I blog about my crazy family at Raising Hellions , a fine wordpress.com site, where I do a great deal of swearing and shall we say…exaggerating (or perhaps lying) about the pitfalls of being a stay at home parent of the male persuasion  in the interesting times in which we live. If anyone wishes to drop by and say hi that would be great, my other two readers would be delighted to have the company.

In my quest to transition from “idiot who has a blog” to “idiot who can call himself a blogger”, I plan to write some more extensive and less profanity laden material about how to introduce science, skepticism and critical thinking to my horrible… horrible children.  I am grateful to the folks here at Skeptic Family for the opportunity to contribute to their fine blog and I’ll do my best stop by at least once a week and add to their big pile of awesome, hopefully without making much of a mess.

Ciao… Lou

blotzphoto@gmail.com or @blotzphoto on twitter if yah want to yell at me directly.

Nuggets may not be the healthiest treat on the menu, but McDonald’s has used all white meat chicken (no guts or eyeballs) since 2003. And while ammonia is used to prevent bacteria, they are hardly soaked in a bath of it.

I wouldn’t have even thought twice about trashing the nugget production habits of everyone’s favorite fast food pariah until I heard the same mistake corrected on Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, one of my favorite podcasts.  Then I saw the same claims about McNuggets being forwarded around on facebook with a picture that is sure to cause revulsion…

If you ever receive a forward via email or facebook that makes claims (even ones you assume are true), check with the urban legend website Snopes first… just to be safe. And even though you are confident in sites like Snopes, you should also question anyone who has all the answers (even yourself).

On the flip side of questioning assumptions, you should also question facts that you assume are true because you want them to be true. For instance, the PTA at my daughter’s school was eager to spend a lot of money on an “Accelerated Reading” program, and I was very on board with the idea without checking the facts.

AR is a points-based reading system that helps to encourage kids to read books that are appropriate to their age level, which sounds like a great idea until you analyze the system and it’s claims a little closer. Luckily for me, there are a few skeptical librarians and reading lovers who have voiced their objections. Some of their complaints are the following:

• The points are unfairly (or arbitrarily) assigned so that Harry Potter earns 40 points while Shakespeare’s Hamlet only receives 7 points.
• By offering points and rewards, the system discourages a true love of reading and teaches kids that reading is a chore worthy of bribery.
• Many kids spend far more time thinking about how to game the system rather than actually reading naturally.
• There hasn’t been much research on the subject, and the little research that has been done is inconclusive and misrepresented.

I’m sure that Accelerated Reader has many anecdotes of how they have encouraged reading in younger kids, but I’m always fascinated when my assumptions are challenged.

I got into skepticism a few years ago when I was pregnant with my Tiny Human. I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the vast amount of BS surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. But when a nurse at my work refused to give me a flu shot because it contained Thimerosal, I decided to start doing some studying on my own.

I am a scientist and a geek, so skepticism fit perfectly for me, and I’ve been teaching critical thinking and the scientific method ever since. I am a member of a Humanist Family Co-op, where I teach preschool aged kids everything from comparative religion to physics. I also talk about skepticism and skeptical topics at public speaking events every so often. I love being involved in my local community, as well as the larger community of Skeptics and Humanists on the internet. I’m really looking forward to writing more here!

If you are a parent, a science-based skeptic, and have the desire to write articles — we want you!

Email me at ticktock dot colin at gmail dot com

Colin

I do relatively innocent stuff like alluding to the movie “Night at the Museum” by making jokes about how the museum’s exhibits come to life after closing time. Actually, that particular example wasn’t the brightest move, nor was it smart to pretend like the museum mummy was pulling me into his sarcophagus, because I actually managed to make my seven-year-old scared of the one attraction solely designed to educate her.

In my defense, I scare them with a smile on my face, and they don’t usually react so severely. But lately I’ve been forced to respond to the fact that things have changed with Sasha, and I’ve tempered my scare tactics quite a bit lately. She reached an age where her fear became real for her. If I had done the same stunts last year, she would have admonished me “Oh, silly Daddy.” But now, she’s reached an age where she is processing her fear differently.

However, that doesn’t mean that she should let her fear completely dictate her choices in life. I do want to instill in her a healthy dose of courage, and I want her to understand the difference between reasonable fears and unreasonable fears (an uphill battle with a seven year old). With that in mind, I invited her and her sister on a short excursion to visit the “Mothman Museum” in West Virgina. It was a way to break up the monotony of our road trip home from visiting family in North Carolina.

At first, Sasha refused to join me, even though her sister was completely game for the adventure. But finally she agreed to come after I promised not to scare her. And I should reassure my readers that I was very careful to keep that promise because I knew that there would be scary things in the museum anyway.

The back-story of The Mothman is that there were scattered reports in the 60s of people seeing a bird like humanoid with glowing eyes in the area of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. One of the original sightings was by some teenagers who drove out to a remote area (that would later become a bird/wildlife sanctuary) and saw what they described as “…a bird or something” but later go on to describe it as “a man with wings… the head was not a defining characterstic”. It also apparently walked clumsily, flew upwards of 100 miles an hour, and avoided light.

Now Ockham’s Razor would tell us that the more likely explanation for this mystery was that the witnesses mistook a real animal for a monster… or that they were hoaxed (Scooby Doo style). So, when we entered the Mothman Museum, I encouraged the girls to think skeptically about it. There’s no such thing as monsters, so what could it be? Perhaps it was a bit unfair, but I primed them with the probable answer by saying that some investigators (Joe Nickell) are certain that the monster was actually a type of owl called a “barred owl” (not “barn owl”). Once my daughters saw the original sketch of Mothman, they were even more certain that the owl hypothesis was correct. Take a look for yourself…

OK. I must admit that it’s hard to confuse an owl with a humanoid monster, but let’s remember that this sighting was at night and that the witnesses were probably already primed to be afraid. I can imagine that they saw two glowing eyes reflecting back at them, and those eyes might have even been at the height of where a man’s eyes would be, like maybe if the owl had been sitting on a post. And then, when they saw those eyes coming at them with some big scary wings attached, they let their imagination do the rest of the work.

It’s a lot easier to imagine mothman being an owl than to accept the idea that some alien or monster was waiting in the forest to chase some teenagers. And of course, my kids agree. By the end of the museum, Sasha was feeling playful and confident enough to take this picture…

But I did have to save her younger sister from a menacing figure in the corner…

Notice how Juliet is completely unafraid? Yeah, well give her three more years and she’ll be terrified, just like Sasha. And when that happens, I will be there to hold her hand and explain the skeptical side of the story. And hopefully, that will work as well for her as it did her sister.

*For more about “The Mothman” myth, go check out this article at i09 and this episode of skeptoid.

First up is Demi Moore who claimed to have used leech therapy to detoxify her blood. Not even the integrative medicine practitioners could agree with her on the validity of that claim…

The thing with detoxifying is that you have to define the toxins, define the mechanism for how those toxins are “cleansed”, and then prove that this purification is happening as claimed. Demi looks so youthful and beautiful, but I’m just going to make a wager that there are better explanations for her hotness than hirudo medicinalis.

The Babble article also claims that Gwyneth Paltrow’s cupping procedures can be helpful for increasing blood flow and reducing stress. As someone who has tried cupping, I can say that the procedure is relaxing (as are any procedures where you lie down in a dark quiet room), but the benefits of receiving circular hickeys are not scientifically evident. And as I’ve pointed out before, medicinal vacuum cups were used by Greek doctors to balance humours (leeches were used for the same thing); the system in Chinese medicine that supposedly explains how cupping works is based on the same fundamental principles of humour balancing (a similarly ancient idea that has no scientific credibility or plausibility).

Finally, I’d like to call attention to Suzanne Somers, who has an incredible story of curing her breast cancer with herbs and hormones. She’s unbelievably compelling when she recounts how she bucked western medicine and defeated breast cancer without chemotherapy. Except, I happen to know a certain oncologist who helped explain that her success at surviving breast cancer with a lumpectomy and radiation (no chemo) was actually quite unremarkable. His article on Somers and her bogus hormone treatments is worth checking out.

We all love to read about celebrities, but when it comes to medical advice, we’re better off listening to the experts.

“Concern Troll” is a term that is used as a way to isolate a critical opinion and dismiss it as trivial, the equivalent of a schoolyard bully taunting other students for being “babies”. Besides being a juvenile way to argue, the accusation is hypocritical because “concern troll” could be used against any skeptic for any argument that we make. We’re all “concern trolls” if you think about it.

Vaccine deniers could say, “oooh, you’re so ‘concerned’ about whether my kid gets chicken pox. Get over it!”

Christians could say, “Oh, poor babies ‘concerned’ about whether they get to eat gelato. Are they gonna cry to mommy that they don’t get to put up their billboard?”.Etc.

One example of when I was personally accused of “concern trolling” is when I made a comment on Greta Christina’s blog. Greta regularly gives a popular talk where she gives a biased sample of reasons why atheists are angry. Atheists eat it up because it highlights all the flaws of organized religion and omits all the good or neutral things about religion. She quotes Ghandi and MLK Jr, who have both admitted that they used anger to affect change, but she fails to follow their example and guide the people she has riled up into peaceful, thoughtful activism. Instead, her follow-up to this speech was an article that said that she “pretty much doesn’t care” what people do with their anger. This ambivalence to how atheists respond to their anger was what I dared to challenge.

Color me as obtuse, but I think that anyone who writes about anger should make it clear that violence is not something they advocate. I absolutely understand that Greta’s article was never intended to spur anyone to violent action, but an appeal to pacifism certainly merits a tiny mention when discussing an idea as intense as anger. But, my greater concern was that she didn’t care how people responded to their anger: she didn’t care if they went to a random church on sunday and shouted down the preacher, she didn’t care if they ripped up the pages of their parents’ bible, she didn’t care if they were to tell little children on christmas day that Jesus is just a myth. Or, I should clarify to say that she “pretty much” didn’t care, which gave her a whole lot of wiggle room out of any example of improper responses to anger that I could provide.

Let me just say that I DO care how angry people represent atheism. We atheists have friends, family, and acquaintances who just want to live their lives in peace and not be reminded that they are idiots on a daily basis. Activism in the name of anger can cost us personal relationships (hint: most christians don’t mind being friends with an atheist, but they do actually mind being friends with a dick). And if that makes me a “concern troll” then so be it.

Greta seems to think so. After labeling me a “concern troll”, she goes on to say, “So for this comment thread, all my regular readers are hereby authorized to respond to Ticktock in my name with the following: “Your concern is noted. Thank you for sharing.”

Glad we resolved that in such a reasonable way.

It’s a trend with the proudly dickish atheists that they sick their readers onto people that they disagree with. As if they are above any form of dissent against their far superior tactics. I dared to disagree on Jen McCreight’s blog that the Skepticon convention invited a comedian known for mocking religion to their conference as a featured speaker. It was Sam Singleton’s spirited performance (featuring a crowd yelling “god damn” in unison) that inspired a certain christian gelato store owner to respond with a bigoted unwelcoming sign to atheists on his front window. My argument was that this comedian made skeptics seem equally intolerant and unwelcoming and that this comedy show was just as bigoted as the gelato store sign (just not as illegal).

Jen’s answer to my criticism…”…You just killed so many brain cells with The Stupid that I cannot reply. I’m going to bed. Someone else will fill you in on what the word “bigotry” means, or maybe you can open a dictionary.”

Ouch. So hurtful, except that the only person who defined bigotry in that comment thread was me… “stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own.” I just don’t want to be a part of a community that ignores it’s own intolerance of others’ beliefs. Nor, do I want to be a part of a community that uses personal insults (“The Stupid”) instead of carefully constructed rational arguments. That’s not what I signed up for.

But, I refuse to be pushed out. I will still advocate for neutrality, kindness, fairness, and responsibility, even if I fall short of my own goals. As skeptics, we all have a vision of what we want from the freethought community. If I held a skeptic’s conference and invited a global warming denier or a 9/11 truther as a prominent speaker, I would expect some complaints from people within the movement for featuring unscientific guests. Would the people complaining about my convention be “concern trolls” for trying to shape how we appear to the outside world?  So why am I a “concern troll” for voicing my complaints? Because the blogs where I write dissenting comments have writers and readers who disagree with me? Does that seem reasonable?

Finally, I’d like to respond to PZ Myers, a biology professor with a devoted following of sycophantic acolytes, who did the honor of quoting me on his wildly popular blog. This is part of his response to my comments about reverse bigotry…

“How dare those atheists reject and mock a belief — excuse me, choice — that is antithetical to science and reason? Choosing to believe in a magic sky fairy, choosing to believe in evidence…they’re all perfectly equivalent, after all.”

He says that it’s a “choice” to believe, but we all know that many people are born into families or cultures where that “choice” is not evident. And even if the choice was easier to make, why would anyone choose atheism when our side prides itself on being unforgiving dicks, when our side resorts to insults and mockery, and when our side shuts down dissent with a papal-like presumption that the followers be obedient and not “concern” themselves with the tactics of their leaders. Often this war of tone breaks down to one side saying to the other side that their tactic is better, or both sides agreeing that multiple tactics are better, but putting tactical awareness aside, I think we might be better off focusing on how we treat people within our own movement and whether it speaks well of ourselves to force a pillow onto the mouths of critics and suffocate their dissent with a “fuck you and your smiley face, too“.

The first project that I voluntarily abandoned was the Parenting Within Reason podcast. It was such a personal achievement and honor to be able to speak with so many parenting experts, authors, and scientists, but it was impossible for my co-hosts and I to keep going at that pace without sacrificing the time and energy that we needed for our personal lives. New episodes came to a crashing halt at #49, which unfortunately left us just short of an arbitrary magic number.

Another unfortunate result of my time away from freethought was that I let the “Science-Based Parenting” domain lapse, which meant that the URL would be confined to a useless corner of the internet because some jerk wanted to buy it away from me. And now, any readers I have left will probably not be reading this because they don’t know the original URL (skepticdad.wordpress.com), but that’s OK because I like the idea of starting over.

As much as I loved the “Science-Based Parenting” name that I borrowed from my heroes at Science-Based Medicine, I’ve decided to make another change to the blog and become Skeptic Family (http://skepticfamily.com). I changed the name because I should have never used “science” to describe this site – I’m not a scientist, I’m a science advocate. I’ve decided to stop shying away from being a skeptic and just accept that the term will be occasionally misinterpreted.

So, I’m dipping my toe back in to see if I can manage being a blogger again. And hopefully, my readers will find me again.

And, by the way, if you want to read more about the skeptical example of Scooby and the Gang… you should check out this excellent article on the subject.

It is very similar to the original, only geared to the younger set. Be sure to click on and read the Start here: About the SD for Kids link.

Robert Todd Carroll talked about the Skeptic’s Dictionary for Kids and the creation of the original Skeptic’s Dictionary with Kylie Sturgess. You can read about and download the podcast at Episode Seventy-Seven – On The Skeptic’s Dictionary For Kids – Interview With Robert Todd Carroll.

So if your local library does not have an item, you can find it in a nearby library system. I have a library card for both my city and county library systems, since I often find that something I want is only in one system. If it is not in either system there are interlibrary loans, though that may require a fee. We’ve used this for a school research project that allowed child to get books from the local university library.

Now about Lillian Moller Gilbreth:

When I was a kid back in the days where there was no cable TV, some of local channels usually up the dial would show old movies in the early afternoon. These were the things to watch while I was sorta kinda doing my homework before my parents came home. I remember one old movie that involved a family of lots of children, but with a working mother. Which fascinated me since I was one of the few kids I knew who had a working mother. The movie was Cheaper by the Dozen (do not confuse it with more recent versions).

Sadly, the movie ends with the death of the father. It took me a few years to find out that there was a sequel, which I saw as an adult. Belles on Their Toes. While the first movie concentrated on the father, the second one is really about Mrs. Gilbreth. It shows her monetary struggles and the trials of working in a non-traditional field. One scene has her showing up to give a paper but being refused entry because she is a woman.

The movies are obvious family comedies, and may show their age. But they are both based on books geared towards young readers, where some of the fathers efficiency studies were tested on the large family:
Cheaper by the Dozen
Belles on Their Toes

Since the authors, two of Mrs. Gilbreth’s children, geared the books to a young audience much of the reality was left out. That was remedied with Making time : Lillian Moller Gilbreth–a life beyond “Cheaper by the dozen”. It is in this book that you really meet her and her family. It shows how her husband supported her education, how their work was incorporated in their home and the struggles they faced. This includes the death of one child due to diphtheria, a couple of miscarriages and a train trip across the country dealing with hungry tired kids, messy diapers and all the other things many of us are too familiar with, only more so. It is interesting to note that when she finally moved out of their house it was beyond repair, all those kids were rather destructive.

She was a remarkable woman with a remarkable family. She was a pioneer in engineering, a university professor and a very busy single mother. Definitely someone to introduce to kids through the books and movies.