Emily Willingham on those misappropriated metaphors for being sharply criticized:
How many Nobel laureates does it take to screw up a position? By my current count, nine. I’m sure someone, somewhere, has already observed the rich irony of using the collective privilege and power of the Nobel to try to shut up the less-powerful by claiming that they’re going to chill freedom of expression. If not, consider that observed.
The Tim Hunt story is redux redux, as though every time a stone is shifted from the power structure, another one simply takes its place from an infinite supply of the components of existing power.
Well – there’s a sentence I wish I’d written.
Just as nine Nobel laureates are evidently incapable of understanding how a man who calls for segregated labs might not be the best fit for an institution with a mission of diversity, many of their ilk also seem incapable of understanding the implications of the terms they select to attack those they wish to shut up. Herein, I offer a useful resource.
Lynch mob: I’ve written about this before, so I’ll just paraphrase me: The phrase ‘lynch mob’ is a loaded one. Here’s what lynch mobs did and do. Charles Blow has written in depth about how indefensible it is to co-opt this term to characterize the by-any-measure relatively mild complaints about … well, anything. Meanwhile, women of Twitter get this.
She goes through the whole list. It’s good.
That was a great post by Emily Willingham. We can only hope that Dawkins, et.al., would recognize their idiocy, but they probably 1) wouldn’t even read it, and 2) would, if they did read it, scoff at pointing out the problems with their comments.
That really was a great post. I laughed into my coffee cup when I read “they get the vapors easily”.
If I can continue the metaphor, it’s like a never ending Tetris level where the privileged, white male scientists continually fall down from the top and into the empty spaces cleaned out by previous privileged, white male scientists that have taken out rows after rows of women and minority scientists…..
Yes! Heavens, that was good!