Sam Harris recently stuck his foot in his mouth, claiming that the lack of women in active positions within atheism is because atheism lacks that “estrogen vibe” and that a “critical posture” is “intrinsically male”, which got him some heat. So he scurried off and has written a reply: I’m not the sexist pig you’re looking for.
Wrong. Right from the title, he gets it all wrong. Here’s how he could easily defuse the whole situation: acknowledge that what he said was wrong, and move on. “I spoke off the cuff, and I said things that were invalid and perpetuate the problem of sexism in atheism. I apologize, and will try to do better.” Over. No problem. We’d all be able to move on, and would appreciate that he’s trying.
Because the problem is that he is the sexist pig. We all are. We’re human. I admit that, as a 57 year old white man, I have reflexive attitudes that are going to be racist, sexist, ethnocentric, and narrow-minded — my brain is full of cognitive shortcuts that developed as I was growing up in a racist, sexist culture. All we can do is aspire to overcome them…when they slip from our tongues, to be aware, to stop, retract, and correct ourselves, and try to overcome. That self-awareness is key. We can override our racism and sexism by consciously recognizing them and applying the thoughtful side of our minds to correct our baser impulses. But that only works if you don’t deny their existence.
The title is only the start. The whole long-winded mess is an attempt to excuse an unfortunate gaffe, and only makes it worse. He could have addressed it in a sentence; or if he wanted to be prolix, as he is, a paragraph. But no, we get 2500 words of evasion and rationalization and blaming.
The beginning: the reporter, Michelle Boorstein, was playing gotcha and trying to get a controversial quote for her pro-religion bias, and also she was ignorant and didn’t know some of the demographics of religion. I don’t give a damn: Michelle Boorstein did not say the words, you did.
The quote: his excuse is that it was obvious he was joking. “Estrogen vibe” is silly. I don’t give a damn: you said it. If it was a joke, say it was wrong, and that it was a poor joke.
His list of excuses: they just get worse and worse.
1. I started by claiming that my readership seems more male than female. And when I shifted to speaking about atheists as a group, I was referring to active atheists—that is, the sort of people who go to atheist conferences, read atheist books, watch atheists debate pastors on YouTube, or otherwise rally around atheism as a political identity. I was not talking about everyone on Earth who doesn’t believe in God.
Yes, we know. We’re not idiots. We understood exactly what you said, which is that actively engaged atheists are men, because reasons. That’s actually the question…why do you think that is so?
And the reasons:
4. I believe that a less “angry,” more “nurturing” style of discourse might attract more women to the cause of atheism.
Why? Why do you assume that “nurturing” is feminine? It often is, because of early culturization and because of widespread assumptions about the nature of women, but you yourself asserted that these differences were intrinsic — “that critical posture that is to some degree intrinsically male and more attractive to guys than to women” — rather than perhaps some phenomenon of social conditioning that might be corrected by men being perhaps a little less belittling.
What you did was clearly place the blame for the situation on the essential natures of women, rather than recognizing that it’s a consequence of the social environment…in which, perhaps, the existence of male leaders who are dismissive of the capability of most women to contribute leads to more women feeling less interested in contributing. Perhaps the fault lies in people like you, rather than in the women who are reduced by your attitude?
But of course we can’t blame Sam Harris. He hasn’t even considered the problem.
5. However, I haven’t spent even five minutes thinking about how or whether to modify my writing or speaking style so as to accomplish this.
Let me remind you that the entire first couple of paragraphs consist of Sam Harris berating Michelle Boorstein for her ignorance.
I found her remarks stunningly uninformed. I did my best not to let this derail the interview, but after we left the stage I told her that she had a professional responsibility to get her facts straight.
Sam Harris hasn’t even thought about how his opinions affect women who might read his work, but he’s willing to deliver his opinion about the abilities of women atheists to the Washington Post. OK, I guess self-awareness isn’t one of Harris’s strengths…or perhaps he thinks he has none of the professional responsibilities he’s ready to demand of others.
And then it gets weirder. He reconstructs from memory a long bit of dialog from a fan who came up to get her book signed: Reconstructed Offended Feminist brings up stupid point after stupid point, which Reconstructed Brilliant Sam Harris deftly refutes and exposes her every failing, and closes triumphantly with a stunning conclusion.
Listen, I was raised by a single mother. I have two daughters. Most of my editors have been women, and my first, last, and best editor is always my wife. If you really want to know the truth about me, I tend to respect women more than men. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but it’s actually an honest statement about my psychological biases. I’m not the sexist pig you’re looking for.
Yep, the “My best friends are X” argument, plus the “I like X better anyway” argument. I guess misogynists don’t exist anywhere on Planet Earth, since all men had a mother.
And after putting words in the mouth of Reconstructed Offended Feminist, he somehow manages to end on a paragraph about smug sanctimonious liberals who criticize him for his stance on Islam. I don’t even … what’s the relevance? Is it just to make clear that this is always about poor crucified Sam?
Jebus, but that was awful. Long and tendentious and inexcusably boring, while simply reinforcing all of the criticisms that were delivered against him. I’m only about a quarter through his latest book, and it’s suffering from some of the same sins: it’s dead monotonous, and I’m feeling like he could have left off most of the introductory verbiage to get to the meat of his point (which he hasn’t, so far, in my reading). He claims to have been edited (by women! Mustn’t forget that essential point!), but I’m surprised that none of them told him to cut out most of what he said, especially anything in which he comes off as lashing out bitterly at his critics, and just address the substance of his own quote.
Lovely, he trots out:
The PC canard. Anyone else tired of this?
Counts down to the arrival of the defenders of Harris arriving in 3…2..1.
And this:
I seem to recall another atheist nincomfuck saying something almost identical. Hmm, who was that?
Also, note the weasel word “seems”.
How about you question the fucking premise before assuming it is true?
Upon what do you base this belief? It wouldn’t be due to holding gender essentialist beliefs would it? Fucking A! This is a part of what we’re talking about you smugnoramus!
How the holy FUCK can advocating for racial profiling of Muslims at airports help women? Nevermind the fact that you’re basing your beliefs on the fact that you can look at someone and tell if they’re Muslim.
Fucking fuck off Sam Harris.
I’ll repeat something I said elsewhere.
Back in 2012, Harris was called on the carpet for using sexist language in a piece against the candidacy of Sarah Palin. His defense was to claim that his “wife, mother, and two female editors” did not think the comments sexist.
This is one of his “go to” rationalizations. And frankly, smells of the same lie told twice.
That’s it, the long and the short of it. Harris does not think that actually asking women might yield any interesting points or whether it might be even worthwhile to try for a greater involvement of women.
My aunt used to say that she knew her husband loved her because he was violently overprotective of her and jealous of any guy that came near her to the point he never let her leave the house or talk to anyone.
Some women internalize misogyny. Why am I not surprised that Harris prefers such women?
From Harris’s piece
Wut? Is this some kind of weird chivalry/ benevolent sexism thing?
Right here!
There are an awful lot of female commenters at Pharyngula.
I guess that means that the Pharyngula comment section should be described as a nurturing type of discourse?
*wicked grin*
From Harris:
Bolding mine. I guess that is one way to look it. Definitly nothing to do with lack of maternity leave, lack of flexibility in hours, lower wages, etc. Yep, just voluntary heroics from women who want families.
It’s entirely possible that Harris’s editors (and wife, and mom) have told him that he needs to cut the babble. They may also have told him that [statement he plans to make] is indeed sexist.
But because they’re women and he’s a sexist asshat, he didn’t actually hear them say it, or he dismissed it and in his (human, therefore malleable) memory it became words of support because that’s what he expected to hear.
Ah, but active atheism is more of a guy thing! AMIRITE???
Tony:
Yes and no. When someone uses it, I can make a mental note that they’re unlikely to have anything worth my time.
carlie
Just get your Estrogen Vibe on, and Pharyngula will be as nurturing as you need! :D
Where can I buy one, and does it go where I think it goes?
frog:
It’s those shrill voices, pitched too high for manly ears to hear. We evolved to process gruff noises, like bears and tigers and so on.
Also, the “style of discourse” we’re complaining about is sexism, harassment, racism, and general obnoxious know-it-all ignorant arrogance. It isn’t just women who aren’t interested in that sort of bullshit… but it seems to be a specific kind of asshole who pretends that their bullshit is a “style of discourse.”
carlie @8:
I wonder what our detractors would say about the discourse around here@Yazikus
I think it is, along with a defensive unwillingness to consider criticism seriously. There was an otherwise interesting midlist fantasy author I used to read who came under criticism for having stereotypically bad depictions of female characters in his books, and he did the exact same type of thing: “I’m not prejudiced against women! All in all I think women are the superior gender!”
Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that Sam Harris has these kinds of attitudes. He’s never struck me as the type of person to second-guess anything from his writing.
I think we should stress the fact that sexist and other biases are much like the cognitive biases men like Harris (presumably) know all about. They’re implicit. We all share them.
The defensiveness from some of these guys just amazes me. It’s evidence that they haven’t thought much about things they should have thought about.
carlie @14:
Get out of my book!
(When Micah was still alive, we used have a phrase that we’d toss out from time to time “Get out of my book!” It was used because we would often be thinking the same thing, and one of us would say it before the other).
Reminds me of the Robin Williams debacle here on Pharyngula. Public figures need to know how to swallow their pride and admit they’ve said insensitive and callous things. The only alternative is to grow more and more hated as time passes.
Ironchew (the fool who insists on continuing to use homophobic slurs):
Trot the fuck off.
The thing that still puzzles me about Harris is why he would double down on this after he actually read what it was that he said? I mean, this is almost precisely what got Harvard President Lawrence Summers in so much trouble that he had to step down.
There’s no excuse. Just none. Not for saying the words out loud, and not for immediately retreating and apologizing once they had been declared.
Or perhaps it’s this:
carlie
Basically, well, yes………….. *goes to bed*
That’s about as much evidenced and makes as much sense. Duh, people who are apparently critical thinkiers should really know that such a sentence is pure bullshit with a side-serving of “because I say so”
Well, when he’s blathering about something as transparently absurd as “spirituality without religion,” that’s what I would expect. And that’s before I add in my past experiences with his ridiculous writing.
Which leads naturally enough to this little gem:
Oh, please no. For the love of all the nonexistent spirits, please don’t even try, Harris. Just stop while you’re “ahead.”
rq – I’ll be in my bunk.
Which is probably for the best, because then my ladybrainz won’t be worrying about the mean tone in atheism, or something.
Whatever would we do if we didn’t have The Brights™ to enlighten us …
Dear Sam,
Hi! Atheist female here. I just wanted to let you know, angry discourse is not the problem. Sometimes, angry discourse even excites me. Especially when it is directed at people who remind me of the fundamentalists I was raised by. Yeah, I know, it’s petty. I went through my angry non-believer phase a few years ago, and you were one of the people I enjoyed reading and listening to because I was young and stupid and didn’t understand the subtext to some of the things you had to say. I even maintained a bit of a “yeah, but” attitude when others brought up your more problematic statements. I spent an awful lot of time excusing your behavior.
I’m so over that.
See, I wasn’t looking for a sexist pig, but you went and presented yourself as one so astutely that it was impossible for me to ignore. You claim, as I noted above, that public atheism is too angry, and you assume that the opposite of angry is nurturing. Allow me to provide a list of things public atheism is, and the actual opposites of those things which would encourage more women to take an active role. It is a pretty short list.
Problem: Sexism in atheism
Solution: No sexism in atheism
I didn’t even have to bend over backwards, explaining gender essentialist talking points, in order to create and defend my list. It is the Occam’s Razor of misogyny; if men spent less time hating women, women would show up in male dominated spaces at an ever increasing rate. You don’t have to make any wild assumptions for which you have no proof; the presence of misogyny in the atheist movement is self evident. Just look at the comments of your fan base. The problem is quite clear. Unless, of course, you are engaging in willful ignorance. But I know you’d never do that, as I hear it is actually the thing you hate the most. No, you’d never be that hypocritical.
I’m not really much of a conspiracy hypothesist anymore, but I’m suddenly wondering if Harris is taking one for the team to deflect attention from Shermer?
Nah. They’re all too big narcissists to help another human being out like that. He’s just a douche canoe.
If Harris wants to “raise his consciousness,” he should try listening to others instead of chanting to himself.
Harris:
Is that your “gentle” way of saying it’s a bad thing? And if you respect women so highly, why do you think they shun your atheism movement so vehemently? Do they shun you for minimizing them, with your “honest” opinion?
I understand now, this ain’t no apology, but a rebuttal. Stand clear, while he waves his sword around in rebuttal of all those “politically correct” blatherers.
Stacy @ 19:
Absolutely.
I’d further note that it’s very unlikely that Harris, Dawkins, Shermer, et al. have actually managed to think through their atheism and skepticism, and that it’s impossible that they could have productive discussions with theists. The unwillingness to confront the reality of one’s own cognitive biases makes one incompetent to discuss anything such as religion that is so steeped in those biases. These men transparently lack the introspective capability to actually understand what it is that they believe; how can they then get to be seen as spokespeople about belief? Even setting aside their utter dedication to being dangerous assholes, they’re terrible representatives for atheism and skepticism.
@ R Johnston
Dawkins and Harris haven’t thought through their atheism? That’s a new one. (I haven’t read Shermer’s work so I can’t specifically refute that claim for him, but it still sounds like an insult to anyone’s intelligence.)
The horsemen have their flaws, but not-thinking-their-atheism-through isn’t one of them.
The horsemen of atheism are called that because, like horsemen, they leave a trail horseshit behind them.
@carlie #8: Yeah, wait, I though all the feminists were always so mean and why can’t we just be nicer? But being combative just isn’t appealing to estrogen-soaked ladybrains? WTF? The whole article is just riddled with contradictions, both implicit and explicit, as well as bizarre non sequitur tangents.
It’s interesting how often people write their own Chick Tracts. Sounds like Harris did one here.
While not an original or always effective way out, how ’bout “I was trying to be funny and screwed up; really stuck my foot in it. Sorry all.”?
Has anyone said yet that Estrogen Vibe would be a great band name, sort of a Tangerine Dream flavor.
Tony #1
Check out Katherine Woo at Ophelia’s. I honestly can’t understand why Ophelia doesn’t ban her, because all she ever does is attack everyone else in defense of her equity feminist beliefs (I have wondered if she’s Christina Hoff Sommers (sp?) in disguise.)
I wish she’d come over here. She’d last about ten minutes, if that.
•Among the carry-on baggage of religious beliefs are rigid gender roles and gender essentialist beliefs about the place of women, their capabilities, and their role in society.
•There is insufficient evidence to support a belief in a god or gods. Therefore it is not reasonable to believe in any deity.
•Should those gender roles and gender essentialist beliefs-the baggage of religion-be maintained when one rejects religious belief? Or should one who rejects religious belief analyze their other beliefs to see if they are influenced or tainted by the poison that is religion?
•Among the carry-on baggage of religious beliefs are rigid gender roles and gender essentialist beliefs about the place of men, their capabilities, and their role in society.
•There is insufficient evidence to support a belief in a god or gods. Therefore it is not reasonable to believe in any deity.
•Should those gender roles and gender essentialist beliefs-the baggage of religion-be maintained when one rejects religious belief? Or should one who rejects religious belief analyze their other beliefs to see if they are influenced or tainted by the poison that is religion?
It is my opinion that you should analyze the beliefs you have to determine if they are influenced or tainted by the poison that is religion. Doing this is thinking through your atheism.
sueinnm @38:
I’ll take your word for it. B&W is not on my list of favorite stops any longer.
Tony re #22
Much as it pains me to say this regarding Ironchew:
FossilFishy @41:
You’re correct. I apologize.
Shorter Sam Harris:
Just replace ‘racist’ with ‘sexist’. I don’t give a damn what Harris is (or what he thinks he is); I can only judge the things he says and does.
Harris can keep his shitty movement. I have no desire to join a group that has shown repeatedly that I’m not wanted or welcome. I’ve been put off of movement atheism. A shame, really, because I so desperately want to connect with people who have similar interests. I’m still pissed off because that’s not going to happen.
I read Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” a few years ago and wasn’t impressed. Not sure why I bought it—I wasn’t new to atheism and there wasn’t anything in there that I hadn’t read before. I guess I bought it because I wanted to support someone who was speaking out about against religion. Now I don’t give a fuck what people believe as long as they don’t push their way of life on me. I did have respect for Dawkins up until Dear Muslima (I’ll never forget that). No longer.
To Harris, Dawkins, Shermer, et. al: I have no heros, no idols and no leaders. Piss off.
Yes, you are, Mr. Harris.
Sam said:
4. I believe that a less “angry,” more “nurturing” style of discourse might attract more women to the cause of atheism.
Pz said:
“Why? Why do you assume that “nurturing” is feminine? It often is, because of early culturization and because of widespread assumptions about the nature of women, but you yourself asserted that these differences were intrinsic — “that critical posture that is to some degree intrinsically male and more attractive to guys than to women” — rather than perhaps some phenomenon of social conditioning that might be corrected by men being perhaps a little less belittling.”
Sam said “is TO SOME DEGREE intrinsically male”. Doesn’t this account for the possibility that nurturing and the fact that women tend to be more cooperative has something to do with culture. Seems to me you are not willing to give Sam a break at all. It may very well be than many women are put off by his harsh criticism, more so than the average male. And he did say ” to some degree intrinsically.” Is that not true. Are there not genetic and hormonal differences thar affect behavior. In my experience women tend to be nicer than men and might prefer to read Dennett than Harris or Hitchins.
Also he was saying th reporter was uninformed about the number of Christian fundamentalists in the US no what ever you said , I believe.
I can’t help but think (perhaps optimistically) that the problem with Harris, Dawkins, and other smart people who periodically say really dumb things about gender/sexuality/etc. is that they are just too damned convinced that they’re the smartest people on earth — too damned egotistical — to even consider that this tweet/blog post/statement their amazing brains formed might be based on some completely bullshit assumptions.
When you have the immense professional success of such folks in their fields, perhaps it’s difficult not to start to believe everything that comes out of your face-hole is magical and full of some new and special truth.
Which (when translated from weasel-speak) means … wait for it … absolutely nothing.
Question mark.
Thar blows yet another question mark.
I would read Dennett any day before I bothered with Harris or Hitchens. Does that have anything to do with my hormones? Or something else which is intrinsic about me? Silly me, I thought this was actually about my reading preferences for a minute, so I almost forgot to mention that I’m a dude. Oh, and somehow this is also related to the proportion (and representation) of women in atheism. But does that really matter?
Get bent, asshole.
No, it really doesn’t.
Even if it did, it wouldn’t make any comment with the words “intrinsically male” that wasn’t about anatomy any better.
Ha. Now Dawkins is moaning about the Thought Police attacking poor Sam Harris. Oh, whatever happened to Dawk?
Sigh. Dawkins just tweeted that Harris is the “witch of the week” being criticized by the “Thought Police”. Jeez. Men can be so hysterical when they get their feelings hurt.
ROFLMAO
heh.
…and they really like to project when they do.
Criticising a religious person for saying women are less able of (whatever): Right-on scepticism.
Criticising an Atheist Leader™ for saying women are less capable of (whatever): Thought-policing!
seeker @47:
You do realize that was an assertion made without evidence, right?
carlie (#52)
For a lot of men, their intrinsic critical posture is hunched over in the corner bawling their eyes out.
I wonder if Andrew Schlaffly could say something similar? It wouldn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is that someone that is supposed to be respected as a critical thinker would utilize such a transparently bad argument.
or, maybe surprise is too naive a word to use any more. Dissapointed still works though.
sidenote:
Is it just me, or is there new behavior on the site that automatically tries to paste in the URL whenever I use script to blockquote something from the OP?
that never happened before today?
This applies to the critics of Harris or Dawkins…how?
FFS, if we’re the thought police, then those on the other side of the Great Rifts are the ones challenging authority and the status quo?! ::rolls eyes::
Carlie @52
I guess males are just somewhat* intrinsically more likely to react to reasoned criticism with hyperbole and emotion. If they had more of an estrogen vibe maybe they could handle criticism better. Or maybe women are somewhat intrinsically better at noticing bullshit from centuries of putting up with it from assholes.
See what I did there seeker? Doesn’t make a lick of difference.
It’s not just you, and it wasn’t even happening a few hours ago.
@Ichthyic (#59)
It’s new as of sometime today. And annoying as fuck. It tacks on a URL to anything I copy from the OP or comments (not the sidebars or comment box). I just do regular copying, no script. Totally unnecessary.
There is a perception that the “active” atheist community seems to be made up of more males than females.
Is it sexist to suggest that this could partially be explained by psychological differences between the sexes?
Is the only factor that can be considered is that there is a problem with sexism against women within the Atheist movement?
I’d argue that is it most certainly both that play a role. Where Harris makes his mistake is that he tries to assert what those psychological differences are, and from a position of ignorance on the subject.
As PZ Myers puts it
If one of us tries to make a statement on psychological differences between the sexes, having not referenced psychology studies on the matter, it is bound to come from our “gut feeling” or cognitive shortcuts. This is problematic, but it is not at all rare.
People read a book like “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”, or read articles in a magazine, or consider only their own interactions with each sex, and then think that they are experts on differences between men and women.
Unless Sam Harris can point to scientific evidence showing that women, on average, are more receptive to messages presented in a “nurturing” way…. he shouldn’t suggest that as an example of what could help atheism. It’s just based on a stereotype. It’s lazy thinking.
Sam should admit he was wrong, take more care when answering similar questions again.
I do think its a bit of an over-the-top reaction to label someone a “sexist pig” or a “misogynist” for saying what Sam said, as I think the overuse of these terms only lessens their impact. This is more the case of a human who let a sexist cognitive shortcut replace actual thought, I don’t see any evidence of a hatred of women here at all.
Tony! @60
It’s almost like Dawkins has no fucking idea what he is talking about. I’m sure if someone pointed out his flawed reference it would just another example of a which hunt to him.
seeker @ 47:
My goodness, your experience must be as vast and deep as all the oceans!* Are you honestly that stupid? If this is intended as some sort of defense of Harris, you aren’t doing him any favours. I’ve read a lot of Hitchens, and I’ve agreed with a fair amount of his thoughts, however, I’ve also disagreed with a great many of them. That happened because I have a brain, which I use for thinking, and have been known to actually employ critical thinking, in spite of the constant current of estrogen vibes attempting to hijack my synapses.**
Harris has managed a bloated, tired trope-laden piece of aggrieved defensiveness, which handily demonstrates his inability to think his way out of a wet paper bag. Harris’s denials speaks volumes about his willingness to consider his stance (or even his hasty words, if they were hasty) and the possibility that he might be wrong. Instead of a bloated piece of aggrieved defensiveness, he might have taken some time to think, and realized he hasn’t given the matter much thought at all, and could have easily rectified the situation with something like “I really hadn’t thought this through, and my answer was ill-considered. I will put time and thought into this, so I won’t make such a mistake again”, and people would have been handing him platefuls of cookies. But no, we get the same plate of shit we get from other atheist “leading lights”.
When it comes to ethics and the philosophy of said ethics, I’ll take Doc Freeride over Harris any day.
*Brought to you by Shiny Sarcasm, Inc.
**Not something which actually happens. This should not have to pointed out, however, I see you’re one of those, “oh hey, wimmin, hormones” types of people.
Carlie @ 52:
Ah yes, Prof. Dawkins, that bastion of brilliance and logical thought. <near-fatal eyeroll>
I’m going to start not just leaving in the urls, but multiplying them if this isn’t reversed right quick like.
*glares at ED BRAYTON*
seeker @ 47:
If that’s a question, it’s missing the proper punctuation. Please, tell us about the genetic and hormonal differences in men which often makes some of them utterly unable to deal with a valid criticism. Or you could explain about the genetic and hormonal effects in men which causes them to make incredibly stupid statements about women, then double down on the stupid. I’m sure we’d love to see the studies, because all this time, we’ve been under the impression that growing up and living in a society and culture entrenched in sexism might have something to do with it.
Jeff S @64:
I’m fine if people perceive that to be the case. The minute they open their mouths and assert it as the truth–that’s problematic. Especially if they-as Harris did-try to draw conclusions from such a premise.
@Iyeska…
I seriously doubt “Seeker” has even considered the hormonal basis for why he thinks there is a hormonal basis for the things he just said.
;)
Well, I admit that FTB is the only place where I feel safe in expressing an opinion. Not that I do it often. And no, I do not enjoy “pugnacious” dialogue, unless it is funny and on point, and delivered in a generous spirit.
As a closeted, still “working through it” atheist, I find it is better to listen and learn, ask questions in the lounge, and enjoy the company of cyberfolks without fear of insult and what, quite frankly seems to me to be the stupid desire for ugly confrontation.
And this is what I do not get:
Around the net, I see MEN and WOMEN alike turned off of participation because of that ugly confrontation. I think it was Tony who recently suggested that the number of atheists like me is higher than estimated, simply because we do not wish to engage in the vitriol.
Why is this an “estrogen” thing? Maybe it is simply a “personality” thing?
@70: Tony, I’d be jazzed if Harris did present a conclusion, instead we get some assertions, a just-so story or two, and several doses of ‘my best friend is a woman!’. There’s no flipping argument to counter, just a mess of fallacies and assertions.
On twitter just now:
Sam Harris @SamHarrisOrg
Huh? What sexist ads is he referencing? I looked around and found nothing.
Ichthyic:
Oh, I know. This so-called ‘hormone argument’ is beginning to get on my nerves, because the times I’ve seen it recently (always from men), they are coming from the notion that “women, yes, well, hormones!” with not even an acknowledgement that men have those
cootieshormones too. Just like Jared in the Dawkins thread, who got very agitated when some of us pointed out that if you’re going to do a study on hormones affecting women, there should, at the very least, be a study on hormones affecting men. Gad, that seriously upset Jared.for that matter, how does it help them to get nuked?
anyway:
because women a)being the designated primary caretaker, and b)needing to make career-sacrifices if they want to have kids instead of being accommodates is something totes different and separate from sexism [/sarc].
@74
Just more proof that Harris doesn’t know what is and isn’t sexist.
Jeff S @ 74, it’s adsense. It picks up on keywords which come up a lot in discussions, and puts up ads which attempt to match the keyword categories. At any rate, this isn’t even an argument, it’s just Harris attempting to deflect attention from his sexism.
Also: given these sexists’ continued insistence that women are nicer and don’t like confrontation running pretty much parallel to the continued whining about feminist ragebloggers, I’m going to conclude that these turdwaffles have decided feminists are Not Real Women.
Jadehawk:
Also, we are busy being witchfinder generals, organizing lynching parties, and maintaining the office of the thought police. We are very polite about it all, of course.
Except when it comes to outspoken atheism and critical thinking, apparently.
Exactly Jadehawk. What, do men and women alike have to be “confrontational” about our atheism? If so, why?
Vaiyt @ 81:
No, no, you don’t understand. Harris respects the estrogen vibe and nurturance inherent in wimmin, what with their being no women who are outspoken atheists capable of critical thinking.
perfect post for a blockquotefail, that
exactly; women are better because they’re precious, delicate, self-sacrificing wonders who belong on pedestals, not in the rough-and-tumble atheist movement, dontcha know.
I studied endocrinology extensively as a grad student, especially in regards to hormone influences on development and behavior.
funny, I don’t find myself making these idiotic arguments like Harris et. al. are.
I wonder why that is?
Jadehawk:
Oh yes, mustn’t forget that! Although I’m sure coherence doesn’t apply if we are outspoken, confrontational, critical, or thinking.
@jadehawk
It’s easy to understand. The thought process of the typical antifeminist goes thus:
¿Lo dice una mujer? *punches table* ¡Soy contra!
re the URL pasting: #62, 63, 68
Whatever’s doing it is a script, intended to auto-paste sources when something’s quoted elsewhere, with a tag marking where the quote came from. Several other sites (such as Cracked) use the same trick. Noscript blocks it though – I read FTB with nothing but freethoughtblogs and googleapis enabled, and no readmore links got appended to my copypaste just now.
If I can follow up on it I’ll post over in Thunderdome where it won’t be OT.
Pteryxx:
Yep, I’m running Noscript and haven’t had any problem. /OT
@Jeff S:
Harris, in what is become de rigeur for “the leaders of skepticism” apparently is entirely unaware of the fact that these days, ad feeds are rather non discriminating and only rely on cookies and keywords, and don’t have actual “knowledge” of the sites they are on. Nor do many sites have the power to control what ads they are fed.
score another one for: “another argument from ignorance” for Harris.
don’t care if noscript blocks it, it’s a bad design decision and needs to be removed.
Ichthyic: I agree, but for the moment script blocking means commenters can deal with it (and/or experiment with it if they wish).
fair enough.
Yes, our Sam Harris is a precious snowflake indeed. And we should not be all “hey, think again” on him because he means well. He says, based on an n of 5. Gosh, I feel all estrogen-y and happy now.
I tell you what irritates the crap out of me, though, is this immense refusal to acknowledge that if women didn’t go ahead and have babies, then there would be no more human species. I personally feel that this is a pretty important thing for the survival of the human species. Why in hell are women paid less and promoted less, etc, because they might *gasp* get pregnant? You would think people would be in favour of more people, given the absolutely critical necessity that having babies is to us as a species! Instead, because it is possible a woman might become pregnant, that makes women untrustworthy for serious work, like designing a shiny new phone or making bigger profits.
OK. Got it out of my system for a few hours.
And the nurturing thing? I think it depends on the person and what choices are available. I litigated for 25 years. I had the chance to do what I really enjoyed, which was daily verbal combat in my client’s cause. If I had not had the chance to get the education and the work, I guess I would have been in the home raising my kids and being called nurturing and non-confrontational due to my genetics and estrogen.*
*Nah. I’d be called confrontational, ’cause that’s me. But I hope you get my drift.
Lyn M:
You’d think for someone who is beyond impressed with his critical posture and mighty thinking ability, he could figure out that intent is not magic.
Lyn M:
You’d think for someone who is beyond impressed with his critical posture and mighty thinking ability, he could figure out that intent is not magic.
Iyéska #97
Oh, but that’s asking so much of him! Gosh! I mean, it’s not as if he is supposed to be a leader in a population of people who pride themselves on logic and insight. You are so harsh.
Lyn M:
Yes. I am a harsh estrogen vibe.
Giliell:
Now, now, Harris does ask his
estrogen vibeswomen (wife, daughters, editors) about things, and they all agree,* not sexist!*Now I have 30 Helens agree in my head.
carlie @ 8
Well, golly gee whiz. That must be why everyone regards the Horde as a bland and unthreatening group of calm, mild, non-opinionated folks. Nobody has been scared of this place in the history of ever. It’s all of us nurturing, kindly wimmins doing our estrogen thing.
::nods::
Am I the only one that finds these comments insane? Read the article, watch the youtube clips, and then read his response. And try to go into it with an open mind rather than that Harris is a weird misogynist or loves guns, or whatever issue deviates from your own in some slight way.
Many of you are putting words in his mouth that I can’t imagine him saying after watching many of his videos. People enjoy re-quoting him and adding their own spice to the comment. Words and sentences are twisted and contorted to make him appear worse than anything I’ve ever watched or read. Almost all his quotes in the article were not from some well rehearsed speech dealing with his book, but rather free flow answers to rather odd and uninformed questions. Are you a spiritual leader? Has she read a single sentence from this Harris? Of course he is going to be searching for an acceptable answer to such an obviously misinformed question, and the youtube clip shows how flustered he was. And what followed was awkward, but not anything like actual sexism, in my opinion. The other clip begins in the middle, so you can’t imagine reaction from the crowd to his jokes. Harris can be funny, but off script he can bomb as bad as anyone. Again, if you knew Harris you’d know he’s probably thought exactly zero on the topic of sexism in atheism, because it just doesn’t fit with his areas of interest and potential book buyers at helped exactly zero by a question of this type. But if you want to create hype and sell papers or get views, this is what reporters do.
And there seems to be quite a bit of vitriol as to the way Harris is handling it. But I wonder, how does one successfully handle a label of sexism? When is the last time one of you admitted they were wrong, with tail between the leg, and begged for forgiveness in groveling tones online? I bet. And if you honestly feel you actually made no sexist comments, when taken in context, it would be the height of irrationality and also a betrayal of your values to lie and apologize. Sam Harris is screwed here, and I doubt anything would ever convince you. And this is actually, when you step back, minor stuff. Again, look at what he said, not at what he is paraphrased as saying, or what he might be like…
And the reporter linked to an article about sexism in atheism, but Harris is only in the article because he is lumped in with others who had bestsellers. He was never a part of some atheist sexist conspiracy, but the article hints, hey, he’s famous and an atheist, and some atheists are perceived as sexist. Lazy journalism. She’s trying to encompass this as some type of atheism is really just a religion, and a scary one. That is the silly part, not some on-the-spot answer to an odd question you specifically asked to conform his answers to your agenda.
I wonder how many will condemn my comments without actually getting all the information? I wish there was a more complete video of the event. I don’t typically follow these online controversies (like Dawkins, etc), but are they all about comments as out of context, off topic, and trivial as this? This one, at least, seems like pure bias. Sam Harris is the absolute least of your problems, in my opinion. I have read nothing that would indicate he belittles females because of their gender, or thinks female are less intelligent, or excited by intelligent things. At most, he was saying that atheism is a guy thing because guys are mostly in atheist things. Or, a lack of estrogen vibe, to put it oddly, but I really believe, jokingly. And the video would probably convince you of that. Or look at the comments of some who were there and saw the whole thing.
Sadly, PZ’s comments seem slightly irrational as well. A re-calibration of our group sexism detection unit is in order. I know its out there, but we need not create a witch hunt based on heresay and laziness. I tried to do the tags but it doesn’t work and I’m too lazy to figure it out :)
@Lyn M: G.R.O.S.T. (ADM) — Membership pending
Pregnancy is this weird, woman thing that has nothing to do with men or being human, so women can’t expect any accommodations made in the workplace for pregnancy and childcare. You say you want equality, right? You can’t expect to be equal to men and then demand special treatment for your bizarre lady-part problems!
Orange Zero
Are you sure you’re commenting on the right piece? The whole OP is about the response that Harris crafted – in his own time on his own terms – without being questioned or pressured by anyone.
Does that change any of the points you’re trying to make?
Orange Zero…one question that springs to mind is why Sam assumes that the “pugnacious” style of discourse only deters women?
Is that the royal “you”, Orange Zero? Your non-specific defense against unspecified people attacking him in an “insane” way was the most enthralling read of this whole fiasco. Strike that, opposite of enthralling. Strike that, I barely skimmed it. Strike that, Orange who?
@dereksmear #77:
It’s the usual bigot tactic. Called out for your discriminatory words or actions? Play the old “I’m rubber & you’re glue” game! You can’t be sexist/racist/[bigoted], because your critics are the real sexists/racists/[bigots]! We’ve seen it from the GOP with “Democrats are waging the real war on women because they support abortion and the welfare state.” We’ve seen it from the antifeminists with “we’re the real feminists, the equity feminists, while gender feminists misogynistically want to make women just like men or treat them like victims!” And hey presto, what do you know, we see it from Sam Harris. It’s almost like it’s a standard deflection tactic or something.
yes.
and apparently you must be insane to think that describing comments as insane is good approach to trying to make a point.
er, which you also failed at.
the question is, why should he be a PROBLEM at all?
Believe me, most people don’t go LOOKING to bash these guys for saying stupid shit. The stupid shit is so egregious as to be fucking embarrassing, and NEEDS to be addressed within the community if it is ever to progress.
it’s not an “us vs them” attitude like you are trying (badly) to portray it as. It’s a good way to express an idea vs a very bad way to express an idea. Moreover, frankly, even the IDEA itself is bad in this case, let alone how it was expressed.
if we don’t expect better of ourselves, who should we expect it from?
not you, that’s apparent.
I vote we burn at the stake the very next person who uses that phrase.
anyone got matches?
Orange Zero @102
A lot of people, myself included, said Harris should say, “It was off the cuff and I misspoke. I’ve never thought about the issue and on reflection my answer was not appropriate. There are many reasons . . .yadda yadda.” This is the way an honest person handles saying something stupid. They don’t double down and talk about how much they like women while dodging the sexist comment they made.
I admitted I was wrong just earlier today. Is it easy? No, but it’s better than defending an error in judgement. Admit the mistake, move on, and make yourself better. You don’t need to beg you say, “I fucked up, sorry”, which is a quote from me this morning.
When is the last time you admitted a mistake? Is it because you haven’t made any mistakes? People like Harris and Dawkins seem to think it is a weakness to admit an err, when it is really the opposite. If you don’t admit you are ever wrong how the hell are you suppose to grow?
Orange Zero @102:
Whatever the comments in this thread may be, they are not insane.
Have you even tried to engage the substance of what’s been said?
Have you even tried to comprehend where people are coming from?
Do you even get the problem with saying there are any qualities that are “instrinsically male”?
Do you understand the problem with asserting that most of the people who buy his books are male?
How do you justify the assertion the assertions that Harris makes?
What is it with you Harris and Dawkins lovers that makes you incapable of addressing the well articulate points that are made?
And why, for the love of Charon do you all type so much, but communicate so little?
Orange Zero:
Yes. By the way, ableist slurs are against the commenting rules, so lose that shit right now.
I read the first one, I’ve read the second one. I’m not interested in his youtubery.
Harris has said many sexist things, this isn’t the first or only example of that. When he has been called out, he doubles down, every fucking time.
Please, spare us the moaning of the youtube fan. No one is putting words in Harris’s mouth except for Harris.
That would be the point. You’re rather dense, aren’t you? Anyone can avoid letting a bias slip with a well rehearsed speech. When you’re speaking off the cuff, if you have biases, they tend to come out. They did with Harris.
Oh well, I’m sure that’s definitive then. :eyeroll: Why is it that you respect Harris’s opinion, and you respect your own opinion, but the opinions of women aren’t worthy of respect? Why is it that there’s zero thought to criticism, and it’s rejected immediately with the cry of “not sexist!”?
It’s quite easy. You see, everyone is sexist, it cannot be escaped because we don’t grow up in a vacuum. We live in a society and culture dripping with entrenched, systemic sexism. The trick is to become aware of that, and change your thinking and behaviour. See how simple that is?
Yes, that’s quite obvious. It’s also quite obvious he’s not going to do any thinking about sexism in the atheoskeptisphere either. He won’t think about it because he’s flat out refused to understand that his thinking is sexist and toxic. It’s also stupid. No, to Harris, there’s no need to think about sexism in the atheoskeptisphere because he’s magically not sexist, after all, he has a wife, two daughters, and female editors!
Again, obvious.
Crispy fried Christ onna stick, no, “we” don’t need to recalibrate anything. Believe me, I don’t want to be part of any group you’re in. By the way, people who are aware of sexism (especially us estrogen vibes) are pretty damn good at spotting it, even when it’s not incredibly blatant, like it was on the part of Harris.
There is no witch hunt, you flaming doucheweasel. It’s idiots like you who keep flinging crap like that about, acting as if we are a horrible evil institution hunting the poor men for sport. People have offered up valid criticisms of Harris and others. Why aren’t you asking what on earth is wrong with them, that they are unable to take criticism on board? And I’m not doing anything out of laziness, nor is anyone else here, so you can take that and shove it.
Ichthyic @109:
Fuck the matches, I got a flamethrower.
Meh. I’ll amend that. I’d like to burn the phrase to ashes and spread it to the four winds, along with ‘PC’.
Agenda? What agenda is that?
@Orange Zero
Please stop using “witch hunt” when what you really mean is people disagreed with or criticized something someone said. No one is putting anyone in jail or torturing and burning them at the stake. It’s really irrational to react to criticism by invoking witch hunts. Especially when you consider it was primarily women who were actually hunted down and executed for the crime of witchcraft.
Some people just can’t handle people criticizing their ideas, I guess. But there’s no need to stoop to hyperbole to deflect from what people are actually criticizing or disagreeing with.
“Do you even get the problem with saying there are any qualities that are “intrinsically male”?”
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Related issue is that Haris appears to be assuming that his confrontational approach is the default mode of the conversation.
Frustrating.
Orange Zero there makes the point I opened with back in #96. See, I was totes right, while being female! The estrogen vibe is strong with me today.
Orange Zero:
Yesterday, here, in the Dawkins thread, to be specific.
This shit ^? It’s unnecessary. I didn’t have to do that, because I’m capable of apologizing when I get something wrong. Apologizing is very easy when you aren’t an asshole convinced of their rightness, no matter what.
still IS:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/kepari-leniata-young-mother-burned-alive-mob-sorcery-papua-new-guinea_n_2638431.html
Oh, and I think I broke the 3 comments rule. I am sorry, I forgot myself. Will wait now for proper time to continue with weapons-grade sarcasm.
Orange Zero:
Today, this thread. Comment #42.
too bad we’re all insane, or we certainly would be making you the leader of all atheskeptoidhumanism right now!
Lyn M @120:
I thought weapons grade sarcasm was good to go at all times. It is just strongly suggested that we wait three posts before baring the fangs.
but… there’s very little actual information in your comment, while there is much to condemn.
*shrug*
hey, wait! what did we decide was going to be the term we used for people trying to use the “argument for pity”? I missed the final on that one, but this is another great example of it.
your ableism has been noted. not a good start.
yeah, because ascribing a lack of women in atheism to biology, and describing criticism as inherently male, is totes not sexism.
Boring apologist is boring.
exactly as PZ described in the OP: one apologizes.
thinking that calling a critical posture inherently male isn’t sexist is ignorant; if it would be a betrayal of his values for finally get a clue, then he has no business criticizing other people’s bad ideas.
I had to apologize for doing something kinda racist about a month ago. but of course, that was a rhetorical question, and you didn’t actually want an answer, you just wanted to pretend like that’s an unreasonable expectation.
incorrect.
we did. his words were sexist.
a what now? where the fuck did you dug that half-rotten strawman out of?
then you have reading comprehension issues; either that, or your own bias is getting in the way of seeing the obvious. AGAIN: ascribing greater prevalence of men to biology is sexist; ascribing “critical posture” to maleness is sexist.
this is either incoherent or tautologous; or both, I suppose.
it being a joke does not make it not sexist; if it’s a joke, it’s a sexist joke.
your condescending assumption has been noted and dismissed as the presumptuous bullshit it is.
“witch-hunt” *rolleyes*.
Criticism is not a witch-hunt, it’s criticism. Guess the “critical posture” is only ok when it comes from Harris, not when it’s targeted at him?
why, by starting a hashtag labelled: #notallmen
duh.
theoreticalgrrrl:
The hysterical feminista over-emotional leftist fascists need-to-take-chill-pill nazi commie groupthink hivemind religious lockstep acolytes who drank the kool-aid agenda, what else?
witch hunt…
ironic coming from the person who supports Harris saying that women don’t tend to utilize confrontational approaches.
a witch hunt is pretty confrontational.
if you think women are pursuing a witch hunt against Harris, that would kinda deflate his argument, wouldn’t it?
right, now that I’ve said witch hunt enough times, I accept BBQng.
Tony? will you do the honors?
thanks muchly.
#122 — Well, hey, don’t hold back regardless. I have a super pair of shoes for the ceremony.
#123 — Thanks Tony. I forgot the exact wording and thought “whoops”.
Ichthyic:
I believe it was A. Noyd’s cross hauler / cross hauling, in the first Harris thread. (Someone who hauls a cross around with them, hoping someone will provide the nails.)
Iyéska #127
I think you missed man-hating and not being het, but otherwise I think that covers it, yes.
Wow. To be more brief and limit the amazing responses, it appears the first few very thoughtful posters were simply riffing off of earlier posts which were little more than paraphrasing information and spreading one or two words of a quote, rather than reading the actual articles, video clips, blog rebuttals, etc. Now be honest and ask yourself, how many just thought I made fun of guitar players and how many thought I was really just trying to summarize my point in one sentence?
I sense the questions you all asked were rhetorical in nature. I won’t raise the collective blood pressure any more than I have already done attempting this response. Some of you have great cuss words, btw.
Everyone have a great day.
The tragicomic thing is, though, that he’s not even so wrong about it being his (and RD’s and Hitchens’, etc) approach that turns women off. It’s just that it’s not the harsh criticism of bad ideas or an estrogen shortage that’s the problem; it’s the sexism emanating out of the work of these prominent atheist dudebros.
Step one, examine what you said with your mind open to the possibility that what you said was sexist and offensive. Step two, educate yourself so you can avoid being a sexist ass.
O fuck, its an idiot who seems to think that apologizing is somehow demeaning and humiliating. Look you fool, nobody asked for groveling or begging for forgiveness. We are asking that Harris turn his skeptical thinking towards his repeated asinine assertions about women and stop saying such stupid shit.
Circular logic is circular. Yes, women will tend to avoid spending their free time around people who think women are inherently inferior, and spend lots of their time explaining how their sexist remarks aren’t sexist, it’s just that women are all irrational and hormonal. Now kindly do fuck off and see if you can spot the sexism in the original exchange, and the condescending sexism in this defense of the original sexism.
shitty flounce. no cookies.
That “active atheists” sounded just like “real gamers” to me. (Disclaimer: I’m neither atheist nor do I think of myself as a gamer.)
I don’t suppose it occurs to him that maybe women will avoid gatherings where they know there’s a good chance they’ll be harassed, assaulted, or raped, and that the Big Dudely Dudes of RealAtheism(TM) won’t actually give a shit.
twas brillig (stevem) @32
He wouldn’t be borrowing the sword from Pox Day, would he?
A.Noyd @57
I have no voice today, because cold, but I still managed to laugh aloud at that!
to absolutely no one’s surprise, your assumption here is incorrect. which I’ve already pointed out, but apparently you need this spelled out to you.
^^
poor troll, poor flounce.
but are you sure you have all the information to make that determination?
Orange Zero:
Your ‘sense’ is worthless. How about you pay attention to the responses, which people took the time and thought to compose and type? You running away, that wouldn’t have anything to do with you having nothing to offer except “I’m a fan, and you’re all mean!”, right?
Orange Zero Distilled:
[Massive Shitty Post that Ignores PZ’s Point]
[Minor Heckling From The Horde]
“Why, I very much doubt you crude have even read the article, harrumph!”
[Fails to read the 100 something comments in this very fucking thread]
Orange Zero @132:
Why don’t you be honest and ask yourself “what was the point to my coming here and did I accomplish it?”
Then follow that up with asking yourself “why DID I not address the substance of anyone’s criticism of Harris?”
You could maybe even ask yourself “Am I a Sam Harris sycophant who thinks the man can do no wrong?”
Here’s a neat one “Why did I think ‘witch hunt’ was an appropriate or applicable phrase to use?”
Throw in “are there any traits that are intrinsically male, and if so, how do I know that?”
Now run along. You’ve a lot of homework to do. If you come back, I want to see answers to each question and you simply MUST show your work.
Toodles.
Wow – the Courtier’s Reply? That’s a new one in this context, isn’t it?
“No, the emperor has -tons- of clothes on, you just need to thoroughly read these explanations on why he has clothes on even though he totally looks starkers.”
not sure it’s new in the history of this, but it’s still a good catch.
@144 Ichthyic
I suppose it’s the tried and true way to weasel out of admitting wrongness when you’ve got loyal followers – use vague language and wait for your metaphorical Courtiers to insist that basic words mean completely different things when you’ve run them through their particular bullshit filter.
Orange Zero:
You’d know that wasn’t true if you had bothered to read replies to your inanity. Why do I get the suspicion that you don’t know how blogs work? I’m wondering if you even know how quoting works.
@anteprepro:
I would like to add that in one of the few testable assumptions he made in framing his argument that Harris’ situation was no-win was that it was somehow difficult or rare to apologize when wrong or otherwise accept correction.
Regulars stepped up disproving it.
Zero response. Ah, the wondrous delights of fundamental attribution error*.
*Most likely exhibited many more times, but that was the most obviously provable example.
damn straight. why do you think Vox Day utilizes that more often than not?
…or hell, stretch it on up to things like “Fox News” even.
I agree with most of what Sam (not harris – the one above) and Orange Zero have said: rather a few of the commenter’s on this topic here seem to be going a bit overboard – some seem to be tilting a bit past overboard, and right into the ocean.
Personally, I couldn’t care less (well – not less than this one post anyway). When people take a stand that due to the occasional stupid statement, then for some reason the entire person is worth nothing more than being called ‘a sexist pig’ – a claim for which there appears to be precious little actual evidence – that, to me, is going overboard.
Hell, people read (and type) whatever they wish – some I read 100%, some disagree 100%, and most others some mix of the two. Sam Harris, I’d say I agree with and enjoy 3/4 of everything I’ve read of his.
Don’t like him? Don’t read him. But I see no evidence that in my view (of course, I could be wrong) qualifies him as ‘a sexist pig’. He could probably buy a few clues, and learn some about speaking without thinking – but I’ve learned that’s one of the things frequently encountered with fallible human beings.
Good Evening to all, and thanks for the (continuing) interesting discussions!
ah yeah.
I suspect Tinyal is Orange Zero. If so, they should know that sockpuppeting is a bannable offense. Just fyi if it is relevant.
so… I’m putting together my “great defenders of atheist beacons” bingo card.
so far I have:
-cross hauling
-witch hunt
-lynch mob
-tempest in a teapot
-attacking allies
-notallmen
what am I missing?
A review of the thread shows zero comments by Sam. It’s nice to know you agree with them though.
??
what “Sam”?
Well, hell. He only got two comments out. You call this quality commenting?* I mean, I never got to go mediaeval. I was robbed.
As for the rest of you, wow that was some funny stuff. Thank heavens I put my coffee down awhile ago.**
But I do see now, that I should have read more, watched more and been far more careful of Mr. Harris’ opinions before I set the slime thrower to high. I was fooled by him running around in shallow water quacking and I thought he was a duck.
* (Well, no.)
** 142, Tony; 126, Ichthyic; Jadehawk pretty much all the time without even going for the laughs. (None of you need my accolades, I just like to applaud when I see really good stuff.)
I think we’ve yet to see “hysterical” and “too emotional”, though I’d bet on seeing “just getting offended” before either of those on this one. It’s already happened over at Ophelia’s!
I’m suspecting Seeker = orange = tinyal = the sam that was whinging on the earlier thread on this subject.
same one that was the first to whinge on Greta Christina’s thread on Harris
No, I am not anyones sockpupper anteprepro – I am just me, which I’m sure the site operators could confirm if needed.
I shouldn’t have to have even typed a response to that remark, but I will – once.
After some further reading, I’d have to say I do not , apparently, agree with most of Orange – some idiots comments of his later in the string of posts – but I do agree with the ‘overboard’ part, specifically.
Carry on
yup, added.
-hysterical
-emotional
-cross hauling
-witch hunt
-lynch mob
-tempest in a teapot
-attacking allies
-notallmen
also added:
-hormones
as far as I can tell, the only person who called Harris a “sexist pig” was Harris; everyone merely pointed out that his essentialist, ignorant comments were sexist. Which they are, regardless of anyone’s opinions/judgments of Harris’ “entire person”.
“…and if forced to do so again, you’ll regret it!”
*pictures much angry fist shaking*
OH! And “we’d take you seriously if you weren’t all such meany poopy-heads about it!” i.e. “civility”
oh, almost forgot. thanks. added:
-overboard
-hysterical
-emotional
-cross hauling
-witch hunt
-lynch mob
-tempest in a teapot
-attacking allies
-notallmen
-hormones
that’s 10. should I pull one out and add a free space, or just use one of the 10 as the middle space?
tinyal @ 149:
Y’know I never really liked the Stormtroopers from Star Wars. They were bland, fairly emotionless, and pretty much non communicative.
Why do you Harris sycophants remind me of Stormtroopers?
*sigh*
you’re right, that should go in there too.
fuck that shit. if he says something wrong or bigoted, he should be criticized for it. That whole “being very critical of bad ideas” and “that critical posture” and shit. but I understand,”This can sound very angry to people”, so maybe you should go somewhere with the right hormonal vibe for you if you don’t like to see your faves criticized.
Whoa, either I’m losing my mind or just read the word ‘sam’ too many times, but I could’ve sworn that someone with the name ‘sam’ had a post somewhere in the top 40 comment numbers – but, ummmm…
going back over it myself, I can’t find a single sam here to agree with (shakes head) – sorry about that sam thing, I was wrong about that :( )
PS I tire of being called a sockpuppet – please stop, or report to pz/site admin (or should I report the accusers?), I’d be happy to talk/email anyone, but not gonna publically post info any more than is already out there.
Mein Kampf
Don’t like it?
don’t read it.
*rolleyes*
When you need a little help with your Cross hauling
Um, doesn’t a bingo card have 25 spaces? Or am I confused?
*alert*
threat level: Orange
*alert*
tinyal:
Be vewwy vewwy quiet.
We’re hunting witches in here.
does it?
well then, I guess I’m not done yet.
Orange Zero @ 102:
By acknowledging it and apologizing.
Well, I’ve done it twice on this blog.
You know why?
Because I was wrong.
…and how did I know I was wrong?
Smart people told me so.
I can always say “I don’t see what’s bad about what I said, but clearly something was, so I’ll shut up and listen and try to work it out.”
That’s contrite, honest, and maybe even a little bit wise. Three things Sam’s missing in this exchange.
Good point. It’s not like anyone said:
Oh… wait, someone did say that.
In fact, it’s in the OP of the thread you’re commenting on.
… you did get all bent out of shape about people not reading stuff, didn’t you?
Gotta hate it when something bites you in the ass like that.
tinyal
Thanks for clearing up the confusion, disowning your agreement with orange zero, and having the grace to admit fallibility. Could you please explain why we as female atheists should not be offended at being marginalized by the likes of Sam Harris?
by jove, you’re right!
http://bingocardgenerator.org/
Oh damn! I failed at maintaining an easily deflated position that I would rely on my sycophants to defend for me.
CURSES, FOILED AGAIN!
tinyal:
Tell you what…we might be able to come to an agreement here.
How about YOU address the substance of PZ’s criticisms of Harris’ statements, and I won’t call you an inane asspustule?
Sooo, who’s next?
I’m up to 15 spaces now, still need 10 more.
probably easily get them simply by going to the original Harris thread.
Jeff @ 64
Could you stop with the dictionary definition of ‘misogyny’ as ‘the hatred of women’? The word has pejorated, and now means ‘holds sexist attitudes about women.’ Which, actually, as someone who seems fluent in English, you probably already know. Which makes your objection both wrong and annoyingly pedantic. the fact that Harris hasn’t examined his cognitive biases (and I’m not sure that’s the case, but it’s the claim you are making) doesn’t excuse him for being sexist, and don’t make his statements any less misogynistic.
Tethys – naturally (and 100% completely) you should be offended by Sam’s statement – if I gave the impression you shouldn’t, that’s my fault (and I apologize). What I was trying to communicate (and failed utterly) was that I felt several commenters here went too far overboard, taring with the biggest brush possible.
Perhaps it’s because I personally tend to word things in person a bit better than in type/text, or perhaps I misread some posts (though I would have SWORN I read someone calling him a sexist pig – but, as it’s not up there (and no one else saw it) – I was wrong about that as well.
I should quit before my hair explodes – sorry if I gave you that impression.
tarring with big brush.
only 9 to go now.
thanks.
8…
this sort of shit really gets annoying, doesn’t it. homophobia is not literally fear of gay people (or fear of sameness, if we wanna be extra-pedantic); nor is misogyny explicit hatred of women. These are simply the words we have for the prejudices as shaped by heteropatriarchy.
And Harris’ words sure seem to reflect prejudices against women
quote or it didn’t happen.
well, for irony’s sake, at least they didn’t say “all”.
Ichthyic:
Thought police?
tinyal (#181)
Which commenters tarred whom with what? Be as specific as possible.
And then explain why women shouldn’t get to decide the scale of our offense at sexism.
tinyal #181
Maybe you could address the ones you thought were too far overboard. This will probably give people less cause to mock you as they will have something to answer.
tinyal @181:
Would it trouble you to point out which comments and why you feel they wen’t overboard? Or are you too emotional from being called a sockpuppet?
Koshka @189:
Even if it happens (tinyal actually addressing the substance of the criticism of Harris), the
showmockery, as they say, must go on.7…
psst, Ichthyic I left ya one in the Dome.
Like Rabidtreeweasel #29, I wasn’t actually looking for a sexist pig.
But one really doesn’t need to look for them.
They present themselves.
—-
Ichthyic
I’d like to help but there doesn’t seem to be enough…
tinyal:
:Sigh: Yes, yes, you’re so indifferent, so above it all, and you couldn’t possibly care less, which is why you cared enough to comment.
yeah, I’ll pick this up there again tomorrow.
Cyranothe2nd:
This is handy: Toward a Definition of Misogyny
188 & 189: The following posts are what I was referring to:
a. Pz’s use of ‘sexist pig’
#5 poster concludes (based on what?) that ‘sam prefers women who internalize misogyny’
#10 ‘sexist asshat’
#30 ‘narcissistic douche canoe’
#33 ‘utter dedication to being dangerous assholes’
#35 ‘horsemen leaving a trail of horseshit’
#79 ‘decided that feminists are Not Real Women’
#157 – that poster is just in some kind of bizare paranoia mode (or, perhaps, just likes reading his own crap?
In my view, the examples I’ve put above seem to have either 1 datapoint/1 instance, or otherwise lacks any evidence to justify such conclusions – my phrasing ‘overboard’.
At least – it wouldn’t be enough for me to conclude similarly. But if people want to be bandwagon-jumping idiots, go right ahead – it does have some entertainment value :)
as examples of what?
broad brush?
nope.
Insults?
surely you jest, asshat.
4…
tinyal @ 181:
Around here, we expect people to be specific. Provide quotes of what you think was overboard, or tarring in nature,* and use the nym of who you are quoting, and the post number. If you don’t know how to quote people, use
<blockquote>Place Text Here</blockquote> to get:
You might want to take the time to read all the comments, carefully. That’s expected of people around here, too. Then, present your best argument for your stance.
*Also, it helps if you avoid hyperbolic nonsense, like ‘witch hunt’, ‘lynching’, ‘thought police’, and yes, tarring. No one is doing any of those things, to Harris or anyone else, and those are not synonyms for criticized.
Boggling. You’re complaining because I directly quoted the title of Sam Harris’s post?
fail.
…unless you plan to follow up your argument with #notallmen?
lol
tinyal
You seem to be able to copy/paste.
Could you refer to the commenters by name and number rather than only number?
tinyal!
You aren’t going to get anywhere when you lead with:
This is quoting the OP:
Hover your mouse over the link, genius – you’ll note that it was Sam Harris who used sexist pig. FFS.
PZ:
Yeah. I’m not remotely impressed with the thinking abilities of Harris’s defenders, to say the least.
しかたがない
so it goes
that’s some serious reaching, given that he only uses it because Harris did.
that’s not a quote. Aside from that, his constant attempts at defending his sexism by claiming his women agree with him is evidence for this preference.
how exactly are these insults “overboard”? especially given that they’re not just about Harris? Are you going to claim that e.g. Shermer is not a narcissistic douchecanoe who’s dangerous? I mean, he sexually harasses and assaults people, that sounds plenty dangerous to me.
LOL. that, in reference to me pointing out that complaints about women being conflict averse (in general, i.e. not just this particular instance) run parallel to complaints about feminists being angry ragebloggers (also something that happens a lot)?
yeah, that didn’t work so well for ya. basically all you’ve got is being upset at atheist dudebros being called mean words.
tinyal @198:
Don’t take this the wrong…oh what the hell, take it any way you want to.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Tee Hee!
Heh heh…
My sides are splitting here.
::puts on straight face–no cracks from anyone in the peanut gallery::
Your big issue is that you don’t like the tone people are using?
You don’t like harsh words?
Profanity and swearing, cursing and invective makes you cry? Who are you, baby Jesus?
Address.
The.
Actual.
Criticisms.
Of.
Sam.
Harris.
There are a plethora in the OP.
I listed some at #2, and delved into the reasons why.
You could look at R Johnston’s #33.
You could address Rabidtreeweasel’s #29.
There’s the comment from carlie #8.
How about Daz #55?
That’s 6 different people that have offered up different criticisms of Sam Harris. They’re all valid criticisms. How about you actually address them instead of whining that people are using words that you don’t like? I’ve noticed that many people who have no substantive argument to make hide behind tone trolling. Are you one of those people?
that’s debatable. not all the stuff that’s supposedly a quote is actually a quote.
they’re right to complain about that.
Harris is obviously the CAPTAIN of the douche canoe fleet.
you’re selling him short!
Jadehawk:
Seeing how tinyal was posting, I ran with the assumption they didn’t know how to quote, which is why I provided instructions in #202. (If you’re reading tinyal, that’s a HINT.)
anyway, yeah, I’m not gonna take the “overboard” criticism very seriously if it includes PZ quoting Harris’ own words, and me making fun of the huge contradiction in both calling women conflict-averse and calling them rage bloggers and accusing them of witch hunts.
Careful, if you get hooked on the Estrogen Vibe there’s no going back. I’ve got such a habit…
It’s almost impressive how factually wrong Harris is. I can’t understand how someone can actually claim that the supposed lack of women in the atheist movement means that women are averse to criticism or a “critical posture” unless 1) the atheist movement is the only place where a critical posture is used, or 2) a critical posture is the only quality that the atheist movement has.
**
But in fact, there are other areas which are adversarial in nature. Do they have the same demographic split as the atheist movement? Let’s see….
-Politics: pretty inherently adversarial. Also, for some reason, women tend to have higher voter turnout than men. Wha?
-Likewise, political advocacy groups. Why are combative anti-war groups like Pink so often female dominated? Why do pro-choice groups exist when they are so highly controversial and female dominated at the same time? Why don’t those women just stay home after they’ve been called baby-killers and been threatened with terrorist attacks and violence?
-Law schools in the US. Women tend to make up about half of law students, even though the field is traditionally quite male dominated. (Page 4 of the link at the end of this comment has info regarding law school enrollment)
**
What people like Harris don’t seem to get is that women tend to have a lot more vitriol launched at them when we enter adversarial or pugnacious conversations. But you know what? We still show up. And we make a difference.
** http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/marketing/women/current_glance_statistics_july2014.authcheckdam.pdf
Those all seem fine to me.
The content of SH’s piece was basically a bunch of bullshit that tried to misdirect. Misdirection from the fact that he tried to make the connection that his critics (as a group) were not really being critics*, because women have more estrogen**, and are probably not good at criticism***.
*”This can sound very angry to people… People just don’t like to have their ideas criticized.”
**”There’s something about that critical posture that is to some degree intrinsically male and more attractive to guys than to women,” he said.”
***“The atheist variable just has this—it doesn’t obviously have this nurturing, coherence-building extra estrogen vibe that you would want by default if you wanted to attract as many women as men.”
I think sexism from the Bulwarks of Atheism is kinda like transitional fossils, the more you find, the more you need to find to satisfy your opponents. Each time you find an instance, it only counts as “1 data point”, so you can never draw a conclusion.
tinyal (#199)
You missed the second half of my comment: “And then explain why women shouldn’t get to decide the scale of our offense at sexism.”
Others have now covered most of these, but I’m boggled by this:
You’re assuming a commenter with the ‘nym Sophia and an avatar of a woman cuddling a baby is… most likely a man? I mean, it’s not a sure thing, but you could always go with a neutral pronoun if you’re not sure. And do you even know what Sophia’s comment was in reference to?
toska (#216)
How about the feminist movement itself?
2 gaps for every find!
3 gaps for every 2 finds!
(I usually do this with clothes-pegs on the wash-line)
A. Noyd @220,
Well, feminists who are critical of anything are the wrong kind of feminists, obviously. /snark and channeling my inner Richard Dawkins.*
–
More seriously, women tend to be very well-represented in any modern social justice movement.
But the atheist movement doesn’t have a problem with sexism. Nope, women are the problem.
*Hmm, an inner Richard Dawkins actually sounds quite serious. I should get that checked out.
wait.. so after all the hemming and hawing and getting mixed up on who said what, tinyal’s big complaint boils down to a tone troll?
that was the longest setup for a tone troll I have ever seen.
[peers over the fence]
Weird, I don’t see many citations in this thread. I’m having a ball going through my old citation list on sex and gender differences over at Butterflies and Wheels. I’ll spare you the full comments (they’re easy to track down, anyway), and just do a citation dump of what I’ve referenced so far:
Hyde, Janet S. “How large are gender differences in aggression? A developmental meta-analysis.” Developmental Psychology 20.4 (1984): 722. pg. 732
Björkqvist, Kaj. “Sex differences in physical, verbal, and indirect aggression: A review of recent research.” Sex roles 30.3-4 (1994): 177-188.
Archer, John, Nicola Graham-Kevan, and Michelle Davies. “Testosterone and aggression: A reanalysis of Book, Starzyk, and Quinsey’s (2001) study.” Aggression and Violent Behavior 10.2 (2005): 241-261.
Hyde, Janet Shibley. “The gender similarities hypothesis.” American psychologist 60.6 (2005): 581.
Maccoby, Eleanor Emmons, and Carol Nagy Jacklin, eds. The psychology of sex differences. Vol. 1. Stanford University Press, 1974. pg. 352, I think.
Eisenberg, Nancy; Lennon, Randy. “Sex differences in empathy and related capacities.” Psychological Bulletin, Vol 94(1), Jul 1983, 100-131.
Jaffee, Sara, and Janet Shibley Hyde. “Gender differences in moral orientation: a meta-analysis.” Psychological bulletin 126.5 (2000): 703.
Hope it helps!
I am finding it hilarious that these Harris defenders read the outdated term sexist pig, and don’t take the time to figure out that Harris is the person who used it in the first place. I guess that critical posture he was referring to is head up ass. It looks like a comment that was in moderation went through, and the numbering has switched. The comment from Ichthyic about sockpuppets is the original #157, now #158. It doesn’t make any difference in the quality of tinyal’s argument. Ze conceded that there is grounds for offense, but apparently calling someone a douchecanoe in response to them taking another public shit on women is a horrible overreaction.
A. Noyd:
The good ol’ default assumption. It’s a great illustration of unconscious sexism, if only those who default would take a moment and think, they might reach a whole new awareness.
The automatic assumption of “most of the commentariat at Pharyngula / other places is male” by so many people is why we keep getting people like Harris and Shermer lodging their feet in their mouth – they assume the status quo, never bothering to notice who is listening and who is commenting.
*waltzes in on an Estrogen Vibe*
Ah, cross-hauling.
And will y’all just stahp being so darn nurturing in here? All that kindness and non-aggression is getting to be a bit much… As a Real Woman, I demand some Testosterone Action (to complement my Estrogen Vibe, oh yes). You bunch of cuddly-wuddly pink bunniekins.
Tethys (#226)
Then it’s my turn to apologize for assuming tinyal was making quite such an obvious misgendering mistake. Though, not sure Ichthyic revaled his. If not, there was still an unwarranted assumption made.
But, if supposing people here could be sockpuppeters is paranoia, maybe tinyal would like to take a guess as to the last time we had sockpuppeters on Pharyngula defending sexists from the same script.
twas brillig
I guess that’s the twisted way of saying that women are too good for that sort of nasty man-thing and that it’s therefore better that we don’t involve ourselves in such dirty work…
loopyj
You know, I’ve been taught that distinction between saying somebody is and somebody sounds. And I’m generally trying to do it, but honestly, after trying for about 10 years, I’m giving up. Look at the very example at hand: People criticised what Harris said, his attitude.
Response? “I’m not a sexist pig”. So, in my experience, you can use the word “sound” until the cows come home, what people hear is “are”, because they have categorically rejected the idea that they might say something racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic etc. because they are not said thing and firmly believe that only people who ARE those things SAY those things.
Critical posture, my ass.
And usually, the more they say, the more they show that the problem is really with the ARE.
seeker
And your evidence for that is? You know, you see this differences and you firmly believe that there MUST be a genetic basis for at least SOME of it the same way a religious person looks at the nightsky or the sea or a flower and firmly believes that there MUST be a reason, a power behind all this.
In my experience threats and violence are really close if you fail to be nice as a woman.
A. Noyd
You get ALL the cookies
Jadehawk
Yes, I’m always amazed at our female superpowers. We can be drunk and sober at the same time and also shy flowers who get scared by angry confrontation while being also screaming harpies.
Orange Zero
By viciously linking to his article, Twitter feed and quoting him.
1. So, it’s the journalists fault?
2. Did he say them or didn’t he say them?
3. If he did, and misspoke, why didn’t he say “sorry, that was a stupid thing to say, I didn’t express myself clearly, here’s what I meant…”
What he actually did was acting as if we hadn’t understood him the first time and then took great pains to elaborately say the same shit again. What’s his excuse now?
But that didn’t stop him from feeling qualified to answer and lampooning about the subject, right?
That is an excuse for him how exactly?
Last week or something like that.
And if you honestly believe that the world was made in 6 days…
You know, the fact that he’s received plenty of well-worded criticism telling him exactly what the problem with those sentences is, yet he still chooses to double down, does not speak for him or his critical thinking skills.
And here you’ve lost al credibility and the benefit of doubt
tinyal
You know, it would be nice if you started at the start, like who called Harris a sexist pig. That was himself. As for Harris himself, there’s a great many other labels he deserves for other shit. Also, “sexist pig” is so 1950’s.
Ahhhh, so there’s an appropriate level of offense we should feel and the person who knows the exact right amount is you. Kind of like driving: If they’re faster than you they’re speeding, if they’re slower they’re blocking traffic.
Well, thank you for acknowledging this. Now you could extrapolate to your general level of contribution to this thread and reevaluate.
A. Noyd
It does get confusing when people refer to comment numbers rather than quoting, the numbers frequently change due to banning or moderated comments being approved. You can be data point number three in this thread that apologizing when you make an error is very easy and causes not a whit of harm to the person apologizing. Reading the Harris defenders, you would think he was being asked to commit Seppuku rather than apologize and refrain from making further claims about women. It’s like all the horsemen and James Randi got together and decided to burn their credibility to the ground this week.
two questions:
1. Do you actually understand what probability distributions are?
2. Do you understand their relevance when discussing the social implications of the differences noted in those papers?
I’m guessing “no” to at least one of those questions.
only pseudoscientists would think them relevant.
some of us actually have studied things like endocrinology in depth, and realize it actually has no relevance to what Sam Harris said.
that you DO speaks volumes.
Dawkins appears to be working double time on that front on Twitter over the last few days.
gees.
I want to be especially clear on this. These are not relevant, because people are variable in general, and the overlaps are the majority instead of the minority behaviorally.
this is why it doesn’t matter what the papers say, even if they seem to support a specific rhetorical position in your favor.
the people arguing here, against what Sam Harris is saying, are not data points in a sample set, they speak for themselves.
I dunno, is that clear?
the distributions of behaviors is so variable, that to claim generalities with them is nonsense. Likewise, it’s just as nonsensical to conclude that generalities implied by psychological studies will apply evenly to any specific subset of the population.
it’s basically making the same mistake Sam Harris made, but in reverse, and saying “the data supports me!”
the data is irrelevant, when you actually HAVE someone saying “this is who I am, this is how I think” right in front of you.
I’m probably being overcritical of someone who might be genuinely interested in behavioral science and really trying to help, but the criticisms often levied against the excesses of evo psych here on this very site apply, whether the results of any specific study agree with what we are trying to say or not.
again, it just isn’t relevant when you actually have people SAYING what they think, how they feel, and how they react to things.
must… close… thought….
here’s the kicker:
what if all those papers you cited actually SUPPORTED Harris’ take on things?
would you then conclude all the women here that have said they aren’t at all like Sam Harris describes them should be ignored?
there, I can’t explain it any better than that. I’m an ichthyologist, and if I’m considering studying a species of fish I have never seen before, I’m gonna go to the literature to see what others have done on it to get a basic idea of what to expect.
but… if I’m THERE, actually LOOKING AT the fish I’m interested in? yeah, I’m gonna let the fish themselves show me how they react to things, and consider the paper I read irrelevant in comparison.
I’m bumbling at it; PZ once said it MUCH better in one of his posts about just listening to what women are saying, but of course, I can’t find the link now.
I get the feeling the comments might have shifted a number, so the #157 may not be in reference to my comment, shift one forwards or back and see if it makes any more sense?
no, I got it.
I’ve already nabbed a couple of good one’s from Ophelia.
Dawkins has upped the ante: now we’re FeedingFrenzy ThoughtPolice Bullies
I went looking for information on Sam’s wife who supposedly is his “first, last, and best editor”. Her name is Annaka and she has written a childrens book called I Wonder. Here is a quote from her on why she wrote the book.
If only SH had answered honestly with “I don’t know why my audience is mostly male.” The doubling down on how dare you call me sexist is simply Sam being preoccupied with escaping the discomfort he has brought on himself. It’s pretty clear he has no interest in actually knowing why women find him not worth reading.
I find it pretty incredible that someone who makes a living critisizing other people’s ideas in a fashion that is characterized by his detractors as over-the-top aggressive and has spent a lot of time complaining about being called shrill, vitriolic, etc, etc, could possibly respond to criticism by hyperbolically whining about witchhunts, bullying and thoughtpolicing.
I guess narcissism makes it very easy to spot when someone else is being absurdly hyperbolic to the point of complete ridiculousness but very near impossible to spot it when you are doing the exact same thing.
I have to say, though, that the way these public figures are behaving has been a real education for me. Just not in a way that’s at all favorable to them, but educational nonetheless.
Yes, RD has not only jumped the shark, now he is actively chumming the water. I saw one tweet thanking him for supporting gamergate. He must be so proud to be the new brave leader for 4chan and the vilest reddit users. I do hope he enjoys his new slime friends.
chigau (違う):
やはり。
As expected.
Oh PZ you have become so pathetic.
Envy at the other atheists and that your (excuse of a ) book is only #325,249 on Amazon, even with the hivemind supporting you?
Or sad that you lost “relevance” after your crackergate stunt?
Now it`s “attack a more successful Atheist every week” for you?
It`s just sad what this place has become. The Fox News of Atheism.
I`m out, so this last post is with a different username to avoid the attack of your pseudo feminist posse.
best reply so far to RD’s twitter temper tantrum.
Nice evidenceless screed, from MRA script #5, not showing any evidence why PZ is wrong. Just showing attitude that the poster fallaciously thinks PZ is wrong. Now, who is the one who is the real Free Thinker, where evidence rules?
Especially considering thinking women are different is a dogma that doesn’t stand up to evidence.
@246 klingleberry
Yes, PZ is so jealous he is fabricating quotes from famous atheists to make them seem sexist. Ah no, wait, those famous atheists are saying those sexists things themselves with no help from the eternally jealous poopyhead.
Of course for someone like you it couldn’t possibly be that these atheists have done something clearly and obviously objectionable, it can only be that someone you don’t like for reasons must be maliciously attacking them just because of their own malice, because you are, i bet, a rationalist that only cares about what’s really real and not about emotion based believes.
Someone is indeed pathetic…
Honestly, this response from Dawkins esp. has got to actually hurt. I think there are several FreeThought Bloggers who count him as an actual personal friend, or at least a personal colleague and acquaintance, and now he’s coming at them with actual Slymepit lingo about this amazing blog collective that they’ve spent so much time and energy on. I wish I could make each of the FtBloggers a casserole or something. :(
klingleberry
Hahaha!!
Gloriously daft, oh you pallid worshipper of numinous scores.
This is a “free thought” blog? I’ve rarely seen such a glaring absence of the principle of charity from folks parading as rational thinkers. Neither the OP, nor the majority of the commenters, here, have done much more than gloat over the opportunity to resort to contextomy and smearing. Context matters, folks–that’s elementary logic. But I’m guessing most of you, the commenters and the OP–and I base this on your abuse of the english language–have never met a syllogism in your lives.
Aptly Named Apologist (AKA chowderhead) @ 252
Context matters except when we’re defending our hero’s deliberately inflammatory tweets, amirite? Then, above-it-all, decontextualized, ivory tower philosowanking is the only reasonable approach!
We’re the ones actually recognizing the context of a wider culture in which these things are being said as opposed to you and your fellow apologists who want to dial it back and act like it was nothing but an off the cuff thing someone said in a vacuum which has no effect on anyone or anything.
Also worthy of note: we made it exactly 3 posts from Nerd posting the actual definition of “free thought” before some shitwit bumbled in to the “free thought means all opinions are created equal” dance.
Yes, you definitely are a chowderhead if you think that we should be charitable to men who are using their positions of authority to punch down at the women who they have insulted.
In what context is “because hormonal ladybrains!” not sexist?
Chowderhead, you confuse free thought with free from thought, meaning anything you say can’t be criticized. From the Wiki cite:
PZ and horde are free thinkers, questioning the historical dogma that men and women are different thinkers. Which is backed by evidence, making our questioning empirical. Whereas poor Harris appears to presuppositionally think men and women are very different in their capabilities. That is dogma.
chowderhead
I completely agree with you. People talking about “lynch mobs” “witch hunts” “thought police” and dismissing each and any criticism as “an outrage brigade looking to be offended” is surely the least charitable way to react to something, right?
+++
Richard dawkins and Christina Hoff Sommers. Now there#s a love match if I ever saw one…
If you don’t like him don’t read him?
Is that like “If you don’t like Bryan Fisher or Pat Robertson, just ignore them”?
So we’re going overboard and searching for people to call sexist, but these guys are calling us witch hunters and calling our criticisms a “feeding frenzy”.
…but women don’t do confrontation or direct criticism.
…and these are our self appointed ‘thought leaders”?
Ridiculous!
I want to point something else out that seems to have been missed. Being capable of nurturing does not mean that a person cannot also enjoy vigorous debate. Raising kids is a skill, not an innate ability. It’s work, motherfuckers. Stop dismissing it as just something I do naturally because I’m a woman. I’ve taken college courses to better understand early childhood development. I wasn’t born with that information. I have hours and hours of professional training and years of experience under my belt. What I do takes mental stamina. I don’t do it because I cannot fight my warm fuzzy hormones. I made a conscious choice based on my situation, the kind you make by considering the facts and working toward the best outcome. That choice and those skills do not mean that I’m turned off by confrontation. In fact, I’m often lovingly nurturing my kids and arguing online in turns. Reading and commenting are rarely accomplished in one sitting, with my complete attention given to the laptop screen. Being able to be patient and gentle does not mean I’m not able to be anything else. I’m my kids’ mommy, not the mommy of every asshole online who wants his hand held and cookies dolled out every time he opens his mouth. Sam Harris and Michael Shermer do not seem to grasp that. They think my mysterious lady hormones dictate my abilities, beliefs and preferences are based on my sex. That bullshit is rampant in the old guard. Our grand poobahs of atheism also think that because of my sex I cannot tell when I am experiencing rape, harassment or sexism. The reason I am not a fan of them or the movement that embraces them has nothing to do with mt hormones. It has to do with them being bigoted, smarmy doucheweasles who aren’t worth the cash it takes to buy their trade paperbacks from the discount rack. I was among the readership of Dawkins, Shermer and Harris once upon a time. I bought Skeptic Magazine. Not anymore. Not for a long time. These guys are not thought or any other kind of leaders. A movement has to move and these assholes aren’t going anywhere. It’s well past time to leave them behind.
@259, Jackie: FIAS.
Fuck. Ing. Awe. Some.
Say it. If I weren’t on my phone, I’d QFFT.
Dear white people,
Stop claiming you are being lynched. You’re not.
Dear men,
Stop claiming you are being hunted like a witch. You aren’t.
Would entitled people in general please learn the historical and current context of things that are not happening to you before you use them to complain about people criticizing you?
That’d be great.
Yet more defenders of Harris who do not address the arguments made-and there are plenty. It’s like they’re completely incapable of engaging the substance. Their eyes glaze over when they see coarse language I suppose.
Case in point, the aptly named Chowderhead @252:
You do realize that freethought is using science, logic, and reason as the basis for your opinions, no? There’s no “charity” involved.
You’ve said nothing of substance here. You’ve whined incoherently, failing to cite any specific comments and offering specific criticisms. Dullard begone!
Who is the next contest for Harris is McDreamy?
Why that would be
klingleberry @246:
Explain why you feel this way.
This is not only NOT an argument, it’s completely irrelevant.
O.o
The hell does crackergate have to do with anything?
The hell does relevance have to do with the points PZ made?
It’s almost like you didn’t bother to read the OP, instead launching into a bizarre attack on PZ over anything you don’t like.
No, it’s criticize people who say stupid, offensive, sexist, shit. Apparently you have a problem with that cupcake. Your problem to overcome.
That’s pretty fucking stupid. FOX news doesn’t use facts or logic. PZ’s OP does. So do many commenters. If you truly thought this, you’d present an argument and counter what people are saying with evidence and your own logic. You’ve not done that. Instead, you project. You’re the one coming across like Bill O’Reilly.
Ack!
I’m hurt.
I’m wounded.
To me my fainting chair!
Thou dost doubt mine feminism?
Thou dost think there are poseurs here?
How would you know that?
Man, there is pathetic, and then there’s a step below that. You nincomfucks are a step below THAT.
Thanks, Catiecat. You got me smile’n.
Context like “this is not the first time Harris said something stupidly sexist”? Or maybe a context of “sexism in the atheist movement has been on the forefront of issues lately, and several personalities have been pushing back against the inclusion of women”? Please, O Great Freethinker, provide the context in which “Wimminz don’t atheism because ovaries biotruth gender essentialism” is not sexist.
Seven of Mine @254:
If hasn’t filled up his bingo card, Ichthyic could add “freethought” to it.
Thanks, Jackie, for your post.
I have binders full of women.
Maybe that’s the problem, gog @267: Harris and Dawkins have blinders full of women.
But does he let them use his bathroom?
Careful, a chip on your shoulder that big will do you a mischief. I see people who are overwhelmingly disappointed, let down, sometimes angry that someone like Harris who should and could easily know better has so signally failed – and shown so unwilling – to examine his own blind spots.
There has been taking the piss out of the trolls, of course, which might confuse the hard-of-reading.
“If I’m so sexist, how come my sperm can make girl babies? Checkmate, feminists!”
@klingleberry
*Appeals to PZ’s Amazon ranking is a cowardly retreat from his points in the OP.
*Appeals to PZ’s relevance is useless without demonstrating why his points in OP are irrelevant. Also if he were not relevant you would not feel threatened enough to be here.
*Appeals to the success of atheists is a cowardly retreat from the points in the OP.
*While you try to this as “atheist Fox News”, it remains projection because your substance was two Red Herrings disguising the fact that you are worried about all of this.
After all of that I can’t find the emotions to care about your definition of feminism.
@chowderhead
This is a “free thought” blog? I’ve rarely seen such a glaring absence of the principle of charity from folks parading as rational thinkers.
*Charity can be ethically denied. But I won’t even engage in that argument since you avoid saying why we should be charitable to sexist motivated reasoning (at best) given the points in the OP.
*”contextomy and smearing” remains undemonstrated, but since you feel threatened by PZ you still had to say something apparently. Present the proper context with comparison to what you find wrong in the OP or you are simply pissing on fire hydrants in a social context.
*A syllogism is like a mathematical function derived to model a part of reality. It can only explain parts of reality with any accuracy. You have the OP, you have Harris’s articles, start deriving.
What struck me was this Harris quote:
When I was a young woman in my 20s and was an activist and an atheist, I ran into the local Atheist group at a neighborhood parade. They struck me as a bunch of old and creepy men, so I didn’t get involved. Harris make the point that he doesn’t see as many activist women atheists. Can’t this guy add 2 + 2 and get 4?
Predictably, pretty much every response to my comment has just been a continuation of the same sort of fallacious reasoning to which I referred.
I have better ways to spend my time than to try to refute every one of the specific cases where shoddy logic (more like deliberate distortion) has been employed here. The point is that if you actually read Harris’ post in its entirety, he addresses most of these objections.
I do not dispute your definition of free thought, I just don’t see it on display here. The principle of charity is a principle of applying logic to an opponent’s argument. As somebody engaged in “using science, logic, and reason” you should be familiar with the term. Your post seems to imply to me that you’ve never heard of it. You can look it up if you care to understand what the hell I was even talking about. Anyway, the objection that I’m raising–and the reason why I am not addressing any of the specific “arguments” being made by posters here–is that none of these arguments seem to refer to Harris’ actual views as he has written them. Just a bunch of straw-manning and childish name calling, and you all think you’re winning the argument by overdetermination. How can anybody try to argue against this kind of groupthink?
Here is another good example. Where in my post do I say anything at all about all opinions being equal? Nowhere. Nor is that a view that I hold. Nor do I say anything that can even be interpreted that way by someone who isn’t intent on misrepresenting other’s views, or, just letting their own cognitive biases run the show. You should consider that fact that you have just falsely attributed a view to me, and ask yourself why that is, and whether you might be doing this in other areas.
No, I don’t. Read the above.
now that’s just lying, since people continue to quote Harris directly.
Quoting directly in no way guarantees that a person’s views are being accurately represented. This is a very easy point to make. If you were to say to me “I hate all gay people that are also racist,” you making a few propositions that are inseparable. It would take this form: [(G^R) => H] which says that if a person is both gay AND racist, then you hate them. But now imagine that PZ comes along and quotes you as saying “I hate gay people,” and then writes an article about how you are an ignorant homophobe. Obviously he has done you a disservice, because the gay person’s being racist was a necessary condition for you hating them. Ok, that is a cartoonishly simple example of how quoting out of context can be as destructive and dishonest as outright fabrication. Once you get into longer articles where nuanced and potentially controversial views are expressed, it becomes child’s play for anybody to become a character assassin. This is why applying “the principle of charity” (which is a tool in philosophical rhetoric; not an injunction to just “respect everybody’s opnion”) to arguments.
ok. now that you’ve accused people of quotemining, chowderhead, prove it.
And if you understood Harris’ words, you would understand the evasions and lack of logic he showed. So, where the fuck is YOUR evidence????
Nope, charity is swallowing your opponents arguments. Logic may say their argument is bullshit, as Harris’ is.
Only in your delusional mind. Otherwise, you would cite evidence, not make general and dishonest arguments yourself.
You are the one falsely attributing things. We quote you and Harris. You and Harris lack evidence. So, we aren’t misinterpreting anything you say, since you say nothing. Don’t waste our time with your obvious hero worship and bullshit apologies. It never works here.
Gog at #267, and Anton Mates at 271, you both made me laugh
Awww. Chowderhead explainified quotemining to us. That’s so cute!
I’m serious.
Show evidence that “I think it may have to do with my personal slant as an author, being very critical of bad ideas. This can sound very angry to people..People just don’t like to have their ideas criticized. There’s something about that critical posture that is to some degree instrinsically male and more attractive to guys than to women” is a quotemine.
Show evidence that “The atheist variable just has this – it doesn’t obviously have this nurturing, coherence-building extra estrogen vibe that you would want by default if you wanted to attract as many women as men.” is a quotemine.
Show evidence that “just as we can say that men are generally taller than women, without denying that some women are taller than most men, there are psychological differences between men and women which, considered in the aggregate, might explain why “angry atheism” attracts more of the former. Some of these differences are innate” is a quotemine.
Show evidence that “I believe that a less ‘angry,’ more ‘nurturing’ style of discourse might attract more women to the cause of atheism.” is a quotemine.
Show evidence that “For instance, only 5 percent of Fortune 500 companies are run by women. How much of this is the result of sexism? How much is due to the disproportionate (and heroic) sacrifices women make in their 20’s or 30’s to have families? How much is explained by normally distributed psychological differences between the sexes?” is a quotemine.
Show evidence that “Unlike men, they don’t tend to get into fistfights with strangers after an escalating series of insults. It is far more common for a woman to be attacked, physically controlled, and sexually assaulted by a man. Outside the walls of a prison, adult males almost never have to think about getting raped. For most women, rape is a very real, lifelong concern. Women also suffer from domestic violence in ways that men rarely do. Most of these differences can be explained by general disparities in size, strength, and aggressiveness between the sexes.” is a quotemine.
Show evidence that ” But having been raised by a single mother since the age of two, I have always had a very visceral sense that men have a responsibility not to be evil jerks. And when they are, they should be sorted out—physically, if need be—by good men. Call me old-fashioned.” is a quotemine.
Show evidence that ” I’m tempted to name this person—so pure and smug and sanctimonious and incorrigible was her moral blindness. But I’ll resist that combative impulse in the interests of maintaining harmony in the atheist community. #EstrogenVibe” is a quotemine.
I’ll wait.
Side note: I’m thoroughly sick of dudebros using women as a shield for their nasty opinions. So Harris is against gun control because women need guns because the reason they’re raped, beaten, etc. is that men are physically stronger? Swell; except that’s bullshit; women are abused because men have structural power over women (hence why women who are subject to multiple axes of oppression are much more likely to be victims than middle-class, cis, straight, abled, white women; it’s sure as fuck not because they’re physically weaker), and when they do use a gun to defend themselves? they go to jail for 30 years; or they get murdered in “self-defense” by their attackers.
His anti-gun-control stance has fuck-all to do with the real problems of real women; but it sure is a convenient cover, innit.
The only way I could “prove it” would be to cut and paste Harris’ direct contextual quotes in next to specific instances of contextomy. If you’ve already honestly and unbiasedly read Harris and are convinced that PZ has treated it fairly, and are persuaded that Harris is actually a real-life sexist, then what amount of cutting and pasting could satisfy your standard of proof?
I’m not hero worshipping anyone. I haven’t even defended Harris other than to point out some tendencies that I’ve noticed among this mind-numbingly uncivil little community here.
I’ve already spent too much time on this shit. I’ve been studying science and philosophy for years. I aim for clear thinking, and honest discussion. I’d be interested in having fair-minded exchange with anybody, but this ain’t the place, which is what my original point was. I also consider myself both a free thinker and a feminist, but I’m just not convinced by this uproar. Say what you will. I’m out.
Peace.
Assuming everyone quoting Sam Harris is quote mining him = Principle of charity
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
“Charity for me, but not for thee”. It’s always the fucking same with the apologist brigade. Hypocrisy at every fucking corner.
So we’re quotemining, but it’s impossible to prove because in context it can still read as sexist?
I see. I’ll take that as a weaselly admission that your accusation of quotemining and strawmanning was in fact a lie.
Isn’t his defense basically just “those female things have cooties! Run away!! Run away!!!1!” ?
yeah no, that’s not gonna fly. You can’t come in here, throw unsubstantiated accusations of groupthink and quotemining and strawmanning around, and then expect anyone to believe you’re interested in being fair or in exchanging ideas.
Fuck but chowderhead is dense. We are not having a philosophical debate here asshole. We were quite clear with exactly which parts of what he said are problematic. the response has been “Uh-uh, your obviously all too stupid to understand my sophisticated theology. And then we have to put up with your sanctimonious crap about how we should be charitable to ashholes who are actively working to discredit any other atheist voices but their own. Understand something here and now; We are done with any supposed freethinker who will not even make the slightest effort to understand why the sexist shit that spews from their mouths is completely unacceptable in the year 2014. Fuck Harris, fuck shermer the rapist, and especially fuck the rape enablers Dawkins and Randi. They have done this to themselves and we no longer wish to associate with them at all.
Bull-fucking-shit. If you didn’t worship Harris and his lies, you wouldn’t be here, would you??? Welcome to evidence based posting. Where philosophical sophists without evidence always lose.
It doesn’t show. I know, I’m a scientist. You sound like a weasel.
As a scientist, eventually it comes down to put up or shut the fuck up. You either put up the evidence, or you shut the fuck up. That happened with your first post. You couldn’t/wouldn’t put up, so you should have shut the fuck up.
I present to you, for your amusement, one sniny new “Defenders of Skeptic Beacons” Bingo Card:
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So, this question stood at the beginning of all of this? And Sam got it wrong and was latter digging a hole big enough for himself and Richard to jump in?
Since nobody was addressing the question here in the comments, I couldn’t find anything, I assume the answer is public knowledge or the question itself is wrong. Which one is it??
ahem. to quote myself, from right here in the comments:
the later.
see Greta Christina for data on the subject.
short answer? it was a leading question, since there really isn’t a gender gap in atheism.
I also suspect that Harris not only doesn’t really know if there is a gender gap in who reads his books, but doesn’t really care.
so the REAL question is:
WHY THE FUCK did he answer the question the way he did?
….and now you’re up to speed.
oh, forgot to add the middle part there, where he Harris dug in with his clarifying response that he was speaking of “active atheists”, and from there, jadehawk continues.
Yubal, how on earth did you manage to miss all of this?
I want to think your question was based on somehow being entirely absent from being online for the last week?
@ chowderhead
So when are you going to actually show us how PZ is wrong? By showing us how and connecting to why?
That would be rational skepticism of the form that I saw applied to creationists with no problem other than learning the skill. Stop changing the subject from your assertions of fact in #252 and do your work if PZ is wrong in what he says in the OP. When lobbing social bombs creationists, describing reality and then saying why the creationists were wrong was everything, for the audience if nothing else.
Mere opinion is dry and tasteless.
to clarify: the question is actually several questions. why readers/conference-goers skew male; why Western atheists skew male; and why atheists in general skew male. The last is a wrong question, because atheists in general don’t actually skew male; the other two OTOH has been continuously asked and answered publicly at least since Jun 29 2010 (that being the famous “woman problem thread on the sciblogs pharyngula): it’s the sexism.
^^yeah, that’s a concise, but more complete, overview of what happened.
Jadehawk #296
Yes, and the sexism is coming from both fronts too. I think that’s sufficient explanation for There are parts of religious society which would be extremely damaging to a woman (including physical damage) coming out as a non-believer. So the threat a woman in that subculture would face for coming out is greater than a man would. And then you have, of course, the Dawkins brand of sexism coming from the other side. It’s like an association holding prejudiced views about Mexican people and then wondering why there aren’t as many Mexican people in their group as they’d expect.
Well, shit. Fingers stopped typing mid-sentence there apparently. That should say “I think that’s sufficient explanation for the skew”.
I never thought I’d see an atheist shamelessly expect people to prove a negative for them and then accuse other people of fallacious reasoning.
Then I met a Sam Harris fan.
It’s good to know he has such swell friends. He deserves them.
chowderhead @274:
And yet, you haven’t demonstrated this. People in this thread, including PZ, have quoted and criticized what Harris has said. You have not pointed out specific problems from specific people as relates to their criticism of Sam Harris. Nor have you offered a rebuttal of what people have said.
Here, let me hold your hand through two examples:
Sam Harris said that he feels the majority of his readers are male. How does he know this? He’s made an assertion, and is drawing conclusions from that, but he has not proven that his premise is true. People have said this, yet you have not addressed this.
He also said this:
People have criticized him for insinuating that the qualities of “nurturing” and “being less angry” are somehow intrinsic to women. How does he know this? Where is his evidence? Why is he drawing conclusions based on this premise?
Address the motherfucking arguments.
A commenter at Skepchick nails it:
chowderhead @ 283:
Well, one would be a good start.
One clear-cut case would, in fact, prove your point.
So, please give us your favorite example, ok?
Oh.
Ok.
Never mind, then, I guess.
Shorter Chowderhead: “You are all sooooo wrong but I’m too busy and important to prove how.”
Ichthyic, #294
Yes, I am not actively reading comments and sometimes the blog(s) for a week or more. My plate is full, but I stay interested.
And yes, That “active atheists” is what troubles me a little. Since Greta pointed out, the ratio of female atheists is exactly where you expect it to be, 50%. I don’t have a good overview on the grand total ratio of active bloggers/speakers, well, activists in the atheist community but there seems to be a reason for that interviewer to ask Sam about it so I assume it might be significantly lower than 50%?
My guess, covering up his ignorance with a popular soundbite? I’d say that’s forgivable. Anyway, he didn’t re-evaluate that in his a response and made up excuses for it, which is also forgivable but he needs to stand up and correct himself.
Jadehawk, #292 #296
So, here is the catch, I am active in the peace and environmental movement since the 80s (And I’d rather seen an secular humanist movement than an “new atheist” movement BTW, old timers probably still hate me for my comments back then) and in every situation we had a nice close to 50:50 male to female ratio on the ground, but all organizational levels were male dominated, about 75:25 in average. Even in the green party of Germany (that requires by statue a 50:50 gender split for every position/board, they even split the leader position in two for that purpose) we had sometimes problems to get enough women on a panel or on the voting list. There seems to be something more general to that “women don’t participate in it” since it is obviously not unique to the Atheist community. And yeah, the German green party, eco- and peace movement were pretty much all opposed to gender restriction. I am however not sure how successful that was.
So, I don’t know.
fair enough then.
er… enjoy catching up?
really though, it feels like ripping hair out sometimes.
Mea culpa. I was wrong. I had assumed that,e.g., hormones like testosterone accounted for some degree of men’s behavior and others for women. A quick look at the evidence at Wikipedia showed that for testosterone the evidence is very shaky at best. So please forgive me. But do you have tobe so mean?
Also I don’t understand the comments about me writing a period instead of a question mark. Those were just typos. What was the point of those criticisms.
do you have to be so wrong?
Ichthyic,
Not enjoying much what I read here. Can’t say I am disappointed with Richard coz I never had great expectations there. Sam, well makinga stupid reremark in an interview is one thing, not clearing it out later is another. Deeply disappointed with him.
seeker @307:
First of all-don’t assume. Especially when you’re talking about the reasons for human behavior.
Second-normally, I would simply say that you ought to familiarize yourself with the commenting rules:
and leave it at that.
I’m going to do a bit more this time.
At #47, you said:
This right there? That’s you making excuses for Sam Harris’ sexism. You’re making apologies for sexism. This being a feminist blog means this is strike one.
Don’t make excuses for sexism.
Strike two is that you are making assumptions about the behavior of men and women that are not based on empirical evidence. This is a blog that values freethought: the use of science, logic, and reason to arrive at opinions and beliefs. When it comes to a subject like the treatment of women-which is so often horrible-you *especially* should not make assumptions. When you went to Wikipedia and discovered that your assumptions may have been faulty? You ought to have done that FIRST. Before commenting. Wikipedia isn’t really the greatest source, but it can be a great starting point to find the evidence you need to support your opinions. I suggest doing that before presenting your opinions and stating them as facts (or before framing your questions with an unevidenced premise).
This isn’t exactly Strike 3, but I feel the need to mention that PZ and the commentariat have been discussing feminism for years. In that time A LOT of anti-feminist individuals have “graced” this blog with their opinions. Many of them have expressed opinions just like you did. Over time, one develops pattern detection skills that aids us in recognizing these shitheads. Often those skills are quite on the money. Sometimes, they can be off, but given that we’re talking, and criticizing, and we don’t have the power to do anything more than hurt people’s feelings, that’s a reasonable price to pay, IMO. I recommend you take some time NOT commenting, and read the feminist links in the sidebar if you’re truly interested in having a discussion here. There are a lot of links, so that may keep you busy for a while. While you’re educating yourself so that you can have at least a 101 level of understanding, I’d advise you to lurk and not comment. Get a feel for how people interact here. Listen to what people are talking about. Check your privilege. Analyze your own biases and prejudices-believe me, you have them. Recognize that you have ugly shit in you. Recognize that you’re going to make mistakes, but allow yourself to be wrong. When, not if, you are corrected, try to accept the criticism and work to understand why people are being critical of you. Don’t launch immediately into being defensive-yes it can be hard, but it’s very often worth it. You might be surprised to know that a great many regulars around here opened their mouths at one point or another and inserted their foot. Over time, they came to recognize what they said, and vowed to be better people. Accept that this will happen, if you choose to comment here. Just work to ensure that you accept the criticism and alter your behavior so you don’t make the same mistake. We don’t ask for perfection. But we do ask you to take the time to weed out your prejudices and biases as you become aware of them, and not to reject criticism, no matter how it is worded.
We *can* be mean around here. If you can’t deal with that, you may find lurking to be a better choice for you. That said, if you check out The Lounge, it is the social area PZ has designated for off topic and *any* topic discussions (provided the discussion is kind). Many people-myself included-found it easier to read and comment there before commenting throughout the rest of the blog. Despite what is said by our detractors, the commentariat here can be, and very often are, incredibly kind, supportive, empathetic, generous, caring, and compassionate. You may find much to like at Pharyngula if you choose to stay.
That’s just my two cents.
Seeker:
You’re forgiven, and thank you very much for the mea culpa.
There’s no obligation to be mean, however, you might try to understand that we deal with hundreds of people saying the same, tired bullshit every freaking day here. Specifically, when you’re a woman (as I am), seeing for the nth time, some man who wants to equate women with hormones…well, it’s sexist, it’s insulting, it’s demeaning, it’s dehumanizing, and it’s offensive. So, I don’t have much interest in being all sweetness and light when it comes up, again.
See the bit I emphasized? It’s a question, so use the proper punctuation, please. Clarity and conciseness are valued here, and there’s an expectation that people will be the best communicator as possible. Lack of proper punctuation makes a comment less easy to read and comprehend. One of the reasons there is a preview button next to the post comment button is to allow people to look over their finished product before submitting it.
Ichthyic @ 308:
When someone comes back and admits they are wrong, and apologizes, this sort of comment is completely out of fucking line.
Iyeska,
Thank you.
Speaking for myself, it has been a very shitty week in atheism between first the revelations at JREF, two different Richard Dawkins is apparently jumping the shark threads (or is it three? they have all blended together into a large seething mass of anger toward those who claimed to be leaders of the atheist movement ) and two threads devoted to the obtuseness of Sam Harris. My patience for explaining why those sexist actions both great and small are unwelcome and inappropriate is worn a bit thin. I suspect other hordlings are also a bit more irritated than usual.
Iyeska,
Also
seeing for the nth time, some man who wants to equate women with hormones…well, it’s sexist, it’s insulting, it’s demeaning, it’s dehumanizing, and it’s offensive. So, I don’t have much interest in being all sweetness and light when it comes up, again.
For the record I was not equating women with hormones. I was asking/suggesting that genetics and hormones have SOME effect on behavior. I was thinking about testosterone making men more aggressive(so I thought) not so much about women, though I did read about them having higher levels of oxytocin. I know from previous reading that there are innate difference in the brains of men and women though this is not well understood. Again I was not equating women with hormones. Or men. I guess you are primed to see that perhaps even when it is not there .
The guy ? Who studied endocrinology and found no sex differences. I wonder. Are there any. There ARE lots of biological differences. Do none of these affect men and women differently? If this is a sexist question I don’t see it.
Sheesh, messed up the quote and I see both Tony and Iyéska have already provided much better answers about being mean. It really is appreciated when people engage with us and actually discuss issues rather than just assuming that they will be summarily tossed out for expressing a contrary opinion. (on a completely unrelated note, spellcheck wants to turn Iyéska into Bailey? That’s not even remotely similar, silly spellcheck!)
I want to take the word “nuance” and put it onto a large bonfire and be done with it.
OK?
Ok, so since general consensus in the replies to my criticism of your criticisms is has been “put up or shut the fuck up” as one of y’all put it. Fine. I’ll allow myself to be your rhetorical punching bag for a while longer.
First, a disclosure, on which I hope you will all take me on good faith. It is true that I respect Sam Harris, and I wouldn’t be making this reply otherwise. But I am not his public defender (lucky for him). He has earned a good measure of trust from me because I perceive him to be an honest writer and a clear thinker. I also respect that he is willing to take unpopular or controversial stances at the risk of offending and losing his audience. However, this does not mean that I agree with everything he says. For example, I disagree with his stance on Israel/Gaza, but I also recognize that he is not simply an Arab-hating warmonger. I tend to align with something more like Chomsky’s view on this. So, with that said, insult me all you like, but at least try harder than to just write me off as a Sam Harris sycophant.
To begin, PZ says the following in response to Harris’ explanation of what he meant by “atheist” in his interview with Boorstein:
Disregarding PZ’s unfounded use of the editorial ‘we,’ here is what Harris goes on to say in the sentence subsequent to the passage being referred:
Harris concedes that he does not know the actual demographic but he gives reason for this perception of gender disproportion; his direct, personal experience–as a prominent atheist–of his audience.
However, PZ skips this over with no mention and instead goes straight to his preferred quote:
This gives a slightly inaccurate picture, but I’ll grant that it’s not full-blown forgery.
Next, PZ says the following in response to his own rhetorical question, “why do you assume that ‘nurturing’ is feminine?”:
In fact, what Harris actually says is this:
PZ actually continues to imply that Harris hasn’t acknowledge social forces in shaping gender roles.
Digression: One thing that I’m not clear about, is why it is sexist to believe that women are, in general, more nurturing than men, and that some of this is due to our biology. It doesn’t seem a like moral defect to hold this belief, even if it turns out to be mistaken. I have noticed that the women in my life tend to exude such virtues more than men. As far as I know, this tendency could very well be because men repress these traits to avoid seeming feminine and therefore inferior (which is obviously sexist, but somewhat pitiable), or it could be that women are conditioned by cultural expectations to be this way. Then again, maybe women are not actually more nurturing in general and I’m simply deluded by severe cognitive biases. Whatever the case may be, it doesn’t seem totally implausible that some of that nurturing nature is a disposition of biology. Anyway, if nurturing is in some way feminine, then the world would do well to get in better touch with its feminine side.
Here is another one from PZ:
Is that really what he “clearly did”? Again, he is implying that Harris is denying social forces as factors. This excerpt from Harris’ essay, which is directly related to this very question, is conspicuously absent from the premises of PZ’s argument:
My guess is that sexism plays the biggest role by far, but I can’t say for sure. Harris doesn’t say how much these factors play a role, because he doesn’t know. Anyway, no doubt some of you will find things wrong with this particular quote. But why claim that Harris’ is blaming “the essential natures of women” when all he is doing is suggesting that factors like childbearing and/or rearing, and psychology–which are both based in biology–“[play] a role.” Nowhere in PZ’s post (unless I have missed it) does he mention any Harris’ passages regarding culture/ sexism shaping gender roles, yet it is pretty much PZ’s main point of contention. How could this be considered anything other than a cheap smear-piece if PZ doesn’t even acknowledge the passages that are most relevant to his criticism?
Back on the digression: Some of you seem to take the view that it is implicitly, or even explicitly, sexist to claim that there are innate psychological differences/tendencies/dispositions between men and women. However, the idea of innate psychological differences arising based on sex seems not only uncontroversial, but quite likely, unless you’re a dedicated Cartesian. For example, does anybody want to argue that sexual preferences are not even a little bit innate? The evidence would be against you there. It’s an empirical claim that is made plausible by what is known about biology, evolution, and psychology. If it turns out to be completely false, then Harris is empirically wrong. But is he morally wrong for having a false belief about human nature? It’s likely that everybody who has ever lived has held false beliefs about human nature. Anyway, enough digression on this point…
Here is another section where PZ takes something that Harris says, and then asks a rhetorical question, as if Harris had not made the intention of his remarks explicit:
What’s the relevance? Here’s where he answers PZ’s question for him in the same contended paragraph:
Those are a few clear examples of misrepresentation by omission. There’s more, but, holy-shit, that’s enough for me. If you read all of that, thanks and sorry. I told you it’d be a long pain in the ass, but you all insisted that I present evidence. I hope it’s clear that I made my case in the spirit of fairness.
There’s no way I’m going to proof read this shit.
Ok, one last response…
Fair enough. It’s true that I can’t actually call myself a scientist at this point. But I am in the early part of a cognitive science PhD program. Admittedly, I haven’t got to the part of training where they teach you to sniff out scientific impostors on the web. ;-)
chowderhead @318:
You’re right.
He’s also a Islamophobic bigot (if you can’t figure out why, then please explain to me how you can look at someone and determine they are Muslim).
No one needs your permission. It is nice to see you put a little more thought and effort into your response though.
chowderhead,
Sam also failed to answer the actual question properly, don’t forget about that. Beyond his estrogen vibe thing there was nothing else, not even an attempt to give a clue or to (honestly) state his lack of knowledge.
Chowderhead:
It perpetuates stereotypes and has negative effects on people who don’t match those stereotypes. What about women who aren’t nurturing? Or men who are?
See? Negative effects for both men and women. Men afraid of the consequences of being seen as feminine, and women afraid of the consequences of not meeting cultural expectations. You don’t see it as a moral defect to force people to meet a cultural ideal of their gender just because it’s what people believe? If society didn’t just assume men and women have these differences, maybe they would be happier they don’t have to match cultural expectations just because of their gender.
Sure, it doesn’t seem implausible… But how would you determine it? How would you control for the very real noticeable cultural effects to prove your biological disposition? And why would you ever put that aspect BEFORE the cultural ones as Harris did. He went straight towards the biological, passing over the culture.
And seriously, when anybody brings up the only 5% of CEOs in fortune 500 companies and asks how much is really due to sexism, and how much is due to biology, they are not asking from a position that’s truly curious about the ratio. It’s a way to dismiss the difference and say it’s because of biology. And that’s the context of Sam Harris’s statement.
I’m not here to defend every argument that Harris has ever made. I simply raised an objection to the way his views were being construed here.
Well then, permission rescinded!
More effort maybe, but hardly more thought. All I did was give examples of what seems obvious when one reads all the relevant articles. It is nice to see that you at least made it as far as the second paragraph though.
strange praise
I don’t think it has to have those effects. But you do raise legitimate concerns about how we interpret facts about human nature, or nature in general, and assimilate it into our cultures.
This says more about sexism itself than it says about the consequences of assumptions about biology. Just because some traits are biologically determined to be more common in one or another gender does not mean that we should ever base cultural norms this. Boys should be free to identify as girls and girls as boys. Nature doesn’t tell us how we should be, only what we are or could be. But in almost no case would I think obfuscating scientific truths for anticipated beneficent social effects is either right or necessary.
I’m not advocating forcing people to conform to any cultural ideal of gender. I don’t believe there is such a thing as an ideal. I don’t think we should just assume these differences either. I think we should try to understand the true nature of the differences and use that understanding to overcome whatever obstacles (biological or social) might be standing in the way of moving toward a equitable culture.
How would we determine it? The same way we’ve been determining this stuff. Concurrent cultural influences haven’t stopped us from learning a lot about the roles of neurotransmitters, for example, on cognition and emotion. The problem is that even these “very real noticeable cultural effects” are not completely obviously cultural. There are all kinds of weird quirks in psychology that are totally counter intuitive.
I thought the context was that Harris was trying to clarify his views. He probably isn’t all that curious about the actual ratio, it’s true. But I don’t think he was using the example to make claims about biology either. His point, or so I think, was to argue that there is a combination of factors, one of which he acknowledges to be sexism.
Strange praise for strange praise.
And those biologically determined more-common-in-one-gender traits that are ‘just because’ are…. which ones exactly? With evidence thereof?
And what of us women who are both very nurturing AND aggressive? I can raise bottle-baby kittens with the best of them and I don’t put up with someone telling me that atheism as-is probably isn’t attractive to me because it’s not in line with my supposedly delicate sensibilities and dainty ways.
Fuck. That. Noise.
Girls are taught very early on, culturally and overtly, to be demure, to avoid conflict. We’re trained to apologise a lot in every day conversations. Look up on youtube the sorry, not sorry campaign from pantene. Watching that was a bit of a shock because it made me realise how damn often I use “sorry!” in my language for any sort of inconvenience to another, or even when someone inconveniences me! And I very specifically do NOT hear men using this incredibly frequent apologetic verbal habit.
With that sort of societal training from the time we can pretty much talk, how the hell can anyone say that women don’t like confrontation because estrogen? And, of course, there’s the lovely consequences of being outspoken, the mildest of which is to be called a bitch.
So fuck Harris for telling me I don’t do critical thinky while he engages in thoughtless commentary. Fuck that sideways, right into the damn pacific ocean.
Chowderhead 324
And yet it does, just ask a woman over 35 without kids, or one who dare says she doesn’t want kids, but I don’t, I live in this world where I’m repeatedly told about my “biological clock.” So it doesn’t help to pile on assumptions about biology we can’t prove yet. And I’m especially leery when these assumptions about biology “just so happen” to match the reasoning that has been used for centuries to keep women out of intellectual circles.
Hmmm… Almost no case? Which case would it be OK in your opinion and why?
Yet you defend someone who isn’t “trying to understand” but did just assume the differences. He assumed the differences and presented no evidence.
Can you be specific?
But people don’t choose examples out of nowhere, for no reason. He picked one with a huge difference. One that is used often to point out sexism in society. That wasn’t an accident. One that wasn’t about interests or beliefs, but about essentially attaining wealth and power. Basically saying that no matter what, women will not reach the stature of men because of biology. (I said no matter what because even if sexism is gone, biology would keep them lower).
And let’s look at his framing and word choice leading up to his CEO example…
See? This is already working under the assumption that men’s proper place is on top. Because even if there was no sexism, the difference in “social status” would be similar, just less extreme. It’s interesting how all these biological factors always seem to be used to prop up the status quo in some way? Maybe sexism is a bigger factor than bio differences. Maybe sexism is countering biological factors and when sexism is gone, there’d be more women CEOs. Is that a possibility worth exploring?
The playing field started with 100% to 0% when women got to play. How about we wait until even the rules are fair before we start speculating about who has more skill?
chowderhead,
Bring me some facts about humans which are supported by hard science. Then bring me some facts about humans in groups which are supported by the social sciences, as long as they include both comparative and longitudinal studies. Then remove from that bundle anything claimed by a scientist which is not actually supported by the relevant science – there’s an awful lot that about.
Then and only then can we talk about the genuinely interesting bits. Why do most stereotypes operate as though gender were binary, when it is not? Where is the economic benefit in preselecting people for lifetime roles while they are infants when we have no idea what skills we will need or where the technology will take us in 7 or 8 decades?
I have been trying to follow your thinking but I suspect you may just be very confused. For instance, can you point us to a single inherent difference which falls on that imaginary binary distinction and which predates socialisation? That’s the test, not how many ways you can find to describe an unproven and sometimes destructive hypothesis.
In the meantime, here a couple of educational video clips which I hope you’ll actually watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IGVxBb5uYk
http://rhrealitycheck.org/video/2014/05/01/neil-degrasse-tyson-racism-sexism-science-field/
chowderhead
Because you’re making godsdamn unfounded assumptions about men and women without having a tiny shred of credible evidence, pushing for the same, millenia old misogynist sterotypes.
I can’t really make it any clearer than that.
Sure, you’re just holding views that align perfectly with male supremacy, used to subjugate women, to push them out of the magically better paid professions, to dismiss them and treat them as less than human, but where’s the problem with that?
Do you make the same arguments about black people?
Oh, you don’t think so? That’s nice. Funny thing, we have the data. Google godsdamn “stereotype threat”. Get an education before you want to discuss sex and gender with people who are actually knowledgable on the subject.
You really know nothing and that’s probably not even half of it. Gender roles are completely distinct from gender identity. Stop writing shit because you are actively harming people with that.
No, you don’t, because you start with the foregone conclusion that part of it is based on biology without having the slightest bit of data to support it. That’s not scientific, that’s not critical, that’s sexist.
Mysterious handwaiving.
Unpopular?
Being a war-mongering racist who has essentialist views about men and women is so fucking mainstream that the only thing is missing is indeed religion or he could make it presidential candidate.
Benevolent sexism for the win!
Well, here’s an idea: if you’re so completely incompetent on a given subject that you can’t even recogise that two of your three factors are the same and that the third one has all the evidence of Nessie behind it, you shouldn’t open your mouth in the first place. That’s not only true for Harris.
Look what I said above: just shut up. We’ve had this, time after time again. Search for HJ Hornbeck’s videos where he reviews the studies, read Delusions of Gender and just stop making shit up because it “seems” to you. It also seems like the sun moves around the earth, but that doesn’t make it real either, not even likely.
Huh? I don’t even understand what you mean by “sexual preference”? Heterosexuality?
Chowderhead, you, like Harris, presuppose claims about gender differences. Until you, like Harris, provide links to the academic/scientific literature showing those differences are real and meaningful, especially with regards to ultimate brain function, and can show that those differences are linked to genetics, and not social conditioning and very plastic human brain, your unevidenced claims are dismissed without evidence. Your arguments aren’t evidence, nor is your word alone. Those arguments are your rationalization for your inane evidenceless beliefs.
<blockquote cite=""My criticism of Islam . . . is largely inspired by my concern for women.
It’s cute that Harris thinks the American war machine can save Muslim women from Muslim men, but he’s spectacularly wrong.
vaiyt
Ahhh, but don’t you know, when the regrettable but inevitable nukes are dropped on some predominantly muslim nation, those will be smart bombs that will only kill muslim men (say, over the age of 5. First graders are enemy combatants) while the muslim women will then trow off all their clothes and throw themselves naked at their white liberators.
Because, you know, no woman, especially no muslim woman, especially no muslim woman in an area occupied by the USA was ever raped by a US soldier or mercenary.
chowderheadd @322 (notice how I use your nym and comment number to indicate who and what comment I’m responding to? You ought to try it):
::shrugs::
I read the whole thing and I commented on what I wanted to. It was late and I was tired, so I went to sleep after that.
I didn’t know that I had to respond to everything you said. I thought I was just pointing out that you weren’t addressing the arguments.
chowderhead @324:
If you’d listen to the experiences of women, you’d realize that your “thinking” in this case is not accurate. You’re looking at the world and trying to understand shit through the lens of your experiences, rather than trying to understand how other people view the world*.
This would be the point where you check your privilege and then stop talking about sexism (for a while) and listen to what women say (and I’m not speaking of just this thread).
You could go start your education process here:
http://everydayfeminism.com/
or here:
http://usa.everydaysexism.com/
or here
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/
No, these don’t all specifically relate to the issues Sam Harris is ignorantly talking about, but they do relate to the wider culture of sexism in the US. Reading about the stories and the studies at those links, with an eye to understanding the experiences of others-which will differ, in many cases dramatically, from yours-can be helpful in understanding how sexism affects and shapes men and women.
*Do you listen to black people when they tell you about their experiences with racist police officers?
Do you listen to Muslims when they relate stories of Islamophobia?
Do you listen to LGBT people talk about how it fucking sucks to be treated like a second class citizen?
If and when you listen to these groups, do you believe them? Or do you discount their experiences bc they don’t match how you view the world?
Radioactive Elephant:
:Raises Hand: I’m 56.5 years old and happily childfree. I decided I never wanted sprogs when I was one, and that never changed. Never wanted them, never had them, but still had to listen to horseshit about it for most of my life.
Funny, the condescending and self-righteous tone you all take, assuming that I’ve never even heard of racism, sexism, or homophobia. Amazing, the inferences that you all are making based on fuck-all information about me. It’s absolutely adorable that you all assume that I am a heterosexual, white male.
You don’t know who I am. You don’t know who my friends are. You don’t know which books I’ve read, or what kind of perspective I may or may not have gained from others. You don’t what the “lens of [my] experience” is like. Not even close.
Let me spell this shit out: Sexism and misogyny are wrong. Racism is wrong. Homophobia is wrong. Stigmatizing individuals because they do not fit into cultural stereotypes is wrong. Excluding individuals, expecting conformity to gender-based norms, or limiting their choices based on stereotypes is wrong. All of these things are wrong no matter what the basis for our differences are, whether they are completely socially developmental or completely biologically determined.
That said, I obviously made a mistake, wading into this cesspit. “You’re either with us or you’re with the misogynists,” is the message I’m getting here. That’s some pretty riveting shit, very impressive. Even the least vitriolic responses to different views on here (not just mine), have been laced with hasty and pejorative inferences about the character and identity of those expressing the views. You should consider whether you are doing the cause of feminism any favors by being rude, overly judgmental fuck faces.
Lastly, there is a ton of evidence in neuroscience research showing physical differences in male vs female brains that are GENETICALLY based. You can start here, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20951723 . Acknowledging this fact does not make one culpable for real misogyny.
Ok, bye.
Chowderhead
We can read what you write, that’s what you get judged on.
Bye, don’t let the door hit you and bless your heart
chowderhead #336
Your very first comment in this thread:
“You’re not freethinkers!”
“You’re neither charitable nor rational!”
“You’re just bashing
GodSam Harris so you can feel smug!”“You’re taking him out of context!”
“I bet you’ve never even heard of logic!”
That’s all the information I needed, fucker. Door, arse, don’t, the, smack, in, you, the, let.
awww, did someone’s fee fees get hurted?
Chowderhead was right about one thing: I was operating under the assumption that they were male (based on all the red flags being raised) which was based on their presentation here, but was wrong of me.
I do have to wonder why they took offense to my comment about the lens of experience. It’s clear from the way they were commenting that they were looking at the world through their own experiences, which is fine to a point. But when you start trying to understand the world around you, especially human behavior, you canNOT rely solely upon the way you see things. The other people in the world? Their experiences matter too. FFS, supporting Harris’ views in this thread, as chowderhead has been doing is telling women that their experiences with sexism are not real! How is that looking at the world through the lens of others’ experiences (which what I was suggesting)?!
It’s like chowderhead couldn’t understand the point I was making here:
That’s means writing doesn’t necessarily represent a person’s own views accurately. Yet despite this limitation, you seem to believe you have some secret knowledge of what Harris really means. And somehow the rest of us, reading the same shit, must be wrong. Not a likely proposition, to say the least, not something you can rest on comfortably without demonstrating in some way or another that you’re correct…. which you don’t bother to do. I’m sure there’s some arcane principle or another that you could summon, which makes that seem reasonable; but I have to admit I can’t think of one at the moment.
Do you actually care about the shit you’re writing? How do you get this knowledge? Are you doing anything other than reading what Harris writes? For example, are you assuming he’s a great guy, who does great shit and says the things you want him to be saying? I ask because none of that is in evidence, so how else would you get such information?
Instead of presuming to teach us about the basic of classical logic and rhetoric and so forth, perhaps you should’ve bothered to first make the specific point you think is worth addressing, while supporting it with something other than your own pretentious bullshit.
Enjoy your flounce.
@ chowderhead
Stop right there. You need to think about this. You came into this thread and attacked Harris’s critics without evidence. Don’t pretend choosing not to defend Harris matters when you still felt the need to “mark some territory” in the social sense and provided no substance. I will judge you based on actions. I have no faith.
Seriously. Your first point actually relevant to the OP contains other signs of bad faith (I will look at the point next).
You did not disregard anything. You literally regarded it as mentioning in a suggestive way. That is lying to me. You say you are disregarding what you are actually regarding rhetorically. Stop acting dishonest if you want to be engaged with as if you are honest. One can be honest and use rhetorical flourishes.
As for your first point,
Why did you cite Harris’s explanation for the paragraph that is offending people more? We see that as an excuse for the original offensive remarks.
***
This is what you need to be able to explain to us chowderhead. When I see this it is not simply a “… perception that there is a gender imbalance among active atheists.” or a joke. This is dismissing one’s critics because of an assumption that women are not as good at being critical because of estrogen. That is sexist. That matches PZ’s “We understood exactly what you said, which is that actively engaged atheists are men, because reasons.” I went and followed the reasons and found some sewage. PZ could have been harsher and still quite defendable.
If PZ had not skipped over Harris mentioning that he did not actually know the sex ratios of his audience that would not have saved him. Harris still made ugly assumptions based on what he is admitting is a biased perception. This makes Harris look worse.
1. You did not explain why it was inaccurate.
2. Suggesting that PZ might engage in forgeries is well-poisoning. Try to stop the fallacious behavior.
You did it again. You cited Harris’s excuses about what he said. Go look at the thing I marked with a “***” again. He suggested that women can’t think as critically as men. He chose the theme of a “critical posture” and he attached the idea of “… it doesn’t obviously have this nurturing, coherence-building extra estrogen vibe…”. You need to explain that.
Because Harris did not acknowledge social forces in his original comments.
You digression ignores Harris’s assumption that an “estrogen vibe” is worth assuming that his critics are worth dismissing. That matters.
If you actually look at the “***” quote from Harris, yes he did “…clearly place the blame for the situation on the essential natures of women, rather than recognizing that it’s a consequence of the social environment…”. And again you ignore Harris’s earlier comment that caused the offence, and point to something else. PZ does not have to mention nice things that Harris has done when talking about bad behavior. That is literally changing the subject.
This is essentially the logic of Dear Muslima. People here at FTB are criticizing problems they have with the atheist community. Instead of actually showing he understands the criticism even just to disagree with them, Harris simply asserts that people should not be outraged at their problems because of worse things “over there”. NO.
cr @341:
I can: intent :)
For the hard-of-reading, here’s the first line from the abstract chowderhead linked:
Sex-specific illnesses and disorders. Therefore … women are averse to arguments, confrontation, etc.?
And no, there’s nothing else, which would indicate a relevant finding buried somewhere deep in that paper.
WTF?
Jackie @259
Loved that comment.
And yes, it’s perfectly possible to nurture the kids and write sarcastic, unnurturing comments online, at the same time (more or less).
*high five*
I know it’s a stretch, but I was thinking one could cite either the Principle of Sufficient Laziness or maybe the classic Cogito, ergo caput mea in ano.
Confrontation is a sex-specific illness? Good to know.
Chowderhead confuses subtle anatomical difference with a large difference in manifestation of attitudes, totally ignoring the plasticity of the human brain and cultural learning.
For example, Einstein’s brain had tell-tale signs he played a musical instrument (violin) as a child. In fact, this is common feature of those who learn to play musical instruments as children. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything else. Both the Redhead and I might have that particular brain structure, since we both played flute from elementary school through college.
Two can play that game Chowderhead…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11116893
“Gender in the brain. A critical scrutiny of the biological gender differences”
chowderhead #366
Absolute correct. All we can do is make judgments according to what you write. And that’s what people have done. If you don’t like the judgments they’ve reached, maybe you should look more closely at what you’re written.
And those differences that you can provide actual evidence for, we’re happy to accept. However, that doesn’t mean we’ll accept any claim to inherent gender differences. We’re not that gullible, you know.
It’s a demonstrable fact that the majority of traits proposed as inherently gendered have turned out not to be. For that reason, any new claim of inherent difference should be taken with a shovelful of salt. Certainly, any such claim made without evidence is a priori unlikely to be true.
So, if you’ve got a specific claim you want to advance, cite the evidence for it. However, you don’t get to cite general evidence for a specific claim. That’s not a rational approach, as anyone who bothers to think about it for two seconds will realize.
A specific claim requires specific evidence; and a claim advanced without evidence and on a subject that has historically been fraught with false claims should be summarily rejected.
No, no, no. This is being uncharitable. The nearest thing to a “reasonable” interpretation is apparently supposed to be that there exist biological differences between sexes, which of course implies people like chowderhead get to invent as many of them as they want. For them, “close” doesn’t only count in horseshoes and hand grenades; you get points for sexist bullshit too.
Anyway, they do this constantly, so I’m sure if they keep trying, something will eventually stick. Then, we’ll all look so very, very stupid. But on the bright side, they will “win” the “debate,” which means maybe they’ll finally shut the fuck up. I’m so excited, I just can’t wait.
and a mind-reading one, at that. [/sarc]
@yubal
I’ve truly no idea why you’d think I claimed sexism is unique to the atheist movement. There is something more general to the “women don’t participate”; and it’s sexism. There’s plenty of studies showing that leadership positions simply aren’t as attainable to women, both because of socialization and because of actual hurdles thrown in women’s way. That doesn’t only hold for atheism, but it’s very blatantly obvious in atheism.
@chowderhead
that’s sad all by itself. Harris has not been very good at thinking clearly on so many varied topics.
no, he’s certainly not SIMPLY one; he’s very verbosely and byzantinely one.
seeing as it’s not relevant to the point of “why”, of course he skips over it. it’s not relevant that harris admits to be making his explanations for phenomena he doesn’t even know for sure exists, because that’s not what PZ criticizes him for (tho it certainly is criticizable); it also doesn’t actually help Harris’ case that he’s making his explanations even though he doesn’t even know if the phenomenon he’s explaining even exists; so that hardly counts as a quotemine, since it doesn’t change the meaning of the quote any.
excuse me? it’s a full and direct quote. and you’ve STILL not actually shown what’s misleading or “inaccurate” about this quote.
do you understand that “innate” and “intrinsic” are synonyms here? aside from that, how exactly am I to understand “intrinsically male” if not as “intrinsically male”? if something is intrinsic, it’s not cultural. I understand Harris is trying to weasel out by handwaving that comment and claiming that since we don’t know which parts are intrinsic and which are cultural, we shouldn’t criticize him for having said “intrinsically male” and blaming dislike of his writing on the nurturing nature of women. But again: at no point does Harris even admit that he might be wrong about “nurturing” being a female thing. He just handwaves it.
lolnope. he continues to remind Harris that his original statement didn’t acknowledge these social forces, and that he’s not actually admitted to having done wrong by not acknowledging them. There’s a difference.
because it’s a false belief that has the effect of calcifying socially constructed gender roles as inevitable.
who the fuck said anything about “moral defects”? It’s a belief the expression of which promotes discrimination based on sex, AKA sexism; that’s what makes it sexist; it’s sexist because of its effects.
the point is not that it’s not plausible, the point is that as an active belief it is unsubstantiated nonsense that serves gender discrimination.
benevolent sexism is still sexism. women and the feminine don’t belong on pedestals, either.
yes. that’s what claiming something as “intrinsically male” and connecting its opposite to estrogen means. that he might not have meant to do this is irrelevant to whether he actually did or not.
that’s because, again, Harris DID deny them in his original comment; and he’s still not acknowledging that he did this, which is what PZ is criticizing him for.
1)that’s because PZ is still trying to explain to Harris that he’s still not acknowledged that he did in fact erase social explanations in his original statement.
2)this Harris quote? it’s actually more denial of culturally designed sexism. Because those “disproportionate (and heroic) sacrifices” are sexism; and so are “normally distributed psychological differences between the sexes” (he’s basically back to asserting psychological differences as intrinsic, when they’re demonstrably not).
So in any case: quoting a passage in which not only Harris STILL doesn’t acknowledge how he fucked up in the original interview, AND in which he actually once again re-asserts his denial of social conditioning in multiple arenas, would not change anything about PZ’s point. So, still not a quotemine.
except of course for the part where he asserts that childcare distribution and psychology are somehow separate from sexism, you mean?
I see. You also think those are not culturally determined issues. That would certainly explain why you’re so fucking dense about what exactly Harris is being criticized for.
So again: PZ is trying to point out to Harris that his ORIGINAL statement denies social influences, something Harris neither acknowledges nor apologizes for. Further, Harris REPEATS the denialism in various forms, form asserting nurturing as a female quality to asserting that the disproportionate burden of childcare and gendered differences in human psychology are distinctly separate from sexist socialization.
incorrect. PZ’s bone of contention is that Harris doesn’t acknowledge what he did wrong.
because they don’t contradict PZ’s criticism.
asserting specific traits as innate is sexist; it has sexist effects.
did no one explain to you that sexual preferences are something different from sex? aside from that: we can only say that some part of it seems innate, but we can’t pick out which parts; sexual orientation seems to have some innate parts(but even that is heavily socially constructed), whereas other sexual preferences seem entirely cultural. We don’t have any evidence that pinpoints very specific aspects of sex or sexual preferences as definitely innate and not cultural.
plausible is not the same as true.
if his false belief causes harm? of course.
yes; and everyone also has held harmful beliefs about human nature, just like PZ points out in the OP. and?
[citation needed].
dude. intentions and relevance are not the same thing. We get that Harris INTENDS to use a different topic to cover for his fuckup here, but that doesn’t actually make his stance on Islam RELEVANT to his fuckup here.
nope.
your ignorance has been noted. You’re empirically wrong though. Asserting gender roles as innate differences has demonstrably slowed down the deconstruction of those gender roles. And it continues to do so now; the same is true for the assertion of specific innate differences between the races and the innateness of the American nuclear cis heterosexual family-structure.
that’s cute, but that still assumes that these differences exist and are consistent with currently expressed differences. Also, it’s not really relevant whether the beliefs SHOULD have that effect; they do. And because they do while not being demonstrably true, they’re sexist.
I think you’re confused about something here; we were discussing “feminine” men and “masculine” women, not trans people. I hope you’re aware that there’s a difference.
um. learning about neurotransmitters doesn’t tell us anything about whether something is innate or cultural. the only way we have at the moment for figuring out whether something is cultural is by changing the culture and seeing if the trait is affected. For example, gender differences in math scores correlate to the oppression of women, and they disappear in less sexist cultures. What we don’t have a tool for is for eliminating the possibility of cultural influence, because we have no control group from a culture in which sexism doesn’t exist.
how do you think you know this?
except for the fact that all the factors he listed are sexism, but he blithely pretended otherwise. Point is: he’s steadfastly refusing to acknowledge what he did.
I only have access to the abstract, but NOTHING in that abstract deals with gendered behaviors. It’s about illnesses.
oh yeah, that’s the other sexism-thing: because patriarchal gendering requires two distinct and opposite genders, qualities stereotyped as belonging to one are treated as opposites to qualities stereotyped as belonging to the other; so you get “nurturing” vs. “angry”, “emotional” vs “rational”, etc.
which is bullshit.
We can’t be both? Has anyone told Sarah Palin that “Momma Grizzly” is a myth? Or should that be a mythus?
Anyway, what Rowan said. And Jadehawk, and rq, and the rest of you. Thank you.
@chowderhead
Then why do you waste your damn time trying to argue in favor of Sam Harris? He doesn’t agree with you. His argument is crystal clear: the status quo is not something to be corrected, because it’s an expected result of hormonal differences.
What evidence he has for that, I wonder? That’s right, jack shit.
You swallowed his bullshit because your internalized sexism makes you assume he’s right.
Good riddance.
I noticed that in response to Nerd’s
Chowderhead posted:
This is a review paper, and in the abstract it pays no attention to developmental plasticity at all. It simply finds that there are some statistical brain differences between “all females” and “all males” (but note that even when this is how it is described, I’ve never once seen such a study designed to exclude intersex folk or that even lists intersex folk or unidentified trans* folk as possible confounds, though hopefully such studies do exist), and proceeds to assume the differential genetic products of X and Y chromosomes are responsible in toto.
It’s like chowderhead hasn’t even learned to read.
wait, that’s it? it’s not about genetics at all, it’s about observable differences?
*sigh*
I had thought this would be about e.g. following specific mutations and their links to diseases and how the prevalence or symptoms of the diseases vary by sex/gender.
oh wait, i only just now noticed that that article is free in its entirety. I’m gonna go see wtf it’s about.
ok, so in order we have:
1)sex differences in the structure of brains of rats, usually explained via hormonal differences rahter than genetics; no links to observable behavioral differences.
2)sex differences in neurotransmission of brains of humans & rats, usually linked to hormones rather than genetics; no mention of specific observable behavioral differences, tho it seems some are implied?
bonus: “Nevertheless, differences in this system likely have consequences given the link between serotonin and numerous mental disorders” *epic side-eye*
3)observable psychological/behavioral differences, this time completely unlinked to hormones or genetics.
bonus: “Furthermore, there is a large sex difference in sexual interests and behaviors, such as interest in casual sex, interest in multiple sex partners, and interest in visual-sexual stimuli (e.g., pornography)” *moar side-eye*
4)birds. fucking birds. in birds, sex is cell autonomous; this is fucking irrelevant to placental mammals, where it isn’t.
5)finally something interesting. an experiment on mice where they made XY mice with ovaries and XX mice with testes. one structural difference (no link to any behaviors); one very general (habit-formation) behavioral link; one link that shows estrogen + XX make rats slower to show aggression at first encounter.
6)actually what I thought this was going to be about, i.e. genes and the prevalence of diseases.
7)long-ass discussion about sexual orientation that amounts to “for gay men,maybe genes, a bit, but it’s complicated; for women, we don’t know”.
8)discussion of trans brains, admitting that it’s hard to tell because hormone therapy and tiny sample sizes.
*epic side-eye*
they may augment, but the examples you provide shows the opposite? what is this.
what. is. this.
there’s too much crap in there for me to know how seriously I can take the stuff were I can’t know whether it’s crap. But literally the only thing in there that might be relevant to this topic is the rat study about aggression… which is tricky because we already know testosterone in humans doesn’t actually cause aggression but rather status seeking, so we know that’s not directly translatable to humans… so…?
@jadehawk:
And even if it were somewhat relatable to humans, there’s no reason to believe that developmental plasticity doesn’t alter that effect.
moreover, it’s fucking testosterone, not a gene.
Finally: Fuck everyone who tries to use trans* folk to uphold their pet theories where there simply is no fucking evidence. Specifically including: Ngun TC, Ghahramani N, Sánchez FJ, Bocklandt S, and Vilain E.
Orange Zero,
#103
No. This is what happens when educated fanatics start a club. Deviation from approved doctrine will not be accepted, good intentions be damned. Blasphemers must repent or face public crucifixion.
(Let this be a warning against adopting any closed system of thought. )
nice twist on cross hauling, Dude.
still cross hauling though.
does the Dude abide?
I think not.
That’s just, like, your opinion, man. @363:
I just love these empty headed criticisms.
;)
What does this mean?
the troll is trying to imply everyone here is close minded.
confused troll is confused.
Yeah.
But if the system is ‘closed’, how do I get into it?
or do I build my own and close it behind me?
Maybe the troll also misuses the 2nd law of thermodynamics just like creationists and assumes a closed system where there is none?
Nononono, that’s stoning, and it’s only if you say Jehovah.
That’s just, like, your opinion, man. @ 363
I’ll keep that in mind if I ever get the urge to accuse people who disagree with me of crucifying me without making any attempt to show them how they’re wrong or consider whether I might be wrong.
2kittehs
JEHOVAH!
…
Funny thing, nothing happened. Is your system online?
rq
*throws stone from back of crowd*
*ducks*
*runs*
PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE SMILEY FACE
So, here’s Harris’ estrogen vibe comment. In jest? You decide
Need a link, not an embedded video….
Nope, not in jest. Still transparently sexist, though. And frankly, does it change one bit if it was meant to be a joke?
@377
Harris’ estrogen vibe comment
Yeah, it’s hilarious. He has great comedic timing. And the punchline is … uh … I forgot what it is.
Who cares if Harris thought it was in jest?
If it was meant to be a joke, then women are still a punchline of the joke and you don’t get to make jokes about the oppression of others on stage, punching down, without being rightfully called an asshole.
For an atheist, you seem to like that cross way too much.
It could only work as humor if it were sarcasm. There’s no evidence that it is so, and plenty in the contrary.
Harris sez:
Nope, I don’t hear that tone. Oddly, I don’t hear the laugh, either. Which makes the above, erm… what’s the word? Oh yeah, a lie.
@383
Yeah. That would be the word.
Not really a case of Boorstein taking things out of context, is it?
I’m wondering if this woman who came up to him at his booksigning existed? I expect she did. In Sam’s head, that is.
I really like how the Brave Defenders of Harris/Dawkins come into these threads and prove all the critics wrong.*
* In exactly the same way as in other discussions of feminism, the dudebros continue to prove why feminism is needed.
Greetings,
Harris seems to have a problem with communicating his ideas – despite those who claim that he’s “clear” in doing so.
He comes across as someone who opines on a issue on a objective/intellectual level, whilst being completely oblivious of how what he says may come across on a number of subjective/emotional levels. He keeps doing this throughout his various books – from The End of Faith to The Moral Landscape.
Like his idea on profiling Muslims to combat the latest form of terrorism without realising its anti-sephardic – nevermind anti-Islamic – connotations.
In defending such statements, he may well have not meant that – simply because he wasn’t thinking of it/them from that particular perspective at all. He’s seeing things from a narrow intellectual perspective and inevitably ends up putting his foot in it – and then shoves his foot further down his throat in defending his statements.
I can’t help but be reminded of the Star Trek TOS episode, “The Galileo Seven”, where a perplexed Spock reviews the logic of his reasoning behind his command to attempt to frighten the hostile life-forms away, rather than kill them, when McCoy responds, “Did it ever occur to you that they might react emotionally, with anger?”.
Kindest regards,
James
Sounds likely. After all, despite thinking that his style alienates women, he hasn’t “spent even five minutes thinking about how or whether to modify [his] writing or speaking style”.
Those are not the words of a deep intellectual thinker, nor a competent communicator. It’s the response of a person who speaks from a shallow understanding and then reacts defensively when challenged; a person entirely too used to speaking from his gut and having his opinions accepted without critique.
I don’t think Harris is a bad person. Not really. I just think he’s been given a free ride for so long that he’s gotten very lazy. He desperately needs more people who will tell him when he’s wrong.