It’s more diverse than you say, Teratology Society!

I was a bit disappointed with this video.

Some of us see teratology as a tool to probe normal developmental processes — it’s been that way for centuries. Teratology is the science that studies the causes, mechanisms, and patterns of abnormal development. It’s much more than just figuring how to prevent or correct human developmental disorders…not to belittle that extremely important aspect of the discipline.

So, what has David Silverman been up to lately?

The Washington Post has a longish article on l’affaire Silverman. It’s a bit unsatisfying, because we still don’t know the specifics of what American Atheists considered a good reason to fire him, and he denies everything.

But where it gets interesting and more than a little dismaying is when it starts listing all the problems in the atheist movement. I remember the days when you’d go to a meeting and there all these enthusiastic, diverse people who were thrilled to just be there and meet like-minded peers…and now the ones who are most enthusiastic are dudebros who see it as an opportunity to bash feminazis with other dudebros. It’s taken a lot of joy out of the movement.

A couple of interesting points, though: 1) David Silverman is the first and only atheist to face any consequences at all for his behavior from an atheist organization. All the other sleazoids are still doing just fine, are still getting invited to speak at conferences, are still drawing a crowd. 2) All of the accused deny all wrong-doing, no matter how solid the evidence. The Bart Simpson approach seems to work: rape or harass someone, then just say, “I didn’t do it,” and among atheists, you’re golden.

Here’s the depressing section of the article.

Organized secularism has been struggling with charges of misogyny, sexism and sexual harassment for almost a decade. The problem went public in 2011 when a then-little-known atheist blogger, Rebecca Watson, described unwanted sexual advances from a man at an atheist conference who followed her into an elevator and to her hotel room.

Correction: Watson was a well-known atheist blogger, active on Skepchick and SGU, and frequently invited to speak at conference…like the international conference where this event occurred. Also, the man didn’t follow her to her hotel room. But the rest is deplorable truth.

She was flooded with both supportive and haranguing comments. World-renowned atheist Richard Dawkins told her to “stop whining” and “grow up.” Dawkins — whose appearances at secularist gatherings can make or break attendance — has been called out multiple times for sexist statements but remains much in demand as a speaker.

Richard Carrier, a science historian and popular secularist speaker, has both apologized for and denied accusations of unwanted sexual advances at secularist and atheist events. He has been banned from at least one conference.

Michael Shermer, organizer of the popular Las Vegas Skepticon event, has denied allegations of sexual harassment and assault from several women, and remains editor of Skeptic magazine and a top speaker at secularist events.

Most recently, cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, another star speaker and best-selling author, was suspended in the spring by Arizona State University for what it described as a decade of inappropriate behavior, some of it at secularist events.

Sikivu Hutchinson sums it all up.

The alleged misconduct of these leaders, “was tacitly co-signed by an atheist leadership that is largely hostile to social and gender justice and complicit in the marginalization of women’s issues,” said Sikivu Hitchinson [sic], an activist who is often critical of organized atheism on the subject of women and people of color. “The atheist movement is no different from other male-dominated bastions in which sexual harassment and predatory behavior toward women are part of the culture.”

Ah, those heady days when I was blind to the injustices implicit in the movement, and could just think happy thoughts and be optimistic about the future. Why did you people have to open my eyes and ruin it all for me?

Maybe because it wasn’t so great for many people who didn’t happen to be old white cis heterosexual men.

To approve, or not to approve

I’ve got my YouTube channel set to hold questionable comments for approval before posting them (it’s not a very flexible system, though, and lots of crap still gets through). This one was flagged as “likely spam”.

PZ Myers, if you continue to lead people to worship Satan after this notice, I shall rebuke you! “Maran Eashoa M’Sheekah, our Christ Lord, the Anointed Life-Giving Living Branch is the ONLY Name given to humanity by which you received the Covenant of Life.” – See My 2-video series: Lord Eashoa! Pray to the ONLY Name that heals and Saves! “Jesus the Messiah” NEVER performed ANY of the righteous works nor the good deeds recorded in the Holy Bible! That is not a living human being but is a baphomet neuter shapeshifting demonic carnivorous creature from below and Liar just like his son Hillary the Devil Cain Qain Gain of Satan and a killer of mankind from the beginning just like his father the false messiah Satan Donald JeSUS ZEUS SOS ISIS Trump that ancient shapeshifting serpent from the Paradise of Eden, the titan, not a creator of anything, just a demon from Sheol the house of the dead, that can present itself as a human being. You have been lied to. You have ALL been Commanded to work for the Creator of the heaven and the earth and the sea and the water springs. You cannot serve two masters! It is Judgment Hour and there are MANY universes yet to come after this one concludes which is coming quick! I am the Spirit and it is the Season of My Testimony which is on My channel, the Reveal of the Creator. HURRY! You have NO TIME to delay! You WILL NOT enter the Kingdom of Heaven if you sat by with idle hands. Faith without works is dead faith. Get busy watching the Reveal quickly and telling others that I am here, directing them to My channel and the Reveal of the Creator! WATCH: ‘WORLD WAR III IS NOW! SILENT WEAPONS – WMD’S ARE USED ON US NON-STOP! IT’S BEEN GOING ON! READ COMMENT BOX & PAY ATTENTION: WE ARE UNDER CONSTANT ATTACK BY SILENT WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION! PROOF! DROP EVERYTHING & WATCH THIS NOW! My Testimony: the Spirit confirming this for you NOW! HUMANS ARE BEING KILLED WELL INTO THE MILLIONS OF MILLIONS!

Now I have a dilemma, though. This isn’t any loonier than the comments from creationists, or libertarians, or Jordan Peterson fans, or anti-feminists, and in fact is probably less evil (slightly) than any of those. So I’ll ask you, O Readers, should I click on the “approve” button or not?

Note: I do not accept any variant of free speech absolutism — I’m going to filter no matter what, so the only question is where I should draw the line.

Calories in < calories out

If I were to write a diet book (not that I’m at all qualified to do so), it would be one page long and that’s what it would say, and it wouldn’t sell. What you need for a successful diet book is a gimmick, a distraction to keep your mind away from the awful, impossible mantra of “Eat less, exercise more”, because that’s what people will pay for. “Oh, I can eat all the bacon I want as long as I avoid asparagus? That’s the diet for me!”

Yvette d’Entremont takes on the keto diet, which is the latest incarnation of a long line of wish-fulfillment diet strategies. The Atkins diet, the Paleo diet, and now the Keto diet are all rationalizations for consuming all the high calorie, fat-rich foods we crave with the magic trick of shunning one other kind of food. The scientific studies show they don’t work, or at least don’t work the way their proponents think they do. The simple formula is still the hard truth.

You could pick any of the countless diet books on the market, follow their plan to the last calorie, and lose weight. This is because — as study after study has shown — calories and dietary adherence matter more than anything for weight loss. You can gain or lose weight on any combination of foods. People have lost weight on twinkies, McDonalds, juice, plants, and obscene amounts of meat.

It’s important to remember weight loss alone doesn’t necessarily cause all health markers to improve, and a diet causing weight loss does not mean it’s appropriate and healthy for everyone. Some foods are better than others at making weight loss and maintenance easier for different people, so balancing a diet is a fairly personalized thing. If your doctor gives you the green light and keto works for you, do it. If low fat works for you, do it. If plant-based, paleo, Mediterranean, or one of the zillion other diets help you improve your health and your relationship with food? Do it. There’s no one right way to eat for everyone, just as there is no miracle diet plan for weight loss.

Also — here’s an article by a woman who got to experience a metabolism chamber and actually measure directly how food intake affected her caloric output. It’s got lots of solid, basic information on human physiology, and concludes much the same thing.

When it comes to diets, the researchers have also debunked the notion that bodies burn more body fat while on a high-fat and low-carb ketogenic diet, compared to a higher-carb diet, despite all the hype.

“We could have found out that if we cut carbs, we’d lose way more fat because energy expenditure would go up and fat oxidation would go up,” said Kevin Hall, an obesity researcher at NIH and an author on many of these studies. “But the body is really good at adapting to the fuels coming in.” Another related takeaway: There appears to be no silver bullet diet for fat loss, at least not yet.

That “not yet” is optimistic. I think we’re just going to have to face the fact that our cellular metabolism has been optimized by billions of years of evolution to be flexible and responsive to the environment…as if that isn’t a good thing.

The perfect description of Jordan Peterson

Laurie Penny, on point:

The first time I waded through the collected polemics and YouTube punditry of Professor Jordan Peterson — the unthinking man’s televangelist, inflated to the status of serious truth-seeker by respectable newspapers around the world — I was expecting to be at least slightly dazzled by his rhetoric. But no matter how long I stared at the magic-eye picture of jumbled platitudes, masturbatory nightmares about being devoured by an all-consuming mother figure, and occasional sensible tips about making your bed, it failed to resolve into a work of epoch-defining insight. Instead, it reads as if St. John the Divine of Patmos settled down and got a job selling insurance but occasionally had flashbacks to when he used to lick blue fungus off cave walls and babble about the Great Dragon.

The only way Peterson could have acquired a reputation as an intelligent person is by cultivating an audience of people who hate the humanities, and have therefore never read a well-written book.

I don’t give a good god damn who the author of that NY Times op-ed is

Everyone seems to be speculating about who the “Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration” is. I don’t care, because whoever it is isn’t part of the resistance at all — they are an enabler and supporter of the goals of the administration. They even say it outright.

To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous. But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic. That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.

See it for what it is: Republicans seeking to distance themselves from a bad president while still trying to support the same destructive policies. They are trying to represent the failings of this administration as the fault of personal incompetence of Donald Trump, hiding the fact that he is the apotheosis of Republican politics of the past 60 years.

Also, I don’t want to know who the author is. I hope they preserve their anonymity for years, so that the mad emperor starts violently tearing apart every asshole skulking in government in his efforts to root out the traitor. I hope it ends with every Republican shattered and fleeing in disgrace.

Welcome, Larry!

Uh-oh. I just submitted my first grant application (a small, in-house grant to do pilot studies) for spider research. This might be getting serious.

In more routine news, I added a new fellow to my stable today: Larry. He’s now savoring a meal before I throw him to the loving mercies of the lady spiders.

In case you were curious about how to identify spider sex, I’ll explain below the fold.

[Read more…]

Elon Musk really is an unpleasant jerk

He’s still stewing over his unused plan to rescue those kids stranded in a cave in Thailand, and he’s still accusing one of the guys who led the successful rescue of being a pedophile. Buzzfeed asked him for evidence of his accusation, and hoo boy, he really quadrupled down. His evidence that Unsworth is a pedophile? He’s a white guy who lives in Thailand, therefore…

Buzzfeed contacted the woman with whom he is in a long-term relationship. Just the simple fact of her existence seems to confound Musk’s claim.

BuzzFeed News also spoke with Woranan Ratrawiphukkun, a Thai woman who is Unsworth’s longtime girlfriend. She said she had been with Unsworth for more than seven years and has posted numerous photos about their relationship on social media dating back several years. Unsworth, she added, spends part of the year in Thailand and part of the time in the UK.

Ratrawiphukkun, who said she is 40, declined to comment on Musk’s allegations against Unsworth, and referred a reporter to his lawyers.

40? I guess the window of time for pedophilia can be stretched quite a bit. I suppose you could call me a hebephile, at least, since my wife is 6 months younger than I am.