About that Science article on ‘science stars of Twitter’

As always seems to happen, people looked at the list which already had the problem of being grossly skewed towards men, and noticed other odd little things. Like, “hey, I follow this science person who has more followers than so-and-so, why isn’t she on the list?” Clearly, there were errors of omission, and oddly, they all seem to skew away from women and people of color. Or maybe not so oddly — it’s striking how often that seems to happen.

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I’m a very wealthy man in many ways

I have discovered the key to great riches: all I have to do is get someone famous to accuse me of being “click-baity” and trolling for cash, and in a strangely perverse turn, people start freely donating to me. Just today, I’ve been given $500 via the donate box in the sidebar! I was surprised, and I thank those of you who donated very much. So I thought I’d tell you all what I’m going to do with it.

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“a professional responsibility to get the facts straight”

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.

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Dear Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins: you’re wrong. Deeply, profoundly, fundamentally wrong. Your understanding of feminism is flawed and misinformed, and further, you keep returning to the same poisonous wells of misinformation. It’s like watching creationists try to rebut evolution by citing Kent Hovind; do you not understand that that is not a trustworthy source? It’s a form of motivated reasoning, in which you keep returning to those who provide the comfortable reassurances that your biases are actually correct, rather than challenging yourself with new perspectives.

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The crooked, twisted story of the wanton kid

It’s always the changing story that gives the liar away. We have a couple of accounts of the night in question, when Michael Shermer is accused of taking advantage of a young woman at a conference, and both of them come straight from Shermer himself. Here’s the story from Shermer written shortly after the event.

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Here we go again

Mark Oppenheimer has published an article to blow open the sexism scandals — Will Misogyny Bring Down The Atheist Movement? And whoa, Michael Shermer does not come off well in it.

This bit is more than a little disturbing:

“Shermer has been a bad boy on occasion — I do know that,” Randi told me. “I have told him that if I get many more complaints from people I have reason to believe, that I am going to have to limit his attendance at the conference.

“His reply,” Randi continued, “is he had a bit too much to drink and he doesn’t remember. I don’t know — I’ve never been drunk in my life. It’s an unfortunate thing … I haven’t seen him doing that. But I get the word from people in the organization that he has to be under better control. If he had gotten violent, I’d have him out of there immediately. I’ve just heard that he misbehaved himself with the women, which I guess is what men do when they are drunk.”

I’m glad I’ll be off in Fargo this weekend when the howling mob descends.

That was really quick. Both Ashley Miller and Stephanie Zvan already have substantial comments on the article. (We obviously knew it was coming — we were interviewed for it — but didn’t know what the overall tenor of the story was going to be. I think they prepared ahead of time.)

After sleeping on it, one of the things I like about the article is that it quotes extensively from both sides: not just me and Alison and other people on the anti-misogyny side, but also Shermer himself and Jillette and Emery, and those apologists come across as slimy, dissembling assholes in their own words. It’s a bit like a television police procedural, where all the bad guys indict themselves with their inconsistencies as soon as they open their mouths.

I’m not a big fan of how it portrays Melody — she’s been stressed out, but functioning anyway. She’s organized a couple of major conferences in this time! It could have also spent more time presenting Alison’s story and evidence…but then, I understand that this was not a court case, but an opportunity to discuss the positions of both sides.