In Praise of the Bigfoot Skeptic

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While the skeptic movement has been growing the last ten years, there has been a desire by some to push skepticism out into more “social justice” type of work.  Notice I said “work” and not “claims”.  Skepticism, of course, can be used within “social justice” movements and this has been said and accepted for at least the last thirty years.  The skeptic movement, in short hand, is a movement dedicated to critical thinking and examining claims.  It does not inherently point one toward a set of social or political values.  The results of skepticism, though, should inform people and help them develop their own values.  I’m probably butchering something here, but I think the gist comes across.

As any movement, the skeptic movement is made up of actual people (lately this fact seems to get lost) with different opinions, value systems, and experiences.  I have always thought of the skeptic movement as a group of people who want to know more and muddle along as best we can as humans to advance knowledge.  Mistakes are made, lessons are learned, and people grow.  It is hard for people to not take their values and somehow try and shoehorn them into skepticism the movement.  Whether it’s feminism, liberalism, libertarianism, or even my own veganism, some people have a hard time separating them from the skeptic movement.  I speak as a previous offender from a time when I was positive skepticism would lead one to be a vegan.

I have learned and become more interested in learning as much about skepticism as I can, and I’ve let my political (libertarian) views, my views on animals, and even my atheism out of it.  Skepticism helps inform my other views, not the other way around.

Lately, there is an annoying, often insulting meme where some people denigrate others as “Bigfoot Skeptics”.  If this was ten years ago, I would have just assume “Bigfoot Skeptics” were just people who research the Bigfoot phenomena from a skeptical point of view.  These days, though, it’s an epithet used to disparage those whose skeptical pursuits aren’t judged worthy enough by those would like skepticism to take on liberal progressive values.  It’s pretty childish, a total ad hominem, and frankly, a little bit of lazy thinking.

Skepticism should be a big tent, I think we’re ready to handle that.  There are so many things you can apply skepticism to, I doubt skeptical conferences will ever run out of things to present.  There should be plenty of room for “Bigfoot Skeptics”, “UFO Skeptics”, “Homeopathic Skeptics”, “Government Skeptics” (not truthers), etc.  The length of the list is only limited by my lack of imagination.  So, while “Bigfoot Skeptics” are being insulted by some, I wanted to take this as an opportunity to praise and thank the “Bigfoot Skeptics”.

When I was eight years old I wanted to read everything I could about Bigfoot.  I wasn’t old enough to understand minimum wage, abortion rights, or gay marriage, but I could understand Bigfoot, that maybe it was real and a monster, or maybe it was a myth.  Back when I was eight I didn’t have ready access to the skeptical side of Bigfoot, but oh, I wish I did and I’m jealous that eight year olds now have that easy access.  So many kids will be exposed to skepticism through Bigfoot, far more than during my youth when I was stuck with a small local library, no computer system, and finding non-pro-Bigfoot books proved impossible.

So thank you to people like Joe Nickell, Ben Radford, Sharon Hill, Torkel Ødegård, Matt Crowley, Blake Smith, and Darren Naish who I call approvingly call “Bigfoot Skeptics” for their work in investigations, news reporting and promotion of science.  The world is so much better off with their contributions than without them and they and their work deserve total respect.

 

Ralphie

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He never sees a hole not to dig
He never stops his breakfast jig
His bark is loud, constant, and deep
He gives us so many memories to keep

His snout slightly grayed and covered in mud
His body, long and lean, a true canine stud
He loves to sleep , curl up and snore
Taking care of him is never a chore

He loves to take walks, and trot along
He’s great on a leash, never does wrong
Just say “Walk” and that tail wags
His nose to the ground, he never lags

He grunts, and snarls, to rule the home
He’s the king of where he roams
Sitting on the top of his sofa throne
Keeping all away from his treasure bone

Then at night, he runs on ahead
In the room, up the ramp, onto bed
He puts his head down for a dream
As quiet and content as he ever seems

He softly barks at dreamland prey
Never catching what he sees every day
We always smile at Ralphie at rest
Of all our dogs, he sleeps the best

- Shane Brady, May 31, 2007

Forgetting We're People

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I’ve been mostly inactive on the social networks the last month because my wife and I had some pretty awful things happen.   We’re two people who think of our animals as children and we lost two of them this month really close together.  I did post updates and such here and there, and received a lot of genuine, sincere support for which I’m forever grateful.

During my time away from the social networks, I missed a few dustups in the skeptic/atheist community.  Nothing particularly new, and mostly just the continuation of battles for power hidden in the appearance other issues.  Despite all the fractures and factions, I continue to make new friends in the skeptic movement and have made so many I wonder if I’ll have time to say hi to all of them at TAM this year.

So on that backdrop of all that support I received, Stephanie Zvan of Freethought Blogs dedicated a post to trashing Travis Roy, a skeptic and one of the people who offered support to me during a tough time.  Travis was always nice enough send a quick message or like a picture, and I sincerely appreciate it.  I wasn’t shocked that Stephanie would write such a thing, because I’ve read her blog before.  I was just struck by how vicious the attack could be in contrast to the same person who was genuinely concerned and interested in what was going on in my life.

The post tries to insinuate that Travis doesn’t care about women’s issues (he does), doesn’t care about harassment at conferences (he does), and that somehow he has a weird obsession with some of the Skepchicks (he doesn’t).  She “accomplished” this by doing some thin research, getting some facts wrong, and then stating conclusions she couldn’t possibly make based on her limited information.  To her Travis is just an abstract concept of an “internet troll” and she found the facts to fit her case.

Now, we all fall into the pattern of what Stephanie did with this post from time to time.  We are all human, we all make mistakes, we all get angry, and we call lash out.  We also don’t have to all get along, especially if it turns out we don’t have the same goals.  However, we shouldn’t lose sight that we’re talking about people, actual people who are complex.  The internet can be great for lots of things, but one thing it is not great at is transmitting a genuine human interaction over TCP/IP.  Some things still require a phone call (at this time in history this really just a figure of speech) or even a sit down over coffee.

Rifts may or may not be healed, and goals may never align.  Just think of your “opponent” as a human first, and see if you can at least put some of the conflict to rest. Put that energy back into your favorite causes, or spend more time with your family.  As I’ve learned this last month, you won’t ever have enough time to do the things that really matter, and wasting a second on things that don’t is an expensive proposition.

Exercise Update - 2013-04-12

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Exercise update:  So on Wednesday, I took a day off.  My left knee was feeling a little sore, and I've somehow become so dedicated to working out that it had been well over a month since I had a day that I didn't do something.  Yesterday, I did the "Strength Builder" routine which focuses on the knee and my knee felt pretty good.  Day off worked.

As an aside, I did a particular stretch in yesterday's workout that I couldn't believe I could do.  I had to check the video to make sure I was doing it right because I was able to take it to the "extreme" end.  I can't do that with all the stretches, yet, but I'm thrilled at the progress.  I still have lots of work to do to achieve my body fat% goals, but in terms of flexibility, I'm way farther ahead than I expected.  I've decided that "weight" is a useless number for me and I don't even pay attention to it anymore.  It's a number without context.  I've done the math, and depending on what I do, and how serious I am about fitness, I could weight anywhere between 200 lbs and 240 lbs depending on how much muscle I have.  

Since DDP Yoga has had the unexpected side effect of building muscle and making my shoulders broader, I have no idea what I'll end up at.  I've given up any thought of being "long and lean".  I'm going to be big.  My undershirts are XXLTs, and while that now have an extra 4-5 inches of width on each side at my waist, they barely cover my shoulders now.  I have XXL shoulders and an L waist.  I always thought that if I worked out and such, I would return to my pre-pubescent frame of "long and lanky", but clearly that's not happening.  Ah, well.  I can almost touch the palm of my hands to the floor without bending my knees, I can twist in ways I never thought possible, and I can actually do a sit-up again.  I can live with that.  I can live with that for a whole lotta years.

Judge Makes the Right Call

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In perhaps a surprising act of boldness, a federal judge ordered the FDA to remove all age restrictions for the "morning after pill."  As a small government guy, I'm all for the FDA getting out of the way between a woman and her contraception.  In a quirky bit of government meddling, the "morning after pill" is available freely over the counter, while I need to show ID to buy caffeine pills and sign a federal register to buy anything with 

Pseudoephedrine, not to mention that I need a prescription to buy a quick acting inhaler for my asthma, which in certain circumstances might be life threatening.  I hope this decision loosens restrictions on other medicine where the need outweighs the government's desire to regulate.

LINK: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/04/05/federal-judge-orders-fda-to-remove-age-restriction-on-over-the-counter-morning-after-pill