It’s a mystery. Ben Radford has been a pimple on the butt of CFI for quite some time. Remember the time he picked a fight with a four year old, and made a series of bogus arguments about pink? How about his denial of the influence of media, in which he misrepresented a science paper? It’s been a pretty poor run for a skeptic.
That’s just a commentary on the quality of his output. More damning is that he is guilty of sexually harassing Karen Stollznow for years (a fact that led to CFI temporarily suspending him). Despite all that, he still has a job at CFI. Totally mysterious.
And now, in the latest news from while I was out of town, Ben Radford writes a bizarre, anecdote-laden mess of an article about false rape accusations. Yes, they happen…rarely. They’re important to detect. But rape — now that’s a much bigger and much more important problem. A topsy-turvy inside-out post emphasizing the injustice (willingly conceded!) of false rape accusations is what I’d expect of an MRA blog, not Skeptical Inquirer.
It’s got to be bad when your own boss disavows your article: Ron Lindsay tore it apart. And just to add an avalanche on top of that slingstone, Orac writes a leventy-kajillion word post deploring the whole mess. A guy with a sexual harassment history hanging over his head, pretending that false accusations are a serious problem? Not credible. Bad idea to have even written it (and I’m wondering who on the editorial staff let that choice sail through?)
The biggest mystery right now, though, is why Ben Radford still has a job. When he’s not stalking women and making embarrassingly bad arguments on the internet, he writes about mundane skeptical issues like chupacabras and bigfoot and UFOs. That must be an extremely important set of topics for CFI, requiring rare skills that only a scarce few individuals possess. Or maybe it’s extremely hazardous — is it a dirty job that actually requires wrasslin’ monsters? Because, otherwise, I don’t know why they’re keeping a toxic hack around.
Perhaps he’s tight with some big donors?
He’s one of the lads.
Well, Ben Radford once wrote quite lucidly on the chupacabra.
But seriously, fuck that guy. He gives “skeptics” a bad name, and considering my recently updated attitudes about self-identifying “skeptics”, that is saying something.
I don’t know why they’re keeping a toxic hack around.
Well, keep in mind who is currently running CFI. After the damage Ron Lindsay has done, did he have any choice but to rip apart Radford’s article?
I don’t understand why CFI keeps Lindsay around; reminds me a little of the way David Miscavige runs scientology.
I used to enjoy occasionally checking out what CFI was doing but I cannot remember the last time I did that other than checking out things like this. I have a really hard time wanting to have anything to do with organized sceptical groups this like, or JREF because it is clear now that many of the sceptics are pretty terrible at being sceptical. scepticism is something you apply to other people, definitely not their own ideas.
Skepticism is a tool kit. You can use it to find the various traps and pitfalls of our thinking. You can use it to avoid falling into them, avoid triggering the traps. But most skepticism sets are incomplete and imperfect. Fail to help you notice any kind of traps outside of a narrow set. Fail to completely disable traps. And the person using it is often so comforted by the ability to use Skepticism, so confident in their ability to find and disable these traps, that they just confidently stride right into them. As a result, a skeptic is often indistinguishable from a true believer. Because you will often see both walking haughtily down an intellectual hallway that is littered with booby traps, and you will often see both days later, stuck at the bottom of a pit, obliviously smiling and bragging about what progress they’ve made. The difference is a matter of a degree of delusion, and a matter of a degree of concern for truth. And that degree is very depressingly small indeed.
“Bad idea to have even written it (and I’m wondering who on the editorial staff let that choice sail through?)”
Ophelia Benson was pointing out the problem is that CFI doesn’t have any editorial control. Apparently people who blog there can post whatever they wish and there’s simply a disclaimer about that. So presumably no one at CFI saw Radford’s post before it was posted.
For whatever that’s worth.
My guess is because all that stuff is Real Scepticism™. It’s a holdover from the old days, where stuff like that as far more common. Now, anyone and their dog (at least in my experience) can shoot down arguments for the existence of bigfoot and UFOs, but debunking those things have a history with the scepticism groups, so they automatically get some form of respect.
As for me, I’m quite skeptical about the existence of chupacabras. Quite skeptical indeed.
As to the existence of skeevy doofuses like Radford, not so much.
wait a minute.
Why would somebody want SO BADLY to debunk the chupacabra?
That’s what I wondered. So I did some Skeptical Research, to support an Evidence-Based Reasoning approach to the question…and I hit paydirt.
exhibit A
exhibit B
huh? HUH?
I rest my case.
teehee
Chas you have too much time on your hands.
I wake my case up again.
exhibit C
exhibit D
I think I’m on to something here.
Does anybody have Ron Lindsay’s email address?
I am at least sure of one thing: if I had to choose between spending my time with a chupacabras and spending my time with Ben Radford, el chupacabras would win hands down every single time
Mr Radford has hold of the wrong end of the stick; false accusations in rape cases come from the perpetrators not the victims.
“She was asking for it …”
“She didn’t say no …”
“It was obvious she was up for it because of the way she dressed …”
“She was drunk and so was I …”
“She’d been flirting with me all night …”
“I just said if she really wanted the job/the apartment/to be let off the traffic ticket ….”
“She’s just doing this to get back at me …”
“Well, she dressed like she was over 18 …”
In all cases “she” can be read as “he” if the victim was a male.
Of course. Isn’t everyone a skeptic? Wasn’t it Martin Luther’s skepticism of Catholic claims that led him to such clear headed rational thinking on the subject of women and Jews?
No worries, the MRA’s have already flooded to the defence of Bradford. All spewing their nonsense of course.
SallyStrange has commented but her comment has been removed because she allegedly made a personal attack, which is a big no-no in scepticism apparently. Except of course when MRA troll Commander Tuvok cries accusations at PZ and Jason, then it is apparently not a personal attack.
Anyway, xposted this because it is probably going to be scrubbed by the sceptics at CFI:
As this whole “false accusation” thing will ruin my day if I talk about it in any depth, can I just say one slightly OT thing?:
Whether it’s 1 or 1,000,000, it’s ALWAYS “Chupacabras.” Always. Because it’s a thing that sucks goats. Plural goats. Not just one goat.
Chupacabras.
The link to “picked a fight with a four year old” doesn’t mention any 4 year olds. Is that supposed to be something different?
Fanartflan: yes, PZ clearly meant to link to this.
It will be interesting to see how this plays in court. It wasn’t very difficult to find that Ben has served Stollznow with papers recently. If his article is a thinly veiled explanation for what happened, he must have evidence enough to sue her. If you ask me, he should be taking two individuals to court if he’s truly not guilty. I don’t really know if he’s innocent. I’m more prone to decide after the jury has made a decision based on the evidence.
The comments section is a regular wank off.
Because it’s simply unbelievable that a guy who publicly writes sexist garbage might have hounded a woman in the office into finally quitting her job to get away from him? Because a guy who can’t leave her alone even now, and is using the law to harass her, can’t possibly have ever been a harasser?
I don’t have faith that your argument from incredulity is true.
@Colin thornton:
That’s a cop out, and a bad one. Do you know the standard of proof that will be used in this case? Do you know the evidentiary rules – what things may or may not be excluded from consideration even though arguably relevant? Will you “refuse to decide” if they have a bench trial?
What if the verdict of the jury goes one way, but an appeal succeeds? Do you get how the very existence of this last question undermines making decisions in every day life based on the findings of a jury?
I’m seriously tired of this.
Huh? I’m not making an argument from incredulity: you’re the one finding it hard to believe that a man might have harassed a woman. I’m saying there’s enough prior information to make the account entirely plausible.
Next you’re going to tell me that claiming chupacabras don’t exist is simply an argument from personal incredulity.
No, PZ. It’s an argument from incrudité: whilst los chupacabras are famous for sapping goats’ precious bodily fluids, they actually don’t consume those fluids directly. They mix them with cachaça to make something resembling a bloody mary and eat them with fresh, crunchy, well-washed vegetables, preferably ones that they didn’t pay for themselves. They are so invested in mooching these that they can only reliably be found hanging out in packs by the crudité tables at legal mixers.
If you don’t have enough crudité, you’ll probably never see one.
Crip dyke
You are amazing
That is all
Although. what does that delicious chupacabara chèvre taste like? Enquiring minds!
Badland #27
Chicken. Obviously.
I second the applause for CD.
You’re the one finding it hard to believe that he didn’t harrass her, and you’re making a claim based on that incredulous belief. I make no claims until I have a chance to see the evidence, and for libel, that evidence needs to be very good.
Circumstantial evidence such as arguably sexist blog articles should not be used to publicly accuse an individual of guilt.
I love how consistent is that Troo Skeptics believe that we can’t have an informed opinion about something until the court makes a decision. And how they implicitly seem to be the under the impression that the American legal system is the gold standard for truth. The mind boggles
Your definition of argument from incredulity strains credulity.
Now THAT sounds like incredulity, though.
And of course the Troo Skeptic falling into the fallacy fallacy. I predict unsubstantiated and unelaborated upon cries of “ad hominem” and “strawman” in the future. Because that’s the value of Skepticism. *gag*
I generally find it best to believe someone if they say something happened to them. And I hardly think that a statement by someone saying something happened to them, is in any way “circumstantial.” it is, however, in the absence of a credible reason to suspect them of lying, evidence that something did, most likely, happen to them.
I’ll reserve judgement on the so-far unsupported “lying” hypothesis until evidence is presented and examined in court.
My original comment at CFI went something like this:
Which was a personal attack. So, whatever. I don’t mind them removing it. I clarified later on that I thought that the claim that few people are baselessly skeptical about rape victims’ reports is so obviously false that it’s irresponsible and ethically questionable to repeat it.
I haven’t been back since then to check if the post accusing PZ and Ogvorbis is still up.
Yet a very poignant and accurate one, based on a ridiculous, and rather telling, assumption.
Your super skepticism is bullshit. You really set the evidence level for harassment so high it can never be reached. Whereas those of us with sexual harassment training, and a reduced level of evidence due to that training, can and do realize the claims are persuasive. Unlike your MRA bullshit.
NOw I’m unsure. DId I break my foot yesterday? Because there aren’t any court documents to pove that, and there will never be. Guess the true skeptics would tell me to get off my ass and stop complaining. They would also probably support any employer who would fire me because I’m abusing sick leave regulations. Maybe if I sued then a court could decide…
But I think that Radford et al. have an agenda that goes evenf further, because not ony do they point to the rare false accusation, they then go on and point to the even rarer wrong conviction (totally ignoring other facts like the immanent racism of the system). The messsage is clear. Not only bitches be lying , but also that courts fail, therefore you can never be sure that any guy really did it, so let’s treat them all as innocent, especially Ben Radford
Have all the opinions you want. Just don’t make a claim without evidence from both sides.
I have opinions myself based on the time Karen unfairly and publicly attacked the credibility of Heidi Anderson. But I can also totally see how an x-boyfriend could have crossed the line into harassment. What I won’t do is make a claim without evidence from both sides, which will likely be publicly available soon.
Fucking bullshit. The reason for suspecting Radford of misbehaving isn’t that the idea of him behaving properly is simply too outrageous; it’s that he’s actually been accused of misbehavior. Now, we don’t have all the facts and we can’t claim certainty, but pretending that PZ is making an argument from incredulity is either dishonest or idiotic.
Moreover, since this is not a court of law, we’re in fact entitled to form our opinions on less than perfect evidence. As long as we recognize the limitations of our conclusion, there’s nothing wrong or irrational about that.
I hate MRA bullshit. I’m protesting the potentially libelous and unsubstantiated claim that Ben is guilty. Ben Radford, the individual, not his gender. Fuck him if he’s actually guilty.
You hate MRA bullshit sooooooooooooooooooo much that you repeat it.
Says the girl in the echo chamber where the environment of conversation is so hostile to dissent that any contrary opinion is treated with hostility and snark. All I can tell you is that I’m not MRA nor do I read their blogs or associate with them.
colin thornton:
“The situation is just fine, leave it as it is” is a judgement.
Sorry MRA super skeptic. I’ll show you how skepticism should be done. Show, from legitimate sources outside of yourself, that the folks on this blog must obey your level of super skepticism in making our informed decisions based on our experience and overall knowledge.
The legal crap is straight from the MRA manual. Don’t us it, if you don’t want to be tarnished with that brush.
Now, where is your evidence that we must even listen to your bullshit?
Yes, “echo chamber” is another trademark MRA slogan. What’s really all that wrong with being an MRA, Colin? Why NOT be one? It does seem to be a good fit. Can you articulate what exactly is the problem with MRAs?
Also, I’m an adult female human being, not a juvenile. So I’m a woman, not a girl. Again, sounding a lot like an MRA there.
Well if he identifies as one those feminist bitches won’t sleep with him.
“I refuse to believe anything happened until a jury says it did” is functionally equivalent to “I refuse to believe she is not lying until a jury says she’s not”. Do you see the problem there?
if he identifies as one, those feminist bitches won’t sleep with him.
if he identifies as one those sandy vagina’d feminists will never fuck him.
First of fuckwitted MRA idjit, I am a sixty+ bald headed male. Lie one. So, I can dismiss your claims of not being an MRA when the evidence, as the “girl” bullshit, gives prima facie evidence of. Second, give us a reason your inane opinion shouldn’t just be dismissed. Also, you have had your say. Any further attempts to restate your rejected unevidenced assertions are a sign of your aggression, not assertiveness, and is a typical MRA technique.
You don’t want to be called an MRA, then shut the fuck up. Then you won’t be called what the evidence says you are.
Fuck science, you don’t know shit until we hear anti-science’s opinion on the matter! BOTH SIDES.
Fuck your skepticism about chupacabra, you don’t know shit until we hear the chupacabra side’s evidence! BOTH SIDES.
“Libel” is serious business.
What the fuck does this even mean?
Echo chamber.
Hostile to dissent.
Contrary opinion.
Does it concern you, dear skeptic, that the only way that you are able to defend your position is through a combination of whining and using pure, unadulterated spin?
He might see a problem, but it is only an actual problem if a judge and jury convene and agree that it is in fact a serious issue.
Ahahaha, what the fuck? No, attempting to sue someone and writing a blog post in one’s own defense is not evidence against the accusing party.
Karen Stollznow’s testimony is being used to accuse him; the circumstantial evidence is being used to show that said testimony is certainly credible.
You’re focusing on the wrong factor. Disagreement leads to disagreement (obviously); disagreement based on bullshit leads to contemptuous disagreement.
uh huh.
Ever served on a jury?
the “girl”? Seriously??
the “echo chamber”? well, ok, yeah, sometimes.
Our guest is another example of the main problem with “skeptics” and how they simply do not apply use their “skepticism” in a broad and consistent enough way to actually warrant their smug sense of self-satisfaction. He seems to think it is reasonable to wait for the court’s decision on a matter before coming to a conclusion. He seems to trust that the court decision is the only way to conclude “guilt” or “innocence” and that until the court collects the court-approved facts and has the judge and jury weigh those facts in a court-approved fashion, then we must remain perfectly agnostic. But worse is the implication that the court decision will be accurate. That lack of court decision leaves us blind, and that the court decision gives us crystal clarity. What does this ignore? Systemic bias in the justice system, as well as the various known failings. The fact that we know that guilty people walk away on technicalities and that innocent people wind up on death row. The fact that we know how fucked up our laws can be, we know how fickle and unthinking a jury of our peers can be, and we know that judges can be corrupt or just plain stupid. The fact that the people making the case for and against are basically playing a high stakes game with their client lives, doing whatever they can to Win, and are not actually attempting to strive for truth. The fact that a skeptic is either unaware of this or chooses to ignore it in order to bludgeon people into silence until the judge gives his sentence is just plain baffling. It is ridiculous. And worst of all, despite that, it is COMMON. And that just depresses me to no end.
They hate us for our acoustics.
I don’t know, is OJ Simpson innocent or guilty?
Has justice been served in the Zimmerman trial?
How about Dunn?
Following up on comment #7, which mentioned this “Bad idea to have even written it (and I’m wondering who on the editorial staff let that choice sail through?)” and then noted that there is no staff reviewing stuff before it is posted.
My bet is that the minimal review, if it exists, consisted of “Let him hang himself.” They must be fed up with Ben Radford by now.
SNAAARK ATTAAAACK!!!!!
Day saved.
Colin Thornton @ 41:
SallyStrange is a woman, Colin. Do you refer to adult men as boys? Do you refer to yourself as a boy? No? Then you should be asking yourself what sexist biases and Bayesian priors are inhabiting your brain. If you haven’t even once examined why you infantilize women by calling them girls, you should be concentrating that powerful skepticism on yourself, rather than your terribly flimsy defense of Radford.
Which is a totally different statement than asserting one will not make a claim until a jury rules. There has been no jury trial on whether or not the RCC habitually shifted abusive priests from parish to parish without warning anyone at the new parish. Have you made a judgement? Does the fact that the RCC admits that “individuals” in the RCC “didn’t know” that abusiveness couldn’t be prayed away and thus couldn’t be held to modern standards of response – even in states where reporting of child abuse was mandatory for clergy for years before the end of the time frame ambiguously covered by the RCC officials’ statements?
But you’re waiting for a jury verdict, right?
Or were you just trying to shift the goalposts without anyone noticing that your earlier statement is so full of shit that even you don’t want to defend it?
Speaking of Mark Twain
http://www.twainquotes.com/Jury.html
colin thornton @ 20
Have you served on a jury? It’s not as though we got to sit there and really seek out Ultimate Truth or anything. We had a specific question about a specific incident and whether or not a specific law applied to it. There were lots of things we weren’t allowed to know. Seemingly common sense questions could not be asked for a variety of reasons. We did not have evidence brought to us in a logical and impartial way. At one point I discovered that another one of the jurors had been personally involved in a case similar to that one and she had hidden this fact, then began discussing it with the other jurors over lunch. I had to bring this information to the bailiff. Then the judge decided that the entire jury was compromised and we were all sent home.
This system is set up to keep a narrow focus on the current case and the law. It’s not set up for deciding ordinary, everyday opinions that lack the risks and weight of the justice system.
And being the consistent person you are, you would insist during any discussion of Prohibition-era violence that we not rush to judge Al Capone, since he was only ever convicted of tax evasion.
Maybe the editors are confusing chupacabra with Chewbaca and are trying to hold on to that important Star Wars audience?
@the mellow monkey:
To defend the legal system for a moment: it’s not supposed to be a search for the truth. It’s supposed to answer the question of whether the government is justified in using its powers to force payments, to incarcerate, etc.
So your 2nd quoted statement is right on and goes to the heart of the matter. Your first, though, should really take into account that it’s only supposed to be logical and impartial **given its goal of determining the justification of government coercion, not the truth of someone’s participation in a behavior**. To the extent that we take as given that in analyzing whether they were “logical” in how they brought the evidence to you is independent of whether the underlying laws are “logical”, they were probably both logical and impartial in presenting the evidence – with exceptions for boneheaded moves on the part of counsel, on occasion. Impartial is likewise imperfect (that’s part of why we have appeals) but more likely even than logical. Again, this is only if we’re dealing with the question of impartiality of presentation of evidence as separate from the impartiality of the underlying law.
Crip Dyke @ 64
Fair enough and I agree. I didn’t mean to imply that it was just a bunch of BS thrown at us willy nilly. It’s far from that. I had a lot of respect for everyone involved in the case. They were all incredibly professional and doing their best to see the law carried out. I felt guilty for a long time afterwards over the judge having to dismiss us, but there was a reason why he had to do that and there were reasons why I had to speak up about the lying, chatty juror. Ordinary life doesn’t require that we declare no one is allowed to form an opinion about something because they talked to someone who had a similar experience. A jury is different.
Unfortunately CFI Canada is no better. There are MRA’s there too.
CFI Okanagan has managed to drive out 3 women for being too outspokenly feminist. One of them was me.
What playonwords said waaay up there. Also, abusers: “she MADE me hit her”…
Hey, Colin, Lindsay confirmed that Radford was suspended by CFI for harassment (and not just given paid leave to take vacation while they investigated):
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/what_i_wrote_to_scientific_american/
To me, that pretty much proves Radford did something bad to Stollznow at CFI Why would Lindsay say that if it didn’t happen? He could (should?) have denied anything happened at all if nothing had happened. Tells me they gave Radford a second chance to try not to make waves, which it seems Lindsay is now regretting.