The Short Version: A bit less strenuous than the tin says, this hike will introduce you to a wide range of biomes and rock formations. It’ll also test your navigational and avalanche skills, so don’t let it be your first or shoulder hike.
13.4km distance, 1130m net gain, 961m peak-to-valley, 2376m max elevation, 6 hours.
Enjoyed that inspirational break? Good, because it’s back to Depresso Land.
Astronomy and planetary science, as the fields concerned with celestial objects and processes, help shift human attention outward. Gazing at the stars is an accessible introduction to science, one that gets many young children dreaming of being an astronaut, astronomer, or planetary scientist one day. […]
At the same time, the accessibility and inclusive atmosphere within science, including astronomy and planetary science, has been called into question. Science syllabi use gendered language that not only can show women as incompetent but also normalizes masculine behaviors, belief systems, and priorities [Bejerano and Bartosh, 2015]. Several studies of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields have found implicit bias, or the bias in judgment resulting from implicit attitudes that operates below cognitive awareness, related to both gender and race limits opportunities in mentorship [Milkman et al., 2015], hiring [Moss-Racusin et al., 2012], and opportunities in the classroom [Eddy et al., 2014, 2015; Grunspan et al., 2016], as well as workplace conflict [Williams et al., 2016] and experiences that map onto stereotypes of scientists’ racial-ethnic identification [Williams et al., 2014, 2016]. Women of color faculty in STEM are also more likely to experience the dominant culture of their disciplines as outsiders, with their views validated less than the dominant group [Rios and Stewart, 2015]. Further, the number of women of color science faculty has recently decreased, even while the number of white women science faculty has increased [Armstrong and Jovanovic, 2015]. These marginalities are further compounded by power differentials, as women of color are more likely to be junior in rank compared to those with majority identities [National Science Foundation (NSF), 2015].[1]
That much was known; left without examination, though was the extent that this sexism hits on a personal level. Now we have a study that covers that, and whoamygawd:
Women were more likely than men to observe remarks that they interpreted as racist, sexist, that one was not feminine or masculine enough, or disparaging someone’s physical abilities or mental abilities (Table 3, see supporting information Table S1 for all analyses). Women were also significantly more likely than men to report that they experienced both verbal and physical harassment because of their gender. When asked if they had ever felt physically unsafe in their current position, more women than men reported that they felt unsafe as a result of their gender (30% versus 2%, p < 0.001). Finally, women were also more likely than men to report skipping at least one class, meeting, fieldwork, or other professional event per month because they felt unsafe (13% versus 3%, p = 0.01). […]
Respondents of color were significantly more likely than white respondents to observe remarks that were racist (from peers and others, p = 0.0001 and 0.023) or homophobic (from supervisors, p < 0.0001, Table 4, see supporting information Table S2 for all analyses). Respondents of color were also significantly more likely than white respondents to report that they experienced both verbal and physical harassment because of their race. When asked if they had ever felt physically unsafe in their current position, more respondents of color reported they felt unsafe as a result of their race (24% versus 1%, p < 0.001). Respondents of color and white respondents reported similar frequencies of skipped classes, meetings, fieldwork, or other professional events per month because they felt unsafe (15% versus 9%, p = 0.08).[1]
There’s more bad news, and thankfully the paper is open-access so you can wallow in it yourself. Suffice to say, not only does this establish sexism and racism is pervasive within astronomy, there’s strong reason to suspect its killing careers.
An even stronger portrait emerges if we include the LGBTQA+ community. This relates to physics, rather than astronomy, but
About 15% of LGBT men, 25% of LGBT women, 30% of gender-nonconforming individuals characterized the overall climate of their department or division as “uncomfortable” or “very uncomfortable.” Also, 30% of trans individual regardless of gender identity characterized the overall climate of their department or division as “uncomfortable” or “very uncomfortable.” […]
Over 40% of climate survey respondents agreed with the statement, “Employees are expected to not act too gay,” and about 45% disagreed with the statement, “Coworkers are as likely to ask nice, interested questions about same-sex relationships as they are about heterosexual relationships.” […]
More than 20% of climate survey respondents reported experiencing exclusionary behavior in the past year, while about 40% reported observing exclusionary behavior due to gender, gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation, or sexual identity. These numbers were significantly higher (49% and 60% respectively) for trans respondents. […]
Over one-third of climate survey respondents considered leaving their workplace or school in the past year.[2]
[1] Clancy, Kathryn B. H., Katharine M. N. Lee, Erica M. Rodgers, and Christina Richey. “Double Jeopardy in Astronomy and Planetary Science: Women of Color Face Greater Risks of Gendered and Racial Harassment.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, n.d., 2017JE005256. doi:10.1002/2017JE005256.
[2] Atherton, T. J., R. S. Barthelemy, W. Deconinck, M. L. Falk, S. Garmon, E. Long, M. Plisch, E. H. Simmons, and K. Reeves. “LGBT Climate in Physics: Building an Inclusive Community.” American Physical Society, College Park, MD, 2016.
I’ve been a negative Nelly lately, haven’t I? How hate feeds into itself, why Boghossian is wrong, OMG TRUMP… I think it’s time for something more uplifting. Ever since including this link on one of the Boghossian articles, I’ve wanted to promote it to a full post. It’s Michael Kimmel talking about gender equality, and how it benefits men as well as everyone else.
Gender equality is good for countries. It turns out, according to most studies, that those countries that are the most gender equal are also the countries that score highest on the happiness scale. And that’s not just because they’re all in Europe. Even within Europe, those countries that are more gender equal also have the highest levels of happiness.
It is also good for companies. Research by Catalyst and others has shown conclusively that the more gender-equal companies are, the better it is for workers, the happier their labor force is. They have lower job turnover. They have lower levels of attrition. They have an easier time recruiting. They have higher rates of retention, higher job satisfaction, higher rates of productivity. So the question I’m often asked in companies is, “Boy, this gender equality thing, that’s really going to be expensive, huh?” And I say, “Oh no, in fact, what you have to start calculating is how much gender inequality is already costing you. It is extremely expensive.” So it is good for business.
When you know where to look, there’s actually quite a few videos in this genre. For instance, here’s Tony Porter (warning, he gets explicit about sexual assault)…
… we as men are taught to have less value in women, to view them as property and the objects of men. We see that as an equation that equals violence against women. We as men, good men, the large majority of men, we operate on the foundation of this whole collective socialization. We kind of see ourselves separate, but we’re very much a part of it. You see, we have to come to understand that less value, property and objectification is the foundation and the violence can’t happen without it. So we’re very much a part of the solution as well as the problem.
And Jackson Katz (double warning, he focuses on sexual assault)…
… there’s an awful lot of men who care deeply about these issues. I know this, I work with men, and I’ve been working with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of men for many decades now. It’s scary, when you think about it, how many years. But there’s so many men who care deeply about these issues, but caring deeply is not enough. We need more men with the guts, with the courage, with the strength, with the moral integrity to break our complicit silence and challenge each other and stand with women and not against them.
By the way, we owe it to women. There’s no question about it. But we also owe it to our sons. We also owe it to young men who are growing up all over the world in situations where they didn’t make the choice to be a man in a culture that tells them that manhood is a certain way. They didn’t make the choice. We that have a choice, have an opportunity and a responsibility to them as well.
But my favorite has to be Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
“You should aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise you would threaten the man.” If you are the breadwinner in your relationship with a man, you have to pretend that you’re not, especially in public, otherwise you will emasculate him.
But what if we question the premise itself? Why should a woman’s success be a threat to a man? What if we decide to simply dispose of that word, and I don’t think there’s an English word I dislike more than “emasculation.” A Nigerian acquaintance once asked me if I was worried that men would be intimidated by me. I was not worried at all. In fact, it had not occurred to me to be worried because a man who would be intimidated by me is exactly the kind of man I would have no interest in.
It’s easy to feel ground down by the endless parade of sexist bullshit in the news. Outrage and train wrecks tend to steal our gaze, but if you keep mindful and dig a little, you’ll find no shortage of people pushing back. Take inspiration from them, and if the time is right, join them.
If you’d asked me about it six months ago, I would have been adamant that we’d never get an email from the Trump camp admitting to collusion. Anyone merely considering collusion would ensure there were multiple layers of plausible deniability, layering on handlers and indirection to throw smoke at anyone on the trail. [Read more…]
Yeah, I got it wrong. “Sneaky Fucker theory” isn’t a thing, but “sneaky fucker” is an informal name for a well-known mating strategy. PZ did an excellent job of straightening things out, and I strongly recommend you read his take.
But he touches on one point that I think is worth repeating and expanding. What precisely is Boghossian saying with these two tweets?
Some random facts about me:
… Oh right, and I forgot about that solo snowshoe and x-country ski at Lake O’Hara, the one where I ran out of food and water. Some noodling with Google Earth suggests I did 30km that day. [Read more…]
I’m surprised I don’t read Wonkette more often.
Rachel Maddow did a BIG SCOOP on Thursday night, and we think it’s a pretty big fuckin’ deal. To cut to the chase, somebody (she doesn’t know who YET) used her “Send It To Rachel” tool to send her something that looks like a highly classified document about collusion between Donald Trump and Russia, but is actually a FORGERY. WHOA IF TRUE, right?
It is pretty “whoa,” in fact I was about to sit down and type something up on it until I saw Wonkette scooped me.
What’s fascinating about this weird forgery is that it appears to have been copied off the highly classified document NSA contractor Reality Winner sent to Glenn Greenwald’s The Intercept. Remember how The Intercept published a bombshell on Monday, June 5, that Russians had specifically targeted voting machine manufacturers and election officials during their 2016 cyberwar against American democracy, and that they got further than anybody ever knew? […]
Maddow found the EXACT SAME MARKINGS and the EXACT SAME CREASE on the document she got. Forgery detected! (Later in the segment she explained that there were several other screwy things about the document, including that it actually named a high-up American citizen/Trump campaign person. According to the intelligence experts Maddow consulted, this type of document, if real, wouldn’t name an American all willy-nilly like that.)
There was one intriguing mystery left: the file received by Maddow was created on June 5th, 2017, at 12:17:15, yet the Intercept’s article went online at 13:44 15:44. How could the person who sent the document get access to it before the article was published? I was about to sit down and type about that instead, but…
That’s because time stamps on the documents published by The Intercept designate the creation date included in the PDF we publish on DocumentCloud: In this case, that occurred just over three hours prior to publication of our article. Both versions — the one we published and the one Maddow received — reflect the same time to the second: literally the exact moment when we created and uploaded the document.
In other words, anyone who took the document directly from The Intercept’s site would have a document with exactly the same time stamp as the one Maddow showed. Thus, rather than proving that this document was created before The Intercept’s publication, the time stamp featured by Maddow strongly suggests exactly the opposite: that it was taken from The Intercept’s site.
Ah, thank you Glenn Greenwald. It looks like the Intercept has an automated system to process their documents. Downloading the original for myself, I can tell they use an old-ish copy of ImageMagick to do the grunt work. This probably helps them redact information; the boxes they use to cover information look digitally made, yet are burnt into the source images that make up the PDF. This could have the pleasant side-effect of wiping away the original document’s metadata, if it was digital. On the other hand, I also see the original title was “GRU-final,” which probably didn’t come from the Intercept.
I get something slightly different from Greenwald when I dump the document’s info, though.
File Modification Date/Time : 2017:06:05 13:43:03-06:00 PDF Version : 1.4 Linearized : No Create Date : 2017:06:05 12:17:15 Modify Date : 2017:06:05 12:17:15 Page Count : 5
In his case, the bolded bit reads “2017:07:06 21:33:15-04:00,” the exact time he downloaded his copy. My tool is slightly newer than his, however, which could easily explain the discrepancy.
So, that’s one mystery solved: the person or people who sent the document to Maddow used the Intercept’s document as a base. That still leaves who sent it, though. Was it the Kremlin, someone associated with Trump, or somebody else? That one is in the hands of Maddow’s team.
(A hat tip to Lynna, OM in PZ’s Political Madness thread, for the Wonkette article.)
[HJH 2017-07-08: Damn time zones. And I was even going to mention them in my original post…]
I’ve discussed Gödel’s Incompleteness theorems before, and sometimes pointed out that they carry an exception: if your logical system lacks sufficient power to describe the concept of a number, the theorems don’t apply. The theorems depend on being able to map logical expressions to numeric codes, after all. Defining numbers depends on a form of induction, so I thought that if your logical system has that then the theorems apply.
But via a recent blog post of Jeffrey Shallit, I’ve learned that’s not correct. The dividing line is not being able to define numbers, nor is it even addition. Robinson arithmetic is undecidable, yet Presburger arithmetic is. The former doesn’t officially have induction, while the latter does. The line isn’t multiplication, either; Peano arithmetic adds multiplication to Robinson and is undecidable, yet Skolem arithmetic defines multiplication while still being decidable.
So I’ve been a bit too restrictive about when Gödel’s theorems apply. My apologies if I’ve misled anyone because of that.
I’ve meant to post this set of videos for a while. Remember Infinite Series? They did a pair of videos on voting methods, which do a great job of outlining just how difficult the subject is.
I’ll confess I’ve said that if bigots were smart, they wouldn’t be bigots. Reality is a bit more complicated than that, but there is a way to rescue the sentiment.
I’ve seen this in action; while one group of bigots were trolling me, I saw another group think the trolling was sincere. Just recently, I spotted another example.
Older members of the crowd carried Confederate flags, while the younger, internet-driven masses wore patches with 4chan’s Kekistan banner. Rally-goers in homemade armor and semi-automatic rifles paced Houston’s Hermann Park, waiting for an enemy to appear.
The crowd, several hundred strong, gathered in the park on Saturday to defend a statue of Sam Houston, a slaveholder. They had gathered in response to reports that leftist protesters had planned a rally to remove the statue, despite Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner publicly stating that removing the statue wasn’t “even on my agenda.” But as sniper rifles and Infowars-branded jackets crowded the park, it became evident that the left protesters were not coming. They had never planned to come. The rumors of an antifa protest were actually a hoax, orchestrated by an anti-left group defending Confederate monuments.
I suspect these scenarios are more common than we realize, if only because the same thing happened again a month later.
A “patriot” who brought a revolver to Gettysburg National Military Park Saturday amid rumors of desecration of memorials accidentally shot himself in the leg Saturday. […]
Dozens of self-described Patriots came to the park about noon Saturday after hearing rumors that Antifa protesters might crash the park’s events and try to desecrate memorials. Members of Antifa caused a ruckus in Harrisburg recently at an Anti-Sharia rally and one member was arrested for swinging a wooden pole with a nail attached at a police horse.
The rumors on Saturday appeared to be just that: rumors, as no Antifa members were seen at Gettysburg park Saturday.
The result of all this is a self-supporting feedback loop, where people opposed to social justice keep getting fooled by false flags into thinking social justice is as loopy as they’ve been told, and some of them graduate to generate those false flag campaigns.