A useful compendium of Petersonia

In case you need it, here’s a Jordan Peterson resource page.

Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson became famous after he spouted transphobia and refused to use they/them pronouns to address nonbinary students in his classes. He then published a wildly popular self-help book 12 Rules for Life, and has been lauded in the popular press as a leading voice for disaffected men. Center right pundits like Conor Fridersdorf and David Brooks have held him up as an honest and important thinker, unfairly maligned by the left.

Unfortunately, Peterson’s writing and YouTube videos are a bolus of nonsense, resentment, and bigotry. This page provides resources explaining the problems with Peterson’s worldview and arguments.

Also unfortunately, Peterson’s lobster swarm is fanatical and impervious to argument, so if you cross them, you’ll want some backup. I recommend just citing this page at ’em and then ignoring them.

Compare and constrast: American Atheists from two different perspectives

I was reading Gretchen Koch’s review of the American Atheist convention in Oklahoma city (net positive), and she links to a Christian pastor’s review of the same (not positive at all). Koch’s article is a thoughtful balance of concerns about atheism’s problems and the good aspects of community.

The Christian review is a collection of familiar tropes. Atheism is just like a religion because they have speakers and try to persuade people that they’re right! Welcome to the real world, guy: then auto dealers and the society for developmental biology are religions, because they have meetings with speakers and argue.

Then he scorns the attendance.

The organizers were impressed with the fact that 850 people attended the conference. But I have attended a dozen church conferences in the past year that have more people than that. In some ways, I think the church has little to worry about from such a small, insignificant organization, but in other ways, I am very concerned because their goal is nothing short of transforming our entire nation from one with Christian foundations to a completely secular nation where the religious would be forced to keep their beliefs confined to the inside of their homes.

This is correct. 850 people is not that many; the Society for Neuroscience annual event draws in 20,000+ attendees, just to put it in perspective. Atheism is a minority view, so don’t be surprised when events are smaller than some rally filmed by Leni Riefenstahl. But it doesn’t mean that they can’t be influential, especially when the majority view is becoming increasingly repellent. Donald Trump’s support by evangelical Christians does so much hard work for us.

Stop me if you’ve heard this canard before.

The reason most people are atheists is because they want to have the freedom to sin. At the atheist conference I saw people promoting abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, premarital sex, and polyamory. The most common theme at the conference was, “There is no god” but the second most common theme was, “I want to have sex unhindered by religious morality.”

The theme is actually more like “Consenting adults ought to be free to find happiness in their own way,” but OK, yes, we do want to get rid of narrow, dogmatic religious morality that too often disregards the happiness and consent of its citizens to meddle in personal matters.

How about this oldie?

The atheists also celebrate homosexuality which is weird because if evolution is true as atheists believe then the gene for homosexuality should disappear within a few generations.

If god is true then why haven’t all the gay people been on the receiving end of a thunderbolt, huh? My answer to his fallacy is that, like all behaviors, there are biological compromises. Fine-tune the specificity of human mate preferences too much, and you get a population that doesn’t want to breed with anyone. And, since we’re a social species, maybe loving people of your own sex is just fine and even advantageous in building a community.

And then…

American Atheists are mad about the recent school shootings, but their founder Madalyn Murray O’Hair is the one responsible for taking prayer out of schools. When an objective moral standard is removed from education and prayer to Almighty God is forbidden in the classroom, then lawless behavior is the inevitable result. Who is responsible for school shootings? I think the American Atheists are.

Takes your breath away, doesn’t it? Taking prayer out of schools has nothing to do with school shootings; and it’s not true that prayer has been removed, because anyone can still pray all they want in school, you just can’t have an authority dictating to you how and to whom you must pray. This pastor is some kind of generic Protestant. I wonder how he’d feel if a Catholic were to decide on the prayers to be dictated in the schools, or even more horrifying to him, a Muslim? Separation of church and state has been a blessing that allows every weird sect to flourish in this country, including his profitable ministry.

But to blame atheism for the shootings? Over the top. Fuck you, Daniel King.

So that’s what they mean by “falling upwards”

Hello, Calgary. I hear you’re having a holistic medicine convention with a famous speaker.

David Stephan is listed as one of the presenters for the “Body Soul & Spirit Expo,” which bills itself as a “holistic lifestyle show” that showcases products, services and resources for “growth, wholeness and self-understanding.”

According to the show’s website, Stephan will speak about how to achieve brain and thyroid health during a session on Friday. He runs a natural supplement business called Truehope Nutritional Support.

He’s being brought in as an expert on brain health? But…but…

In 2016, Stephan and his wife were convicted of failing to provide the necessaries of life to their 19-month-old son Ezekiel. During the trial, the court heard the couple tried to treat their son’s bacterial meningitis with natural remedies such as, garlic, onion and horseradish instead of taking him to a doctor. Ezekiel died in 2012.

Stephan was sentenced to four months in prison and his wife was given three months of house arrest.

Dang. When trying to decide which of my three kids to murder in order to get these speaking gigs, should I ask for volunteers, or just have them draw straws?

Dana Rohrabacher says what the Republicans think

Rohrabacher is outraged that Orange County has been building temporary shelters for the poor and homeless.

More than 1,000 people protested at the Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting last month, where officials were considering a plan to relocate those who had been moved from near the river to temporary shelters in the area. That plan apparently inspired Rohrabacher to speak out, issuing a statement titled “Homeless Shelter Nonsense,” in which he complained about the homeless population insinuating that homelessness was somehow a choice.

“The chickens are coming home to roost after almost a decade of Liberal/Left control of our state and federal government,” Rohrabacher wrote. “Those chickens have ended up in Orange County.”

In the statement, Rohrabacher called “county financed homeless compounds” a “spectacle” and a “travesty.”

“As a parent who owns a modest home in an Orange County neighborhood, I join the outrage that we are assuming responsibility for homeless people, taking care of their basic needs and elongating their agony by removing the necessity to make fundamental decisions about the way they live their lives,” he said. Providing them with “a place to stay and basic sustenance,” he added, “will not change them for the better and will encourage more such people to come to Orange County.”

He actually has quite a nice house. It looks roomy and a bit rambly, and the only problem with it might be the protesters who like to hang around outside it waving signs. The spectacle in his neighborhood might be reduced if they kicked him out.

Meanwhile, here’s what an Orange County homeless shelter looks like.

Rohrabacher wants — no, he thinks the poor deserve — to live in even worse conditions than that. He’s not alone.

Rohrabacher is hardly the first to put his foot in his mouth on the topic: last week, a Republican group in Colorado apologized for a tweet and Facebook post saying that “Republicans hate poor people.”

“Out of self-respect — be a Republican,” the posts from the Alamosa Republicans read. “Democrats love poor people because they think that poor people will vote Democrat. Republicans hate poor people because they think the dignity of man is above being poor.”

You know, there are a lot of loud, indignant Christians in the Republican party. I’ve read the Bible, but I don’t think they have.

Jobs! Biology jobs!

Look, gang, the University of Minnesota Morris is hiring biology professors! Two of them! If you meet the requirements and are looking for a position at a small liberal arts university that greatly values teaching, here’s your opportunity!

We’re looking for someone to teach microbiology/biochemistry, and someone to teach cell biology. You’ll also be expected to teach an interesting elective or two, which we can discuss. Here are the descriptions for the two positions:

Full-Time, Multi-Year Position in Biology

Required/Preferred Qualifications:
Required: Candidates must have a Ph.D. in biochemistry or microbiology, or a closely related field by August 20, 2018. Experience and evidence of excellence in teaching undergraduate biology is required. (Graduate TA experience is acceptable).
Preferred: Preference will be given to applicants with experience teaching courses similar to those attached to this position. Ability to supervise undergraduate students in summer research is also valued.
Duties/Responsibilities: Teaching upper-level undergraduate courses for majors in biochemistry and microbiology, both with labs; our introductory Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution and Development course for majors; contributing to other courses that support the biology curriculum; and sharing in the governance and advancement of the biology program.

Full-Time, One-Year Position in Biology

Required/Preferred Qualifications:
Required: Candidates must have a Ph.D. in cellular biology, or a closely related field by August 20, 2018. Experience and evidence of excellence in teaching undergraduate biology is required. (Graduate TA experience is acceptable).
Preferred: Preference will be given to applicants with experience teaching courses similar to those attached to this position. Ability to supervise undergraduate students in summer research is also valued.
Duties/Responsibilities: Teaching undergraduate courses for majors in cell biology, with labs; our introductory Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution and Development course for majors; contributing to other courses that support the biology curriculum, including an upper level elective; and sharing in the governance and advancement of the biology program.

And this is some general boilerplate and the specific application instructions.

Program/Unit Description:
A distinctive undergraduate campus within the University of Minnesota system, Morris combines the benefits of an intimate, student-centered residential liberal arts education with access to the resources and opportunities of one of the nation’s largest universities. The University of Minnesota, Morris is a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC) and provides students with a rigorous academic experience, preparing them to be global citizens who value and pursue intellectual growth, civic engagement, intercultural competence, and environmental stewardship. The student body of nearly 1800 is supported by approximately 130 faculty members, a student/faculty ratio of 14:1. The Morris campus is the most ethnically diverse in the University of Minnesota system, with 28 percent US students of color (19 percent of whom are American Indian students) and 11 percent international students.

Morris culture is characterized by an unwavering commitment to the liberal arts and undergraduate education as well as by the particular traditions it has developed in pursuing that mission. The community believes in the values of shared governance (embodied in its official policymaking body, an inclusive Campus Assembly), and it recognizes the heritage of its campus (which was founded as an American Indian boarding school) with a vigorous commitment to diversity. With a vibrant sense of community in and out of the classroom, Morris aims to integrate curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular aspects of the student experience, and it reaches outward to the broader community with collaborative enterprises, partnerships, and service-learning initiatives.

The University of Minnesota shall provide equal access to and opportunity in its programs, facilities, and employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, gender, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Morris values diversity in its students, faculty, and staff. Morris is especially interested in qualified candidates who can contribute to the diversity of our community through their teaching, research, and /or service because we believe that diversity enriches the University experience for everyone.

To request disability accommodation contact: UMM Human Resources, 320-589-6024, Room 201, Behmler Hall, Morris, Minnesota.

Application Instructions:
To apply for this position, go to the University of Minnesota Employment System at https://humanresources.umn.edu/jobs. The job ID# for the multi-year position is 323067. The job ID# for the one-year position is 323104. Please click the Apply button and follow the instructions. Applications must include a letter of application, resume, graduate and undergraduate transcripts, a teaching statement with evidence of teaching effectiveness, and three letters of reference. Supporting documentation may be sent to Ann Kolden, Administrative Assistant, at koldenal@morris.umn.edu, (320) 589-6301, or they may be sent to:

Biology Search Committee Chair
Division of Science and Mathematics
University of Minnesota, Morris
Morris, MN 56267-2128

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Screening begins April 16, 2018.

Inquiries can be made to Professor Paul Myers, Search Committee Chair, at (320) 589-6343 (myersp@morris.umn.edu).

Note the dates. We’re moving fast on these positions, and will start reviewing applicants in two weeks.

Note also who gets to organize this whole thing…so much work.

The pay gap is painfully real

How about this for a revealing graphic? It’s a plot of average salaries for biology majors in a range of occupations, from airline pilots on the left (almost entirely male) to dental hygienists on the right (mostly female), and the gray dots and pink dots connected by lines show the relative salaries for men and women in the same job. Yikes — it turns out that being a gray dot means you get paid more money, no matter whether it’s a “female” job, or a “male” job.

I had to look hard to find exceptions to that rule. Women who are dishwashers or bank tellers get paid slightly more than their male counterparts. I wonder how much they use that biology degree in those jobs?

It’s a chicken-and-egg problem, says Michelle Ball, a career counselor at the University of Virginia. “Do teachers get paid less because the workforce is largely female, or is it that education is just underfunded and women are willing to go into it anyway?” she asked.

Even in such female-dominated professions as nursing or teaching, men are paid more. And the pay gap is even more severe for women of color: While college-educated white women earn only 55 percent of what college-educated white men do, college-educated non-white women earn even less.

I think we can answer that question from the graph: the proportions of men and women in a workforce doesn’t seem to matter at all, women will get paid less. How much less, and how badly screwed are people of color?

How can we change this? One cause of the difference is that the labor of raising a family falls almost entirely on women’s shoulders. We could fix that by changing the culture and having men share more of that labor (sheeyah, right), or employers could recognize that and adjust their practices to take it into account.

The labor of raising a family, then, is one of the biggest sources of divergent career paths for women and men who attain the same degrees. A recent U.K. study found that universities with generous maternity leave policies employed twice the number of women professors as those without, and a 2009 Center for Work-Life Policy survey found that among college-educated women who had left their careers, 69 percent said that they wouldn’t have done so if their companies had offered more flexible work options.

There are a whole lot of smart, ambitious women graduating from our biology program every year. Maybe employers should think more about what it takes to attract the best and brightest?

Who came up with this stupid idea?

Students in Parkland, Florida are now expected to use transparent plastic backpacks, as a way to prevent future mass murders. This makes no sense.

The “$1.05” tag is meant to suggest how much the NRA pays per student to Florida government officials to kill gun laws.

The article goes on to discuss “better” alternatives, like installing metal detectors at all entrances. I don’t get it. These are all pointless superficial measures to avoid addressing the problem at its root, the easy availability of weapons that have no utility other than mass murder. The kids are going to be so pleased that their worth has probably increased by several dollars more: (NRA donations + cost of backpacks + cost other useless measures) / number of Florida students. Yay!

First step in writing about others is self-awareness

Check out this thread. A man tries to prove that he can write good woman characters, and all of his writing samples are like cheesy porn.

Then it descends into parody as the women on the thread are challenged to “describe yourself like a male author would”.

So I thought about how a male author would describe me, and given my experience with the nastier side of the internet, it was easy: they would just write “cuck”.

Maybe it would help if we fired all the oracles and listened to the criticisms

I have my disagreements with Chris Stedman — he’s kind of representing the ooey-gooey side of atheism, while I’m typically on the harsh, strongly worded side (I know, you’re surprised). So, goddamn it, I hate it when I have to admit that he’s right, and that my side has been too accommodating to the fanatically godless side, which just luuurves ’em some alt-righties.

I’m still an activist, but after nearly a decade of active participation in online atheism (a loose community of forums, blogs, YouTube channels, and fandoms of figures like evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and writer Sam Harris), I mostly stepped away from the online side of atheism a few years ago. One of the biggest reasons for this was my growing concern over its failure to adequately address some of its darker currents—such as overt sexism, racism, and anti-Muslim bias.

I’ve been backing away myself, and I was smack in the middle of online atheism for years. It’s for the same reasons.

By neglecting to address its darker currents, online atheism has perhaps unknowingly planted the seeds for the alt-right’s harvest. Three years ago Reddit’s atheism subforum, perhaps the largest community of atheists on the internet, was found to be the website’s third most bigoted—meaning not just tolerant of overt displays of bigotry, but actively supportive of them. Last year, the Daily Beast revealed that the study’s most bigoted Reddit subforum, the Red Pill, was founded by Robert Fisher, a Republican state lawmaker who is also an atheist.

The problem is more widespread than figures like Spencer and Fisher, too. While championing liberal views on some issues, many of atheism’s most prominent advocates—the majority of whom are, like me, cisgender white men—have expressed troubling sentiments that align with views held by the alt-right and faced little to no consequences.

Last year Sam Harris hosted Charles Murray—who has famously argued that black people are genetically predisposed to lower IQs than whites—on his immensely popular podcast, calling Murray a victim of “a politically correct moral panic.” Harris has in the past called for profiling “Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim.” (When I challenged him on this, he suggested I “wear a t-shirt stating ‘There is no God and I am Gay’ in Islamic countries and report back on [my] experiences.”) Outspoken atheist Bill Maher rightly came under fire last summer for using racist language on air. He has also argued that “most Muslim people in the world do condone violence,” told “transgendered” [ sic] people to be quiet, and gave alt-right darling Milo Yiannopoulos a sympathetic interview on his HBO show. Lawrence Krauss, a popular skeptic who now faces numerous sexual harassment allegations, has criticized the #MeToo movement. Richard Dawkins, perhaps the most famous atheist in the world, has mocked women for speaking out about experiences of sexual harassment, shared a video ridiculing feminists, and railed against “SJWs” (short for “social justice warriors,” a derisive term for social justice activists). Look beyond atheism’s biggest names and you will find vocal Trump supporters like author Robert M. Price and immensely popular atheist YouTubers with more than a million subscribers. Their views are likely shared by more atheists than many would like to admit.

Yeah, what good is atheism as a philosophy if it can’t even find within itself a reason to condemn Nazis, bombing campaigns against Muslim countries, and discrimination and harassment against women? I know that several of the big organizations, like the Freedom From Religion Foundation and American Atheists, are quite clear that they are pro-feminism and anti-Nazi, but it seems like the base have been drifting away to the siren song of the anti-Muslim, racist right (or, as they prefer to call themselves to the point that the word has lost all meaning “centrists”).

Trav Mamone has identified one of the deeper problems in the atheist movement.

One thing I suggest is getting rid of the concept of the atheist celebrity. By declaring just a handful of prominent atheist activists to be the movement’s leaders, it creates a hierarchal system where the same arguments against God get repeated ad nauseam, and newer ideas about how to put humanist values into action are ignored. Everyone should be a leader in the atheist movement, whether that person is fighting for church and state separation in a small town in Pennsylvania or creating a community for liberal atheists living in the Bible Belt. Martin Luther King once said, “You don’t have to know the theory of relativity in order serve.”

There’s always got to be a figurehead, apparently — even MLK has become one. I agree wholeheartedly that we have to get out of that stupid “four horsemen” mindset and recognize that an effective movement has ten thousand leaders, and no one is just a follower, and we’re always ready to criticize, and listen to criticism. Another of our problems is that our “leaders” have been remarkably thin-skinned and unwilling to tolerate disagreement, let alone act on it to change course. We need to be more adaptable.

Until we achieve that kind of breadth and resilience, though, clearly we need to make Trav the King of Atheism. All bow down and worship their wise words.