The depth of CFI’s commitment to free speech can only be measured with an atomic force microscope

I have to share this public post by Kavin Senapathy because, by the time I got to the fourth paragraph, I’d facepalmed myself into an angry stupor and was feeling really pissed off at CFI. How can Robyn Blumner and CFI kick themselves in their own asses so hard? It ought to be anatomically impossible, but there they go.

I have an update about how the Center for Inquiry and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry have reacted to my recent Undark essay (https://undark.org/2020/02/20/center-for-inquiry-race-pseudoscience/) in which I criticize their indifference to matters of race, racist pseudoscience, and the white supremacy among their ranks.

Wait for it …

Within days, they removed all of my Skeptical Inquirer articles and my Point of Inquiry episodes from their website.

That’s right, my writing on things like quack autism “cures,” spurious birth practices including lotus birth, the “breast is best” mantra, pesticides, alternative medicine, mom guilt, and more have been unpublished. My podcast interviews with people like Carl Zimmer, Angela Saini, Massimo Pigliucci, Paul Offit, Adam Conover, Alison Bernstein, Iida Ruishalme, Claire Klingenberg, Sarah Taber, Susan Gerbic, Jen Gunter, and more on everything from MSG to OCD to the alarming resurgence of race science have also been removed from their website in apparent retaliation.

I’m not angry about this. I am bewildered, especially because CFI CEO Robyn Blumner is a self-styled “free-speech purist.”

Still, I’m not surprised— erasure and hypocrisy are among the most tried and true tools of white supremacy. As I wrote in my essay, “The most insidious white supremacy doesn’t carry tiki torches of festering hatred. It comes from well-meaning people who nevertheless uphold power structures with whiteness at the top.”

Skeptics: To those without the power to stand up to this as loudly as you’d like to— I see you and I respect you. To those with the power to stand up to this, I encourage you to do so. I also trust that, when you look at yourself in the mirror, you know which camp you belong in.

A particularly telling part of this is that Blumner has been sending emails in which she attempts to disparage me using, of all examples, an excerpt from this post (https://www.facebook.com/kavin.senapathy/posts/10156420934416875):

“My atheist role models growing up were my parents and my uncle. Today, my non-religious role model is, above all others, me. I also have a gaggle of deeply good non-religious friends who, amazingly, found their way to a non-religious belief system without ever reading a sentence by one ridiculous man whose name rhymes with Shmichard Schmawkins or his esteemed colleagues.

Honestly, none of these celebrated mediocre old white atheists are actually necessary. They’re not enlightened. They’re washed the fuck up. Yes, many people *have* found their way out of religion due to their work. But if you think that other brilliant non-religious thinkers who meet and surpass the abilities of these dudes don’t exist, then you live under a racist rock.”

I stand behind this statement.

I’m not sure what part is so particularly offensive, Robyn. My use of the word “white” isn’t the problem— it’s the racist, colonialism-tinged drivel that spews forth from Dawkins’ bigoted mouth and social media accounts.

It’s hard to see the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and Skeptical Inquirer reduced to a mere shell of the former pillars of skepticism that once inspired the formation of skeptical organizations stateside and around the world. It appears that certain individuals have infected CSI with their denialism and reductionist Newtonian worldview— a worldview in which “science and reason” can be neatly compartmentalized and isolated from sociopolitical forces. It’s cringeworthy and painful to witness. As one friend and ally put it, it seems that they’re afflicted with a terminal sclerosis.

All of that said, most of the responses to the Undark essay have been overwhelmingly positive. For instance, one award-winning science writer and woman of color who was invited to speak at CSIcon 2020 has informed CFI that she can’t make it this time, but “I would be happy to consider coming to speak at another time in the future if you would consider reinstating Kavin Senapathy, and also appointing more people of color to your board at the Center for Inquiry. Indeed, I’d be happy to join the board myself!”

This person is easily among those I most respect in the entire world and would make a fantastic addition to CFI’s Board. To see her email was a balm for my heart—I don’t want to be reinstated, but I do care, and ultimately still have hope that CFI’s skeptical soul isn’t beyond reviving.

I want to profusely thank all of the individuals and organizations that have shown support to me in the wake of all of this— for one, the Board of the European Council of Skeptical Organizations has stepped up to host all of the articles that have been removed. I appreciate it so very much and plan to take them up on it shortly.

To those still doing the hard work to try and change CFI, both from the inside and outside, you have all of my support. And to those still doing the hard work outside of CFI, you also have all of my support. Don’t hesitate to reach out if there’s something I could do to help; I’m extremely accessible.

We have work to do.

As I wrote, “Tackling these issues of race, diversity, and inclusion is hard, but worthwhile. And if legacy organizations like CFI refuse to confront these issues — both outwardly and within their own ranks — it’s reassuring to know that there’s a growing global community of skeptics who have shown willingness to heed the call. For the sake of the longevity of the skeptic’s movement, it is crucial that they — that we — succeed.”

I’ll sign off with a nod to *all* of the people who take a skeptical approach to their work on the front lines during this pandemic. I’m fairly certain that most who do skepticism well— that is, those who seek the bald-faced truth and strive to abide by it— call themselves things like “teacher,” “nurse,” “journalist,” “scientist,” “student,” “parent,” “Target cashier,” “delivery driver,” “friend,” and much more, and only some of them identify as skeptics. I truly believe that those who claim the badge of “skeptic” must tip our hats to all of the badasses out there who view science not just as a method, but as an integral part of the way they carry themselves in the world.

Oh, well. At least I bailed out of CFI and the skeptic movement 7 years ago. I haven’t regretted it since, it’s become a major shit-show.

That’s a bit too on the nose

I’m reading about the news from Italy, and here’s a dramatic scene for you: a line of army trucks hauling away coffins from Bergamo, where the crematoria are overwhelmed by the number of dead they have to deal with. It’s like a scene out of a disaster movie.

Then the mail was delivered here. Look what I got!

The local funeral home wants me to do some “advance planning”. Sorry, guys, bad timing. My plan right now is to have my corpse thrown into a military truck, driven to some remote spot, and flung into a mass grave and covered over by a bulldozer. Won’t cost me a thing!

All plans fail

But usually not this spectacularly. I’m teaching two courses this term, and had to throw out the syllabus and juggle everything around, so I’m going to be feeding them lectures on YouTube, adjusting the grading, etc., and have just now finished posting summaries to the students online.

Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development:

Genetics:

Those two videos lay out pretty much the same thing. The major difference is that genetics has a lab, and no, you can’t come in and do experiments. Even I have been told I can’t! So instead, I’m pulling up old data from previous years, and I’m presenting that to them as an exercise in analysis and summarizing an experiment.

This is no fun, but at least I’m getting a grip on how to carry on.

There’s a reason I don’t pharyngulate polls anymore

The cranks have gotten smarter. How could I possibly wreck this poll from Lou Dobbs?

On the one hand, Dobbs has “cleverly” made it impossible to participate in the poll without approving of Trump.

On the other hand, it’s ridiculous, and they’ve totally given up on the idea of using a poll to gather honest information, and they’ve reduced it to meaningless noise from the claque, which is what I was trying to show with bombing polls anyway.

So I win, I guess?

Bengal zebrafish

I miss working in a lab with a wall of fish tanks, the water gurgling, the little fishies darting about. It was rather soothing. Spiders have their charms, but they don’t dart, or flash, or move in swirling schools, they mainly just lurk. My lab is much quieter and dryer now.

I switched to spiders because I wanted an animal to study in their natural habitat, looking for interactions with other species. As it turns out, there was an alternative: I could have moved to the Bengal region of India, which is a magical place where the experimental animals frolic in great numbers in shallow ponds, and where I could be wading knee deep in warm waters while Danio rerio nibbles at my toes, like the Jutfelt lab is doing.

I was mesmerized by this video this morning, just lying in bed watching the lovely schools of zebrafish zipping around.


Wild zebrafish in India Jutfelt Lab from Fredrik Jutfelt on Vimeo.

Spiders don’t frolic, either. They do murder small arthropods, though, in a vicious and personal way, which might better fit my mood nowadays.

Socially Distant Hullabaloo!

I’m going to try again — a few friends and I will be trying to stream on YouTube tonight, at 7pm Central. Last time, I somehow botched the YouTube connection, but this time it might work. If it doesn’t, I’ll shut it down and restart and hope it all finally comes together.

Anyway, we’re just going to talk, drink, swear, weep, all the things I’m doing in private, only in public.

Hey, I actually got everything to work this time!

If schadenfreude were a panacea, we could all go back to work

Unfortunately, watching the frantic back-pedaling and sudden about face of loud conservatives is only good for entertainment value.

After mocking the coronavirus panic, Jerry Falwell Jr. has closed Liberty University.

Paula White, the venal “spiritual advisor” to Donald Trump, used a prayer meeting to beg for cash, and plugged a big evangelical event that would have “spiritual protections” against the coronavirus. The event has since been cancelled.

The Museum of the Bible spent a lot of money looting artifacts from the Middle East illegally. Now it’s been discovered that many of them are fakes.

After doing their best to downplay the pandemic, Fox News is now changing their tune and pretending they knew it all along.

It’s a sick sad world when we are watching everything crash and burn but can take some pleasure in seeing the assholes in flames, too.

My agenda for the Great Isolation

OK, world, buckling down. It’s time to get a whole lot of course development done in a few days. This is supposed to be my vacation, why am I looking at a scary pile of work?

  1. I have to spell out the new course routine for my students. What that is going to be is:
    • New course video at the start of each week. This will be delivered as both video and as a text script for bandwidth-limited students. The goal is to clearly spell out the concept they must understand that week, and give pointers to textbook material that covers the subject. These will be short, 15-20 minutes.

    • The syllabus is going out the window. There will be less testing, and more regular assignments. These assignments will also be given at the start of the week, and will be due a week later — I’m going to try to accommodate the new demands on our students’ time, so we all have to be flexible.

    • Exams will all be open book, open notes, open internet essay exams. This could be wonderful, or it could be painful. We’ll see.

    • Our regularly scheduled class meeting times will now be used as optional office hours via Zoom. I’ll just be hanging out in front of a camera with a whiteboard.

    • You can’t do Zoom at home? Fine, I’ll be giving out my email (they’ve already got that) and my cell phone number. I’ll be accessible, I hope they are.

  2. My first video and text page will be #1, above. I’ll be working on that for both my classes today.

  3. My second video and text will be a recap of the semester to date, with explicit references to the textbook and the battery of pdf files already on Canvas. With this abrupt shift in narrative style I have to at least nod in the direction of continuity. I should have that done by the end of the week.

  4. Then, over the weekend, I have to assemble the first new videos+text. In my introductory biology course, we’ve just begun the basic genetics section, so this will be an overview of Mendelian problem solving; in Genetics, this will be an introduction linkage and linkage mapping. (Whenever I teach these two together, this is always a problem: I have to simultaneously teach a gentle review of the basics to first year students, and a full-on mathy in-depth deep dive to the seniors. I have nightmares about mixing them up.)

  5. I still have to work around the details of the online lab — the announcement of new restrictions on using the facilities on campus is making that a little tricky. I have homozygous flies growing in an incubator right now. The plan is next week to set up the parental reciprocal cross, photographing the phenotypes and putting those online. A little more than a week later, I’ll photograph representative F1 flies — the two crosses should produce different results, which will be presented without explanation — and set up the F1 cross. Maybe two weeks after that, I should have swarms of F2 flies, which I alone will have to sit down and score, for hours and hours (usually I can just crack the whip and have a legion of undergrads do the tedious work). I’ll post the numbers of each phenotype, again with little comment, and then the students will have to get to work interpreting the data and writing up a lab report describing what I did and what it means. They should have the background to understand what’s going on, since I described sex linkage last week and will be giving them all the logic of linkage next week, so it’s going to be more like a science puzzle they have to put together.

  6. I also have to unwind, so I’m also planning a little social hullabaloo on Wednesday evening with friends on YouTube. Maybe I’ll watch something on Netflix later, or read a book. I was going to use this week to get a draft of a paper together, but that’s another thing that’s going to be thrown out the window, to avoid burnout. Maybe next week, when I’ve settled into a new routine.

That’s my life for the next 6-8 weeks, at which time all the upheaval will be totally over and the sun will be shining and the birds will be singing and my wife will show up at my door and the spiders will be flourishing and the Revolution will be in full swing and we’ll all have happy normal things to do.