I give up, Ben Carson, you have defeated me

01 pyramids_crossection_600

I can’t. I just can’t anymore. Ben Carson Knows Everything.

My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain, Carson said. Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain.

There are Americans right now who hear that, and think, “Well, that’s a mighty sensible theory, I think I’ll elect that man to be President of this here United States!”, and I just don’t think I can bear the widespread stupidity any more.

I think I’ll just close my eyes and pretend he doesn’t exist. But if I open them a year from January and discover that this flaming nincompoop has actually been elected, I’ll have to spontaneously combust.

The sinful tech of hair coloring?

fakehair

Oh, great. Breitbart has created a new “Tech” section, to be run by non-techie, non-gamer, non-competent poser, Milo Yiannopoulos. The only thing I can imagine even close to that miscasting was the Discovery Institute’s appointment of the young gerbil, Casey Luskin, to write science articles.

Well, I’ll give ’em a chance. I took a look at Breitbart Tech. First article that caught my eye: APOSEMATISM MAY EXPLAIN WHY SO MANY ANGRY WOMEN HAVE BLUE HAIR. Oooh! Science!

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I await the angry letters in his defense

Yet another sorry story of a prestigious man with a disgusting habit.

John Kearsley, the director of radiation oncology at St George Hospital and conjoint professor of medicine at the University of NSW, gave depressant drugs known as benzodiazepines to the 32-year-old and touched her inappropriately.

That’s the sanitized, softened-down version of what he did — you’d have to read the whole thing to get the details.

But look (he says, sarcastically), this is a MAN who dedicated his LIFE to FIGHTING CANCER … I’m sure someone somewhere would like to argue that we ought to cut him a little slack, and allow him to occasionally slip a mickey to women half his age and drag them into bed for a nice fondling. Won’t medicine grind to a halt if we don’t?

Less sarcastically, I wonder how one gets to be 63 years old, at the top of their profession, director of a major subdivision of a hospital, and still think one can get away with drugging women for sex. These kinds of behaviors don’t just suddenly manifest in a one time accident — I bet he has a long history of these or lesser transgressions, yet no one had qualms about promoting him ever upwards.

Unproportional! Vicious! Hypocritical! Hysterical!

RIPscience

There’s a letter going around, in support of Geoff Marcy. If you’d rather not read it, just see panels 4 and 5 of this cartoon.

Dear Colleagues,

Due to my outrage concerning the disgusting attack of the (mostly) US1 astronomical community against Geoff Marcy, and the apparent lack of any counter movement against this madness, I would like to draw your attention to the danger of remaining silent in this situation.

What we can gather from the newspapers and web sites discussing the issue, it is clear that the reaction of the community was unproportional, vicious, hypocritical and hysterical2. The unleashed hate3, clearly blowing out of proportion the weight of his behavior and leaving wide open space to any further accusation against anybody showing some level of casual interaction4 and furthermore, endanger normal and friendly contacts in the community and in the society, as a whole. I hope you recognize the great danger of accepting the total destruction of someone’s undeniable contribution to science5 because of the hypocritical attitude the community seems to accept these days.

Considering the pace of events, I think that the clock is ticking very quickly. If the mature and free-thinking part of the community does not act right now, I am sure that the game ends very quickly, and those who initiated this dirty, unethical and disgraceful attack6, will win. Today Geoff, tomorrow you or me.7

Sincerely,

Geza Kovacs, DSc
Konkoly Observatory

p.s.: You are free to circulate this letter to anybody you think might be willing to act. This letter has been sent also to other researchers.

1I’ve seen this same weird displacement activity among atheists, too. It’s just Americans who are too sensitive. I have never heard Americans accused of “sensitivity” in any other context. Either there is no sexism in Europe, or European men are especially oblivious.

2Speaking of unproportional, vicious, hypocritical and hysterical, isn’t the accusation that people who are unhappy with the lack of consequences to Marcy kind of unproportional, vicious, hypocritical and hysterical?

3Ditto. I haven’t seen any expressions of hate at all — mostly regret, dismay, and anger at both the behavior and the timidity of UCB.

4Ahem. Casual interaction? An official investigation at Berkeley found:

After a six-month investigation, Geoff Marcy — a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has been mentioned as a potential Nobel laureate — was found to have violated campus sexual harassment policies between 2001 and 2010. Four women alleged that Marcy repeatedly engaged in inappropriate physical behavior with students, including unwanted massages, kisses, and groping.

I just got out of lab with my cell biology students. I managed to help them do measurements of enzyme reaction rates with no massages, kisses, or groping. I would not call such activities casual interaction.

5Marcy’s contributions to science have not been destroyed. Neither has Marcy’s career.

If we’re going to talk about destruction, how about the careers of the women who fled astronomy because of the disrespect, or how about their potential contributions to science?

6Again, official, formal investigation by the university in response to a decade of bad behavior by Marcy, with at least four clear victims. If I had to name who was dirty, unethical, and disgraceful, it would be someone whose name begins with “G” and ends with “eoff Marcy”.

7It might be you tomorrow if you are massaging, kissing, or groping your students. It might also be you tomorrow if you’re in the habit of robbing banks; that you might be thrown in prison for that crime if you were to rob a bank is not an argument that bank robbers need to be treated leniently.

At any rate, Kovacs was too late. Marcy has resigned.

I guess all Kovacs can do now is help him land a new position somewhere less concerned about Dr Handsy fondling the undergrads, and more enthused about getting grants and fame. I’m sure there will be no shortage of positions available, and may Cthulhu have mercy on the students8 at his next institution.

8Cthulhu will show no mercy.

Others are coming forward. Would you believe his bad behavior goes back 30 years? Of course you would.

His inappropriate behaviour goes back a good thirty years, when he was teaching at San Francisco State University.

This is where I met him in 1985 when we both worked in the Physics and Astronomy Department while I was a Master’s student and a lecturer. It was well known that he had intimate relationships with several of his female students. But it is not the only aspect where I felt Marcy’s ethics were questionable.

In 1987, Marcy’s colleague in the search for exoplanets realized that he had handed her a revised copy of their joint grant proposal. On the copy Marcy had given her, both their names appeared, his as main investigator and hers, as co-investigator. But Marcy’s official copy, the one he had submitted to the funding agency, bore only his name.

She reported this to the department head, who fired her on the spot. Marcy was the rising star of his department. She then filed a formal complaint for professional misconduct against Marcy. But she was unable to recover her position and she left the field of astronomy. Following these events, a few people tried to draw the University’s attention to Geoff Marcy’s inappropriate behaviour with his female students.

Guess what the university did?

They had t-shirts made!

How odd. The cultists who believe the world will end today had bright yellow t-shirts and hats, and professionally printed signs, and have been waving them around to announce their imminent demise. That seems like strange behavior if you really believe the entire world will be annihilated. It’s almost as if they’re less interested in their assumed facts, and more interested in advertising their dogma.

worldend

Also, the person on the right seems lacking in confidence: The End of the World, question mark? If the world does actually end today, they’re going to be roasting in hell for their lack of faith, which means they lose whether the world ends or not.

His underwear carried dark portents

I just liked that line, from this story about Jim Bakker claiming his choice of underwear color was a sign from his god. Wait, Jim Bakker is still alive, and still working as a televangelist? That’s more a portent than his underwear, I fear.

He was claiming that because his underwear was black, the world was going to end in September. It is now October, of course, so it’s obvious that his underwear is a false prophet, and must die.

There seems to be a lot of end-of-the-world nonsense going around. Last month’s eclipse was also supposed to be a portent of apocalypse. It fizzled. Now some guy is claiming the world is going to end tomorrow.

I’m not worried yet. I’ll tell you tomorrow what color underwear I’m wearing, and then maybe it will be time to panic.

Another day, another shooting

This one is at Umpqua College in Roseburg, Oregon. Ten people are dead.

I feel cynicism and despair. Nothing will be done. We are targets in the sights of the NRA, and there will be the usual excuses from armed lunatics.

More gun control NOW.

I’ve just heard on the evening news that the shooter was “mentally ill” — I’ve heard this repeatedly now. I’m going to demand some consistency.

If this guy was so sick in the head that he should have been institutionalized before he committed this crime, then we need to round up all the sick fucks on 4chan and get them medicated right now. If you’re not willing to do that, if it is too much to label a huge fraction of the privileged male population mentally ill, then stop claiming somebody who is actually representative of a common attitude is diseased.

How nice! An invitation from iERA

So polite, and they even spell my name correctly! And offer me a free weekend in London!

Dear PZ Myers

Hope you are well. As part of our ethos we would like to extend our hand of friendship to leading intellectual figures that hold views contrary to our own. With this spirit we would like to invite you to London for a dialogue on Islam and Atheism. Please let us know if you are available on any 3 weekends between January and March.

We will cover any associated costs of your travel, accommodation etc. We hope you accept our offer for a fruitful dialogue. Here is an example of one our past events:

Regards

Subboor

Now I have a dilemma, and will leave it to my readers to help me decide how to respond.

Is the correct answer “No” or “Hell no!”?

(In case you don’t know what the iERA is, here’s one helpful explanation.)

I’m filing this one away as an example of one of the most dishonest graphs ever

Holy crap. Take a look at this monstrosity that was shown in a congressional committee by Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz to show the need to defund Planned Parenthood. It’s appalling. In my universe, there would be guards with meathooks who would have dragged Chaffetz out of the room, he would be cashiered out of office, and all of his votes would be retroactively nullified.

badgraph

That’s simply evil.

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Rush Limbaugh must be desperate to emulate Alex Jones

Someone is unhappy that scientists have found water on Mars. It’s Rush Limbaugh. As he says, he’s always right, and he has seen the truth.

…this news that there is flowing water on Mars is somehow going to find its way into a technique to advance the leftist agenda.

Yep, he caught us. It’s entirely true. Leftists are planning to use facts, science, and evidence to promote a reality-based agenda.