So there’s this now – Sarah Moglia got a job as an Event Specialist with the Secular Student Alliance right after she graduated from college. Her first task was to help plan a tour for Richard Dawkins’ children’s book, The Magic of Reality. The first stop of the tour was in Miami.

Hours before the first event, there were people lining up outside the doors. As a member of the team, I was allowed in the auditorium before the event began. It was me, Dave Silverman (President of American Atheists), Elizabeth Cornwell (Executive Director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation), Sean Faircloth (then newly-hired Director of Strategy and Policy for RDF), and Richard Dawkins himself.

At this time (September of 2011), Dave Silverman was heading up the Reason Rally Committee. There was still quite a bit of planning and promotion that needed to be done, so Dave asked Richard, Elizabeth, and Sean to make videos to promote the Reason Rally. (The video Richard ended up making is still viewable.) Richard was standing behind the podium, and he asked Dave something along the lines of, “What exactly is the Reason Rally?” Dave started explaining it, and as he did, someone who was waiting in the line outside opened the door to peek inside and we could all hear a lot of noise. I rushed up the aisle and made frantic “shut the door” gestures at the people peeking inside, and they did. As I walked the ten feet back, I couldn’t hear everything Dave was saying, but I heard the name “Rebecca Watson.” Richard suddenly had a very angry look on his face and I heard him almost shout, “No, absolutely not! If she’s going to be there, I won’t be there. I don’t want her speaking.” and then Dave immediately replied, “You’re absolutely right, we’ll take her off the roster. It’s done.” Richard huffed for a moment, Dave continued to placate him, and then he made the video.

I was crushed. I couldn’t believe it. Richard Dawkins was my hero. I looked up to him as a beacon of truth and reason in a world of irrationality. I couldn’t believe he would act this way toward Rebecca.

Read the rest.

The point is, it’s crappy. It’s an abuse of fame and status and the kind of (intangible) power they confer.

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

One of the things I hate more than some of the other things in The Great Community Wars is the cry of “get a JOB!!”

Like the cry quoted by Aja Romano in a Daily Dot piece on the latest front in The Great Community Wars, mockingly dubbed #tablegate.

Skeptics seized upon the discrepancies in Watson’s post and launched a heated backlash. One of the most outspoken critics of the incident was the ironically named Uberfeminist, a skeptics/atheists blog heavily focused on critiquing “American atheist social justice bloggers.” Uberfeminist believed Watson and Roth were trying to game Dragon Con by getting free attendance and then using their own panels to plug their table and merchandise:

Skepchick may say they’re not trying to make a profit, they’re trying to “break even” when accounting for the cost of making the trip happen. … Presumably the majority of attendees make this work by having a day job and saving money.

That’s far from the first time I’ve seen that stupid trope. It’s almost as popular as “real activists do real things, unlike those losers who write blog posts.” The two are closely related, of course, and about as vulgar and anti-intellectual as it’s possible to get. Yeah, get a job, John Keats – don’t lounge around writing poetry, do some honest work for a change.

Fuck that. People are allowed to try to make it work in other ways. People are allowed to put together a patchwork of partial jobs, to make a living by creating art, to make less money doing what they love instead of more money doing what they hate. People are allowed to do things that have little or no market value but a lot of non-market value. Just having a job isn’t the hallmark of virtue and merit.

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

So Ariel Castro, the guy who kidnapped and enslaved three women, killed himself in his prison cell. (Or he was murdered and the authorities are just saying he killed himself. Who knows, but let’s go with the official story for now.)

Some moments from his life:

In court:

Castro appeared to blame the victims and accused them of lying about their treatment. He went on to say that none of the women was a virgin when he abducted them, that they wanted sex and there was “harmony” in the “happy household.”

Mm. That’s why there were chains; that’s why the windows were boarded up; that’s why Amanda Berry clawed the front door partly open and screamed for help.

At home:

Castro’s 1,400-square-foot home was reconfigured to keep their whereabouts a secret, FBI agent Andrew Burke testified. The back door was outfitted with an alarm, bedspreads and curtains obscured parts of the home and a porch swing was placed in front of the stairs leading to the rooms where Castro held the women and girl hostage.

Police also testified Castro would chain the women to objects, including a support pole in his basement.

In the room where Berry and her daughter were held, the doorknob was removed, a lock was affixed to the outside and a hole was cut through the door for ventilation because the windows had been boarded up from the inside, Burke said.

Cozy.

Hospitality:

The first police officer on the scene, Barbara Johnson, recalled for the court how she and another officer heard the pitter-patter of footsteps in a dark room where Knight and DeJesus were held.

When the captive women realized they were police, Knight “literally launched herself” onto an officer, “legs, arms, just choking him. She just kept repeating, ‘You saved us! You saved us!’ ” Johnson said.

The women were described as scared, pale, malnourished and dehydrated when they were rescued. Dr. Gerald Maloney, who was in the emergency room when the victims arrived, said Knight requested that no male physicians attend to her.

Dehydrated. He didn’t even let them have enough water.

Quite an epitaph.

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

The Dawkins Foundation has been sprucing up its website lately, I gather. It has a projects page, with two sub pages, one of which is Our Resources Include You. It’s about team-building, I guess, and it starts with You, meaning all us readers, then it goes on to Dawkins and co.

Richard Dawkins, DSc, FRS: One of the most respected scientists in the world and the biggest draw in secularism, Richard Dawkins always generates impressive crowds when visiting North America. On his Fall 2011 tour he drew an enthusiastic crowd of 2300 at Eastern Kentucky University. This is a movement, and Richard Dawkins is the catalyst that galvanizes it. 

Um…that’s a sprucing up too far, that last sentence is. (The first sentence isn’t great either. “Most respected” is such a waffly description, and dubious for that reason. It’s PR-speak. That’s the point, that’s what the page is, that’s probably what the sprucing up is about, but all the same – crude PR-speak isn’t really a plus, especially not for a “movement” or project or whatever that proclaims itself as “for reason and science.” Dawkins wouldn’t introduce himself that way to colleagues, I should think, so he shouldn’t let his PR people introduce him to the rest of the world that way. It looks at the very least silly.)

That’s too long for a parenthesis. Back to the last sentence. THE catalyst? No no no no no no no. Don’t do that. Don’t obliterate everyone else that way. There are a lot of catalysts in this movement, they all contribute to the galvanizing, there is no one catalyst that galvanizes it all by himself.

Also, a factual item -

You. RichardDawkins.net is the most visited website in secularism. It is where secular innovation and secular ideas meet secular people who can and will take action. That’s you.

It’s not the most visited website in secularism. For instance – there’s Freethought Blogs.

Dawkins foundation:

Alexa Traffic Rank: 28,606  United States Flag Traffic Rank in US: 14,785

FTB:

Alexa Traffic Rank: 17,783  United States Flag Traffic Rank in US: 6,196

Just saying.

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

Malala Yousafzai opened the new Birmingham Library today.

How’s that for the best possible revenge? It’s not revenge at all, it’s just surviving and flourishing and being an inspiration to people who need that very thing, when ignorant warped bullies wanted her dead.

As part of the opening ceremony, Malala placed her copy of The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho in the library – the last book to go on the shelves. She has been given membership to access the archive.

Addressing the public, Malala said she was feeling very proud the building had been designed by a woman and the city was now her second home after her “beloved Pakistan”.

She said books were weapons to beat terrorism and “the only way to global peace is reading knowledge and education”.

“Books are precious,” she explained.

“Some books travel with you back centuries, others take you into the future. Some take you to the core of your heart and others take you into the universe.

“There’s no better way to explain the importance of books than to show even God chose the medium of a book to send his message to his people.

“This library will continue to enlighten future generations.

“It is written that a room without books is like a body without a soul. A city without a library is like a graveyard.”

Speaking of how Birmingham has become a home to her, Malala said: “This city is the beating heart of England.

“Birmingham is very special for me, because it was here I found myself alive seven days after I was shot.”

She said the “great people” of the city gave her moral support.

“This event proves this city loves me and I love it too.”

The BBC has a slideshow – the restored Shakespeare room is a knockout, as is the roof garden and the view of Brum from the roof.

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

Josh Official SpokesGay has a post at More Than Men about the time he was raped, titled Last Night. It gets your attention right away.

“Do you remember what I did to you last night?”

That’s what he asked when I woke, as if asking me to go to breakfast.

I kind of remembered. Then I turned over and felt the pain. He got me drunk, he drugged me, and he fucked me up the ass.

So Josh went right to the police and reported it and the guy was charged and convicted, right? Because that’s how it always works with rape? Like any other crime – you report it, and get justice? Right?

And I sure as fuck didn’t report it to the police. If you have to ask why, then take this opportunity to refill your drink and sit your ignorant ass down.

Report it? To the cops? Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast? Faggots can’t be raped. They’re sex fiends by nature and they never ever turn down the chance to take it up the ass. Because they’re faggots.

Had I reported this to the cops, I would have been put through what nearly all women suffer throughout the reporting process—if they even get past being laughed at or ignored. And the chances aren’t that bad that I’d get an extra rape or a beating for dessert.

Read the whole thing. And by all means discuss it there.

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

A parable about dogs and conserving energy. Ok not really a parable, just an observation about dogs.

In one way Cooper is bad at folk physics – he never gets that if he’s standing or lying where I’m trying to go, that means I can’t go there. He never budges over of his own accord; I have to say “mooooooove” and then he does it not because he knows that’s what I mean but because he knows I’m telling him to do something and that’s the only thing he can think of to do. It works, but it’s crude.

In another way, as Gretchen Robinson just reminded me on Facebook, he’s good at it – when we’re at the lake or the Sound and I throw the ball far out into the water, he uses his folk physics. Not, admittedly, the way Gretchen said; he doesn’t run to the point on the beach closest to where the ball hit the water. No, he plunges directly in and then aims for the ball. But on the return trip, he does aim for the shore, not for me; he takes the short route, not the long one.

But then he immediately asks for the ball to be thrown again, and bang goes all that conserved energy. He could just as well swim away from the shore for awhile and then head back.

So never ask a dog to engineer a freeway for you.

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

Guest post by Marcus Ranum, originally a comment on Sam has to presume a great big ought:

To anticipate a possible counter-objection on this topic, which might attempt to dismiss the concerns of philosophers (such as Hume, Kant, Rawls, and Mill) regarding the topic of the is/ought problem as being perhaps obscure philosophical wanking (which I have sometimes seen likened to religion or theology) it is not a matter of counting the numbers of angels on the head of pins. This is the core issue in any discussion of morality: how do you argue that your individual views about right and wrong are not merely your opinion but are fact? Kant tries to do it with an extremely clever formulation of the golden rule.(1) Mill tries to do it with some ham-fisted handwaving about maximizing the common good(2) and Rawls makes some brilliant game-theoretic leaps to try to overcome the flaws in Kant’s categorical imperative(3).

We humans seem to limp along without an objective morality, basically surviving in societies in which self-interest is the norm and there’s a constant struggle for power – not justice: power. It seems to me that the search for morality is silliness; it ought to be pretty clear that all attempts to establish an agreement in principle amount to nothing more than reifying one person’s opinion as “right” – usually the person with the biggest stick. Harris fails to start with  moral nihilism as his default position and to move from there probably because he doesn’t really understand what he’s doing. He’s not really very well-educated when you come right down to it.

(1) Imagine that the world you live in is the world in which everyone acts as you do; therefore you should act well.  Objection: this is obviously simply Kant’s opinion; we can see that selfishness exists and therefore Kant is simply projecting his moral sense onto others.

(2) Objection: how do you know your idea of what the common good is is fact and not merely your opinion? I.e.: “the common good” presupposes you have a working morality, which is begging the question.

(3) Imagine that you construct the world you will live in, with no advance knowledge of your place in it; the argument is that a rational person will create the most fair world possible. Objection: this is actually an appeal to self-interest hidden behind smoke and mirrors; if you’re willing to assume that self-interest is the basis for morality you’ve actually scored an own-goal.

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

I’m rummaging in the archives, locally and globally, for more on the Sam Harris Contest to Find the Genius Who Can Persuade Harris that he didn’t actually invent the new best only way to think about morality all out of his own head by thinking and taking some notes. My rummaging has turned up an article on Harris v Pigliucci at old B&W and under that a comment by Harris’s newly appointed judge, Russell Blackford.

Well, my eyes glaze over whenever I see a complaint about “scientism”. But surely Massimo is right this time, at least on the main point. The Moral Landscape conspicuously fails to derive any “oughts” from “is’s” in the sense that philosophers mean. In order to get started, Sam has to presume a great big “ought” which relates to how we ought to maximise well-being in some sense of the latter. I suppose you could concede that, but then say his overall point stands because it’s just obviously true that we ought to maximise well-being in the requisite sense. But it’s not obvious at all. It’s a substantive, highly controversial claim. You really can’t say that failing to agree with it is analogous to adopting some sort of radical epistemological scepticism (complete with deceiving demons, brains in vats, the radical unreliability of our senses, and the like). That’s just not so. You might as well say that refusing to agree with the claim that there is a God is analogous to radical epistemological scepticism.

Exactly.

I think Harris just took it as given without realizing that he was doing so, and then when a lot of people pointed it out to him after the book was published…well I don’t know: he didn’t understand their point, or he doubled down, or whatever, but he didn’t accept that that was what he had done.

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

Hm. You would think people who design and build large buildings would know how to figure out how to do it without ending up with a lethal giant magnifying glass.

A new London skyscraper dubbed the “Walkie Talkie” has been blamed for reflecting light which melted parts of a car parked on a nearby street.

Martin Lindsay parked his Jaguar on Eastcheap, in the City of London, on Thursday afternoon.

When he returned about two hours later, he found parts of his car – including the wing mirror and badge – had melted.

Oops. So if people pause in a nearby spot to chat about the prospects for Wolverhampton Wanderers (as people do), they might burst into flames?

Unsettling.

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

Sam Harris has improved his contest somewhat, in response to some of the reaction. He added an FAQ.

9. With you as the judge, how can we trust that the best attack on your thesis will see the light of day?

Having now fielded several accusations that this contest will be rigged—if not by design, then by my own ignorance and bias—I reached out to the philosopher Russell Blackford for help. Russell has been one of the most energetic critics of The Moral Landscape, and I am very happy to say that he has now agreed to judge the submissions, introduce the winning essay, and evaluate my response. I trust that everyone will consider this a hopeful development.

Of course, only I can judge whether I find the winning essay persuasive enough to trigger a change in my position (and the larger prize). But if I’m not persuaded, I’ll have to give an argument saying why not, and Russell will be there to see that I do this without dodging any important issues.

That’s good. That last clause is especially good – because I have never yet seen a response from Harris that fails to dodge all the important issues, apparently without his even being aware of it. Russell will be in a position to make him aware of it before he publishes. That’s good.

Mind you, I’d think it was even better if it were Patricia Churchland doing it, not least because she too has a PhD in neuroscience, and because her book Braintrust is what Harris should have written but didn’t. But still, this is good.

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

More on The Harris Challenge*, aka here’s a time when I agree with Russell Blackford.

Sam Harris

Please change my mind and take my money.

Russell Blackford

I doubt that anyone could put better criticisms of ethical naturalism than you’ve already seen from me in less than 1000 words

SH

I can’t remember, have you addressed my “worst possible misery for everyone argument”?

RB

I may not have addressed that particular para or so – but I don’t think it achieves very much. /1

In reverse order -

RB

If it’s the worst possible misery for everyone, including me and my loved ones, I have a PRUDENTIAL reason to obviate it. /2

What if I have the choice of making myself or a loved one 3 units less miserable or someone else 5 units less miserable? /3

Am I objectively bound in the nature of things to take the second choice? I don’t see it.

RB

In short, we have a reason to ameliorate misery insofar as we care. We are not objectively bound to in the nature of things.

Precisely. And Harris seems to be utterly blind to that, and unable to take it in when people spell it out to him.

Yet there are many people who persist in thinking his book was a bold new theory of morality, that got everything right.

*Update: previous discussion yesterday.

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

Because of new relevance, my review of The Moral Landscape for Issue 53 of TPM. Posted at ur-B&W April 16, 2011.

Sam Harris asks an interesting question in the introduction, after laying out his central (and not really controversial) claim that questions about values are questions about the well-being of conscious creatures. “Is it possible,” he asks, “that certain people are incapable of wanting what they should want?” Of course, he answers; there are always people who get things wrong. But that question doesn’t exhaust the difficulties that arise in moral discussion, yet Harris separates it out as if it did. The really hard question, which he generally gives short shrift, asks “is it possible that there are many people who are incapable of wanting what other people want?” In other words is it possible that many people do just fine at wanting what they should want for themselves and fail only at wanting what they should want for other people? Yes it is, and this is why the world is not a happy Utopia of people adding their bliss together to make a sum of Megabliss. The owl’s well-being is to eat the mouse, and the mouse’s well-being is to dodge the owl. We have an impasse.

It is surprising that Harris doesn’t put more emphasis on competition, on rivalry and scarcity and zero-sum games and prisoners’ dilemmas, on exploitation and labour and hierarchy, on the fact that more well-being for me is not the same as more well-being for you, let alone for everyone, and that this fact by itself is enough to make morality contentious and difficult. He does address these issues eventually, but not until well into the book, and then only briefly and somewhat perfunctorily. The emphasis is all on insistence that “the well-being of conscious creatures” is pretty much all we need to consider.

He does tell us some interesting things in the process, though, such as that “neuroimaging has also shown that fairness drives reward-related activity in the brain, while accepting unfair proposals requires the regulation of negative emotion.” That is a hopeful observation – but it is vulnerable to the familiar fact that humans are brilliant at rationalization, which means among other things that we know how to understand “fairness” in such a way that it maximizes our own well-being at the expense of other people. Tax-cuts for the super-rich make a tidy example of that, since one can view both sides of the debate as defining “fairness” in their own favor. (Michael Moore performed this dialectic in one of his films: on being told that his new book had just hit the New York Times best-seller list he said, “Oh! Well now I believe in tax-cuts for the rich.”)

The depressing truth that Harris never really confronts is that no one really wants to maximize the well-being of everyone. Economies depend on not doing so: cheap labour is the engine that drives various economic miracles and tigers. Lip service is paid to the idea of eradicating poverty, but meanwhile all sorts of visible and occult mechanisms make sure that there will always be plenty of poor people around. Rich countries subsidize their own cotton farmers at the expense of desperately poor African counterparts. Where is the brain reward for the feeling of fairness then? Africans are far away, and easy to ignore, so their immiseration doesn’t interfere with the well-being of prosperous Europeans.

This isn’t an issue of not understanding that morality is about the well-being of conscious creatures. It’s an issue of not caring, of selective attention, of studied ignorance, of institutions, regulations, habits, expertise – it’s a myriad of things. It’s easy to get people to agree that well-being is good; the hard part is getting them to agree on what that implies they should do, and getting them to do it.

Harris spends most of the book hammering home the point that morality is about the well-being of conscious creatures, which means he spends far too little time considering the difficult questions that arise even if everyone agrees on that. He also frequently treats those questions as easily settled, for instance when he says, “I think there is little doubt that most of what matters to the average person – like fairness, justice, compassion, and a general awareness of terrestrial reality – will be integral to our creating a thriving global civilization and, therefore, to the greater well-being of humanity”.

Almost halfway into the book he does suddenly admit the difficulty – “population ethics is a notorious engine of paradox, and no one, to my knowledge, has come up with a way of assessing collective well-being that conserves all of our intuitions”. He then quotes Patricia Churchland saying, “no one has the slightest idea how to compare the mild headache of five million against the broken legs of two…” Quite so, and this acknowledgement should have come much earlier and been woven into the discussion throughout. Because it isn’t, the first part of the argument seems much too quick and effortless. If it were that simple, the reader keeps thinking, why wouldn’t everyone just do it?

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

I reread this post by Skeptic Lawyer from two years ago, Miss Manners and playing the victim, and I feel like giving some elegant extracts.

There are various manifestations of these atrocious manners, but they seem (to me, at least) to boil down to an inability, on the part of certain men, to take ‘no’ for an answer. I think this is tied to participation in various ‘geek’ subcultures (both on-line and off-line, so while it may be convenient to blame the internet, blaming the internet is unfair). Participation in these varied subcultures is seen to give people something of a pass for rudeness. The justification proffered is that participation in the subculture resulted in bullying when the man in question was young, conferring victim status on him as an adult. And, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere on this blog, wrapping oneself in victimhood is often a way to avoid having to take personal responsibility–for anything.

That can happen. It’s certainly a much-rehearsed claim about feminism, as we all know – Paula Kirby’s “Sisterhood of the Oppressed” appeared several months after SL’s piece (and is orders of magnitude less good). There is also a hell of a lot of claiming to be victimized by feminism and feminists.

While doing the research for this post, I found that the largest gaming convention in North America has to remind attendees to wash daily and use deodorant in its program. I’ve seen a man who a woman rejected on the basis of his online gaming hobby tell her she ‘needed a good raping’. And there was worse than that in some places, which had to be closed down on the basis that they had reached the incitement stage. Incitement, in case you didn’t know, is a crime, and I’m afraid saying ‘it was only on the internet’ will not impress any judge of my acquaintance.

Incitement is at the heart of the problem, as far as I’m concerned, and it gets ignored far too often and too easily.

Then an interesting note in a comment (also by SL):

There’s probably a fair bit of cross over between the two classifications, however I think the undesirable trends will manifest differently between the two. The former would be more likely to be the ‘respectful but awkward’ type, and the later would be more likely to be the ‘entitled/arrogant’ type as they would see the awkwardness as a cultural element they are entitled to rather than an unfortunate side effect of not being neurotypical or lacking experience (as per Adrien’s feedback loop @7).

This strikes me as quite an insight, and ties into the point a few people have been making upthread about the boundaries of ‘geekiness’ shifting of late, such that rudeness can be worn as a badge of honour, rather than worked through and around (which is what people would have done in the past).

There is also a larger problem of relativising when it comes to knowledge or achievement. Traditional geeky pursuits (like being good at maths) often enjoyed a significant occupational payoff — such as an opportunity for work in the City as a quant, and in banking generally. Other, more modern examples of ‘geekiness’ enjoy no such cachet (memorizing every episode of Buffy in order, etc). We are not good, these days, at suggesting that knowing maths is better than knowing popular culture.

Then again, knowing popular culture can also enjoy a significant occupational payoff, because somebody has to create the popular culture, and who better to do that than people saturated in it?

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

Comic interlude – the best troll question I’ve seen in some time.

Kindly tell me how “The hell with you, it’s my freedom, I’ll say what I want” is whining and “Please don’t do that” isn’t.

Do admit.

Also – a profound observation on the nature of comedy.

In my opinion, the best humor is pointed at someone else and in some cases those people lower than ourselves.

You know, I’ve noticed the same thing about punching. The best punching is pointed at someone else.

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

Oh, man, bad idea. Really bad idea.

Sam Harris has issued a challenge. Shades of the Randi challenge, right? Only Harris’s is rather different.

It has been nearly three years since The Moral Landscape was first published in English, and in that time it has been attacked by readers and nonreaders alike. Many seem to have judged from the resulting cacophony that the book’s central thesis was easily refuted. However, I have yet to encounter a substantial criticism that I feel was not adequately answered in the book itself (and in subsequent talks).

So I would like to issue a public challenge. Anyone who believes that my case for a scientific understanding of morality is mistaken is invited to prove it in 1,000 words or less. (You must refute the central argument of the book—not peripheral issues.) The best response will be published on this website, and its author will receive $1000. If any essay actually persuades me, however, its author will receive $10,000, and I will publicly recant my view.

What a display of vanity.

He’s so clever and so right that he’ll give you TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS if you can persuade him he’s not right. He might as well have made it a billion.

I sent Patricia Churchland a Facebook DM suggesting she collect an easy ten grand. I don’t suppose she’ll bother, though.

Update: it’s now $2000 for the best response and $20,000 for the potential persuader, because a “generous reader” (aka besotted fan) matched his prize.

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

It’s definitely asshole Saturday.

Thunderfoot has a new video about how feminism is roooning atheism, part 5. Yes seriously, it’s part 5.

I watched almost 5 minutes of it. He gets his facts wrong. He starts by saying American Atheists “just” invited PZ to speak at the next convention, after he went and did that terrible thing by posting the email a woman sent him about Michael Shermer. Wrong. They asked him long before the post. It’s laughably easy to confirm that, because they also announced it before the post.

Mason never pauses, in the part I watched, to ask himself what if it’s true. He never pauses to consider the grapevine reports that have been circulating for years. He just rages about PZ and feminism.

And he rages at American Atheists’ harassment policy, and the fact that it says you can’t harass people based on a long list of things, one of which is religion.

So?

Imagine someone religious attends the convention, out of interest or curiosity or whatever. (Or because she’s Amanda Knief’s mother, which was the case last March.) Nobody should harass them there! Voluntarily discuss and argue, yes, but harass, no.

Mason either is or pretends to be too dense to grasp that point.

Phil Plait did have a point, didn’t he.

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

A comment by Leslie Brown at Pharyngula on a post about geekbro culture.

First time commenter, this issue really chaps my hide. I was really keen to work in computers when I was in my 20s, way back in 1979. I applied for a place on a government run programming course, and sat an aptitude test along with about 250 others. I found the test quite straightforward, completed it in about half the allotted 2 hours, and was eventually called for an interview. I was told that even though I’d scored exceptionally highly on the aptitude test, they couldn’t offer me one of the 12 places available, as I might have children! Despite explaining that I’d recently split from my husband, and also had no desire ever to have children (and I never did*) they didn’t waver in being discriminatory asses. They did say that because of my exceptional test score they would have to put me on the reserve list, but none of the men who got a place through positive (& I later realised unlawful) discrimination dropped out. I suppose that I’m not the only woman treated that way, and that some of those privileged men are now in charge, assumjng their innate superiority rather than that some of their positions are down to discrimination.

I got my own back later by working for our Equal Opportunities Commission and taking comfort in helping other women take cases against that government organisation.

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