This month’s linkspam is predominantly about trans and gender issues. That might be a coincidence.
Prejudice, “Political Correctness,” and the Normalization of Donald Trump – Julia Serano has enough in here that she really could have written three essays, and then I would put it in my linkspam three times. I particularly like the middle essay, where she talks about the uses of “political correctness”, and why activists think the word should be ditched even if it includes some genuinely objectionable activities. I have said such things myself but could never say it so well.
Science isn’t Broken – In the past year or so, there have been many articles about the unreliability of science, and this is one. I’m linking it just for the interactive toy that lets you try p-hacking.
I’m inclined to believe that science is doing just fine. It’s journalists who have been too quick to trust an claim just because a study said so, and who are now surprised to find that studies are not so reliable as that. Working scientists have always known to distrust studies’ conclusions. This is true in physics too, being a “hard” science does not help. In my field we don’t really calculate p-values, so p-hacking isn’t a thing, but we still have biases, just ones that are more difficult to characterize.
An epic battle between feminism and deep-seated misogyny is under way in South Korea – This is a pretty interesting read about the South Korean version of the culture wars. It sounds like misogyny is really bad there. The feminist organization Megalia is characterized as rather extreme, but in that context it might be warranted, I dunno. This link was shared by a commenter. [Read more…]