The Food Babe gets another public grilling

A chemical

A chemical

You know, I hear a lot of noise about the internet’s “outrage culture” and how everyone needs to be more polite and stop making people, especially white male people, so uncomfortable. The latest was a disappointing rant by Patton Oswalt who wants everyone to stop criticizing comics (dealt with well by Joe Garden, another comedian).

They never seem to factor in the fact that there is also a lot to be outraged about, and that complacency isn’t a solution, it’s a potentiator of problems. It can be racism, it can be the growing divide between classes, it can be the abuse of women…it doesn’t matter how big the problem is, someone will be whining that you aren’t allowed to complain.

At least we can find unity in one thing: The “Food Babe” Blogger Is Full of Shit. This is the latest expose of her bad science, and it’s damning. It’s written by someone who knows what they’re talking about.

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It is not close-minded to demand reasonable kinds of evidence

Close Up Of Smoking Black Candles

Greta Christina has followed up on EbonMuse’s challenge to theists, listing the kinds of evidence that would convince them that their beliefs were true.

If I’m such an open-minded atheist — if I really am an atheist because I think the God hypothesis is unsupported by the evidence — what evidence for God would I accept? What would it take to change my mind?

I’m going to take a rather different approach: I’m going to tell theists to not bother.

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But what if you’re the kind of person who shames people for shaming other people?

coneofshame

Jon Ronson has written a book about public shaming (confession: I have not read it yet, but I have read Ronson’s other books and enjoyed them greatly), So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. I’m not sure I want to read it now, after this critique by Daniel Engber. Ronson tries to redeem Jonah Lehrer? Really? I think Engber does a very good job of showing that no, Lehrer really is rather shameless, and has been trying to minimize his sins and has gotten Ronson to obligingly assist in his rehabilitation.

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So that’s why I avoid mirrors

I’m going to be speaking in Köln, Germany on the 22nd of May, at the International Atheist conference. They just posted some videos from previous events — I was last there in 2012. I listened to the first bit of this talk (really, I can’t bear to watch videos of myself) just to remind myself of what I talked about then, and to make sure my planned talk doesn’t overlap (it doesn’t). But I did learn something important from my brief glimpse.

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