You Have the Right to Retain Science
An important commentary by Mindy over at Skepchick.
This is a cross post from Teen Skepchick, originally published on May 12, 2012. Today is Human Rights Day, and, while my situation and the relevant global events have changed, the main thrust of the post is still relevant.
I haven’t always been very excited by the skeptic movement. It’s not like I believed in a lot of woo, but I just couldn’t get too worked up about Loch Ness or Bigfoot or UFO abductions. What’s more, as a non-scientist, I didn’t feel like I had anything to add.
As regular readers of this blog might know, I’m a lawyer by training, and I like to communicate to non-lawyers those legal concepts that aren’t immediately recognizable. My main passion has been human rights and I’ve spent a big chunk of my time since I graduated working to make the whole concept more popular in the United States. Skepticism and the promotion of science always took a back seat to my human rights work.
Then it occurred to me: Advancing human rights and promoting science and reason are the same thing. Let me explain.