Leavin on a jet plane, etc etc

Well tomorrow I’ll leave my apartment at 7:30 am and won’t be back until 7 pm on Wednesday the 17th for Evolution 2009, wooo! Because I care about you guys so much, I’ve set up autoposts for every day I’m gone to show you some random fun videos I like. Don’t want to leave you without updates for a week! I’ll have limited internet access through my phone and some public computers at the conference, but don’t expect too much. Even though my phone has a keyboard, I don’t think I could tolerate typing more than a paragraph, haha. I’ll make sure to tweet a sadface when I’m standing outside the Discovery Institute. Don’t worry, the lack of updates will be made up with the billion stories and photos I’ll probably have when I get back.

Somewhat related, should I wear my club t-shirt on my various plane rides home? Photos of the atheistic beauty here… I mean the shirt, not the model. I look like I’m on uppers in the first photo and downers in the second one, wtf. Anyway, might make a neat social experiment. Where do I get the most dirty/confused looks: Pullman, Seattle, Chicago, or Indianapolis? …I think I know the answer to that one already.

Edit: Here, have a photo of where I’m going. Pretty, isn’t it?

Professor stalking

So in preparation for Evolution 2009, I’ve been highlighting all the different professors I’m potentially interested in for grad school. There are actually a handful from my list (yes, I have an excel file going for the grad school search, shush) who will be attending, so I’m pretty excited. At the very least I’m going to go to their talks and try to introduce myself afterwards. Some of my current top picks will be there, so I’m hoping I like them personality-wise. That is, their research seems awesome, but I hope they’re friendly/nice/interesting/etc.

Any advice on how to approach random professors at conferences and show your interest about grad school? My current prof told me to be a “persistent stalker” since popular professors are usually swamped with people trying to talk to them. Does this require a net? Tranquilizers? Bribery with coffee? I’m just afraid I’m going to go into Utter Social Awkwardness Mode, which happens every once in a while. I don’t want to come off as too interested, since I’m not dead set on any of them, but I don’t want to seem too casual either. *fret fret fret*

Wanting to believe

People have a lot of different reasons for being religious or believing in God. Since I was raised in a secular household, I have to admit I don’t really understand most of them – I’ve never had the experience of being religious. But there’s one argument that I always have conflicting thoughts about: “Wanting to believe.”

I was hanging out/on a pseudo-date with a friend/guy/whatever you want to call him (it’s complicated, take that however you wish). He was raised religious, but now is one of those wishy washy deist/Buddhist/spiritual types. He’s totally cool with my atheism, but he was telling me a story about a priest he saw give a talk. The priest said he witnessed an exorcism where the girl was floating a foot above the ground. I gave him one of my Uh Huh, Sure looks.

Guy: But the way he told the story with such conviction…it made me want to believe, you know?
Me: Wanting to believe in something and that something being true are two entirely different things.
Guy: Does it matter if it’s true if it gives you something good to believe in?
Me: *gives him the I Don’t Want to Debate Religion While Snuggling look*
Guy: *shuts up*

That’s the argument that always gets me. Does it matter? My mom is the same way. I’d call her an agnostic theist/deist – she doesn’t believe in the more supernatural stuff like virgin birth and walking on water and all that, but she wants to believe in something. “What does it hurt?” she’ll say, and I know it’s true that it comforts her. When her friend passed away unexpectedly a couple years ago, she took comfort in the idea that she was in “a better place.”

She’s also pretty superstitious, which she gets from my Greek grandparents. She told me how a couple months after said friend’s passing, she was watching the news and the pick three lotto numbers were her friend’s birthday. “It’s a sign!” she said. I paused, wondering if I should say anything and risk upsetting her. “It’s not that unlikely that those three numbers would come up together. This looks special, but you don’t remember the hundreds of other lottos where the numbers meant nothing to you.” She rolled her eyes. “Whatever, let me believe what I want to believe. I think it’s a sign!” I left it at that.

Don’t get me wrong, I think we’d have a lot less worries if the religious population was dominated by deists and agnostic theists. Most of them seem benign enough that I’m not inclined to debate them – I mean, they’re not the ones flying planes into buildings and trying to pass religious laws, right? But at the same time, the idea of believing in something just to comfort yourself, even if you have no reason to believe it’s true, bothers me. I like being a scientific thinker. I need evidence for what I believe to be true, and when better evidence comes along, I’m willing to admit that I was wrong and adjust my views. So do you let people go on believing in something you see as a delusion, just so they can be happier? If your friend was convinced their beat up clunker was actually a red hot Porsche and that made them the happiest guy alive, would you point out that he’s wrong? Or do you just bite your tongue? Is it okay if he keeps it to himself, but once he starts bragging you should tell him what you think?

Three more days until Seattle!

Thursday I’ll be traveling to Evolution 2009 in Idaho, but I’ll be stranded in Seattle for about 9 hours waiting for my flight. These seem like the things I definitely must do while there:

– See the Space Needle, go up for look
– Pike Place Fish Market (weee flying fish!)
– Pacific Science Center
– Original Starbucks
– Freemont Troll
– Go frown by the Discovery Institute’s door

I know you guys probably all think I should try to get in the Discovery Institute…but I know I’d fail. Apparently two other female atheist bloggers got a tour through lies and subterfuge and were shown around by Casey Luskin (posts here, here, and here). Other than white lies with friends, I’m uncontrollably honest…so I don’t think I could go in acting like a big supporter of intelligent design. Even if I tried I probably wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure the second I tell them I’m on my way to an Evolution conference they’d slam the door in my face (er, well, keep it locked).

Oh well. Maybe if I’m feeling especially brave that day I’ll at least try – just need to remember not to wear one of my atheist/sciencey shirts. I drew this to sum up how I’m feeling (click for larger):
Of course the little devil has to be a blogger.

One more Sims update

Thanks to everyone who thought my atheist Sims were more hilarious than they were creepy. Someone requested that I upload them, so I did. If you have Sims 3, you can now download Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, and Hemant Mehta for your own use.

There have been requests to make other famous atheists (Phil Plait, Dennett, Hitchens, etc), which I may do if I have enough time or get bored enough. I still like PZ’s idea of having Ken Ham and Kent Hovind being a cranky gay couple next door. Incredibly tempting… Though I would just let them run wild through the town instead of controlling them. Three sims were hard enough for me to control, now I have four (Hemant’s wife) and a kid* and my micromanaging skills are starting to fall apart.

*As a side note, I got geekily excited when I saw the Sims boasting its “Genetic Algorithm” or whatever for deciding how babies would look. I thought maybe it would just blend the traits of the parents or something. Nope. The baby gets mom’s mouth, skin color and hair color, and dad’s nose, eye color, and hair type. I chose a pale blonde surgeon for Hemant’s wife…so his kid is this pasty white kid with bright blond hair that’s short and curly (I know he doesn’t have curly hair, but it was the short haircut that looked the best). So yeah, the kid looks absolutely nothing like him. Sorry SimHemant. I promise I didn’t see her sleeping around with other Sims.

Sim Atheists

So as I mentioned before, I bought Sims 3 this week. Usually I make myself and then a bunch of my friends, and then scatter celebrities (fictional and non) around the neighborhood. There’s just something oddly amusing about playing chess with Johnny Depp and marrying Harry Potter (or whatever).

Well, Sims 3’s editing options are so detailed that you can really make Sims look like the original person. So my odd mind obviously thought, “Why don’t I make a house full of famous atheist Sims?” Enjoy:
Sim Richard Dawkins
Attributes: Genius, Bookworm, Good sense of humor, Charismatic, Ambitious
Life wish: Become leader of the free world (Dawkins being in charge? Yes please.)

Sim Hemant Mehta
Attributes: Friendly (duh), Good, Charismatic, Vegetarian, Family Oriented (Was going to pick Hopeless Romantic or Flirt, but cheated a bit to make his life wish easier…)
Life wish: Have five children and raise them to teens (With all of Hemant’s baby posts, I found this oddly appropriate. Not quite his goal of octuplets, but close! Let’s see if he can restrain from eating them before they reach adulthood.)Sim PZ Myers
Attributes: Genius, Bookworm, Good sense of humor, Charismatic, Computer Whiz
Life wish: Become a creature-robot crossbreeder (Dear lord I nearly peed my pants when this choice came up. How could I NOT choose that for PZ?)

I can’t explain how much entertainment this has provided me over the last couple of days. It’s fun enough with all three of them sharing a house, but there are just so many little things. All of PZ’s outfits (formal wear, pajamas, etc) use the squid themed print I found, which was what initially spawned this terrifying idea of atheist sims. I’m still trying to find Hemant a baby mama, since that’s kind of necessary for his life goal (I promise to find someone cute!). The only real disturbing thing is whenever the Sims need to shower or use the bathroom. I mean, they blur it out so you can’t see any naughtiness going on, but I feel like a creepy voyeur. Of course, I don’t know if it can get much creepier than making Sims of random people you don’t really know and then controlling their lives like some sort of sick puppet master.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go hide in shame from being such a weirdo. Aka, go play more Sims. *runs off*

PS: You can click the images for larger versions, if you wish.

I swear to _____?

I had the following conversation about atheists swearing oaths to assert veracity of statements with a friend of mine (also an atheist). I figured I could type it up coherently for a neatly organized blog post, but 1) I’m lazy 2) This sounds more natural and 3) I now have more time to play the Sims. It’s slightly edited to remove typos and make it more coherent, but no real rewording.

Me: Is [Other Friend] still up? Tell him I wasn’t playing the Sims when he IMed me, the IM just never popped up.

Friend: Mmmm hmmmm.

Me: I swear to god. XP

Friend: You’re an atheist. That holds no sway.

Me: I swear on the Sims. XP

Friend: Oh, okay then. …You ever stop to think how prevalent that type of language is in our society? What alternative is there to that phrase? The concept of swearing an oath to a higher being to affirm veracity.Me: There’s all sorts of stuff… “bless you,” “oh my god,” “thank god”…I say it just because it’s a phrase. It could be “oh my smorgltoff” for all I care.

Friend: Or even just “Oh my!” “Deary me!” “Well I’ll be a son of a gun!”. But “I swear to god” is a unique one… The concept of affirming an oath to a higher power to achieve veracity. I mean, I guess there’s “No, really, I mean it.” But that doesn’t have the same oomph to it, y’know?

Me: Well, I think most people (aka religious people) wouldn’t swear to god unless they really meant it, because that’s kind of a bad thing to do.

Friend: But us?

Me: We’ve just stolen it and you hope we mean it, haha.

Friend: But that’s the thing. What could we possibly use as ethos collateral?

Me: I don’t think anything compares to an eternity of hellfire and doom, by definition. I think we’re stuck to using it in the metaphorical sense.

Friend: Eh.

Me: I mean, you could theoretically pick something like “I swear on my child’s life,” but that still implies you think some hocus pocus will cause your child to be unhealthy if you’re actually lying.

Friend: Right.

Me: Swearing on something automatically involves the supernatural. I mean, what sort of rational things do you want? “I will take a lie detector test.” “Bring on the DNA testing.”

Friend: I mean, we don’t necessarily have to go to that extreme. Perhaps we could build up a system of ethos points. Like, “I’ll wager 30 ethos points that I didn’t play the Sims.” The higher the number of points, the more vehement you are about it.

Me: Well that just seems arbitrary… And you know people would abuse it… “I’ll wager SEVENTY BILLION TIMES INFINITY ETHOS POINTS that I didn’t eat that last brownie!”

Friend: Point. Hmm… Well, religious people do that too… What if every person gets an ethos chip. Metaphorically, of course. “I’d wager my ethos chip.” That way it can almost be tangible.

Me: Haha, I think now you’re just being silly.

Friend: I disagree. I like the idea. =D

Me: Well, how is that different than betting? Like, “I bet you 20 bucks I’m right,” and just holding the person to it in the end. “I bet you a billion dollars I’m telling the truth!” wouldn’t come up that often.

Friend: This has a more family friendly feel to it. None of this gamesmanship stuff. =P

Me: Well, what if you lose all your ethos chips on a big lie, then can you never back up anything again until you catch someone else in a lie? A limited amount of ethos chips doesn’t make sense.

Friend: Again, this is a metaphorical thing. It’s not like people actually go to hell for swearing to god and getting caught in a lie. I figured referring it to an ethos chip would give it a higher level of perceived tangibility and, thereby, be more likely to be accepted.

Me: But to religious people it’s not metaphorical, it’s a very real consequence. If you want something on par with that, you should start chopping off fingers for big lies. That’s a tangible deterrent. =P

Then I had to go to bed, and we never really came to a conclusion. So what do you think? Is there some sort of assertion of veracity an atheist can make that is equivalent to swearing to god? Does it even matter since religious people abuse the phrase “I swear to god” anyway?

Same-sex couples and immigration

While we’re celebrating the victories for gay marriage in Maine and New Hampshire, I wanted to point out another big gay rights issue that you may not know as much: same-sex couples and immigration rights. An American straight woman can marry a foreign straight man and sponsor him for a green card, but gay couples cannot. If you happen to fall in love with a foreigner, they’ll struggle to stay in the US, frequently be sent back to their own country, and possibly lose the ability to reenter if they go home for a dying relative or some other sort of emergency. CNN has a great article describing the problem here that includes some really touching stories from gay couples.

After 9 years of being ignored, the Uniting American Families Act, which hopes to solve this problem, is finally getting some time in the Senate:

“The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the bill for the first time Wednesday, after 10 previous attempts to have hearings on the Uniting American Families Act. The bill has 102 co-sponsors in the House and 17 co-sponsors in the Senate, including Judiciary Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council which opposes same sex marriage, has condemned the bill as “yet another attack on marriage at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.” “

Oh, you would say that, President of the Family Research Council, wouldn’t you? Because the number one goal of any organization with “Family” in the name is to ruin gay families. Blah. Anyway.

While I’ve always been a strong supporter of gay rights, this issue is especially important to me. My close British friend/coworker is stuck in this exact situation with his long term American partner. He’s been here a year and a half on a research visa, and after another year he’s going to be shipped back to England. He can’t go visit his family because he won’t be allowed back in the country, even if one of his parents became deathly ill. It’s horrible that this sort of inequality exists that would tear apart relationships (not to mention how idiotic it is to shoo away intelligent people with PhDs who want to be here…but that’s another issue).

You can help out by sending a letter to your representative urging them to support this bill – and if you want, there’s a nifty little form letter here. It only takes a second, and every little bit helps.

Wooo Scientific Adventures!

I’m starting to get pretty excited for Evolution 2009, which I’ll leave for in a week (June 11th, to be exact). It’s a pretty ginormous conference – apparently it attracts 1,000+ biologists. The program itself is a massive tome (can you find me in there? I’m in it, promise!). I’m going with three labmates and my professor, and there are a bunch of professors speaking there that I’m interested in for grad school, so it should be fun.

I’m lucky enough to go because I was accepted as part of their Undergraduate Diversity Program. They take 15-18 undergrads who somehow are “diverse” and pay everything so we can go to the conference. Plane ticket, hotel room, registration cost, food, everything. We even get Professor/Grad student mentors to help show us around the first day, and a special little social thing. Pretty freaking amazing. I’m not sure exactly what criteria made me diverse…if it was just being female, or if it was my work with the atheist club (though that’s probably a majority for an evolution conference, heh). Either way, I’m super grateful that they have this program and I get to be a part of it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to afford to go.

One gripe though (I know, I know…beggars can’t be choosers, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, yadda yadda). Man are the flights they booked for me awful. I asked to fly with my lab group, but they said they already booked flights for the program. I go 10 am Indianapolis > Chicago > Seattle > Pullman > Shuttle to Moscow, Idaho > Arrive at midnight. One, I’m always annoyed with flights from Indy to Chicago, since I could just freaking drive to Chicago in less time than all the hassle of flying from Indy. Two, I have a 9 hour layover in Seattle. I could theoretically drive to Moscow in less than 6 hours. Three, my return flight from Pullman leaves at 6:45 am, blargh.

The layover annoys me mainly because it’s just inefficient – however, since it’s so huge, I’m going to be able to spend the day exploring Seattle. I’ve never been there before, so now I’m kind of excited. I’m going to store my luggage at the airport and rely on buses/taxis/walking for some adventure. Anyone have any suggestions on must see places or even just awesome local places to eat dinner? So far I’ve been recommended the Space Needle, the Pacific Science Center, Pike Place Fish Market, and the Freemont Troll. I’m not sure what else there is to do, other than stalking Dan Savage and scowling at Starbucks world headquarters while hypocritically buying a cafe mocha.