Happy Valentine's Day!

Here’s a photo of me and my date:We met at the Seattle Atheists’ Darwin Day celebration! Once I laid eyes on him, I knew I had to make him mine. Thankfully he only cost a dollar.

Don’t judge.

Anyway, the event was really fun. About 150 people showed up to partake in the cake, games, and other various festivities. I ended up randomly being on the panel because they were one person short and needed an evolutionary biologist who has opinions about the “evolution wars.” I may have an opinion or ten million in that area. It was fun.

But if you’ll excuse me, I have some noodly appendages to go spend quality time with.

“What exactly is Christian about being gay?”

The Creation Museum recently hosted a “Date Night” for FamilyLife’s conference in Cincinnati, OH. While usually I’d consider animatronic dinosaurs the true pinnacle of romance, the whole Biblical literalism thing sort of ruins the mood for me. But one journalist decided to check it out with friends, and posted about his experience on reddit:

I write for an alt-weekly, and in the interest of journalistic science went to northern Kentucky’s Creation Museum for their couples’ Date Night, which basically consisted of a talk by museum founder Ken Ham, a buffet dinner, a musical performance by a country music guitarist and truckloads of cognitive dissonance.

Our party consisted of myself, my girlfriend Shanna and our friend Brandon, who was to be accompanied by our friend Joe, who was himself running late. As a coterie of security guards checked the three of us in, they wanted to know where Brandon’s date what kind of car she would be driving so they could keep a look out for her.

“Uh,” I said, “his partner’s name is Joe.” (I don’t know why I said it that way, it just came out. Joe and Brandon are heterosexual)

Needless to say, the security guard reacted with shock.

“Joe?” he said. “This is a Christian environment, and we can’t allow them to attend. It will disrupt the evening for everyone.”

When pressed, the guard reiterated that you can’t be a Christian if you’re gay.

“Can you tell me what exactly is Christian about being gay?” the officer rhetorically asked. Nothing, obviously.

Now, this is an anonymous post on reddit, so you have to take it with a grain of salt. Hopefully the author will link to his official write up for his job when it’s published. EDIT: His article can be found here. But it’s certainly not the first time we’ve heard this sort of sentiment coming from some Christians. You can’t be Christian if you’re gay, and your disgusting gayness is going to ruin the night for all these nice, godly people.

I don’t know if the guards were from the Creation Museum or Family Life. The Creation Museum’s website states “Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum are not affiliated with FamilyLife.” Until we know, this isn’t exactly great PR for them when they’re trying to get tax payer money to fund their new theme park, Ark Encounter.

I’m sure the Creation Museum will release a statement right away saying that all homosexuals are welcome to their museum and apologize for the situation.

"What exactly is Christian about being gay?"

The Creation Museum recently hosted a “Date Night” for FamilyLife’s conference in Cincinnati, OH. While usually I’d consider animatronic dinosaurs the true pinnacle of romance, the whole Biblical literalism thing sort of ruins the mood for me. But one journalist decided to check it out with friends, and posted about his experience on reddit:

I write for an alt-weekly, and in the interest of journalistic science went to northern Kentucky’s Creation Museum for their couples’ Date Night, which basically consisted of a talk by museum founder Ken Ham, a buffet dinner, a musical performance by a country music guitarist and truckloads of cognitive dissonance.

Our party consisted of myself, my girlfriend Shanna and our friend Brandon, who was to be accompanied by our friend Joe, who was himself running late. As a coterie of security guards checked the three of us in, they wanted to know where Brandon’s date what kind of car she would be driving so they could keep a look out for her.

“Uh,” I said, “his partner’s name is Joe.” (I don’t know why I said it that way, it just came out. Joe and Brandon are heterosexual)

Needless to say, the security guard reacted with shock.

“Joe?” he said. “This is a Christian environment, and we can’t allow them to attend. It will disrupt the evening for everyone.”

When pressed, the guard reiterated that you can’t be a Christian if you’re gay.

“Can you tell me what exactly is Christian about being gay?” the officer rhetorically asked. Nothing, obviously.

Now, this is an anonymous post on reddit, so you have to take it with a grain of salt. Hopefully the author will link to his official write up for his job when it’s published. EDIT: His article can be found here. But it’s certainly not the first time we’ve heard this sort of sentiment coming from some Christians. You can’t be Christian if you’re gay, and your disgusting gayness is going to ruin the night for all these nice, godly people.

I don’t know if the guards were from the Creation Museum or Family Life. The Creation Museum’s website states “Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum are not affiliated with FamilyLife.” Until we know, this isn’t exactly great PR for them when they’re trying to get tax payer money to fund their new theme park, Ark Encounter.

I’m sure the Creation Museum will release a statement right away saying that all homosexuals are welcome to their museum and apologize for the situation.

Off my ASS for the SSA – Week 6

Starting weight: 186.4 lbs
Last week’s weight: 177.2 lbs
Current weight: 174.8 lbs
Weight loss this week: 2.4 lbs

I lost all 2.4 of those pounds in the two days following posting Sharon and Lyz’s guest post. Wooo stress! It’s amazing what it can do when decoupled with stress eating (more cake will make me feel better, I know!). But yeah, I’m not making that tactic a normal part of my weight loss routine.

But in positive news, I blew past the 10 pounds mark and went down one notch in my belt – back to the notch I used to use, but progress nonetheless! I really need to buy a new pair of pants, but the optimist in me is hesitant because hopefully even those will be too big in a couple more months.

The following week is the final week of my competition with JT. He’s slightly ahead of me, and this last week won’t be easy. My department is starting grad student recruitment, and I’m one of the hosts. That basically means I get to go to a lot of free dinners, lunches, breakfasts, and pub nights with the new recruits while talking about the department. I see extra exercising in my future.

What are you doing for Darwin Day?

If you don’t have any fun plans yet, you can find fun events in your area here.

I’m having a belated Darwin Day celebration. The Seattle Atheists are having their party on Sunday the 13th. They’ll be at the Juanita Community Club from 1 to 4:30 pm with games, prizes, food (including birthday cake!). The event is family friendly, so you can bring your kids too!

I hear there will be a game of “Phylum Feud,” which I plan to own. Or more likely, be an embarrassed biologist when I fail miserably.

Though if you’re on the opposite side of the country, you should check out the event Harvard is having. They’re hosting the exclusive New England screening of Matthew Chapman’s (Darwin’s great great grandson) new thriller The Ledge. It’s about atheism! And Christianity! And a “lethal battle of wills”! You can get more information about the free event here.

Yep, definitely not a ministry

Remember when Anderson Cooper interviewed Ken Ham, who repeatedly insisted that Ark Encounter was not a ministry, but a for profit organization that will bring jobs to the state of Kentucky?

Well, in a move that’s not surprising to anyone who knows anything about Ken Ham and the Creation Museum, if you actually want one of those jobs, you’re going to have to write a statement saying you support Answers in Genesis’s statement of faith. No, it’s not just being Christian. And no, it’s not just believing the Earth is only 6,000 years old and that evolution is false. In addition to those highly important job related traits, you also have to accept moral judgments, such as homosexuality and pre-marital sex being a perversion, and actively attend church.

Not sure how they’re going to enforce those last ones. Maybe part of the contract requires your bedroom be outfitted with one of those security cameras Ken Ham loves so much.

So…tell me again how it’s totally okay for Kentucky to help fund a project that discriminates against gays and non-Young Earth Creationists?

(Via Pharyngula)

Nerdy observation of the day

I can still use my iPhone’s touch screen while wearing nitrile gloves! Take that, mittens. And since I’m in the lab significantly more than I’m outside, this is a significant discovery. It’s incredibly important to be able to change songs without drastically lowering my pipetting efficiency.

What? Going outside except to get to and from lab? Crazy talk.

Now I know why I like BLTs so much

From Abstruce Goose:Mmmmm…

This makes me even more motivated to throw the Darwin Day Dinner Party idea I’ve had in my head for a couple years. Everyone brings something they cooked, complete with a list of all the recipes, and you map out everything you ate on a giant tree of life, trying to cover as many orders of life as possible. Then you can look in awe at how millions of years of evolution (and a couple thousand of years of artificial selection) resulted in delicious food that’s now sitting in your belly.

That, and we can always use one more excuse to drink beer – have to represent the yeast!

When posts about gender go pear shaped

Yesterday I allowed Sharon Moss and Lyz Liddell to do a guest post on my blog. I rarely let people do guest posts, but I trust both of them immensely and have a great personal interest in making women feel more welcome in the atheist community, so their post seemed appropriate. They even waited a week before writing it, so they had plenty of time to think about their opinions and reduce a reactionary response. And while the comments have erupted into what I can safely call a clusterfuck, I’m here to stand by my decision to let that post go up.

I watched Sean’s video. I have my opinions about his whole talk, and specifically about the Million Dollar Challenge as an evolutionary biologist and a feminist. I also have some thoughts on the whole “female vs woman” terminology debate. I’ll likely expand on these later, because they’re important topics (and as a blogger I’m compelled to give my opinions) but I want to focus on a different set of objections in this post*.

All voices must be heard, not just the ones supporting popular opinion.

Sharon and Lyz felt uncomfortable and unwelcome thanks to certain things that happened at the conference. That was how they personally felt. While I understand concerns that purposeful misrepresentation happened – something I do not support – I know Sharon and Lyz had nothing of the sort in mind. Others may just have been personally fine with the comments, and thus saw it as a misrepresentation. But if we want to make groups more welcoming, we have to worry about the people we’re upsetting, not the people who already agree with us.

Frankly, the reaction to that post disappoints me more than whatever happened at the conference. It really illustrates how most of the secular community has no clue how to react tactfully to criticisms about diversity. To start on a positive note, what should be done when a woman says they were made uncomfortable by a situation?

  • Politely state that your original intention was never to cause offense or make someone feel unwelcome. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think all atheists are sexist assholes.
  • Apologize for the problem. You may not have intentionally done anything wrong, but this is the diplomatic thing to do.
  • Foster further discussion. Ask what in particular made them feel unwelcome. Ask them to expand on any points you didn’t understand. Ask for feedback on how you can avoid this situation in the future.
  • Realize people who point out sexism are not out to blame individuals or event organizers, or even the movement as a whole. It is merely to highlight a larger problem so we can work toward fixing it.

Sharon and Lyz have had correspondence with the Alabama state director of American Atheists, and apparently he is doing many of the things on my “good” list and resulting in very productive conversations. I have also been talking to Sean Faircloth. While his initial reaction frankly fell into issue #3 below, he has been very polite and interested in feedback and discussion since then, which I really appreciate and respect.

On the flip side, it doesn’t help to:

  • Automatically jump to conclusions that they’re feminazis with an agenda to slander individuals and organizations (especially when they also praise those individuals and organizations in the same post). And yes, the vast majority of the commenters went straight to this viewpoint. All avenues of rational discussion? Obliterated.
  • Claim they’re obviously wrong because you were there and you have a vagina and you weren’t offended. Good, I’m glad everyone in the room wasn’t upset… but women aren’t all the same, nor does being one mean you understand sexism or feminism. Newsflash: women can say sexist shit too. Hell, I do sometimes – no one is perfect.
  • Flaunt how women and/or feminists have previously supported you or your conference. Look, that’s great, but we’re talking about a single incident, not your whole past. Again, even the most anti-sexism humanists can screw up every once in a while. Don’t fall into the “But I have a black friend!” fallacy.
  • Belittle them by saying these issues are trivial. Is a poorly timed joke about “the weaker sex” as bad as issues like female genital mutilation? Of course not. But little things do matter, especially when added together. Those small remarks and uncomfortable gazes from the audience can add up to feeling like a second class citizen by the end of the day, especially in the context of other things going on in a woman’s life.
  • Encourage people on your side to drown out the opposition. One, the argument from popularity is a logical fallacy, folks. Two, the pure anger in these comments completely discourage other women who also had problems with the conference to speak up. Who wants to admit they were also offended when the result is being mocked, insulted, and told to shut up? (Key word: drown out. Feel free to disagree, but is the vitriol necessary?)
  • Use triggering terms that have been traditionally used to oppress women’s opinions – “irrational,” “hypersensitive,” “overreacting,” “humorless,” “hysterical” – especially without justification. If you think someone is being irrational, break down their logic and show their flaws. Resorting to these terms can cause many women to shut down discussion thanks to their history.

If a student who attended a Secular Student Alliance conference was deeply offended by what they considered a sexist statement in a talk, I’d take their concerns seriously, no matter how much I personally disagreed with them, because I want this movement to be welcoming. And if you can’t understand that, then you are part of the problem.

To the conference organizers and (unfortunately) few commenters who actually managed to behave tactfully in this whole situation, thank you and keep up the good work. Your concerns are going to make this movement more accepting in the years to come. To everyone else? While I don’t agree with it 100%, it would still help if you watched (or re-watched) Phil Plait’s Don’t Be A Dick talk. Just sayin’.

*I am going to consider any comments in this thread that debate the Million Dollar Challenge or “female vs woman” topics thread derailing, and both sides of the debate will be swiftly deleted. You have been warned.

Irrationality or Frustration?

My blood pressure has gone down a bit now that I’ve had a chance to sleep, but I want to address one point before I’m stuck in lab pipetting all day. Some commenters, even those who claim to generally agree with me, seem to think that I’m “irrational” and “overreact” to “little” sexist problems, which only proves I have a “chip on my shoulder.”

Let me try to explain what it’s like, in a context you may relate to better:

Imagine you have a science blog. You spend all of your time critiquing and poking fun at anti-science ideas, and your followers love those posts. But you’re also an atheist, and occasionally you blog about that too. First you make little posts about religion that have nothing to do with science – and while a couple people may get upset or use already refuted arguments, you’re able to reply to them and explain the situation patiently.

This goes on for quite some time, and more and more people start emailing you saying that while they didn’t understand in the beginning, they now totally get where you’re coming from – and some even agree with you! It’s rewarding to know that your patience paid off, especially when that patience isn’t always found at blogs explicitly devoted to atheism, which sometimes eviscerate and belittle any pro-religion argument.

But then one day you decide to write a post about the intersection of science and religion. Now many of your readers feel personally hurt. But to make matters worse, your blog post suddenly becomes very popular – now you have hundreds of people commenting on your blog, using the same old tropes that have been debated and debunked a million times before.

And since there’s just not enough time in the day to respond to every comment (you do have a job, after all), you may make a general post about how all of their arguments are the same old crap. Maybe “same old crap” isn’t the best phrase to use, because it incites them more. They start saying you just have a vendetta against religious people, and obviously have no rational responses to their arguments, otherwise you would have spent all day replying to them.

But really, you’re just human. You’re frustrated that you’ve spent years slowly educating people about a topic, but when you turn the spotlight on your own group, you realize you have so much work to do. And really, many atheist bloggers say you’re not strident enough – if people get this upset by you, what would happen if they visited an exclusively atheist blog? You have many friends – also bloggers or important people in science – saying they totally agree or sympathize with your post, but they don’t publicly say so for fear of also facing the wrath of these people. You feel alone in what you consider an important battle, facing an endlessly respawning horde.

Replace “science” with “atheism” and “atheism” with “feminism,” and you have me.

So yes. When I read comments on posts about feminism or sexism, sometimes I lose my cool – because a cause that seems very important to me now seems hopeless. Because tropes like “you’re being irrational,” “you have no sense of humor,” “you’re overreacting,” “most people didn’t have a problem with it,” “why don’t you worry about things that matter,” and “you have an agenda” have been historically used to silence women’s voices from political issues like voting and birth control, to pointing out sexism on blogs and twitter. Hearing them is like hearing someone assert “But I didn’t evolve from a monkey!” for the billionth time.

It’s hard to remind myself that many of you don’t realize that those are tropes and that they’re so triggering to a feminist. I know I need to be more patient sometimes, but I’m human. Maybe you still won’t agree with me about what I consider sexism or my views on feminism, but hopefully you’ll understand why I get so upset when I realize my uphill battle is more like scaling Mt. Everest without climbing gear.