Pharyngula

Posted by: cafemolotov | May 15, 2010 8:19 AM

I guess this explains my fascination with Batman and Batgirl comics!

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | May 15, 2010 8:21 AM

The thing everyone should keep in mind about university administrators is that they tend to be cowards.

Posted by: RijkswaanVijanD | May 15, 2010 8:45 AM

These are probably the kind of people who would punish their dog for licking his balls simply because the sight of it makes them feel so inferior..

Posted by: Romeo Vitelli | May 15, 2010 8:55 AM

Oh well, at least he wasn't arrested for blasphemy. That's illegal in Ireland too.

Posted by: andrastewhite | May 15, 2010 9:14 AM

Once when we were visiting the Toronto Zoo, my friends and I witnessed a pair of sun bears in a 69.

I have no idea if they engage in oral sex in the wild, but I did learn that they have really long tongues.

Posted by: ereador | May 15, 2010 9:20 AM

Yes speedweasel @#5, there is no crying in science. The fact that animals have sex should be at the very least unsurprising. I continue to fail to see where the prudes get their urges.

Posted by: Louis | May 15, 2010 9:27 AM

I feel that this demonstrates that humans are far superior to bats.

When a boy bat has sex with a lady bat and the lady bat licks the shaft of the boy bat's penis during coitus, this is a thing to be admired and all well and good. However, we humans have evolved the capacity to bring in a whole other person to lick the shaft of the penis during coitus. And even better than that, it doesn't have to be a boy human having sex with a girl human, it can be literally any permutation of the sexes.

Go go Homo sapiens! Fuck you bats....Fuck youuu!

Louis

P.S. Although surely a contortionist lady exists who can accomplish this...I'm afraid to google it.

Posted by: ERV | May 15, 2010 9:32 AM

Other people are so much nicer than me.

There is no excuse for what the accuser did, from any perspective. I would be plastering their pussy name and what they did everywhere, and fuck if I would refer to them as a 'colleague'.

Posted by: Emil Karlsson | May 15, 2010 9:52 AM

Utterly fascinating, I had no idea.

Posted by: cat1082 | May 15, 2010 9:55 AM

Once again bats have shown us the way. I've been using bats as an example against the idea that only humans have morality and sense of community for years. I was unaware they were capable of such exotic copulation as well!
Apparently vampire bats, when returned to their roost after feeding, will share some of their blood with any bat who didn't get enough to survive. That bat then remembers which bat was kind to them and, if that kind bat is in the same position some other night, they give that bat some of their blood. But if the bat that was helped refuses to share his blood in the above scenario, the other bats remember that and never help that bat out again. What's that? Biological imperative to cooperate as part of a society?

Posted by: kilternkafuffle | May 15, 2010 10:06 AM

I'm with Hank Fox.

While we can immediately agree that the idea of human uniqueness is silly and that offense at a science article is double-plus silly (Learned persons so offended by the idea of animal copulation don't deserve their credentials.), the details are unclear here.

We don't know whether the guy was going "hey look even the bats are doing it - nothing wrong with a couple humans doing it either, you know what I mean?" *wink-wink*

Men and women should have an equal right to be offended, but women deserve slightly more wiggle room on the question of sexual harassment.

And the conviction by Pr. Murphy, who's more likely to know the story personally, makes me increasingly suspicious. Maybe that's naive, but I think it's more likely that he punished him for telltale harassment rather than over a disagreement about human uniqueness.

Posted by: dutchdoc | May 15, 2010 10:13 AM

This is one of those stories that immediately sets off my "there's probably WAY more to the story than meets the eye" alarms.

Posted by: broboxley OT | May 15, 2010 10:21 AM

bats are not the only creatures that give head, female giraffes also like to lick a little lovin. As far as humans go there are a few ladies that can self wrap out there. Not many tho

Posted by: mck9 | May 15, 2010 10:28 AM

Here's the comment I added when I signed the petition:

It isn't fair to sanction anyone for discussing material that has not been forbidden in advance. How is one to know what is permitted? UCC should publish an Index of Forbidden Works; or, in the alternative, an Index of Permissible Works, as the latter may be shorter and more manageable. The compilation should reflect, not only sexual prudishness, but religious bigotry as embodied in the Irish blasphemy laws. Filter the Internet rigorously; thoroughly search everyone's offices, and burn any offending material in the public square.

Posted by: dutchdoc | May 15, 2010 10:33 AM

#25

but let's not forget that he was cleared by the external investigators

They may have had a different mandate. OJ got acquitted in one trial, and found guilty in another.

I think this is a typical case of 'not enough information', we ONLY got to hear a rather vague and dodgy version from ONE side of the story.
If you want to sign that petition, fairness demands that you first hear the complaining side, as well as read the formal complaint.

Personally .. (and I'm NOT saying this IS a similar case here) I can see a bunch of young med students showing porn to each other, making juvenile jokes about it, and the 1 female in the group of 14 takes objection and complains. I can then also see the defense and hiding behind 'purely medical observations'.
Faculty can be juvenile too. And I find it VERY hard to believe that a president of a college orders a TWO YEAR INTENSIVE period of monitoring and counseling (!!) for simply showing relevant-to-the-discussion peer-reviewed scientific articles to colleagues.

Bottom line: not enough information. Story is too fishy. I would bet money on there being more to the story, to the point that most signers of that petition would regret their action, had they known more.

Just saying.

Posted by: otrame | May 15, 2010 10:38 AM

@17

However inoffensive we all think this scientific study is, I can imagine women being offended if the thing was shoved in their faces as an unwanted advance.

Yes, because we females are so fragile and so easily offended by even academic discussions of sex and we have to be protected by big strong administrators and we have a right to ruin somebody's career over it because we are delicate and have to be treated with great care because we all think sex is just nasty and...

Aaarrrggghhhh.

Personally, I find the quoted sentence offensive. But guess what. I am not going to chase down Hank Fox and try to get him fired. I'm just going to make fun of him.

Okay. If the article was shown to a number of people (presumably because it is cool and, oh, yes, open to silly discussions of whether human females could do it) and if it was presented as part of an ongoing discussion of animal (including human) sexuality, then the colleague, whether male or female, needs to grow the fuck up.

Even assuming he was being fairly nasty about it, leering etc., unless he used it as an excuse to explicitly suggest that the colleague in question should try it out with him it's not harassment. Even if he did, it is inappropriate behavior worthy of a verbal slap on the hand if it was a first time.

The only situation in which this could be worthy of sanctions is if the guy had used articles about sexuality as a way to open discussions that the colleague had found offensive in the past and the colleague had asked the guy not to show him or her such articles in the future and did not wish to discuss such articles. In that case, yeah, it's harassment and have at him. But in that case the investigation would have brought that up. Given that he was cleared by said investigation of harassment then how does the administrator justify sanctions? Because the colleague didn't like the article? Because of, as the_leander said, the "Ewwww" factor. Again. Grow up.

Though I have to tell you that anyone, male or female, who can't handle a situation like that with a colleague (not a supervisor) has some serious interpersonal issues. Still, if the person in question did not have it in him or her to tell the fucker to back off in no uncertain and very public terms, then the administration should, indeed, have stepped in. But if that is what was going on, he wouldn't have been cleared, now would he?

Sexual harassment is a real problem and allowing something like this to be taken as sexual harassment belittles real sexual harassment.

Posted by: dutchdoc | May 15, 2010 10:44 AM

#27:

Did you read the part where the external investigators determined that there was no harassment?
What details are unclear?

The problem is: there ARE no details.
And we don't know anything about the external investigation either! What were they looking for? Criminal behavior? Maybe there was nothing done against the law, but that could still mean he violated College policy.

I would have expected people here (including PZ) to say: "we need more data first in order to form an informed opinion".
Aren't most of you here scientifically inclined: going where the data points, even if that ruins a perfectly sensational and feel-good story?

Posted by: TMK | May 15, 2010 10:50 AM

Harassment for discussing a natural phenomenon in animals conducted as part of a scientific study... very disturbing.

I showed this video, about recreational sex in animals, in one of my classes without complaint.

http://www.scienceinseconds.com/video.php?vId=131&tId=
geez - lighten up UCC!

Posted by: dutchdoc | May 15, 2010 10:56 AM

#31

The fact that such a stupid accusation got anywhere is highly demeaning to all science in general

Right! It's outrageous! To the point one should wonder, did this EXTRAORDINARILY OUTRAGEOUS fact occur? Is this a valid claim of abused power (amongst other outrageous things)?

And while the answer MAY be 'yes': Extraordinary claims STILL require Extraordinary evidence.

Of which we were offered NONE!

Posted by: dutchdoc | May 15, 2010 11:10 AM

#Tulse. Excellent example!

And since we don't HAVE the details, all we can do is look at plausibility.

To ANYONE who has or wants an opinion on this:

WHAT do you think is the most LIKELY of these two scenarios:

1. A discussion-relevant peer-reviewed article is referred to in order to make a scientific point.

OR:

2. The "Hey Judy, look .." scenario,

Given the fact that in both cases a participant complains about sexual harassment to HR, which is taken seriously enough to trigger an external investigation, and which in addition leads to a two year period of monitoring and counseling of the accused?

Whatever the opinion you arrive at, it's STILL just pure speculation.
IMHO, not enough to sign ANY petition over.

Posted by: Hank Fox | May 15, 2010 11:19 AM

Heh. Otrame #32 said "... needs to grow the fuck up."

Yeah, all you fragile people out there, Otrame says you need to grow the fuck up. So just grow the fuck up, you hear? That's all you need to do: Grow the fuck up. Be like Otrame, that fountain of wisdom and life advice. You just need to grow the fuck up.

Jeez, I can feel it helping me already. I am growing the fuck up.

Speaking of "fragile" people, I was painfully shy all the way into my late 20s, early 30s. Hell, when I was a teenager, I could blush like a fire hydrant -- you could see it across an auditorium. Knowing I was going to be presented with an award, I once RAN AND HID to keep from appearing in front of a bunch of strangers. And I can't tell you how often I got the same type of great advice from friendly philistines -- "You just need to be more outgoing! Be bolder! Man up!" -- and how much it helped. Not.

It’s with that shy, wimpy, hypersensitive history in mind that I’m able to consider the POSSIBILITY that there really was a victim in this case, and empathize with her (or him, if it was a guy). As I clearly said, I don’t think I have enough information to be CERTAIN that everything happened here as the one side of it reported.

I only pointed out an alternate possibility in the story. Hardly reason to go nuclear in a reply.

Posted by: Alice Shortcake | May 15, 2010 11:22 AM

Cuttlefish:

Bat Sex Inquisition

Yet another inspired band name!

Posted by: Hank Fox | May 15, 2010 11:42 AM

Hey, speaking of a totally different aspect of this story, I'm curious:

How many people here think sexual harassment -- which is rife in the animal kingdom -- just may be natural behavior for human males?

Posted by: grania.0 | May 15, 2010 11:47 AM

I feel I have to chip in as I know the person in question. I understand that people who don't know him or anything of the surrounding story feel wary of signing a petition without knowing the full circumstances, and that is fair enough. I don't blame you.
However, he has been very open and has posted the original official complaint & several other relevant documents in full on his Facebook page and there is nothing even remotely criminal about the case, it is a clear-cut case of a female colleague feeling "harassed" even though she admits she never actually expressed this to him or asked him to leave her alone.
He was cleared of the charge but the college has nevertheless applied sanctions to him that will be very damaging to him and his career.

The colleague in question is over-sensitive and over-reacted in my opinion, but even if she has been upset by this incident; it in no way justifies trashing the academic reputation of Dylan Evans.

Posted by: Pygmy Loris | May 15, 2010 11:52 AM

otrame,

Even assuming he was being fairly nasty about it, leering etc., unless he used it as an excuse to explicitly suggest that the colleague in question should try it out with him it's not harassment. Even if he did, it is inappropriate behavior worthy of a verbal slap on the hand if it was a first time.

I do not know how sexual harassment is defined in Ireland, but over here there's something called a hostile work environment. Sexual harassment doesn't have to be aimed specifically at a person to qualify as harassment.

I, too, am reserving judgment on this. There are not enough details and I find it hard to believe this man was given a two year period of monitoring and counseling simply because he discussed a science article with a colleague.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 11:53 AM

However, he has been very open and has posted the original official complaint & several other relevant documents in full on his Facebook page

Could you or someone maybe reproduce the important parts here?

Posted by: dutchdoc | May 15, 2010 12:00 PM

#49:

it seems to me that if an external investigation has cleared you of harassment, you should not be punished. FWIW (very very little, I know), I've met Dylan Evans a couple of times and he seemed a nice guy

I admit that knowing the guy probably gives you a slight edge in forming an opinion.

But again: we don't know the external investigation's criteria. They MAY (I'm NOT saying they were!!!) have been looking at it from a legal point of view. That would still leave a possibility for violating college policy.

There are various reasons for which my company can 'punish' me! Even if I don't do ANYTHING illegal. All I have to do is violate company policy. (like watching porn! ;-) )

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 12:06 PM

And can anyone maybe provide an explanation of how this article is pertinent to an "ongoing debate...about the relevance of evolutionary biology to human behaviour, and in particular about the dubiousness of many claims for human uniqueness"? I've been trying to come up with something, but I'm drawing a blank. I guess I'd need to know more about the specific debate. What did he see as its relevance?

Posted by: Knockgoats | May 15, 2010 12:08 PM

I signed: it seems to me that if an external investigation has cleared you of harassment, you should not be punished. FWIW (very very little, I know), I've met Dylan Evans a couple of times and he seemed a nice guy. Here is his home page.

Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold | May 15, 2010 12:11 PM

I admire your style and the deepness of your logic and perception. I feel SOOO totally out-classed.

Well, when it comes to class I cannot out compete you. I simply cannot match claiming there might have been a criminal investigation and then denying I suggested any such thing. Nor can I match you class in speculating whilst telling everyone else to stop doing so.

Nope, no way could I do not that. I am not dishonest enough nor stupid enough. But you, you are dishonest enough and stupid enough for the both of office.

I will leave the field. I have been vanquished by one more adept at lies than me.

Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold | May 15, 2010 12:15 PM

Why? It never was to begin with. See the title of PZ's post. It's about Academic Freedom.

Oh dear. You really are being an arse today.

Quoting Dylan Evan's from PZ's post:

"The colleague to whom I showed the article complained to HR that the article was upsetting. I had been engaged in an ongoing debate with the colleague in question about the relevance of evolutionary biology to human behaviour, and in particular about the dubiousness of many claims for human uniqueness. I showed it the colleague in the context of this discussion, and in the presence of a third person. I also showed the article to over a dozen other colleagues on the same day, none of whom objected." [Emphasis mine]

Posted by: irenedelse | May 15, 2010 12:20 PM

And can anyone maybe provide an explanation of how this article is pertinent to an "ongoing debate...about the relevance of evolutionary biology to human behaviour, and in particular about the dubiousness of many claims for human uniqueness"? I've been trying to come up with something, but I'm drawing a blank. I guess I'd need to know more about the specific debate. What did he see as its relevance?

There are a lot of claims about human uniqueness in nature. Most are in the realm of cognition, language and other intellectual functions, but also about interpersonal relationships. And, related to this, in sexuality. Not very long ago, people (even scientists) believed that Homo sapiens was the only animal who could have sex for other purposes than reproduction. Well, the bonobos taught us differently!

Posted by: redrabbitslife | May 15, 2010 12:22 PM

I'm female. I've been sexually (and otherwise) harassed in the workplace. I know how a "hostile work environment" feels.

But you know, I think a hostile work environment might also count as one wherein colleagues are terrified to joke and discuss real issues and disagree because one person has a hair-trigger "I'm tellin'" reaction.

I would have thought there are a number of things to do first before an official complaint. Granted, I don't know the workplace in question, but I imagine after a complaint like that, it would be difficult for either of them to carry on working there.

Posted by: darthcynic | May 15, 2010 12:30 PM

I will preface the following with the caveat that it is largely speculation.

As has been pointed out we are not in possession of both sides on this story, just one and that is the alleged injured party. However we have been informed that he was cleared by an external investigation into the claim made against him and that they found him guiltless.

I can think of one reason — though there may be others — for such an external investigation. He had been investigated by the university's own HR department and found guilty of the charge, and then subsequently appealed this as he has every right to. This may then have necessitated engaging an external investigation to impartially assess the claim but on the same grounds as the university had done, and not under criminal law; they did so and found against the claim. This decision would then appear to not have been to the university heads liking and he is said to have meted out a two year monitor and counseling punishment. It could be, though I am honestly just wildly speculating that by appealing the initial verdict Dr Evans has not endeared himself to the president. Anyhoo Dr Evans would now appear to be taking this higher, to the Labour Relations Commission that we have here in Ireland.

If he was found innocent by an external investigator then that would appear to be it, and the university is acting inappropriately to say the least.

Posted by: irenedelse | May 15, 2010 12:32 PM

@ kilternkafuffle:

It is highly dubious that he would, as stated by dutchdoc, be assigned two years of intensive counseling over an academic disagreement.

Beware of the "he's-punished-so-he-must-have-done-something-bad" logic, here. It may not have been a "purely" academic disagreement... and it may have been a case of faculty authority using whatever excuse they have at hand to bring down a peg or two a professor they don't like.

Since we don't have that much data, it's as likely a scenario as the one hypothesized by Hank Fox and dutchdoc.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawksIJNE8mlqNGvMY9eMFv1AE9fOxhsgz9I | May 15, 2010 12:33 PM

Hank Fox:

Hey, speaking of a totally different aspect of this story, I'm curious:

How many people here think sexual harassment -- which is rife in the animal kingdom -- just may be natural behavior for human males?

This is an aspect that is being overlooked here. In the study of the fruit bats it also makes the point that some females were forced to mate and that when females did not lick the male's penis during mating it may be because they had been forced to mate.

So yes, this is also 'natural'behaviour but would this being presented as evidence to the colleague for the relevance of evolutionary biology to human behaviour be acceptable? Didn't Thornhill get blasted for his 'Evolutionary History of Rape'? I actually would welcome debate on animal sexual behaviour and one thing it shows is the conflict between the sexes and the manipulation and exploitation and harm that is part and parcel of animal sex - as it is of human sexual behaviour.

Women are not sexless and fragile beings. Observing other species reminds us of the exploitation and conflict and harm etc that is involved in sexual behaviour in other species as well as our own. Sometimes the pleasure (and we assume males always experience pleasure which they may not) is just for the male. None of it makes those behaviours OK and I suspect the 'colleague' was made to feel that 'natural' equals 'acceptable'.

Posted by: grania.0 | May 15, 2010 12:34 PM

Edit to typo above, should have read:
if they wanted to draw such an article to a colleague's attention.

Posted by: johnlil#0a224 | May 15, 2010 12:40 PM

Wait a minute ... they "don't know why genital licking occurs."?
Those people need to get out of the lab once in a while.

Posted by: irenedelse | May 15, 2010 12:45 PM

@ kilternkafuffle:

@irenedelse: I think Hank Fox's question is legit. I don't think he's trolling. Considering how "alpha males" behave with women, it's something that respectful side-line nerds wonder :-p

Oh, give me a break. His question was classic inflammatory repertoire. And many "respectful side-line nerds" are just alpha males with a different strategy, exploiting a different niche. Speaking from an evolutionary perspective on male/female interaction, of course.

Posted by: kilternkafuffle | May 15, 2010 12:48 PM

Considering darthcynic's inside knowledge and irenedelse's opinion, it's very possible that this is about a President vs. Professor conflict.

But then would grania.o kindly repost the formal complaint or link to it? If it was indeed just the bat article that was offensive, I retract my argument, but if there was anything else inappropriate or suggestive in the professor's behavior - it's a different story.

Posted by: dutchdoc | May 15, 2010 12:51 PM

#48

However, he has been very open and has posted the original official complaint & several other relevant documents in full on his Facebook page

Well, reading all that would certainly help us to form an opinion! *going to look for it*

As for being open: he then probably could have then done a better job on the story at that petition page!

Where he wrote that "a colleague" complained about the article being "upsetting".

If "upsetting" happens to be "sexual harassment" then the sex of the colleague becomes relevant, so if he withholds that information (maybe with good intentions: wanting to be neutral, or thinking it SHOULDN'T matter, or whatever) it STILL invokes this sense of "what ELSE didn't he tell us" when you find out later he was accused of sexual harassment and "the colleague" in question was of the opposite sex.

He should have realized it would become known that this was an alleged case of sexual harassment against an 'opposite sex' co-worker, and thus he should have ADDRESSED that fact, and possibly even explain why it WASN'T sexual harassment in his view, rather than withholding all this important and relevant information.
Doing so made the whole story vague, dodgy, and now WITH that information, slightly sneaky.

He MAY still be 'innocent' .. but deserves low grades for presenting his case.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 15, 2010 12:52 PM

Bat sex is not protected by academic freedom

Really? "Academic freedom"? I'm not so sure that's what's at issue.

I had been engaged in an ongoing debate with the colleague in question about the relevance of evolutionary biology to human behaviour, and in particular about the dubiousness of many claims for human uniqueness. I showed it the colleague in the context of this discussion, and in the presence of a third person. I also showed the article to over a dozen other colleagues on the same day, none of whom objected.

'none of whom objected' heh heh heh
If the guy was running up and down the hall barging into everybody's offices brandishing the article('Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time') and gleefully announcing that she-bats give head too and then drawing some kind of putatively evolutionary conclusions about human behavior, I could see how some monitoring might have seemed like a good idea. *shrug*

Posted by: Andrew Hall | May 15, 2010 1:00 PM

I just signed the petition.

http://laughinginpurgatory.blogspot.com/

Posted by: Chris Whitman | May 15, 2010 1:06 PM

Also, I think perhaps the idea that women will lie about harassment at the drop of a hat is so ingrained that no one is asking exactly what sort of person she would need to be to ruin someone's career and possibly subject them to criminal investigation just because she was losing an argument.

We are talking about a *complete* psychopath here, right? Keep in mind that you can't just make a harassment charge and watch the problem disappear. There will be inquiries; you will have to give testimony, possibly several times. The charge will also follow you, as the unfolding drama may affect your personal reputation. And what do you really get out of it? Revenge for a minor squabble?

This is not something a normal, stable person would do.

Now, I'm not saying it's impossible that we are talking about a total nutjob here, but I think it does say something that people are more willing to believe that someone they assume is a woman is willing to put an enormous amount of time and effort to ruin someone professionally over nothing than that a man is genuinely guilty of harassment.

Posted by: frog, Inc. | May 15, 2010 1:13 PM

I had a tenured professor in graduate school who made every female whom he spoke with to feel like she needed to go take a shower. Tenured professors with more seniority, graduate students, the cleaning ladies - everyone. All of these people figured that they were just being oversensitive until someone finally complained (I think after he kissed a grad student on the forehead during a discussion of an academic problem).

We have a right to not be "creeped out"???
Is that like the right not to be offended??

You know, there was a time when sexual harassment was actually a serious incident -- unwelcome groping, attempts to pressure someone into sex, the general "abuse of power" cases.

But know we have an endless cavalcade of posters who are worried that he may have been "creepy". That he may have said something "impolite".

Well, that's fucking absurd. The only question is one of power -- and "creepiness" is the least of power issues to be dealt with in the workplace.

Fuck, the entire structure of graduate training at many institutions is an ongoing abuse of power, social and economic, with a massive juvenalization of employees.

And people fucking think that saying something "creepy" is a serious issue? A serious power inequality? Really?

This kind of shit really blinds people to REAL issues of inequality in academia. Women get tenure less not because some men are "creepy" -- but because of the structure of tenure appointments, the time frames and their inherent conflict with the timespan available for women to reproduce and have a family.

That shit matters. This shit is just a way to cover and distract from real issues -- this is the workplace equivalent of "The Global War on Terror" -- a massive distraction.

And apparently a lot of people who think of themselves as thoughtful are cooperating fully with this kind of bullshit.

Give me a fucking break. It's god-damn hopeless when folks are this damn insipid.

Posted by: Kobra | May 15, 2010 1:18 PM

So I guess that the phrases "Fuck like rabbits," "Doing it doggy style," and "Hung like a horse" are definitely out in the academic circles?

Wait until the furries catch wind of that. They'll lose some of their favorite subcultural double entendres.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | May 15, 2010 1:21 PM

@ SC

Oh, and I've learned over the years that it's a really bad idea to argue with people who insist that evolutionary biology has little or no bearing on our understanding of human behavior. They are just about as bad as young-earth-creationists.

Oh, give me a break. Evo psych people make claims that go well beyond the basic "evolutionary biology has...bearing on our understanding of human behavior," and often on the basis of extremely shoddy research and unsupported inferences.

I agree, but I have also had discussions with people who thought that the mere speculation about evolutionary biology and human behavior should be off-limits, and these were professors in major American universities. Shoddy research and unsupported inferences can be addressed as such, but not with those who think that culture is all and evolutionary biology offers no insights. Hence the YEC comparison, which I admit contains no small amount of hyperbole.

Posted by: Robyn | May 15, 2010 1:33 PM

This man understands evolutionary psychology?

If the colleague was female he should therefore have been more aware than most that things re. sex discussions that men experience harmlessly are often experienced very differently (threateningly) by women. That is evolutionary psychology's own line and it is explained as a consequence of the different sex/reproductive strategies of the two sexes.
Robert Wright wrote about it in:"THE EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FEMALE MIND.
Feminists, Meet Mr. Darwin"

and so perhaps Dylan Evans is more at fault here than a non-EP person would be. In fact, being more aware of the sex differences revealed by EP he should have known better and it looks more like a deliberate attempt to harass (if the colleague is female) as he cannot plead ignorance about the potential of the subject matter to upset the colleague.

Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives | May 15, 2010 1:34 PM

And people fucking think that saying something "creepy" is a serious issue? A serious power inequality? Really?

This kind of shit really blinds people to REAL issues of inequality in academia.

NO. Ignoring "this kind of shit" and letting it slide is what creates the kind of environment that indicates to jerks that it is ok to practice more blatant forms of discrimination.

I'm not saying this case is one of those - it's easy to see how it could have been either way, and there's not nearly enough information to be able to tell. But don't say that the "little stuff" should routinely be ignored, because ignoring the little stuff is what helps cause the bigger problems.

Posted by: Chris Whitman | May 15, 2010 1:45 PM

I'm starting an internet petition for people to take more notice of internet petitions.

Will you sign it?

Posted by: Robyn | May 15, 2010 2:05 PM

Had the previous discussions with her involved sexual behaviour?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 15, 2010 2:06 PM

Yes, that phrase appears in the post. That doesn't mean that that's what PZ's post is all about. That's not why he mentioned it.

sigh

And that's not what SC was asking either. She, if I'm not mistaken, was asking about the actual article on bat sex and how that is relevant to

an ongoing debate...about the relevance of evolutionary biology to human behaviour, and in particular about the dubiousness of many claims for human uniqueness

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 15, 2010 2:09 PM

Will you sign it?

Only if I can sign it more than once.

Posted by: Robyn | May 15, 2010 2:22 PM

Animal sexual behaviour is not generally presented as being positve for the females - there's a lot of 'conquering'of females including some of the fruit bat females that were forced to mate.

Evolutionary biology is not about sex being fun but about the conflict between the sexes.
I'm female and very much in favour of looking at animal sexual behaviour as much to understand sexual conflict, rape, the control of female sexuality etc as anything else.

Feminist evolutionary biologists are getting a better perspective across about females but the facts still remain that for most species males compete for females and females don't necessarily get a good deal out of it.

Women who are not evolutionary biologists are probably quite concerned by what goes on between the sexes in other species and absoutely fear that men will use examples from nature (eg rape)to manipulate and exploit sexual relations whether re. sexual behaviour per se. or re. what women should be 'allowed' to do beyond sex and reproduction.

The colleague had probably suppressed her anxieties and fears and concerns for a long time and maybe it was the straw that broke the camel's back. It may have been avoided if sufficient emphasis had been put on the point that Pinker often makes that natural does not mean good or right etc etc and I would add that 'natural' often is pretty nasty.

Posted by: evansd66#3f76d | May 15, 2010 2:32 PM

Regarding Dutchdoc's question: The complaint was NOT anonymous - it was signed by the complainant. I was given strict instructions by HR NOT to discuss the issue with the colleague in question or to have any more contact with her whatsoever. I thought we had been on good and friendly terms, but that ceased abruptly when the complaint was lodged.

Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | May 15, 2010 2:54 PM

It's outrageous to think this sort of issue could still arise in the Century of the Fruitbat!

Posted by: Kieranfoy, Faerie Godfather of Death, GMKSC, OED | May 15, 2010 3:18 PM

@Pierce: That was last century. I think it's the Century of the Sturgeon or something.

Posted by: jcmartz.myopenid.com | May 15, 2010 3:28 PM

At present, we do not know why genital licking occurs, and we present four non-mutually exclusive hypotheses that may explain the function of fellatio in C. sphinx.

------------

No academic freedom? WTF. Although, not related to bat sex, this quote seems appropiate:

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives | May 15, 2010 3:37 PM

Is there any evidence, anywhere, as to what her side of the story is? Filing a complaint of this sort is not a small thing to do. It's involved, and it opens up the person to having an awful lot of criticism and scorn heaped upon them (as we can see gee, right here) as well as getting an employment black mark as being "difficult". I find it hard to believe that this incident could be construed as sexual harassment, but then again I also find it hard to believe that any academic would chance their job (as few and far between as academic jobs are) on a flimsy case. I know neither of these people, so I'm just as unwilling to say that he's entirely innocent as I am to say that she's entirely bonkers.

Posted by: nastasie | May 15, 2010 3:43 PM

Here's a thought: the problem between Dylan Evans and his colleague may have arisen gradually if their discussions of the evolutionary origins of human behaviour involved sexual behaviour (which they usually do). She may have inferred that he was being suggestive about the current rules of interaction between the sexes not being set in stone or something to that effect. In that case, she could have grown increasingly uncomfortable regarding this discussion, but never mentioned it.

So that would be a case of misunderstanding on her part, one which she could have dealt with in a better way, e.g. by expressing her doubts over his intended meaning and directly questioning him.

Of course I'm just speculating, and I'm not saying "oh, come on, why didn't she just confront him?". She could have been questioning her own assumptions or she could have had any one of a series of other doubts about bringing it up until the interaction in question drove the point home from her perspective.

What I do find strange is what someone mentioned above: the accuser in a case of sexual harassment also risks having his/her reputation damaged, so I have to wonder if she acted on impulse or failed to consider this aspect.

Of course, this is all assuming Evans' account is accurate. And I do think that a professor in her position would be aware of the seriousness of the situation and the repercussions for her own reputation.

In sum, I'm trying to imagine how the scenario would have evolved without knowing her side of the story.

Posted by: Epictetus | May 15, 2010 3:44 PM

It just confirms for me that one can be all-too-easily censored and/or punished for speaking about the “delicate” subject of sex. People are *way* too uptight about this subject. The world is full of prudes who view the act of sex with alarm. Never mind that it happens to be the precondition of our existence. Here, I think, religion has done considerable harm by making the act of sex appear dirty, shameful, sinful, and very displeasing to our Heavenly Father (although, at least according to one religious tradition, the Good Lord impregnated a virgin who was already betrothed to another man; but that’s another matter). At any rate, the Puritan ethic, I’m afraid, which views every form of pleasure with suspicion and disapproval, is alive and well.

Posted by: dutchdoc | May 15, 2010 3:46 PM

I have made numerous comments here, all pointing out that we (or at least -I-) didn't have enough information to make an informed decision about signing Dr. Evans's petition. I was especially interested in a story by the "other side", like, for instance, the actual formal complaint.

After some poking around I can now make that information available (thanks: ).

You can find it here: link

May this help us all to come to a more informed conclusion.

Now that I have received (WAY) more information, I think I have a good case for signing that petition.

Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives | May 15, 2010 4:07 PM

Thanks for posting those, dutchdoc. It looks just from those papers that he's something of a boorish lout, whether intentional or not, has been creeping her out for a long time, and she finally got sick enough of it to complain. Still could have gone through different channels than direct filing, but again I don't know anything about these people or the situation other than what's been stated. Also, as has been said already, a lot depends on her own cultural background and personal inclinations - a lot of people would just say "back off" and be done with it, others wouldn't even mind the behavior in the first place, and some would be immensely uncomfortable but not be able to say so.

Posted by: Epictetus | May 15, 2010 4:12 PM

"I have, in graduate-level courses, been accused of condoning rape (and I'm a female) because I have suggested that rape might be a reproductive strategy that worked in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. Last I checked, we don't actually live in the Lower Paleolithic, so whether rape should be tolerated now is a totally separate point."

Looks like those who are offended by your suggestion are incapable of separating "is" from "ought", a well-known logical fallacy.

Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon | May 15, 2010 4:29 PM

"Bat sex is not protected by academic freedom."

Has anyone determined the degree to which the bats in question give a plugged nickel for academic freedom? Hah! I thought not.

"A positive relationship exists between the length of time that the female licked the male's penis during copulation and the duration of copulation."

That's understandable.

[unembarrassed grin]

Posted by: superheadcat | May 15, 2010 4:42 PM

Oops…

I now have a question for Dylan Evans:

Under what context can “the action was a joke with sexual innuendo and it was reasonable for [her] to be offended by being presented with it in her office alone. We therefore find that the complaint on this action is upheld” be interpreted as “the investigators have not upheld the complaint of sexual harassment”?

Posted by: superheadcat | May 15, 2010 4:48 PM

By the way, does PZ have any addendum to this post in light of the documents linked in post 124?

Posted by: MS | May 15, 2010 4:57 PM

We don't know all the facts yet, but it's really not that hard to see how a woman MIGHT, in some circumstances, think being sent this article constituted harassment. Much would depend on prior interaction(s) with the male professor, what, if anything, he wrote to accompany it, if the male had a history of inappropriate behavior towards female colleagues, etc.

As others have pointed out, making a formal harassment charge is not something to be taken lightly and can have lasting and damaging effects on one's own career, so I'm not inclined to automatically dismiss it as frivolous, even if ultimately I might not agree with her assessment or think there were better ways to handle it.

Posted by: evansd66#3f76d | May 15, 2010 5:07 PM

@CARLIE - POST #126

I beg you to reconsider your assumption that I am "something of a boorish lout" who "has been creeping her out for a long time" in the light of the following:

In her original complaint, the complainant stated that, following the my housewarming party, she and her husband "declined all further invitations from me". She neglected to mention the fact that, AFTER my housewarming party - and long after the dinner at the restaurant on 22 November 2008, where I allegedly "hugged her strongly", she herself sent me the following email:

From: XXXXXX
Sent: Thu 1/8/2009 8:26 PM
To: Evans, Dylan
Subject: RE: research

Dear Dylan,

No problem. I am not around tomorrow afternoon.
I just wanted to let you know that on Saturday 7th of February there is the Surgeon Noonan Ball which is an important event for the School (students and staff). Generally ZZZZZ takes a table for all of us. It would be great if you and your girlfriend could join us, it's a nice evening but I was also thinking of you party??

For more information about the Ball you can ask ZZZZZ and then let me know...

Concerning the project we can talk next week.

Have a nice week end!

XXXXXX

IT WAS IN VIEW OF THIS EMAIL, AND SEVERAL OTHERS LIKE IT, THAT THE INVESTIGATORS STATED IN THEIR REPORT THAT:

"Dr Evans has produced email evidence that casts serious doubts on some of the evidence of Dr XXXX"

Yet the President makes no reference to this in his letters to me.

Best wishes,

Dylan Evans
www.dylan.org.uk

Posted by: jemand | May 15, 2010 5:10 PM

from http://felidware.com/DylanEvans/,

The report states,

"We therefore find that the complaint on this action is upheld though it was not Dr Evan's intention to cause offense."

I do not see how this can be construed as saying they absolved Dr. Evan's of any wrongdoing. Dr. Evan's subsequent reply completely ignoring the second, upheld complaint seems a rather disingenuous attempt to whitewash, and indicative of an individual who probably does need some guidance in reasonable and respectful office conduct.

Note that the sexual harassment charge itself was dismissed because the complainant had not been clear enough in communicating with Dr. Evans, and hadn't *intended* to be offensive. However, he was inadvertently offensive, and again, external aid in behavioral modification seems justifiable. The president's ruling seems reasonable to me.

Posted by: phoenixwoman | May 15, 2010 5:12 PM

Jemand: See comment #138.

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | May 15, 2010 5:18 PM

I'm going to derail and stay on the topic of sexual harassment issues simultaneously.

I won't allow undergraduate students in my home, nor will I go out to dinner with them unless I am in a large group with other faculty present. This has nothing to do with a fear that I myself will act inappropriately, but is purely because I'm a gay man. I realized that I am vulnerable to certain claims simply because I'm gay, so I keep myself out of situations in which such claims might be made. Some of my colleagues react to me like I'm insane when I do this, but I've made a choice to minimize or eliminated the potential for anyone even making a claim.

Posted by: Pacal | May 15, 2010 5:23 PM

If no one has said it.

"And then the oral sex!"

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 5:32 PM

I simply said that citing the human practice of oral sex would be an unusual way to make an argument for human exceptionalism, but that there is now evidence to combat even that.

Would be? So she hadn't made that argument? Had she made an argument that is related to it (i.e., specifically about the uniqueness of human sexual practices)? (Leaving aside that humans don't generally perform fellatio during intercourse, and that such evidence already existed from bonobos anyway, as the article states.)

It did not occur to me that she might find it offensive, as it is a formal publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Really? You can't think of any contexts in which presenting colleagues with certain peer-reviewed articles might be seen as offensive and inappropriate?

There are broader issues of academic freedom at stake here. If we cannot discuss scientific articles about topics directly related to our own research,

Was this bat study directly related to her research or any specific argument she had made?

Posted by: superheadcat | May 15, 2010 5:37 PM

Hi! Dylan,

“it” refers to the details of the incident. The descriptions in the report surely seem incomplete as you suggested.

Let me make sure I get it right: your school’s policy dictates that one is not required to solve issues in informal forms and can directly file an official complaint to HR. And the conclusion made by the HR investigation team is final and un-appealable.

Wow. That seems like a screwed-up infrastructure to me.

Am I correct in concluding that whatever results of your petition, your official record for the rest of your life will show that there is an incident of inappropriate conduct on your part?

Posted by: evansd66#3f76d | May 15, 2010 5:41 PM

@TIS'HIMSELF - POST #128

On what grounds do you think that I sexually harassed my colleague? Do you think that showing an academic article to a colleague with whom one has always had a good working relationship, in the context of an ongoing academic debate, in the presence of a third party, with no intention to cause offence whatsoever, when that colleague does not indicate any offense at the time, but asks for a copy of the article, is - in and of itself - sufficient to count as sexual harassment?

On what grounds do you think that training and counseling are appropriate for such innocent behaviour?

Best wishes,

Dylan Evans
www.dylan.org.uk

Posted by: Ken | May 15, 2010 5:43 PM

The crux of the complaint as supported by the external report is that Dr. XXXXX had a right to be "offended" by being shown the academic article.

If any of you think she has the right to be offended by an academic article then you are a hypocrite if you EVER say that a creationist has no right to be offended by pro-evolution academic articles. If she can successfully complain that her work environment was hostile because she was offended by an article, then a creationist has the right to successfully complain about being shown pro-evolution articles.

NO ONE has a right to not be offended if you want to live in a society with free speech. And, if it's even possible, even less than no one has such a right in the scientific community if you ever want anyone to trust you when you talk about openness of discussion and debate.

Should anyone have to think about showing a colleague an article on evolution in case that colleague might find it offensive? Should you be punished if they do find it offensive?

If you think that the offense felt by a god fearing creationist, who has been raised in their religion all their lives is any less than the offense felt by a woman over being shown an academic article on bat fellatio, they you underestimate the offense that creationists feel.

No one has the right to not be offended.

No one.

Posted by: evansd66#3f76d | May 15, 2010 5:52 PM

@BROBOXLEY - POST #153

Sure, a course in office behavioral patterns would be in order IF I HAD HUGGED AND KISSED HER IN THE OFFICE. But the alleged hugging and kissing (actually, a simple kiss on the cheek, which people of her nationality always do to say goodby) took place outside work, in the restaurant where she, her husband, and I had just had dinner. I was saying goodbye to her, and gave her a peck on the cheek IN FRONT OF HER HUSBAND. The following day, he sent me an email saying how much he had enjoyed the evening. Do you think he would have sent that email if there had been anything weird about my behaviour the previous evening?

Best wishes,

Dylan Evans
www.dylan.org.uk

Posted by: broboxley OT | May 15, 2010 5:54 PM

@Ken #154 No one has the right to not be offended

This isnt at a pub its at work, the place where they pay you to show up. If one of my workers is running around laughing at creationists and putting stuff in their cube knowing that it will offend them I am going to be offended and fire their ass.

Work is not private life. Offend all you want but you are being paid to do a job not annoy your fellow workers

Now in all of this Dr. Evans seems to not realized he has seriously pissed this colleague off. He still doesnt understand why and I dont either. So looking back at a hug, kiss etc someone got pissed maybe the husband who knows. Being a little more attuned to ones environment may help. His classes will help him with that considering what he is a Doctor of you would think some of that should have rubbed off. Not knocking the Doc, but he should have been more aware at work.

Posted by: Dr Van Nostrand | May 15, 2010 5:57 PM

After reading the documents, I'm DEFINITELY signing the petition (though I seriously doubt online petitions are at all effective). Good luck Dr. Evans.

Posted by: Ken | May 15, 2010 6:00 PM

@broboxley OT #158

So, putting peer reviewed academic articles in someone's "cube" (or office) is not allowed since they might be offended by it.

OK, now I know where you stand on academic censorship. Again, be sure you never put a peer reviewed article on evolution in the office of a Christian. As I said, they might be offended.

You think they have that right. I don't.

Posted by: jemand | May 15, 2010 6:03 PM

"which people of her nationality always do to say goodby"

wait... have you seen HER engage in this in the country you are in? Or are you blatantly stereotyping her? And treating her differently than all your other colleges based on how you think persons of her ethnic heritage should be treated?

See... I think this gets to the crux of the issue. The charge was dismissed *because* she hadn't said anything. It did not say that your behavior was not objectionable, or that if targeted at another person, that they would likely not have objected. Your comment here indicates she comes from a different background, one in which maybe she felt less able to confront you than otherwise. The president may have taken this into account in sentencing you to behavior modification classes and such.

Posted by: superheadcat | May 15, 2010 6:06 PM

Ken at 154,
According to the report, the act of “showing the academic article” in this particular case is interpreted as “a joke with sexual innuendo”. If the link is valid, I see no problem with the report’s conclusion.
Unfortunately, in light of Dr. Evan’s vehement denial of such a link, I have not seen any evidence that establishes this link, and most incredibly, according to Dr. Evans, there is no way to appeal such a conclusion by the report.

Posted by: Ken | May 15, 2010 6:10 PM

Bride of Shrek OM

Being offended was a choice as well. A choice of how she decided to interpret the situation. Filing the complaint was another choice.

Unless, of course, you think that all women are shrinking violets that need to be protected from things like peer reviewed academic articles that a mere woman can't handle simply because she is a woman, and that, being a mere women, she has no choice but to file a complaint.

I don't believe that, but you have a right to that opinion.

Posted by: Jessie | May 15, 2010 6:13 PM

I have signed the petition. There were better ways to have dealt with this than a mark on an academic's record.

Good luck Dylan.

Posted by: evansd66#3f76d | May 15, 2010 6:16 PM

@JEMAND - POST #164

"which people of her nationality always do to say goodby"

wait... have you seen HER engage in this in the country you are in? Or are you blatantly stereotyping her? And treating her differently than all your other colleges based on how you think persons of her ethnic heritage should be treated?

YES I HAVE SEEN HER ENGAGE IN THIS BEHAVIOUR IN THIS COUNTRY. INDEED, SHE STATED EXPLICITLY TO ME, ON AT LEAST THREE SEPARATE OCCASIONS, THAT SHE FOUND MY COMPANY PLEASANT BECAUSE I WAS SO MUCH MORE "LATIN" THAN THE USUAL IRISH PERSON. I AM ENGLISH, BUT I LIVED IN LATIN AMERICA FOR THREE YEARS, SO MAYBE SHE WAS REFERRING TO THAT. THE POINT IS, SHE COMMENTED ON THIS FEATURE OF MY PERSONALITY IN FAVOURABLE TERMS SEVERAL TIMES..

I AM NOT "BLATANTLY STEREOTYPING HER"

Dylan Evans
www.dylan.org.uk

Posted by: Azkyroth | May 15, 2010 6:16 PM

And can anyone maybe provide an explanation of how this article is pertinent to an "ongoing debate...about the relevance of evolutionary biology to human behaviour, and in particular about the dubiousness of many claims for human uniqueness"? I've been trying to come up with something, but I'm drawing a blank. I guess I'd need to know more about the specific debate. What did he see as its relevance?

The notions that animals don't engage in sex for pleasure, and/or in sexual activities that are orthogonal to reproduction, is widespread. Someone may well have fallen back on "well, humans are the only animals that, um....um...that have oral sex!" in trying to support their argument that humans are unique. The article refutes that.

Posted by: evansd66#3f76d | May 15, 2010 6:21 PM

@JEMAND - POST #169

> wait, you have NO hard evidence, or no hard
> evidence of a link? If you have hard evidence of
> such a firing and a suit... than that's hard
> evidence.

Sorry for the ambiguity. What I meant is that I have no hard evidence of a link between these things. I do have hard evidence that the husband fired the secretary and that she is now claiming wrongful dismissal.

Dylan Evans
www.dylan.org.uk

Posted by: broboxley OT | May 15, 2010 6:22 PM

@ken 162 are you being paid to put scientific reviews in other peoples cubes? If not the problem is being created by you so keep your outside work interests out of other peoples cubes.

Posted by: jemand | May 15, 2010 6:24 PM

Evans, you can stop yelling at me. Your original comment did NOT in fact, have the additional information about this *particular* woman, but only a blurb about some nebulous construct of those "other" people.

Without the additional information that you actually had observed HER behavior, phrasing the comment in such a way was odd and left yourself open to misinterpretation.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 6:25 PM

The notions that animals don't engage in sex for pleasure, and/or in sexual activities that are orthogonal to reproduction, is widespread. Someone may well have fallen back on "well, humans are the only animals that, um....um...that have oral sex!" in trying to support their argument that humans are unique. The article refutes that.

And no one has presented anything to support the idea that she was making any such specific argument. I've asked about this several times. I've asked Dr. Evans several questions concerning this, which so far he hasn't responded to.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 6:30 PM

The references to gambling concern...

So that's all you're going to respond to? FFS. I already said that I found them odd, even without context.

***

(By the way, it's strange for people to describe this as "oral sex." It's licking during sex, not fellatio to orgasm.)

Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe | May 15, 2010 6:31 PM

Again, I switch it to a pro-evolution article shown to a creationist. If it was interpreted by the creationist as a joke with religious overtones, then they need to be given the same freedoms to be free from such offense.

The accurate parallel would be showing a black colleague an article about some species' differential treatment of subspecies (favoring one over the other), or showing a gay colleague an article about "gay" animals also performing reproductive sex.

Are those examples inherently a form of harassment? no; but they could become part of it, given the context.

Free speech does end where "creating a hostile and discriminatory work environment" begins.

Posted by: Azkyroth | May 15, 2010 6:32 PM

Also, I think perhaps the idea that women will lie about harassment at the drop of a hat is so ingrained that no one is asking exactly what sort of person she would need to be to ruin someone's career and possibly subject them to criminal investigation just because she was losing an argument.

We are talking about a *complete* psychopath here, right?

Or just a person with a significant impulse control problem and difficulty thinking through the likely consequences of their actions - someone who wasn't planning to try to ruin his academic career, who was just angry and wanted to lash out somehow without really thinking about what would follow, but now feels unable or unwilling to back down - or the situation's out of her hands. I'm perfectly aware that this characterization is consistent with a persistent, obnoxious, and sexist stereotype about female behavior, and that I assume this will be the only thing that half the commenters here take away from my post, but people like this do exist - I'm in the process of divorcing one, actually.

Posted by: JustALurker | May 15, 2010 6:39 PM

By the way, it's strange for people to describe this as "oral sex." It's licking during sex, not fellatio to orgasm.)

So if I just lick it before he sticks it, it's not fellatio?

Fellatio, also called fellation,[1] is oral sex performed upon the penis. It may be performed to induce orgasm and ejaculation of semen, or it can be used as foreplay prior to vaginal or anal forms of intercourse.

I think licking it while having sex is appropriately called fellatio. I refuse to google that to find out though. I really do not want to see what Rule 34 has in store for results. =)

Posted by: Bride of Shrek OM | May 15, 2010 6:40 PM

As someone who interviews criminals for a living (and I am NOT asserting anyone is a criminal here )I think I have a fairly attuned bullshit radar when someone is fleshing out a complaint. This is a fairly natural occurence when Complainants make statements and one of my hardest jobs is to keep people to the facts as they stand and not try to turn them in some way to support their case in a perhaps subconscious attempt to influence the reader of the complaint.

I'm reading the complaint here and some parts of it are just pinging that radar. I make no comment on whether the general assertion is true but I'm having a hard time with the whole "fascinated with Cassanova because he slept with hundreds of women" part as well as the focus on gambling bits. This is just an opinion obviously but I feel someone is twisting some otherwise innocuous facts to make it look like Evans is a player.

Posted by: superheadcat | May 15, 2010 6:45 PM

Ken @179,
I actually agree with what you said, it is just that is not the point I made.
The report links “showing an academic article” to “a joke with sexual innuendo”. While we have not yet been presented any evidence that validate such a link in this case, it is conceivable that such a link is possible. And in that case, what is inappropriate is no longer “showing an academic article”, but telling “a joke with sexual innuendo”. I am really curious to know what kind of evidence the investigation had that established this link. Without that evidence, I would be totally as outrageous as anyone else.
My other point is that the lack of an appeal mechanism in Dylan’s school is appalling, and is totally unfair to him.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 6:47 PM

Maybe he is "clueless about boundaries"; I don't know him well enough to make that judgment (and neither do you).

I'm making the tentative judgment based on what I now know, including from his comments here.

But even if he is "clueless about boundaries", so am I, and so are many people; I find it very hard to understand and follow the norms of human social interaction. This is not a particularly uncommon trait. But most importantly, it is not his fault; and it is not fair to punish him for his behaviour when he had no idea he was doing anything wrong.

If his cluelessness about boundaries leads him to behave in a way that is inappropriate and in violation of the established norms of his workplace, it is fair to address it.

He clearly had no idea that she was offended by his behaviour.

If so, that's a problem, because his behavior appears to have been sexually inappropriate on this occasion.

I'm not necessarily saying she should have confronted him about it directly;

Good, because we don't know all of the specifics. What we do know is that she went to the Head of School to report it.

but the responsible administrators could and should have settled this through an off-the-record informal talk, not formal disciplinary sanctions.

Possibly. Again, we don't know the details.

If he did not do anything intentionally wrong - and you seem to be acknowledging that he did not - it is entirely unfair to take public sanctions against him, drag his reputation through the mud and ruin his career.

If counseling and monitoring are appropriate, they are appropriate.

You make it sound so innocuous, but it isn't. Even if the sanctions are later lifted, what has already happened will ruin his professional reputation and career.

This has nothing to do with innocuousness. If he is behaving in a way that is sexually inappropriate, that has to be dealt with somehow.

Posted by: jemand | May 15, 2010 6:50 PM

"SC OM: The complainant had specifically stated to me a few weeks before I showed her the paper that animals don't engage in sex for pleasure."

Ok, now I am 100% on your side. Although I will say this is a good reason to conduct such debates through email or instant message lol. Sending a link to an article in an electronically recorded medium which remains to be read in it's entirety later by anyone is almost impossible to misinterpret or misconstrue later.

Posted by: Azkyroth | May 15, 2010 6:53 PM

Also, I think perhaps the idea that women will lie about harassment at the drop of a hat is so ingrained that no one is asking exactly what sort of person she would need to be to ruin someone's career and possibly subject them to criminal investigation just because she was losing an argument.

We are talking about a *complete* psychopath here, right?

Another possibility occurs to me: I'm not an academic but I've heard quite a bit about the level of competition and backstabbing that goes on in many academic circles. Prof. Evans and his colleagure wouldn't possibly have been in competition for a specific tenured position, or liable to be in competition for it in the future, would they?

Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas | May 15, 2010 7:00 PM

If his cluelessness about boundaries leads him to behave in a way that is inappropriate and in violation of the established norms of his workplace, it is fair to address it.

Strawman. No one is saying it wasn't "fair to address it". I'm saying it wasn't fair to impose formal disciplinary sanctions on him, out of the blue, when he had no idea he was doing anything wrong, and had been given no indication whatsoever that his behaviour was in any way unacceptable.

If counseling and monitoring are appropriate, they are appropriate.

You can't just ignore the kind of impact it could have on his entire life and career prospects: the effect of being publicly punished and humiliated, and having his reputation dragged through the mud on the internet.

Even if the sanctions are lifted, he will now face significantly increased difficulties in the rest of his professional life, due to the damage this has done to his reputation. The only thing that could ameliorate this is a full, unconditional public apology and retraction from the university.

If he is behaving in a way that is sexually inappropriate, that has to be dealt with somehow.

Again, strawman. I never said it shouldn't. But it should have been dealt with in a non-punitive way.

As I said, I don't have great social skills or boundary-awareness myself. But if I were behaving in a way that made someone else feel uncomfortable, and didn't realise it, then I would immediately apologise and stop the offending behaviour if I were told about it. Likewise, Dr Evans should have been told about the problem and given a fair chance to change his behaviour, before any kind of formal procedures were initiated.

It is not fair to expect everyone in the world to have a perfect sense of what does and doesn't make others feel uncomfortable. The only way people can be expected to know what behaviour is and isn't acceptable, in any given relationship - professional or personal - is if they are told about it, and clear boundaries are laid down.

Posted by: JustALurker | May 15, 2010 7:04 PM

Azkyroth, that speculation seems particularly prone to backfiring *badly.* Though maybe I think that because I'm not a psychopath.

So does murdering for the insurance money but people still do it. And as PZ pointed out, threatening a bogus claim to get an A on an exam. Deranged indeed but people will justify and go to extraordinary lengths for some obviously stupid shit. I'm not saying that's what happened here but it's a possibility.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 7:06 PM

SC OM: The complainant had specifically stated to me a few weeks before I showed her the paper that animals don't engage in sex for pleasure.

A) Assuming this is true...Purely for pleasure? How is this study relevant?

B) Above: "citing the human practice of oral sex would be an unusual way to make an argument for human exceptionalism, but that there is now evidence to combat even that." Hmmm.

So if I just lick it before he sticks it, it's not fellatio?

It's different from what the bats are doing. (OK, technically "oral sex," but not analogous.)

It is grossly unfair to punish him when he had no idea, and no way of knowing, that he was doing anything wrong.

No way of knowing? Bullshit. People have every reason to be circumspect about sex talk in a work environment. And the fact is that he knows now, and still appears clueless.

Posted by: evansd66#3f76d | May 15, 2010 7:09 PM

I should add that my girlfriend also works in the School of Medicine at UCC, and was on good terms with the complainant until the latter filed the complaint against me.

My girlfriend was utterly shocked when I told her about the complaint. She couldn't understand why the complainant hadn't mentioned anything about this to me or her before, despite having many opportunities. For the next few months, until the complainant left UCC, my girlfriend would often bump into the complainant at work. She found it weird to go suddenly from having friendly conversations with the complainant to having to avert her gaze whenever they met.

Dylan Evans
www.dylan.org.uk

Posted by: Dr Van Nostrand | May 15, 2010 7:11 PM

This whole thing is absurd. The fact that Dr. Evans made the complainant uncomfortable is certainly an important and serious issue. However, the lack of any attempt to communicate with Dr. Evans about the boundary issues and the refusal to accept any kind of mediation reflects very poorly on the complainant. Even accepting entirely her version of the events, there is nothing in the complaint that couldn't be resolved by two rational, mature adults in a 5 minute conversation.

Posted by: Azkyroth | May 15, 2010 7:12 PM

I was also subject to accusations of harassment, once upon a time.

I don't have the patience to wade through this whole thread. Did Hank Fox, etc. ever take issue with the fact that we're only getting PZ's side of things here?

Posted by: Ken | May 15, 2010 7:15 PM

superheadcat #194:

Got it. I wasn't properly reading for content there. Sorry.

Posted by: jemand | May 15, 2010 7:22 PM

@ cousinavi,

I can think of one exception, (not valid here), someone with more power in the company/school, who continually issues veiled threats, telling stories of what happened to previous recruits who "told" or were "oversensitive," etc, mixed in with offensive comments.

Pretty clear that in such cases one really doesn't have to say stop, because the harassment includes messages underlining the inability of someone to say stop. Then again, if any of the stories are *true,* not too much you can do anyway.

Posted by: evansd66#3f76d | May 15, 2010 7:28 PM

@SC OM - POST #175

> there does seem to be something you're
> Fundamentally not getting

There sure is! If you do get it, can you please explain?

Dylan

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/2iHXmHs5tNP0aY2gFd0_n6Fa5NFvsj3BltZQuDo-#44b66 | May 15, 2010 7:31 PM

I had a strong suspicion even before the extra links were added that this was about sexual harassment. Why? Because two things very characteristic of harassers is, (1) the ability to use ambiguity to their advantage; and (b) an exaggerated sense of victimhood. Dr. Evans' behavior shows both.

Ambiguity = harassers know just how to toe the line while keeping themselves safe. Ambiguous comments or actions that leave you wondering what exactly was meant; or saying something overtly offensive and then saying "just a joke!", etc. On the subway, there are guys who will grope you in a crowd so you don't really know where the hand is coming from - they rely on that uncertainty and on the victim's reluctance to shout out to the entire subway crowd.

Harassers also gravitate to victims they think can't defend themselves - often the less powerful women, or those who are somehow vulnerable (like the subway women). And the ambiguity often (and reasonably) reduces the victim's willingness to confront - that's its main purpose. Harassers will exploit a person's natural politeness, collegiality and other virtues and use those against them.

It is true that there is a grey area between harassment and seriously foolish behavior, and sometimes fools get penalized to excess. But this text is egregious enough that Dr. Evans does not deserve benefit of the doubt.(Especially given prior history, esp. Casanova.)

I also have a feeling that many of the people here who are defending Evans would no way, no how circulate that article to coworkers or other non-intimates in their own lives. They should examine that disconnect. Context, as others have pointed out, is everything. I haven't heard anyone say the article constitutes harassment here on Pharyngula, for instance.

in my experience, people who haven't been harassed or discriminated against, and can't imagine themselves being harassed or discriminated against, have a hard time imagining what it's like, or the damage it could do, both to individuals and also institutions such as "Academic Freedom."

Hillary

Posted by: Dr Van Nostrand | May 15, 2010 7:37 PM

@Hillary #220

That article doesn't constitute harassment in any but the most extreme cases ("Want to try this later, baby?"). And if it does make someone uncomfortable, the mature and rational response would be to communicate that fact to the other party.

Posted by: echidna | May 15, 2010 7:40 PM

Politeness is a two-edged sword. It allows us to function as a society, but it also leads to situations like this, and some of the religious vs education wars we are having.

I think that politeness needs to be tempered with forthrightness. Excess politeness is a problem in itself, because the natural feedback mechanisms that damp anti-social behaviour are blocked.

Posted by: cousinavi | May 15, 2010 7:48 PM

@ Hillary

Ambiguity = harassers know just how to toe the line while keeping themselves safe. Ambiguous comments or actions that leave you wondering what exactly was meant; or saying something overtly offensive and then saying "just a joke!", etc. On the subway, there are guys who will grope you in a crowd so you don't really know where the hand is coming from - they rely on that uncertainty and on the victim's reluctance to shout out to the entire subway crowd.

Harassers know?
The presumption that anything done by Dr. Evans was in any way intentional is simply not borne out by the evidence of either the complainant, Dr. Evans, or the report from the investigators.
Making this argument demonstrates the bias you bring to the discussion, and therefore the value of your comment.

Groping on a subway train is not harassment. It is sexual ASSAULT. Conflating the two is disingenuous at best, and contemptible at worst.

There is no reason whatsoever, especially in the context of the previous discussion between the principals regarding whether or not oral sex for pleasure exists in animals, to argue that you would not circulate such an article to "others".
Evans is NOT accused of running about campus, accosting total strangers, thrusting the article in their faces and yammering about how bats give head...is he?
He is accused of HARASSING a colleague (an assertion that is disposed of by the complainants own evidence that she NEVER advised him - not once - that ANY of his comments caused discomfort) by presenting a peer reviewed article directly related to a previous debate (which they both acknowledge) - an article he showed to other colleagues about the same time.
Is it your contention that Evans was sexually harassing EVERYONE? Or just covering up his unrestrained desire to harass this one colleague by showing the same article to other interested professionals who were involved in the debate?

Arguing about "What harassers do" has no more value in this narrow instance than arguing about what false accusers do - especially so when you then twist and imagine facts to support your predisposition, and drag issues of assault into the mix.

Ambiguous comments, indeed. If the comment is ambiguous, Evans is entitled to the benefit of the doubt - a legal principal universities would do well to acknowledge, as would the complainant in THIS instance.

Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe | May 15, 2010 7:50 PM

I have the ability to offend with the best of any offenders!

but you'd have to be wilfully ignorant to think that for example sexually explicit comments directed at a woman have the same effect as when they're directed at a man.

As for there being no such thing as turning social harassment around, directed up the social gradient, you are simply wrong. Check out the works of people like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, or Harvey Milk.

Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas | May 15, 2010 7:53 PM

It is important to reiterate that Dr Evans, like everyone else accused of wrongdoing, is entitled to a PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE. He is innocent until proven guilty. A lot of people above, particularly Hillary, seem to be forgetting or disregarding this.

Posted by: dutchdoc | May 15, 2010 7:57 PM

More documents pertaining to this case were added:
See:

Posted by: dutchdoc | May 15, 2010 7:59 PM

#232: Something went wrong: link

Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas | May 15, 2010 8:00 PM

But this text is egregious enough that Dr. Evans does not deserve benefit of the doubt.

Everyone is entitled, as of right, to "the benefit of the doubt". Especially when their professional reputation and career is on the line. This is a fundamental principle of justice. The onus is on the accuser, not the accused, to make his or her case.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 8:03 PM

Again - why are you failing to acknowledge that Dylan has state multiple times this was part of an ongoing conversation (academic) between the two of them? Why are you presenting it as if it were out of the blue and "unrelated."

If you simply don't believe Dylan's claim, then you should say that, but you have an obligation to at least acknowledge that he has stated that it has a context.

He's provided no evidence of the alleged context, and I've asked him about the specific relevance of the article several times.

Posted by: JustALurker | May 15, 2010 8:06 PM

Had she made an argument that is related to it (i.e., specifically about the uniqueness of human sexual practices)?

He addressed this in comment 189

SC OM: The complainant had specifically stated to me a few weeks before I showed her the paper that animals don't engage in sex for pleasure.

The fact that sex lasts longer when the female performs fellatio while having sex suggests that it's for pleasure. Since for reproduction all he has to is get in, cum and get out. It doesn't need to take that long, and he doesn't necessarily need it to be licked since the bats still reproduce when fellatio isn't performed.

This is of course, if you believe him. I just wanted to point this out. In case you missed it so you may address this and what ever concerns you may have with this.

Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official | May 15, 2010 8:10 PM

He's provided no evidence of the alleged context, and I've asked him about the specific relevance of the article several times.

What evidence do you want? A tape recording? A video? What could he produce that would satisfy you? Seriously - what are you asking for?

The relevance of the article is obvious, SC. If they were indeed having a debate about whether only humans have sex for pleasure, it's entirely plausible that someone would view an article describing bat fellatio during intercourse as an argument against that proposition. A complete argument? No. Open to debate? Yes.

But you're not even willing to grant that it's an appropriate starting point. And I think that's unreasonable - obviously unreasonable, and an indication of bias on your part.

Posted by: JustALurker | May 15, 2010 8:11 PM

@240

Ah, sorry. Clearly, this was already pointed to you and addressed. I didn't refresh the page as I was reading through. Apologies.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 8:20 PM

SC - I must strenuously disagree with you, and while not meaning to be provocative or insulting, it really does seem to me that you're inclined to believe there was something inappropriate going on, and you're listening to that inclination and not so much to the evidence.

The evidence suggests inappropriate behavior.

Dylan clearly posted an email from the complainant that she sent to him after one of the alleged incidents. He is correct that that is not the sort of email (it's friendly and social) that one sends if one thinks one has been sexually harassed by the recipient of the email. I don't see how anyone could reasonably disagree with that.

It seems to be inviting him and his girlfriend to join a group table at a professional event, though it's a bit confusing.

You are questioning Dylan's motives so intensely and in such detail in a way that makes it look like you are fundamentally suspicious about how he presented this article,

I'm asking him questions.

simply because it's sexual. You seem to be requiring that there must be extremely specific circumstances that must be met if presenting the article is not to be seen as inherently inappropriate.

Yes. A male casually presenting an article about fellatio to a female colleague should be well considered, and in many cases is highly problematic. It should be approached as such, and only done carefully and with very good justification.

I'm sorry, but that smuggles in an unspoken assumption that Dylan behaved sexually inappropriately. That has not been established, and indeed, the evidence argues against that.

? Male sexual references directed to women should not be assumed to be innocent.

But I think you're being most unreasonable here, and quite unfair. As much as I hate to say this, it looks very plain that you are strongly biased to see this as a sexual harassment incident, and that you're working very, very hard not to give Dylan the benefit of the doubt.

There is no substance here.

Posted by: cousinavi | May 15, 2010 8:22 PM

@ Walton

Natural justice and fairness require that it is for the accuser, not the accused, to prove his or her case

As I hope I made clear, I am in perfect agreement with your argument. I merely point out that it doesn't carry the day in practice...in far too many places - France (and Quebec), for example.
Civil Codes often impose the burden of proof on the accused, even in criminal trials.
And, practically speaking, the accusation is enough to destroy Evan's career. The charge will run in 20 point type on the front page. The verdict which clears him will appear on page B-17 beneath an article on the beans and pancake fundraiser for the local volunteer fire brigade.
Justice truly is blind...just not in the way one hopes.

Posted by: windy | May 15, 2010 8:32 PM

I also have a feeling that many of the people here who are defending Evans would no way, no how circulate that article to coworkers or other non-intimates in their own lives. They should examine that disconnect.

Er, shouldn't you ascertain that a disconnect exists first? I have forwarded articles on animal sex to colleagues when it was only tangentially related to anything we had discussed. I don't see a problem with forwarding this one.

I've also forwarded this article to coworkers as a joke after we discussed communicating science - did I harass them?

How (not) to communicate new scientific information: a memoir of the famous Brindley lecture

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 8:33 PM

The claim that he has provided no evidence of context is simply wrong, and in the face of the clear and obvious evidence to the contrary, simply stubbornly obtuse.

You're an idiot. The specific context.

What evidence do you want? A tape recording? A video? What could he produce that would satisfy you? Seriously - what are you asking for?

So you have only his word - coming late in the game (appears in none of the documents) - and that's sufficient? Nothing else required?

The relevance of the article is obvious, SC. If they were indeed having a debate about whether only humans have sex for pleasure, it's entirely plausible that someone would view an article describing bat fellatio during intercourse as an argument against that proposition. A complete argument? No. Open to debate? Yes.

Again, this claim has suddenly appeared (and doesn't explain his showing the article to all and sundry), but a) there's no evidence of this specific debate, and b) the study doesn't show anything relevant to the issue of uniqueness in having sex for pleasure.

But you're not even willing to grant that it's an appropriate starting point. And I think that's unreasonable - obviously unreasonable, and an indication of bias on your part.

The claim isn't that it's a starting point. If it were, it would be a totally inappropriate one in context. It's that it's a midway point.

Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives | May 15, 2010 8:36 PM

I don't think the complaint has anything to do with the paper itself, or with communicating with other scientists about research. It's about whether or not he engaged in a pattern of sexual harassment (intended or not) and whether the way in which he presented himself to her when he handed her the paper was part of that pattern. It's not about the paper. It's about the attitude. And that's what none of us have any idea of. We don't know if he said it with a Pythonesque wink-wink-nudge-nudge. We don't know if he said it straight. We don't know if she was feeling more and more harassed day after day. We don't know if she tried to tell him and he didn't listen, or if she never said a word, or if it never bothered her until that very moment and she snapped. But it really has nothing to do with the paper itself, or with sharing academic information.

Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe | May 15, 2010 8:40 PM

So yes, I seriously think that the work of these great leaders ended up reversing a great majority of the harassment they were fighting against. For example it is now socially acceptable in America to ridicule and harass the bigots in the KKK and others like them.what the fuck does that have to do with workplace harassment?

the three men you've mentioned had to put extreme energies into their work; fighting harrasment was pretty much their full-time job; two of them spend a long time in prison for it; two got shot for their effort.

OTOH, the David Dukes of the world are not being imprisoned or shot. Clearly, the harassment was not equally reversed.

And it can be done even less so when fighting harassment is not your job, but interferes with your job, instead. That's precisely why we need structural means of making the fight easier: because not every member of a minority should have to be willing to make MLK's sacrifices, just to not get harassed at work.

Posted by: John Morales | May 15, 2010 8:47 PM

[meta]

Bologna @251, I find your comment indistinguishable from an effort at trolling.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 8:50 PM

He showed the article to colleagues with whom he had previously had a discussion about the existence of oral sex within animal populations. There's your context...

Even he doesn't claim this.

Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe | May 15, 2010 8:56 PM

Not being a woman I have no idea what the effect is compared to what it is being a man. I speculate about the effects on the opposite sex. So do you. We obviously have come to different conclusions about our speculations.

Posted by: cousinavi | May 15, 2010 9:00 PM

@ SC OM

An idiot, eh?

Well...since "behavioral science" is your field, I may clearly then, as an attorney with some experience in such quasi-legal proceedings, easily dismiss your boneheaded, stubborn, obtuse, myopic refusal to deal with the facts - you know, THE EVIDENCE.

There WAS context for the sharing of the article. It was stated at the outset of this post, and reiterated in numerous comments and a variety of forms throughout. That you insistently refuse to grant that context renders everything else you say immaterial as it does not take into account the stipulated facts.

And, since your non-existent legal education has left you quite pathetically unaware of the what the word harassment means, allow me to do you the courtesy of some free advice:
Harassment is REPEATED behaviour SUBSEQUENT TO a demand that said behaviour stop.
Since your "victim", by her own admission, never once asked Dr. Evans to stop; never once advised him that sharing peer reviewed articles on animal sexual behaviour would cross her sensitive boundaries; never once advised him that his comments about gambling, Casanova, hugs, cheek kisses or friendly visits to her office made her IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM UNCOMFORTABLE, there is - BY DEFINITION - no harassment here.

So, I'm sure by now you have a fine idea about what you can do with your ignorant, moronic, myopic, stunted, biased, twisted little shit rain name-calling crap. And THAT ain't harassment, either...even IF you ask me to stop for offending you. THAT, my friend, is nothing more than fair comment in the face of insistent stupidity. Or, rather more pointedly, get fucked.

Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe | May 15, 2010 9:07 PM

cousinavi, I'm not under the impression that SC is challenging the findings of the external investigation, i.e. not arguing that a legal instance of harassment occurred. Rather, the discussion is about the second part of the findings, and about whether monitoring is justified based on the context surrounding the incident.

Posted by: Ken | May 15, 2010 9:10 PM

Jadehawk, OM #258

I'm disturbed that you think we need to shoot those who we disagree with just to "equalize" past injustices. I've been arguing that we should resolve such problems in an open forum of ideas. I see now that you are more dangerous.

We no longer need to make the supreme efforts those people gave to us precisely because of their efforts. They have already done the hardest work and made the sacrifices precisely to make it easier on us now.

Is the fight over? No, of course not. But if you think that someone calling you a name at work is the same level of injustice as not being allowed to even be hired because of your race, or being shot for your sexual orientation, then you have a seriously skewed world view.

Go ahead and believe that your fight against name calling involves the same epic hardships that were faced by MLK et al. I suggest wearing a cape and tights while doing it.

Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe | May 15, 2010 9:14 PM

I'm disturbed that you think we need to shoot those who we disagree with just to "equalize" past injustices.

Go ahead and believe that your fight against name calling involves the same epic hardships that were faced by MLK et al. I suggest wearing a cape and tights while doing it.

If you're not even going to argue honestly anymore, just go fuck yourself.

Posted by: cousinavi | May 15, 2010 9:25 PM

@ Jadehawk

Posted by: SC OM He showed the article to colleagues with whom he had previously had a discussion about the existence of oral sex within animal populations. There's your context...

Even he doesn't claim this.

From the very top of the page - where PZ initiated this thread - contained in a letter written by Dr. Evans (the respondent in this shameful and disgusting little witch hunt):

The colleague to whom I showed the article complained to HR that the article was upsetting. I had been engaged in an ongoing debate with the colleague in question about the relevance of evolutionary biology to human behaviour, and in particular about the dubiousness of many claims for human uniqueness. I showed it the colleague in the context of this discussion, and in the presence of a third person. I also showed the article to over a dozen other colleagues on the same day, none of whom objected.

The stubborn nature of SC OM's refusal to deal with the facts rather than strained hypothetical "what if's" as a basis for argument is a giveaway. I would ignore it, if it weren't for the insistent repetition of such blithering ignorance.

Context? The context is that a baseless accusation which failed to meet the barest minimum threshold somehow made it to an investigatory stage, at which the respondent was exonerated. Despite that finding, sanctions are being applied, apparently based on an erroneous conclusion reached by incompetent methods (see failure to interview alleged witness / third party present at time of alleged offensive dissemination of bat sex paper).

SC OM is entitled to his or her views on harassment generally, and perfectly entitled to express that ignorance in any public forum he or she most prefers. However, SC OM is NOT entitled to disregard inconvenient facts in making that argument, nor should they assume that calling people names when it is pointed out that SC OM hasn't got the foggiest first clue what the hell he or she is talking about is the sort of thing that passes without comment.

So it goes.

Posted by: David Marjanović | May 15, 2010 9:30 PM

I find this all very confusing, with the contradictory testimonials and all. The interpretation I find most likely is somewhere along the lines of comments 175 and 191, the "clueless about boundaries" thing, with Dr Evans engaging in unfettered flirting (or worse) while honestly believing he was just chatting among friends (of unspecified and irrelevant gender). If something like this is about correct, "counseling and monitoring" are absolutely necessary so he learns to figure out how he comes across, while I still don't need to be ashamed of my signature, which I naïvely submitted before I even started to read the comments.

* * * * *

Wait a minute ... they "don't know why genital licking occurs."?

Those people need to get out of the lab once in a while.

Read again where exactly the bats lick. Are you sensitive in those places? Really?

And people fucking think that saying something "creepy" is a serious issue? A serious power inequality? Really?

This kind of shit really blinds people to REAL issues of inequality in academia.

NO. Ignoring "this kind of shit" and letting it slide is what creates the kind of environment that indicates to jerks that it is ok to practice more blatant forms of discrimination.

Repeated for truth.

Kissing a grad student on the forehead? Either he thinks he can openly flirt from a position of power – or he believes the grad student is his little baby, and that's not much better, even though both sexual and romantic interest are absent under that interpretation.

On the one hand she seems to be complaining that I was “manipulating” her to establish himself in a good light with her husband. Yet on the other hand she accuses Dr Evans of sexual harassment. Such a combination is surely unlikely to say the least.

Why?

And why do you suddenly switch to speaking of yourself in the 3^rd person?

Dylan clearly posted an email from the complainant that she sent to him after one of the alleged incidents. He is correct that that is not the sort of email (it's friendly and social) that one sends if one thinks one has been sexually harassed by the recipient of the email. I don't see how anyone could reasonably disagree with that.

<pft> It could all be faked. Everyone can write something and pretend it's an e-mail they got.

Obviously, the same holds for the complaint, and indeed Dr Evans has said above that the complainant is not telling the truth when she writes she was alone with him in her office and when she writes he hugged her at another occasion.

I don't see how I could take sides about who is telling (more?) lies here, or who suffers from (more?) false memories, or whatever. See also comment 256.

While I am at it, it's possible the complainant didn't speak up for very long because she thought it would be impolite, or perhaps an overreaction, or the putative harrassment would stop on its own if she merely didn't egg Dr Evans on, and then she snapped. But this still wouldn't get us rid of all the contradictions.

Of course, if he is cursed with heterosexuality, a man will want to interact with women from outside his immediate family, but these women should always be vetted by his mother, and he should not touch a woman or speak to a woman until after the marriage formalities are completed.

Come on. If nothing else, he knew full well she was married.

Posted by: cousinavi | May 15, 2010 9:31 PM

@ SC

This grows tiresome.

*still nothing explaining how this article about fruit bat licking would be relevant here

In the wake of a previous discussion on the presence or absence of oral sex in animal populations, are you REALLY arguing that a peer reviewed scientific paper showing oral/genital stimulation during coitus in fruit bats IS IRRELEVANT?

Does the depth and breadth of your stubborn, insistent stupidity fail to strike you, or are you simply having some trollish fun?
Clearly, in addition to not comprehending the term harassment, you might want to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the concept of relevance...or you could just STFU.

Posted by: cousinavi | May 15, 2010 9:35 PM

@ Jadehawk

Have a double. It might prevent from you saying clever things like "meta-arguments" and "meta-claims".

Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe | May 15, 2010 9:39 PM

fuck off. show me where evans specifically claimed there was an argument specifically involving more than two persons, specifically about oral sex in animals. if you can't you're having a meta-argument, not an argument about what is actually being said.

Posted by: Ken | May 15, 2010 9:40 PM

Jadehawk, OM #272:

I never suggested that all harassment is, or should be equal. I said that harassment could be turned back against bigots, just as great leaders have done in the past. You said that was impossible.

I don't recall where MLK et al talked about how their fight didn't apply to the workplace. As far as I can tell they were fighting against oppression both in and out of the workplace. I don't see how anyone would believe that the work, sacrifices and struggle of these leaders can't apply to workplace harassment.

Unless, of course, JadeHawkman wants to make his personal struggle seem more heroic by downplaying the achievements of previous heroes.

And, since I don't have a date tonight, I may indeed masturbate later, but that won't be because I think I'm no longer arguing honestly.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 15, 2010 9:42 PM

Evans is a psychologist/philosopher. He doesn't study animal behavior. The particular coital habits of Chinese fruit-bats were nevertheless interesting enough to him that he showed the article about these habits to over a dozen colleagues in one day--colleagues on the faculty of the School of Medicine and Health, not themselves engaged in comparative sexual-behavior research.
How is this about "academic freedom"?

It's about a guy who got perhaps too big a kick out of the fruit-bat-fellatio thing.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | May 15, 2010 9:47 PM

Having read all the documents and the thread, I still think that we don't know what actually happened and that this thread is turning into some sort of weird parlor comedies written by David Mamet. On balance, I tend to think the administration acted inappropriately in not interviewing the person present in the office, not providing an appeals process, and requiring intensive monitoring over a single incident.

On the other hand, Dr. Evans has given sufficient information in his postings for anyone with decent google-fu to identify his accuser and make her life miserable (female, temporary faculty in his department at his university, originally from a Latin country, married to someone in his university's administration, both now at another university in another country). I question whether launching an online campaign was really the most sensible or effective way to respond to the situation - Dr. Evans has generated a huge amount of attention that may damage both his own reputation and that of his accuser. If I were his current or a prospective future employer, I'd be very cautious about further dealings.

Or, as the Bible says, "they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7). (I've always wondered if I'd ever have a chance to say that, but it seems made for interactions on the internet.)

Posted by: broboxley OT | May 15, 2010 9:57 PM

@PZ #250 sure, talk about it within the circle of behavioral folk, not to the engineering or IT departments.

Posted by: David Marjanović | May 15, 2010 9:59 PM

JadeHawkman [...] his

Ehem.

You're new here. :-)

Posted by: Bologna Pogna | May 15, 2010 9:59 PM

@ Marjanovic, post #276

Come on. If nothing else, he knew full well she was married.

Of course he did. You've misread my post. I was saying that there are, sadly, some unfortunates who are handicapped with a congenital predilection for those of the opposite sex, and that some concession has to be made to enable these sad cases to act upon their proclivities - however dangerous, depraved and ill-advised these proclivities may appear to normally-constituted persons.

However, as you point out, this woman has already formed a pair-bond with another man. Evans, therefore, had absolutely no reason to be interacting with her in any way that went beyond the bare minimum of intercourse imposed on him by the fact of their being co-workers. And anyway, even if this woman had been available for marriage, it would have been unwise to approach her directly, rather than by proxy, through his mother or another trustworthy female relative (e.g., grandmother, aunt, especially trustworthy older sister).

It is totally mystifying to me why Evans chose to place his head in this lioness's mouth so blithely, and with so little thought for the possible - indeed, almost inevitable - consequences. It is ALWAYS dangerous for a man to speak to a woman, to enter a woman's home or office, to look at a woman, or to come close to a woman. Had Evans been wiser, he would have limited his interactions with this woman - and all women outside his family - to the bare minimum. Instead, like many fond fools before him, he gambled with his career and livelihood by trying to strike up a 'friendship' with a creature as dangerous to him as a scorpion or a cobra - a creature that is prone to, as the commenter named Carlie has pointed out, 'snap' without warning, and at the slightest provocation. He is now paying the price, and, as I've said, gets no sympathy from me.

Posted by: superheadcat | May 15, 2010 10:04 PM

Can we somehow put bologna in the dungeon, please?

Posted by: Bologna Pogna | May 15, 2010 10:08 PM

superheadcat, can you deny that if Evans had followed the protocols I suggest, he would not now be in the unfortunate position in which he finds himself? Why attempt to handle safely a volatile compound, when you have the option of not handling it at all?

Posted by: cousinavi | May 15, 2010 10:15 PM

Cheap editing. Your stock in trade appears to be ignoring context.

My advice stands: Stick to fruit bat blowjobs.

Ignoramus.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 15, 2010 10:17 PM

It's a common misconception that all behavioral-sciences laboratories specialize in watching fruit-bats boink. And taking notes. It's not true. The number of behavioral-sciences laboratories engaged in comparative sexual-technique research in any taxa other than primates and rats and mice and, of course, ducks has dwindled in recent years, and the number of labs willing to take on the challenge of fruit-bat voyeurism for uncertain reward is fewer still. For every lucky observation of fellatio that gets you published in PLOS One (well, and plus the money you have to pay), there are months and even years of coy getting-to-know-you bullshit to deal with with the damn fruit-bats. Plus the IACUCs are coming down harder on bat-sex studies anyway. Who needs it?

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 10:18 PM

And if there were stated evidence that they had such a discussion, you'd flip back onto "How does bat behaviour relate to human behaviour?"...and, if there were evidence that they had specifically debated bat versus human oral sex practices...what then?

I've asked Evans specific questions. If there were convincing evidence of the latter, it would be a very different scenario. Obviously. That's why I'm asking.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 10:24 PM

cousinavi,

What is your defense of Evan's popping into his female colleague's office (ignoring for the moment his broader trumpeting) with a demand for a response to this? Be very specific.

***

and, of course, ducks

Sluts.

Posted by: jemand | May 15, 2010 10:30 PM

come to think of it though... claiming that the article was delivered with initially a preface of "oral sex would be a strange claim of human exceptionalism" and then much later in the discussion stating that the complainant had brought up the issue of sex for pleasure herself...

Sort of seems rather inconsistent.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 10:37 PM

@SC OM I think it's pretty healthy, in these cases, to begin with a strong prejudice in favor of the woman complaining - if only to counterbalance society's tendency to do the opposite.

Not what I've argued.

This is particularly reasonable, as in this case, when the institution in question has found fault with the accused man. But I'm wondering if you've properly considered just now narrow the finding of fault is, in comparison to the initial accusation, because your commentary here seems to indicate otherwise.

?

Since you've examined the final report, is it fair to presume that you believe it was inappropriate for Evans to show the paper to the other eleven people with whom he shared it?

More than eleven. I've questioned why he did that.

university's finding - to which you affirm your unwavering support -

WTF?

firm the presence of an actionable pattern of harassment against the complainant.

Huh? Have you read my posts?

ngdoing which Evans is being held liable for is his alleged joking delivery of this paper to the complainant (while she was "alone," to boot) which he of course disputes.

This incident, in context, is what's being discussed.

illing to bet my left testicle (whoops, I made a sexual reference in your presence; good thing we aren't coworkers, or I would only keep my job at your sufferance) that in hundreds of offices across the planet readers of Pharyngula saw this article posted and made entirely inappropriate jokes to their coworkers in the process of distributing it.

Inappropriate is inappropriate. Telling.

s have already spoken up about their efforts to distribute the article around their workplace. Given your standards, it is a travesty of justice that none of them shall be held to account for this.

?

[Strange cutoffs of the beginning of quotes.]

Posted by: cousinavi | May 15, 2010 10:41 PM

And, to put my previous post in context, there had been (according to Dr. Evans...despite your refusal to acknowledge his evidence) and ongoing debate about the importance of evolutionary biology - which, being a lawyer and NOT a biologist, I may only ASSUME involves sex and mating habits in some degree - in the CONTEXT (feel free to look that word up) of human exceptionalism or uniqueness.

No, I don't have transcripts of each and every utterance exchanged between the two parties, or with anyone else.
Neither do you.
Nevertheless, it would seem on its face, that a peer reviewed scientific article demonstrating animal sexual behaviour that might be considered uniquely human, would at least in some remote way, be connected to such a discussion.
Your insistence that there must have been some prurient motive on the part of Evans is, frankly, shameful and demonstrates the same pathetic sort of bias that apparently led one of the "investigators" to label the article "smutty".
Your repetitive claims that there was no basis for him to share this article - no context whatsoever - is simply false.
Your stubborn ignorance of the LAW, especially in the Commonwealth, regarding claims of harassment renders your judgment on the propriety of the process and the sanctions imposed utterly without foundation.
Your childish name calling in the face of evidence which contradicts your position clearly and unequivocally demonstrates your character, and your hackish editing of my comments to attack my credibility without any foundation whatsoever renders you moot.

Now, there MUST be some mammal up to something lickish, wet and disgusting you need to object to somewhere.
Don't let me detain you any longer.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 10:43 PM

Care to try again?

I asked him about this specifically. His use of the conditional here doesn't work on his behalf. If you want to asnswer my questions, feel free.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 10:53 PM

the Journal of Behavioral Sciences

Aha. :P

there had been (according to Dr. Evans...despite your refusal to acknowledge his evidence) and ongoing debate about the importance of evolutionary biology - which, being a lawyer and NOT a biologist, I may only ASSUME involves sex and mating habits in some degree - in the CONTEXT (feel free to look that word up) of human exceptionalism or uniqueness.

No, I don't have transcripts of each and every utterance exchanged between the two parties, or with anyone else.

Nor will you address anything substantive. No evidence. So STFU, assclam.

Posted by: cousinavi | May 15, 2010 11:01 PM

Refusal to acknowledge that your question has been answered, ought not have been asked in the first place IF you had bothered to READ, and stubbornly insisting on repeating the same imbecilic query again and again only increases the contempt in which you are already held.

Perhaps I shouldn't have asked if you care to try again. Clearly you will, no matter what evidence is presented.
While there's something to be said for persistence, there's a fine line between keeping at it and beating your head against the wall.
The difference between you and I is that while I recognize that boundary and will no longer waste my time trying to counter your obtuse bullshit with facts, evidence and reason, you will go on insisting that Evans (and everyone else) has failed to address the issues you degrade with embarrassing semantic gamesmanship.

The conditional, eh? I got your conditional right here:
IF you had the brains got gave fruit bats, you would have shut the fuck up a long time ago.

Res ipsa loquitur, asshole.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 11:06 PM

@ #317 and #318:

There's a distinct lack of substance in your posts.

Posted by: nastasie | May 15, 2010 11:14 PM

@ SC

Okay, my bad. I was under the impression that she had admitted to having had this discussion with Evans prior to the article incident. I reread the documents and couldn't find anything stating that she had admitted this. It seems we only have Evans' word on it, and you're requesting hard evidence, if I understand correctly.

As for your question mark, I guess my phrasing wasn't very clear (it's late and my English tends to get jumbled when I'm tired). What I meant was that if you assumed the investigators were right and there had been no previous misconduct on Evans' part, and that the two of them had been debating the topic, then the situation would be analogous to the one I described. But now I guess you can argue that that's a lot of assuming, so ok.

As for the evidence being in favour of Evans, the investigators themselves cited emails that raised serious doubts about the complainant's claims. And in her formal complaint, she either misrepresented or misunderstood the mentions of gambling and Casanova (and this could have been cleared up had she not refused a mediated meeting).

Posted by: Cath the Canberra Cook | May 15, 2010 11:17 PM

Cousinavi,
My stats are from a long ago criminology class, not specifically feminist, and it's possible they have been superseded. It's certainly hard to measure.

But the Innocence Project does not in any way speak to that. It is not at all about false complaints - it is about the entirely different question of false convictions. A person being wrongfully convicted of murder or rape in no way demonstrates that the rape or murder did not happen at all. There was DNA there to be tested, after all! Almost all of the project's rape exonerations were due to eyewitness misidentifications, not "she made it all up".

Your remarks on sexual assault come across as either callous or ignorant. The routine harassment of women student by whistles, catcalls, yelled sexual suggestions and so on is just that, sexual harassment. I'd be very amazed if the reported prevalence of that was any less than 95%. Physical sexual assault? Well, I've had a very lucky and sheltered life and have only been physically sexually assaulted a few times. Three times before senior high school, and I stopped counting after that because it was too common. But luckily I had nothing worse than random unsolicited grabbing.

In order for me NOT to give the woman the benefit of the doubt at a first look, you'd have to claim that the false report rate was remarkably high. You have a choice between two parties lying. Which one is more likely to be the liar? Taking a standard Bayesian approach, the odds are pretty good that it's the man. Of course it's a probability, not a certainty, and additional evidence can (and did) change my estimate.

Posted by: nescientist | May 15, 2010 11:22 PM

SC, thank you for suffering through my long-winded yet insubstantial posts. I am humbled before the masterful concision with which you can respond in whole to this:

I think it's pretty healthy, in these cases, to begin with a strong prejudice in favor of the woman complaining - if only to counterbalance society's tendency to do the opposite. This is particularly reasonable, as in this case, when the institution in question has found fault with the accused man. But I'm wondering if you've properly considered just now narrow the finding of fault is, in comparison to the initial accusation, because your commentary here seems to indicate otherwise. Since you've examined the final report, is it fair to presume that you believe it was inappropriate for Evans to show the paper to the other eleven people with whom he shared it? Because the university's finding - to which you affirm your unwavering support - does not confirm the presence of an actionable pattern of harassment against the complainant. The only wrongdoing which Evans is being held liable for is his alleged joking delivery of this paper to the complainant (while she was "alone," to boot) which he of course disputes. I would be willing to bet my left testicle (whoops, I made a sexual reference in your presence; good thing we aren't coworkers, or I would only keep my job at your sufferance) that in hundreds of offices across the planet readers of Pharyngula saw this article posted and made entirely inappropriate jokes to their coworkers in the process of distributing it. A few posters have already spoken up about their efforts to distribute the article around their workplace. Given your standards, it is a travesty of justice that none of them shall be held to account for this.

With this:

Not what I've argued. / ? / More than eleven. I've questioned why he did that. / WTF? / Huh? Have you read my posts? / This incident, in context, is what's being discussed. /Inappropriate is inappropriate. Telling.

Posted by: mirrorbird | May 15, 2010 11:27 PM

Am I the only one here who wants to get into a nitpicky discussion about whether fellatio, bat-style, would be halachically permissible, seeing as how the male penetrates the female while being fellated and presumably does not waste any seed? Pretty sure they never covered this in the tosafos.

Posted by: Moose | May 15, 2010 11:39 PM

I signed it-and left this comment:

Having worked in Research myself (Argonne National Laboratories in the US) I can state that I've seen this pattern before. Simply, someone using the system for personal (monetary?) gain by making baseless accusations against a Co-worker involving that thing called SEX. In this case-not even sex directly-but of another species? In a peer-reviewed journal?

Sadly, these incidents usually follow the pattern indicated in this case; a female worker accuses a male Co-worker of badly-defined "impropriety", and demanding sanction. Even if exonerated, the accused’s career is damaged as a result.

And the accuser? They get to paint themselves as a victim despite the total lack of evidence of victimisation. If they win-they advance. If they loose-they still get to claim the moral high ground, and will be treated with undeserved “respect” in the future. What they actually get is a free pass to advance based upon fear.

I can only suggest a trial of BOTH the victim and the accused-with the sanction that the loser be dismissed.

This is sad. I thought that within the halls of academia I'd see behaviour more appropriate to those of learning-not the "he said-she said" whining more typical of Judge Judy.

Do the right thing; fully and aggressively investigate the claims. If true-sanction the accused. If false-sanction the accuser equally.

Sums it up nicely.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 11:45 PM

@ SC

I forgot to mention that I came up with that scenario because it seemed to me that your objection was that the article was outright irrelevant to a discussion of human sexual behaviour.

What?

See previous posts #199, #213, #245, #278, #293, and #307 for arguments specifically referencing or quoting directly from the testimony and evidence in the matter at hand.

Admittedly, #199 was fictitious comedy,

You're a fucking fictitious comedy.

but it was funny

No.

and I take this opportunity to draw fresh attention to it. The rest either directly quote or specifically reference the evidence in Evans' written exchanges with the university, the investigation itself, the responses thereto, or comments from Evans IN THIS THREAD, including but not limited to the letter initially posted by PZ.

#307 amounts to clear evidence that any assertion that I refuse to deal with the evidence, or that my position lacks substance, is simply obtuse, myopic horseshit presented by a hack editing, quote mining, distorting, no context, lying piece of shit whose sole argument seems to be repeating, "That doesn't answer my question" linked with a stubborn refusal to acknowledge either facts, context or specific responses.

I encourage reasonable people to read the thread.

SC, thank you for suffering through my long-winded yet insubstantial posts. I am humbled before the masterful concision with which you can respond in whole to this:

?

Look, I'm trying to have a conversation with Dylan Evans. I think he's being kind of willfully obtuse and boorish. And clueless, in this context. That's it.

Posted by: SC OM | May 15, 2010 11:57 PM

So the Innocence Project has fuck-all to do with this case.

Posted by: nescientist | May 16, 2010 12:01 AM

Like, the earth is going to complete its orbit of the sun twice before Evans is through being reminded of this event every time he censors himself for safety's sake in the presence of a woman at the university. Doubtless this will be an opportunity for much-needed personal growth. I agree with SC that he should have admitted some culpability in violating his colleague's boundaries even though he may have been unaware they existed. I even find it a little odd that he

But this lesson could have been taught without creating an adversarial, punitive relationship between Evans and the President or HR department - and by extension, between Evans (and men like him who read this story) and the notion that women ought to enjoy special workplace protections. I believe strongly in this notion, and take issue with draconian edicts like this one that are tar by association the hard-fought battle to maintain just counter-patriarchal policies in the face of the backwards, evil-minded atavistic assholes trying to tear them down.

Posted by: cousinavi | May 16, 2010 12:05 AM

@ SC

It's not all about YOU and the argument YOU want to have ALL THE TIME.

Myopic, stubborn, semantic games may amuse you all day, but just once in awhile, some people direct comments directly to others without your fucking written permission.

Got it, fuckwit?

Now, go on back to insisting that no one ever answers your questions, refers to evidence, or might possibly manage to understand the depth and breadth of your ankle-deep insights and unreasonable demands.

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 12:16 AM

@ SC

It's not all about YOU

YES it IS. ME ME ME ME ME ME ME.

[I'm sure everyone's now distracted from the issue at hand.]

Posted by: mirrorbird | May 16, 2010 12:24 AM

@broboxley In order to accurately recreate the pteropine scenario, I have to envision a man, a woman, and some serious acrobatics. Third parties are not canon.

Jeri: This is not teabaggery. Not only is the bats' sexual custom decidedly penetrative, but there is no manipulation of the male's scrotum, which would kind of be the point.

Then again, no mention has been made of the bats' political affiliation so it's possible the label might still apply.

Posted by: nastasie | May 16, 2010 12:28 AM

@SC

Look, you questioned the article's relevance to the discussion of human uniqueness a few times, didn't you? So I took it from that that you thought it was inappropriate of Evans to show his colleague that article - otherwise what would have been the point of your questioning the article's relevance to the purported debate? Because in order to conclude that it was irrelevant, one would have to read it, no? Or at least skim through it? So it follows from this that *if* the purported debate had in fact been taking place between them, it would have been at the very least perplexing for her to find the article "disgusting".

(And given that the professor works in the School of Medicine, I find it strange that she would deem the article disgusting in any case.)

That's why I came up with that imaginary scenario, but since the relevance of the article is *not* your main objection, then my imaginary scenario is moot. I'm granting your point.

And I'm slightly groggy right now, so I'll probably regret this in the morning, but I think she should have brought her concerns to Evans' attention (or asked someone to do it, or do it by email - I'm wary of direct confrontation myself, so I understand the difficulty) before going straight to the authorities. Given *her own account*, I find her attitude hard to justify.

But you mentioned above that you're trying to have a conversation with Evans. I hope he provides the answers you want when he gets back online.

Over and out.

Posted by: Dr Van Nostrand | May 16, 2010 12:41 AM

I don't deny his cluelessness. But my other points are valid, regardless of how clueless he may be.

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 12:50 AM

That's why I came up with that imaginary scenario,

There's no need. Let's deal with what we semi-know.

I think she should have brought her concerns to Evans' attention (or asked someone to do it, or do it by email - I'm wary of direct confrontation myself, so I understand the difficulty) before going straight to the authorities.

She went to the Head of School.

Again, I'm not at all in complete knowledge of all of the facts here. I'm going on what's been presented, with a skeptical eye towards the single viewpoint that's been offered.

At this point, Evans, it looks like you're being something of an jerk (she may be, too, but that hasn't been established).

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 12:59 AM

Rob,

I missed some of your comment. Soory.

I think the point that many of us are making is that the University should be careful in handing out career-damaging punishments over what may very well be a misunderstanding.

"Unduly sensitive" gives me pause, as do his comments here.

It's also troubling that mediation was never attempted. Maybe it could have helped, maybe not, but shouldn't it be tried before harsher punishments?

Maybe. I don't know the details, but what has been recommended doesn't seem outrageous.

Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe | May 16, 2010 1:09 AM

If you take that at face value there is no need to punish Dr. Evans at all.

Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official | May 16, 2010 1:18 AM

SC:

In the wake of a previous discussion on the presence or absence of oral sex in animal populations,

I ask for evidence. None is forthcoming.

Again I ask, what evidence would satisfy you? What, specifically? Why are you not also curious about the complainant's evidence? Her story is on the same level as his - something each party is reporting, with no audio/video to back it up. Why aren't you equally dubious or demanding evidence for her account?

Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official | May 16, 2010 1:24 AM

SC:

What is your defense of Evan's popping into his female colleague's office (ignoring for the moment his broader trumpeting) with a demand for a response to this? Be very specific.

Oh come on. Where's your evidence for this, SC? Be specific. You're casting this in the most provocative possible light (and still ignoring/discounting Dylan's contention that this was part of an ongoing conversation) by characterizing it as a nefarious male intrusion into a female colleague's office, agressively "demanding" an answer. And yes, your implication is quite clear. It's just a hair shy of "making stuff up."

Bullshit. Back it up, or stop sexing it up unfairly. You're a brilliant person with an analytical mind, and I honestly respect the hell out of your intellect and values. But you're grinding an axe here, and it's out of line.

Posted by: superheadcat | May 16, 2010 2:30 AM

From the get-go, SC OM seemed highly skeptical about the nature or even the existence of the debate between Dylan and the female faculty member, as well as that this particular paper is pertaining to the debate. I guess that is why s/he relentless pushed for more specific, detailed information about the debate. The existence and nature of the debate obviously is critical here. The perfect match between the article and the debate would seem to me less critical: if the female faculty had pointed out: “we are debating issue xxx, but my understanding of this paper is that it is about issue yyy”, does this indicate Dylan had conducted improper behavior? I don’t think so. But SC OM seemed to think so.

For some reason SC OM had not been satisfied with any response offered so far, to the point that s/he asserted we “have only his word - coming late in the game (appears in none of the documents)”, to which I think the update document list should show his words indeed appear in the document (actually I think Dylan copied the text verbatim from the document); and s/he picked on the term “would be” used by Dylan; and s/he questioned what the female faculty member’s possible “misrepresented or misunderstood the mentions of gambling and Casanova” have to do with other matter (for one, would that not affect her credibility in the complaint?); and s/he concluded that it is established that “Evans, it looks like you're being something of a jerk”.

The investigation indicated that Dylan had inappropriate behavior, but Dylan pointed out there were some key factual omission / inaccuracies in the investigation report. That could very well be a lie, but in that case, Dylan would be far beyond a clueless guy with inappropriate behavior, but a fucking lying SOB, and an extremely stupid one, since he posted all these materials online for the world to see.

SC OM seemed pretty big on being specific. It would be great if s/he could provide a specific analysis regarding how Evans is “being something of a jerk” based on the information presented. Of course s/he may also respond with a single “I encourage reasonable people to read this thread”.

Posted by: Robyn | May 16, 2010 3:16 AM

#190 "Fellatio, also called fellation,[1] is oral sex performed upon the penis. It may be performed to induce orgasm and ejaculation of semen, or it can be used as foreplay prior to vaginal or anal forms of intercourse.

I think licking it while having sex is appropriately called fellatio. I refuse to google that to find out though. I really do not want to see what Rule 34 has in store for results. =)"

Trouble is that in true ladz mag style the idea is spreading that these bats 'give head' or 'do blow jobs'. Hence the problems of not discussing the details and just seeing the initial tabloid-like headline.

People can be very economical with the truth when it comes to manipulating the sexual behaviour and sexual responses of others.
(As anal sex is mentioned here, this is something else that is falsely implied to exist in other species when the only incidences I know of re. male-female sex is two accidental cases with red deer. In one the female died from the injury and in the other the female recovered after months of disablement.)

Posted by: Robyn | May 16, 2010 3:39 AM

#224 "The fact that sex lasts longer when the female performs fellatio while having sex suggests that it's for pleasure. Since for reproduction all he has to is get in, cum and get out. It doesn't need to take that long, and he doesn't necessarily need it to be licked since the bats still reproduce when fellatio isn't performed.

This is of course, if you believe him. I just wanted to point this out. In case you missed it so you may address this and what ever concerns you may have with this"

Wrong Wrong Wrong
It is not for pleasure - at least any pleasure experienced looks to be directly about fertilization success.
What needs to be studied is whether the females can manipulate the male's copulatory behaviour to 'choose' between which sperm is more likely to fertilize their eggs. There is a female biased sex ratio due to females reaching sexual maturity well before males plus resource-defence polygyny. Females also seem to mate sometimes with more than one male.

Sperm depletion is a serious possibility that needs investigation. A female choosing a particular male will want enough sperm and so likely have adaptations to achieve that. If it is the 'wrong male' she wants copulation to be brief, which may mean a smaller amount of sperm and reduced chance of that male fertilizing her eggs if she then mates with a better male and induces more sperm from him by licking the base of his penis during copulation.

If Evans did not attempt this type of debate when he presented the paper to the colleague and had not had this type of full debate with her previously then he was not seriously interested in animal sexual behaviour but was more interested in presenting a ladz mag type of tabloid headline to...well....it seems obvious to me.

Posted by: Robyn | May 16, 2010 4:14 AM

#297 "I just finished watching my Japanese nassas (Nassarius fraterculus) (interesting species name there; "brother anus") snails having an extremely enthusiastic threesome. They split up, then came together in alternate pairs, then went back to the triple pile-on again.

I guess I shouldn't be talking about it.

Come to think of it, I probably shouldn't even be watching such nastiness.

At least I didn't take any photos. This time."

And you would use this to argue what about human sexuality with a married woman you had already achieved (to your mind) some degree of intimacy and sexual tension with - and in the workplace?

Do they use 'love darts' ie those hard sharp darts they stick in each other probably to introduce chemicals into the mate to stop them digesting the sperm rather than use it to fertilize eggs?
Sexual/reproductive conflict is ubiquitous, isn't it, primarily with males trying to overcome female resistence to mating. Even hermaphrodites are in conflict over which sex role they are forced to play - usually they want to be 'male' and not 'female' though sometimes they prefer female, sometimes at least because they use the sperm as a food resource.

Now get that ladz, show it as evidence to the girls that they really ought not be averse to swallowing.

Posted by: Robyn | May 16, 2010 5:13 AM

And the irony of all this is still not being recognized....

Dylan Evans was arguing in general (it apears) and for some time about the relevance of evolutionary biology to human behaviour. This means he was arguing in favour of evolutionary psychology.

This suggests he would believe, even if he did not openly state this here, that 'everything a man does he does to get laid' which is the EP line as expressed by Satoshi Kanazawa of the LSE.

He would also, thanks to the EP insight of Steven Pinker, know that males have evolved to take sexual risks and to interpret lack of interest from a female as sexual interest. Also from Pinker he would know the degree of self-deception that occurs in males re. their self-interest in sexual matters.

And from the EP of Robert Wright he would know that female evolved sexual psychology means that men and women have very different responses to sex and sex-talk with a 'reasonable woman', as Wright says, having a very different response from a 'reasonable man' due to sound evolutionary reasons.

As Griet Vandermassen (a feminist evolutionary biologist) puts it, there are sex differences in erotophilia ie positive emotions towards sex. Evolutionary psychology is about nothing if it is not about sex differences resulting fron asymmetrical reproductive roles of the sexes. These things have been discussed for decades by eg. Bateman, Parker, and most recently all the research into sexual conflict eg by Goren Arnqvist.

So the whole point of evolutionary psychology - applying information from evolutionary biology to humans - is meant to be the acknowledgement that yes, men are likely to sexually harass women and also are likely to not see it as harassment because they have evolved 'blocks' towards sexual rejection and they either knowingly manipulate or have traits to cause them not to be able to see the self-interested and sexually manipulative reality of their own behaviour.

So, is it only me who gets the irony here? Evans should be pleased that the actual outcome has been a fine example of evolutionary psychology for everyone to see, and the only problem seems to be that he was not objective enough to be able to predict the outcome from the start.

Perhaps, as someone mentioned earlier, this has in fact been an EP experiment after all? :)

Posted by: Robyn | May 16, 2010 6:54 AM

Over the top in what way?

For a moment you made me think that Evans is not a supporter of evolutionary psychology so I just checked and yes, he is:
http://www.dylan.org.uk/evpsych.html

So I've read Pinker and Robert Wright and many others and for the most part favourably. Popular EP tends to be extremely crass and it is perfectly understandable that many people take offense at that - or when any evolutionary biology is put forward in a stupidly crass manner under the guise of 'scientific truth'.

So all I'm saying is that Evans knows at least as much as I know about EP and should have been much more aware than most what was going on - including possibly subconsciously.

It is like (a rather less charismatic) Dr Greg House suddenly pleading ignorance and innocence about a situation he was only too well aware he had instigated.

Posted by: irenedelse | May 16, 2010 7:02 AM

Robyn:

Popular EP tends to be extremely crass and it is perfectly understandable that many people take offense at that - or when any evolutionary biology is put forward in a stupidly crass manner under the guise of 'scientific truth'.

Oh, those horrible, horrible evilutionists, with their insistence on linking human behavior to *gasp* evolution from animals... It's all sex and violence, I tell you, and not something fit for a refined audience! Maybe they should wear a warning badge, y'know? Some sort of clothing? Or be corralled into special Darwinist reservations, so that they wouldn't upset the tender sensitivities of other academics...

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 7:15 AM

Sven, far above:

If the guy was running up and down the hall barging into everybody's offices brandishing the article('Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time') and gleefully announcing that she-bats give head too and then drawing some kind of putatively evolutionary conclusions about human behavior, I could see how some monitoring might have seemed like a good idea. *shrug*

This seems pretty close to what happened, from my reading.

Oh, those horrible, horrible evilutionists, with their insistence on linking human behavior to *gasp* evolution from animals...

*eyeroll*

Posted by: irenedelse | May 16, 2010 7:25 AM

@ maureen.brian:

Finally, as someone who enjoys the more cerebral style of detective fiction - does it not register that Dr XXXX and husband promptly left town with shit still flying from every fan?

Heh. I did find it very interesting too. There is very possibly more here than some clueless (but not necessarily sexist) behavior in the part of Evans, or even of different cultural sensitivities. (F'r instance, here in France, which is quite Latin in culture, we think nothing of people of different sexes kissing each other on the cheek, sometimes up to 6 times in a row, to say hello or good-bye. And some visitors from Anglo-Saxon countries may well be surprised and interpret it as more intimacy than it is.)

It could very easily be a case of Evans being caught in the crossfire of a dispute between Dr. XXX and her husband, who's also a member of the university administration. Axes to grind, and all that.

Posted by: Robyn | May 16, 2010 7:47 AM

#370 Robyn:
"Popular EP tends to be extremely crass and it is perfectly understandable that many people take offense at that - or when any evolutionary biology is put forward in a stupidly crass manner under the guise of 'scientific truth'.

Oh, those horrible, horrible evilutionists, with their insistence on linking human behavior to *gasp* evolution from animals... It's all sex and violence, I tell you, and not something fit for a refined audience! Maybe they should wear a warning badge, y'know? Some sort of clothing? Or be corralled into special Darwinist reservations, so that they wouldn't upset the tender sensitivities of other academics... "

Look, I'm absolutely in favour of science and reality and evolution. I've spent a lot of time trying to get women/feminists/leftists to recognize humans as animals and not assume this necessarily threatens their causes. I've read widely about animal behaviour and especially the evolution of sex and the sexes. It is knowing the reality of animal sexual behaviour that undermines both the idea that males and females are alike (when sexually dimorphic) or that they share the same sexual/reproductive interests and are not 'naturally' in conflict.

For example, as Pinker says:
"The idea that most men have the capacity to rape works, if anything, in the interests of women, because it calls for vigilance against aquaintance rape, marital rape and rape during societal breakdown.[...]For that matter, Thornhill and Palmer's hypothesis that rape is on a continuum with the rest of male sexuality makes them strange allies with the most radical gender feminists, such as Catherine Mackinnon and Andrea Dworkin, who said that 'seduction is often difficult to distinguish from rape. In seduction, the rapist often bothers to buy a bottle of wine."

But it would be very foolish to assert that evolutionary biologists/Darwinists etc are all supporters of evolutionary psychology - many hate it and most of us recognize there are some valid aspects but also a lot of crass nonsense. Crass nonsense helps no one - and that would include the hyped nonsense that fruit bat females give blow jobs. It is an outright lie.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/2iHXmHs5tNP0aY2gFd0_n6Fa5NFvsj3BltZQuDo-#44b66 | May 16, 2010 9:22 AM

To Windy 252, Aquaria 253 - brave circulators of the article to their colleagues:

What I said was , "I also have a feeling that many of the people here who are defending Evans would no way, no how circulate that article"

The fact that the 2 of you shared the article (or maybe 3, 4 or 10 if I missed some) doesn't constitute "many" out of the dozens who are participating in the thread, and the possibly hundreds who are lurking.

SCOM and Carlie
***great posts***

superheadcat 277
>I am curious about the strong, certain conviction with which Hillary stated her opinion. She believed this is sexual harassment from the beginning, but chose to post her comments after the first set of documents are posted, because she wanted to wait after Dylan was “tried”. But in the documents, as Dylan pointed out to me, “sexual harassment” charge had been explicitly exonerated. Yet she continued to use the terms “harassment”/ “harasser” without hesitation.

With respect, I thinking you are misreading what I wrote. As Evans himself points out, the university response is a bit incoherent - he's exonerated of intentional sexual harassment but still held culpable for his behavior. // Also, you are blurring the line between my general points about sexual harassment and my specific points about Dr. Evans, which are much more focused.

> And when she addressed opinions of others such as PZ, she speculated about their motives behind their opinions, based on their personal

We all know PZ is a scientist, and science is the context in which all conversations on scienceblogs occur. PZ himself introduced the false accusation into the conversation, making it part of the narrative Anyway, 90% of this thread (or more) consists of speculating on motives (the 2 people's, and other commenters!). You're being a bit disingenuous and nitpicking I think. **Still** I appreciate the reasonable, noninflammatory tone of your comments.

Hillary

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 16, 2010 10:41 AM

There can be no harrassment among peers? That's ridiculous. Of course there can be.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 16, 2010 10:56 AM

"If certain individual members of staff with unusually sensitive dispositions are allowed to block debate on any topic which they may happen to find mildly upsetting, then academic freedom is severely curtailed."

Whatever the specifics of the case, this is pretty clearly over the top. While I'm still not sure exactly what was motivating the complainant, I am certain that she was not trying to curtail Evans's academic freedom by blocking academic debate.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/DMi7D9olkM0R4V44cJzXOMy5CXK9RUQ-#1bf1f | May 16, 2010 11:52 AM

That phrase "unduly sensitive" is a huge tell - he still, after all he's been through, seems to see himself as a victim.

What I do not understand though is how, in this comments section, some people are wilfully ignoring the facts of this case in order to try justifying their belief that Evans did anything wrong. SC, in particular, has been forced to ignore relevant facts while twisting the words of others in order to try presenting Evans as a guilty party.

There was a female colleague I used to work with, and I shared a scientific paper with her that was much worse that this bat paper. It was entirely unrelated to any academic matter and I brought it up simply because I found the paper interesting. Had this colleague expressed any unease I would have ceased the discussion there and then, and that would have been the end of it. As it transpired she found it interesting and that was that. Had that colleague went behind my back and filed a report, just as happened in Evan’s case, and had she also claimed the many times I discussed things of a sexual nature with her were sexual harassment – would I be in need of a two year probationary period with training and counselling too? More relevantly, would I have garnered an army of dissenters on a PZ blog thread arguing in the same shit vein as some are doing here?

To some the phrase ”unduly sensitive” is a huge tell, apparently, of Evan’s sexual malfeasance. Given the nature of this case, given that evidence offered in the complainant was cast into serious doubts by certain emails and given the fact that not once was the complainant’s unease ever articulated to either Evan’s nor and colleague prior to the complaint, I think the phrase ”unduly sensitive” was flattery. In light of the facts I would have went with ”lying manipulative bitch” personally.

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 12:06 PM

The conviction of sexual harassment rested solely on the sharing of the bat sex article. Even if some circles find such literature inappropriate and objectionable, it under no circumstances warrants heavy punishment.

It's about the appropriateness of his going around showing people this particular article in this context, not about people finding the material objectionable per se.

At most, he is guilty of social insensitivity (which doesn't constitute sexual harassment),

It appears he's "guilty" of (sexually) inappropriate conduct. Does the u. have such a distinction, or is it harassment or nothing?

and this incident will surely prompt him to treat his coworkers with care in the future.

His comments suggest otherwise.

The punishment does not fit the crime and the crime that is considered a crime is no crime for a believer in academic freedom.

The "punishment" is undergoing some training/counseling (has anyone provided the details of this?) and being monitored for two years with 6-month reports from the Head of School. He said: "I have no objections to submitting to the training and counseling mandated by you, nor to undergoing a period of monitoring and appraisal,...," and seems to be objecting to having his record say that he had committed sexual harassment. I agree with the latter objection, though it appears to have been inappropriate conduct.

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 12:26 PM

Sven @ #286, intelligently:

Evans is a psychologist/philosopher. He doesn't study animal behavior. The particular coital habits of Chinese fruit-bats were nevertheless interesting enough to him that he showed the article about these habits to over a dozen colleagues in one day--colleagues on the faculty of the School of Medicine and Health, not themselves engaged in comparative sexual-behavior research. How is this about "academic freedom"?

It's about a guy who got perhaps too big a kick out of the fruit-bat-fellatio thing.

Posted by: dutchdoc | May 16, 2010 12:54 PM

Funny

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 1:02 PM

Not really. Isn’t ignoring whole slews of facts and context fun when you have an axe to grind?

I have no axe to grind, and haven't ignored anything.

Were you raped or harassed or something to bring about this axe to grind,

See above.

or is it simply that you are a moron?

See above.

Do you have anything non-ad homish to add?

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/DMi7D9olkM0R4V44cJzXOMy5CXK9RUQ-#1bf1f | May 16, 2010 1:40 PM

I have no axe to grind, and haven't ignored anything.

Do you have anything non-ad homish to add?

The nature of the particular article, the specific context and manner in which the article was "shown" and the history of interaction between the particular complainant and accused are all relevant.

It seems to me that two years of don't-do-it-again is not necessarily unreasonable for what at very best was total cluelessness about preofessional relationships.

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 2:11 PM

So you haven’t ignored anything? So the whole slew of posts pointing out the context with which the article was presented didn’t happen then? That’s just embarrassing for you.

What are you talking about? I asked him several questions about the specific nature of the claimed debate with this particular colleague and how this article specifically spoke to it. His story shifted a bit, but even if I believe his latter claim that the colleague had contended something (strange) about other animals not having sex for pleasure, I don't get how he thought this particular article spoke to that issue. But, as has been mentioned several times and as Sven explained in some depth, this whole debate-context justification is odd in light of the fact that he presented the article to more than a dozen other people that day. Why do you think he did that?

Not really. So was it rape of harassment? You side-stepped that one.

I didn't side-step anything. I don't have an axe to grind.

And the history of interaction between the two (including that the complainant likely told some porkies that needed email evidence to highlight) and the context with which the article were presented show that this issue really does boil down to the showing a of a peer reviewed article.

Way to fail to address anything in his post.

No point in staying classy when, if you think about, you are essentially accusing Evan’s of the grevious crimes of A) being a man

Yeah, Sven. I'm really tired of you using every post to grind your radical feminist axe.

Posted by: kilternkafuffle | May 16, 2010 2:58 PM

Well, the "conduct" is sharing a racy article with an (apparently friendly) colleague. I don't think it warrants a response that is reserved for those guilty of sexual harassment.

Posted by: Fishkiller | May 16, 2010 3:12 PM

@SC OM, #397
Specifically what about his conduct was inappropriate? What about that warrants a response? What type of response? How is ending someone's career over the presentation of evidence in an ongoing discussion an appropriate response?

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 16, 2010 3:22 PM

That the complainant did not ever raise the issue, with either Evan’s or colleagues prior to the complaint, doesn’t seem to register with you. That the claims of sexual harassment were dismissed, and that such claims may have been fabricated, doesn’t seem to register with you.

In fact, the sole reason that the claims of sexual harassment were dismissed was, specifically and explicitly because the complainant had never filed a previous complaint. As far as I know, not even Evans has claimed that anything was fabricated, just misinterpreted.

From the official investigators' report:

"we find that the complaint...falls within the definition of sexual harassment in the University's...Policy"

but that

Dr. XXXX admits that she was not sufficiently assertive in making clear her displeasure at his visits to her office or his other behaviour. We cannot therefore find that any of the actions of Dr. Evans up to 2 November 2009 constituted sexual harassment and do not therefore uphold those complaints. It is clear however that these complaints are not malicious.

"We cannot therefore find that..." are carefully chosen words. The last quoted sentence is not gratuitous either.

It's not about men having the right to talk about sex if they want, and it's not an issue of academic freedom or freedom of speech. It's about inappropriate professional behavior in the workplace. His behavior--specifically, showing a professionally irrelevant and sexually/luridly titled article to a female colleague and asking for her reaction--was inappropriate, in the view of the complainant, the investigators, the President of the University, and me, at a minimum.

I also think that attempting to clear one's name by collecting electronic petition signatures from You-Tube viewers is pretty pathetic. How is this petition any different from the polls PZ likes to pharyngulate?

Posted by: Joseph | May 16, 2010 3:22 PM

Whatever this case is about it's not obvious that it's about denial of academic freedom. I'll leave others to pass judgement on a sexual harassment allegation based on partial evidence, but on looking at Dr Evans website I find that this is not the only time he has accused someone of denying his academic freedom.
The guilty party then was Steven Rose who objected to a view attributed to him by Evans in a comic book introduction to evolutionary psychology.
Evans had to remove the offending comment and then seemingly went on to the internet to claim that his academic freedom had been infringed.

http://www.dylan.org.uk/brown.html

Posted by: Fishkiller | May 16, 2010 3:44 PM

Reading some of the refreshed posts makes me reflect. I think the main point is still valid, that without being let know what he was doing was inappropriate, and the history of the discussion the two were having the two year penalty and mark against him is excessive. Looking at the posts by Robyn @403 and Sven @401 and has made me realize why I usually just Lurk here and watch people make comments instead of adding my own. SC sorry for the callout, and I will continue to watch.

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 3:54 PM

As I read through, I have seen you mention his inappropriate behavior multiple times. I have seen you say that it deserves a response several times. I still have not seen exactly what you think is inappropriate. Is it that it was sexual in nature?

As Sven said: "His behavior--specifically, showing a professionally irrelevant and sexually/luridly titled article to a female colleague and asking for her reaction--was inappropriate, in the view of the complainant, the investigators, the President of the University, and me, at a minimum."

I have also seen that this was a continuing discussion amongst the two of them that had previously mentioned sexual practices among humans as one of the ways that we are "unique". In presenting a peer reviewed study that shows a sexual practice is not unique to humans [sic] I think that it entirely appropriate.

This has been discussed in detail above. And will you please fucking address the fact that he presented it to more than a dozen people that day?

My main point is that without knowledge that what he was doing was offensive provided by the Dr. XXXX,

It was inappropriate conduct.

is it appropriate to have a two year response that ends his aspirations and career?

The response was the non-disciplinary one. Some training/counseling and two years' probation. This talk of ending his aspirations and career is hyperbolic. His behavior was, it appears, inappropriate and totally unprofessional, and he still doesn't get why.

Looking at the link that is provided by the University it seems that there could be almost no presentation of materials to others without it meeting the guidelines of being offensive.

It was an article about penis-licking.

Posted by: Joseph | May 16, 2010 4:01 PM

Fishkiller
As I read it the judgement in the case was not to proceed with a disciplinary sanction but to deal with it by way of training/awareness raising.
Now this decision may have been perverse but it was not going to put an end to his career. Also the process was not finished as far as I can see.
Setting up an internet petition based on partial information and then adding more details here does not seem like a good way to prolong a career either at his current school or any prospective one.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 16, 2010 5:19 PM

Look, I'm here to tell you that even being denied tenure is not the end of an academic's career and aspirations. If, when Evans's tenure case comes up (presumably including four letters dated at six-month intervals stating that nobody complained of his harassment), the administration tried to block it explicitly because of the fruit-bat-article incident, then Evans would have a valid complaint.

As things stand though, the administration will probably instead cite the embarrassment afforded the University by his over-the-top reaction (which includes posting official University correspondence on a You-Tube video titled "fruitbatgate" to the tune of a smokin' hot dance track that repeats "just a lie").

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 5:40 PM

(which includes posting official University correspondence on a You-Tube video titled "fruitbatgate" to the tune of a smokin' hot dance track that repeats "just a lie").

Wow. (I think the track is saying "justify," but I'm not listening a second time to be sure.)

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 16, 2010 5:50 PM

I think the track is saying "justify

I agree.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 16, 2010 6:13 PM

No one understands what others find offensive. They need to be let know.

Posted by: Knockgoats | May 16, 2010 7:26 PM

"I have no objections to submitting to the training and counseling mandated by you, nor to undergoing a period of monitoring and appraisal, particularly if this helps me to avoid inadvertently upsetting unduly sensitive colleagues in future. However, I cannot permit you to sully my pristine record with the false contention that I have committed sexual harassment." - Dylan Evans' letter to the President.

Having read the documents, I think the President may have misinterpreted the investigators' report. The latter says that the complaint falls within the defintiion of sexual harassment - i.e., if Evans had acted as alleged (a pattern of behaviour) it would be sexual harassment - but this is easily misinterpreted as saying he had been guilty of the latter, although in fact, they conculde he had not. Evans is complaining that the President has wrongly put "sexual harassment" on his record, but agrees to monitoring and counselling. In that, he seems justified, even if he is clueless.

Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas | May 16, 2010 7:36 PM

we would all like life to be fair, but unfortunately, it's often the case that people don't let us know when we are being dickheads, and instead just react behind the scenes.

the problem is, by the time you are a postdoc trying to garner tenure, this is one of the things you should have been able to figure out on your own.

some of us are better at that than others, and in the case of gaining tenure, that does count in along with your ability to perform in your academic and research roles.

I fucking hate it when people say "life isn't fair" and use this as an argument for treating someone unfairly. Sure, life is often unfair - but we should be working to change that, and we should not tolerate unfairness when we have the opportunity to do otherwise.

It is grossly unfair to impose sanctions on someone who did not know, and had no way of knowing, he was doing anything wrong. It is not fair to punish a person for being unaware of some unwritten and unclear social boundaries.

It has been accepted by everyone concerned that Dr Evans had no intention of causing offence and did not know that his behaviour was inappropriate. As far as I'm concerned, this in itself means that these sanctions should not have been imposed on him. Everyone is entitled to a fair warning, especially where one's career is at stake.

Someone being a bit clueless about social boundaries, or not knowing what another person would find offensive, is not a good reason for imposing disciplinary sanctions that ruin his career prospects. That is just totally wrong and inexcusable.

Posted by: superheadcat | May 16, 2010 7:56 PM

Hillary @ 378,

You want to talk about “disingenuous”?

How about using the term “harasser” repeatedly when the investigation report clearly exonerated Dylan from “sexual harassment”?

Oh, right, you claimed to have a clear line between “general points about sexual harassment and … specific points about Dr. Evans”, as clearly shown by your assertions of “Dr. Evans' behavior shows [both things very characteristic of harassers]”, and “Dr. Evans does not deserve benefit of the doubt”, without any evidence whatsoever to back them up.

Btw, what role does Casanova play again? And how if a “victim” is not sure if the “harasser” is doing something improper, this fact itself indicates that the “harasser” is indeed doing something improper?

Yes, I strive to be reasonable and non-inflammatory when commenting. And it remains that way when I conclude, no you are not disingenuous, you are a liar and coward.

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 8:44 PM

It is grossly unfair to impose sanctions on someone who did not know, and had no way of knowing, he was doing anything wrong.

It is grossly ridiculous to suggest that a grown person has no way of knowing that going around presenting one's colleagues with sexually explicit materials in the workplace may well be inappropriate and experienced as offensive and possibly harassing. I don't know of any policies that don't include something about this (including this institution's). It's justified in some circumstances, but that should never be assumed. He's an adult, and likely had to read and sign something about this at the beginning of his employment.

It's also strange to argue that alleging ignorance of a law or policy excuses a person from administrative consequences.

It is not fair to punish a person for being unaware of some unwritten and unclear social boundaries.

He's facing administrative consequences for violating a policy.

It has been accepted by everyone concerned that Dr Evans had no intention of causing offence and did not know that his behaviour was inappropriate.

But it appears to have been inappropriate. And he still does not acknowledge or understand this, and is presenting it as an academic freedom issue. How are some training/counseling and a probationary period grossly disproportionate? And if he had no intention of being provocative, what was his purpose in going around presenting people with this article?

As far as I'm concerned, this in itself means that these sanctions should not have been imposed on him.

Odd.

Everyone is entitled to a fair warning,

Well, people are expected not to engage in inappropriate behaviors. It's good when things can be worked out at lower levels if possible, but this isn't always possible or best. I think it's arguable that an official warning would have been more appropriate (if that was an option after the complaint was upheld), but I don't see the recommendations as unreasonable. And I don't think an apology (which would not have been sincere since he does not acknowledge that he did anything inappropriate and has called people offended by his actions "unduly sensitive") or mediation would have been appropriate.

Someone being a bit clueless about social boundaries, or not knowing what another person would find offensive,

Look, sexual harassment policies exist for a reason.

is not a good reason for imposing disciplinary sanctions

As has been explained, the president did not go the disciplinary route but the training/monitoring route.

that ruin his career prospects.

Hyperbole.

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 9:27 PM

Can I safely assume that nobody here would dispute that there is no sexual harassment in this case?

No, after reading the policy and rereading the report upholding the claim, I think it fits within their definition established in the policy. After the claim was upheld, the president chose on that basis to go the training/monitoring route rather than imposing disciplinary sanctions.

All I can say is that there is conduct on Dylan's part that he himself has said to be willing to change through training and monitoring, etc.

After which he has come out and opposed this publicly.

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 9:55 PM

I could be wrong about this meeting the definition. Can someone point me to where it says it has to be on ongoing pattern of behavior? If that's the case, where would that put extremely egregious single incidents?

Posted by: SC OM | May 16, 2010 10:51 PM

I also think whatever Dylan's actions are, he himself considered them improper enough to agree to training/monitoring.

But his petition says:

Murphy has imposed a two-year period of intensive monitoring and counselling [?] on me, and as a result my application for tenure is likely to be denied.

I am now campaigning to have the sanctions lifted.

***

Heck, if Dylan himself said he need to change his behavior,

Well, what he said was:

I have no objections to submitting to the training and counseling mandated by you, nor to undergoing a period of monitoring and appraisal, particularly if this helps me to avoid inadvertently upsetting unduly sensitive colleagues in future.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 17, 2010 12:16 AM

I fucking hate it when people say "life isn't fair" and use this as an argument for treating someone unfairly.

waaaaaaah.

time for you to start growing up if you want to be taken seriously, boy.

Posted by: dannystevens.myopenid.com | May 17, 2010 2:38 AM

Aren't we talking about adult professionals who deal with subjects of sex and sexuality as part of their work?

Are we not also talking about a paper about the mating habits of bats? Not a topic usually considered shocking amongst university professors?

Are other members of faculty as "clueless" as Dr Evans, in that they also go around conversing with colleagues in their offices and share papers that they find interesting or support points in their arguments?

Wasn't there a third person in the room when this "egregious" incident took place? That would suggest that Dr Evans was at least not clueless enough to talk to a female colleague alone (heaven forbid).

And for this he is to have a note about sexual harassment on his sheet and be knocked out of tenure considerations? Even the counselling and monitoring is a bit of an imposition given its effect on his reputation, but that is not what he is concerned about.

Yes, harassment requires a pattern of behaviour over time. A single egregious incident would be assault.

Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas | May 17, 2010 4:27 AM

not really.

I would suggest Walton's response is entirely predictable, given that we assume he is projecting angst about his own inappropriate behavior.

I might have reacted the same way... 20 years ago.

Still, like I said, if Walton wants me to take him seriously, he better stop whinging about unfairness so much.

Fuck you, Ichthyic. Why do you have to be such an arrogant, supercilious asshole?

I am not "whinging about unfairness". I just believe in fairness and want to build a better and fairer world. Clearly you don't; that's your problem and your failing, not mine.

And no, for the record, I have never done anything remotely similar to the incident in question, nor been accused of such. This has zero to do with me personally, and it's both offensive and a pathetic argumentative tactic for you to make such an allegation.

Seriously, fuck off. I've made attempt after attempt to be nice and reasonable to you, and every single time you still act like an arrogant wanker.

Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas | May 17, 2010 4:32 AM

I should add to #438 that this is exclusively directed to Ichthyic - and is based on his long history of deliberately offensive and insulting remarks towards me personally, not just this thread. The attack is not aimed at anyone else.

I'm nonetheless going to bow out of this thread now. I don't need more emotional stress at the moment.

I disagree with SC on this issue, but can respect her opinion and her reasons for that opinion.

Posted by: SC OM | May 17, 2010 5:51 AM

Danny and Maureen, why don't you try addressing the arguments that have been made? You could start, perhaps with Sven's @ #391.

And for this he is to have a note about sexual harassment on his sheet and be knocked out of tenure considerations?

Evidence?

Even the counselling and monitoring is a bit of an imposition given its effect on his reputation,

Bizarre. It's like people think that someone has a right to a perfect professional reputation even if they don't act in such a way as to deserve it. The best way to avoid a record of inappropriate behavior is not to behave inappropriately. Anyway, the person making this all so public is Evans.

but that is not what he is concerned about.

Why do people keep saying this? That's precisely what the petition is about.

Yes, harassment requires a pattern of behaviour over time. A single egregious incident would be assault.

Perhaps you missed where I asked for a reference to the section of the policy that says this. How would "Have sex with me and I'll recommend you for the fellowship" constitute assault?

I tell you what, guys, if a colleague was discussing a new piece of knowledge with others - however tangential it may be to his published work - and failing to discuss it with me because and only because I was a woman I would be SERIOUSLY MAD.

Having been in such situations a couple of times - no bat sex involved, sadly - I know for a fact I would be mad.

Besides, this is not a Victorian Ladies' Finishing School: this is a School of Medicine, for fuck's sake.

If he had gone around circulating it to other men it would have been inappropriate as well. People go to work to work, and have a right to a workplace where people aren't going around sharing materials about and discussing fellatio. If this were a department of physics, I can't imagine anyone would be suggesting it would be remotely appropriate to be publicly circulating bat-sex articles, and the fact that they're in a medical school doesn't make it any more so. (I'll add that even if you accept his claim about a discussion of human uniqueness in this particular case, this study really says nothing about that, and it was already long known that bonobos engaged in oral sex play. These researchers don't know why the females do this. By the way, they found that the males all lick their own penises after copulation, presumably as grooming.)

Posted by: SalimR | May 17, 2010 6:11 AM

Redaction should have been accomplished with more competence. I disagree with the idea the accused and/or accuser in any case (of adults) be allowed anonymity. The accused is, of course, Dylan Evans: http://www.ucc.ie/en/DepartmentsCentresandUnits/SchoolofMedicine/mededunit/academicstaff/dylanevans/ and the accuser, Rossana Kennedy: http://www.ucc.ie/en/DepartmentsCentresandUnits/SchoolofMedicine/mededunit/academicstaff/rosannekennedy/

Posted by: Sigmund | May 17, 2010 6:47 AM

SC said;
"If he had gone around circulating it to other men it would have been inappropriate as well. "
Not necessarily.
According to the policy of the department in question the appropriateness of his actions depends on the feelings of the other individuals involved - so long as nobody takes offense then he is doing nothing inappropriate. If, however one individual considers discussion of animal sex offensive, then showing or mentioning the article to that person can be deemed sexual harassment.
Its pretty much akin to the Irish Blasphemy legislation where the same remark can be either legal or illegal depending on the feelings of the individual accuser. In the case of the UCC policy however it doesn't even give a benefit of a doubt since the policy says "This policy will be interpreted with consideration of the fact that behavior which is acceptable to one individual may be offensive to another." - In other words any panel of 'reasonable' people who can find nothing wrong with a particular statement involving sex, is in a bind, since it is also reasonable to conclude that there are likely to be other individuals who would find it offensive (reasonably or not!)
I suspect this is the reason for the specific wording of the panels adjudication on this matter.
They found the complaint "falls within the definition of sexual harassment in the University's Duty of Respect and Right to Dignity Policy (section 13)"
Then again this definition is so all encompassing that any mention of sexuality - human or not - if claimed to be found offensive by one individual - is deemed sexual harassment.

Posted by: maureen.brian#b5c92 | May 17, 2010 7:08 AM

SC OM,

I'm glad you see that your prescription (and Sigmund's long copy and paste) mean that no-one can ever discuss sex with anyone at all, even in a School of Medicine.

I am well out of touch but am taking it for granted that the journal in which this thing was published is a reputable one. It was therefore perfectly OK for him to have it in his hands and not entirely surprising that he would find it interesting. Even some physicists would find it so.

On the basis of what we do know for certain, it is possible that Dr Evans had failed to realise that an ongoing discussion which he was finding amusing was no longer amusing to the other party. He would not be the first.

But did Dr XXXX either punch him in the face or tell him to get lost. No, she hid behind the position of her husband and the freakiness of more senior management, she refused the less distressing means of resolving the matter and then she left town. I cannot believe that someone with a doctorate in something related to medicine has managed to preserve her intellectual virginity to the point that her life is ruined by one joke. And if it was more than one joke, why did she not act like the adult and the professional she is supposed to be?

I cannot believe that Dr Evans is so terrifying that a grown woman cannot stand up to him.

All we have for certain on the charge sheet is that he may - just may - be a bit of an idiot. If so, he's not the only one! If that were a hanging offence we could solve the over-population problem at a stroke.

I have no animus against you, SC, and I am not pulling rank when I say that as far as I can work out I am about twice your age. I have no problem with where you are trying to get to but may I gently remind you that in terms of equality for women some of the progress we have made thus far was because, at appropriate times, we were prepared to be rude, loud and crude.

Fifty years ago you couldn't get research on sexuality done. Sexual behavior as reported by the respondents, possibly, but the physiology and neurology no way because it believed there was nothing there to study. Erections and vaginismus, maybe, but after that - forget it.

I shared a room at uni with a medic for a while. The key texts then were saying both that the only true orgasm was entirely vaginal and that there were few if any nerve ends in the vagina itself. It was also "common knowledge" that the female orgasm, if it existed at all, served no purpose whatsoever!

We are not there yet but it took an awful lot of women saying out loud that their experience was different - where necessary saying it very explicitly and, as I remember, sometimes having to use the vernacular to be sure it registered on an unwilling audience - to get the subject of female, let alone gay, let alone bat sexuality on the agenda.

Some research was finally done and, behold, we now have the papers in journals which describe how the neurological wiring of the clitoris goes along the outside of the vagina and some hope that we can persuade surgeons to stop slicing through it at their convenience "because there's nothing there."

And that's just one example. You campaign against FGM, as do I, and neither of us is afraid to use the medical evidence assembled in just a few decades to strengthen our case. If women had not stuck up for themselves - loud and proud - the papers we quote might never had existed.

Posted by: maureen.brian#b5c92 | May 17, 2010 7:28 AM

No.

If I can discuss the two plates and multiple screws in my right leg with all and sundry then I can discuss sexuality with anyone I can reasonably expect to understand what is being discussed and who is in a position to tell me to get lost if he is bored or does not want to know.

I would not, for instance, send 447 as a birthday letter to a seven-year-old child any more than I would circulate photos of abdominal surgery in progress over dinner. And that, I believe, is all that is at issue here - time, place, manner of the action. Not the action itself.

If we women act as equals - surely possible within a university - then we have a better chance of being treated as equals. Of course, we first have to start thinking of ourselves as equals!

Posted by: SC OM | May 17, 2010 7:57 AM

I'm glad you see that your prescription (and Sigmund's long copy and paste) mean that no-one can ever discuss sex with anyone at all, even in a School of Medicine.

This is just nuts. Why are you stubbornly refusing to address the above posts about this specific incident?

I am well out of touch but am taking it for granted that the journal in which this thing was published is a reputable one. It was therefore perfectly OK for him to have it in his hands and not entirely surprising that he would find it interesting. Even some physicists would find it so.

So what?

On the basis of what we do know for certain, it is possible that Dr Evans had failed to realise that an ongoing discussion which he was finding amusing was no longer amusing to the other party. He would not be the first.

What is wrong with you that you won't address the posts above?

But did Dr XXXX either punch him in the face or tell him to get lost.

She should have punched him in the face? That would have been appropriate? I think you may be a bit too steeped in assertiveness training there, Maureen.

No, she hid behind the position of her husband and the freakiness of more senior management, she refused the less distressing means of resolving the matter and then she left town.

She went to the Head of School to complain, thus initiating an investigation. But this focus on her reaction (in the absence of much relevant context) is frankly strange. It doesn't alter his actions. What's freaky about following what appears to be a standard harassment policy?

I cannot believe that someone with a doctorate in something related to medicine has managed to preserve her intellectual virginity to the point that her life is ruined by one joke. And if it was more than one joke, why did she not act like the adult and the professional she is supposed to be?

What's this about "intellectual virginity" and her life being ruined? She complained that her colleague behaved in a sexually inappropriate manner. This was upheld by the committee.

I cannot believe that Dr Evans is so terrifying that a grown woman cannot stand up to him.

She did - she filed a complaint.

All we have for certain on the charge sheet is that he may - just may - be a bit of an idiot.

No, we have more than that.

If so, he's not the only one!

His cluelessness is the reason training and monitoring were recommended.

If that were a hanging offence we could solve the over-population problem at a stroke.

Since when do training and a probationary period constitute hanging?

I have no animus against you, SC,

Who cares?

and I am not pulling rank when I say that as far as I can work out I am about twice your age.

First, how would your age give you any rank here? Do we live in a gerontocracy? Second, I doubt that.

I have no problem with where you are trying to get to

I don't know what you're talking about. I think this is a reasonable policy and that he appears to have acted inappropriately.

but may I gently remind you that in terms of equality for women some of the progress we have made thus far was because, at appropriate times, we were prepared to be rude, loud and crude.

What is the relevance of this? Being assertive was necessary to get sexual harassment policies instituted, and is necessary to ensure they're applied. The behavior is explicitly deemed inappropriate in policies and trainings and dealt with professionally so that individuals don't have to constantly stand up against it on their own in what can be intimidating environments. It doesn't mean they're delicate. Are you suggesting that these policies and mechanisms should be scrapped? If not, I don't see your point.

Fifty years ago you couldn't get research on sexuality done....

And this all has what to do with this case?

And that's just one example. You campaign against FGM, as do I, and neither of us is afraid to use the medical evidence assembled in just a few decades to strengthen our case. If women had not stuck up for themselves - loud and proud - the papers we quote might never had existed.

Do you have anything to say about this case at all? Seriously, this is just ridiculous. It doesn't appear that any of the people involved work on sexuality, let alone the sexual behavior of fruit bats. It is not generally OK to go around your workplace presenting people with materials about fellatio, and this is a reasonable element of a policy. The academic context that would make the circulating of this specific article in the workplace appropriate does not appear to be there.

Posted by: Sigmund | May 17, 2010 8:19 AM

Nerd of Redhead,
Can you give even a single example of someone who was convicted of sexual harassment and who subsequently went on to gain tenure at that University?
I agree that his internet campaign is unlikely to do himself any favors in terms of his future employment and does mark him out as a troublemaker but you clearly understand nothing of the tenure process in Ireland. Dr Evans progress has been stopped dead in its tracks due to what the panel could only conclude was a joke which contained a sexual innuendo. Even denying him the benefit of the doubt here and accepting this interpretation of events would not a more appropriate action be to issue him a warning to be careful to adhere to the rules of the department rather than label him a sexual harasser?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 17, 2010 8:37 AM

Can you give even a single example of someone who was convicted of sexual harassment and who subsequently went on to gain tenure at that University?

He needs to work on his resume/CV.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage | May 17, 2010 8:39 AM

Ken #193

Yes, I'm a big believer in the marketplace of ideas being a better resolution to disagreements than the justice system.

The marketplace of ideas is where concepts are introduced and discussed. This blog is part of that marketplace. However the presentation of ideas may be annoying, upsetting or insulting to others. I won't discuss sexual harassment other than to point out it usually has nothing to do with introducing someone to a new idea but rather to harass them. That's why it's called sexual harassment.

If I were to write a letter to your boss accusing you of embezzling money from your company, you would probably get annoyed. This annoyance would be particularly great if you weren't embezzling money. So what's your recourse then? The old schoolyard chant about sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me is nonsense. Words can hurt you and there should be some way to protect yourself from these sorts of words and to get redress if they're uttered.

That's why I thought that Simon Singh should be allowed to state his case against homeopathy in an open academic environment rather than have the court system decide which side was correct.

First, Singh wasn't castigating homeopathy but rather chiropractic. But that's a quibble. He wasn't being rude to chiropractors in an academic environment but in a newspaper article.

Earlier on this blog we've discussed the strict English libel laws. It was the general consensus that these laws need to be relaxed, but nobody called for their outright abolishment. If you are wronged then you should be able to right that wrong.

Speech needs to have some pretty serious direct harm before I would consider having the government, in the form of the courts, decide what should and shouldn't be censored. In academia I think the standards need to be even looser.

The courts weren't brought into this case. However if Dr. Evans feels President Murphy's actions were inappropriate, then Evans should have the opportunity to present his objections to an outside organization, i.e., the courts. That's what they're there for.

Posted by: Bernard Bumner | May 17, 2010 9:09 AM

I think it would be hard to argue that anybody comes out of this covered in glory, on the basis of the facts as presented here.

The length and severity of the sanction may well be disproportionate, given that only a minor element of the complaint was upheld. The Investigators' report would also seem to suggest that there are inconsistencies in the statements given by both parties that may well be indicative of misunderstanding, at least to a point that President's own interpretation of the findings might be unduly cautious.

Dr Evans may well have acted innappropriately. However, it strikes me that both his own initial behaviour, reaction to the report, and the earlier reaction of his colleague may all point to a lack of good, clear guidance and training around workplace behaviour. If a harrassment problem exists (real of percieved), then it will always be more successfully resolved and to the greater satisfaction of all concerned, if it is brought to the attention of and monitored by line managers at an early stage. If the problem was as his colleague described (although it was disputed by Dr Evans, and accepted by the Investigators that this was not the case), then they have acted poorly in the way that they dealt with the problem.

Dr Evans has certainly acted innappropriately in his response to the matter, because this kind of web campaign will not help. This is particularly so in such a case as this, because the potential for identification of the complainant makes the fallout so much the greater. He surely has the right to request that the matter does become a fullblown disciplinary case if he wishes to dispute actions of the President and the findings of the report. In doing so, he would also be allowed all of the rights of fair defense and appeal that follow. As it is, it seems only that he has decided to appeal to the court of popular opinion because he didn't get the answer he liked (presumably, riding on the back of the recent interest and support for freedom of academic enquiry).

Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | May 17, 2010 9:29 AM

My wife just finished teaching a grad seminar on sexual selection. I hope that she isn't brought up on charges of sexual harassment. Being forced to view at all of those pictures of moth genitalia sounds like harassment to me.

Posted by: SC OM | May 17, 2010 9:56 AM

32. All aspects of the investigation, including the report and findings, must be treated as confidential by all parties concerned.

...34. Those involved in interpreting, administering, and applying this policy will use a 'reasonable person' standard; that is to say, whether a person in the same position as the Complainant and of the same Relevant Characteristics as the Complainant would reasonably judge harassment or bullying to have occurred as a result of a given behaviour or pattern of behaviour.

...36. In some circumstances, the use of disciplinary procedures may be inappropriate. The outcome of such cases may be a recommendation to engage in training, counselling and/or a period of monitoring and appraisal. Should the period of appraisal not be satisfactory, the Disciplinary Procedure may then be invoked.

This last appears significant. Verbal and written warnings are disciplinary procedures there, and are seen as more serious (and entering a specific chain of responses) than training/counseling(and we don't know what this consists of, but I doubt it's that elaborate)/monitoring. In the case even of the disciplinary procedures, the lower-level warnings aren't put in the personnel file or are removed after a couple of years if there's no further problem. There isn't any indication that training/monitoring is recorded in the personnel file, and it looks like it's all supposed to be confidential. (Looks like he could now potentially be subject to disciplinary action, though, for revealing confidential documents on youtube and his site.)

Either there was one incident in which case it is possible that what happened next is an over-reaction

That isn't what the investigators found, though.

or there was a pattern of behaviour, constituting sexual harassment. I wish you would make up your mind.

What are you talking about? The complaint of ongoing behavior couldn't be upheld because the complainant acknowledged that she wasn't sufficiently assertive in making her discomfort known. The complaint regarding this behavior was upheld, and the policy explicitly refers to "a given behaviour or pattern of behaviour" as potentially constituting harassment.

I see above me a very few established facts, some of which are open to interpretation. In addition, other possible facts where either the stories don't quite match or only one account is given.

On the basis of the established facts, it appears that he violated the policy, which is what the investigators found, despite his claim that they exonerated him. But you haven't addressed any of the specific comments that have been made about this specific case - just repeated the line about how sexual harassment policies mean no one can talk about sex ever for any reason, which is rubbish.

You wouldn't want me to leave here thinking that no-one on the planet except yourself has ever had a valid experience, now would you?

I honestly have no idea what you're on about, Maureen.

My wife just finished teaching a grad seminar on sexual selection. I hope that she isn't brought up on charges of sexual harassment. Being forced to view at all of those pictures of moth genitalia sounds like harassment to me.

More absurdity.

Posted by: SC OM | May 17, 2010 10:06 AM

If...the definition of harassment is solely "did I choose to take offence?" rather than the reasonable person notion

It explicitly is not.

Posted by: SC OM | May 17, 2010 10:26 AM

I could see him trying to argue down the length of the counseling,

I'm really not convinced that this is anything that elaborate. I think it's two years' probation and also training/counseling of some sort; I would be very surprised if it were two years of training/counseling. I could be wrong, though.

Posted by: Escherichia coli | May 17, 2010 12:08 PM

Hmm, didn't someone point out above that it's not the probation or training that Evans is petitioning against, but the president's conclusion that he sexually harassed his colleague?

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 17, 2010 12:59 PM

What now fascinates me most about this case is the fact that so many otherwise skeptical people--our esteemed host and ECO included--just bought in instantly to Evans's self-serving post hoc spin.

The complainant (whose identity is now, extremely unfortunately in my view, public knowledge--as a direct result of Evans's posting explicitly confidential correspondence on the web and then blabbing more details here in this thread) complained.
Why did she complain?
Because (byzantine soap-opera hypotheses involving the husband's secretary's boyfriend notwithstanding), according to the original complaint and the report of the official investigation occasioned by the complaint (both examples of the confidential correspondence mentioned above), Evans creeped her out in a sexual way. According to the complaint and report, she felt squicked on numerous occasions, notably including the now notorious Showing of the fruitbat-fellatio article on 2 Nov.

Why had she not complained before, not even to Evans directly?
Nobody knows but her, her husband, and perhaps the investigators that interviewed her. Was she also pre-tenure junior faculty? If so, she may have had a better understanding than Evans about the importance of collegiality and team-play to academic careers. Securing another position elsewhere would have obviated those considerations. Plus cultural and /or personal issues or reasons, who knows? Since the complaint was upheld by the investigation, the complainant's motivations for complaining and/or delaying complaint are moot.

As for the inappropriateness or not of the Showing, since there is disagreement even about whether or not somebody else was in the room at the time, I'm doubtful that we know what was said. Evans's story changes. Clearly it wasn't along the lines of "check out this fruitbat's dick you'd like to lick that huh baby," but it also wasn't "say, Dr. X, the latest issue of PLoS includes an article that seems pertinent to the issue of human exceptionalism we were discussing after yesterday's seminar." The complaint suggests something ostensibly neutral like "what do you think of this?" Whatever. Presumably the investigators that upheld the complaint were privy to more detailed accounts from both parties.

What was her reaction? Evans says she "laughed openly" (although he also insists elsewhere that, contra the official report, the article was not presented as a 'joke') and asked for a copy of the article. The complaint says she was squicked and made an excuse about glasses and reading it later to get the guy out of her office.
These accounts are compatible if Evans was completely clueless about the complainant's perception of his behavior, as seems to have been the case.

Note that both Evans and the complainant say that he left the copy of the article he was carrying with her. That means that either he had already Shown the article to over a dozen other colleagues, or that he then printed out another copy so that he could continue to Show it.

The article is titled "Fellatio by fruitbats prolongs copulation time." It is about penis-licking in a Chinese bat species. The article has nothing to do with human evolution or behavior, nothing to do with sex-for-pleasure-instead-of-reproduction, nothing to do with Evans's professional interests or research, and nothing to do with the professional interests or research of any of the 13+ colleagues to whom it was Shown.

What, then was so interesting about the article to Dr. Evans, as to inspire him to print out a copy (it's an online journal) and take it around to 13+ people to Show? I have to suspect that he was playing it for sexual-association laffs. It doesn't matter whether blowjobs were mentioned or eyebrows were waggled; it was the precise equivalent of circulating a boderline-misogynistic dirty joke. It's just not cool, even/especially at an academic workplace.

Given the contents of the official report, the President chose the least-punitive option available. Unspecified counseling and four letters that don't even go into the permanent file? He was trying to make the whole thing go away as quietly and uncontroversially as possible.

In response, Evans has continued to deny any wrongdoing, has blown the lid wide open by posting poorly-redacted officially confidential correspondence--of others, not just his own--under the banner of 'fruitbatgate', and is trolling You-Tube for random signatures on an internet petition--here; read it--to lift the 'sanctions' and clear his name in the name of Academic Freedom and the Principle of Free Debate!!!

He's a clueless nut.
And people are being suckered by his clueless nutty bullshit.

Posted by: SC OM | May 17, 2010 6:22 PM

Hmm, didn't someone point out above that it's not the probation or training that Evans is petitioning against,

Which is strange given that this is in fact literally what he's petitioning against.

If you read the letter from the University President you will see it clearly stated that he was indeed found guilty of sexual harassment.

"Convicted" here I think refers to being found guilty in a criminal court of law. Is it different in Ireland?

The panel found him guilty of unintentionally causing offense to someone

They upheld the complaint, finding that he violated policy.

and that was enough to have him labeled a sexual harasser

Where is this?

requiring two years of counseling.

Where is this? (Did you read my post @ #464?)

***

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/05/fruit-bat-sex-chat-prompts-sexua.html

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 17, 2010 6:53 PM

I would suggest that the policy itself is flawed if a single unintentional incident is sufficient for this result.

Posted by: SC OM | May 17, 2010 8:03 PM

the only context I perceived was that it was part of an ongoing private debate within the department over human exceptionalism.

It's why I picture him, not as a sexual harasser, but as a clueless git running about with article in hand proclaiming his "gotchya!" moment without even bothering to consider not only the level of irritation that approach would engender, but any other potential consequences as well, including a perception of sexual harassment.

Yeah, I'm not quite buying it. It's possible that such a general debate existed involving a large number of people, but he hasn't even really claimed that. He's only talked about a debate with this one colleague, and, in addition to this article speaking to such a debate being a stretch, it looks increasingly like he added in this alleged context later in an attempt to shoehorn this into a supposed academic freedom framework. When I looked again at his first letter, he didn't even mention it, and it certainly would have been a very pertinent and potentially partially-disculpatory* element of the context; he described it differently. Also, he said above

There are broader issues of academic freedom at stake here. If we cannot discuss scientific articles about topics directly related to our own research, published in leading peer-reviewed international journals, with colleagues in the same department, this bodes very ill for informed enquiry and debate.

It is not the case that this was directly related to any of their research, a claim he's making and a belief of which he isn't disabusing others. I don't really find him trustworthy concerning these events. Everything I read contains more misleading statements, like that the president "imposed a two-year period of intensive monitoring and counselling" on him. He now seems to be telling reporters (if their accounts are correct) that he didn't reveal the documents, but they were on his Facebook page and YouTube channel. So it's possible that there was such a debate, and that's what my questions were mainly about, but I think Sven's interpretation is probably closer to the truth.

*Although if he's constantly drumming up discussions of sexual behavior with colleagues that might be a problem, too. I mean, it's not what they work on, and the fact that sex might be someone's personal hobby-horse doesn't give the person carte blanche to be bombarding people with it in the workplace.

Posted by: SC OM | May 17, 2010 8:26 PM

I just found the idea that there was a private discussion of exceptionalism, especially in a medical dept, plausible.

So did I. Or, also plausibly, him harping on "the relevance of evolutionary biology to human behaviour." Even if there had been any discussion of this, the very broad topic could be used as a pretext for going around showing people a sex article at least as plausibly as the "gotcha" scenario. But again, at this point I'm not inclined to believe his account.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 17, 2010 9:42 PM

I think PZ made the wrong call on this one, but apart from that I'm a little concerned for his sake that his post still includes a link to what we now know are improperly leaked confidential documents, and also that this thread contains a comment that purports to identify the complainant by name. Neither of these things should have happened.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 17, 2010 10:14 PM

Aw jeez...look at all this

and all this

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 17, 2010 10:42 PM

Aw jeez...look at all this
and all this

*sigh*

Is this the new way of dealing with social issues in the workplace?

Posted by: Fishkiller | May 17, 2010 10:55 PM

SC OM,
I am impressed with your BS detector and your continuing to call out Pr. Evans through the whole of the almost 500 comments. I tried to sway you at one point myself, but as information continued to be revealed and I reflected on both the info and the actions of Pr. Evans, my position changed. As a male it is scary to think that almost any mention of sex to a colleague could get you a sexual harassment citation. Especially in the situation that Pr. Evans led us to believe had happened. As we move along it appears that a lot of that situation was either misremembered or deliberately changed by Pr. Evans. I still think that my main point is valid, that someone who is offending should be told what they are doing is offensive, but I also think that that is what happened here. Dr. XXXX chose to tell through her superiors instead of to Pr. Evans. If he had followed the procedure and allowed the training and reports to happen this probably would have gone away simply. As it is, there is now a huge issue that will follow him forever, whatever his initial intent. I will continue to lurk, but as someone who posts hardly ever, it is impressive to see someone with an OM continue to earn it. Well done.

Posted by: Sigmund | May 18, 2010 2:16 AM

Nerd of Redhead said:
"Sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior, unless it is a clear cut case of a single act of physical contact, usually (99% of the time) is based on a pattern of behavior, making the victim uncomfortable. One incident will trigger the reporting, but a pattern is almost invariably there. This pattern by Dr. Evans, I gather, was in the reports. Not a single incident, but rather repeated incidences, hence the counseling and reporting. "

Have you even read the report of the investigating panel? You seem to be drawing all your conclusions from the accusations made against Evans rather than the actual results of the panels investigation.
They LOOKED for a pattern of behavior and could not find one. They found him guilty of a single incidence of causing offense and accepted that this had been unintentional. While in most places sexual harassment is defined as a pattern of behavior that is not the case for the University of Cork where a single incident is sufficient, intentional or not.

Posted by: echidna | May 18, 2010 4:02 AM

SC OM@485,
The inconsistencies in his responses are a give-away, aren't they?

Rorschach: "shooting oneself in the foot" - indeed.

Posted by: Bernard Bumner | May 18, 2010 7:03 AM

What they FOUND was that they could not establish a pattern, as the complainant admitted that she had not reported prior incidents. Potentially big difference.

Well, we also can't assume that there probably was such a pattern. The report states that there was contradictory evidence from both sides. I think that debate over the rights and wrongs risks people becoming entrenched in their own narratives.

What is more important in the wider context is that this kind of web campaign is entirely innappropriate in a case such as this, and even those sympathetic to Evans should be offering that advice, rather than wading into a situation of which they have too little knowledge to really judge.

Posted by: Sigmund | May 18, 2010 7:39 AM

"What they FOUND was that they could not establish a pattern, as the complainant admitted that she had not reported prior incidents. Potentially big difference."
She reported all the incidents at the same time and they investigated each of them. Some of the previous incidents were in situations where it should be relatively easy to get corroborating evidence since there were witnesses present, yet the only evidence the investigating panel seem to have confidence in was described as casting "serious doubt on some of the evidence of Dr X"(the accuser). In other words they thought she was telling lies about at least one of the previous incidents.
The biggest impression I get about the divide on this issue is that many people are jumping to the conclusion that there is no smoke without fire.
He was accused of sexual harassment and he admits distributing an article about bat sex. If those are the criteria then that puts him in the same category as PZ Myers.
The evidence in this case seems to make little difference to many who have decided on a verdict and are sticking to it no matter what.
NOBODY comes out of this incident smelling of roses. I haven't signed the petition since it's clearly not a case of academic freedom. The accuser seems to have told lies about some of the accusations and the University President has decided to apply a letter of the law punishment based on a rather flawed policy document that leaves no process for appeal and then attempted to silence the parties who might feel hard done by.
I would make a suggestion that we need a witness statement from the colleague of the accuser who was in the room at the time Evans brought the manuscript. I am surprised that the investigators failed to obtain get such a statement since it goes straight to the heart of the matter.

Posted by: Louis | May 18, 2010 8:09 AM

Whatever else is true about this case (if it isn't an experiment), the internet petition, accidentally-on-purpose leaking of private documents, and general outing-butr-oh-no-not-really-outing of the complainant by Evans (or his appointed chums) are hallmarks of douchebaggery.

This alone makes me very reluctant to treat his other (apparently self contradictory) testimony at face value. If this isn't some elaborate game/experiment then he is attention whoring for all he is worth. This can only end in a gritty rap battle on YouTube*. You read it here first.

Louis

*Or Evans' dismissal, and possibly charges against whoever released these documents (prob. Evans) for breaching confidentiality agreements should they exist.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 18, 2010 8:39 AM

...and worst of all for the now fully outed complainant.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/woman-in-batsex-row-is-expert-nutritionist-2183499.html
This is a fucking travesty.

Posted by: Joseph | May 18, 2010 11:05 AM

Just saw this on Times Higher Education blog;
"Evans may be clever but he would seem to lack judgement.
On 29th January, just before his interview with UCC admin to investigate charges of sexual harrassment, he tweeted as follows:

Staring at boobs increases male life expectancy - http://bit.ly/cMcQkx - best bit of scientific research ever!

The boob research, btw, turned out to be a hoax."
Just imagine you're a female student and have signed up to follow the tweets of your oh so cool professor. This might be a little to much information. Or maybe perhaps useful information .
Sensitivity training doesn't seem out of place.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 18, 2010 11:15 AM

Teh google now gives over 11,000 hits for 'dylan evans fruit bat'. Almost all of it I've looked at presents his story as truth, implicitly mocks the idea that showing a peer-reviewed scholarly article to a colleague could ever constitute sexual harassment, and plays up the phony academic freedom angle.

It's giving me a stomachache.

Posted by: Bernard Bumner | May 18, 2010 11:53 AM

Almost all of it I've looked at presents his story as truth, implicitly mocks the idea that showing a peer-reviewed scholarly article to a colleague could ever constitute sexual harassment, and plays up the phony academic freedom angle.

Frankly, the appalling standard of journalism and reportage on display is much more worrying than a case of relatively mild misconduct. (The initial offense, rather than the reaction, which may well constitute gross misconduct.)

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 18, 2010 2:22 PM

Ego trip now out of hand:
http://twitter.com/evansd66/statuses/14235336351

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 18, 2010 5:51 PM

I just don't get it.

frankly, neither do I.

kind of why I asked if others had a different response.

Can anyone see a benefit to flogging what should be private departmental issues regarding interactions between members of a dept. publicly like Dylan is doing?

Has the internet actually changed what the predicted outcome would be?

Am I missing something? Has the way we deal with social interaction changed so much that random support from the interweb would have anything but a negative influence in a situation like this?

Posted by: SC OM | May 18, 2010 7:18 PM

Gosh - thanks, Fishkiller!

***

I thought this was reasonable, especially Stephen Kinsella's comment:

http://universitydiary.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/fruit-bats-and-the-limits-to-academic-freedom/

***

He was accused of sexual harassment and he admits distributing an article about bat sex. If those are the criteria then that puts him in the same category as PZ Myers.

Wow, that's stupid.

NOBODY comes out of this incident smelling of roses.

I really hate statements like this. Even if that's true, no one is fucking supposed to. We're human beings, and we shouldn't be expected to be perfect - that includes people who make complaints. There was an episode of CSI a while back in which there had been a tragedy involving a child, about which the parents lied (for reasons that, it later emerged, were understandable). In the course of the investigation a number of facts emerged about the family involving an affair and so forth. At the end, the mother says to one of the investigators (I don't recall the exact words), "You must think we're terrible people." She replies, "No, just a normal family whose lives were put under a microscope."

We don't always handle everything as well as we should. This doesn't mean it's a wash, that everyone's an asshole and that excuses behaviors that are unacceptable. It's expected. That's why there are professionals trained to evaluate situations involving relationships that can be messy and determine whether someone crossed a line. But to protect everyone in situations like this, the process should be confidential and professional.

(There are also all sorts of reasons people don't want to confront someone directly in alleged harassment cases. Aside from the more obvious, sometimes someone's behavior seems bizarre or unstable, and responding at the individual level seems dangerous - if you don't feel like you can predict their response to being confronted in this way - and unlikely to resolve the problem. I'm not saying that's the case here.)

I'm curious as to what people think of the approach Dylan has taken to this issue. It's becoming more common, but is it productive at all?

I've given it some thought since you asked. I've been involved in the past in several campaigns involving academics, always on the side opposing the administration. Some have been reasonably successful, and I think it depends on a number of factors. These all involved politics, and some were extremely serious. Online petitions may often be useless, but I think petitions will remain an effective tool in some cases as they have been for more than a thousand years. And online campaigns generally can work. I also think there are serious cases involving human rights and real dangers in which internal documents should - after solid consideration - be made public, and I've seen the devastating consequences for whistleblowers who followed their consciences and can't imagine how hard it must be sometimes to do this.

I kind of fear this episode will make people avoid these campaigns, and I hope people will continue to support scholars who are genuinely being persecuted:

http://www.nearinternational.org/

I don't mean accept every campaign and sign on unthinkingly, just not avoid taking any action in any situation. (The guy who wrote the HuffPo post about this, incidentally, is with an organization called FIRE. I don't think I'd ever come across it before this. They may well do some good work, but what I have been able to gather makes me wary.)

Posted by: SC OM | May 18, 2010 8:03 PM

And yet, it is still true. That was probably why you were unable to offer an actual response to it.

I did. I pointed out that it's stupid. The two contexts/situations aren't remotely comparable.

Posted by: SC OM | May 18, 2010 8:29 PM

UCC starts disciplinary action:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0519/1224270655043.html

Posted by: SC OM | May 18, 2010 9:13 PM

Oh that’s right, no one decided to be offended and go file a complaint to try and ruin PZ’s career. That is the key difference apparently.

Listen, you idiot. First, don't combine comments from two different people like that. It's dishonest. Second, what part of "The two contexts/situations aren't remotely comparable" do you not understand?

Ignoring the other irrelevant babbling...

(or subject them to a two year training/counselling period)

Where is the evidence for this? Again, I'm not claiming it's false, but I have yet to see evidence of it.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 18, 2010 9:16 PM

That is the key difference apparently.

really.

that's the ONLY difference you see.

you have remarkably poor vision.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 18, 2010 9:26 PM

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

just noticed the only comment on that youtube upload by Evans:

"These documents were confidential. Making them public serves no good purpose. "

again, I can't help but agree with that.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 18, 2010 9:36 PM

Evans claims he is not responsible for the freaking petition. His letter urging people to sign it was posted verbatim on Pharyngula, Huffington (ptew!) Post, and Dawkins's site.

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 18, 2010 9:48 PM

Evans claims he is not responsible for the freaking petition.

*doubletake*

whaaa?

*looks at original post*

I am now campaigning to have the sanctions lifted. I would be grateful for your support on this matter. I have created an online petition at:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freedebate/

funny, unless my eyes deceive me, the pronoun used repeatedly in that statement is "I".

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 18, 2010 9:53 PM

or that there are people on this thread who apparently think such a situation is ok.

take your strawman and stuff it.

Posted by: SC OM | May 18, 2010 10:14 PM

...and Dawkins's site.

Evans on Dawkins (from the link at the earlier Pharyngula post):

Ophelia Benson gets terribly upset at my claim that Dawkins is artistically illiterate. She thinks this shows that I can’t have read “Unweaving the Rainbow”, but in fact it is precisely this book that made me think, for the first time, that Dawkins couldn’t possibly understand poetry. It is true, of course, that he goes out of his way in this book to display a knowledge of literature, but the very ostentatiousness of these displays should be enough to raise a few eyebrows; the man protests too much. The references to poetry that abound in his “Unweaving the Rainbow”, smack of desperation – a desperation to be rid of the smell of philistinism that he is worried may waft up from his earlier writings. And when one subjects these references to any scrutiny, it immediately becomes clear that Dawkins has about as much feeling for poetry as a mole does for a beautiful sunset.

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2005/who-needs-an-excuse/

But maybe that wasn't really him either...

(Sometimes I forget how much I adore Ophelia Benson.)

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 18, 2010 10:21 PM

Dawkins has about as much feeling for poetry as a mole does for a beautiful sunset.

hmm, what was he saying earlier in that same piece about Dawkins protesting too much?

Posted by: SC OM | May 18, 2010 11:35 PM

Dr Evans said he was taking legal advice on the matter.

Why on earth hasn't his lawyer told him to STFU? Here's my advice to the lawyer: Tell your client to STFU. For the love of self-preservation, Evans, S T F U.

I'm concerned about the guy. This behavior isn't just unprofessional. It's very strange.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 18, 2010 11:48 PM

And I haven't even gotten the chance to mock him yet for calling himself "The PhDJ".

Ah, there it was.

Posted by: Dr Van Nostrand | May 19, 2010 12:05 AM

While I still have my reservations about the initial complaint, the posting of confidential materials outing the complainant is inexcusable. However badly he feels he has been treated by the University, if he leaked these documents (and I'm not sure who the hell else could have), he deserves any disciplinary action the University gives him.

Posted by: memills | May 19, 2010 2:28 AM

So, if a letter says "Confidential" we should all respect that? The Pentagon Papers, Watergate, etc., should have all remained away from public scrutiny?

There was an injustice here, by a university president who weaseled out (as too many do) on the side of political correctness, rather than defend the most important value of the academy: academic freedom.

The incident revolves around sharing of a paper published in a peer-reviewed academic journal with a colleague. Case closed -- academic freedom must prevail or University College Cork will not be taken seriously by the academy.

The situation could have been resolved informally -- but both the president and the claimant refused personal discussion or informal mediation. Once it went formal, and had this outcome, academics around the world need to take notice.

This case deserves much public scrutiny.

As was noted in post #385

"Injustices that stay secret tend to remain injustices."

Posted by: echidna | May 19, 2010 3:21 AM

Memills,

Releasing those documents was not in the public interest. It was not even in Dr. Evans' interests. Now he is in much deeper trouble than he was before, and nobody is better off.

Case closed -- academic freedom must prevail or University College Cork will not be taken seriously by the academy.

Because University College Cork has suppressed what research exactly? What discussions? What academic positions or talks?

Posted by: Ichthyic | May 19, 2010 4:14 AM

This is an attack on academic freedom.

you didn't read the comments in this thread. I'd say a pretty careful investigation indicates that's mostly a cover.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say you are an undergrad there, or friends with one.

I don't think you have a good perspective on this, in any case.

Posted by: pmoloney | May 19, 2010 5:20 AM

It's interesting that the general attitude on the UCC forum, and among people I know in UCC, is that this story is all down to insider politics. Any UCCers in the thread care to comment?

Posted by: echidna | May 19, 2010 6:34 AM

memills,

University College Cork has, in effect, banned the sharing of academic papers among colleagues, lest a colleague find a paper distasteful.

madrassa

Taking this public has not helped the cause of academic freedom in the slightest, nor has Evans helped any institution or individual. All I see is that Evans found a way of revealing who his accuser was, totally smashing through the expectation of confidentiality that the complaints process was meant to have. He has made it much harder to make a legitimate complaint; he has set academics on edge about harrassment complaints. He has used sledgehammer tactics with the University and the complainant as targets, and he may have ruined his own career in the process. I know I wouldn't give him tenure after this display. Maybe he thought he had nothing left to lose.

Posted by: SC OM | May 19, 2010 9:50 AM

http://scienceblogs.com/thoughtfulanimal/2010/05/does_oral_sex_confer_an_evolut.php

So let's look at oral sex in animals. There is some evidence that bonobos engage in fellatio, but this is infrequent, and usually among juveniles and considered part of play (see this article (PDF) or this paper). This might lead you to believe that fellatio is primarily a human activity or emerged as a part of play (as opposed to a part of sex) - in either case, not a convincing evolutionarily adaptive explanation.

Except that the paper he's talking about explicitly talks about orangutans:

Schürmann observed that a female orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus, often interrupted copulation for a short while, manipulating her mate's penis with her hand, licking it or putting it in her mouth before mounting again. It is plausible that this female's behavior increased male arousal [22].

Indeed it is, and this is much closer to what humans do. In fact, what these researchers seem to be doing is taking what we know from humans and - in a way that's valid as long as they're considering species-specific characteristics - using it to speculate on similar or related behaviors in other species. You'd have to be a fucking idiot [get it?] not to recognize that oral sex (fellatio and cunnilingus; ...by the way, has anyone observed/studied cunnilingus in any other species?) have an arousal and probably lubrication function.* But fellatio has also been observed as (sexual?) play behavior (which of course also has adaptive value) in other primates, and is a culturally-variable practice. In other words, it's complex. But it would be pretty unreasonable to be led to believe something about humans on the basis of observed behavior in bonobos without taking into account what's obviously the case with humans.

I don't see what this study tells us about humans that we didn't already know if we gave it a moment's thought. This would be true even if it were a completely exceptional behavior, so this is a red herring. "Some might argue that oral sex does not have adaptive value. How could it increase reproductive fitness when engaging in oral sex does not seem to allow sperm to meet egg? If sperm and egg don't have a rendezvous, someone could be super duper awesome but an adaptive loser" and "This might lead you to believe that fellatio is primarily a human activity or emerged as a part of play (as opposed to a part of sex)" are simply ridiculous. Think about it, Goldman: Is oral sex part of sex - combined in practice with copulation - in humans?

When human adults show complex, possibly culture-specific skills, they emerge from a set of psychological (and thus neural) mechanisms which have two properties: (1) they evolved early in the timecourse of evolution and are shared with other animals, and, (2) they emerge early in human development, and can be found in infants and children, as well as adults.

I don't even know where to start with that.

*The business about its playing an anti-STD, antibacterial, etc., role is a bit worrisome if people are going to talk about humans in the same context. For all we know, it may play this role among humans, but oral sex is also a means to transmit infections, and people should be clear about that.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 19, 2010 10:11 AM

*eyeroll*
The adaptive function of oral sex in humans?
Is there any reason at all to suspect a genetic component to the propensity to apply mouth to partner's genitals in the first place?

hmm let's see *waving arms about* "pair-bonding"!

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 19, 2010 10:21 AM

University College Cork has, in effect, banned the sharing of academic papers among colleagues, lest a colleague find a paper distasteful.

Trouble can happen with non-work related material, that can be considered salacious by some, and a twit goes barging into someone elses office to shove it in their face.

Academic freedom is in no way impaired, but some jerks might have to change their behavior. This causes some jerks distress. I don't feel sorry for them.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 19, 2010 10:29 AM

Thanks, Josh--you've got class.
I'd like to see PZ and the Horsemen follow your example.
Pinker in particular has managed to supply ammo to the mendacious "evo-psych exists only to justify the patriarchy" meme.

Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official | May 19, 2010 10:50 AM

Pinker in particular has managed to supply ammo to the mendacious "evo-psych exists only to justify the patriarchy" meme.

Sigh. This depresses me, because I have a lot of time for Pinker (and Dennett). Evo-psych is almost as tough to have a rational conversation about as is any topic involving children and sexuality; biases and emotional reactions shut down the brains of even the most intelligent people. I understand why Pinker would react this way, and also why others would take the opposite position.

It seems to me true that:

a. Evo-psych can and does make useful contributions to understanding of human behavior

b. Evo-psych can and is often often done sloppily, and opponents are right to call out untestable "just-so stories." Some of them are embarrassingly laughable.

c. There are many opponents (not all, mind) of evo-psych that are rigidly and ideologically opposed the very idea that evolution shaped human psychology in any way, and contort themselves to caricature it at all costs. They do not distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable hypotheses, and see the whole thing as a tool of oppression.

d. Both camps are so charged and on guard, that what should be a conversation turns into ritual, content-free defense of one's tribe.

When this spaghettified intellectual mess infects a real world situation such as this one, nothing useful is accomplished, and a lot of damage is done.

Posted by: Rorschach | May 19, 2010 11:36 AM

My approach is to only discuss specific research on specific claims.

Where's Nancy anyway ??

;)

From the blog post SC linked above :

And a few thousand people have shown an extraordinary lack of judgement in backing him without having any real knowledge of the circumstances

Not here, they haven't.

Posted by: SC OM | May 19, 2010 12:01 PM

http://www.stephenkinsella.net/2010/05/18/fruitbatgate/

Evans:

Thanks for your comments, Stephen, which strike me as very thoughtful. I am not sure, however, what the “bullying” you refer to is. Could you clarify? Please remember that I have never named the complainant, and indeed did my best to avoid revealing possible identifiers. But I guess it was inevitable as soon as this story went viral that journalists would do their utmost to identify the complainant. I did not post the documents online, but once they were in the public domain I felt I had a perfect right to defend myself against some of the more horrible slurs on my character that started doing the rounds on the net. I agree it is highly regretable that some newspapers are now publishing photos of the person they claim is the complainant. The complainant’s privacy deserves to be respected in these cases, and my beef is entirely with UCC, not with the complainant. I think their ruling on the matter does have serious implications for academic freedom, though I agree with you that now the story has evolved to be about much more than that. It is wrong for anyone to sign a petition without assuring themselves of the facts first, and for that reason it strikes me that whoever posted the documents online was doing the signatories a service, particularly as the identifiers were redacted. I should also refer you to a comment by Greg Lukianoff, the author of the #fruitbat post on the Huffington Post: “in the cases we handle in the US we usually post primary documents, like charging documents, on line.”

That's just...wow.

Posted by: memills | May 19, 2010 12:53 PM

...and on a related current events note regarding free speech (and madrassas):

CNN: Pakistan shuts down Facebook over 'Draw Mohammed' Day

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/19/pakistani.facebook.shutdown/index.html

Folks who are offended by bat sex, or cartoons, should not be allowed to limit our speech.

Posted by: Bernard Bumner | May 19, 2010 1:13 PM

Your statement that Evans "has made it much harder to make a legitimate [sexual harassment] complaint" indicates that you place a lesser value on academic freedom. Another perspective is that "the university has made it much harder to freely share academic articles with colleagues."

Which would only be right. Keep in mind that the "academic freedom" at risk in this case is that of being able to share unsolicited papers in another person's office. If asking before sharing is the cost of ensuring that people are able to complain about harassment, then so be it.

As it is, even that consequence exists largely in the minds of those sympathetic to Evans, rather than being a likely consequence of the UCC President's actions.

Whereas, it is immediately obvious that Evans' very public campaign damages confidence in the complaints procedure. That is entirely Evans' fault.

Again, keep in mind what this case is fundamentally about -- the charge that the act of showing a colleague a published journal article, in itself, constituted sexual harassment. (That was the only sexual harassment charge the president of the university made.)

Bullshit. Even some of those who initially thought - myself included - that Evans may have been treated harshly, didn't think this was a matter of academic freedom.

As it is, he was clearly found guilty of some wrongdoing, if unintentionally. He then chose to make a public circus of the thing, for no reason other than that he didn't like the outcome. At that point, he could have chosen to go through the due process of disciplinary proceedings and appeals. Instead, he chose to reframe his own problem in terms of the current cause célèbre that is academic freedom, and act in manner damaging to both himself, the complainant, and the UCC.

Unfortunately, this situation is not unique -- it is one more example of the insanity that can result at universities as they try to be both politically correct and support academic freedom. Unfortunately, the latter does not always prevail.

Protecting people from harassment or bullying is simply political correctness, is it?

Posted by: memills | May 19, 2010 1:31 PM

You are right -- I have an ax to grind. I place a greater value on freedom of speech and academic freedom over claims of taking offense to speech.

You don't -- so you are just grinding a different ax.

Given my values, I support your free expression of them.