Also, I get more email

When the gender essentialist scum get stirred up on Twitter, that also means my in-box becomes a cloaca. A representative example:

Your twitter account looks like it belongs to a psychopath. You retweeted something from another psychopath re Libs of Tiktok’s children’s book claiming she was presenting a ram as a ewe. She wasn’t. He didn’t open up the book to let people see the full illustration which shows a ram and a ewe.

Your page looks like it belongs to a man with a perverted interest in spiders (why not? I mean we have furries and adult diapers wearers). Apparently you don’t understand there are two sexes in humans, although apparently there are in spiders.🤡

There’s no point in arguing with them. The kind of doofus who assumes that saying “sex is more complicated than a simple binary” means “I don’t believe sex exists” is too thick to waste time on.

Also, defending Libs of Tiktok is too deranged.

Spider sex is more complex than the binary paradigm

It looks like it’s time for me to go on a blocking rampage on Twitter, because the TERFs/GCs are flooding my account with stupidity. There’s only so much of that that I can take. The problem is that Graham Linehan noticed me, and the flock of dim & bigoted fanatics who follow him are piling on. One of them noticed that I breed spiders and thinks that is an excellent gotcha.

One thing I find gratifying is that sex-denialists like @pzmyers wibble on about sex being socially constructed and bimodal. But when they actually want something done (in this case breed spiders) – they suddenly know there are exactly 2 sexes and it’s the females that make eggs!

I make movies of spiders mating, as he notices, but somehow he thinks I’m a “sex-denialist” and that somehow this contradicts my position on trans rights. Surprise! I actually know how sex works. I understand that making an embryo requires a fusion of two gametes. I would think all of the trans folk he despises would be more conscious of these distinction than he is.

I also know the logical difference between the fact that many females make eggs, and the idea that all females must make eggs. I also know that even in spiders there’s more to sex than tab A goes into slot B.

I also have information on that. I’m mainly interested in spider sex as a means to an end — I need lots of embryos — but to get there I’ve been making observations of spider behavior. Every morning I move a male spider into a container with a female spider, slide it under a dissecting scope, and watch what happens. Sometimes courtship and mating are swift and dramatic, and I click a button and record the whole process, and that’s what you see. Sometimes they take their time, and I have to watch them dawdle and fumble around for a half hour before anything happens. Sometimes I give up and put the pair in an incubator overnight and hope something happens. Rarely, the female just murders and cannibalizes the male. Of the clutch of spiders that emerged in January, I’ve got 11 females who successfully mated and produced an egg sac; I’ve got 16 that spurned the male I provided and are effectively childless. Those I don’t record, because two wallflower spiders avoiding each other isn’t particularly interesting.

What’s going on? I don’t know. My focus isn’t on the behavior, but on the development of embryos. But who knows — maybe there are gay and lesbian spiders. Maybe some are asexual. Maybe there are timid spiders and bold spiders. Maybe some spiders are unattractive and no one wants to have sex with them. Maybe the Adult Spider Female is focused on her bug-munching career, and doesn’t want to make babies. Maybe some pairs of spiders have cellular incompatibilities that prevent fertilization. Maybe for some spiders the behavior works, but the plumbing is atypical. These are all interesting possibilities, and if a student were to come along and ask to make a quantitative analysis of mating behavior and reproductive success, I think there are a lot of good questions to ask and some useful studies to make, because sex, even in a small arthropod as driven by instinct as a spider, isn’t binary, isn’t a question of did they or didn’t they, and exhibits a range of complex variation that I haven’t tried to plumb.

Other people are looking into that! A paper by Angelekakis, Turutzek, and Tuni (2022) looked into mating rates in Parasteatoda, and as I’d expect, it’s complex. Spiders can be choosy — the majority of females didn’t mate at all (as I’m seeing in Steatoda), and many would mate only once and then be done with the whole messy business (they store sperm, so one successful mating is sufficient for a lifetime of egg production.)

As usual, the TERFs/GCs try to ignore all that and shoehorn everything into a simple binary. It doesn’t work for spiders, and it especially doesn’t work for humans, who have layered on so many variations and subtleties and tangled them all up with non-reproductive cultural behaviors. This @nathankw nitwit tried to argue that sex can’t be bimodal because I can’t provide a single numerical parameter that shows a range of values for sex. The problem isn’t that I can’t, it’s that I can provide so many. Receptivity, courtship initiation, web twanging frequency, successful insemination frequency, dancing intensity, abdomen size, interval since last courtship, metabolism levels…I can think of so many measures that don’t exhibit the kind of fixed values that he wants for males and females. It’s overlapping ranges all over the place! In spiders! But he wants to pretend that human sex is simple, nothing but sperm and ova.

Graham Linehan really didn’t have anything to contribute, other than to claim my biology is a religion, and to add this silly little bon mot:

A biologist who pretends to believe that humans can change sex. What a time to be alive.

But if humans can’t change sex, why is this crowd so opposed to gender affirming care, hormonal treatments, and surgery? If sex is an unstoppable freight train that can’t be diverted, then let them continue with their ineffectual efforts to change sex. Except that they keep seeing the inescapable evidence that sex can and does change.

Angelakakis A, Turetzek N, Tuni C (2022) Female mating rates and their fitness consequences in the common house spider Parasteatoda tepidariorum. Ecology and Evolution, doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9678.

Puritans promote porn

Oh boy. You know some local right-wingers are getting their jollies off this story.

Apparently, someone donated a bunch of books to a school in Sartell, MN, and some ‘helpful’ local mom started going through them. She found a juicy one: an adult MM romance novel that contained explicit sex scenes. If I’d been that parent, I’d have just told the teacher/librarian, and given the rather strong descriptions in the book, authorities would no doubt have immediately agreed and swept it out of the general circulation, quietly.

But no! That’s not what this parent did! Instead, she made a big show of it, appearing at a school board meeting, and reading out loud the racy parts. It wasn’t about simply removing a book with inappropriate content, but about grandstanding.

I didn’t find it that disturbing, but agree that it didn’t provide much in the way of educational content, and should be removed from the school’s collection.

Now, of course, all the kids know about the book, and this was even news on Pornhub as well as Newsweek. I think the novel Him, by Bowen and Kennedy, might get a little surge in sales from all the free advertising. Good work, Kids Over Politics 748! You discovered that porn exists! Now start going over all the sites accessible over the internet to see if there’s anything problematic there.

AiG delenda est

We seem to have succeeded in driving Kent Hovind underground. He still has a Twitter account, but as we all know, every Nazi on the planet can get a Twitter account. His Facebook page is almost dead, only sporadically updated. He set up a Dinosaur Adventure Land page on Facebook in 2016, in which he announces that Dinosaur Adventure Land is the funnest soul winning Christian theme park on the face of the planet, but nothing has ever been posted there. He has been banned from Facebook. I suspect he has accounts on the usual right-wing places, like Telegram and Gab, but I’m not going to bother checking on those.

As a grifter who relies on drawing in suckers to give him money for his pedophile-friendly cheesy little camp, all the pressure has hurt him. Even Matt Powell drifted away. I really wonder what his revenues are right now, and I would guess there’s been a bit of a financial crash for him.

However, Kent Hovind is low-hanging fruit. He’s a small time yokel with a following of even more ignorant yokels. He was broken when he spent 9 years in jail for tax evasion, and he’s never going to regain his former popularity.

The real threat is Ken Ham. Ham’s doctrine is virtually indistinguishable from Hovind’s (I’m sure they would argue about fine points of their theology), believing in a host of anti-scientific nonsense like that the Earth is less than ten thousand years old and that humans coexisted with dinosaurs, but the difference is that Ham is a politically savvy con artist who has successfully cheated Kentucky out of millions of dollars, and runs a multi-million dollar, elaborate Christian theme park where it costs over $70 just to park. It’s a redneck swimmin’ hole vs. expensive park for separating fools from their money.

Dinosaur Adventure Land

Ark Park

Ken Ham is a polished version of Kent Hovind who went straight for the big money — tax breaks from the state government, grand but pointless projects to lure in donations, national advertising to draw in tourists, and a slick and superficial theology to persuade the gullible that he’s presenting the truth of the Bible. If we’re going to rhetorically beat up creationists, Ham and Answers in Genesis are far more significant targets. They are the more powerful grifters.

At least we’ve got Dan Phelps, who is probably the most persistent and consistent opponent of AiG. He’s been hammering on AiG, and also on Kentucky’s complicity with the idiot’s version of Christianity that Ham peddles.

In late 2022, I began receiving, almost daily, “sponsored posts” in my Facebook feed for the Ark Encounter that were sponsored by the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (NKCVB). The NKCVB is partly funded by a tax charge when hotel rooms are rented in Northern Kentucky. Since the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum are Kentucky tourist sites, the mere advertising of these sites is not objectionable. However, the wording describing the Ark Encounter is objectionable. The “sponsored ad” (see Figure 1 below) and working on the the NKCVB website https://www.meetnky.com/about-us/ is troublesome. The advertisement states that the Ark Encounter is “a full-sized replica” of Noah’s Ark, indicating that the NKCVB agrees with Answers in Genesis that the Ark actually existed. Obviously, one cannot have a “replica” of something that never existed.

Kentucky, you’re embarrassing yourself.

AiG, though, is really, really good at promoting itself. They can sell anything to anyone. Would you believe they’ve coopted the state’s DEI policies and an international LGBTQ+ organization?

I was about to ignore this as just another inane thing that Answers in Genesis (AiG) has received from a taxpayer supported government entity. However, I noticed that the NKCVB has the imprimatur of Destination Marketing’s Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Accreditation Program and The International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (actually the IGLBTQ+ Travel Association). This seemed very odd, given AiG’s stances on diversity and sexuality.

That’s impressive. They’ve got the LGBTQ community, or at least a few blind-sided organizations, to promote a company with these claims in their statement of faith.

  • “The concepts of ‘social justice,’ ‘intersectionality,’ and ‘critical race theory’ as defined in modern terminology are anti-biblical and destructive to human flourishing (Ezekiel 1:1-20; James 2:8-9).”
  • “The only legitimate marriage, based on the creation ordinance in Genesis 1 and 2, sanctioned by God is the joining of one naturally born man and naturally born woman in a single, exclusive union as delineated in Scripture. God intends sexual intimacy to only occur between a man and a woman who are married to each other and has commanded that no sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. Any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, prostitution, homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography, abuse, or any attempt to change one’s gender, or disagreement with one’s biological gender, is sinful and offensive to God (Genesis 1:27-28, 2:24; Matthew 5:27-30; 19:4-5; Mark 10: 2-9; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7; Hebrews 13:4).”
  • “Gender and biological sex are equivalent and cannot be separated. A person’s gender is determined at conception (fertilization), coded in the DNA, and cannot be changed by drugs, hormones, or surgery. Rejection of one’s biological sex (gender) or identifying oneself by the opposite sex is a sinful rejection of the way God made that person. These truths must be communicated with compassion, love, kindness, and respect, pointing everyone to the truth that God offers redemption and restoration to all who confess and forsake their sin, seeking his mercy and forgiveness through Jesus Christ (Genesis 1:26-28, 5:1-2; Psalm 51:5, 139: 13-16; Jeremiah 1:5; Matthew 1:20-21, 19:4-6; Mark 10:6; Luke 1:31; Acts 3: 19-21; Romans 10:9-10; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Galatians 3:28).”

Amazing. You think AiG will be sponsoring something like Disney’s Gay Days anytime soon?

Also, as Dan Points out, none of those Bible verses actually support any of their claims. That’s a common tactic of the Christian grifter, spewing out lists of Bible verses to confer false authority, while avoiding actually reading any of them.

But that’s not all. AiG has a hard-line stance on abortion — they advocate the death penalty for women who get abortions.

On January 25 the Creation Museum hosted a political event designed to fire up support for anti-abortion legislation in Kentucky. The event featured Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis (AiG) and Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church, Mesa, Arizona.

Durbin sees abortion as analogous to the Nazi slaughter of the Jews, although he thinks such a comparison “is a bit of an insult to Hitler,” given that, “if you take a body count of Hitler’s Germany to what we’ve had since Roe v. Wade, we beat him by the metric ton.” In response, Durbin argues that women who have abortions – and this includes instances of incest or rape – must be punished:

Whether it’s a mother who kills her child in the womb or a mother who kills her five-year-old twins by drowning them in the bathtub, we would want it to be treated as a murder charge, and for that to be applied consistently under the law. I believe that a just answer to murder is the death penalty. Historically that’s the standard we held to for a long time, and ultimately when God has spoken to the issue of justice for murder, he says it’s a life for a life.

Would you believe that AiG then claims that they are apolitical? Sure you would. But then readers here all know that Ken Ham is a big-time liar and fraud.

Shut ’em down. Choke off their revenue stream. Remember what the Bible tells us: “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.” (Ezekiel 25:17)*.

*Totally fake quote from Pulp Fiction, but who cares?

Hiring a Catholic ex-priest was only one of many stupid decisions

Ha-ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia,” but only slightly less well known is “Never hire a Catholic priest as an advisor”! You should be especially leery of defrocked Catholic priests, because you know they had to have done something especially terrible to be chastised by the Vatican.

Donald Trump made this classic blunder, one among many.

Frank Pavone, a defrocked priest who was formerly a Catholic adviser to Donald Trump, is engulfed in a sex scandal that is rocking the anti-abortion movement.

Pavone, 64, is the director of Priests for Life, a non-profit that funnels millions of dollars a year into the anti-abortion movement.

He is also an outspoken activist whose political activities have brought him into repeated conflict with the Catholic Church. In December 2022, he was defrocked by the Vatican after repeated clashes with his bishop over his use of social media to advocate conservative political causes.

Now, at least four different women have accused Pavone of sexual misconduct according to reporting by The Pillar. Pavone and Priests for Life have strongly denied the accusations.

Another classic blunder: you’ve got a rumored harasser in your organization, so put him in charge of the sexual-harassment committee!

“Priests for Life had an excellent sexual harassment policy on the books. But they had no human resource department and their sexual-harassment committee reported to, and was headed by, Frank Pavone. So it was neither safe nor independent,” Imbarrato says. “I went directly to the board and demanded a safe and confidential, independent sexual harassment committee that reported to the board directly.”

It should be totally unsurprising that a guy who loved to put up posters of bloody fetuses would be a creep in his personal interactions with women.

You knew this combo was coming

Scott Adams makes a blatantly racist rant and his comic strip is dropped from a large number of newspapers; guess who rushes to defend him? That privileged child of apartheid, Elon Musk.

Twitter and Tesla chief Elon Musk defended Scott Adams, the under-fire creator of “Dilbert,” in a series of tweets Sunday, blasting media organizations for dropping his comic strip after Adams said that White people should “get the hell away from Black people.”

Replying to tweets about the controversy, Musk said it is actually the media that is “racist against whites & Asians.” He offered no criticism of Adams’s comments, in which the cartoonist called Black people a “hate group” and said, “I don’t want to have anything to do with them.”

That is the least surprising alliance since the Rome-Berlin Axis.

Well, I guess we all have to start reading Dilbert, since Elon says so.

Florida, again

Now they’re planning to destroy higher ed in the state by putting everything in the hands of the governor and his appointed cronies.

A bill filed this week in the Florida House would turn many of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ wide-ranging ideas on higher education into law by limiting diversity efforts, vastly expanding the powers of university boards and altering course offerings.

House Bill 999, filed by Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, proposes leaving all faculty hiring to boards of trustees, allowing a faculty member’s tenure to be reviewed “at any time,” and removing majors or minors in subjects like critical race theory and gender studies. It would also prohibit spending on activities that promote diversity, equity and inclusion and create new general education requirements.

You want to read the whole bill? Here it is.

My sympathies to my colleagues in Florida. This is a terrible time to be looking for a new job — colleges everywhere are struggling — but do you really want Chris Rufo deciding whether to fire you or not?

Wow, Florida…

I’m sorry, Florida is a joke.

If the Lee County Republican Party has their way, the state of Florida will be banning the use of Covid-19 vaccines. Yes, you heard that correctly. Based on a majority vote, the Party has passed a so-called “Ban the jab” resolution that will now go to the desk of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) for his consideration. And why does the Party want such a ban? Well, an article for WINK News by Michael Hudak and Taylor Wirtz quoted Joe Sansone, the guy who drafted the resolution, as saying, “The Lee County Republican Party is going to be on the vanguard of this campaign to stop the genocide because we have foreign non-governmental entities that are unleashing biological weapons on the American people.”

This Sansone clown is a “psychotherapist” who clearly knows nothing about biology. He claims the vaccine is a “bioweapon”, and he has the ear of the governor. Do you think DeSantis will refuse to sign his insane declaration?

Sansone is pretty far out there.

The WINK article also included another quote from Sansone that really seemed to embrace some conspiracy theory claims: “If you got this shot, you go home and hug your pregnant wife—she can have a miscarriage through skin contact.” Wait, so now, you’ve got to start worrying about hugging people who have gotten Covid-19 vaccines? How exactly is that supposed to work scientifically? Did Sansone provide any peer-reviewed scientific studies to support his assertion? Most likely not, because good luck trying to find any peer-reviewed scientific studies to support such an assertion.

Don’t worry, though, he has been verified by Psychology Today, so you can trust him. PT would never publish a wackaloon, right? (Actually, I feel like Psychology Today is the Florida of pop-sci magazines.)

Joseph Sansone, M.S., PhD, LMHC, CCMHC, is the author of Bioplasticity: Hypnosis Mind Body Healing. A psychotherapist specializing in clinical hypnosis, Joseph was trained in advanced clinical hypnosis at the Academy of Professional Hypnosis in 1997. Dr. Sansone has a B.A. in psychology, a M.S. in clinical mental health counseling, and a PhD in psychology. Joseph has spent much of his life as an entrepreneur and enjoys facilitating self-actualization. Joseph Sansone is a licensed mental health counselor as well as a board certified clinical mental health counselor. Dr. Sansone is also a member of the National Guild of Hypnotists.

Hmmm, I was right?

I said we should cancel Scott Adams, and gosh, look what happened: people spoke up all across the country, and Scott Adams was canceled.

Newspapers across the United States have pulled Scott Adams’s long-running “Dilbert” comic strip after the cartoonist called Black Americans a “hate group” and said White people should “get the hell away from” them.

I guess it’s easy to be a prophet when you predict the obvious stuff.

One could argue that this means Adams will be whining indignantly about injustice and those damned libs some more, but that’s fine, he has free speech, he can complain all he wants, I simply won’t be hearing about it and can take some satisfaction in the fact that he won’t be making as much money off his bigotry anymore.