Just when you thought it was safe to get back on the internet, Dan Waddell reminds us of the explosion of nastiness in the Tim Hunt sexism affair. The short summary:

The first part of an in-depth account of how the Tim Hunt saga developed into a furious online backlash against his critics, and escalated from casual sexism into a dangerous mix of racism, misogyny and political and cultural warfare.

The interesting part of this review is that while some are quick to blame a PC culture, what started as a civil rebuke of a sexist remark was enflamed into a conflagration of viciousness by the introduction of alt-right bigots like Yiannopoulos, Mensch, and gamergaters into the mix, and when they refocused the complaints about a safe, secure Nobel prizewinner onto a black woman journalist, all the racism and misogyny by others than Hunt was allowed to flower.

That’s the only positive spin I can put on the awful story of Brock Turner. For those who’ve missed out on the outrage, Brock Turner was a Stanford athlete who found a drunk woman passed out behind a dumpster, and he proceeded to do what any privileged male asshole would do: he raped her. He was caught in the act however, and tried to run away, and was put on trial.

Awful enough so far. But then once he was convicted, the judge decided to give him a light 6 month sentence, because prison would have a severe impact on him. Yes? Isn’t that the point? Of course, the judge, Aaron Persky, was also a former Stanford athlete, so this is clearly a case of a judge seeing someone who looks like him, so he must be a good boy…

So injustice is compounded. But then, just to make me truly sick to my stomach, Turner’s father made a statement. This is why I say fathers matter — because Dan A. Turner is an oblivious asshole who raised an asshole. This is appalling.

[Read more…]

This is getting really old. It’s another case of sexual harassment of students by senior faculty, this time at UC Berkeley. Herr Doktor Professor Blake Wentworth seems to have a thing for obsessing over his undergraduates and making life hell for them.

Read this for an extraordinary example of a total lack of self-awareness. He promises to honor student-professor boundaries while calling her “honey” and “honey bear”.

Hemenway tried to minimize contact with Wentworth after a meeting on 17 February 2015 that she said was particularly upsetting. According to the complaint, the professor repeatedly called her “honey” and “honey bear” and put his hands on hers while complimenting her and staring intensely into her eyes.

He also allegedly suggested that he wanted to pursue a romantic relationship with her as soon as she graduated.

“I will always honor professor-student boundaries,” he said, according to the complaint. “Once you graduate, that’s an entirely different scenario. I look forward to the day when you graduate. … But until then, just know that I will never come onto you or make you feel uncomfortable. Got that, honey?”

That’s quite an inducement to graduate he’s given Ms Hemenway, isn’t it?

Wentworth is still at Berkeley, while Hemenway is considering leaving her field altogether.

There’s this new book out, Life: The Leading Edge of Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, Anthropology, and Environmental Science, which has a number of people rightfully irate that it has 23 authors, not a one of them a woman. I was also astounded to see among its leading edge authors Ernst Mayr, who died in 2005 at the age of 100.

There are no women in evolutionary biology who can compete with the corpse of a centenarian man? That’s pretty bad.

And Kary Mullis? Good grief.

I guess this article wasn’t humorous after all, but dead serious reporting.

I hadn’t realized that that was a fundamental philosophical dictum, but it’s sure looking that way. Thomas Pogge, a very big name in philosophical ethics, has been accused of being a serial sexual harasser, all while running a high profile Global Justice program at Yale. I say “accused”, but this very well written, very thorough, well documented account from Buzzfeed doesn’t leave him much wiggle room. As often seems to be the case, we’re looking at decades of constant allegations. He’d been accused when he was at Columbia, but of course that was ignored when Yale hired him. And then the accusations kept coming, and they kept being handled by university administrators who had a vested interest in keeping their superstar happy.

“It breaks my heart to have to say it,” said Christia Mercer, a former colleague from the Columbia philosophy department, “but it’s clear that Thomas uses his reputation as a supporter of justice to prey unjustly on those who trust and admire him, who then — once victimized — are too intimidated by his reputation and power to tell their stories.”

It is dismaying that someone can cultivate a public reputation for morality while acting as such a creepy sleaze with students.

Let’s start with the worst. Chuck C. Johnson did an AMA for Reddit. Read for the spectacle of fawning turdwaffles praising a racist, sexist, vile shitlord, and wonder what’s wrong with people in this country.

It’s in a pro-Trump forum, and you can tell that a certain squat-fingered orange troll doll has really given a voice to the nastiest elements in the US. You will feel despair as you witness swarms of anonymous people celebrating ignorance and hatred.

But then you can read Rachel Swirsky and feel a little better. She’s a writer who has been targeted by Theodore Beale and his minions, and they’ve once again tried to subvert the Hugo awards, in part because they are horrified that she wrote “If you were a dinosaur, my love”. I think it’s because they didn’t understand it, or at least kinda vaguely grokked that it’s a) dreamy and metaphorical, which they hate, and b) it doesn’t approve of beating up people for racist/sexist reasons, which they also hate.

So she wrote about the harassment campaign, and their hilarious ineptitude.

That’s where the Hugos come in. Since trolls gotta troll in order to justify their petty lives, they decided to troll the Hugo Awards. Want to know why? The same reason the neighborhood bully knocks over your Lego tower. They can’t figure out how to make one of their own. Using underhanded tactics, they nominated a “satire” of my work to the ballot, which the white supremacist posted on his own blog. As the publisher, he included a comment saying I should be killed. Sure, it’s phrased as a “joke.” But the dogs can hear the whistle.

Luckily, there’s a hilarious silver lining. Because he and his followers are the kind of juvenile people who assume “gay = porn” (apparently, the word “gay” causes them to compulsively think of gay sex, which must be alarming for a homophobe), they also nominated a piece of porn about a dude who has sex with dinosaurs. It’s called “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” and it’s hilarious because the story’s author, Chuck Tingle, is some sort of subversive, queer, meta-fictional performance artist. Remember when Stephen Colbert hosted the white house correspondence dinner because no one bothered to do their leg work? It’s like that.

And she’s doing something more. If she reaches a certain level of donations on her Patreon account, she’ll write a parody story of her own. She has reached that level! But you should still donate, because she’s also going to give her first month’s awards to a charity that provides health services for LGBTQ people. It’s a good cause for a good reason, and it’ll also rankle the Chuck C Johnsons and Vox Days of the world.

But also, there are other rewards at other levels.

At $400, I’ll also release a silly version of “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” about cuttlefish. Because cuttlefish are bizarre and awesome. You know it to be true.

Yes. We know. So we should all support this story.