Man, the sad sacks at AVoiceForMen must be desperate for affirmation if they think this article in The Beast on the Men’s Rights Movement is praising them. It’s a rather odd article that goes out of its way to be fair-minded, which may be what set them up: it treats W.H. Price, the head goon at The Spearhead, as a voice of reason, talks about the growing influence of AVFM, and calls John Hembling (JohnTheOther) a “superstar”. But if the article is setting them up, it’s also knocking them down — it exposes Hembling’s inflated claims of being a heroic warrior and savior of women as totally bogus, describes in detail the awful things the ranting kooks on the MRA side say, and concludes with this:
Or, as Hembling tells feminists, apparently without irony: “You are losing control of the narrative, and the vicious, sadistic and amoral character of your movement is increasingly and glaringly obvious. You might just want to check yourselves in a mirror, dummies.”
Do you guys realize the author was trying to hold a mirror up to you?
Manboobz fact-checks the article.
Facepalm!
Wow.
Just, uh, wow.
Hidden at the end is some pretty awesome analysis of the success of the MRM.
Be fair, PZ! Self-awareness would entirely spoil their narrative!
You mean all of society isn’t flonked?
Wow is right. If this Hembling character wants to make a valid contribution to our society by mitigating the spread of aggressive social constructivist neofeminism, this is not the way to do it. If he were more “self-aware” he would realize that the irrational emotive force that he is up against will only become more irrational and emotive when he writes like this.
The better way to state what he stated would be something like: “Women have forever been oppressed in 95% of societies that we know to have existed. It is only now, in the comforts afforded from fossil fuel use, birth control, and democracy that this patriarchy is being overturned. We must continue to press forward with campaigns and policies to eradicate sex-based bias in politics and other power structures. However, we must do so rationally and reasonably.”
Much like Ron Lindsay stated… but alas, that sort of rationality is simply too much for neofeminists and their shameless panderers (at least in the context of an atheist feminist conference).
That quote has more projection than a movie theater.
“There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.” — Thomas Chalkley, 1713
@torwolf – 20 October 2013 at 12:07 pm (UTC -5)
Provide an example of “aggressive social constructivist neofeminism”. What do you mean by that?
That was an excellent reasoned and thorough article. As I read it I was thinking that this is just what we need to open a valuable dialog that could really address the real and pressing problems we face as a culture and society. And then I read some of the comments with the barrage of truly frightening hate and misogynist rage. I do despair of any reasoned dialog ever coming to pass with the voices of those who really want to have it being drowned out and crushed by fucking lunatics.
Considering his arguments are only from his own irrational and emotive biases, I don’t see your point.
*looks at OP*
*looks at torwolf*
*falls over laughing irrationally*
Thanks, mate, I really needed that
Johntheother was once attacked by a mob of 20-30 box cutter wielding feminists plus he once defended wooly bumblebee and that other woman who keeps telling him he is right.
It says so right in the article!
Is it really so morally awful of me to wish that a meteorite would vaporize their headquarters during the next staff meeting?
@Tethys – 20 October 2013 at 1:13 pm (UTC -5)
An *irrational* meteorite?
Nerd,
Women* are irrational.
I think that just about sums up his point.
*ok, neofeminists. I do call bullshit on that as will be revealed when torwolf returns to call me an irrational neofeminist, since I bet he’s using the same dictionary which says radical feminists are plotting how to enslave men, using them only for semen and for bringing them cocktails**
**I don’t think the dictionary says anything about cocktails, but it should
radical feminists are plotting how to enslave men, using them only for semen and for bringing them cocktails nging them cocktails**
Wait… radical irrational emotive neofeminists enslave men and get cocktails? I never got a cocktail. And after all this time of being told I was one. I guess I been doin’ it wrong.
Beatrice:
Minor mix up, is all. See, it’s the Amazons who enslave men, using most for target practice, but saving a few prime specimens for semen milking purposes.
Now the neofeminists aren’t so hung up about men, and figure they have potential uses, like making and serving cocktails. Closely supervised, of course. And properly leashed.
torwolf:
:raises an eyebrow at this:
My, my. A live idiot wolf.
Ah. Caine clears it up a bit, allegro. Did you go the Amazon route? Then no wonder there’s no one to bring you cocktails.
But don’t worry, we will remedy that. I obviously can’t reveal anything publicly, but the feminist agenda hasn’t been planned by fools*, is all I’m saying.
*irrational emotional opinionated neofeminist Amazons, but not fools
torwolf
Did you forget to close and lock the sarcasm tag? You know what happens when those things get set loose in a thread, don’t you!? Damn things breed at exponential rates and completely overwhelm their habitats.
oh the noes, social constructivism!
lol. this is what social science denialism gets you. you see, social constructivism is psychological theory about how children learn. what dipshit here meant to use was “social constructionism”, the sociological theory that deals with the construction of social reality, and is occasionally used as a dogwhistle for post-modernism because the latter developed out of the former, and dipshits think they’re the same thing.
oh: and social constructionism is also a favorite EPer thing to hate on, because it dares to claim that girls didn’t evolve to like pink. social constructivism has fuck-all to do with that, either.
I’m guessing “neofeminism” is those parts of feminism that are still at least slightly controversial. As opposed to the good old-fashioned feminism of getting women the right to vote. “Mission Accomplished” feminism, perhaps we can call it.
I think the author of this article has no self awareness.
Why would a free thinker be against mens rights? lol
Andy:
They aren’t. This has been easy answers to stupid questions. Check your reading comprehension prior to commenting again, please.
Thanks for the reply Caine, the article gave the impression that Myers was against mens groups which was why I posted that. You seemed to struggle to understand for some strange reason.
Andy Mansfield
Freethought. (Note the lack of a space in the middle.)
And I certainly am struggling to understand what, if any, point you’re trying to make. Care to clarify?
My point is in the original post.
If you struggle to understand also, there is not much help I can offer
Good luck
ps thanks thanks for the spell check
Andy Mansfield #28
Your lack of clarity is your problem, not mine. Of course, if you like going through life surrounded by people mouthing “wtf?” go right ahead on making cryptic, pointless-appearing comments, and the rest of us will go right ahead on ignoring you. Your choice.
It wasn’t one. Freethought, as opposed to free thought, has a very specific meaning.
No problems here Daz, I am not sure why you assume there is.
Your post seems very cryptic, you seem a little stressed?
Have I upset you?
Andy Mansfield
Your mind-reading abilities would appear to be on a par with your ability to make a point.
</derail>
You do not seem intelligent enough to be on here Daz. Are you feeling okay?
Your trolling is getting a little transparent there, Andy. Are you going for your “Banned by PZ” merit badge? If not, you may want to start making your own position crystal clear rather than just taking digs at others.
Nice demonstration of how to be a boring tosser, Andy. You could always try making a point, you know, just for a change.
(no bets as to whether Andy manages it, though).
Pointless one, get to a point, and present some evidence to back it up. Otherwise, you are doing nothing but JAQing off. An offense that will be reported to PZ by one of the Monitors. Which Daz is.
ck – No trolling here.
The point I am making is it seems odd for a person who as far as I know labels himself a free thinker to be so against other free thinkers like these mens groups. Many on here seem to be struggling to understand that for some reason
I didn’t expect so many emotional repsonses to be honest, it surprised me.
opposablethumbs – Adults only please
@Andy Mansfield
Again, as Daz pointed out, freethought isn’t the same as free thought. All of us are quite aware of the MRM, and its so-called luminaries. That doesn’t mean we’re opposed to all men’s advocacy groups (there are rape survivors groups that do very good work, like the one mentioned upthread). The men’s rights movement has chosen to define itself as explicitly anti-feminist, and aligned itself with various misanthropic forces that treat men like children and women like play things. They only advocate for male victims if, and only if, it serves the purpose of attacking feminists.
I can assure you that I’m quite calm, albeit a bit bemused by the idea that you think that you’re “touching a nerve”.
ck – thanks for that, but your lack of understanding and awareness of many males and masculinity is really showing in that post.
Not all men want to be survivors, many men wish to be pro active, which is a good thing.
I am not sure where the ‘touching a nerve’ bit comes from I never said that, you do not seem the most intelligent person to be honest, but good luck.
Although I did perhaps wrong assume that freethought meant free thought but it was an easy mistake to make.
Andy Mansfield – the only connection MRAs have with human rights is their desire to deny them to women. They haven’t the slightest interest in helping men with genuine issues. They’re entirely about misogyny. If you know nothing about them, you need to learn. However, given your instant jump to abusing regulars on the site, I’d guess you’re just another bog-standard MRA troll.
*misogyny, racism, homophobia and trans* phobia, I should have said. Bigotries love to cluster.
Your initial point has been dealt with, Andy Mansfield. Anything else?
don’t bother with Andy, y’all. he’s a shitstirring troll who gets upset when women are allowed rights, because women’s rights are really just anti-catholic bigotry.
kittehserf – I assumed insults were par for the course on here, although perhaps they are accepted if they come from people with a certain opinion.
I was merely trying to fit in, your view seems very narrow and one sided, you seem to be very uninformed and a little bigoted i’m sorry to say.
Jadehawk – As opposed to mens rights being misogyny, racism, homophobia and trans* phobia?
You fuckwittedly assume “free thinker” means any idea is considered without EVIDENCE. Sorry, either you provide evidence for ideas, or like Christopher Hitchens (et. al) said “That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”. The MRA screeds are dismissed without evidence, as they supply none.
Explainer: What’s an MRA?
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2007/10/explainer-whats-mra.html
Things Happen to Men Too
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/phmt-argument/
http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Sexism_Education_101_Link_Dump
yeeeesss…. being intolerant of intolerance is so bigoted. ROTFLMAO.
silly troll.
earlier:
don’t bother with Andy, he really is just trolling you.
This is a very bog-standard troll so far. Come on, Andy, finish the script – those bingo cards won’t fill themselves you know!
AM, here is how your present a real idea for consideration:
“This is what I believe, and this (link to evidence found at places like http://scholar.google.com) backs up that belief.”
“it seems odd that a person who values free thinking would be against fascism. After all, it’s just another way of thinking.”
….and if that doesn’t tell you Andy is trolling….
Nerd of Redheades OM Trolls – You are a pseudo skeptic? Why did you not say so? What scientific credentials did misogynist Christopher Hitchens have?
Caine, Fleur du mal – those hate sites are a little biased to put it politely.
Andy Andy
Wow, an honest MRA shit stirrer. Now there is something you don’t see every day.
Most of the bigots tend to hide their true motivation, but Andy is proud and out with his hatred.
Monitor note:
Andy Mansfield
In the course of eleven comments, you have made one, since refuted, point about freethinking and have made one vague allusion to men who wish to act pro actively.
Be aware that what you are currently doing looks very much like trolling, which if continued, will result in an alert being sent to PZ regarding your behaviour.
Please make a point.
Jadehawk – what is so bigoted about equality?
You do not seem intelligent enough to be on here.
Daz – I know you pseudo skeptics are keen on censorsip. pz myers has form for it.
My original point has not been refuted at all.
“hate sites” lol
catholic, homeopathy-loving, anti-intellectual MRA troll = boring crank magnetism.
And what are you credentials that I should believe any word you say isn’t utter and total bullshit? WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE. Your OPINION is dismissed as bullshit.
Jade – You are an anti Catholic bigot?
I am surprised someone as feeble minded as yourself is able to get out of bed in a morning.
Let alone operate and use a computer.
I’ve been a skeptic for 30 years bullshitter. You have no idea what skepticism means. It all starts with not fooling yourself into thinking you can come to a conclusion without evidence. Like you have…
it’s so adorable when trolls parrot lines they’ve heard others say to them without understanding the content of those words.
*pokes windup troll with pointy stick*
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls – You are against equality?
I think the same about you abject loser. You couldn’t link to pertinent evidence if you life depended on it, since you don’t understand what evidence means. Your OPINION isn’t and never will be evidence….
Andy Mansfield
Your original point, such as it was, seems to have been based on an allegedly mistaken definition of the word freethinker. If you’ve made another one since, you should clarify, as several people, including myself, appear to have missed it.
You have one comment in which to make some for of actual point, before I call in an alert. Please do so.
For you loser, yes. For humanity, no.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls – are you sceptical of materialism or are you a pseudo skeptic?
A skeptic is one who is undecided
It’s funny how so many feminists on here are fans of Misogynist Hitchens, Dawkins is not exactly a huge fan of feminists either.
You know, some of these MRA trolls remind me of the ones sent here by, was it Ham or similar, to gain cred points for going into the ‘lions den’. Isn’t it weird that so many MRA trolls exhibit the same type of behaviour we see from creobot trolls. i.e lots of assertions, misunderstanding the simplest of things, but little else.
lol
I’ve heard the joke about people only being able to count “one, two, many”, but this is the first time I’ve met someone who can’t even count to one.
I’m pretty sure there are MRA trolls monitoring the netz for feminism/pro-feminist blog posts/tumblr posts/tweets/anything, because nothing else explains how quickly they show up.
Also. Clueless as frick, they are.
Alert sent.
No fuckwitted loser, a skeptic is one who looks at the EVIDENCE, and makes conclusions based on the EVIDENCE. For example, you want me to say Bigfoot exists: Evidence required: 1) live creature captured; 2) dead creature; 3) assemblage of bones with DNA; 4) very lesser evidence of hairs/skat with DNA.
That is true skepticism. Which falsifies the null hypothesis of non-existence.
The MRA fuckwittery has the null hypothesis of bullshit without linked evidence. And you links are where????
Oh, now I remember Andy “We’re all prejudiced against Scottish Catholics” Mansfield.
There’s plenty of evidence for that. Just, you know, read and listen to what MRAs actually say about actual issues, instead of presuming they care about the rights of men just because of the name.
You definitely aren’t intelligent enough to be on here Andy. Bye.
but PZ, how could you! banning Andy means you hate men and love oppression and are probably an anti-Catholic elitist! :-p
A worthy end. When he last showed up in the Glasgow Union thread this past March, Andy Mansfield stuck me as one of the most cheerfully hateful anti-abortionist, misogynistic, martyr-complexing, Catholic bigots to tromp about in the run of this blog.
What makes you presume the plight of MRAs has anything to do with equality?
There are people who confuse “equality” with “preserving the status quo”. There are also people who don’t understand that criticizing those with more social power is not bigotry. Standard “persecuted hegemon” BS
Oh Noes! Censorship!!!!!!
Andy only has the entire rest of the internet to post his views on. He’s being oppressed!
Thanks PZ.
If the MRA idjits think equality is something that is the case at the moment, they should supply evidence from that source called google.scholar that: 1) at all levels, women and POC are represented in the percentage they are in the population; 2) that pay is the same for women and POC at all levels in all companies; 3) that all impediments, including white male privilege, have been erased for at least 3 generations to make sure that the society will be truly equal without government encouragement has ended….
So far, nothing but bullshit OPINION.
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/tpsEdM74maA/hqdefault.jpg
I like what the Non Prophets pointed out regarding Mens Rights
If your demographic has a 99% advantage in every other area, forming a group to specifically bring equality for the 1% you are disadvantaged at isn’t an advocacy group.
Hello PZ, I am new here, nice you meet you and all the people here :)
The article is interesting, but the only thing is that I think it is too soft on WF Price. I’m sure you’ve seen it, but if you’re ever on the spearhead the bloke pretty is much off his rocker. I like the parts where the men actually running projects meant to help men are trying to distance themselves from MRA’s, lol :/
Do you ever notice that there’s much overlap between the ‘manosphere’ and the spheres of the fringe-right, white nationalists, ‘race realists,’ and such? It’s like they come in a package deal or something :/
What the fuck did I just spend 15 minutes reading? It was like following a rainbow; you know the idjit isn’t gonna make an actual point, but I had to read on anyways, just in case he did.
Vaiyt
Don’t be silly. Names are everything. Just like feminism is all about the supremacy of women. ‘Cause of the name, you see.
And Nazis were socialists!
Think of the type of thought that leads to some thing like MRA or other hate groups not as an individual fault or error, but as a template of thought the brain stores and uses when it finds similar situations.
There’s so much over lap because it is basically a find/replace
@Ingdigo Jump – 20 October 2013 at 9:02 pm (UTC -5)
I agree that these various far-right factions seem to have very similar headspaces, and that this explains how their ideas are synergistic.
I think this short piece by Umberto Eco, “Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking At a Blackshirt” might be a good start at understanding the far right headspace.
Example of irrational neofeminism: Rebecca Watson’s response to Ron Lindsay’s comments (http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/my_talk_at_wis2/) that “shut up and listen” is not constructive. He makes clear that it is the “shut up” part that should be of concern, not the “listen” part. Yet still, with this clear caveat, and considering that it comprised two paragraphs of a 25+ paragraph talk, this is regarded by Watson to have “shocked and offended” many of those in attendance (http://skepchick.org/2013/06/ron-lindsay-apologizes/). Maybe she’s right, if so, those who were shocked and offended are pitiable babies that need to grow up. She later petitions to have Lindsay removed from the CFI, with the likes of Marcotte. Unbelievable.
Example of “social constructivist” neofeminism: Again, Watson. She is clearly one of the figureheads, as most of you know (http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2012/12/05/rebecca-watsons-skepticon-talk-is-not-an-example-of-science-denialism/). “Evolutionary psychology relies on the premise that our brains evolved 12,000 years ago and haven’t evolved since.” No. It relies on the premise that our brains evolved over hundreds of millenia to maximize fitness (male-female copulation, offspring rearing, and territorial behavior, for example). The fact that “genes are still evolving” or that our environment is different from what it was in the past does not negate the baseline. She is either ignorant of the scope of evolution, or shamelessly framing the issue to pacify her contorted psyche. Leave it to panderers like PZ to support her and the radical movement she represents. “Developmental plasticity is all.” – PZ Myers, 2013.
If you want to exact change and equalize power between females, males, and transgenders, it is important first to accept reality for what it is. It’s the same with everything else. Dismissing the notion that human behavior is governed by evolved genetic factors, and that there are sex-based differences to some degree, is radical and irrational because of the evidence suggesting that there are in fact genetic behavioral drivers and sex-based differences.
馬鹿。
積極的な社会構成主義ネオフェミニズム
—
I think you broke googletranslate.
@Jadehawk – oh, is Andy Pandy here a returning troll?
I might have known.
Well, at least that answers one question: the *cough* interesting *cough* trolls haven’t deserted Manboobz for Pharyngula. Yours are just as boring as our current crop!
:P
What I want to highlight is the second bit about how there are “sex-based differences to some degree” because that’s striking my bad faith trigger. You open up by strawmanning what you called “irrational neofeminism” by inaccurately claiming feminists don’t believe human behavior has genetic factors. No one says that, what those awful “neofeminists” are saying is that genetic factors are far less important than the MRA contingent seems to think they are. And that’s where you sneak in the bit about sex differences, and in doing seem to fall in line with the array of anti-feminists MRAs who came before you torwolf. “Sex-based differences” have time and again been code for “women are different and worse so they don’t need equality because they are genetically unequal”. Evolutionary Psychology is used again and again to try and suggest that genes trump all, when actual psychologists will tell you that culture and acculturation has at least as delible, if not more, an impact on personality and individual difference.
But enough with being nice torwolf, I have a very real reason to believe that you know this. That you know you are strawmanning Rebecca Watson and everyone who agrees with her as shrill and anti-science. The many before you who came in spouting pop Evo Psych did so only because they could smugly point to a distorted view of science to defend your prejudice and sexism. I think you are lying, you have certainly distorted and twisted the words of others, and you’ve got the same mix of condescension, snarl words, and maladjusted science as any particular MRA proponent.
So to you a challenge. You claim these nasty “neo-feminists”, presumably like myself, are mistaken about Evolutionary Psychology. How and in what way? You claim that it is “important to accept reality for what it is”, what is this reality? What are these vaunted “Sex differences”? What do they mean for feminism and society? You tut-tut us for lack of knowledge, what do you know we don’t? I ask you this because I have a good idea of your answers but unlike you I prefer not to put words in other people’s mouth, so lets have it out in the open on the straight and narrow.
And please document what those effective differences are, rather than making unevidenced claims which will be dismissed….
It is when you’re dealing with people who are way in over their heads. You can’t “listen” when you’re too enamored with the sound of your own voice.
lol, reality = women aren’t well represented in IT fields because HUNTING!! AND BERRIES!!!1
Find me the gene for Swedish culture.
Find me the gene for the dislike of potatoes.
Find me the gene that makes me better at text comprehension than 99% of my country.
It’s trivial to say “genes govern our behavior” or “there are differences between sexes”. The real questions, and this is where people like me, PZ and evolumacated psychologians differ, are: Which behaviors? How do genes control them? To what extent? What are the differences between sexes? And the most important question of all: What does all that mean to us?
oh look. the dipshit who fucks up his own dogwhistles also lies.
you know, getting the dogwhistle wrong again after I helpfully corrected it doesn’t make it not a fuckup; it makes it a bigger, more hilarious fuckup.
M the Atheist #98
Go away.
And, for your own sake, remove “lady” from your vocabulary
vaiyt @96
Here vaiyt, tear this one apart. I haven’t got the exact quote but remember that in Pinker’s The Language Instinct, he cites a separated at birth monozygotic twin study in which the two twins, when they finally met on the tarmac at some airport discovered they both sported goatees and were wearing the same color sweater = awesome! All goes to show that genetic makeup surely influences your taste for potatoes.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/TheAmazingAtheist
Oh yeah, an amazing guy.
The only upside to TAA is that I can avoid people who say they love his stuff.
#100
nope
@#101: wow, that’s sciency bro!
Bicarbonate was joking, I think.
If not: same facial structure -> they both managed to figure out goatee works with their facial structure.
Now, if both had married women named Sarah and had a pair of identical twins each, giving them the same names, that would be creepy.
(And if all four kids’ eyes occasionally glowed red, run for your lives!!)
You know, I feel much better about my feminism every time I read troll posts. Unlike this crop, around here we can cite, think, write and make an argument.
Thanks, trolls, for reminding me that my feminism is congruent with my education!
Also, if we’re (consentually) leashing men and making them serve cocktails, I am there in a heartbeat. Sounds like a good time to me–at least, if the men in question know how to make a good martini. I’ll bring my own barware.
M the Atheist: Tell me, which of the definitions for science are you using? If you’re using the definition that science is a process in which an experiment is run under conditions which allow treatments on some sample or sub-portions of a sample for the purposes of measuring the effect of the independent variables on some dependent variable and in which the answer is stochastic and contains an error term, I have bad news for you.
Sociologists do that, too. It’s called quantiative methodology, and getting a graduate degree requires years of statistics so that you can do it to humans or using national data (like census data).
Double fun fact: I go to CS PhD defenses because I take classes in that department. Almost all the defenses I’ve seen so far also use statistical methodologies that are common to my sociology classes, usually for the purposes of network mapping, understanding algorithm efficiency, and predicting trust and behavior in networks (particularly Bayesean statistics there, which we also cover a little in my program). Surprise! Sociologists have to know math, too.
Triple fun fact: CS is considered engineering, which is a STEM discipline but is not considered a science because rather than seeking information on how the universe works in some arena, CS is often concerned with making things work (or work more efficiently). This distinction courtesy of the disgruntled physicist I live with. * The More You Know *
yeah; so easy, it’s never actually been achieved, as studies show and as “natural experiments” like blind auditions keep on showing.
MRAs r dum
That’s not a definition of science. It’s sort of a (redundant) definition of an experiment.
Chas: That would be why I prefaced the part you quoted with the phrase “a process in which,” as in science uses processes like the one described. Out of curiosity, which part did you find redundant?
repeating it won’t make it any truer than it was last time, but at least now you’ve shown that you don’t actually know a damn thing about the science done on this topic either, making you look even dumber. congratulations.
QFT. The first one showed up and promptly fucked up his own dogwhistle; the second one had the communication skills of Polly the Parrot; and the third one can’t tell a convenient proxy from a goal, and doesn’t seem to even know how bias works.
Jadehawk: You know, the more time I spend in college and the more time I spend learning formal architecture for knowledge, the more I appreciate feminism. I suppose some of it started in liking to see theories that dealt with problems I’ve observed, but I’ve gone on to be really impressed (and more so, since I’m comping specifically in methods) with the theoretical and experimental backbone of feminism.
M the Atheist: I said I was comping in methods, and talked about sociology. You’re a big guy, you do the math.
I also take CS courses and attend their defenses, because my primary interests have to do with online behavior, something CS also pays attention to, albeit in a slightly different way.
You’ll have to pardon me for not getting your joke. It wasn’t funny, and you didn’t do anything to distinguish what you’ve said as being not exactly what you meant.
M the Atheist @120
Jokes are supposed to be funny. What you wrote wasn’t funny so it fails as a joke. Instead of a joke, what you wrote reads as being typical MRA misogyny.
Next time you tell a joke, try to include some humor in it.
that was one tragic joke, considering a)you can get standard science degrees in soc (e.g. BSc and MSc ); b)the words “liberal” and “arts” don’t actually mean in this context what they mean in common contemporary English; c)preemptively phrasing one’s beliefs as not “jokes” in the hopes that the “it’s just a joke” defense will actually work is a sad testament to one’s ability to argue one’s points effectively; and d)failing to make the “joke” funny is a sad testament to one’s severe wit deficiency.
honeycakes, I understand it just fine; the problem is you don’t. That’s why you’re saying very dumb things about it.
lol.
LOL.
*pats deeply ignorant diphit on his empty head*
whatever false beliefs make you happy, honeycakes.
M the Atheist: Son, most people at least *try* to cough up a point when they start a conversation online. Let me tell you what it looks like from this end:
You came to a thread about MRM, seemingly to diss feminism and insult people.
Some people told you off, at varying levels of passion.
You were too ignorant to have the discussion you seem to want to and too arrogant to actually talk, which involves things like answering people for clarification and/or, as you’ve been repeatedly told (by Nerd of Redhead in particular) providing some sort of evidence for your claims. Hell, if you had, I would have stayed up later and tried to find out how you needed things explained, intellectual douchebag (thank you, BTW) that I am. Hell, most of the people that responded to you, when actually asked a question, will offer resources and explanations.
You are pissed off and whiny because we didn’t sit still for your insults.
At any point in this process, you could have acted like someone who is trying to have a conversation, but you’ve pretty much stuck to insults, avoiding the point and/or an argument like the plague, and whining. This one is all you.
hmmm…. a minimalist flounce. a novel approach, might be interesting.
Not even remotely masterful. What a sad little troll. Hint: there are people of varying gender expression here all supporting feminism as it should be.
Typical MRA troll. Doesn’t understand the difference between his inane and unsupported OPINION, and real evidence linked to from http://scholar.google.com. His opinion isn’t and never will be considered real evidence of anything other than he has an opinion.
And they wonder why they are laughed at.
@M the Atheist – 21 October 2013 at 4:14 am (UTC -5)
(Combing long hair, fixes dress.) See ya M! (Air kiss)
M the Atheist @ 124:
That flounce looked pretty sticky, but in the faint hope that M might be interested in something other than the voices in their own head telling them what a super genius they are:
If you ask two people to jump an identical hurdle, is that giving them the same treatment?
Oh, did we mention on of them was hit by a car as a kid and has a spinal injury?
Or one of them wasn’t fed well and has rickets?
Or that one of them had a decent breakfast and a full night’s sleep and the other is hungry after spending the night in the snow on a steam grate?
And these are extreme examples, easy to spot. What about the subtle ones?
If you think these tests measure something innate without taking confounding variables into consideration, you’re even dumber than your posts suggest. Which is something of an accomplishment.
M the Atheist is the previously banned jerk, Mr Bobcat.
@PZ 135
What part of “totally not welcome” did he not understand?
:-D You’ve been saying this for close to 10 years! Count again. :-)
Bingo. The basic fallacy here is that classifiable groups of people are monoliths with a single personality and a single set of opinions: .
…But that’s just tone-trolling.
It’s obvious from context that “shut up” means “let people finish what they’re saying” and “don’t prevent people from speaking up”. If Lindsay takes “shut up” as “fuck you and the horse you rode in on”, that’s his problem, not Watson’s.
Which ones and to which extent?
You say “some”, and you appear to mean “all”. Do be specific.
It’s simply not the case that science has to do experiments. Experiments are just ways to arrange convenient opportunities for observations. You can’t do a lot of experiments in astrophysics or in historical sciences – but they’re still science.
Science:
1. Dream up whole bunch of ideas.
2. Circular-file all those that disagree with observations.
3. Of the remainder, circular-file all but the most parsimonious ones.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges.”
Managed to forget this part:
Really interesting, because one of the reasons Mr Bobcat is so upset about cheating on spouses is that he thinks it’s blasphemy. Shalt thou give false witness unto thy neighbour? Or shalt thou perhaps practice taqiyya instead as soon as thou growest a persecution complex?
David M: Sure, science does not have to do experiments (and this is where I confess that I’m way biased toward the experimental model), but 6:1 odds says our troll is thinking that when he thinks of science, as most people do.
mouthyb: what David said.And I quoted the “process” part.
My favorite definition of science is still Robert MacArthur’s: “The only rules of scientific method are honest observation and accurate logic.”
As for whether Sociology is a science, if we define ‘Sociology’ as what Sociologists do, it looks to me like some–maybe most, I don’t know–is science and much is not. You guys still talk about antipositivism?
> “an experiment is run” contains all the information that follows (i.e. a definition of experiment).
> “some sample or sub-portions of a sample”: a ‘sub-portion of a sample’ is itself a sample.
> “the answer is stochastic and contains an error term”: same thing twice.
yeah, assumptions that amount to mind-reading and pulling numbers and proportions from asses? Those aren’t science either.
I’m sorry to be picking on you here but…the what, now?
Chas: Are we going to do this again? You claim there’s no experimental data for feminism, I cough up studies and/or refer you to the Pharyngula wiki and you ignore it. How about we skip it?
You could try reading the studies or browsing the wiki. It’d be a nice change. You could start learning any day now, if you actually wanted to.
Okay now, in order:
It is possible to start getting at science by observing honestly, but I have to say that I’m not sure (again, I have this experimental bias) any ideas become science until they get falsified (eg until someone actually goes out and runs the model.) I can think of ideas all day. I can even examine them parsimoniously, try to be through and consistent, attempt to compare them against the research I have or otherwise attempt to approach those ideas in a systematic manner. But until I’ve tested that model, the ideas are potentially science, but don’t have the framework I associate with science.
Again, this my personal schtick. An idea can be useful, but you’ve gotta, gotta test them.
Here’s the thing about the idiosyncrasies in my definition: yes, the subportion of the sample is still the sample. However, not all experiment designs use subportions of a sample (the classic control and test group design uses subportions, but simple z tests tend to use the whole sample). As far as pointing out that the answer is stochastic and contains an error term, what are the odds that a troll who has that much trouble reading knows what stochastic* means?
It’s not mind reading to forecast the most probable approach to a subject, especially if the person for whom you are writing has given you several samples which indicate that they have no fucking clue how stats or science work.
____________________________________________________________________________
* The error term is implied in the definition, but it is definitely not explicit in that definition. Since Wikipedia is the most commonly used encyclopedia on the internet, I thought it would bear repeating.
I’m thinking, though, that all this is OT, so I’m happy to talk to whomever in the Thunderdome about science/nonscience, methodology and/or stats.
My attendance will be sporadic. I’m waiting for my CS prof to post a major project, and I have a methods course this evening.
Nerd of a Redhead, #80:
I hesitate to dispute this in even the tiniest way, because I see in the thread that some MRA assholes have already picked on this and I don’t want to sound like I agree with them in the slightest. There’s something I wonder about, though: ten generations after a perfectly egalitarian society is achieved, will every profession look like a cross-section of the population?
There’s no way I can see to answer that question today. Attempts I’ve seen either appeal to evo-psych, or use the effects of patriarchy to argue for the inevitability of patriarchy. It’s obvious that even if my company adopted a blind hiring process (which I want to advocate, once I understand better how it works), we would still see women underrepresented in the IT staff, because they’re underrepresented in the applicant pool. That’s an effect of patriarchy, not an innate gender difference. And I’m suspicious of facile assumptions that women will be underrepresented among lumberjacks because “womenz ain’t strong enough.”
But… if equal opportunity existed at every level, and all biases were eliminated and/or corrected for in admission, hiring, and promotion practices, would some professions still have more women, or more men, etc.? Having rejected lumberjacks a second ago, I hesitantly reinstate the question more tentatively: would jobs that (1) still use manual labor, and (2) require lots of physical strength, have more than 50% men simply due to their slightly greater average strength? I ask hesitantly, because there are much more obvious reasons today that lumberjacking is hostile to women irrespective of their upper body strength, so I tend to completely discount the underrepresentation of women today as indicative of any innate differences.
An example that might be relevant is the overrepresentation of Iroquois workers in construction in New York City. They were preferred as workers partly because they were underpaid, but partly, as I understand it, because they exhibit less fear of heights or other occupational dangers. I’ve no idea why this would be, and can only guess that there’s some cultural factor involved (since I tend to doubt that it’s genetic in origin). Assuming for discussion purposes that (1) there’s a cultural basis, and (2) whatever it is, it survives the eradication of inequality in Iroquois culture, then it would seem possible that Iroquois might continue to be overrepresented in high-rise construction for reasons we wouldn’t criticize as symptoms of inequality.
Please don’t see this as defending inequality in any way under the guise of JAQing. I hope I phrased the question broadly enough to eliminate all implications that any example of inequality today might be explained away by some innate difference between the sexes. I reject that as circular patriarchal reasoning.
It definitely would be an interesting experiment, run at population scale, and it would show that with everything being equal, where some sexual preferences for certain types of jobs exist. Then one would expect the ratio of people working a job to equal those applying for those jobs. I would love to be around to see those results.
Right now though, there is too much white male privilege (and I am an old white male) with subtle/not so subtle bigotry running amok in society to make any claims that the playing field is close to even, and true meritocracy is a reality. In the STEM fields, there still is pressure to keep women out in certain jobs, and at times the bigotry isn’t very subtle. It starts young and is persistent. That must be removed, and the last practitioners of such bigotry die off for any real equality to truly exist.
mouthyb: OK, see Thunderdome.
Joni Mitchell:
[Song for Sharon]
i.e., I’m going with ‘cultural’.
eh, why not; it’s a great tune.
Jadehawk: I am using “social constructivist” in the sense that much greater weight is given to human development than genetic factors. I have seen it used in that sense before. I’m not interested in arguing semantics with you.
All the rest: You want evidence of the brand of feminist who takes the view that development and culture completely wash away genetic predispositions? Here, from one of the most prolific of them all: “Developmental plasticity is all” – PZ Myers.
@torwolf, you have no idea of what you speak.
First:
It’s not about giving weight. It’s about the actual research that shows that when talking about behavioral differences between groups, environment swamps genetics.
Second:
That PZ Myers quote comes from somewhere. It comes from this post.
he then elaborates here.
I can’t speak for PZ, but it seems that for PZ “developmental plasticity is all” was the main point of his argument that evolutionary biology is unreliable. Yes, he said his “main point was…” your phrase, but that’s not his main point in regards to all humans everywhere about everything.
Read for content. No one thinks that development and culture “completely wash away genetic predispositions”. There are a lot of feminists who look at the research and conclude that time after time when we test a character, like IQ, and find a very significant difference between groups, such as men v women or white military inductees v military inductees of racialized groups, we soon learn that the vast majority of that difference is fleeting and changes as social conditions change. Moreover, there is no good reason to believe that the margin that currently remains is a stable consequence of population genetics.
The differences between persons and populations and the ability to perceive how different concepts are useful (or not) in micro- and macro-contexts seems to quite escape you.
Gee fuckwitted evidenceless idjit. If you have real evidence, link to it from http://scholar/google.com, or shut the fuck up, like any unintelligent mouthy individual should do when they can’t put up, and can’t shut up. But then, expecting intelligence from an MRA fuckwit is a expecting the sun to rise in the north. Ain’t happening….
Am I the only one getting the impression that those saying “neo-feminist” somehow think that the “neo-” prefix means bad/evil?
No, ck, I think that they think that feminism was okay back when they were arguing for the right to vote and for legal neutrality. However, they continue, this arguing that women and men are actually equal groups and individuals deserve the right to break gender roles without social consequence is going entirely too far.
Uh, I realize that didn’t really answer your question.
i think that they think adding “neo-” qualifies it such that they can claim that they are the true feminists. They believe “neo-feminism” is bad, but they’re not using “neo-” to be equivalent to bad. They’re using it to try to undermine the entire concept of feminism by saying that certain things that feminism does are good, but where feminism leads is bad, and, by the by, paint themselves as the good-and-reasonable ones that are opposed to “shrill” feminists and anti-gender role loons.
And I’ve seen people claim that evolution is about how life begun, but that doesn’t make the usage correct, either.
Seriously, learn what the fuck you’re talking about. until then, I have exactly zero reason to take you seriously.
*pats the dipshit on his empty head*
Yes, I’m aware you’re simply not smart enough to understand that you’re using the term incorrectly.
Social Constructivism
Social Constructionism
They are related, but they’re not interchangeable terms.
ck:
It [neofeminism/ist] is used to point out that yes, current feminism is bad, after all, equality has been achieved, now all you have are a buncha wimmin yelling about things which are stupid, not real, or just plain ol’ silly.