Urban bloggers

Update: this post is confusing if you haven’t read the one before it. The article is a good article; my commentary continues from the previous post.

Another article on DN Lee and Scientific American, Nobody Ever Called Einstein A ‘Whore’. (Yes, yes, frisson, blah blah collective outrage, yadda yadda impure motives. Noted, Jeremy, now go monitor someone else for a few years.)

Danielle Lee is another one of its well-known scientific writers. Lee, a biologist who studies animal behavior, mammals and the ways organisms interact with their environment, earned a doctoral degree in biology from the University of Missouri–St. Louis, was named Young Professional of the Year by the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, and her urban science blog was named as a finalist for the 2011 Black Weblog Award in the best science and technology category. When not blogging, Lee works for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. By all accounts Lee is well-known and well-respected in scientific circles… [Read more…]

Don’t ever do anything, in case your motives are Impure

A silly thought.

Jeremy Stangroom @PhilosophyExp

Blimey, online warriors don’t half love the frisson of collective outrage. My advice is be deeply suspicious of it (and them).

I figure that’s about Ofek and DN Lee and Scientific American, if only because Stangroom monitors Freethought blogs and especially mine so closely. But then why would it be necessary to be deeply suspicious of outrage about it? Why is it wrong to be outraged about it? [Read more…]

How not to ask for a favor

So how are things going for Scientific American? Not very well, from what I can see. There’s a lot of very strong criticism of their move in taking down Danielle N Lee’s blog post about the editor at Biology Online who called her a whore when she declined to write for Biology Online for free. Most of it is coming directly from working scientists. That can’t be what they want.

I still haven’t seen any explanation of their reasons for taking down the post; as far as I know there hasn’t been one.

They can’t take refuge in the claim that their blog isn’t the right place for personal quarrels, because this wasn’t personal. [Read more…]

Leo Igwe urges boycott of homophobic Nigerian pastor

Leo Igwe writes:

I am writing to urge you to join as we protest the tour of the Pacific Region in November of the ‘General Overseer’ of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye. Pastor Adeboye is touring Canberra(November 10-11), Melbourne(12-13) New Zealand(14-15), Fiji(16-17),Solomon Islands (18-19), Papua New Guinea(20-21), Sydney(22-23), Perth(24-25).

The aim of the tour is to establish branches of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in these places. Pastor Adeboye is one of the pastors who openly used their sermons and preaching to rally public support for the anti same sex marriage bill which was recently passed by lawmakers in Nigeria.

Earlier this year he told a local Christian gathering that ‘Same sex marriage is anathema’ and an ‘evil’ that would lead to the end of human race. Due to the sermons of homophobic clerics like Pastor Adeboye, there is a growing trend of attacks and violence against homosexuals in Nigeria.
We should not allow this vicious trend to spread and take hold in other parts of the globe.
We need to use this opportunity to send a strong message to Pastor Adeboye and other gay bashing African clerics that their gospel of hatred and intolerance has no place in the Pacific Region and that their churches have no future in Australia, New Zealand etc.

Many African churches are trying to re –evangelize the world by promoting literal biblical  interpretations and christian messages that are incompatible with  universal human rights and other civilized values.

If we must beat back the tide of homophobia sweeping across Africa, we must protest the moves and plans by homophobic pastors and religious bigots to establish churches that incite violence and hatred against gay persons. Let us mobilize through the social media against the visit of this Nigerian pastor. Let us get human rights/humanist/secular groups in these places to stage protests and denounce the establishment of homophobic churches in the pacific region.

Leo Igwe,
Founder,
Nigerian Humanist Movement
October 11, 2013

Sean Carroll is in

Ah, nice – Sean Carroll (the physics one) has a post on the how not to address a colleague who has the bad taste to be a woman issue, and Scientific American’s response to same.

Where I grew up, when people politely turn down your request for free stuff, it’s impolite to call them a “whore.” It’s especially bad when you take into account the fact that we live in a world where women are being pushed away from science, one where how often your papers get cited correlates strongly with your gender, and so on. [Read more…]

Another hostile work environment

Good grief. Scientific American actually pulled DNLee’s post from their site yesterday. Wow.

I knew it was gone, because I clicked links to the SciAm post via three different tweets of DNLee’s and each one got a 404 – but I assumed it was a glitch, not a removal. Then DNLee tweeted the link to Isis’s post, and I put SciAm behind me. But now, also via Isis, via a comment at PZ’s, I learn that Scientific American deliberately took the post down and explained on Twitter why it doesn’t want it. Isis gives the details:

I was glad later in the day to see that DNLee had posted about her experience on her Scientific American blog.

Then I went to lab meeting, came back, and the post was gone. Vanished into the ether. [Read more…]

Guest post by DNLee: Tell Someone “No”, Get Called a “Whore”

We’re requested to repost this to amplify its signal, so I’m doing that. DNLee is asked to write for a blog, politely declines, and gets a less than polite response.

DNLee reports:

wachemshe hao hao kwangu mtapoa

I got this wrap cloth from Tanzania. It’s a khanga. It was the first khanga I purchased while I was in Africa for my nearly 3 month stay for field research last year. Everyone giggled when they saw me wear it and then gave a nod to suggest, “Well, okay”. I later learned that it translates to “Give trouble to others, but not me”. I laughed, thinking how appropriate it was. I was never a trouble-starter as a kid and I’m no fan of drama, but I always took this 21st century ghetto proverb most seriously:

Don’t start none. Won’t be none. [Read more…]

A hostile learning environment for those of faith

Some Christian groups in Kansas are suing the state board of education over science teaching in schools.

There’s the Pacific Justice Institute for example. (Wha? The Pacific is nowhere near Kansas.)

Topeka, Kansas–Families across Kansas became one step closer, today, to protecting their children from forced atheistic teaching in their public school system. Pacific Justice Institute filed a complaint in Federal District Court challenging the State Board of Education’s (BOE) adoption of certain science standards which would create a hostile learning environment for those of faith. The standards being challenged are the Next Generation Science Standards adopted by the BOE June 11, 2013, and the corresponding Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts and Core Ideas. [Read more…]