Massimo Pigliucci and Maarten Boudry on why pseudoscience is dangerous. (I’m reading their edited collection The Philosophy of Pseudoscience.)

There is no question that some folk remedies do work. The active ingredient of aspirin, for example, is derived from willow bark, which had been known to have beneficial effects since the time of Hippocrates. There is also no mystery about how this happens: people have more or less randomly tried solutions to their health problems for millennia, sometimes stumbling upon something useful. What makes the use of aspirin “scientific,” however, is that we have validated its effectiveness through properly controlled trials, isolated the active ingredient, and understood the biochemical pathways through which it has its effects (it suppresses the production of prostaglandins and thromboxanes by way of interference with the enzyme cyclooxygenase, just in case you were curious).

Asma’s example of Chinese medicine’s claims about the existence of “Qi” energy, channeled through the human body by way of “meridians,” though, is a different matter. This sounds scientific, because it uses arcane jargon that gives the impression of articulating explanatory principles. But there is no way to test the existence of Qi and associated meridians, or to establish a viable research program based on those concepts, for the simple reason that talk of Qi and meridians only looks substantive, but it isn’t even in the ballpark of an empirically verifiable theory.

Well maybe just by talking about Qi and meridians, people make them effective. In a meridian Qi-esque kind of way.

I kid. I don’t believe in the magical powers of jargon. Jargon deployed that way makes me want to smack things.

In terms of empirical results, there are strong indications that acupuncture is effective for reducing chronic pain and nausea, but sham therapy, where needles are applied at random places, or are not even pierced through the skin, turn out to be equally effective…

Placebo effect, in other words. Speaking of placebo effect, wouldn’t you think it wouldn’t work if you know it’s a placebo? I use diphenhydramine as a sleeping pill often, and the other day I Googled it out of curiosity, and found that its effect wears off after three days and then it’s just a placebo. Ok, except it didn’t make any difference knowing that. I loudly announce that I’m taking a placebo now, just so that everyone including the pink pill will know I know it’s a placebo – but I go to sleep anyway. Very weird.

Philosophers of science have long recognized that there is nothing wrong with positing unobservable entities per se, it’s a question of what work such entities actually do within a given theoretical-empirical framework. Qi and meridians don’t seem to do any, and that doesn’t seem to bother supporters and practitioners of Chinese medicine. But it ought to.

But meridian is such a pretty name.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Guest post by Eamon Knight, originally a comment on Why should I?

On meta-ethics, I lean toward Error Theory (this week, anyway), and regard skepticism as a primarily epistemic stance. My usual approach to justifying moral behaviour is to note that it is in my rational self-interest to live in a society where I will receive cooperation from others, fair treatment, and some assistance when I stumble.

But as you note, this only gets us so far. My self-interest is conditioned by my middle-class status in society. For example: since I believe my chances of winding up as a mentally ill, drug-addicted street person are small, I might, if I’m being strictly rational, be reluctant to contribute (whether through private charity or the public purse)  to rescue and rehab services for such people. It’s a net negative to my personal utility. It’s only an a-rational compassion that makes me want those services to be available.

Similarly, if some very powerful person decides to screw me over to their own advantage (even if it’s just for sadistic jollies), I can’t really appeal to their self-interest — I have nothing they need. The best I can do is to band together with other less-powerful people and say: Try that shit on any of us, and we collectively will kick your ass (when institutionalized, this is known as Human Rights and the Rule Of Law). But that’s really only modifying the powerful person’s self-interest-calculus by introducing a threat. It doesn’t fall out logically from the premises.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Wonderful Jane Donnelly of Atheist Ireland saying why the RTE shouldn’t have a daily call to prayer, aka The Angelus.

Jane’s a pistol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YasmybU9Xe8

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Something I missed last July – Bill Donohue aka “The Catholic League” explains how wonderful Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries were, contrary to all the “myths” about them.

One contemporary example of prejudice is the popular perception of the nuns who ran Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries.

From the mid-eighteenth century to the late nineteenth century, the laundries housed “fallen” girls and women in England and Ireland. Though they did not initiate the facilities, most of the operations were carried out by the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy, Good Shepherd Sisters, and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity. The first “Magdalene Home” was established in England in 1758; Ireland followed in 1765 (the first asylum being a Protestant-run entity).

Notice the breezy way he accepts the category “fallen” – in scare quotes, to be sure, but not distanced or questioned in any other way. He doesn’t pause to explain that this refers to girls and women who had sex, and singles them out as “fallen” while completely ignoring their male colleagues in the enterprise of having sex. Notice also the benign “housed” when what he means is “imprisoned.”

The popular perception of the laundries is entirely negative, owing in large part to fictionalized portrayals in the movies. The conventional wisdom has also been shaped by writers who have come to believe the worst about the Catholic Church, and by activists who have their own agenda. So strong is the prejudice that even when evidence to the contrary is presented, the bias continues.

No citations for any of that, of course. No mention of the survivors, and their testimony about what the laundries were like, unless that’s what he means by “writers” – women who were actually there and know firsthand what it was like.

On his way to minimizing the laundries he pauses to minimize the industrial “schools” too.

Media commentary about the laundries eventually led to an investigation about the treatment of wayward youth in every Irish institution. In 2009, Ireland’s Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse published its findings; it became known as the Ryan Report (after the chairman of the Commission, Justice Seán Ryan).

News stories about the Ryan Report quickly emerged maintaining that abuse was rampant in these institutions. Upon closer inspection, however, we learn that the Ryan Commission listed four types of abuse: physical, sexual, neglect and emotional. Most of the evidence showed there were no serious violations. For example, physical abuse included “being kicked”; sexual abuse was considered “kissing,” “non-contact including voyeurism” and “inappropriate sexual talk”; neglect included “inadequate heating”; and “lack of attachment and affection” was deemed emotional abuse.

Even by today’s standards in the West, these conditions are hardly draconian; in the past they were considered pedestrian. And consider the timeline: fully 82 percent of the incidents reported took place before 1970. As the New York Times noted, “many of them [are] now more than 70 years old.” Keep in mind that corporal punishment was not uncommon in many homes (and in many parts of the world), never mind in facilities that housed troubled persons.

Note that first sentence – note the phrase”wayward youth” for the children locked up in those industrial not-schools. Many of those children were simply the children of parents who didn’t have enough money; many more were simply the children of mothers who weren’t married. Then go on to notice his callous relativism about what went on in the schools, and feel sick.

He tries to argue that the women in the laundries were free to leave.

The majority of women either left on their own, went home, were reclaimed by a family member, or left for employment. Only 7.1 percent were dismissed or “sent away,” and less than two percent ran away. One might have thought that if Mullan’s depiction were accurate, a lot more than 1.9 percent would have run for the hills. That so few did is further testimony of the bogus portrayal he offered.

Say what? You’d think more would have run away? They were prevented from running away – that’s the whole point. They weren’t “sheltered” as he tries to maintain, they were locked up. The fact that few succeeded in escaping is not evidence that they were not locked up. (He slips by saying “ran away” at all. You don’t run away unless you’re not free to walk away.)

He’s a callous unfeeling church-protecting shit, Donohue is.

Physical abuse was uncommon. “A large majority of the women who shared their stories with the Committee said that they had neither experienced nor seen girls or women suffer physical abuse in the Magdalen Laundries,” the Report notes. But they did say that in their time in an industrial reformatory school there were instances of brutality.  As for the laundries, a typical complaint was, “I don’t ever remember anyone being beaten but we did have to work very hard.” Another common criticism went like this: “No they never hit you in the laundry. They never hit me, but the nun looked down on me ‘cause I had no father.”

Clearly he wants us to roll our eyes at what a trivial complaint this is. Fuck that. It is not trivial. Priest-ridden Ireland’s way of looking down on people for reasons of that kind was cruel and corrosive, and not a thing to be minimized. Marie-Thérèse has told us a great deal about what that was like, and it’s scorching.

Donohue is a very bad man.

H/t Lola Heavey.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

One of the reasons skepticism can’t get you there is the fact that it’s always possible to ask questions like, “Why should I care?”

There are answers to questions like that, but skepticism isn’t the source of the answers. Skepticism will just keep asking why we should care. Skepticism won’t necessarily accept the answers. There are no skepticism-defeating answers to questions like that. There’s no “proof” that humans should look after each other.

That’s why some of us are getting so fed up with skepticism. There are people who think it’s the universal tool, that it’s the right way to approach all questions, that if it’s still asking questions then somebody is pulling a fast one.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Or, stupid thought for the day, or, your moral reasoning machine is broken.

Another tweet, less interesting than the one I quoted earlier today.

I rarely use it myself but I see a liberal use of the word cunt to be a healthy reaction to those who seek to ban the word.

Of course you do. Bullies always do think that. If your younger sister told you to stop pinching her, you pinched harder, because that’s a healthy reaction to those who seek to ban pinching. If that skinny kid in glasses complained when you punched her in the playground, you kicked her for good measure, because that’s a healthy reaction to those who seek to ban punching. If your mother told you to stop calling her a bitch, you called her a cunt for good measure, because that’s a healthy reaction to those who seek to ban sexist name-calling.

Actually I too think liberal use of the word cunt, in the right context by the right people, is a healthy reaction to people who use it as an epithet to degrade and belittle women or to insult men by comparing them to women’s genitalia. Kate Smurthwaite convinced me of that when I saw her perform in Dublin. But “liberal use” as an epithet by bullies is another matter.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Speaking of the CFI Summit, anybody here going to be there? It’s October 24-27, in Tacoma, Washington, which is about 40 miles south of Seattle, on Puget Sound like Seattle, with a much better view of Mount Rainier than Seattle.

It has the Chihuly Bridge of Glass.

The schedule for the conference.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

An aphoristic little tweet got my attention an hour or so ago -

Think like a skeptic, act like a humanist

That might seem like a good recipe, but it isn’t. You can’t act like an X unless you also think like an X. Thinking and acting don’t bifurcate that cleanly – how could they?

No, it’s more difficult than that. Life isn’t easy. You have to combine the two, in thought and action.

I think about this in general a lot, and in particular especially right now because I’m on a panel discussing the two at the CFI Summit weekend after next.

Plenary session: “Humanism and Skepticism: Separate or Joint Agendas?”

Panel discussion chaired by Ronald A. Lindsay. The Panel: Barry Kosmin, Ophelia Benson, Daniel Loxton, Mark Hatcher, Ray Hyman, and Michael De Dora.

I’m going to be saying joint, not separate. But there’s a certain kind of skepticism (or at least a kind of skeptic) that sees humanism as a betrayal of skepticism. I think the aphorism is a reflection of that. The idea is that humanism is credulous and/or dogmatic, and that’s why it should be banished from thinking, where only skepticism should rule. You know the drill – “feminism is a religion” blah blah blah.

I say it’s the other way around. It’s not that humanist (aka moral, liberal, egalitarian) thinking is corrupted, but that purely skeptical thinking is inadequate.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A site admin lays it out on the Biology Online forum:

We would like to express our sincerest apologies to Danielle N. Lee (DNLee) and anyone else who may have been offended by the way our recently hired employee, Ofek, handled the conversation with her. Ofek’s behaviour was completely out of line and after gathering the facts we immediately terminated his employment. Ofek failed to show the respect and prudent behavior expected of him as a contributor to Biology Online.

From the moment that Biology Online started, it has always been a cordial avenue to exchange invaluable information and discussions among scientists, professionals, students, and biology savvy individuals from different parts of the world. Offensive and discriminatory behavior has always been discouraged. We intend to preserve this core function of the website. After an immediate and fair deliberation of the situation we decided to terminate the services of Ofek for his failure to represent and keep what we value in Biology Online.

We would also like to express our gratitude to the people who made us aware of the situation and to all loyal patrons of the website for your continued support. We assure you that Biology Online will continue providing its audience a congenial place for discussions and free biological information for everyone.

Biology Online Team

Should we feel sorry for Ofek? Not really. I’m more concerned about the many many people who are the objects of Ofek’s style of hipster misogynist contempt and dismissal. I think hipster misogynists need to start getting messages that hipster misogyny isn’t a marketable skill. Unfortunately, it is a marketable skill in way too many sectors, but that’s why we need more people saying, “Not here, it’s not.”

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Here we go again. High school football players. Important relatives. Small town. Party, alcohol, rape…and it’s the girl and her family who are punished.

The Kansas City Star details how the small town of Maryville turned against a newly-arrived family after 14-year-old Daisy Coleman reported that an older athlete had sex with her while another older male videotaped, after she was given an alcoholic drink at a party that left her barely able to stand. Her friend, a 13-year-old, was also made to have non-consensual sex.

After a thorough investigation by the local police however, clearly implicating 17-year-old Matthew Barnett in the sexual assault, charges were inexplicably dropped by the prosecuting attorney. Barnett, coincidentally, is the grandson of a prominent former Missouri state representative.

Coincidentally? Or very much to the pointly?

After the charges were dropped, things just got worse for Melinda and Daisy Coleman. Daisy has struggled with depression and attempted suicide. Melinda had to move away from Maryville and back to the town she had lived in with her now-deceased husband. In April, the house in Maryville she still owned burned down under mysterious circumstances.

And Matthew Barnett, the young man accused by Coleman of raping her? He’s attending the University of Central Missouri and apparently having a great time:

In a recent retweet, he expressed his views on women — and their desire for his sexual attentions — this way:

“If her name begins with A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z, she wants the D.”

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Wow. She’s still at it. Obsessive-compulsive blog-monitoring.

Sara E. Mayhew @saramayhew

The copy/paste bloggers at #ftbullies are now block quoting block quotes. pic.twitter.com/WBvpbo0cIj

The picture is of a quoted passage on my post Hold that pose, now pout from the day before that tweet. I quoted John Holbo and included a bit that he quoted.

Yes, and? So what? Is Mayhew so sub-literate that she’s never encountered internal quoted passages before? It’s normal. It’s not some loopy thing that only I do because I’m one of the #ftbullies, it’s just a normal thing to do.

They go rooting around like Périgord pigs looking for truffles, digging through every post to find something to rage about. I must be very important!!

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Government waste – bad thing, right? Well here’s some government waste for you.

More than 10 years of planning, $10 million of government funding and  tireless work from the team that discovered life in a lake buried beneath an  Antarctic glacier earlier this year may largely go to waste because of the  government shutdown.

Oh that kind of government waste…

The WISSARD drilling program — a collaborative effort of 14 principal  investigators including glaciologists, geophysicists, microbiologists and others  from nine institutions across the country — is one of the largest programs ever  fielded by the U.S. Antarctic Program.

The team consists of more than 50 scientists, graduate students and support  staff members, who aim to explore the underbelly of the West  Antarctic Ice Sheet— a flowing mass of ice about the size of France — in  order to study its dynamics and improve models that predict its melting rate. If  it were to melt completely, the ice sheet would increase average global sea  level by between 10 to 16 feet (3 to 5 meters).

Oh, don’t worry, the market will take care of that.

the National Science Foundation announced this week that it would cancel  its entire U.S. Antarctic research program until the shutdown ends,  jeopardizing the entire second half of the WISSARD program.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Slawek Tulaczyk, a glaciologist at the University  of California, Santa Cruz, and a principal investigator with WISSARD. “So many  people put in their time, their passion into making sure that this happens. It  takes a lot of professional, dedicated work.”

Tulaczyk’s team has worked through many weekends over the past three months  preparing to ship scientific equipment — some of which they spent years  designing specifically for this year’s work — down to Antarctica to ensure that  it arrives in time for their field season.

Those shipments have now stopped en route, and likely won’t arrive in Antarctica by  mid-November as had been scheduled.

“If we can’t get stuff into the field on time, then there is no reason to see it forward,” Tulaczyk told LiveScience.

They can’t just do it later, because then they would get into the Antarctic winter, and that’s not safe.

Tulaczyk said this series of events may cause his graduate students to  question if science was the right investment for them to make with their lives. It’s not the loss of one field season that makes the difference, he said, but the years of preparation and coordination that may now go to waste.

But unless North Korea or Iran suddenly produces some scarily advanced piece of technology that could give them Immediate World Domination, the burn-it-all-down Republicans won’t give a fuck.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Mariette DiChristina offers a fuller explanation in a blog post.

Scientific American bloggers lie at the heart of the SA website, pumping vitality, experience and broad insight around the community. Unfortunately our poor communication with this valuable part of the SA network over the recent days has led to concerns, misunderstandings and ill feelings, and we are committed to working to try to put this right as best we can.

We know that there are real and important issues regarding the treatment of women in science and women of color in science, both historically and currently, and are dismayed at the far too frequent cases in which women face prejudice and suffer inappropriate treatment as they strive for equality and respect. We recently removed a blog post by Dr. Danielle Lee that alleged a personal experience of this nature. Dr. Lee’s post pertained to personal correspondence between her and an editor at Biology-Online about a possible assignment for that network. Unfortunately, we could not quickly verify the facts of the blog post and consequently for legal reasons we had to remove the post. Although we regret that this was necessary, a publisher must be able to protect its interests and Scientific American bloggers are informed that we may remove their blog posts at any time when they agree to blog for us. In removing the post, we were in no way commenting upon the substance of the post, but reflecting that the underlying facts were not confirmed.

Some people commenting on the article – with Chris Clarke being the first – are unconvinced by that. But the end seems like a good outcome.

We take very seriously the issues that are faced by women in science and women of color in science. As a woman who has worked in science publishing for more than 20 years, I can add that we intend to discuss how we can better investigate and publicize such problems in general and search for solutions with Dr. Lee and with the wider scientific community. With the help of Dr. Lee as an author, Scientific American plans to provide a thoroughly reported feature article about the current issues facing women in science and the related research in the coming weeks. I am personally grateful to Dr. Lee for her support in these endeavors and am looking forward to working with her on these issues.

Looking forward to that article.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Ken White at Popehat takes a slightly different angle on the SciAm-Ofek-Danielle Lee train wreck. He agrees that it’s sexist but adds that it’s also marketerist.

Many bloggers have written about this as a clear example of how sexism is pervasive in the sciences.  After all, how else can you explain the interpersonal dysfunction of someone demanding free content from a female scientist and then calling her a whore when she refuses?

But I think sexism is, at least, an incomplete explanation.

I have no doubt that the scientific community is awash in ignorant and reflexive sexism.  I’ve heard too many stories from loved ones, classmates, and clients¹ in the sciences to think otherwise.  But human douchebaggery spins upon multiple axes.  It may be that the most powerful axis in play here is not sexism, but marketing.

¹Represent a female cardiothoracic surgeon and listen to her stories and next time you go under the knife you may be tempted to check to see if the guy under the mask is Tucker Max.

Human douchebaggery does indeed spin upon multiple axes. That’s an important truth, and an elegant way of condensing it.

Anyway yes. There is also the whole “ask people to write for you for nothing and abuse them when they say no” angle and that is interesting on its own, even without the sexism.

Ofek is currently in the business of spamming bloggers to ask them to contribute free content to a sordid little advertising-heavy aggregator site in order to increase traffic and thereby increase advertising revenue to Ofek and Ofek’s team.  In other words, Ofek has ceased to be a scientist and begun a career as a marketeer.

And marketeers are entitled douchebags.  Within the context of online marketing, Ofek’s behavior is perfectly typical.  Ofek’s belief — that he is entitled to profit off of Ms. Lee’s work, and that she’s worthy of abuse if she objects — is the apotheosis of marketeer culture.

You can hear echoes of Ofek in the marketeer who called the Bloggess a “fucking bitch” when she snarked about receiving Kardashian spam.  You can hear it in the offense taken by the spammer who showed up in our comments, outraged that we called out his spam.  You can hear it in the attitude of comment spammers who suggest that if bloggers don’t want comment spam they shouldn’t have open comments.  You see it in the buffoonish look-how-successful-I-am rants of marketeers who defend their vocation.  You hear it in the rancor of marketeers who believe they own hashtags on Twitter and that anyone who uses them for criticism is a spammer.  You can hear it in the angry entitlement of the marketeer who threatens me with a lawsuit when I call out his deceitful methodology.

And science education? Not so much.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Update: this post is confusing if you haven’t read the one before it. The article is a good article; my commentary continues from the previous post.

Another article on DN Lee and Scientific American, Nobody Ever Called Einstein A ‘Whore’. (Yes, yes, frisson, blah blah collective outrage, yadda yadda impure motives. Noted, Jeremy, now go monitor someone else for a few years.)

Danielle Lee is another one of its well-known scientific writers. Lee, a biologist who studies animal behavior, mammals and the ways organisms interact with their environment, earned a doctoral degree in biology from the University of Missouri–St. Louis, was named Young Professional of the Year by the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, and her urban science blog was named as a finalist for the 2011 Black Weblog Award in the best science and technology category. When not blogging, Lee works for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. By all accounts Lee is well-known and well-respected in scientific circles…

It’s good to have some background.

Then there was Ofek, then Mariette DiChristina removed Lee’s blog post…

That’s when things really got ugly. Besides the ethical considerations of journalists removing whole stories from websites without warning or fuller explanation, Scientific American apparently failed to take into consideration how readers would react, especially those who had already seen the post. Not only was the initial story picked up by the ever popular Buzz Feed, the website specializing in viral content, also implicated Scientific American’s complicity in the controversy. Scientists around the globe are now protesting the magazine, taking to Twitter and other social media platforms to demand that their content also be removed from the site, stating their refusal to now use Scientific American’s materials in the classroom, and are dropping subscriptions. And they are calling on colleagues to take similar actions.

Aka the frisson of collective outrage. How dare scientists around the globe protest! How dare they make Danielle Lee feel supported instead of isolated and dismissed? How dare they, I tell you! It’s much better to steer clear of all possible frissons and leave everything as it is, including random people calling women whores when they feel like it.

…the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States should have known better, even more so (one would think) since its editor is a woman. If nothing else editors should explain its relationship with Biology-onlineand the editor who is accused of calling Lee out of her name. One would also think that editors at Scientific American would be empathetic about scientists getting riled when their work is not respected, but something tells me that Einstein never had to worry about being called a “whore,” let alone an urban one.

Uh oh. Is that a reference to privilege? It’s all over.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

So how are things going for Scientific American? Not very well, from what I can see. There’s a lot of very strong criticism of their move in taking down Danielle N Lee’s blog post about the editor at Biology Online who called her a whore when she declined to write for Biology Online for free. Most of it is coming directly from working scientists. That can’t be what they want.

I still haven’t seen any explanation of their reasons for taking down the post; as far as I know there hasn’t been one.

They can’t take refuge in the claim that their blog isn’t the right place for personal quarrels, because this wasn’t personal. Ofek and Lee were strangers, and still are. They exchanged three emails apiece. The exchange was about writing for the blog Ofek edits. That’s not personal, it’s purely professional – or rather it was professional until Ofek called Lee a whore, and then it became unmotivated unprofessional abuse.

I used to have a job in which I asked people to write things for no money, come to think of it. I was deputy editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine for several years, and part of my job was doing just that. Sometimes people did reply asking if there was any pay involved, and it was my job to answer the question. I must say it never crossed my mind for an instant to abuse people if they declined on learning that the answer was no. (Mind you, I always worded it more carefully than Ofek did. I was faintly apologetic, I phrased it as inability as opposed to refusal, I expressed both hopes and complete understanding of a potential refusal. I definitely did not put it as “we’re doing you a favor” or anything resembling that. I put it as the invitee doing us a favor.)

Yeah. I used to have a job doing what Ofek did, and I would never in a million years have done it the way Ofek did. I can’t even figure out what could have motivated Ofek to do it that way.

Liz Ditz at I Speak of Dreams has a useful compilation of posts on the subject.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Leo Igwe writes:

I am writing to urge you to join as we protest the tour of the Pacific Region in November of the ‘General Overseer’ of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye. Pastor Adeboye is touring Canberra(November 10-11), Melbourne(12-13) New Zealand(14-15), Fiji(16-17),Solomon Islands (18-19), Papua New Guinea(20-21), Sydney(22-23), Perth(24-25).

The aim of the tour is to establish branches of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in these places. Pastor Adeboye is one of the pastors who openly used their sermons and preaching to rally public support for the anti same sex marriage bill which was recently passed by lawmakers in Nigeria.

Earlier this year he told a local Christian gathering that ‘Same sex marriage is anathema’ and an ‘evil’ that would lead to the end of human race. Due to the sermons of homophobic clerics like Pastor Adeboye, there is a growing trend of attacks and violence against homosexuals in Nigeria.
We should not allow this vicious trend to spread and take hold in other parts of the globe.
We need to use this opportunity to send a strong message to Pastor Adeboye and other gay bashing African clerics that their gospel of hatred and intolerance has no place in the Pacific Region and that their churches have no future in Australia, New Zealand etc.

Many African churches are trying to re –evangelize the world by promoting literal biblical  interpretations and christian messages that are incompatible with  universal human rights and other civilized values.

If we must beat back the tide of homophobia sweeping across Africa, we must protest the moves and plans by homophobic pastors and religious bigots to establish churches that incite violence and hatred against gay persons. Let us mobilize through the social media against the visit of this Nigerian pastor. Let us get human rights/humanist/secular groups in these places to stage protests and denounce the establishment of homophobic churches in the pacific region.

Leo Igwe,
Founder,
Nigerian Humanist Movement
October 11, 2013

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

But what are they?

Editor in chief and Senior VP Mariette DiChristina explained on Twitter

Re blog inquiry: @sciam is a publication for discovering science. The post was not appropriate for this area & was therefore removed.

And got what is apparently an infinite number of replies – the page is still loading and I’ve been reading and scrolling for several minutes. The replies are stinging and clarifying.

A few:

Christie Wilcox @NerdyChristie

.@mdichristina Since when does @sciam censor blogs for lacking science content? No one took down my posts like this: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2012/11/12/musical-monday-stay-near-me/ ….

Maggie Koerth-Baker @maggiekb

Expectation of free work is big deal. Treatment of women who refuse paradigm, even more.

Seth Zenz @sethzenz

Science blogging is best w/ writers’ work/lives. You picked a very bad time to define it narrowly.

Janet D Stemwedel @docfreeride

Can you please clarify what “discovering science” means in context of @SciAmBlogs? cc @BoraZ

Martin Robbins @mjrobbins

This is a complete and utter screw up on your part. The sooner you guys get on top of it, the better.

Mariette DiChristina responded:

@hannahjwaters @sciam @BoraZ @DNLee5 “Partner” connection not a factor.

More infinite responses:

Ben Lillie @BenLillie

@mdichristina @hannahjwaters @boraz @dnlee5 Doesn’t matter. Pulling that post sends an incredibly bad message for diversity and support.

Chris Clarke @canlistrans

@mdichristina a staggeringly bad decision on scism’s part. Not too late to fix it. @hannahjwaters @sciam @BoraZ @DNLee5

The editor in chief says the reason was not the partner connection, but does not say what the reason was. Hm.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Ah, nice – Sean Carroll (the physics one) has a post on the how not to address a colleague who has the bad taste to be a woman issue, and Scientific American’s response to same.

Where I grew up, when people politely turn down your request for free stuff, it’s impolite to call them a “whore.” It’s especially bad when you take into account the fact that we live in a world where women are being pushed away from science, one where how often your papers get cited correlates strongly with your gender, and so on.

DNLee was a bit taken aback, with good reason. So she took to her blog to respond. It was a colorful, fun, finely-crafted retort — and also very important, because this is the kind of stuff that shouldn’t happen in this day and age. Especially because the offender isn’t just some kid with a website; Biology Online is a purportedly respectable site, part of the Scientific American “Partners Network.” One would hope that SciAm would demand an apology from Ofek, or consider cutting their ties with the organization.

Sadly that’s not what happened. If you click on the link in the previous paragraph, you’ll get an error. That’s because Scientific American, where DNLee’s blog is hosted, decided it wasn’t appropriate and took it down.

It’s true that this particular post was not primarily concerned with conveying substantive scientific content. Like, you know, countless other posts on the SciAm network, or most other blogs. But it wasn’t about gossip or what someone had for lunch, either; interactions between actual human beings engaged in the communication of scientific results actually is a crucial part of the science/culture/community ecosystem. DNLee’s post was written in a jocular style, but it wasn’t only on-topic, it was extremely important. Taking it down was exactly the wrong decision.

I have enormous respect for Scientific American as an institution, so I’m going to hope that this is a temporary mistake, and after contemplating a bit they decide to do the right thing, restoring DNLee’s post and censuring the guy who called her a whore. But meanwhile, I’m joining others by copying the original post here. Ultimately it’s going to get way more publicity than it would have otherwise. Maybe someday people will learn how the internet works.

Bat signal, bat signal.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)