That student from hell

We’ve all had them, but none quite so annoying as the one that afflicted Dr Caitlin Zaloom of the NYU Department of Social and Cultural Analysis. Dr Zaloom gave a simple enough project to her students, to go down to the Occupy Wall Street protestors in Zucotti Park and write an ethnographic analysis. It seems reasonable, but one student, Sara Ackerman, had a melodramatic breakdown over it. She has been ranting at the administration about it, and the emails have been made public.

Professor Caitlin Zaloom forced myself, and my classmates to do an ethnographic assignment on Occupy Wall Street a few months ago.
*No alternatives were offered, and we were instructed to interview only those people who were participating in the OWS movement– that means anyone, including criminals,drug addicts, mentally ill people, and of course, the few competent, mentally stable people that stationed themselves at Zuccotti Park

(**note: I did not meet any of the supposedly mentally sound, non-delusional people at Zucotti Park. All of the interviews that I conducted are on video, and clearly show that each person I interviewed—and believe me, for my own safety, I tried to interview the most seemingly normal people there—was either mentally disturbed or dangerous, scary or masked, or misogynistic and rude. I was cat- called at, gawked at, ogled, and called derogatory names.)

Way to pre-judge your subjects, Sara! Why are you taking a sociology course, again? I really would love to see her videos of the insane lunatics in Zuccotti Park.

Although it went against my core values, moral beliefs, and also made me feel unsafe, I ultimately did go to Occupy Wall Street with my class group—–two other young girls, who are quite attractive and thin, and don’t look particularly physically fit enough to take on a potential predator, rapist, paranoid schizophrenic, etc.—-just to see if I was being as melodramatic as Professor Zaloom made me feel I was.

***I won’t go into detail here, but let me just tell you that if anything, I had previously underestimated how awful Occupy Wall Street was, and I left the park feeling as though I had escaped an extremely dangerous—and even, life-threatening—situation.***

I’m glad Sara at least had the company of two other thin, attractive girls. What a horror it would have been if her classmates had been fat or homely.

Really, these videos had better document overtly criminal behavior, or yes, Sara is being as melodramatic as Professor Zaloom made her feel.

It turns out that the TA for the class, Jen, was also oppressing Sara.

During Jen’s 2nd and 3rd lectures, she mostly refused to call on me, even when Iwas the only student raising my hand.

Other times, I kept my hand up for about 75 seconds—a long time to keep one’s arm raised, by the way —and Jen still did not call on me, or she dismissed my questions, thoughts, and opinions.

Furthermore, when Jen did call on me, she was incredibly hostile, rude, and condescending—she acted in a completely different manner than she had before,and she seemed to change her behavior only towards me.

How dare an instructor not pay attention to Sara for 75 seconds. It must have been like torture.

My favorite part of Sara’s strangely punctuated and formatted rants, though, is this little bit.

Lastly, I have over 1,000 friends on facebook, and if Professor Zaloom does not resign, or is not fired by 9 am tomorrow morning, I will publish every single email exchange we have had, on my facebook account.

Every single email exchange has now been published. They are being posted far and wide. Professor Zaloom still has her job.

Who looks demented now?

(Also on Sb)

Is Seattle’s KOMO news sympathizing with creationists now?

Or maybe it’s just guilty of bad journalism. Look at this story they ran: it’s about a creationist who claims that Arizona sandstones are proof of Noah’s flood. It’s a remarkable piece of crap. The creationist, Greg Morgan, is a nuclear safety engineer, not a geologist, and his argument consists entirely of pointing at some swirly sandstone formations and saying they look flowy, like they’d been formed in water. That’s it. It got published in Answers in Genesis magazine, though!

They gave this nonsense 35 paragraphs. The surprising thing is that nowhere in it did they consult an actual geologist — I guess “he said she said” journalism only applies when you’re talking about science. If it’s creationism, just “he said” is enough. The journalist, John Trumbo, did make the effort to call Andrew Snelling in Kentucky to get a second creationist’s opinion, but could not trouble himself to call the UW or WSU to find out what the opinion of a real geologist might be.

I’m not a geologist, not even close, but I’ve traveled through Utah and Northern Arizona and have seen a lot of these spectacular formations, and even I know the answer: these were formed by aeolian processes, built up and carved away by the wind. I can even lift my fingers and consult the BLM via Google and get a fairly thorough explanation.

The Jurassic Navajo Sandstone is 1200 feet thick in Paria Canyon and is the most prominent formation. It is composed of crossbedded eolian sandstone deposited over millions of years as huge sand dunes migrated across a large desert broken only by an occasional oasis. Where the Paria River and Buckskin Gulch have cut through the Navajo Sandstone, slot canyons have formed. The Navajo Sandstone is very resistant in this desert environment and forms sheer cliffs and conical hoodoos.

John Trumbo did not make the slightest effort to evaluate the bullshit Greg Morgan is spouting, or if he did, he ignored it. John Trumbo is an incompetent journalist. John Trumbo is a creationist. Why is KOMO news supporting him? They did issue a statement on their facebook page.

Folks, please note that we shared this story on our Facebook page because it is currently one of the most popular stories on our website. We are not promoting any agenda, including “young-earth creationism.” Thank you.

No, they are promoting creationism. They published a completely credulous story with no fact-checking at all that parrots a totally bogus explanation of a well-understood geological phenomenon.

That’s promoting a young earth creationist agenda.

Hey, KOMO. How about issuing a correction and consulting a competent geologist to get some goddamned truth in your news?

(Also on Sb)

Slow news day, I guess

Good god, media, I DON’T CARE ABOUT IOWA ANY MORE. It’s a freakish little local contest dominated by hardcore fanatics, and the only reason the results will mean anything is that the media will do its best to pump up the outcome into a portent of things to come. So when I saw this headline in the Minneapolis Star Tribune at the coffee shop today, I just set it aside, disgusted, disinterested, and disenchanted.

Bachmann isn’t going to win. Even if she did, she’s one lunatic among a field of demented dwarfs.

What headline next, Strib? “SARAH PALIN: STILL IRRELEVANT”? How about “JOHN MCCAIN AIN’T DEAD YET” or “SASQUATCH PROBABLY WON’T WIN REPUBLICAN NOMINATION”?

I’m ready to call for a return of party bosses in smoke-filled rooms; this obsession with turning politics into a horse race, with every news source fussing over percentage points, is making a joke of democracy.

The only “points” we should be discussing are the substance of their policies.

Hot for…student?

Jesse Bering is that weird evolutionary psychologist who writes for SciAm and who I’ve criticized before. It seems he doesn’t like me at all (boy, does he hate me—it’s extremely personal for him), and I’ll be charitable and assume his personal antipathy has clouded his judgment, because he’s really gone on a frothing tear on facebook and made a few strange accusations. Apparently, I have a choice: I can be sexually attracted to my students, or I’m sick and need to see a doctor. And then he and his friends proceed to carry out a remote dissection of my psychological problems. On facebook. By a bunch of people who’ve never even met me. How…unprofessional.

I was sent a copy of the thread; if you’d like to read bizarre internet drama completely disconnected from reality, you’ll find it below the fold.

[Read more…]

Sometimes Francis Collins does something right

He’s a delusional kook, but Collins is also a competent administrator, and I have to give him credit when he does the right thing.

The NIH, led by Dr. Collins, has recently accepted a recommendation from the National Institute of Medicine that future chimpanzee research funding shall be suspended, and that exceedingly strict guidelines are to be imposed.

They’re just too close to us, and should fall under the penumbra of the same ethical considerations we apply to humans. I’d say the same of gorillas and orangutans…but I don’t think there is any biomedical research being done on those animals, so the restriction would be unnecessary.

(Also on FtB)

Sometimes Francis Collins does something right

He’s a delusional kook, but Collins is also a competent administrator, and I have to give him credit when he does the right thing.

The NIH, led by Dr. Collins, has recently accepted a recommendation from the National Institute of Medicine that future chimpanzee research funding shall be suspended, and that exceedingly strict guidelines are to be imposed.

They’re just too close to us, and should fall under the penumbra of the same ethical considerations we apply to humans. I’d say the same of gorillas and orangutans…but I don’t think there is any biomedical research being done on those animals, so the restriction would be unnecessary.

(Also on Sb)

Feminist nerd rage

Oh, this was good for a laugh. In fantasy role playing games, there are certain standard roles that have to be filled: the tank, the big heavily armored brute who can take lots of damage; the damage dealers, who may be more fragile, but can pew-pew lots of hurt at the bad guys; and the healers, who can keep everyone healthy and alive during the battles. There are also different kinds of games: ones where you fight monsters set up by the creators of the game, or PvP, player-vs-player, where you fight each other. As you might guess, there are gender-stereotypes associated with each role as well — so lots of people assume that the tanks are all guys and the healers are mostly women (what few women who play these games, anyway), and that women all shy away from PvP.

So I was sent this thread where a woman questions the stereotypes in World of Warcraft. One clueless fellow early on suggests that “women are better at supportive roles and males are (sometimes) better at leading the troops” uses pseudo-evolutionary rationalizations to defend himself…and then the ladies all drop-kick his punk ass. It’s hilarious. I especially liked the woman who talked about playing the tank while breast-feeding.

Also, check out the three year old who spots the patriarchy in a toy store.

The Schwyzer betrayal

I’ve been rather appalled at the Hugo Schwyzer story that has been unfolding unpleasantly lately, but since Ms. Daisy Cutter brought it up and Comrade Physioprof has a good post on it, I thought I’d throw in a few words to the pigpile.

Schwyzer is a professor who lectures on feminism…he’s also a professor who had sex with his students and who tried to murder an ex-girlfriend. We could stop right there; just those acts alone make him contemptible. But for some unfathomable reason, he now makes money lecturing women on feminist ethics and patriarchal culture; would you believe that the title of one of his lectures is “Holding Men Accountable”? And now many people are arguing that he should be recognized as a useful ally for women, that we should forgive and move on, and recognize him as a changed and better person.

EG at Feministe sums up what I think about that.

The ideas that forgiveness and redemption are things we should be granting, that we have the power to grant, that all they require is confession and repentance, that they are things we have a duty to grant each other–those all seem to me to come out of a system of cultural values deeply invested in Christianity, with its emphasis on redemption and repentance. There is, of course, some good to be said of those ideas, but they are also ideas that should be interrogated, because they can be used as an excuse to celebrate abusers and silencing their victims. There are people whom I feel no need to forgive, both personally and in a political sense. Many people felt no need to forgive Christopher Hitchens. Nobody has a right to forgiveness from anybody, and forgiveness in and of itself is not necessarily a virtue.

(I’ve always found the whole Christian emphasis on forgiveness really strange, given their other emphasis on ETERNAL TORTURE FOREVER in the pit of hell for sinners; the ancient Egyptians just annihilated you if you were found morally wanting after death, which seems far more merciful to me.)

I do not forgive Schwyzer, nor do I feel any obligation to try to forgive. He screwed up unconscionably, he violated trusts once, and right now his work on feminism reeks of continuing exploitation. His confession does not reassure me.

My behavior with students from 1996-98 was unacceptable for a male feminist and, for that matter, an ethical person. The question is whether the penalty for that ought to be a lifetime ban from teaching gender studies, or writing about the subjects I write about. Some feminists feel yes, it should be. I disagree, but only because so many wonderful feminist mentors of mine have encouraged me to stay in this work.

At the time that he was exploiting his students for sex, he also knew that his academic mentors regarded that as an extreme violation of ethics — it’s one of those behaviors that can warrant stripping tenure from a faculty member, and we all know that we have a great deal of power over student careers, power that it would be unjust to take advantage of, yet he went ahead and screwed his students anyway. So now he listens to what his mentors say when they tell him what he wants to hear?

I don’t understand why he still holds a job in academia. I especially don’t understand why he’s permitted to teach in a field in which he’s surrounded every day by women students. If he were looking for real redemption, if he really wanted to atone for the abuse of his position, he ought to remove himself from the profession he violated and try to earn respect elsewhere. Maybe he should be the best plumber he can be, or the very best surfer, or a most excellent construction worker, all respectable professions. But he’s already burned all of his bridges as an academic.

von Däniken poisons everything

Gah, the stupid, it burns. Ridley Scott is making a kind of prequel to Alien called Prometheus, which sounds fun; I liked the first two movies in the Alien franchise. But his rationale dismays me, and makes me regard Scott as a bit dim.

"The (space) journey, metaphorically, is about a challenge to the gods," Scott said. But Scott’s ambitions with Prometheus go far beyond simply restarting a hit franchise. The British director said the film’s storyline, and script by David Lindelof, was partially inspired by the writings of legendary Swiss sci-fi writer Eric van Daniken.

Van Daniken, author of 1968 bestseller Chariot of the Gods, is best known as the first proponent of the so-called ancient astronaut theory, which holds that aliens kick-started civilization on earth. "NASA and the Vatican agree that is almost mathematically impossible that we can be where we are today without there being a little help along the way," Scott said. "That’s what we’re looking at (in the film), at some of Eric van Daniken’s ideas of how did we humans come about."

I had to laugh at the claim that von Däniken was a “sci-fi writer”. He wasn’t. He was a pseudo-science writer who believed that his nonsense about aliens helping the Egyptians construct the pyramids (and other belittlings of human abilities) was actual history. I’ve read a couple of his books, many years ago, and they were so hopelessly inane and incompetently supported that I rejected them as a high school student. It doesn’t say much about Scott’s scientific discrimination that he can be inspired by that drivel, and it is just about as damning to his competence at recognizing a good story that he mistook it for a sci-fi novel.

I also don’t consider the opinion of a bunch of engineers or a gang of theological thugs to be of much value in assessing the likelihood of evolutionary events — the authorities he cites are not authorities in the subject he’s discussing. I have a strong suspicion that Scott is making crap up, doesn’t know much about what either NASA or the Vatican has said, and probably hasn’t even read any of von Däniken’s books, but is only vaguely echoing the ‘common knowledge’ of blithering Hollywood celebrities.

My expectations for this movie have plummeted, though. Those Hollywood celebrities should never ever speak, because they always seem to confirm that they’re vacuous and credulous.