Bora Zivkovic has resigned from the board of Science Online.

Since its earliest days, ScienceOnline has sought to gather, grow and support a community of diverse faces, experiences and voices who share a desire to celebrate science, improve our communication skills and collaborate for a better world.

Bora Zivkovic, a cofounder and member of the ScienceOnline board of directors, has been an integral and vital leader in this community. Recent events, though, have identified actions on Bora’s part that are not consistent with the ScienceOnline values he himself vigorously promoted. Bora has taken steps to address these issues, and we look forward to any further clarity and resolution he might offer.

Our lives are full of overlapping communities – personal

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Another one of those times when a look at the stats turns up an interesting link I wouldn’t have seen otherwise: B. Spencer at Lawyers Guns Money on The Troublemaker.

Often when I post about Rebecca Watson, I am helpfully reminded by someone that she is a lightning rod, a troublemaker, looking to stir shit in the skeptic world. From what I have read of her Skepchick blog, this just doesn’t ring true to me. What I’ve been able to gather from following her for a year or so is that she was just a young woman and a skeptic who was rudely introduced to sexism and misogyny in the skeptic world and responded to that by talking about

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Originally a comment by Chris Lawson on Folk remedies with lashings of meridian.

With due respect, I am becoming increasingly frustrated at seeing this argument trotted out repeatedly against acupuncture. I’m just about the strongest possible advocate for evidence-based medicine you can find and I think the vast majority of “alternative” medicine is bunkum, often dangerously so, but this particular argument has broken legs and ought to be taken out the back of the stables and put out of its misery.

What is true: there is a lot of published evidence favouring acupuncture, but most of it is very poor quality. The traditional Chinese theory behind acupuncture — that of Qi and meridians — is utterly wrong. We know … Read the rest

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Oh good god. Another one.

Read this, from last year: This happened, by Monica Byrne.

When you do the first thing you’ll see is the update today, naming the guy in question.

UPDATE, 10/14/13: The man is Bora Zivkovic, Blogs Editor for Scientific American. There’s no reason for me anymore not to name him publicly, which I’d long wanted to do anyway. Reading about this incident is what reminded me (independent of whether or not he had anything to do with that post’s original deletion, which I don’t know).

So you know what’s coming.

A month ago I met with a prominent science editor and blogger. He’d friended me on Facebook, and given his high profile, I was delighted,

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Massimo Pigliucci and Maarten Boudry on why pseudoscience is dangerous. (I’m reading their edited collection The Philosophy of Pseudoscience.)

There is no question that some folk remedies do work. The active ingredient of aspirin, for example, is derived from willow bark, which had been known to have beneficial effects since the time of Hippocrates. There is also no mystery about how this happens: people have more or less randomly tried solutions to their health problems for millennia, sometimes stumbling upon something useful. What makes the use of aspirin “scientific,” however, is that we have validated its effectiveness through properly controlled trials, isolated the active ingredient, and understood the biochemical pathways through which it has its effects (it suppresses

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Guest post by Eamon Knight, originally a comment on Why should I?

On meta-ethics, I lean toward Error Theory (this week, anyway), and regard skepticism as a primarily epistemic stance. My usual approach to justifying moral behaviour is to note that it is in my rational self-interest to live in a society where I will receive cooperation from others, fair treatment, and some assistance when I stumble.

But as you note, this only gets us so far. My self-interest is conditioned by my middle-class status in society. For example: since I believe my chances of winding up as a mentally ill, drug-addicted street person are small, I might, if I’m being strictly rational, be reluctant to contribute (whether through private … Read the rest

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Wonderful Jane Donnelly of Atheist Ireland saying why the RTE shouldn’t have a daily call to prayer, aka The Angelus.

Jane’s a pistol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YasmybU9Xe8

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Something I missed last July – Bill Donohue aka “The Catholic League” explains how wonderful Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries were, contrary to all the “myths” about them.

One contemporary example of prejudice is the popular perception of the nuns who ran Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries.

From the mid-eighteenth century to the late nineteenth century, the laundries housed “fallen” girls and women in England and Ireland. Though they did not initiate the facilities, most of the operations were carried out by the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy, Good Shepherd Sisters, and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity. The first “Magdalene Home” was established in England in 1758; Ireland followed in 1765 (the first asylum being a Protestant-run entity).

Notice … Read the rest

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One of the reasons skepticism can’t get you there is the fact that it’s always possible to ask questions like, “Why should I care?”

There are answers to questions like that, but skepticism isn’t the source of the answers. Skepticism will just keep asking why we should care. Skepticism won’t necessarily accept the answers. There are no skepticism-defeating answers to questions like that. There’s no “proof” that humans should look after each other.

That’s why some of us are getting so fed up with skepticism. There are people who think it’s the universal tool, that it’s the right way to approach all questions, that if it’s still asking questions then somebody is pulling a fast one.… Read the rest

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Or, stupid thought for the day, or, your moral reasoning machine is broken.

Another tweet, less interesting than the one I quoted earlier today.

I rarely use it myself but I see a liberal use of the word cunt to be a healthy reaction to those who seek to ban the word.

Of course you do. Bullies always do think that. If your younger sister told you to stop pinching her, you pinched harder, because that’s a healthy reaction to those who seek to ban pinching. If that skinny kid in glasses complained when you punched her in the playground, you kicked her for good measure, because that’s a healthy reaction to those who seek to ban punching. If your … Read the rest

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Speaking of the CFI Summit, anybody here going to be there? It’s October 24-27, in Tacoma, Washington, which is about 40 miles south of Seattle, on Puget Sound like Seattle, with a much better view of Mount Rainier than Seattle.

It has the Chihuly Bridge of Glass.

The schedule for the conference.… Read the rest

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An aphoristic little tweet got my attention an hour or so ago -

Think like a skeptic, act like a humanist

That might seem like a good recipe, but it isn’t. You can’t act like an X unless you also think like an X. Thinking and acting don’t bifurcate that cleanly – how could they?

No, it’s more difficult than that. Life isn’t easy. You have to combine the two, in thought and action.

I think about this in general a lot, and in particular especially right now because I’m on a panel discussing the two at the CFI Summit weekend after next.

Plenary session: “Humanism and Skepticism: Separate or Joint Agendas?”

Panel discussion chaired by Ronald A. Lindsay.

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A site admin lays it out on the Biology Online forum:

We would like to express our sincerest apologies to Danielle N. Lee (DNLee) and anyone else who may have been offended by the way our recently hired employee, Ofek, handled the conversation with her. Ofek’s behaviour was completely out of line and after gathering the facts we immediately terminated his employment. Ofek failed to show the respect and prudent behavior expected of him as a contributor to Biology Online.

From the moment that Biology Online started, it has always been a cordial avenue to exchange invaluable information and discussions among scientists, professionals, students, and biology savvy individuals from different parts of the world. Offensive and discriminatory behavior has

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Here we go again. High school football players. Important relatives. Small town. Party, alcohol, rape…and it’s the girl and her family who are punished.

The Kansas City Star details how the small town of Maryville turned against a newly-arrived family after 14-year-old Daisy Coleman reported that an older athlete had sex with her while another older male videotaped, after she was given an alcoholic drink at a party that left her barely able to stand. Her friend, a 13-year-old, was also made to have non-consensual sex.

After a thorough investigation by the local police however, clearly implicating 17-year-old Matthew Barnett in the sexual assault, charges were inexplicably dropped by the prosecuting attorney. Barnett, coincidentally, is the grandson of a

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