What's In A Name Change?

-- FIRST QUESTION -- What's In A Name Change? -- STARTS HERE -- My career in advice-giving started in 1988 -- with a cardboard sign, "Free Advice From A Panel of Experts." Two friends and I set it out on a Soho, New York, street corner and sat down next to it in folding chairs. We just wanted to give people a laugh as they were walking past. But it was New York; the sign said "free"; people wanting advice lined up around the block. We had suggested topics on our sign -- lofty stuff like "Wigs and Beards," "Recessionary Lifestyles," and "Getting Rid of Your Jerk." But people started asking us serious questions, and I thought, "Eekers...I'd better learn a few things, and fast." I hadn't even taken psychology in college. But I've always been a big reader, and I started mowing through books by and about all the biggies of psychology. However, without professors to instruct me on whom I was supposed to be appropriately worshipful of, I veered off into the dangerous territory of free thought -- noticing, for example, "Holy moly, Freud just made stuff up." Midway through my reading project, The New York Times ran a wee Styles section story on my partners and me, and we started to get a lot of media attention. We got offered a column in the New York Daily News. But after a few years of writing it, both of my partners dropped out, and it became my column. One day, a second paper called, wanting to run my column -- right away, rush-rush. "What do you want us to call it?" they asked. Um...um...I looked over at my business card, which, back then, said, "Amy Alkon, Freelance Goddess." (In my defense, this was pre-Burning Man and before Goddess was the name of every green drink and yoga studio across the globe.) "Call it 'The Advice Goddess,'" I told them. Though advice columns are traditionally the fluff of the paper, I was very aware that these were real people's lives I was weighing in on, and I was terrified of screwing up. Also, it seemed irresponsible to give advice solely based on opinion. I started going to academic conferences, reading scientific studies, and, eventually, having talks with an epidemiologist and statistician on how to vet study methodology. Researchers have been incredibly generous to me -- and seem to respect how, well...maniacal I am about getting their work right. The column has really evolved -- to the point where my answer to every question is intensely science-driven; basically, it's applied behavioral science. So...with the evolution of my column comes the evolution of my column's name -- to The Science Advice Goddess. Happy continued reading...--Amy Alkon 443 words LINK TO EMBED -- on the words "Free Advice From A Panel Of Experts": if you want, you can embed the link to my recent TED talk, which shows us on the street corner in Soho right at the top. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcLDPXnOW9g (This is a science-based talk on why it's in our self-interest to do small kindnesses for strangers.)