Pterosaurs!

I’m still tinkering with making a weekly video, and here’s the latest.

It’s an exercise in learning some new tools, so be forgiving about the style and all that — give me another year or two and maybe I’ll be smooth and professional.

I’m a 7. Definitely. Definitely a 7.

I’m seeing this rendition of the Dawkins Scale going around on social media.

What I find most amusing is all the people saying that they’re a 6, and that anyone who is a 1 or a 7 is an idiot. It’s amusing because I’m a 7.

Here’s the deal: the “god” we’re debating here is this amorphous, poorly defined thing that is floating around in people’s heads, often with a collection of inconsistent, incoherent associations tied to it. Before you ask me whether I believe in it, you had better tell me specifically what you mean and not rely on a set of variable cultural assumptions.

It’s like you’re asking me whether I believe in new Shimmer, and when I ask what it is, you tell me it’s a dessert topping. It’s a floor wax! No, it’s both a dessert topping and a floor wax, and it’s also three things that are one, and it’s the omnipotent ruler of the universe, and it’s afraid of iron chariots, and it thinks you deserve to burn in hell, but it loves you very much!

I’m just going to tell you to sober up, get your act together, and give me a clear and coherent definition of what you’re talking about, and then maybe I’ll be able to decide whether I believe in it or not. Until then, I’m a 7, and you’re just blithering bullshit with a wacky notion with loads of contradictions that you’re trying to conceal by reducing it to a 3-letter word.

Why you a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y do not need a personal website as a scientist

I have to criticize this claim that YOU A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E-L-Y NEED A PERSONAL WEBSITE AS A SCIENTIST, because it’s wrong. You don’t.

So, you need a personal website. Why? Because you need to stand out. Because you need to have a consistent presence when you change employers. Because the university profile isn’t sufficiently yours, and an academic networking site is too closed off. Because it gives you the opportunity to learn to communicate to a wide variety of audiences, including your peers.

There’s empirical evidence against this claim: there are many scientists far more prominent than I am who don’t have a website (and some who do), and there are scientists who are less prominent than I am who do (and some who don’t). Why, it’s almost as if having a website is irrelevant to success in science.

I’m on a university committee engaged in a job search. I’m a web nerd, and I didn’t do a single search to see if any of our candidates have a website. It wouldn’t matter if they do. My fellow committee members would look at me funny if I tried to suggest that Candidate X was particularly enticing because they had a website. We look at their CV, teaching statement, research plans, and recommendations…not what they say about themselves on the web. Get real: maintaining a web site takes time and effort, and we’d rather see that potential colleagues are doing good work in the classroom and the lab. It’s a matter of priorities, and “personal website” is very low on the list.

That said, however, a web presence is important for public outreach and communication. If public engagement is one of the criteria for a science position, not having some sort of actively maintained web presence is definitely a failure. There aren’t that many jobs that have that criterion, however. You could argue that we need to get better at reaching out to an electorate that keeps putting anti-science ignoramuses into high office, but that does not imply that everyone needs to become a PR expert. People who can inspire students and can generate new knowledge are still essential.

Men have got some learning to do

Well. You know that #NotAllMen hashtag? Somebody quantified it to find out exactly how many men, and the results are not encouraging.

The research group asked over 1,000 Americans “What do you think counts as sexual harassment?” in an online survey. They were told to select all that apply.

The survey found that 91 percent of women and 83 percent of men thought “being forced to do something sexual” fit the bill.

If that doesn’t count as sexual harassment, what does? Who are the 17 percent of men and 9 percent of women who don’t agree?

Men were even less likely to characterize behaviors that didn’t involve physical touch as sexual harassment. Twenty-four percent thought flashing someone doesn’t count and 30 percent thought making sexual comments about someone’s body isn’t harassment.

So…1 in 6 of your male friends think they can find an excuse for forcing themselves sexually on a woman, and 1 in 4 think that sending a dick pic is not harassment. So it’s true, it’s not all men, but it’s also not just a couple of nasty felons hanging out in a dark alley — it could be 80 million ordinary, ignorant, selfish American men.

Creationist castle

The Creation “Museum” is losing money, so Answers in Genesis is going to try and shore up profits with a renovation. It’s not looking good.

They’re going to upgrade the theater with 3-D projection. This is the theater where they currently show Men in White, a short movie that is so bad that when I visited the “museum” I only lasted 30 seconds before concluding that I wouldn’t be able to sit through it, or the gimmicky shaky seats and water sprays. Now they’re going to have plesiosaurs looming out at you as an excuse to drip water.

But the big deal they’re bragging about is that they’re going to redesign the entrance to include…new displays! Static displays with no evidence! More apologetics! I’m not feeling the urge to visit it a second time.

Wait, what’s that in the center of the exhibits? Those red balls? That looks familiar.

It is familiar! I’ve seen that so many times. It’s the centerpiece of many of Ham’s droning talks.

They have taken this cartoon, and plan to turn it into a 3D diorama.

You know, this doesn’t suddenly make it more true or believable. It does discredit the “museum” even more that they think it a noteworthy addition to create a sculpture of an old cartoon by a creationist hack. Why? Was Ben Garrison unavailable?

Oh, gosh, what can Matt Lauer do to redeem himself in our eyes?

I guess Matt Lauer is full of regret and is soul-searching and wants to repair the damage he has done, so he is weeping to the press.

There are no words to express my sorrow and regret for the pain I have caused others by words and actions, Lauer said in the statement released to the network. To the people I have hurt, I am truly sorry.

Lauer said that some of what he has been accused of is untrue and mischaracterized but said, there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.

Translation: he’s sorry he was caught, can he get back on the gravy train now, please?

I’m sure he is embarrassed now. But the man had a trapping button installed in his desk — you came in to meet the boss, he’d press his secret button, and click, you were trapped in there with him and couldn’t get out until he let you. Not only is that creepy as hell, but required forethought and intent and planning and assistance to install. Was that one of the incidents he now claims was mischaracterized?

Here’s the deal, Matt. You screwed yourself while trying to screw others, and no one feels any particular reason to redeem you. You were a dime-a-dozen talent who was paid $25 million a year, doing a job that any of thousands of women could have done better, with more class and insight than you ever demonstrated…and they wouldn’t be leaving a trail of slime everywhere they went. You’ve got millions of dollars socked away, I’m sure, and can just go sink out of sight, to everyone’s relief. Disappearing without a fuss would be in your interest, too, because all you’re doing now is reminding us that you have a fat bank account full of undeserved loot, and a trail of women whose careers were stunted by your selfish actions.

Vanish, little man. Your deflation has only just begun.

Gilded Ages are not times of human flourishing

Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are, together, richer than the half of the population of the United States. Bezos was the fortunate recipient of an abrupt surge in the value of Amazon stock that has given him a net worth of over 100 billion dollars. Which makes this comment particularly appropriate:

One of the best soundbites I’ve heard about modern economics is (paraphrased)) “It’s not possible to earn a billion dollars. It is possible to steal a billion dollars.”

There is nobody smart enough, hardworking enough, trained enough and dedicated enough to earn a billion dollars without leveraging corrupt systems and exploiting people.

The poverty threshold in America is $11,490 for one person. If someone has a billion dollars, that is 87,032 times the poverty line.

It’s possible for someone to be twice as smart as another worker. It’s possible for them to be four or five times as hardworking. It’s possible for one person to have ten times the training of another person. So if you have one person that is half as smart, a fifth as hardworking, and a tenth as trained, they should reasonably earn one percent of the other. That’s the very outside figure. But anyone who takes in more than a million dollars per year did not earn that, they stole it. They found a vulnerable system to exploit or they found a group of people to cheat. Maybe they did it legally. Maybe they paid someone to make it legal to do that. It happens. But “earn”? Actually -deserving- that much money because of their merits and efforts? No.

I don’t mind some inequities in wealth — I buy into capitalism just enough to think that a motivating reward system for human behavior is a good thing — but we’re well beyond what is fair or reasonable. I can live with some people making a million dollars a year, but only if we’re also making sure that no one has to live in rank poverty. But someone “earning” billions while huge numbers can barely keep food on the table, can’t afford rent, can’t go to a doctor when they need to, and their children have no opportunities for a good education…that is an obscenity.