…and this is a 
Pseudonymity ≠ anonymity
Category: Academics • Weblogs
Posted on: April 19, 2008 3:49 PM, by PZ Myers
Another minor blog skirmish has erupted over a perennial issue in the blogosphere: the wickedness of anonymous commenters/bloggers/whatever. I'm going to sort of take the side of Greg Laden.
I despise anonymous commenters. It's pretty much a sure sign that anything the person is going to say is worthless noise if they aren't willing to sign a name to it.
That said, though, I consider a consistent pseudonym to be a name. I've gotten to know lots of people on the web via their chosen pseudonym, and that pseudonym acquires its own authority on the merits of the writing behind it. You don't need to reveal your full, legal name to be known on the web — it's good enough to have a handle so we can recognize you. Note that of the 17 Molly award winners here, 10 are using pseudonyms, and that's just fine.
There are some people who use their own names who are effectively anonymous, and I've been getting lots of email from them this week (I may post some of them later — most are short and angry). If your name is Tom Smith, and you send me a one-shot email that is littered with expletives, I've never heard of you before and you certainly haven't explained your position well. You are effectively anonymous. I don't regard your contributions at all highly.
I also have to comment on something from Drugmonkey. Note, first of all, that "Drugmonkey" is a pseudonym for a person who has a nice consistent voice on the web — I have a clear picture of who "Drugmonkey" is from his writing, which may or may not align well with the person, but that doesn't matter. And usually I enjoy what he writes, but not this bit.
A final comment on the special SuperDuperz occupational hazard of the teaching college professor. Now, I love you all, really I do. And I once aspired to be one of y'all. Heck, I may eventually be one of you. For full disclosure I'll further admit that I spent a considerable number of my formative years in rather close proximity to one of you. Here's the thing. Your whole professional life is predicated on you as the Authority. In the classroom, you have all the knowledge and the students have relatively little. They are explicitly seeking you out for your authority. Even within most "teaching departments" you are the sole expert in not just a narrow area but in several subfields, are you not? And...c'mon, 'fess up. It goes to your head after awhile doesn't it? And even more pernicious...do you teach at a small college in the middle of nowhere? Plopped down amongst the local rubes? So you are more worldly and informed on many topics than most of your neighbors? Which makes you...an authoritah? On oh-so-many things?
Well, it's nice that he aspired to be one of us, but he clearly didn't make the cut, and I can guess why. His assumptions are faulty. In my classroom, I'm an authority only by accident of birth — I've got a thirty year head start on my students. However, my whole goal is to get these students to start questioning and challenging me, and finding out new stuff that I didn't know before. I even like it when the creationists in class start raising objections. If Drugmonkey thinks a college classroom is a place where the best teaching is done by imposing his views on a roomful of students, he's not going to make it to that exalted position of The Teaching College Professor, because he won't be teaching.
Education & Careers
Comments
The really awful thing about Drugmonkey's comment is that we find students in our classes who absolutely believe what Drugmonkey believes: "Oh, professor, just tell me what to do!" When you try to coax them into thinking through a problem, marshaling facts and techniques toward a solution, they get resentful: "Oh, just tell me what to do!"
These are the most difficult students to teach, because they really want to be trained, like circus animals. As one of my students once said to me, "Oh, Dr. Z are you explaining things again?"
"Just tell me what to do."
No.
Posted by: Zeno | April 19, 2008 3:57 PM
Wait PZ, he can if he wants to teach at Bob Jones U or Oral Roberts U...
Posted by: Jsn | April 19, 2008 3:58 PM
Heh. If you'd have had my Chinese Philosophy teacher you'd be realizing you're just a data point, not the universe! After the first day of class with that nut bag, I ran to the Registers Office and changed from "for grade" to "credit/no credit," the only class I took in that grading option while in college.
I could tell that he had "his views" and that the slightest deviation would be the kiss of death. I was so right.
Posted by: Moses | April 19, 2008 4:17 PM
"Your whole professional life is predicated on you as the Authority."
Must have missed the class where they teach aspiring college professors not to make massive generalizations.
Posted by: CalGeorge | April 19, 2008 4:20 PM
Thank you, PZ.
That's exactly what I told my students: "I have no special gifts that you do not also possess. I know more than you now only because I've been sudying for so long. In time you will know more than me. And together we shall make the world a better place."
Didn't work out, though, and while my present career is rewarding in and of itself, I will never be as alive as I was when I was in the classroom sharing and receiving knowledge.
Long may you share.
Posted by: Strakh | April 19, 2008 4:23 PM
Note that of the 17 Molly award winners here, 10 are using pseudonyms, and that's just fine.
And in your dungeon, some 75 pseudonyms are distributed among some 20 or so individuals in contrast to a half dozen possibly non pseudonymous identities.
(These numbers are made up, but something like that seems to be the case)
Oh, and an interesting irony of me getting slammed for an inaccurate understanding of my position on this is that at least two of your dungeon-ed commenters are regular commenters on my site, and of them, only one has ever been banned by me, and that was on my old blog. In other words, I do not hold anonymity against commenters, yet I've got the horns and the pitchfork...
And I agree.. Pseudonymity does not equal anonymity. Indeed, having a name does not = the opposite of anonymity. Does anyone really know who any one else really is?
Posted by: Greg Laden | April 19, 2008 4:26 PM
Your whole professional life is predicated on you as the Authority. In the classroom, you have all the knowledge and the students have relatively little.
He's obviously never taken a history class, then - especially an upper-level undergrad or graduate class. None of my history profs have EVER told the class that their way was *the* way, and that they are the Authority. Hell, a seminar class, if it's done well, is explicitly about reading and deconstructing the historiography on a certain topic, and discussing why we agree/don't agree with the historian in question! Even in my medieval class, for instance, I know more about certain aspects than my prof does. It's just natural - he can't be expected to know everything about medieval studies (it's a freakin' huge field), and our interests aren't always identical.
Posted by: Seamyst | April 19, 2008 4:29 PM
Again paraphrasing Greg, a consistent pseudonym is really a "character", a chosen aspect of personality rather than a personality. It may reveal interesting opinion, perhaps even inspired revelation, but it's not possible to have a genuine debate between a "genuine" person on one side and a character on the other.
Posted by: R N B | April 19, 2008 4:32 PM
I think the great majority of posters and commenters on the internet keep the same identity. Although I can't say for sure there's anything inherently wrong with not doing that, if I knew someone was constantly changing their identity, it would immediately make me suspect he or she was a troll.
Posted by: Gary | April 19, 2008 4:33 PM
Well written and thoughtful (and (more important) thought provoking) as (almost always) usual. I have two (pseudonymous) comments:
1. Regarding pseudonymity and anonymity: I choose to be pseudonymous (though my pseudonym (screw that, my handle) has gone from "Billy(A Liberal Disabled Vet)" to "Billy(ALDV)" to "The Parenthetical Atheist" (which was actually hung upon me by a fellow blogger), to "(((Billy)))" or "iambilly" depending upon how I am logged in. My first handle was a reaction to a chicken hawk at a news and comment site. Through the various permutations, on the way to becomming (((Billy))), I have changed my handle not to hide who I am, but to bring out who I am. I figure that, as my blog (shameless plug division) becomes more mature, as I become more comfortable, it will most likely become (((Bill))) but, as I am still a neophyte, (((Billy))) it is. My approach has remained consistent and (on the blogs upon which I comment more regularly) the name changes have elicited no major response. Were I changing my handle in order to hide who I am, avoid troll status (which, after this long rambling post, I just may achieve), or attempt to argue out of a different side of my arse. So, in relation to the first part of your post, names may change (for a variety of reasons) but (for me at least) my web persona has not.
I said all that so I could say this:
In college (majoring in History (yes, I did sell cars for about a year, why do you ask?)) I found myself one of the students professors liked. Why? Sometimes I told a professor he (or she) was wrong (did it to a PhD once, too) and, since I had sources to back up my statements and/or causal theory, got away with it. In High School, it got me kicked out of class. In college, the profs loved it.
I did not, as Drugmonkey did (and still appears to), approach an instructor as the be all and end all of knowledge. I did, however, approach instructors as beings of some expertise within their field but, more important, as guides who, through questioning and arguing (not the Monty Python argument, but real ones), could help me become an expert in my own field.
I had one professor who, when I challenged her on her explanation regarding a geological formation diagram (it was similar to the one on the t-shirt with the geologic layer cake), she stopped talking, glared at me (over her cat's-eye glasses (and this was in the 80s)) and, with a voice which could solve AGW, said, "I am the professor. I have the master's in anthropology. I have the BS in geology. You are the student. Remember that." For the remainder of the two-semester course, I kept quiet and regurgitated exactly what she said on the tests. I learned more listening to my Dad when we lived at Grand Canyon and Death Valley (and took lots of vacations through incredible geologic formations) then I did from her class. I did get 8 credits, so I shouldn't complain.
To summarize (the second half of my comment, anyway), an instructor who regards him- or herself as The Authority is not a teacher. They are a preacher. And I divorced myself from that long ago.
Sorry for the long post. I'm now an NPS interpretor and, well, rambling the long way to get to a point has become an occupational hazzard (which, by the way, the Spanish Inquisitor hung on me for a while).
Posted by: (((Billy))) | April 19, 2008 4:34 PM
@ Greg #6:
Nope, sorry, I disagree. I've only been reading Pharyngula for about three months, but I can definitely see many differences in the writing styles of the commenters here. The comments that are satirical are a little harder, but sometimes I can spot differences even among them. And commenters like Cuttlefish or MAJeff? Uh-uh.
What does it matter if some of the dungeoned commenters here also comment on your blog?
Posted by: Seamyst | April 19, 2008 4:34 PM
Does anyone really know who any one else really is?
...and does anybody really know what time it is?
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 19, 2008 4:35 PM
Crap! And one of the things my students will learn to do better than me is how to more accurately proof their work while they *study*.
Posted by: Strakh | April 19, 2008 4:36 PM
There is a compelling reason to be pseudonymous rather than using your real name. Threats, death threats, legal action, SLAPP suits, and any and all other forms of harassment. Mail bombing anyone?
I've been through the threat cycle so many times in my medical quack busting days that I've even lost track of who threatened to do what when.
It gets real and real vicious when money is involved and jail time is a possibility for the offenders. One group who tried to file a SLAPP suit were interupted when the FBI picked them up for fraud. Another group hacked my computers with a sophisticated and highly illegal spyware program. Unfortunately for them, a professional forensics computer expert managed to trace where all the data was being sent to. They are under investigation at this very moment and may be charged in the future.
Cyberspace can be a dangerous jungle.
Posted by: raven | April 19, 2008 4:42 PM
Crudescence Maximized. Sorry for the sentence fragment:
Were I changing my handle in order to hide who I am, avoid troll status (which, after this long rambling post, I just may achieve), or attempt to argue out of a different side of my arse.
should continue with "it would be a horse of a different colour."
And I mispelled my job. I am an Interpreter, not an interpretor. Sorry.
Posted by: (((Billy))) | April 19, 2008 4:43 PM
I actually found teaching to be very humbling. Nothing can expose one's weaknesses in a subject like teaching that subject. I know it really knocked me down a few pegs.
Posted by: Dinzer | April 19, 2008 4:49 PM
That said, though, I consider a consistent pseudonym to be a name. I've gotten to know lots of people on the web via their chosen pseudonym, and that pseudonym acquires its own authority on the merits of the writing behind it.
_Finite and Infinite Games_, James Carse.
(Hows that for pseudonymous AND gnomic?)
Posted by: Phoenician in a time of Romans | April 19, 2008 4:53 PM
In High School, it got me kicked out of class. In college, the profs loved it.
That brings up a good point.
There IS a difference in how things are taught at the secondary vs. university level. Often, a high school teacher really IS the local authority on the field they teach, and there is a LOT more pressure (especially after NCLB) on teachers to have students that reliably test on the information presented (which often is very basic in nature, anyway).
I have noticed (as something I'm sure everyone has) that as children grow up, they rely less and less on authority figures for information, and high school typically is the earliest stage where students tend to start looking beyond localized sources (like their teachers) of information. Some overlaps exists, but I could easily understand how someone could maintain the idea of the teacher as an authority figure throughout their high school years at least, and some will of course maintain that perception even into their undergraduate careers, regardless of how much the professors themselves encourage the students to look beyond any individual professor as a source of information.
I liken it to when younger, tending to look at books in an authoritarian fashion, and when older, tending to look at books as just the "entryway" to information, a digest of source material that one then has to search the primary literature to flesh out properly.
However, some people will always look at a book in an authoritarian manner; some books especially so...
The perception of a professor as an authority figure is NOT a hazard of being a professor, it is a result of the inability to abandon childhood ideas of the value of authority itself.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 19, 2008 4:54 PM
"Teaching is the art of encouraging discovery": Anonymous
Posted by: Dennis | April 19, 2008 4:55 PM
"Teaching is the art of encouraging discovery": Anonymous
heh.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 19, 2008 5:03 PM
I definitely favor pseudonymity. I can be myself online and have reduced risk for being punished for voicing my opinions online. I feel more myself online: When I work in an office full of fundies, I have to keep quiet or be very careful about how I make points.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | April 19, 2008 5:04 PM
The saddest thing I ever encountered as a college professor was a few students who were dumbfounded when I responded to a question, "I don't know- let's find out." It seems these students, throughout their K-12 careers, had never had a teacher willing to admit not knowing something. That's just very, very wrong.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | April 19, 2008 5:11 PM
Two words: Mark Twain. Writing under a pseudonym is no indication of quality of lack thereof.
Posted by: pcarini | April 19, 2008 5:15 PM
Eek.. correction to above: "Writing under a pseudonym is no indication of quality or lack thereof."
It's definitely not an indication of quality in my case ;)
Posted by: pcarini | April 19, 2008 5:17 PM
One of the most popular websites in Japan, 2ch, actually encourages anonymous posting. The idea is that comments and contributions should be judged on their content, not who posts it. I don't know how that worked out, but the US clone, 4chan -- purportedly the 4th most popular US website based on membership numbers, did the same thing. Take just a quick look there, and you'll see that anonymity has not in any way improved judging comments by their content. Quite to the contrary, it doesn't matter what you say, somebody will manage to take great personal offense to anything you say and dig up no lack of insults for you. So much for intellectualism.
Posted by: Ollie | April 19, 2008 5:21 PM
I've used a pseudonym in the past - It was a name I've used since going online in 1990 or 1991. So it'd be easy to figure out who I am.
JBS
Posted by: John B. Sandlin | April 19, 2008 5:23 PM
Good point Ichthyic. Really, I doubt that the person who said that was anonymous but that he is unknown. It would be nice if people offering quotations would not conflate anonymous with author unknown, but I don't expect instant reform.
There are things that the instructor is the master at. 2+2=4 is a definition of a relationship. Students don't get to redefine definitions. Pi or e are well-defined concepts, but not easily understood. Students don't get to redefine them. In accounting, there are debits and there are credits. They are part of a consistent system of double-entry bookkeeping that is arbitrary in one sense, but needs to be followed to be meaningful to others.
Any question can be asked though. Textbooks contain errors. Teachers say things wrong and don't immediately catch themselves. Imagine reading a business law textbook that claimed that President Eisenhower nationalized the steel industry during a strike in 1952. People make mistakes. Everyone has the duty to correct such mistakes, even students.
That said, it really does depend on the personality of the teacher. Once, in high school, I corrected a teacher who taught both in HS and college, when he made a lame joke that confused AT&T with ITT. He was particularly unhappy with me. I have learned that this probably was because he considered it beneath him to teach high school classes, since he was much more tolerable as a college professor.
Posted by: freelunch | April 19, 2008 5:25 PM
You could run a search for my actual name, but you'd never find me. Search for Tatarize and you'll be overwhelmed with my activity.
*shrug*
Posted by: Tatarize | April 19, 2008 5:31 PM
"Remember, this character is a false persona, created for the purpose of making a certain impact in the blogosphere, not a human being that I can deal with on any level other than as that very persona."
Not sure I know what he means by "false" persona. Isn't a persona a mask?
I also don't agree that a persona is always adopted for the sake of making a certain impact. That's attributing a rather selfish motive to a heck of a lot of people.
I feel constrained to be more polite if I used my real name - I won't use words like "fuck" when I communicate my opinions to news organizations, or on petitions, etc.
I value very much the opportunity to, for instance, call the Pope a fucking asshole on a blog - and I regard anonymity as a welcome mask that makes it easier to say that.
Posted by: CalGeorge | April 19, 2008 5:35 PM
Drugmonkey sounds very young.
Posted by: Maezeppa | April 19, 2008 5:36 PM
The main reason I use a pseudonym is so that John A. Davison can't find out where I live and show up with a case of KY jelly.
Posted by: wÒÓ† | April 19, 2008 5:46 PM
Hah - maybe he meant just in the arts department. ;)
Posted by: Rachael | April 19, 2008 5:52 PM
Boy, I feel old, 'cuz no one has mentioned the obvious cartoon from fifteen years ago (I guess the half-life of Internet memes is shorter than that).
And I'll agree on Mark Twain, and add in George Eliot, Dr. Seuss, George Orwell,
Saki, Hergé, John le Carre, Lewis Carroll, Molière, O. Henry, Pablo Neruda, and Voltaire
(among others). How many here can name the birth names of more than half that list? Does it matter that these people wrote under a pseudonym?
Pseudonymity is just another form of identity. If I called myself "Bill Smith" here, no one would even know that it was a pseudonym, and no one would care, as long as I wrote honestly and in a consistent voice. Heck, I know very little about people like "Greg Laden", "Chris Mooney", "Jason Rosenhouse", "John Wilkins", or "Larry Moran", and hardly more than I do about people like "cuttlefish", "MAJeff", or "Kseniya". I don't really know that the first set of names aren't in fact pseudonyms, and I don't see how knowing that they aren't tells me much more about the quality of their writing.
Posted by: Tulse | April 19, 2008 5:57 PM
Hey college profs, how you like this:
"Is this is going to be on the test?"
MWUUAAHH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!
Posted by: True Bob | April 19, 2008 6:01 PM
Am I using a pseudonym? Russell Blackford may not answer this question.
Posted by: Brian English | April 19, 2008 6:01 PM
I am Q,
Q be me,
I do not use names 1 through 3
What I say,
What's said by me
It means much more than who I be
Sometime smart
is what I say
My name is not why it's that way
Occasionally
I will speak dim
But am not due ad hominim
I am Q,
Q am I,
If you are Q, then it's a lie
(with deference to Cuttlefish, of course)
Posted by: Q | April 19, 2008 6:06 PM
Geez, would that be "I heart DM" or "I club DM", there PZ?
Here's the thing, before y'all go off all half cocked like Greg.
The part about college professors as the Authority was written as a caution. One that in the immediately prior section was directed at people in my job category. Broadly speaking, a caution that we all should heed. Not at all a description of everyone.
If all the professors that I've had the benefit of being around were Authority types, I wouldn't have learned much and sure as hell wouldn't have traipsed off to grad school wanting to be one!
This is not to say that professors who manage to avoid overly heavy Authority in the classroom aren't subject to the expertise-slide that was my second point and I think a main point of the bayblabbers. Also not to say that some professors do not manage to avoid this occupational hazard.
Bottom line here, if the shoe doesn't fit, why are you getting so ticked? Are you asserting that this is not an occupational hazard? That you've never met any professionals that may be a little bit down the road on "respect my authoritah!"?
Posted by: DrugMonkey | April 19, 2008 6:08 PM
and I don't see how knowing that they aren't tells me much more about the quality of their writing.
indeed, another point of using a pseudonym is to call attention to the information in the post itself, rather than who it was that posted it.
it's a basic argument against authoritarianism.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 19, 2008 6:08 PM
OT, but whats the story on this story? Seems like more extremely solid and obvious evidence of evolution in action to me:
http://www.wildbiology.com/research/Lizards_Undergo_Rapid_Evolution_After_Introduction_To_A_New_Home.asp
How can that not be treading into the territory of "macro-evolution?" A small but complicated change such as those lizards have evolved can take place in just 36 years? It seems to me a much bigger change than just a slightly evolved virus: a whole new structure in the gut? Evolution critics, please tell me, when does a never ending series of such evolved new structures NOT become "macroevolution??!"
Posted by: Peregrine | April 19, 2008 6:12 PM
Bottom line here, if the shoe doesn't fit, why are you getting so ticked?
because your warning is misdirected at a profession, instead of at people in general.
Authoritarianism is not an inherent danger in being a professor, isolated from any other profession. A reliance on authority is a character flaw many humans carry onwards from their own childhoods. Whether student or teacher, engineer or poet, gardener or president.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 19, 2008 6:13 PM
I would be very surprised if any of my students saw me as an authority figure!
I do find, like Zeno, that some students want to be told 'the right answer', rather than being encouraged to think for themselves. Indeed, a large part of my job as a teacher is to change that attitude. In my Applied Ethics classes, I make a point of not revealing my personal views, so as not to unduly influence them. Some students always complain about this, because they're convinced they'll get marked down if they write essays that disagree with my views. I tell them that I take great delight in giving high marks to students whose views I disagree with, when said views are based on a solid understanding of the material and are backed up with coherent arguments.
Of course, there are some things that are just incorrect (fallacious arguments, for example). But if I had to appeal to my authority to convince them of that, I would be a pretty lousy teacher.
Posted by: Jennie | April 19, 2008 6:19 PM
Well, given that my own Christian name actually is "Mrs" and my surname "Tilton", this is all very theoretical for me. But I would just like to say that I think anybody who has PZ as an undergraduate teacher is very lucky.
And nobody more so that the hypothetical young creationist he mentions. We all know what PZ the Atheist Blogger thinks of such views; but I think PZ the Biology Teacher would see that role as imposing very different responsibilities.
Even if the creationist remains, on the whole, a bible-basher, if PZ manages to jumpstart his brain enough to get him thinking that believing something is true isn't worth very much without thinking very carefully about WHY you believe it true, well, then PZ will have fulfilled his role as a teacher. And there are very few roles as honourable.
Posted by: Mrs Tilton | April 19, 2008 6:44 PM
I'm someone who believes in owning their opinions; I would prefer to be able to use my own real name, to be honest, but circumstances I won't harp on about here forced me to adopt a pseudonym last year.
I don't believe in fully anonymous commenting. In general, I think if you can't at least post from a consistent pseudonym, you probably don't have a good reason to post. I can think of a couple of potential exceptions, but they'd be fairly rare.
Posted by: efrique | April 19, 2008 6:44 PM
Yeah, right. Hypothetical caution, my ass. That was a direct slam at everyone who teaches "at a small college in the middle of nowhere", people like yours truly. And while it is certainly true that some people may teach like pompous jerkwads, that is not true of any of my colleagues.
So yes, I take it as an insult to everyone in my profession, since it is clearly written that way.
Posted by: PZ Myers | April 19, 2008 6:44 PM
Well, given that my own Christian name actually is "Mrs" and my surname "Tilton", this is all very theoretical for me. But I would just like to say that I think anybody who has PZ as an undergraduate teacher is very lucky.
And nobody more so that the hypothetical young creationist he mentions. We all know what PZ the Atheist Blogger thinks of such views; but I think PZ the Biology Teacher would see that role as imposing very different responsibilities.
Even if the creationist remains, on the whole, a bible-basher, if PZ manages to jumpstart his brain enough to get him thinking that believing something is true isn't worth very much without thinking very carefully about WHY you believe it true, well, then PZ will have fulfilled his role as a teacher. And there are very few roles as honourable.
Posted by: Mrs Tilton | April 19, 2008 6:45 PM
I was assured with complete seriousness by one economics prof once that pseudonymity would lead to economic collapse.
I asked what a corporation name was, if not a pseudonym for a group of people?
No response...
(N., with seventeen-year-old consistent pseudonym: why anyone would think that a name I've used for my entire adult life doesn't have reputational concerns as strong as those associated with my legal name, I have *no* idea)
Posted by: Nix | April 19, 2008 6:52 PM
Ah, pseudonymity.
I remember back in the day when I had an actual character to go with my pseudonym, complete with a cockney accent. Fun, but ridiculous.
A few points:
1. I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I sure don't relish my atheist bomb-throwing comments being perusable by a quick google search.
2. If my name was Tom Smith, I could use my real name and not have to worry about point one. But, unfortunately, I have a rare last name, so I can't claim to not be the atheist bomb-thrower.
3. What makes people think two common names next to each other is NOT a pseudonym? I could just as easily have chosen "Jeffrey Thomas" or "Marc Abel" as "inkadu." Just because it sounds like a real name doesn't mean it is. Christ, if I was REALLY lazy, I would go by "Greg N. Laden," which would be even MORE convincing.
4. (((billy))) - damn, now I wish I'd chosen "(((triplenested)))" instead of "inkadu."
On the professor thing -- DM, yer holding a grudge and picking a fight. I'm sorry that a professor was a dick to you -- I think it's happened to everybody. But professors are just people, like everyone else; meanwhile, assholes are everywhere. Maybe you feel an extra ounce of betrayal because you put so much stock by them. That is probably unwise.
Posted by: inkadu | April 19, 2008 6:55 PM
Nix:
Wow. Best (and only) post unifying two disparate blog topics. Is there an interwebs award for that? Congratulations.
Posted by: (((inkadu))) | April 19, 2008 7:01 PM
I've been posting as mike instead of my usual mikecbraun that I use over at richarddawkins.net, but that's just out of laziness and mild paranoia. We know how nutty the people in positions of power can be when one insults religion, superstition and tradition, but what the hey. From now on, let me be known as mikecbraun! Don't hunt me down, please.
Posted by: mikecbraun | April 19, 2008 7:02 PM
Psuedonymity also helps me in things. For instance, I keep a professional presence online, since I'm a grad student, and I want my students, and present/future collaborators, to be able to find me. On the other hand, I'd rather they not find some of my artwork and my blog posts on Japanese animation, so I post those under a pseudonym. One I've had since I was a minor (and forbidden from using my real full name online by my parents). I separated these when I applied for grad school and a professor mentioned that he had found my personal website. On the other hand, I do keep both consistently in use -- sometimes in shortened form. I want to have a clear persona, even if I'm not using my given name.
(That being said, there are a few places where my two personas mesh -- one gallery I post my artwork at requires use of a real family name. I also use my given name on email lists, so my constructed language hobby goes under that name, since I do most of that discussion over lists. With work, it's possible for someone with one name to find the other.)
Posted by: Rebecca Harbison | April 19, 2008 7:06 PM
Finding your prof to be in error is a badge of honour in any education system worth its salt. I'm afraid I only managed that one in high school, since we had very good profs at the university, but it still warms my heart, 15 years later...
Posted by: armillary | April 19, 2008 7:07 PM
31: He wÒÓ†'s, he scores!
Posted by: Nix | April 19, 2008 7:10 PM
There are certain fields of study where a healthy percentage of professors expect to be treated as absolute authorities. Political science has a major problem with this.
If a polisci professor expresses a preference to a specific theoretical perspective on how the world works, students are expected to treat it as gospel for the purposes of the course. Students who don't learn this skill won't be graded highly enough to move beyond undergrad level.
It's also not unheard of for ideological compatibility to be used as a litmus test for admissions purposes. Members of the reality based community aren't all that welcome in many places that teach international relations/foreign policy.
Posted by: Vagrant | April 19, 2008 7:11 PM
I tell my students fairly frequently that I don't know the answer. They are usually dumbfounded that their French teacher does not know every single word in the French language. Well, I don't know every single word in the English language, either. But I do know how to find out what a word is, and I know how to properly use a French-English dictionary to determine that I have the right word. I also know the rules of grammar, pronunciation and syntax that will allow me to use that word properly. Honestly, is their any reason why a high school French teacher should know how to say "handcuffs" or "wooly mammoth" off the top of their head? I've not been arrested in any language, and I've never needed to discuss wooly mammoths with a Frenchman. Now that I know these words are for some reason important to my students, I've looked them up. Does it make me more authoritative that I now have this information?
Posted by: Heather | April 19, 2008 7:16 PM
Just to chime in from the other side, however... There's a couple different kinds of having students think for themselves, and I've had professors conflate them. The first and desired one is for students to be forced to think their way through the problem rather than to simply be given the answer. Students will still complain about this, especially if they don't particularly care (ie, I'm in a Graphics elective to complete my CS major, and... yeah. Never gonna do a damn thing with graphics ever, and I'd rather just get outta here.), but it's overall a good technique.
HOWEVER, it is possible for students to approach the professor with questions, not because the student is being lazy about solving the problem, but because the student has no bloody idea what you're asking. I had a Int'l Relations seminar class (my OTHER major) where the prof made a lot of vague and confusing notes on a paper draft that I had *no idea* how to interpret. I emailed him about my desire to meet with him, and apparently a number of other students did as well, and he responded by telling the entire class that he would not "hold our hands" and there was no point in us meeting until we'd followed his instructions. Which we didn't understand.
There's also a need for feedback. To use Graphics again (I've got a prof who's brand new... smart guy, shows promise, but very very green and idealistic), we had a lab earlier this semester where he would sign off after each pair had answered a question to his satisfaction. Now, the fact that this lab structure had him running around visiting about 15 pairs contributed to the frustration of this lab, but so did the fact that he provided *no guidance* as to what was wrong with our train of reasoning. The last question in particular took about 45 minutes of us saying things very very close to the right answer before he finally corrected a minor quibble with our phrasing and let us get the #$@##!% out of there.
In the end, yes, teaching is more about guidance than it is about instruction. The problem is, I've had professors use the "think for yourself" principle to avoid providing guidance, which is very very frustrating. Just my student-y two cents.
Posted by: Falyne | April 19, 2008 7:17 PM
Oh, and I definitely don't mean to imply that all professors, or even most, make that mistake. But I can see how it's an easy conflation to make, too. I'm lazy, many of my fellow students are lazy, and it's a fine line between "eh, don't get it at first glance, don't feel like putting any effort forth, just tell me already" and "what on earth are you asking me to do?" or "what was wrong with what I just said??". But from the student perspective, it's an important line.
Posted by: Falyne | April 19, 2008 7:25 PM
"now on, let me be known as mikecbraun! "
No! Not Mike_C_Braun! My world is shattered! To think that all this time, I admired, unknowing, and now I find you're...one of THEM!
Just kidding. Never heard of you.
I seem to confuse some people because I post using both my pseudonym 'Longstreet63" and my name, Steve "Insert Quotes Here" James. That's my real name, so feel free to Google it and figure out which one I am.
Steve "Glutton For Identity" James
Posted by: longstreet63 | April 19, 2008 7:32 PM
Drugmonkey's comment about professordom is lossage. i fear, however, that it's an expression Western (yes, Europe, too) malaise regarding scholarship and scientific scholarship in particular. i think it's a fancy way of saying you professor dudes aren't that special and you don't know so much, something with which i disagree. although the Internet and Web are wonderful, IMO just like computers and software have become commodities, as a result, the popular view is that knowledge is a commodity, too. we can always just look it up, they say, if it really matters. meanwhile, people don't and can't know what is good or bad about a secondary school, or a course. they get their opinions from the wingnuts, people who blame all education's ills on teacher unions.
i see this a lot, even in engineering and computer science. i see relatively recent college grads who no longer remember (or never knew?) how to fit a line to a set of points. it doesn't seem important to them. they seem to always think they just need to find a box of software to do it.
it's a kind of mindset of rating things by whether or not they are extremely applicable. while there are uses for science, i think the best science is done while not giving a damn about whether it is practically useful or not. that's hard to get people to buy these days.
Posted by: ekzept | April 19, 2008 7:38 PM
I'm a high school teacher, but of the highest-achieving kids in a high-achieving school. They are extremely wary of know-it-all teachers, and with good reason because your average high school know-it-all teacher doesn't know nearly as much as the top echelon of kids they see every day...you have to tread lightly, especially if you veer outside of your strict curriculum area, because they'll tamp you down but good. On the other hand a secondary teacher is far more likely to find the obedient stenographer approach in play, even in demanding courses. I feel it's my duty to train them out of that, and it's tough sledding sometimes. So half my students want dictation/multiple choice, and half want subjective coolness layered with yogi-like wisdom. Makes for an interesting class.
And as for pseudonyms, nothing beats "Mr. Teacher." They know me all the way across the parking lot in a snowstorm when I'm wearing my cardigan and Rockports, but catch me coming out of the liquor store in cutoffs and a Bon Jovi T-shirt and they look right through me.
ice
Posted by: ice9 | April 19, 2008 7:38 PM
PZ teaches hate for religious people like the Klan does against Black people.
What is the difference?
A redneck is still a redneck. Professor or not!
Posted by: Planet Killer | April 19, 2008 7:49 PM
In relation not to the mentoring of research trainees, I emphatically demand that my trainees let me know when they think I am full of shit. I make it very clear that this is an affirmative responsibility that they are expected to fulfill as members in good standing of my laboratory. This is particularly important in the context of my understanding of their experimental results.
Posted by: PhysioProf | April 19, 2008 8:00 PM
Oh, crap. Strike "not" in the first sentence.
Posted by: PhysioProf | April 19, 2008 8:02 PM
"Remember, this character is a false persona, created for the purpose of making a certain impact in the blogosphere, not a human being that I can deal with on any level other than as that very persona."
The very first time I went online to express an opinion using my own name, some angry misogynist waste of oxygen tracked me down and phoned me up to engage in some direct criminal threatening behaviour. This is a hazard of living in a rural area and having an unusual name, you are easy to find.
People have various reasons for using a nickname - fear and loathing happen to be mine, whatever nefarious purpose Greg Laden thinks I may have. I use the same name wherever it isn't already in use. I'm not striving mightily to make 'a certain impact on the blogosphere', for sure.
My experience with professors has been about the same as it has been with other professionals. Some are really good at their jobs, others, not so much. Most of the profs I've known spend a lot of time being anxious about whether they are doing a good enough job, because they are sincere people and really want to teach their field. Same range of personalities as the rest of humanity, same range of enthusiasm to burnout, same range of egotistical to self effacing.
I'd love to have had PZed as a professor - he has a very clear way with words when explaining some interesting process, he appears to be honest and very forthright. I hope his students appreciate him.
Posted by: Bee | April 19, 2008 8:06 PM
Planet Killer:
HERE IS THE ATTENTION YOU SO DESPERATELY SEEK! LOOK, I'M PAYING ATTENTION TO YOU!
Posted by: Rayzilla | April 19, 2008 8:11 PM
ekzept:
I hear the kids of today don't use slide rules anymore and even talk back to their elders on these new-fangled computer tube thingamajigs. It's sacrilege, I tell you. The world is going to hell in a hand basket--in my day we'd do all this work by hand with sharp pencils and no erasers.
Times change and technology advances. There's no good reason to do statistics or complex math by hand anymore.
Posted by: Vagrant | April 19, 2008 8:35 PM
PZ teaches hate for religious people like the Klan does against Black people.
In the immortal (paraphrased) words of ObeeWan:
"You have done that yourselves."
Why you gotta be a hater, projecting all your hate onto those who are trying to dispel your delusions?
All PZ is doing is holding up a mirror.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 19, 2008 9:00 PM
Many of my best moments as a professor are seeing our students go on to do really cool things after leaving here - things I can't or haven't done myself. A real highlight was having one of the students I did research with when they were an undergraduate at UMM lower my Erdos number after graduating from UMM, through their research in grad school.
I'm sure I have my moments of ego (sadly, we all do -- academics or not), but in general my working assumption is that the students will go on to do cool things, and often things that I don't/can't do myself. That doesn't really work if I spend my days lording my amazingness over them.
Posted by: Nic McPhee (Unhindered by Talent) | April 19, 2008 9:08 PM
PK, Be a good christian. Say you're sorry, go look up Proverbs 26:11. Then go to confession.
Posted by: Patricia C. | April 19, 2008 9:16 PM
Having grown up in a faculty family, gone to a small college in the middle of nowhere, and working at a state university I have known a hell of a lot of professors. Based on that sample, authoritarian jerk-ism among professors is very rare.
But a common complaint among professors is that some students dislike to be forced to think. Others thrive on it.
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | April 19, 2008 9:23 PM
Patrician, Be a good greek pagan. Say you're sorry, go consult an oracle. Then go burn a sacrifice.
Posted by: Falyne | April 19, 2008 9:40 PM
Posted by: ekzept | April 19, 2008 9:41 PM
I always comment using my handle of The Science Pundit. Before that, I used to comment on your blog as CousinoMacul (still my YouTube name). It's a pseudonym, but if you go to my blog, you'll see that my name is Javier Pazos FCD. (In fact {or in point of trivia}, I was anonymous until I decided to join the Friends of Charles Darwin, which is when I made my real name public. And I have PZ and Bora to thank for that.
Posted by: The Science Pundit | April 19, 2008 9:42 PM
That settles it, we should get rid of all the teaching college professors! Wouldn't want to risk anyone's power getting to their head would we?
/sarc
Posted by: Zachary B. | April 19, 2008 9:54 PM
OK, I'm sorry. I'll consult with Eris. And I'll burn the Julbock. (I'm by DNA a Norse pagan) *you can play too*
Posted by: Patricia C. | April 19, 2008 10:19 PM
It really depends on the subject, school, and professors. Most students quickly learn which professors want toadies and which like a questioning student, in both undergraduate and grad school. In my case, certain policy related courses in grad school did not tolerate deviation while the math/science courses were wide open. My daughter was just downgraded told to rewrite a paper (in communications) because she didn't toe the political line.
And my name is a simple abbreviation of my full name.
Posted by: bill r | April 19, 2008 10:23 PM
I edit Wikipedia as "Metamagician3000" and sometimes use variations of that when forced to by the way some sites work. I've been known to use pseudonyms in the past, but these days I have a policy of always writing under my own name if I easily can.
That does restrict me slightly. I am less inclined to make irresponsible, knee-jerk statements that I don't really believe but which feel good at the time. I'm less inclined to fling around obscenities. I'm less inclined to express my more outrageous views without due argument and qualification. But I think that being open about my identity, and having some continuity between my formal publications and my everyday online presence, is worth those inconveniences.
However, I'm in a position where I may be less vulnerable than most. Yes, I don't want to make a fool of myself or seem nuttily inconsistent or offend people unnecessaril