I huff and puff a lot about the necessity of critical thinking, but it’s not because I have mastered the art of skepticism and am offering my pearls of wisdom from on high. Far from it. Unlike Jenny McCarthy, I have not yet earned my degree from Google University. I’m more like a second-grader who’s just gaining enough confidence to raise her hand in class sometimes. I’m learning every day, which is a great process but as someone once said, the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know.
I was raised by wolves two skeptics, so the irrational beliefs and behaviors I’ve acquired over the years have not, on the whole, been too difficult to discard. With one exception: I never really absorbed the religious aspect of Judaism, but some of the cultural superstitions did take hold. I was like a kid who resents having to go to temple, because I realized even then that I was going to grow up believing in something I didn’t want to. And that’s exactly what happened. Now, I figure if I’m going to give people grief for irrational behavior, it’s only fair that I examine my own.
(Also as a kid, I thought that Stevie Wonder was singing “fairly” instead of “very superstitious,” which made the song a little confusing.)
I’m going to talk about this for a little bit on Skeptically Speaking tonight, to which you can listen live here at 5pm Pacific time, or get from the website usually by Sunday or Monday. The main part of the episode will be about the Independent Investigations Group here in Los Angeles, which is a great group that I am just starting to get involved with. In their words:
The Independent Investigations Group investigates fringe science, paranormal and extraordinary claims from a rational, scientific viewpoint, and disseminates factual information about such inquiries to the public.
How fun is that!
And on that note, I send you off with a mystical cat who is never going to win a $50,000 prize, or any other. Cute though. Sorry I can’t remember where I saw it first, but due credit to whomever.
Today at 6pm MST (which is 5pm in California and 8pm in New York and that should help cover it), I’ll be on the radio show Skeptically Speaking. It’s on public radio in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and you can watch (the host, Desiree Schell, not me) and chat live on Ustream. My spot is at the beginning of the show and is called “Speaking Up,” for which anyone is invited to submit topics. My post about remaining skeptical despite chronic illness is the basis for what I’ll be talking about, and I’ve been paired with a main guest, Nancy Walton, who will be discussing human research ethics. I may be too busy hyperventilating after I’m on to listen to the rest of the show, but I really look forward to hearing what she has to say. You can send in questions to her, but my segment is interview-only, for any jokers who had ideas.
I’ve liked this show ever since the first episode I heard. (The show is available to download the following week on the website and iTunes). There are a lot of skeptical podcasts out there, and they all fulfill various niches, but I particularly like the breadth of topics on this show, and the depths to which they’re explored. You learn that skeptical thinking isn’t limited to debunking scams but can be applied in all kinds of ways. Also, my favorite station, KCRW, is public radio run through Santa Monica College, plus the first college to employ me as an interpreter had a good station, so I’m biased in favor of campus radio. I’m tickled that it’s Friday the 13th, the perfect date for a recovering superstitious person to appear on a show about skepticism.
In addition, you might have noticed that shiny new ad down there in the lower right for gift subscriptions to Skeptic magazine. As I’ve written about before, after I read Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things I felt like I had fallen down the rabbit hole. Between that and subscribing to Skeptic, a new world opened up for me, one about which I try to continue my education every day. So I’m happy to give back however I can. I don’t get any revenue from the ad; it’s simply a link to the store where you can gift, buy, or renew a subscription. Also, beginning with the above link to Shermer’s book, a small portion of any Amazon purchases made through this site will benefit Skeptic.
As you can see from the widget, I’ve been dutifully churning out atrocious NaNoWriMoProse on schedule, so Monday I’m excited to have another guest post, from a woman who has performed Humanist funerals in the U.K. for twenty years. And next Friday, if you’re very lucky, I might read you some more of my poetry novel. I send you off with a kid with serious chops doing “Hotel California” on the uke.
