Anti-Science: Liberals and Conservatives

I have found that no matter where someone lies on the political spectrum they can be anti-science. But I have noticed a trend where 'conservatives' will be anti-science to a specific bundle of topics, and 'liberals' will have their own bundle of anti-science topics.

For example, many conservatives are anti-science when it comes to Biology(evolution, sexuality) and Climate. They don't like facts which go against their view of history, religion, or economics.

However, many liberals are very strongly pro-evolution and understand climate science, but many are against medical science. Many liberals buy into anti-vaccine movements, alternative 'remedies', "mystical healing" and are also anti-GMO.

Does this sound true to anyone else? You know those people who say they are "living healthy" so they only eat organic and use homeopathic 'remedies', practice New Age crystal healing, that type of person as an example of 'liberals'.
And the sterotypical conservative Christian who doesn't accept evolution (evilution) and Climate change is a liberal conspiracy propagated by the Liberal Media.

I think everyone on the political spectrum falls to woo, but it seems like the stereotypical "new agey liberal" buys into more of the "mystical" "feel-good" type of thing.

Good review of Anita Sarkeesian's Damsel in Distress Part 2

I found a review on GameInformer of Anita Sarkeesian's second video on the Damsel In Distress Trope which I thought did a very fair review of her video.

The review can be found here.

Here are some quotes from the review which I believe are good constructive criticism:

"Unfortunately, she does not plunge any deeper with her new video. By going for a “systemic, big picture perspective,” Sarkeesian touches upon many examples but does not explain well enough for the video to be anything more than introductory level. "

"The character is being detained along with other men, women and children in a facility and all are forced to strip and shower against their will. There are other moments later in the video where Sarkeesian takes snippets from games and points to them as badly written tropes, when really they are simply taken out of context. "

"She is good at identifying where these tropes are used but is not telling her audience why these specific examples of the trope are bad (if at all) or why they are used. This same tactic of listing follows her explanation of damsel in refrigerator.

Unfortunately, when she does go into analysis she provides no concrete examples."

"it is disappointing that the videos are just an introductory-level 25 minutes. Sarkeesian does a great job pointing out how widespread each trope is, although some examples are grossly out of context or oversimplified. She does not take into account cultural differences in Japanese and Western games."

The review did not attack her intelligence, views, nor her personally, something which I find quite common in anti-feminist writing, but did a fair job in dissecting and laying out good and bad points in her video series. I think that this review is good criticism and that if she wishes to improve what she is doing (which I hope she does) she should try to improve in some of the areas that were written here.

When giving an example, she should go intot he example, not simply list it as an example. This is a very key point in persuasive writing; if you have evidence you must explain how it is relevant. She simply lists things as evidence but does not explain the background stories behind them and how they are truely endorsing sexism.

Anita Sarkeesian

Well I think I have found a person who is causing the most controversy on the internet right now dealing with feminsim. Anita Sarkeesian of the YouTube channel Feminist Frequency.

For those of you who do not know much about her, as I did not, she creates videos about feminism on her YouTube channel but most recently has begun making videos which deal specifically with sexist stereotypes in video games. Her most recent video is a second part video on the 'damsel in distress' plot device which is used continuously in games.

In this video she talks specifically about how the modern 'damsel in distress' plot device has been changed into a darker form. Several variations she goes into are:

The death of the wife and victimization of the daughter.
The death of the wife and rescue of their soul
The 'woman in the refrigerator' in which a female character is killed off simply as a plot device to carry on the male characters story.

She explains how this shows women as objects or simply plot devices, making women not important, simply to be killed to further the male protagonist's story.

The only thing in her video which I disagreed with was when she used the video game of Dante's Inferno to show an example for the rescue of a woman's soul. Of course the video game was going to have this since it was based off of the book 'Dante's Inferno', which does indeed contain that plot device. I don't think that video games have increased the usage of this plot device, if anything the novel Dante's inferno created this plot device.

But onto the hatred of the internet against Anita sarkeesian:
The internet, a widely known nest of hatred, has harassed her continueously since she first announced these video series. From her Kickstarter campaign she garnered a massive hate attack, being called 'bitch', 'ugly', 'fat', 'stupid', and any other name you could think of, especially ones in reference to her being a woman. This was for simply wanting to make a video series exposing sexism in video games.

This was continued today, where her most recent Tropes Part 2 video was taken down shortly after it was uploaded due to a false flagging campaign. She has shut off comments and disabled ratings as well as statistics due to the trolling. I, however, take issue with shutting off the last two of those. I can understand not wanting hate filled comments on a video that she wants everyone to see, but shutting off ratings just because she (rightly) thinks that it will recieve mostly dislikes is going too far. Disabling ratings removes the ability to see how poeple actually are taking her videos.

Is she receiving mostly praise? Or mostly hatred? We have no idea.

She also disabled the statistics on her video, disabling us from seeing who is looking at the video and hwere most of her traffic is coming from. Again, who is talking about her video? Are people writing about it and agreeing with her or disagreeing? This, again, is lost to us due to her actions which I find somewhat cowardly. If she has something to say, she shouldn't hide it, she shouldn't care about the massive amount of dislikes she may get, she should just be proud of her work and say what she has to say.

Feminism in Atheism

I have not been very active in the "atheist community" as of late but I have notied one topic that has popped up and caused significant controversy recently.

"Feminism in Atheism"

To me the talk of feminism in atheism does not sound bad nor as if they are incompatable, as to me feminism is simply people wanting equality amongst the genders, and as females have been historically below males it is called 'feminism' as opposed to, say, 'humanism'.

However, it seems as if a large portion of the community sees feminism as something else entirely, as "females above males".

I used to often frequent Pharyngula when I had more free time and the interactions between PZ Myers and Thunderf00t was what originally brought this to my attention. I had no idea how strong peoples' opinions were on feminists being in the atheist community, nor that many people saw feminists as people who wanted females to be treated superior to males.

I have not researched this topic enough to make any direct points on what is occuring, but I can say that the internet does seem to be extremely misogynistic. Every video with a woman usually has a comment about 'tits' or the word 'bitch' in it, and I find that unfortunate.

If anyone is reading this, which as of right now no one is (teehee), tell me your opinion if you know about this, or send me links about pertinent information.

Talk to you later!

Introduction

Hello Internet!

This is my first blog post, ever. With that being said I hope I am doing it right. I am...right?

I will start with a little background of myself.
I have been an "atheist" since 2008 when I realized that's what I was, and prior to that I didn't really believe in a god at all. I have always been skeptical by nature, although I have believed in paranormal things before (more about that later).
I graduated with a degree in Biochemistry in 2011 and have always been interested in science. Ever since I was little I always enjoyed learning about biology or Earth's history. Evolution has always been an interesting facet of my studies which still interests me today. That was one of the things which led me to realize I was an atheist.
In 2008 I was watching some videos on evolution when videos by AronRa came up, which then led me into the atheist YouTube community. I then immediately found The Atheist Experience and have watched it ever since.

I decided to make this blog to join the atheist community, so to speak, and give my viewpoints on topics as they arise. I am very new at this and am a very shy person, so I may not be very assertive. ): But I'll try my best.

Please read my blog and let other people know about me so I feel justified in writing this, and I'll try my best to give my viewpoints on topics that I come across!

Also feel free to post links to give me ideas, thanks!