…and this is a 
How to survive a panel discussion with big shots
Category: Personal • Weblogs
Posted on: June 9, 2006 1:39 PM, by PZ Myers
As you watch the time fade away, sit back and enjoy it and start mentally rewriting your talk. I had it pared down to "I'll post it on the web later, bye!"
Well, it really wasn't that bad. My YearlyKos panel on science consisted of me, Wendy Northcutt, Chris Mooney, and that big guy most people have heard of, Wes Clark. Clark got up there with a few brief notes and spoke extemporaneously, eating up 40 minutes of our hour and a quarter. It was good to hear a politician speak out forcefully for science and the separation of church and state, so that's what counts. He also packed the room for us, so we had a huge crowd.
Mooney had his usual well-prepared talk, which he pared down as much as he reasonably could, to about 25 minutes. (Add the time up, we were nearly done at this point!)
I squeezed in a ten minute talk. I think I've been disappointing people—everyone wants to see me breathe fire and howl at the skies, but I've been well behaved. I'm hoping to get invited back next time. I guess I'll have to come prepared with something more ferocious in the future, which won't be hard…beneath my placid exterior, I was choking back a few snarls at the science blogger's caucus last night (hey, why shouldn't we be arrogant? I have little patience with the appeals for respect for nonsense). I felt, though, that I was going to get my 15 minutes of uninterrupted time at the mic the next day, so it was everyone else's turn. And whoa, there were a lot of vocal pro-science people here!
The person who really got robbed here was Wendy Northcutt, who got to stand up for a few minutes and say a few funny anecdotes before our time was up. We'll have to be gentlemen and let her go first in the future.
Maybe later I will post the full text of my remarks, once I've had a few minutes to clean up the notes. Maybe. Now that the hard work is done, it's time to have a good time, and Warner has a huge party on tap that might keep my occupied to the late hours of the evening.
Until then…Pharyngula seems to have been discovered by some Japanese porn site, and we're getting a flood of hits here, even without my active contribution lately. It's very weird—they haven't even discovered the tentacle sex yet.
Comments
Why, oh, why did Clark have to blabber about godless communism and how evil the Russkies were? It ruined a perfectly good up-to-date nationalist diatribe.
Posted by: Alon Levy![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 9, 2006 2:19 PM
The person who really got robbed here was Wendy Northcutt, who got to stand up for a few minutes...
Sounds like pretty typical academic/political gender dynamics. The alpha males take up all the time, let the token woman talk for a few minutes and then promise to make it up to her in the future because they're "gentlemen." She'll probably be cut next year because she didn't say very much, after all.
Posted by: Dianne![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 9, 2006 3:04 PM
Whoa, that's an incontinent porn site, took a couple of minutes to load in broadband. Couldn't find ファリングラ (my guess as to the kana for Pharyngula) though. Maybe it's only in the links, somewhere... Ah, found it: "Sex in the MRI". I'll have a go at translating the text, but don't hold your breath.
BTW, you posted this one twice, PZ. Must have been really thinking about this one.
Posted by: NelC![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 9, 2006 4:01 PM
I was choking back those same snarls last night, but enjoyed the panel this morning. I wish Clark would have spoken less, given more time to the others, but all in all, pretty good.
Posted by: terry![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 9, 2006 4:19 PM
I enjoyed the science panel and thought it was fairly insightful. I know the room was full primarily cause of Wesley Clark, but it was still good to see so many people interested. I do wish Clark had stayed after he was done speaking, walking out of the room and not listening to the rests of the panelists seemed a little, uh, disrespectful.
Chris Mooney is a great speaker. I would like to get a chance to see his entire presentation. And next time, we'll be expecting 30 minutes from you, PZ (and, yes, poor Wendy too).
Posted by: Stacy![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 9, 2006 5:34 PM
You corrected the General with such smoothness that we knew the fire and howlings were there, just hidden beneath a professional demeanor. Well done! I was sorry you didn't get a chance to speak longer... but I would have sat through another two hours of the discussion, too. As for the caucus, I was more tempted to bitchslap than snarl, but I know how you feel.
Posted by: Karmen![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 9, 2006 5:44 PM
So is YK as really as boring as people have been saying?
Posted by: Jason![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 9, 2006 7:44 PM
For those who weren't there, Clark said something about Newton and the apple tree and tried to fake the gravitation law with something about acceleration and time...he shouldn't have bothered, I want him to promote science, he doesn't have to know it.
And come on, people -- if you were there you saw me and know who I am, but I just saw a nameless crowd. Come on up and introduce yourselves.
And yes, there were a few copies of the post here. Scienceblogs is having a few behind-the-scenes twitches while they try to digest all the new people and the new changes to the main page.
Posted by: PZ Myers![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 9, 2006 8:04 PM
*CTRL+Ys Jason and uses Melf's Acid Arrow on his carcass*
Now then...
Posted by: Azkyroth![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 9, 2006 8:43 PM
I'll take that as a "yes."
Posted by: Jason![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 10, 2006 7:15 AM
I think I just had a geek moment: as I was reading that, my inner monolog was something like "Ooh! Wendy Northcutt? Cool!... Chris Mooney? Kick ass!... Wes who? Oh, yeah, I've heard his name before. He's known for... something."
Posted by: arensb![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 10, 2006 11:50 AM
Wendy Northcutt doesn't DESERVE to be on a science panel in the first place. I agree that it sucks that they only had one female on the panel - but it is an embarrassment that it had to be Wendy Northcutt.
Her claim to "science" fame is her online business "The Darwin Awards" a pseudo-scientific excuse to earn easy money at the expense of other people's misfortunes - by publicizing their tragic deaths and proclaiming that the world is a better place for their leaving it.
That's what the Darwin Awards boils down to, and I don't give a shit that they're popular with people who fancy themselves intellectuals.
She is shameless and doesn't deserve to represent science anywhere, but especially in a liberal conference and I would be thrilled if she wasn't invited back.
Posted by: NancyMc![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 10, 2006 4:03 PM
PZ, I've wanted to come up and introduce myself, but haven't gotten the chance. I think I caught your eye at Warner's party, but I'd just lost my husband in the thickness of that crowd and was too stressed to stop searching. I'm still hoping to catch you, though. :)
And, arensb, this whole con has been like one big happy geek moment. (I even bought a tribble.)
Posted by: Karmen![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 10, 2006 4:11 PM