Skepchicks

As you all know (because you’re going to be there), I leave tomorrow for the Women in Secularism conference in DC; then Saturday after my panel, I fly to Berlin for the World Skeptics Conference, and then I fly to Cologne for the European Atheist Convention. Because I’ll be unable to keep a constant eye on Skepchick to keep the site from devolving into a nonstop stream of MS Paint penises, I’ve brought on a new editor to serve as President Pro Tem. The irony is that she probably has no idea what that term means. Her name is Tracy King and she is a filthy Brit.

Many of you may remember Tracy from the many years she spent as a Skepchick contributor. The rest of you may remember her from that guest post she penned two weeks ago. Regardless, you should be very excited right now. I know that all the other Skepchick contributors are – Elyse had an entire folder of MS Paint penises ready to go, but she was happy to repurpose them for Tracy. I’ve used one (cropped) piece of art as the featured image of this post.

So everyone, please welcome Tracy! I trust that when I return in ten days, Skepchick will not have been turned into the latest Queen-worshipping, ale-guzzling, trousers-wearing, lift-riding British colony.

I’ll also take this moment to mention that there’s been a lot of turnover here at Skepchick over the past year or so. Some great friends have departed, and so it’s awesome to have one return. If you’re wondering who is currently active here, you can check out the mostly accurate Who’s Who page, though I’m not going to re-add Tracy until she proves her worth in battle. BLOG BATTLE.

I’m not sure what that means; it’s late and I haven’t slept much and I’m prepping for three conferences. Just give me a break, okay?

Greetings, my fellow travelers on this tiny little planet. We received an interesting question here on Skepchick  about the formation of the Moon. I got a little busy with the whole dissertation-writing thing, but I’m back to tell you about the somewhat violent formation of the Earth’s famous natural satellite.

Smashy-smashy artist's conception. Credit: NASA

Here is the question from Barry:

So I was watching a rerun of the Universe on TV about the
Moon and its origins.  One of the theories of the origins of our moon
is that a Mars sized impactor hit Earth in its early days and the
debris that acretted around the bulk of the Earth that was left formed
the Moon.  I was on board with this idea until they said that the
model simulations they do puts the formation of the moon taking about
a standard year, maybe 2.  This feels so ludicrous to me because
everything that happens in the universe (creation-wise) takes million
and billions of years.  Can you look into this particular area and see
what these models are based on?

The currently favored hypothesis of the Moon’s formation is also known as they “Giant Impactor Hypothesis” or the “The Big Whack” hypothesis. Yes, really. Astronomers: not so good at naming stuff.

According to this scenario, as the question says, something about half the size of the Earth whacked into the proto-Earth early on in the formation of the solar system. This is not so much of a stretch to believe as the early solar system was a veritable shooting gallery full of debris that was coalescing into what we now know as the planets. This glancing blow would have scattered debris everywhere, but some would have stayed in orbit to coalesce to form the Moon. This would explain why the Moon is slightly different in composition from the Earth, particularly that it has a tiny iron core and is overall less dense than planet Earth. This makes sense if it was primarily formed from this impactor and the upper layers of the Earth’s crust and mantle.

It is true that this whole event happens over a “short time scale” as compared to the age of the solar system (about 4.5 billion years). The actual time depends on the exact circumstances of the cosmic smash, and computer models don’t always agree. The disk of debris that would become the Moon probably took about a hundred years to come together, which is still an incredibly short period of time on cosmic scales.

But why so short cosmologically? Stars live out their lives over billions of years, and planetary systems are formed over millions of years. However, some dynamical processes can still occur on shorter timescales. Impacts, in particular, take  just minutes, hours, or days for the dust to settle. A great example is the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact of a comet onto Jupiter in 1994. It only took a few months for the damage to disappear, since Jupiter is so much larger than the comet, but it shows that short events can happen.

Of course, the currently accepted hypothesis is not perfect, and some recent lines of evidence have challenged its dominance. The Skeptics Guide to the Universe reported on one such story recently about titanium isotopes in Earth and Moon rocks, and how they seem too similar to have come from the collision of two bodies. However, these minor details probably have more to do with the initial conditions of the impact, which are not well known, and aren’t enough to throw out this hypothesis completely. The “Big Whack” is still the most viable hypothesis and the one that makes the most physical sense. One early hypothesis had the Earth spinning so fast that part of it was flung off to form the Moon, but without an implausible Superman movie plot, there is no way the planet could have spun up that quickly.

One thing that we do know is that the Moon continues to surprise us. Not just a dead hunk of rock, the Moon has been shown to have water in its shadowy craters, and spacecraft such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) are measuring the physical properties of our nearest planetary neighbor with unprecedented accuracy. The best part of this is that you can participate.

LRO is sending back tons and tons of high resolution images of the Moon, and planetary scientists can’t possibly comb through all that data. Enter Moon Mappers, where you can identify craters and even pit yourself against computer algorithms to pick out faint structures on the Moon. A part of the growing CosmoQuest empire, of which I am proudly a part, this project is invaluable to making modern Moon research happen.  This is just one of several projects that we’ll be rolling out, allowing anyone with a bit of time and interest to do cutting edge science. And that is going to help us get better and better at explaining how the Moon, Earth, and rest of our little Solar System came to be, and came to be our home.

Thanks, Barry, for the question!

• 10 dating misogyny warning signs – An excellent and entertaining new post by Sasha at More Than Men.
• Skechers to pay $40 million in refunds because putting on shoes is not a workout – “Shape-Ups ads featured the endorsement of an “independent” chiropractor who claimed to have conducted a study that proved the superior health benefits of wearing Shape-Ups compared to regular old flat-bottomed sneakers.”
• The skinny – Scarlett Johansson on body image and the media. From Mark.
• “The Second Sexism” is just victim envy – Because really, what about the menz?

All I want to do is take advantage of the great unsolicited offers that are emailed to me.

Dear sirs,

This is johnson greetings from eastern tech of China.

We are a professional laser machine maker, laser machine is widely used on different business sectors, it can engrave on varied materials such as fabric, leather, pu, pvc, plastics,rubber, wood, acrylic, plexiglass,paper board,bamboo, stone, jade, crystal, ceramic, composition materials, it can cut paper, fabric, leather, pu, pvc, plastic,acrylic, wood, compostion materials etc nonmetal materials.

Our ETDP diode-pumped laser marking machine can engrave perfect artworks on all kinds of metal surface and plastics, ETNC ccd camera laser cutting machine can cut finished label off automatically.

The laser use high energy of laser beam to vaporized the touchpoint of materials so it can leave marks on materials and cut off the materials, it has special advantage over traditional tools with its non-contact processing and handle with software materials. when you are having problem to handle materials with tradtional machines, you can try laser processing to see if it help.

We provide free sample service and we welcome your any enquires and advice.

Please visit our website for more info:

www.etntec.com

Best regards!

Johnson
sales manager
Dongguan Eastern Technology Company
Tel:0086-769-89779909
Fax:0086-769-23664469
Mobile: 0086-18664094993
E-mail: sales@etntec.com
Msn: johnson315789@hotmail.com
Skype: etntec

And my response:

Dear Johnson,

This is Package; greetings from an ice lair deep beneath Antarctica. I was very excited to receive your email, as my organization has been looking for a laser machine dealer for some time now. We’ve traveled the world attempting to find what you are essentially offering – what are the chances that someone would just email us out of the blue!

You mention that your laser gun can vaporize the touchpoint of materials, but in your list of materials you didn’t mention epidermis. The last laser gun we bought was tested by our researchers on a newborn feline, and we found it severely lacking. What we’re looking for is not just an “etching” or singeing, but more of a complete vaporization or even explosion. Something that would both destroy the target and invoke feelings of absolute dread and subservience in spectators.

Do let me know if you have anything along those lines.

Regards,

Package

That was three days ago. No response.

Jen got called in to perform emergency neurosurgery this morning, so I’m filling in for her. I cannot disclose anymore details, because despite that her non-medical-professional status means she’s not bound by privacy laws, her silence is bound by secret society of superhuman honor code. Anyway, quickies:

Someday Buying a Vibrator Will Be as Boring as Buying an iPod, but using them will never be… until I can install my grocery app onto it.

Vicar thought gays shouldn’t get married, so when they die, they shouldn’t get buried either. Because gay is a choice and dying is… what?! (sent in by Rei Malebario)

In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is. (sent in by everyone everywhere)

Men don’t get objectified, too. So you cant stop saying that now: People See Sexy Pictures of Women as Objects, Not People; Sexy-Looking Men as People (sent in by Anne Sauer)

Compassionate Skepticism: ”The bottom line is, scientific knowledge and thinking come loaded with awesome responsibility. Critical thinking can serve as a weapon to staunchly defend prior notions in the hands of the intellectually disingenuous. It can also be a source of arrogant superiority if you let it.”

I feel like I spend half my online life clicking “unsubscribe” from people on Facebook. It’s annoying that Facebook automatically subscribes you to people you’re friends with and even more annoying that they even default you to opt-in on annoying people. But worst of all, Facebook thinks the annoying people are the ones I’m most interested in, so all their annoying-people updates flood my feed.

How do you know if you’re annoying? If you post a lot of images you think are really funny, that’s a red flag. If a lot of those images are completely text, then this is your intervention. Stop doing that.

Other things people need to stop doing:

Asking people online what’s wrong with them instead of calling a doctor. I’m going to guess that no medical conditions in history have ever been cured by crowd sourcing.

Bitching that the world requires too much “political correctness”. It’s only a suggestion and only if you think it’s important to recognize that there’s a world outside of you and you want to try to not be an ignorant asshole.

Quoting Larry the Cable Guy.

Offering advice, regardless of whether requested, appropriate, or helpful.

Spray tanning.

Thinking that being a skeptic makes them intellectually and ethically superior to everyone else.

I honestly could go on… and probably will. But I want to save some for your guys.

What do people need to stop doing? And most importantly, what do skeptic people need to stop doing?

The Afternoon Inquisition (or AI) is a question posed to you, the Skepchick community. Look for it to appear Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3pm ET.

Featured Image via somewheregladlybeyond

• All-girl team wins science competition with ingenious pasteurization contraption – The team developed their invention to be used by Nicaraguan women to pasteurize their milk.
• Edwina Rogers – Greta Christina on the new executive director of the Secular Coalition for America: “But the problem isn’t just her denial of the political reality of the Republican Party. The problem is also with the way she denied it.”
• Dangers of chiropractic under reported, study finds – Edzard Ernst lead the study.
• Clementine Churchill eloquently pwns a sexist dude – In response to a article about how women should be kept away from all politics, Clementine Churchill responds with the logical continuation of that line of thought. “Ought women not to be abolished altogether?” From Ron.

God Bless America is the latest film from Bobcat Goldthwait, ’80s star and present day indie filmmaker. I saw World’s Greatest Dad last year and mostly enjoyed it, and I’ve really been enjoying Goldthwait’s interviews on shows like Comedy Bang Bang, so I was looking forward to seeing his latest. (It’s in a limited number of theaters this week but it’s already available On Demand, which is how I saw it.) Minor spoilers follow but honestly there’s not much to spoil as the whole film is one-note, and it’s the note you can see in the trailer:

The plot is, basically, a progressive straight white male (Joel Murray as “Frank”) snaps and starts murdering awful people, like reality TV stars, a Bill O’Reilly stand-in, and even a cinematic version of the Phelps family, all while delivering angry monologues. He’s soon joined by a teen (Tara Lynne Barr as “Roxy”) with a similar bloodlust.

More effort seems to have gone into writing Frank’s rants then into worrying about plot or character development, and as such some of the rants are really, really good. You would “like” them if Frank had written them on your Facebook wall. Some of the rants include disgust with the term “feminazi,” frustration about how people are too mean, and my favorite rant on the inappropriate objectification of young girls and the false belief that all men naturally want to have sex with teens.

Despite how much I enjoyed some of those rants, I really didn’t enjoy the film as a whole. There was no suspense – in an interview, Goldthwait said he didn’t want to make a cop drama that showed detectives closing in on them and he purposely didn’t give any thought to how the characters were (literally) getting away with murder for so long. It’s fine for a filmmaker to make unrealistic choices in order to better focus on the story he wants to tell, but he had better really make up for it. I expected the movie to be a bit of a guilty thrill that was meant to explore deeper issues of morality, but it was far too shallow to give you anything to really think about. For instance, the film obviously uses graphic violence while trying to argue against sensationalism, but there’s never a moment in the story when the audience is given a chance to examine that.

Another level that was sadly unexplored was the fact that even the protagonists can’t live up to their own standards. There are several moments in the film when Frank and Roxy delightedly discuss what categories of people deserve to die: “People who use ‘rockstar’ as an adjective. As in rockstar parking.” “People who pound energy drinks all day.” “People who use the term ‘edgy,’ ‘in your face,’ or ‘extreme.’” They seriously had two scenes’ worth of these.

But one of the categories was “people who give or receive high fives.” That one stood out to me because it goes against Frank’s stated desire to kill people who are mean, as high fives are exactly the opposite of mean. High fives are for cheering people up or cheering them on. High fives make the world a better place. Improv Everywhere knows what I’m talking about:

Sure enough, Frank at one point wants to high-five Roxy, and she shoots him a dirty look. It’s just a one-off joke, but that’s a shame because it could have been the start of a more interesting dynamic in which both Frank and Roxy have to come to terms with the fact that their pronouncements on who deserves to die are utterly subjective and their standards are far too high.

In addition to the high five scene, there are other moments that seemed to go against Frank’s own rants about being nice. He fantasizes about shooting a baby, for instance, and he’s fired from his job for sending flowers to a new receptionist’s house because he got her address by going into the company files. I think we’re supposed to feel bad for him in that scene, and while I wouldn’t necessarily want to see a guy like that fired in real life, surely he should be able to see how creepy it would be for him to break into company files to find the home address of a woman he doesn’t know. As he’s escorted out of the building he demands the receptionist give back a book he just loaned her, showing he’s angry at her. Why? Shouldn’t he be angry at a culture that encourages men to transgress boundaries even at the expense of a woman’s feeling of safety? Maybe he is, but the movie doesn’t show us.

There’s a chance that all the film’s shallowness is a purposeful attempt to comment on the shallowness of our media in some meta way, but even if so, I don’t think it works. The basic plot is great, and some of the rants are great, but ultimately it was unfulfilling as both a guilty pleasure and a deeper think piece.

Originally posted on Mad Art Lab.

You guys!

I am so excited about this fun little project!

My main squeeze, Mr Surly Johnny Skaare helped me edit and produce a mockumercial for Death by Puppets based around one of skepticism’s most beloved creatures and pop culture’s favorite beers. It was SO fun to do!

Scott Sigler did the announcer voice over. My mother, Charlene Roth and my pal, Charles Pillsbury helped make puppets. Our very own Treelobster-Steve wrote the script. I did the filming, some puppeteering and all the artsy set design. Johnny is the voice of Chupacabra.

Now, let the good times roll!

I present to you, The Most Interesting Monster in the World:

Helloooooo! Pull yourself out of bed, sleepy! It’s time to catch up on what happened last week on the Skepchick Network. Did you know that you are legally obligated to read all of these highlights before you get on with your day? It’s true.* Trust me. I’m a lawyer.

*It’s not true. But you should do it anyway.

Teen Skepchick

Religion, Memes, and Circular Logic: How Religion Invades People’s Minds
Aurora explores the self-perpetuating meme that is religion.

Dinosaurs in Space: Why the Hell Not?
What are the odds that there are intelligent space dinosaurs? Pretty low, actually.

The U.K.’s Sonic Screwdriver Prototype and What It Means for You as a Person
Alyssa explains the new breakthroughs in sonic screwdriver technology.

Mad Art Lab

The Little Universe, episode 4
Part 4 of Laurent’s The Little Universe.

The Downey Sour Cocktail
Make your own cocktail in honor of the round 1 winner of the SkepchickCON Psychic Challenge.

Tailoring for Superspeed
So you’re super fast and have nothing to wear. Let Ryan help you out with that.

Skepchick SE

Live-on-Air and Fraud (på svenska)
Charmkvark wonders what motivates people who hurt people with woo.

Escéptica

Why does it hurt to be a woman? (en español)
The causes of menstrual pain and its remedies.

The 100 Year Starship (en español)
Angela tells us about the road to building a starship that could make interstellar travel a reality.

I’ve been raped, now what do I do? (en español)
There’s not much information for rape victims in Spanish. We’d like to change that.

Queereka

AI: Queer Anthems
What is the most significant queer anthem?

AI: Coming Out, and Partner’s Families
How do you deal with coming out to your immediate and extended family?

Featured image credit: Lehigh Valley, PA

• GeekMom takes Mayim Bialik to task over her anti-vaccination stance.
• Could an IUD be the best emergency contraceptive around?
• How seriously make critics took Black Widow’s role in The Avengers.
• “It’s just a boner joke. Lighten up.” Men in tech.

It is finally starting to reliably warm up in spring, although we still have a few cold evenings. Bumblebees are one of the first pollinators out in the spring, and the fuzzy adorableness of their bodies does help retain heat.

With the help of a thermal camera, David Attenborough shows us some other clever tricks that let these “cold-blooded” insects warm up and fly on cold days.

Enjoy!

We’ve added some cool toys to the Skeptical Robot shop, including a wind-up fire-breathing Nunzilla! We made a video so you can see her in action:

Last week, many of us celebrated the National Day of Reason. I’ve found out through certain sources that, in some sectors of the Internet, reason was not being venerated; instead, it was prayer that was being promoted that fair third of May. The prayer in question was, based on my highly scientific research (i.e. Googling) on the matter, generally understood to mean Christian prayer. Even the atheist Muslim communist president decided to only mention churches in his declaration on the matter.

This strikes me as an egregious oversight, as even on that Christian holiday for prayer, the average American Muslim would have dedicated far more time out of his or her Thursday to praying than the average Christian.

Praying five times is a day is one of the Five Pillars, or five basic requirements, of Islam. However, the prayer in question is not very simple, so adhering to this requirement is often a challenge for Muslims. It’s not as simple as clasping your hands together and talking to Allah.

There are two types of prayer in Islam: dua, or supplication, and salah (sometimes transliterated as “salat”), the ritualized standing, kneeling, and bowing that is an inherent part of a practicing Muslim’s daily life. The “Muslims pray five times a day” thing applies to the latter rather than to the former. Muslims don’t just step aside and thank Allah for things and/or ask Allah for things five times a day, there’s an incredibly elaborate set of steps that they have to take.

First of all, Muslims are required to be in a state of ritual purity. The purity requirements in Islam are worthy of their own write-up, but long story short, a Muslim must ensure that if he or she has, ahem, secreted anything from the nether regions (sexual fluid, gas, urine, or stool) since the last washing, that he or she wash again. The ritualized washing, called wudhu, includes, at minimum, washing the hands, face, arms, and feet three times each.

The prayer itself is highly formalized, with standing, kneeling, and bowing part of each unit of prayer, called raka. Each raka also includes the recitation of parts of the Quran as well as prayers. Different numbers of raka are required depending on the prayer being offered.

In addition to being required to wash and pray in a specific manner, Muslims are constrained by time. Praying five times a day doesn’t mean praying whenever you want five times, it means praying within the allotted time window for the prayer in question. Each of the five daily prayers has its own name, requirements, and time window. Missing a prayer, while an understandably common occurrence, is highly frowned upon and requires offering make-up prayers.

As you can imagine, adhering to a prayer schedule means living one’s life at the mercy of the clock as well as the availability of water and a clean, dry spot. A lot of Muslims don’t pray as much as their religion says they should for practical reasons. When I was a Muslim, that bothered me, since it meant that I did more work than those people and yet they were allowed the same title of Muslim as I was. Now? I see it as a triumph of reason over religion.

Last week we started the official SkepchickCON 2012 Psychic Challenge.

This week it continues with BOX #2!

Use your powers. Tell me what is in the box.

In case you missed it, last week’s super-moon-powered winner, cybercedd had some extra psychic advice for us.

cybercedd on winning last weeks challenge:

As a lunar psychic, though, I was really bound to get it right on account of the SuperMoon. I should also let everyone know that there will be major celebrity relationship news before the next full moon and that the economy will probably do something, too.

Wow. There will be major celebrity relationship news. Just wow.

That is the kind of psychic advice people pay the BIG bucks for and we got it for free! This is the contest that just keeps on giving, ammirite!

And speaking of giving, we have given away our first prize. Cybercedd has chosen prize number 2. So that prize is no longer available but there are still THREE more prizes to pick from including a FREE pass to SkepchickCON at Convergence!

As for Cybercedd’s prize, he asked the drink be named after his real name and so Anne used her mixology magic, which is very similar to psychic powers and created, The Downey Sour Cocktail!

What kind of black magic is this? Why it's The Downey Sour Cocktail created for Chris Downey by Anne Sauer!

Anne has a full post on this drink complete with recipe and photos here on Mad Art Lab. Congrats again, Chris! And many thanks to Anne. I can’t wait to try the drink!

Remaining prizes:

________________________

Prizes:

Prize 1: I will personally pay for someone’s pass to get in to Convergence/SkepchickCon! You have to get there and find somewhere to stay but I will pay your admission to the event!

Prize 2: A drink created and named after the winner for the Skepchick party created specially for you by our resident Mad Art Lab cocktail specialist, Anne Sauer! Recipe will be provided! And we will toast to you at the Skepchick party at SkepchicCON with you if you can make it or in honor of you if you can’t.

Prize 3: A four pack of surprise Surly-Ramics given to you at SkepchickCON if you can attend, or mailed to you if you can not. You can tell me if you prefer nature or science themes.

Prize 4: A Skepchick shirt signed by all the Skepchicks who attend SkepchickCON 2012. If you can attend we will give it to you there, if not we will mail it to you after the event.

________________________

Once again, here are the rules of play:

Each commenter is allowed a total of TWO guesses per secret box post per week.

I will post one box a week for four weeks.

That means YOU can guess two times per post per week. Guess more than that and even if you are spot on your guess will not count.

The first person to guess the contents of a box in the comment section gets to pick from the prize list above.

Once a prize is picked, it will be marked off the list. So winners can’t pick the same prize twice.

If no one guesses exactly what is in a particular box I will show the item to Rebecca and then together we will decide which guess is closest to the actual contents and give a prize to that commenter.

Winners will be announced in the comment sections of each post and in any follow-up posts.

I will give one hint each week.

I have sent a photo of what is in each box to an official, classified Skepchick for verification purposes. Then, I sealed the boxes. They will not be opened again until the contest is over.

The boxes have been sealed.

When I said each box had only one item, I sorta lied. Or sorta forgot. Or maybe I passed out while typing and had a lovely nap on my keyboard about traveling to foreign lands with friends and eating candies called, “The Job.”

Eherm. Sorry. I am awake now.

This Weeks hint: This box has two of itself but can still be considered one thing.

I may give additional hints in the comments if your psychic talents  prove to be weak. Use the Force, Luke. Use the force.

More info about SkepchickCON at Convergence can be found here.

Now get to guessing!

• The normal girl/other girl tumblr fandom – A bit of fun weirdness for your Friday. From Mankoi.
• Girl Scouts under scrutiny from Catholic bishops – Up next, a story on bishops kicking puppies. From Buzz Parsec.
• 1000 year old plaque is gross, useful to archaeologists – “Turns out the nitrogen and carbon isotopes in dental plaque can give archeologists a look at 1,000-year-old diets.”
• Evolution in Action – This cool project by friend of Skepchick Siouxsie Wiles features glowing bacteria and mouse poo. She’s almost to her funding goal, lend a hand and further our knowledge of bacteria and evolution!
• Cute Animal Friday! A little girl showing a puppy how to poop (it’s cute, I swear!). Bear cub love train, via. And to show we’re not purely about mammalian cuteness, a tiny brand new turtle.

Obesity is an epidemic and perhaps America’s biggest health problem.

That’s the message in HBO’s four-part, multidisciplinary documentary “The Weight of the Nation.” Producers Sheila Nevins and John Hoffman pull no punches, shining a light on the multibillion-dollar food and advertising industries, as well as on public officials for not addressing the issue, and for actually making the situation worse.

And they have no shortage of evidence to support their contentions. For example, according to a new report in the Amer­ican Journal of Pre­ven­tive Med­i­cine, if current trends continue, forty-two per­cent of the Amer­ican pop­u­la­tion will be obese by 2030.

But let’s weigh in here (hehe). Non-US folks please add your thoughts as well. Several questions to spark the discussion . . .

Is obesity as big a problem as reported? If so, who should be held responsible for the country’s soaring obesity rates? Food industry? Government officials? Eaters? Which is more of a factor in the obesity trend/epidemic: lacking self-discipline, living in an environment that promotes unhealthy behaviors, video games/Internet? Obesity rates in children have tripled since 1980. How would you reverse this upward trajectory? Would you?

The Afternoon Inquisition (or AI) is a question posed to you, the Skepchick community. Look for it to appear Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3pm ET.

If there were ever mixed news on the same-sex marriage front, there was yesterday: while North Carolina hasn’t legalized same-sex marriage, President Obama has come out in favor it.

While the most recent news stories are far from the only ones to have spawned the trend, comparing same-sex marriage to cousin marriage seems to be a common thing to do. Usually, the post is accompanied by commentary or leads to comments along the lines of “so marrying family members of the opposite sex and making mutated babies is cool, but marrying someone of the same sex isn’t?”

People have been linking to maps like this on social networking sites and post image memes like the one below.

The idea is that it is unfair that what is deemed “incest” is allowed by the state but that same-sex relationships are not allowed to be recognized in that same way. While many (including me) would agree with that sentiment, are there any social, scientific, or ethical reasons to oppose cousin marriage?

The social taboo against cousin marriage is a relatively new one. In the United States, the taboo seems to have originated in highly unscientific studies that relied to eugenicist ideas. Either way, in the Victorian era and before, Europeans and Americans married their cousins with impunity. In many other cultures worldwide, people marry their cousins without any issues; the practice is not considered bizarre, taboo, or disgusting — in other words, not incest, since that word is defined by social custom. Currently, opposition to and disgust towards cousin marriage seems to be based at least somewhat on classism (i.e. “hicks” and “hillbillies” do it) and xenophobia (i.e. those people do it).

Scientifically speaking, the risks of cousin marriage are related to any children that might be produced as a result of the union. As can be inferred by how common cousin marriage used to be in Europe and the United States and is still in other parts of the world, the children of cousins are not all doomed to be drooling inbreds. In fact, the increased risk of birth defects in the children of cousins is incredibly slight. Many states only allow cousin marriage if there is no possibility of the production of children anyway.

With the social prohibition on cousin marriage being as arbitrary as it is and the science against the idea of cousin marriage being harmful, the only issue that remains is the ethics of it. Subjectivity reigns here, to some extent. Personally, I side with my grandmother.

As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up Muslim. According to Islamic law as well as Indian and Pakistani custom, cousins are fair marriage game. Therefore, by the age of puberty, I was required to give up hugging my male cousins and going in front of them with my head uncovered. Regardless of the Islamic and Indian stance, however, I never was expected or encouraged to marry any of them, a legacy courtesy of my mother’s mother. She declined all offers of marriage for any of her daughters that came from her relatives, noting that filial ties could become strained or even severed due to marital discord between two married cousins. That reasoning, to me, makes the most sense of any argument against relatives becoming sexually and/or romantically involved: even if they have no children or those children face little risk, families should be a safe space, not one fraught with the sorts of tension that tend to originate in romantic and/or sexual connections.

A similar argument is used by the main character of Arrested Development when talking to his son about his attraction to his cousin, which included a fake wedding, the one depicted at the beginning of this post.

Such reasoning is, of course, quite relative.

This cross post is part of the Teen Skepchick Interviews series, where TS writers talk with amazing women scientists, skeptics, and feminists about life, the universe, and everything.

Gwynne Shotwell is the powerhouse President of SpaceX, (Space Exploration Technologies Corporation), a space transport company founded in 2002. She was the seventh employee to be hired, and has remained on to build the company to the size it is today. In fact, this very month, the Falcon 9 will be launching from Cape Canaveral, and docking at the International Space Station. In between test-firing the Falcon 9 last week, and the upcoming excitement, Gwynne took some time to answer questions for Teen Skepchick. (And tell us that she’d love to do some space travel, herself.)

What gets you up in the mornings?

A handmade latte that my husband delivers to me each morning!

What brought you to SpaceX?

I ran into Elon (Elon Musk, CEO and Chief Designer at SpaceX) when I dropped off a friend from lunch who had just started working at SpaceX. I mentioned to Elon that he should hire a Business Developer, and I guess he agreed. He hired me.

Falcon 9 Static Fire (April 30th, 2012)

What made you stay?

The people and the mission. Working with the super smart and dedicated people at SpaceX is a tremendous gift. I also love my customers. It is a real pleasure working with them.

And who doesn’t want to work on rockets and spaceships?

What was your experience as a woman in engineering when you were starting out?

I try not to notice biases based on sex. And actually I don’t think I was negatively impacted in my education or any of the jobs that I have actually done. I did have a little problem during an interview process–but I didn’t get that job because I was a girl–but they were clearly losers, so it is best that I didn’t work for them. What counts is how effective you are, not what body parts you happen to possess.

How does the current situation in Congress impact SpaceX/private spaceflight in general?

Congress is supportive of commercializing space–they see the benefits of quality of service and best value that comes from this. I don’t know how much time they spend thinking about space tourism.

Space debris: is that an issue SpaceX has to look at?

We need to be good stewards of all our environments. Space is just one of them, and those who participate in the space experience should make sure that they don’t leave behind junk that makes future activities in space difficult.

What kind of role do you see for commercial space travel going forward? Will it be principally suppporting government funded research (moving supplies to and from the International Space Station), tourism, or an opportunity for the private-sector to profitably lead research and exploration? That is, would the private-sector ever consider space viable without government contracts?

The more professionally focused market–meaning exploration and science (via the International Space Station or other destinations, such as private stations being developed by a company called Bigelow Aerospace)–will take the lead in space travel early on. Science and discovery can be carried out by governments or through business enterprise. Tourism will follow. I believe strongly that if there are destinations then there will be a tourism market, but this should not be rushed.

The Dragon capsule

Of all the projects you’ve seen start or want to get started, what excites you the most?

I am extremly jazzed by the thought of flying astronauts in Dragon, I really cannot wait to do this!

Pick an assumption that people make about you or your work that is false, and tell us why.

People assume that because we have found the recipe that allows us to develop reliable products at unheard-of prices that we must be either

1. Cutting corners
   or
2. Faking what our costs are and getting subsidized by investors

Clearly 1 is false, or we wouldn’t have gotten our Falcon 9 rocket to orbit successfully twice in a row. This doesn’t mean we won’t have setbacks, but we have demonstrated we can do this job repeatedly. Regarding 2: we have auditied financials just like every other company. They show we have spent the money that we said we have and are not hiding other sources of cash. Innovation is the actual key to our affordability.

Falcon 9 on its first successful launch

How do you respond to those who criticize the amount of resources spent on space travel?

Space travel or space exploration? Only fools would criticize investment in science and exploration.

You can institute one government policy–what do you do?

I would eliminate government policies that prevent competition. We want to see competition in space. It’s almost like in a tournament: when everyone is competing, everyone has to do their best. And the very best performers end up winning. If the U.S. government forces companies to compete, then every company will have to work harder and perform better, and we will see a far more exciting future in space.

If you could edit one part of the way we currently teach science in schools, what and why?

Learning should be fun, and the experience should fit the learner–we spend too much energy trying to fit the learner to the experience. We should be investing in ways to create experiences that help individuals to learn. Some people are hands-on learners and hands-on opportunities should be available to them. Some like to sit quietly and read a book or watch an educational video. That kind of preference should be accommodated. Some like to learn as part of discussions–that option should be okay, too.

Are there steps that we as a society (or SpaceX) can take to ensure that people don’t lose their natural curiosity and desire to figure things out?

As I was suggesting in my last answer, what you cannot do is to force a terribly shy learner to participate in a wild group discussion and expect her to succeed. That will impart fear, and the learning will shut down. It is okay to push people a little bit,–but forcing anything is rarely the right choice when it comes to learning.

You can watch more from SpaceX and Ms. Shotwell, here, in her talk at Northwestern University.

Featured Image via SpaceX

Dear Surly Amy,

I come from a conservative Muslim family. I married into a conservative Muslim family and now have 4 beautiful children. I’ve always been a critical thinker, and for the past few months, I’ve turned my skeptical eye (sorry Brian Dunning for steeling your line) on my religious views. It’s been a very difficult battle, but logic and reason won out.

I USED to be a conservative Muslim, now the only way to be honest with myself is to refer to myself as an apostate. I know of muslims who are drug dealers and pimps, their families and the Muslim community at large still accepts them with the belief that someday Allah will guide them to the “strait path”. I, however would be disowned by my family and shunned by the community, and worse of all, my conservative wife will likely leave me because is is Haram (a sin) for a Muslim woman to be married to a non-muslim man.

I love my family, and after 12 years of marriage, I am still in love with my wife. I can’t stand to be away from my kids for more than a day. But at the same time, keeping up the charade is getting harder and harder. I have stopped praying five times a day, and started taking responsibility for my life instead of placing everything in gods hands. I still can’t get myself to eat pork or drink alcohol, but thats OK.

You may be thinking how I know what their reaction will be. That simple to answer, it’s happened before. A former member of our community renounced Islam and was shunned and severely beaten on 2 occasions, and yes his wife left him. He commited suicide a few months later. Don’t worry, I would never hurt myself.

You are the first person I tell this to. I am living in a very lonely place, and the only reason I am writing to you is because I need somebody to know.

Living this double life is tearing me apart, and I know that I should be true to myself, but is it justifiable to remain in the “theological closet” so that I don’t lose everthing I love.

Thanks,

Rock and Hard Place

Dear Rock and Hard Place,

Thank you for sharing your story.

I can only imagine how difficult your situation must be. I was raised without religion and am not well versed in Muslim tradition, so I thought it best to go find an expert on the situation to give you some insight. Lucky for me, I didn’t even have to leave Skepchick Island to find an expert because our very own Heina is right here and happy to help.

New beginnings.

So without further ado I give you the brilliant, Heina.

From Heina:

First of all, thank you for reaching out. You’re in an incredibly tough situation and there is absolutely no reason to brave it alone. Though the ex-Muslim community is a new one, there are resources out there in terms of emotional and moral support. I’m not sure where you live, but there is an Ex-Muslims Council of Britain in addition to many websites and forums dedicated to helping apostates of Islam.

I completely understand where you’re coming from in terms of the community in which you live. Being a Muslim is more than just believing in a religion. It is often tied into community affiliation, family loyalty, and fundamental identity. It can be frustrating, as an honest non-believer, to look at people in the community who clearly violate the tenets of the religion in which they claim to believe, knowing that if you were to be honest, you would be shunned.

There is no easy answer in terms of what you should do. As you’ve seen what can happen to an ex-Muslim in your community, you know that you should tread lightly. Your personal safety and security trumps any ideological motivation towards total and complete intellectual honesty. At the same time, living a dual life is often a strain that eventually comes to define a person in a way that is detrimental to his or her mental health.

A slow, gradual transition to less outward Islam might be in order. Communicating with fellow ex-Muslims is a good first step. What also could help is letting people in your life know that you are “exploring your spirituality” or something equally euphemistic. You could always claim that you are being drawn towards Sufism or similar aspects of Islam where the inner (i.e. invisible) parts of the faith are emphasized over the outer parts. Slowly easing off the practice of Islam is something that is far from uncommon in the Muslim community — I’m sure you’ve seen very devout Muslims give up on certain practices and vice versa. As long as you pay lip service to the faith, people seem to have less of an issue with you.

I hope this helps and we wish you the best.

Photos by Amy.

Got a question you would like some Surly-Skepchick advice on? Send it in! We won’t publish your real name, unless you want us to and creative pseudonyms get bonus points! Just use the contact link on the top left of the page.