuasive to supporters of the other side. Ideally, we would like to have institutions and elites who are highly credible to both sides, but very few exist who are willing to try to arbitrate these sorts of disputes and set the record straight. In particular, the media is often reluctant to fact-check and is frequently accused of bias when it does so.

> 2.  Do you think the media’s attempt to provide balanced reporting and presenting “both sides” of issues has the effect of implying false equivalency?  I’m thinking here of the role of the media in failing to discredit Andrew Wakefield and the shenanigans of the anti-vaccine movement.

Yes. I’ve been highly critical of the notion that the media has to be balanced with regard to the facts — see in particular All the President’s Spin, which is a book I co-wrote when I was co-editor of Spinsanity. A good critique of artificial balance is here. For an experimental study of its potentially harmful effects, see [this site].

> 3. How much motivated reasoning can be attributed to a basic human reaction to cognitive dissonance?  None of us wants to be wrong, but it seems to me that the current political climate prohibits the possibility of changing paradigms based on credible evidence.  If so, how can we change the climate to be more open to critical thinking?

It’s a very good question. Cognitive dissonance is one mechanism for motivated reasoning, but there are others — one possibility is that it’s driven by emotional incongruence rather than contradictory cognitions (i.e. I like person X, and you say they’re wrong). Changing the climate is difficult. We’re working on understanding the conditions under which people will be more open to unwelcome information, but there are no easy answers. The main strategy I’ve advocated is to “name and shame” elites who promote misleading claims — I discuss this issue more in an article on misinformation about health care reform and in a couple of interviews [here and here].

> 4. Given the potential harm of the backfire effect, do you recommend attempting to correct misperceptions IRL when you know going in that no amount of evidence will sway the proponent of misinformation?  What do you do in these situations?

Yes, I think it’s still crucial to correct misperceptions in order to change the incentives for elites as I mentioned above, but we shouldn’t mislead ourselves about the effectiveness of that strategy for the mass public. Corrections are most likely to be effective in dissuading elites from promoting misleading claims or stopping the spread of a myth early in its lifespan, not in changing the minds of people once a myth is circulating widely.

Conclusion
I’m hopeful that by discussing these and other barriers to critical thinking, we can all get a little closer to rationality ourselves and carry that out into the larger culture. I’m grateful to people like Brendan Nyhan who help us find the path to reason.

=======
This post, When Corrections Fail, originally appeared on She Thought on March 6, 2011.
=======

It is difficult to convey to those on the outside of an abusive relationship how very difficult it is to escape. One major reason why it is difficult to escape is because of all the decisions that have to be made to get a person from their precarious situation into a safe environment, where they can be safe. An abuse victim, just reaching freedom,  often has to build their life all over again. While they may have every reason to aspire for that dream, they may have difficulty navigating every step they have to take to get to their new life.

When helping victims of abuse, the task which counselors, advocates and the other professionals involved take upon themselves is assisting the victim in re-obtaining a healthy, normal life for themselves. In the case of domestic abuse victims, they have left a norm that was unhealthy for them, so they often have to build an entirely new understanding of what they want to consider as normal and healthy for them.

Speaking directly to possible victims, now.

When you make your decisions about your future, understand that you are not looking for a perfect answer. Instead, the answer you are seeking is the best available option that will help you get your needs met, be safe and will help you get closer to adapting to a sustainable life you can be happy in.

The decisions you make are likely to all be made in your head, but they should be structured decisions, based on good reasoning and with every consideration for your future. The process described below is an approach to decisions relating specifically to leaving abusive situations.

Step 1. Make a list of the most urgent decisions you have to attend to. Understand your related goals. If you need help, ask your counselor or a trustworthy friend to help you. In order to decide which decisions are the most urgent, consider factors such as how they relate to immediate and long-term safety, if there is a time frame that you have to act in or if it is important to you for some other reason. Remember that this is your life, your new beginning that you are planning.

Step 2.  Describe your options to yourself as best you can. If you are in a place where it is safe to write them down, do so, so that you have something to look at and edit if you need to. Write down how each option may or may not get you closer to your goals of safety and meeting your needs.

Step 3.  Make your decision based on what you know. Don’t rely on instincts or emotional cycles to pull you in one direction or another. Our instincts and emotions with regard to abuse are often misleading to us. They tend to be the reason why many victims stay in unhealthy situations. It is OK to disregard your feelings for long enough to make a decision and then set aside time later, after the decision has been made and acted on, to deal with the emotional aspect.

Step 4. Once you’ve made your decision, don’t procrastinate or try to talk your way out of it. Act on your decision! Following through with your decision can be the best thing that you’ve ever done for yourself.  Changing course in your decisions that are made in order to make you safe, either before or in the process of acting on it, can compromise your safety or have other long-term consequences.

Step 5. Once you’ve acted on your decision and done what you need to do to realize your goal, reward yourself. Do something just for you, even if it is small. Read a book you love, watch a movie, eat some chocolate, whatever it is that will help you tell yourself that you did a good job. Don’t take this as cheesy, back-patting. Helping to reinforce a feeling of satisfaction after making a decision will help you stay on track and increase your chances of successfully building a life for yourself.

Step 6. Re-evaluate. Once you have taken action, re-evaluate your situation and decide what other decisions need to be made to ensure your safety and well-being.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

=======
This post, Making Choices to Save Your Life, originally appeared on She Thought on February 25, 2011.
=======