Phil Plait’s Bad Universe

How badass does that sound? Well, the trailer lives up to the badassery:

Geekgasm! So glad Discovery is adding another scientific/skeptical show to its lineup – something other than logging, fishing, or ghosts. Especially since astronomy was my first scientific love, so I have a soft spot for it in my heart. And even better that it features Phil Plait, who after meeting at TAM, I know I could definitely sit down and watch for hours.

…Because he’s entertaining. Man, why does everything I say sound so creepy? Anyway, yay for his top secret project being revealed!

(Via Skepchick)

Interview about the aftershock from boobquake

I was recently interviewed by my local newspaper about the way boobquake is still affecting my life. It actually came out on Sunday, but I was so busy with TAM stuff that I missed it. Here’s the Q&A session from the article:

Photo by John Terhune, Journal and Courier

Question: What are you writing for the HarperCollins book?

Answer: It is a tongue-in-cheek piece about atheist Christmas toys. I had a piece on my blog where I photoshopped an atheist Barbie because a female Episcopalian minister made a minister Barbie doll. I thought, “I want an atheist Barbie doll,” and I made it with all of these atheist stereotypes, like with a baby in a paper bag. So (the editor) saw this and asked me to write a new piece for the book. It is really cool and will be out this fall.

Q: Is this a launching point for you to do this humorous take on skepticism?

A: Definitely. That is how my personality is anyway. People see me as a more aggressive atheist, because I am outspoken, but I like to do it with a hint of humor. I do plan to keep blogging and talking about this and writing more in the future.

Q: Tell me about The Amaz!ng Meeting.

A: It’s the annual meeting of the James Randi Educational Foundation. They educate people to debunk paranormal, supernatural things. I am going to be talking about boobquake there. I am personally excited because there are a lot of celebrities talking there, like Richard Dawkins, Penn and Teller, and Adam Savage from MythBusters.

Q: Do you go to this every year?

A: No, this is my first time and my blog readers raised the money for me to go. … I put up a request for donations to cover the trip because some of my readers said they would donate if I did. I got $1,600 in 10 hours. I am donating the extra money …

Q: Is there a time when science should not question people’s beliefs based in culture or religion?

A: I don’t think science can answer why or ethical questions. When science finds something to be factually true, it should be religion that changes to accept it, not the other way around. There are people who believe they can ignore science because it does not fit into their religious belief. I don’t think that is how the world should work.

Q: Knowing what you are capable of, would you ever use your platform for another issue to rally people?

A: The boobquake Facebook page has over 100,000 people as fans. So I have occasionally sent out links on articles I think are interesting or pieces about women’s rights in Iran. When I started my blog, I thought no one would ever read it. It was just for my friends. But now I know people read it, and I have some influence.

Q: What have you learned about people from this?

A: People are sort of starting to get fed up with ridiculous claims when they are not supported and especially when they are hurtful. When you use humor to go after these claims it is a very effective way to go after them.

Q: Have there been any drawbacks from boobquake?

A: It is a little humorous that I do have other academic accomplishments, and this is what I am internationally known for. But I figure I am still young and have a lot of time to make accomplishments in my research.

Q: Are people at University of Washington aware of you?

A: Yeah, I’ve actually been getting e-mails from people who are students and professors or Seattle atheists saying, “If you need a friend, we are totally here.” And that is totally cool since I don’t know anyone there, I already have people offering friendship.

I think this also serves as a perfect example as to why I blog instead of post videos to YouTube. Do I seriously talk like that, or is some of that transcript error? Sheesh ;)

I do like one of the comments on the article though:

Sorry, but I am a Christian. I will not be reading your chapter in a book and I will not be rooting for you. You sound like a thinking sort of gal, though, so I will be praying for you.

Yeah, go central Indiana! And to think I chose my words very carefully for this piece. Just imagine if that person went to my blog.

Women and Feminism at TAM8

I’m not going to go too in depth recapping all the talks at TAM8 for three main reasons:

  1. Hemant already did a wonderful job liveblogging all of the talks, which you can find here, here, here, here, here, and here,
  2. I was livetweeting most of my reactions all day
  3. I lost my pen after the very first session so I didn’t take very good notes.Whoops.

But I do want to comment on women and feminism at TAM8, especially since this was a bit of an issue last year. Keep in mind this is just my experience from a single TAM, since it was my first time going. Even though I remember all the blog posts from last year, I can’t fairly compare it to past events.

The conference wasn’t perfect, mainly because skeptics don’t live in a little bubble sheltered from society. The good definitely outweighs the bad, but I still need to point out the bad. So, let’s get it out of the way.

Sexism

The one annoying thing I saw was the perpetuation of the Sexy vs. Smart binary in talks. The stereotype goes that women can sexy/attractive/beautiful and stupid/ditsy/unscientific, or they can be smart/witty/scientific and frumpy/plain/ugly. This myth annoys the hell out of me, especially because it’s so common. It simply is not true – you can be hot and smart, and you can be “plain” and stupid. I hate people assuming I’m an idiot because I like to talk about sex or wear a low cut shirt now and then. And I’m not even very feminine – I can’t even imagine how often “conventionally” attractive and feminine skeptics and scientists have to deal with this.

The main perpetrator was Michael Shermer, who included the following video in his talk:

Oh, gee, using hot airhead women as an example of people who aren’t critical thinkers! Uhhh…no. The only way this contributed to his talk was by making me uncomfortable. If that was his goal, he succeeded.

And while I fell in love with Harriet Hall, she did the same thing. [EDIT: Apparently my memory is faulty and this only occurred sometimes in her talk, and Barbara Drescher makes a good point as to why this is acceptable in McCarthy’s case] Whenever Sometimes she mentioned Jenny McCarthy in her talk as an example of someone saying something stupid (which Jenny McCarthy certainly does often), she would include a picture of her bending over in a bikini or some other scantily clad outfit. Why was this effective? Why not use a photo of Jenny McCarthy in a suit?

Because we’re programmed to go “Ha, look at that stupid bimbo!” or something along those lines. We associate beauty and sexuality in women with ignorance. It was used for cheap laughs, and the audience delivered. If we’re judging someone based on their intellectual merit, we shouldn’t be using irrelevant bikini photos as pot shots.

Attendees

I don’t have the exact numbers (maybe the JREF will release some info), but there were a lot of women at TAM this year. Still not an equal 50/50, but getting there – maybe 60/40. I definitely did not feel out of place.

Speakers

From a quick glance at the program, it seems like men definitely outnumber women. Not hugely so, which is an improvement, but it was still noticeable. Now, I don’t think you can necessarily blame TAM or even the skeptical movement for this. When sexism permeates society like it does, there are a whole host of reasons why you may not see women in as prominent roles. By the time you’ve reached the level of accomplishment to be invited to speak, a whole slew of other institutions and people have had the chance to drag women down, thus limiting the number of qualified women.

And according to a conversation Hemant had with Jeff Wagg, JREF does try:

Jeff Wagg of JREF points out that they’ve actively reached out to women. Last year, 8 women were invited to speak at TAM. 2 said yes. 1 of those women had to cancel. It’s not like they’re not trying.

Even though men outnumbered women, the ratio wasn’t that horrible. Still looks way better than most science departments I’ve seen.

The real interesting data comes out when you break the speakers down into categories. I’ve divided the various events into talks (solo speakers), panels and interviews, and extra workshops:The ratio of men to women was 3.5:1 for talks, 2:1 for panels, and 1:1 for workshops. Why? Any answer I could give it purely speculative, so I’ll leave it for the discussion as to why you think this is. It is interesting to note that the less individual contribution required, the more equal the gender ratio.

I have to note that I absolutely loved all the female speakers, and that seriously is not me being biased. I’m not the type to like someone by default just because they have certain genitalia or chromosomes or hormones or whatever (side note: whoever told you sex was simple was wrong). Their talks were some of the best at TAM, so don’t let anyone tell you that women are being invited to speak just to fill some quota. Since people are always asking me for awesome female skeptics to follow, here’s their information:

Content

One great thing about TAM was that it had not one, but two sessions explicitly devoted to exploring women’s issues. The first was Feminist Skepticism Workshop with Rebecca Watson and the Skepchicks. As you can imagine, I was really excited for this workshop. I think it did an excellent job at showing how feminism is compatible with skepticism, and how various skeptical issues affect women.

I also loved Vagina Craft Time. Here’s me with my angry felt vagina: And while that seems silly, it did serve a purpose. One, it was a nice intermission to all the serious information. Talking about rape and sexism for two hours can be taxing on anyone, so it was nice to have some light hearted humor injected in. Two, it forced the audience to form small groups. While we were in groups, we discussed a skeptical issue that was assigned to us and how it affected women. After craft time was over, everyone had to share what they discussed. Without this fun activity, it would have been very difficult to force people to participate.

I think, though, it may have been a little too silly at times. For example, after each major serious topic, Rebecca inserted silly cat photos to lighten the mood. I’m all for silliness, but random lolcats after seriously discussing rape just didn’t sit well with me. Make your serious point without undermining it, and then inject humor later. From the awkward half-laughter in the audience, I think others agreed with me. The lady sitting next to me even commented, “Great, who’s going to take feminists seriously now?” after the first lolcat. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but I agree that it was a bit in bad taste.

The other event at TAM was the Women in Skepticism Panel with Rebecca Watson, Carol Tavris, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Pamela Gay, Ginger Campbell, and Harriet Hall. It was an excellent discussion of what it’s like dealing with male dominated fields and sexism and a female skeptic. It was really nothing new to me since I’m familiar with the issues, but it would have been excellent for anyone in the audience who maybe hadn’t thought about this before.

Summary

Before I went, I admit I was a little nervous. I had been warned about the low number of women, some sexist jokes, and hordes of creepy stalker guys that would follow me around. Maybe it’s because I started with my guard up or maybe it’s because TAM is improving, but I really didn’t think it was that bad. At least, not any worse than any non-theist club meeting or biology conference I’ve been to (…which probably isn’t much of an endorsement after all, hmm). I’m definitely looking forward to going back in the future. And I’m sure with the way things are quickly improving and all the hard work the JREF is putting in, it’ll be even more awesome and comfortable for women next year.

But I’m just one woman. If you were at TAM, what did you think? Men are welcome to comment, but I’m especially interested in how other women felt. Were you comfortable? Did you run into any other incidents of sexism? Do you have any suggestions on how TAM could improve in the future?

TAM8 Part 3 – One last fangirling

The real story from Saturday night was the Skepchick Bordello party. I didn’t really have a costume, so I just wore a low cut shirt to fit in with the Bordello theme. Thankfully a reader stumbled into me and gave me an extra Sheriff pin he had, so I was all set. One of the first people I ran into was Mary Myers, who may be better known to you as “The Trophy Wife.” She was super sweet, totally unlike her husband, who we all know is a huge dick who eats babies in his free time.A fellow party goer asked for my my autograph along with a drawing of a pair of boobs. I obliged. I think this may become my autograph standard, though hopefully a little nicer than after I’ve had three beers.
I also got to meet a bunch of the Skepchicks, including Rebecca, Maria, Carrie, and Amy. Speaking of which, I also bought two new Surlyramics, one for me and one for my mom. Amy, you’ve gotten me addicted!The Skepchicks sure know how to throw a party, because the costume contest concluded in attractive scantily clad young women making out with each other. And the male skeptics rejoiced. Twitter probably crashed at that moment from all the happy tweets.

Me: You missed it.
Hemant: What?
Me: A bunch of hot girls were just making out with each other.
Hemant: Whaaaat?! Noooo!
Ashley: *comes up and pecks me on the lips while his head is turned*
Me: Aaaaand you missed that too.
Hemant: Damnit!!Other perks of the party involved Phil from Skeptic Money doing a cold reading on me. Even though I know he’s not really psychic and I understood his tactics, it was still pretty neat and unsettling. In a couple minutes he was able to get out the name of my ex boyfriend who broke my heart and all sorts of details on him. Very weird. Phil, you should totally make a video about how you do it. But in lighter news, here’s Hemant and Sean Faircloth (executive director of the Secular Coalition for America) playing Rock Band:Eventually Hemant and I headed back because I was starting to freak out about my talk (aka, the beer was losing its effect). We ended up getting some late night breakfast food with some of our new random TAM friends before going to sleep. I got about three hours of sleep before my talk. I think this is still more than most people.

After the Sunday papers I finally got a chance to say hello to James Randi when he wasn’t busy with something. Randi is seriously one of my new favorite people. Not only is he so adorably small that I just want to hug him or smuggle him away in my suitcase, but everything he says is witty, intelligent, and assertive. And did I mention he was adorable? They had to get a milk crate for him to stand on so he could be tall enough for the speakers podium, and he literally went “Weeee!” when stepping up. I want him. Or to at least be like him when I’m 81.
One of my friends bought a deck of Tarot cards for various famous skeptics to sign, and they decided that I was now internet famous enough to make the cut. While shuffling through the deck to find a sex related card appropriate for boobquake, my friend Jamie tried to get my attention.

Jamie: Uh, Jen, I think Simon Singh is waiting to talk to you.
Me: What.
Simon Singh was one of the few famous skeptics left that I was a little too shy to approach, but then he went out of his way to find me to tell me how much he liked boobquake and my use of humor. I seriously can’t express how flattered I am that all these people I look up to want to talk to me. And to think that I’m only 22. Hopefully I have many years of skepticism, TAMs, and humorous activism ahead of me!

That night some of us headed out to the strip just to say we could. It was pretty, but that’s about all I can say since I don’t gamble. We did have a delicious dinner in Caesar’s Palace where Hemant lost his battle against an epic stack of pancakes, and our dinner conversation mostly was about Ron Jeremy and snuff films. We are all kind of weird, if you haven’t figured that out yet.

We returned to the Del Mar lounge and played the lovely drinking game Never Have I Ever for a couple hours. Let’s just say we have enough blackmail on each other that none of us will ever be brave enough to actually use it. Actually I think that’s all I safely can say.

And while I just spent a whole day flailing about all the famous people I met, I just want to say meeting all of my readers was just as cool. Thanks to everyone who said hello, asked for photos, listened to me be awkward, etc. Without all of you I wouldn’t have even been able to go to TAM! It was an amazing networking experience, a ton of fun, and educational. And I’ll be getting to the educational parts in my next posts!

(Thanks to Hemant and Jamie for some of these photos!)

TAM8 Part 2 – More fangirling

I’m not sure what it means that I only vaguely recalled what happened on Friday of the conference. Maybe I was exhausted from the previous day and spending my time listening to talks, or maybe those rooficoladas were really potent. Either way, Friday was sort of a blur.

I spent some of the talks filling in for Hemant whenever he had to step away from liveblogging to go do more important things like interview people or search for caffeine. Let me tell you, it was incredibly tempting to post embarrassing gossip on his twitter feed and blog, both of which were open for my abuse. Thankfully for Hemant, I resisted. Not to mention I learned all the really good gossip long after liveblogging was over, alas.Me plotting Hemant’s blogging demise.

At one point during the conference Eugenie Scott from the National Center for Science Education made a guest appearance! She had just finished hiking in the Grand Canyon and stopped by TAM before her flight. I did a little evolution fangirl flail and ran off to go meet her. I saw her speak at Evolution 2009, but was too shy to say hello at the time. This time I got to say hello, squee about evolution a bit, and squee even more when she said she knew about boobquake and liked it.And after the last talk, I got to meet Brian Keith Dalton, better known as Mr. Deity! I absolutely love Mr. Deity, so that was pretty fun. Also, I think he was one of the handful of people who didn’t know what boobquake was. This was oddly refreshing in a way.
That night some of us had dinner in the Mexican restaurant. I’m convinced their margaritas did not contain any alcohol. Actually, I’m convinced none of the mixed drinks in South Point actually contained any alcohol. I gave up on getting even the slightest buzz and eventually switched to beer for the rest of TAM. If you know how much I dislike beer, you understand how drastic of a step this was.

The Del Mar wasn’t super exciting that night, so Hemant showed me various geeky math stuff, including how to calculate poker probabilities. …I swear that is not a euphemism for something. Anyway, now I know enough about poker to not just randomly bet and hope I end up with something, woo. I actually saw the World Series of Poker on at the restaurant I went to tonight and remembered what he told me, so I guess he’s a good math teacher after all!

Saturday was a bit more exciting since I actually had enough sleep to function. Since I was speaking on Sunday, I was invited to this little speakers reception around dinner time. I was able to speak to Pamela Gay and Debbie Goddard a lot, and Phil asked me to sign something for this special little thing he’s going to do (sorry, you’ll have to wait for him to announce it!). I also saw Richard Saunders of Skeptic Zone again (who was charming), but this time got a photo.I also got a quick photo with Paul Kurtz and James Randi, though I didn’t get to talk to them at all since they were running off to something.

TAM8 Part 1 – Fangirling

The Amaz!ng Meeting was, well, amazing. It can be succinctly summarized as a four day long skeptical orgasm. …And by that I mean an orgasm due to geeking out about skepticism, not that you’re skeptical of your orgasm. Because the latter wouldn’t be that amazing.

Anyway.

There is so much to talk about that I’m going to have to break it down into different topics. And since I’m currently getting tagged in dozens of facebook photos and squeeing over their contents, I figured I’d start with a nice fangirling post. Skeptical celebrities, woo! I’ll blog about the actual talks and other various observations later today.

When I arrived at the conference, I was amazed at how many people I already knew. I guess I never realized how much networking I did while president of the Society of Non-Theists – I could hardly walk through the hallway without seeing a familiar face. But I’m the type of person who’s really shy around strangers – I have a hard time initiating conversation with someone, especially if they’re famous. I pretty much immediately saw James Randi and Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy, but ran away due to fear. While I was running away in fear Richard Dawkins walked right by me. For some reason my reaction was not to flail or faint or pee my pants – instead I blushed like crazy. Yep, geek-crushing on Dawkins.

At the opening reception, I ran into my friend Ashley Paramore (fellow Secular Student Alliance board member and videoblogger healthyaddict), who is about a million times more social than me. Actually, this is probably an understatement. She proceeded to take me around and introduce me to people, and helped me work up the nerve to go take a photo with Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame.I actually had to go back and take a second photo (the one above) because my camera is being held together by duct tape and fell apart before the photo could save. Thankfully Adam was nice enough to do another.

I was standing a couple feet away, just having been introduced to Jamy Ian Swiss by Ashley, when I hear “Jeeeeeeeeeeeen!” and get surprised hugged by Phil Plait!Having someone I was avoiding out of shyness run up and hug me seriously made me feel so much better for the rest of the conference. I cannot stress how freaking nice Phil is. I constantly ran into him throughout the conference, and he always said hi and started chatting with me.

And he wasn’t the only skeptical celebrity to seek me out. Right after I saw Phil I was approached by Jennifer Michael Hecht, author of Doubt: A History. I knew boobquake was a media sensation (hopefully I knew that since that’s what my talk was about), but it still never dawned on me that so many people would know me. It was just so strange having people I admire approach me, knowing who I am and wanting to say hello or get a photo. And it was just as bizarrely awesome meeting so many readers and boobquake fans. I had to very quickly get used to the following exchange:

Person: You look really familiar.
Me: Hi, Jen McCreight.
Person: …That name sounds familiar too.
Me: I blog at Blag Hag?
Person: Hmmm…
Me: …Boobquake.
Person: OH YEAH OMG!!!!1!!!one!!

Eventually my friends would just stand by me going “You know she’s the boobquake girl, right?” This was actually somewhat helpful, since I didn’t really want to introduce myself to famous people this way, haha.

After the reception I was hanging out in the hallway with Ashley, slightly zoning out due to sleep deprivation. Hemant was going to be playing in a TAM poker tournament, and I had said I would go watch him for a while. All of a sudden she’s tugging on my arm and running.

Ashley: We need to go now.
Me: What? What happened?
Ashley: Jamy just invited us to dinner with Adam Savage.
Me: What.

Sorry Hemant, you got beaten out by Adam Savage.

Suddenly I’m speedwalking through the casino with Jamy Ian Swiss and Banachek talking about boobquake. The restaurant ended up being full so we decided on liquid fuel instead, and headed upstairs to a somewhat secluded margarita bar. We wait a little bit before Adam Savage and Phil Plait get there, and Adam sits right across from me.

I was peeing down my leg until someone mentioned I was the boobquake girl and I started laughing, and Adam pointed out that I was going to cause a disaster because my boobs bounce every time I laugh. I then proceeded to have a conversation about porn with Adam where we tried to out-weird each other with creepy fetishes. I cannot make something like this up.

Eventually Adam had to go, so got to talk with Phil a lot. I don’t remember if it was this night or another (yes, that’s how much I talked with him), but he asked me if I was still blogging after boobquake. I told him that I try to make at least a post a day, and he was surprised. Apparently he subscribed to my blog’s feed but it never worked. The fact that Phil Plait has been attempting to read my blog since April and failing because of a technical problem is seriously not acceptable. Damn you, Google Reader. I sent him a link to the correct feed, so hopefully that helps.

The little private party started to die, so I went back down to join Skeptics in the Pub at the Silverado Lounge. My friends kind of hated me that I had snuck off with drinks with Adam without telling them (sorry, I was sworn to secrecy!).

Me: I think the only person left that I really want to get a photo with is Richard Dawkins.
Julie: Well, he’s right behind you.
Me: What.
Richard Dawkins was about two feet behind me having a beer and I didn’t even notice. I went up and asked for a photo (the one from this post) and he politely agreed. Before he could escape I mentioned that we were going to be published together, and he suddenly became a lot more interested and friendly. I explained how the publishers for the Atheist’s Guide to Christmas were creating a US edition and wanted to add some American authors (which he didn’t know about), and that I was one of them. He asked what my piece was about, and I explained how it was a satire about atheist Christmas toys based on my Atheist Barbie drawing.

He asked a little more about me, so the talk turned to how I’d be starting my PhD and that I study genetics and evolution. I got to geek out about my undergraduate research for a bit since he was actually interested. Ashley then mentioned that I was also the creator of boobquake, and he remarked how he thought it was a wonderful idea, except that he didn’t like the word “boob.” Remember when I was wondering if a commenter on the boobquake post really was Richard Dawkins or not? Yep, it was him. Richard Dawkins has commented on my blog. Gah. I gave him a card to my blog and he happily accepted it, and we got one more photo.

I still can’t believe that I got to speak to Richard Dawkins for that long, and that he seemed so genuinely interested. I’m still on a fangirl high because of it. Oh, and since the guy with my camera screwed up at first, I now have a silly photo of all of our crotches:
I also met Michael Shermer and Brian Dunning right after that, but didn’t get a chance to snap any photos. Then I went to go retrieve Hemant as he lost at poker (though he made it really far!) and convince him to go to Skeptics in the Tub. He complained about how much he hated water despite the fact that he went and put on swim trunks and sat in the hot tub for a couple hours. Yeah, he really hates water. I also prodded Phil into coming. So yeah, I was hanging out in a hot tub with Hemant and Phil. Again, can’t make this stuff up.

Can you spot your hottubbing bloggers?

Eventually I went and crashed. All of this happened on just Thursday night. Fangirling about the rest of the conference will be up soon.

TAM8 Teaser: Me & Dawkins

Just moved back into my parents’ house near Chicago. I’ll be staying here until early September, when I’ll be moving to Seattle for grad school. Goodbye, Purdue! It was a good four years. I’ll probably visit at least one more time before I leave for good. As for you Chicagoans who read my blog, make sure to let me know if any skeptical/godless hijinks are going down in the Windy City. I’m sure I’ll be looking for any excuse to escape.

And as any of you who have moved understand, I am freaking exhausted. It’s amazing how much crap you can acquire over four years. It took two cars of stuff back, and probably threw two cars of stuff away. Thanks for helping me pack and move, Dad!

I’m still unpacking stuff here and lying around in a stupor. Until I start my real TAM8 posts, here’s something to taunt you:Stories later!

Irrational behavior

I like to consider myself a rational, skeptical person, but nobody is perfect. We all have irrational things we do. Some may be as benign as a good luck charm, while others may be a crippling phobia.

What are some of your more irrational beliefs or habits?

Sometimes I feel like knowing a certain belief is irrational makes it even worse. For example, I know I shouldn’t be an arachnophobe, but no amount of logical reasoning will make me quit flailing around even tiny spiders. And since I know I’m succumbing to my emotions, it makes me feel extra stupid. Anyone else feel this way?

TAM8 Liveblogging

Just wanted to give people a head’s up that Hemant is liveblogging TAM8 over at Friendly Atheist. Well, I’m actually filling in for him every once in a while whenever he’s off interviewing someone important. That’s why I’m able to let all of you know now, woo!
I am resisting the urge to post inappropriate things on his blog. The power is alluring, but I rather not be stabbed in my sleep tonight, haha.