Challenging your assumptions

As people know, I am a skeptic, and I try to consider the sources when I read some science-related news. I also try to get to the primary sources, if at all possible.

Unfortunately, this is learned behavior, and while I have always tried to read primary sources, I wasn't always as good at considering the source, which means that I've picked up some wrong information along the way, without realizing it.

Last Friday I was at a Christmas party at my work, and during that party I had a conversation with another guest, in which I mentioned the "fact" that aspartame had been shown to affect the metabolism of people, if consumed in large quantities.

This is a fact I had picked up some years ago, reading a paper on it.

As luck had it, I was talking with a scientist, who actually knew something about the subject, and she challenged this fact, asking me where I got that from. I, truthfully, replied that I had read it in a paper, so I was fairly confident about this.

Well, she asked me to find that paper for her, and sendt it to her, as she found this fact rather interesting, and contrary to what she knew about the subject.

So, having spent the last couple of hours, trying to find the paper I had read, I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't exist, and that my conversation partner had been quite right in being skeptic.

Oh, I found plenty of articles about the negative effects of aspartame, and even some which looked like scientific papers, but when you looked at them, it turned out that they were anti-aspartame propaganda dressed up to look like science.

All in all, this was probably a valuable experience for me. I will certainly be more careful about stating scientific "facts" that I have picked up along the way, if I am unable to recall exactly where I have read about it. There is so much pseudo-science, and outright anti-science out there, dressing up as science, that it is easy to get fooled, even if you are a skeptic.

As an aside: There certainly is a lot of anti-aspartame propaganda out there. Anyone knows what feeds into that? I seem to recall hearing about the sugar manufacturing companies trying to affect the sales of artificial sweeteners, but given my recent lesson, I know better than relying on my memory when it comes to these things.

A house divided

“A house divided against itself cannot stand” - Abraham Lincoln June 16, 1858 (based on Mark 3:25)

I am sure that I am not the only one who has observed the rifts in the atheist and skeptic community and thought of the above quotation (not only am I sure; I know this for certain, as people have used the quote). I think of it, and think it applies, but I also think of the Danish expression “Lad falde hvad ikke kan stå” (“let fall what can’t stand”), which is originally from a socialist song, Socialisternes March (march of the Socialists), written in 1871 by Ulrich Peter Overby. This expression also applies to the current situation in my opinion.

For those unaware of what the rifts are about, they relate to the sexist atmosphere which exists in the community, especially during conferences. The problems of sexism has been raised by several through the years, but the current crisis is generally considered to have been started by the vile and misogynist reactions to Rebecca Watson making a rather minor point about this in a video about a conference.

Of course, some people will refer to other starting points, but it is really not relevant, since the end result is the same: the atheist and skeptic community is currently divided to a degree which probably hasn’t been seen before. The division is between those who are fighting the sexism and those who are actively fighting the people fighting the sexism (fighting should not be taken literately in either case). There are of course many people involved in neither camp.

The people fighting sexism are working on things such as getting the wider community to acknowledge that there is a problem, getting people to speak out against sexism and misogynist behavior, and getting conferences to create and enforce harassment policies. It should be noted that the people involved in this are not claiming that sexism is worse among atheists and skeptics than among any other group, rather they are saying that it is a problem which should be addressed.

Among the people fighting against sexism are PZ Myers, the pharyngulites (commenters at the Pharyngula blog), Rebecca Watson and the other Skepchicks, most FreeThoughtBlogs bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, and many more. It also seems like most conference organizers including CFI and American Atheists have come down on this side.

Opposing those are prominent people like Abbie Smith/ERV, Paula Kirby, Russell Blackford, a bunch of commentators generally referred to as the slime pitters, thunderf00t, and to a lesser degree Richard Dawkins and DJ Grothe. Given Grothe’s position at JREF and TAM, it should not surprise anyone that TAM is the only prominent conference to not acknowledge the need for a harassment policy which is enforced. This is rather strange, as TAM actually had a harassment policy in place in 2011, but unfortunately enforced it rather badly (part of enforcing is making reports of incidents, which was what TAM failed at – they handled the actual incidents rather well, according to all reports I’ve seen).

It would seem obvious that this is not an ideal situation, and if it continues, it will tear the community apart.

Well, if that’s what’s going to happen, so be it.

I’d rather have two communities than be part of a community which finds sexism and outright misogynistic behavior acceptable.

The two communities can work together on some issues (like fighting anti-vaxxers and creationism) and be on opposite sides when it comes to facing issues related to sexism. Many people in the broader skeptic and atheist movement won’t notice the difference, but those of us who actually care about these issues can choose which side we want to belong to.

There will, of course, be problems involved in this – the rifts are so deep that some of us won’t have anything to do with others. But this is not really an issue for members of the broader movement, who probably won’t notice or care. At most, they will find that some people are no longer invited as speakers at certain conferences, and that certain bloggers either no longer link to each other or write nasty stuff about each other.

So, to sum it up, there are deep rifts in the movement, and I think it is fine. Not only that, I feel more comfortable being in a smaller community within the movement, which doesn’t include people whose opinions and behavior I find repugnant. I can still appreciate the good work done by those people (like I did with e.g. Hitchens) without wanting to be part of the same community.

A note about comments: Currently all comments are moderated. This is due to heavy problems with spam. I will try to publish comments as soon as I become aware of them. Do note that there is zero tolerance for racist, homophobic, misogynist and bigoted comments.

Copenhagen Skeptics in the Pub

It is with some pride and happiness that I can announce that Copenhagen now has a 'Skeptics in the Pub' event. Skeptics in the Pub (or just SitP for short) is an informal event where skeptics can gather together and discuss subjects related to skepticism and science, while drinking beverages of their choice.

As the wikipedia article linked to above tells you, SitP has been around for quite a while, mostly in Anglo-Saxon countries. These events have strengthened the skeptic networks in the communities where they take place, and makes it easier for skeptics to connect to each other and share knowledge and views.

I have been aware of the event for a while, and have thought that Denmark would benefit from such an event, since pseudo-science and quackery is quite widespread here, while open skepticism is frowned upon as being impolite.

Then I visited Perth, Australia, a couple of years ago, and was lucky enough to be able to participate in two SitP events while being there (one of them was actually a 'Skeptics in the Park', with a nice BBQ in King´s Park), and this experience strengthened my resolve to start one up in Copenhagen.

During the 'Gods and Politics' conference in Copenhagen last year I overheard the head of the Danish atheistic society (Ateistisk Selskab), Stinus Lindgreen, talk with someone else about his next goal being to start up SitP in Copenhagen. Obviously I suggested we partner up in this venture, and we have now finally realized this goal. Along the way, we got TrineBM (who some of you will know from the comments at Pharyngula and Why Evolution is True) to help us.

The first instance of the Copenhagen SitP will be on June 8th at 7PM, where associate professor Mikael Rothstein, from the Univesity of Copenhagen, will talk about UFOs. Rothstein has written, among other things, a book on UFOs ('UFOer og rumvæsener').
The event will take place at Ørsted Ølbar.

The schedule so far (all are at 19:00 at Ørsted Ølbar):
June 8th: Mikael Rothstein
July 13th: No speaker, but socializing
August 10th: Lone Frank

Please note that all events will be in Danish

The facebook page for Copenhagen Skeptics in the Pub can be found here.

Are skepticism and atheism non-overlapping magisteria?

Ever so often a fight breaks out among skeptics and/or atheists about how to deal with religious people. This time it was started by Jeff Wagg who is criticizing the skeptic conference Skepticon3 for being too atheistic. The organizer of the conference, JT Eberhard has responded (pretty well in my opinion) as has PZ Myers, who is a speaker on the conference.

Now, I make no bones about being both a skeptic and an atheist, so it is easy for me to just side with Eberhard on this, and dismiss Wagg out of hand. But would it be right? Looking at the comments to Wagg's original post, you'll notice some fairly prominent skeptics siding with him. It might be one thing to dismiss Wagg, a person who has flirted with anthropogenic global warming denial in the past, but I'll be damned if I am going to dismiss Eugenie Scott without serious consideration.

So, is atheism and skepticism non-overlapping magisteria, as Gould famously said about science and religion?

The short answer to that is NO. The longer answer is, on the other hand, more complex. Skepticism can be said to be a method, while atheism is a position related to a specific subject (the belief in the existence of deities). Skeptics are people who apply skepticism to all subjects, while atheists are simply people who don't hold a belief in a deity.

The group of atheists and skeptics are overlapping, but neither is by any means a subset of the other. Many, probably even most, skeptics are also atheists, but there are many skeptics who are still religious - some by not applying skepticism on that particular part of their lives, others by accepting that their faith flies in the face of evidence. Atheists, on the other hand, are often not skeptics.

Personally, I think that atheism is a natural result of skepticism (and it is interesting to note that the skeptics involved in this conversation are, to the best of my knowledge, all atheists).

So, what's my point? Well, what I am getting around to, is that Wagg might be right that a skeptic conference focused overly much on skepticism towards religion might be off-putting to some skeptics. But so what? There are global warming deniers showing up in all skeptic groups that I've come across - should we pretend that they are right? Or should we avoid the subject? Or course not. For skepticism to make sense, we have to apply it to everything.

This doesn't mean that we have to do it all the time, so if Wagg wants a skeptic conference that doesn't touch the subject of religion, that's great - he should go ahead and create it. Then the rest of us will choose whether we want to participate or not. If it is about ghost hunting, UFOs and cryptozoology, I'll personally give it a pass, but if it, on the other hand, is about woo and alternative "medicine", I'd be interested.

What Wagg shouldn't do, however, is to tell other people how to run their conferences, nor should he try to exclude subjects from being covered by skepticism. All subjects must be open to skeptical inquiry. Otherwise, how will we expand out knowledge and understanding of the world?

Call for submissions - best skepticism of 2010

I am planning on making a Skeptics' Circle style of post highlighting the best skepticism of 2010, but in order to do that I need some help - simply put, the skeptic presence on the internet has become too vast for one person to keep track of it all, and I would love to get some submissions for the post.

The scope of the post would be more broad than for the Skeptics' Circle - instead of just blog posts, I'd also welcome podcast episodes, videos and news articles of relevance. I'd also like links to new organizations, podcasts, and blogs started in 2010. Heck, even court rulings of relevance would be appreciated.

So, if you have something which you think might just fit into what I've described, please don't hesitate to send it to me (kriswager at gmail dot com), and I'll take a look at it. Please include the word "skeptic" somewhere in the mail title, so I can easily spot it if it gets caught by the spam filter.

The plan is that this post will be going up around Christmas, but please submit anything you already have as soon as possible. It will take some time to go through all the material, especially if there are many podcast episodes and YouTube videos.

Quoted for truth

"Skepticism" is a good thing in science. But when it is applied in only one direction it is not "skepticism" at all, but indeed, denial.

Michael E. Mann, Professor, Dept. of Meteorology, Penn State University Director, Penn State Earth System Science Center.

Source: here

The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense

The ever-brilliant Crispian Jago has made a periodic system of irrational nonsense. It's even available as a t-shirt. Now, I just want to know when one can buy it as a poster (and yes, I would post it around town).

Why I consider myself a skeptic, rather than atheist, activist

Last weekend, the Danish Atheist Society (Ateistisk Selskab) and Atheist Alliance International hosted an atheist conference, Gods & Politics, in Copenhagen.

I went there, together with a bunch of pharyngulites (people who comment at the Pharyngula blog), and had an informative and all-round great time.

Still, the conference reminded me of why I consider myself a skeptic, rather than an atheist. Or rather, why I focus on skepticism rather than atheism these days.

The reason for this is that being an atheist is not evidence of rationality.

During the conference I ran into both global warming deniers and 9/11-truthers, and even got accused of being dogmatic by the later, when I said that his claims were moronic.

Well, if maintaining a rational view on things is dogmatic, then I'd be happy to be so.

Skepticism on the other hand, requires rationality - otherwise it's denialism (denial of things, in spite of evidence).

As an atheistic skeptic, I will fight many of the same battles as atheist activists, since these battles are also skeptic battles, and I think that skeptics and atheists could and should work together to make the world move towards a more rational place. I just also think that many atheists can be harmful to the skeptical movement (Bill Maher is a good example of this), and I equally consider them a hindrance for a rational world.

In other words, if you're an atheist, I will work together with you, but I don't necessarily think that we're allies, just because we both don't believe in gods.

Lazy linking - science and skepticism edition

A few science and skepticism links that I thought I'd share.

* J. David Jentsch ask people in the LA area to Stand up for science on April 8. Jentsch is one of the scientists who has been targeted by animal rights terrorists because of his animal research.

* A new study shows that Spanking sparks aggression, does little to reduce behavior problems in children. One of the techniques studied (spanking) is illegal in Denmark, but the others are certainly still used.

* An interesting take on the use of statistics in science: Odds Are, It's Wrong. Personally, I don't find the article entirely convincing. Yes, it's true that there are possibilities of false positives and negatives, but it seem to me that enough studies should clean up these problems. I find the complains about meta-studies puzzling, and while I can see the author's point in a perfect world, we have to work with the material at hand. Still, it's a good article, and I think scientists conducting studies would do well to keep its points in mind.

* I can't remember where I found this link (almost certainly at a feminist blog), but I thought that it was well worth sharing. It's an article in Stanford Magazine about Stanford professor Clelia Mosher who probably was the first to do research into female sexuality: The Sex Scholar.

* Occasionally I come across people who seem to think that the cause of ice ages are unknown, which puzzles me, since I thought it was well-established that they were caused by shifts in the Earth's axis. Apparently this wasn't quite as well-established as I thought, or at least not for as long as I thought - I came across a ScienceDaily article from August 2009 which explains that this was now the established explanation: Long Debate Ended Over Cause, Demise Of Ice Ages? Research Into Earth's Wobble

* David Colquhoun tells us that the University of Buckingham does the right thing. The Faculty of Integrated Medicine has been fired. One less place educating people in woo.

* Over at Alice in Galaxyland there is a great report about a recent event at Skeptics in the Pub in Wincester: Skeptics in the Pub: Unnatural Predators by Jourdemayne at Winchester. Certainly makes me wish I had been there (though I am happy to have been spared the journey described).

* And finally, a shout-out to a fairly new blog. When I was in Perth in January, I met up with the Perth Skeptics on the last day I was there (which is when they participated in the 10²³ mass suicide by homeopathy event). While I was there, I talked a bit about skepticism in Denmark (not much of it around) and blogging. One of the participants was thinking about starting his own blog, and after my talk he took the plunge - so I present to you Friend of Reason. There is some good stuff there.

How far we have come - James Randi comes out

I think I can safely say that today's bombshell in the skeptic sphere is James Randi coming out as gay. Not that the majority of skeptics will have any problem with Randi being gay, but because at 81 years old, it is a fairly long kept secret.

I cannot even begin to fathom how it would be to have had to keep your sexuality hidden for such a long time.

Randi explains more about why he kept it a secret for so long on a podcast interview with D.J. Grothe (who is openly gay).

Randi is a major figure in the skeptic sphere, and his coming out will certainly not diminish his standing among skeptics. On the contrary, I think most of us will have even more respect for him than we had before.

Interestingly, Randi writes that his coming out was inspired by him watching Milk.

It is probably important to mention that Randi has not been denying his sexuality, but he has just kept his sexuality private.

A skeptic bookshelf

Yesterday, I finished David Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories - the Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History, and straight after I started on Damian Thompson's Counterknowledge - How we surrendered to conspiracy theories, quack medicine, bogus science and fake history.

Both of these books are obviously aimed towards a skeptical audience (or at least an audience open to skepticism), and reading them straight after each other, made me think about how a skeptic book-list could look like - and as both a blogger and a book-lover, what's more natural to try to build one and blog about it?

All of the books mentioned here are books that I have on my own shelves (though I haven't read all of them), and I would love to get recommendation for other books as well.

I've chosen to make the list alphabetic, since it's impossible to rank books dealing with such broad subjects according to each others.

David Aaronovitch: Voodoo Histories - The role of the conspiracy theory in shaping modern history.
Aaronovitch takes us through the historical examples of how conspiracy theories have helped shaping the world - one example is the usage of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to justify the "final solution" in Nazi Germany, but more modern examples are also given.

Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong.
A collection of essays by Isaac Asimov in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Mostly focused on astronomy, but with a few on other subjects as well. A lot of the stuff is quite dated, but it's still an interesting read. The relevance to this list, is the title essay "The Relativity of Wrong", which can also be found online.

R. Barker Bausell: Snake Oil Science - The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
One of several books on the list dealing with CAM. Bausell address the science behind CAM, and finds it severely lacking.

Bill Bryson: Shakespeare.
Perhaps a surprising book on the list for many, but in the world of Shakespeare, there are many who believes in alternative authors, making all sorts of wild claims why William Shakespeare can't be the real author. In his book, Bryson explains what we know and don't know about Shakespeare, why our relative sparse knowledge is not surprising, and why all the alternative theories about the authorship are far-fetched and outright nonsense.

Robert Todd Carroll: The Skeptic's Dictionary - A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions & Dangerous Delusions.
Based upon the great online resource, the Skeptic's Dictionary, it's a good reference work, where one can look up all sorts of nonsense, to get a brief introduction to it.

Nick Davies: Flat Earth News.
In this interesting book, Davies explains how news get distributed in this day and age, e.g. causing press releases to be reported as fact. Relevant to skepticism because it explains why science and medicine reporting is so bad, and how obviously falsehoods can make it int the newspapers.

Bart D. Ehrman: Misquoting Jesus - The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.
It's not great secret that I am a hardcore atheist, but I do actually see a difference between atheism and skepticism. This book just happens to cater to both audiences. Ehrman, a former fundamentalist, whose studies into the Bible turned him into an agnostic over time, explains what we know about the Bible and how it has been altered through time, in order to suit specific agendas.

Harry G. Frankfurt: On Bullshit.
The smallest and slimmest volume on my shelf, it's an essay explaining the nature of bullshit, which is not quite the same as lies (a lies knows he or she is telling a falsehood, a bullshitter doesn't care if ti's true or not).

Ben Goldacre: Bad Science.
Goldacre's book is based upon his Guardian column by the same name, and is a great introduction to skepticism. Deals extensively with things like alternative medicine and the media's reporting of medicine.

Susan Jacoby: The Age of American Unreason.
Not the greatest of books in my opinion, Jacoby does to a large degree explains how anti-intellectualism has become so widespread in the US.

Chis Mooney: The Republican War on Science.
Dated, but definitely not irrelevant, Mooney's book explained how the Bush administration tried to suppress science that didn't support their ideology. The same still goes on, though not from the actual government any longer.

Paul A. Offit: Autism's False Prophets - Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure.
Taking on the whole anti-vaccination crowd, Offit explains the lack of science behind the purposed vaccination-autism link, and the dangerous "cures" being pushed to parents of autistic children. Highly recommended.

Robert Park: Voodoo Science - The Road from Foolishness to Fraud.
Another great book taking on many different issues, all based upon scientific claims so bad that one cannot in any way justify how widely believed they are.

Phil Plait: Bad Astronomy - Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax".
Plait, the Bad Astronomer, takes on the many myths, misconceptions, and conspiracy theories related to astronomy.

Rose Shapiro: Suckers - How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of Us All.
Unread, so I can't comment on it.

Michael Shermer: Why People Believe Weird Things - Pseudoscience, Superstition and other confusions of out time.
Shermer tries to explain how and why people come to believe in weird things. Personally, I am not too keen on Shermer's writing style, but the books has been highly praised by others.

Simon Sing & Edzard Ernst: Trick or Treatment? - Alternative medicine on trial.
Unread, so I can't comment on it.

Stuart Sutherland: Irrationality.
I have heard good stuff about this book, but I haven't read it yet.

Damian Thompson: Counterknowledge - How we surrendered to conspiracy theories, quack medicine, bogus science and fake hsitory.
I am currently reading this book, and so far it's a great read. Thompson takes on what he calls "counterknowledge" - misinformation packaged to look like fact.

Christopher Wanjek: Bad Medicine - Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Distance Healing to Vitamin O.
I have tried to get into this book a couple of times, but so far unsuccessful. It's not because it's bad or anything, I've just been distracted by other books.

Francis Wheen: How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World.
Read my book review here. I wasn't too impressed.

One more strike against a JFK conspiracy

Ever since John F. Kennedy was murdered there have been accusations of a conspiracy with Lee Oswald as the fall guy. At first it was just a small fringe group, but since then, these views have gained more foothold in the mainstream. A major reason for this was Oliver Stone's atrocious 1991 movie JFK, which contained numerous factual errors.

One of the earliest claims of evidence for a conspiracy, is the supposed fakeness of the photo of Lee Harvey Oswald standing in a backyard with the riffle used to kill President John F. Kennedy.

Now, throughout computer analysis of the photo, shows that it's not faked, but rather a real photo.

Iconic Photo Of JFK Assassin Oswald Was Not Faked, Professor Finds

Dartmouth computer scientist Hany Farid has new evidence regarding a photograph of accused John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Farid, a pioneer in the field of digital forensics, digitally analyzed an iconic image of Oswald pictured in a backyard setting holding a rifle in one hand and Marxist newspapers in the other.

Oswald and others claimed that the incriminating photo was a fake, noting the seemingly inconsistent lighting and shadows. After analyzing the photo with modern-day forensic tools, Farid says the photo almost certainly was not altered.

Scientists are always careful to not speak in absolutes so "Almost certainly was not" is science-speech for "Was not".

I know that this new evidence will not convince the hardcore conspiracy theorists, since nothing will, but perhaps it can be used to counter their claims, allowing others to understand that there is absolutely no evidence of a broader conspiracy.

New Skeptics' Circle is up, and more

The 109th Skeptic's Circle is up over at the Lay Scientist: The Skeptics' Circle #109: The Credibility Crisis Edition

In related news, Ben Goldacre has made a chapter of his book Bad Science freely available. It was left out of earlier edition because of a lawsuit he was involved in, but after that was resolved, it is now included in the new editions of the book. Those of us who have the older version, can find it online instead.

Lazy linking

A few links which might interest my readers

The 102nd Skeptics' Circle is up at Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes, it's the [Bleeping] Edition. As usual, it brings the best posts of the skeptic blogsphere, and well worth the read.

Voodoo on the Vine

The origins of the increasingly popular Biodynamic wine are steeped in the occult and bad science.

I've been thinking of writing something about Biodynamic production at some stage, but the article explains how it works, demonstrating how silly it is. Via The Bird's Brain

Al Franken is projected to win, but only with 78 votes, so it's still too early to celebrate (if you're so inclined).

BMJ debunks Festive medical myths

Jill writes about the Soaring rates of rape and domestic violence in the United States

Murders in Papua New Guniea

War is a terrible thing, and people will go at great length to end it. Having said that, I haven't before heard about such desperate measures as those reported from Papua New Guniea.

Papua New Guinea women kill males babies to end tribal war

WOMEN in Papua New Guinea's Highland region are killing their male babies to end a tribal war that has gone on for more than 20 years.

Two women from the Eastern Highlands spoke of the slaughter to PNG's National newspaper during a three-day peace and reconciliation course in the region's capital of Goroka.

Rona Luke and Kipiyona Belas, from two warring tribes, said male infanticide reduced the cyclical payback violence infamous in Highlands tribal fights.

When I first read about this, in a Danish newspaper, I was skeptical. It sounds too grim to be true. Searching on more information on the internet, I came across more reports on the story, and I began to fear that it might be true.

Fortunately, it appears that the story is based upon a misunderstanding.

Salvos deny PNG 'baby killing' reports

Salvation Army workers in Papua New Guinea have dismissed reports that women in the remote Highlands region are killing male babies to end a tribal war that has spanned more than 20 years.

Newspapers have reported that women in the Eastern Highlands are murdering their own baby boys to avoid the pain of losing them as men in a long running tribal fight.

The Salvation Army is working in the region to bring peace to warring tribes and said the women were speaking hypothetically at a peace and reconciliation workshop.

A spokeswoman said the Highlands women are making the point that there are so many murders they might as well kill their newborn boys themselves, rather than go through the pain of losing them in tribal fights.

This sounds much more realistic.

New interesting site

There is a new interesting site up - I don't know how to describe it, but a community blog would probably be the best description - called Edger. It's described thus

Edger presents hard-hitting and reasoned news, views, and event promotion on issues pertaining to secularism, atheism, science, humanism, and the cosmos, and actively promotes and celebrates international freethought activism. Written in a youthful tone, but mature in content, Edger is sure to be a driving force in the new intellectual enlightenment.

I think it's something many of my readers will find interesting. And what's more, one of the contributers is Shalini, who has been sorely missed in the atheist/skeptic blogsphere.

New Skeptic's Circle is up!

The 69th Skeptic's Circle is up at Unscrewing The Inscrutable

It's a pretty big one this time.