Mary’s Monday Metazoan: Snakes again?
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Here is a list, with photos, of 15 sexy scientists. It has a little excuse for some obvious bias in the choices:
(Why no men? Because I unavoidably find women more sexy, of course!)
Which is forthright and honest and all that…but then I got a look at #15. I’m very disturbed now. I had no idea that my awesome sexual charisma was overwhelming even heterosexual men nowadays.
I’m also bothered by the premise. I think it’s an excellent idea to promote the idea that scientists can be sexy, and women who are comfortable with that should be able to proudly present themselves as sexual beings. But the important concept is that women should have the choice, and their decisions should be respected. Men do not get the privilege of having the roving eye, of being able to pick individual women out of the crowd to tell them that here, they get to be object of sexual interest, especially not if they’re going to then publicly display them as clever eye candy.
The worst possible way to handle this is to search the internet for photos of women scientists and make superficial decisions about who the male eye would find sexy. There’s a process of judgment that went on behind the scenes, where many women scientists had to have been rejected because they were insufficiently ‘hot’, and then many of the women dragged into the spotlight had their “scientist” qualifications completely ignored for their literally biological qualifications. It’s a reiteration of the same inappropriate judgmental attitude that pretty much every woman scientist suffers through.
Promoting 15 sexy scientists is a fine idea, if the choices are entirely voluntary, and if the qualifications are more than a photo. Common Sense Atheism should have asked first, and found something a little more interesting than appearances to explain why they’re sexy. Or better yet, have the women explain what it means to be sexy, because men tend to be very poor judges of such phenomena.
I know, it would have been harder for me to make the cut if I’d had to qualify for my mind instead of my smokin’ hot body, but I can make that sacrifice.
The most disturbing thing about this video is that, even though it’s made by The Thinking Atheist, I can imagine it being shown in a church to the approval of the congregation.
The idea that the Bible should be interpreted as a metaphor is a good one — because it melts the superstition away.
The Metro State Atheists are gearing up for a charity drive, one that couples feeding the poor with promoting freethought.
Food for Freethought is a food drive that also encourages freethought, freedom of expression, and free inquiry. We plan to accomplish this by giving “Banned” and Freethought books away in exchange for non-perishable food donations, that will be going to Food Bank of the Rockies, during “Banned Books Week”, September 27 – October 2 (specific dates below). Our goal is to raise an enormous amount of food for those in need. Most food drives are done during the holidays and tons of food is raised and distributed. That is all well and good, but when about the majority of the time that it isn’t the holiday season? The hungry don’t stop being hungry after the holidays, they are hungery now too! Given the existing goals of Metro State Atheists, it is only natural that we would attempt to help the hungry by promoting freethought, freedom of expression, and free inquiry. With the proper support, we can have an immeasurable positive community impact!
They’re collecting books now for the late September food drive — donate if you can!
I really don’t know who this Mabey fellow is — apparently, he’s a well-regarded nature writer in the UK — but he’s recently enthusiastically mentioned his summer reading plans, and they’re freaky.
I’ll need a long summer break just to finish Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini’s dense but explosively exciting What Darwin Got Wrong (Profile). The celebration of the great scientist’s bicentenary last year courteously sidestepped the fact that most cutting-edge biologists now regard natural selection as little more than cosmetic tweaking in the process of evolution. What’s happening is far more philosophically thrilling: creatures are doing it for themselves. The authors show how ancient “managerial” genes, self-organising systems in cells and the inherent tendency towards symmetry in living structures all help to generate new organisms fully pre-adapted to their environments. Wings already pre-balanced for flight!
Say what? Who are these mysterious “cutting-edge biologists” who have these bizarre misunderstandings of biology?
I think Mabey has been overdoing the herbs.
Last month, I posted about that devastating critique of Monckton and global warming denial from John Abraham. Abraham teaches at St Thomas University, here in lovely Minnesota.
Monckton replied in a foaming, frothing lather of noise and evasion. It didn’t help his cause. The “response” is “magnificently bonkers”, and it’s mainly getting horse-laughs from the reality-based community. (The denialist community, on the other hand, thinks Monckton has Abraham trembling on the ropes, but then, they’re nuts.)
One telling point from Monckton is that he is demanding that St Thomas University take down Abraham’s talk and begin a disciplinary inquiry into Abraham. For what? I don’t know. I guess it’s just a desperate effort to silence his critics. Go ahead and leave a note in support, but right now, it’s not a worry. St Thomas has replied to Monckton.
We received your email response to our June 25, 2010 letter. The University of St Thomas respects your right to disagree with Professor Abraham, just as the University respects Professor Abraham’s right to disagree with you. What we object to are your personal attacks against Father Dease, and Professor Abraham, your inflammatory language, and your decision to disparage Professor Abraham, Father Dease and The University of St Thomas.
Please be advised that neither we nor the University of St Thomas will communicate with you any further about your decision to sully the University of St. Thomas, Professor Abraham, and others rather than to focus on the scholarly differences between you and Professor Abraham.
Signed: Phyllis Karasov, Moore Costellow and Hart, P.L.L.P.
Good work!
I just mentioned that Brother Sam Singleton was going to be at Skepticon 3, and now I learn that his tour manager and enabler Cari has had a serious accident just as they were about to go on tour. If you weren’t aware of Brother Sam before, here’s a sample:
Apparently, atheist evangelist is not a high-paying position, because they have no health insurance. Pay a visit to Brother Sam’s website, and his store, and (hint, hint) toss something in the collection plate, if you can spare it.
Jason Rosenhouse has a short, clear post in which which he briefly exams the polling data to see if New Atheists have harmed the cause of science education, an accusation frequently made. He shows that no, there is absolutely no evidence of such a thing; there may be a trend in the other way, in an increase in the number of science educators willing to say that there is no sign of intelligent guidance in evolution, but he’s also rightly cautious to say that there are a lot of variables at play here, so it would be premature to say there is a positive effect.
It does seem interesting, though, that while many people are wringing their hands over the supposedly pernicious effect of the New Atheists on evolution acceptance and education, the numbers show not the slightest evidence of a backlash. To the extent that the numbers are moving at all, they seem to be going in the right direction.
So Josh Rosenau, one of those people who accuses New Atheists of doing harm, makes a long and confused post in which he disputes Rosenhouse by looking at the same data and concluding…there is no evidence that the New Atheists have harmed the cause of science education. But he does manage to bury the conclusion in a flustered chaos of noise about…a lot of variables at play here. It was a struggle to even extract the point of that post; even Rosenau is reduced to vague splutterings at the end.
As I said before, it may be that careful work with the GSS would give enough demographic controls that you could pick some of this apart. Were there different trajectories in people’s views of evolution in areas with active creationist efforts? How do the many variables tracking religiosity interact with people’s views on evolution? How does that match against demographic trends in polls by Pew, Gallup, and Harris, all of whom have asked the same questions for several years.
I’d like to see someone do this work, and I’d welcome citations of papers which might serve as a basis for such an analysis. But the evidence at hand simply isn’t adequate for what Jason would like do with it. Noting those complications is not shifting goalposts, nor is it making excuses. It’s the way I would think about any challenge in hypothesis testing. If we want to promote science as a way of knowing, I think it behooves us to model good scientific practices, and that’s my agenda with this post and the post it follows from.
Jebus, but Josh can make writing look agonizing.
It’s an enlightening comparison of styles of discussion. One goes right to the point with clarity, the other wallows in obfuscatory noise. One points right to the key data that so far shows no deleterious effect, the other wishes there were damage to the cause of science education, and so goes on and on in the blogging equivalent of stammering “but…but…but…”.
I know which side I’m glad to be on.
