The Decent Human Beings' Guide to Speaking at Atheist Conferences

Spence, I found this interesting: "Most of the radfems view rape through the lens of a horny male looking to get his end away, and are thereby linking EG to potential rape, because that is how they perceive rape to come about."

In the past I have been called a misogynist and a rape apologist by commentators at feminist blogs for suggesting that rape is sexually-based in part rather than being based entirely upon power or control. Apparently the actual cause of rape varies based upon whatever point they're trying to prove.

@Southern Geologist and Spence: That's like how the new anti-pr0n brigade is up in arms because pr0n makes men less likely to want actual sex, which is harming their relationships!!!11one

It's amusing to note the near-total overlap between the new and old anti-pr0n brigades. Remember: 'realfacts' are for those who are making decisions, 'goodfacts' are for justifying them to everyone else.

Souther Geologist, most of the evidence is on your side of things. The rape as power theory is completely pseudo-scientific in origin, backed up by no empirical evidence, and originates from feminist arm-chair philosophy. The theory didn't even stem from emperical data, however badly misconstrued or understood. It came from Susan Brownmiller, not a scientist but a feminist activist and journalist.

Steven Pinker, the harvard experimental psychologist, said on the topic:
"This grew into the modern catechism: rape is not about sex, our culture socializes men to rape, it glorifies violence against women. The analysis comes right out of the gender-feminist theory of human nature: people are blank slates (who must be trained or socialized to want things); the only significant human motive is power (so sexual desire is irrelevant); and all motives and interests must be located in groups (such as the male sex and the female sex) rather than in individual people. The Brownmiller theory is appealing even to people who are not gender {362} feminists because of the doctrine of the Noble Savage. Since the 1960s most educated people have come to believe that sex should be thought of as natural, not shameful or dirty. Sex is good because sex is natural and natural things are good. But rape is bad; therefore, rape is not about sex. The motive to rape must come from social institutions, not from anything in human nature. The violence-not-sex slogan is right about two things. Both parts are absolutely true for the victim: a woman who is raped experiences it as a violent assault, not as a sexual act. And the part about violence is true for the perpetrator by definition: if there is no violence or coercion, we do not call it rape. But the fact that rape has something to do with violence does not mean it has nothing to do with sex, any more than the fact that armed robbery has something to do with violence means it has nothing to do with greed. Evil men may use violence to get sex, just as they use violence to get other things they want.

I believe that the rape-is-not-about-sex doctrine will go down in history as an example of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. It is preposterous on the face of it, does not deserve its sanctity, is contradicted by a mass of evidence, and is getting in the way of the only morally relevant goal surrounding rape, the effort to stamp it out.

Think about it. First obvious fact: Men often want to have sex with women who donât want to have sex with them. They use every tactic that one human being uses to affect the behavior of another: wooing, seducing, flattering, deceiving, sulking, and paying. Second obvious fact: Some men use violence to get what they want, indifferent to the suffering they cause. Men have been known to kidnap children for ransom (sometimes sending their parents an ear or finger to show they mean business), blind the victim of a mugging so the victim canât identify them in court, shoot out the kneecaps of an associate as punishment for ratting to the police or invading their territory, and kill a stranger for his brand-name athletic footwear. It would be an extraordinary fact, contradicting everything else we know about people, if some men didnât use violence to get sex."

ZONTARGS! Y U KEEP GETTING CAUGHT IN SPAM FILTER??? Are you posting from Turkey or something???

I'm dubious, Spence. I've been trying to get Tom Cruise to rape me for like fi . . .oh, you said straight. Nevermind.

One thing, among so very many, which is repugnant is that someone who wasn't actually sexually assaulted is telling someone who actually was sexually assaulted that their opinion doesn't count (and the explanations as to why are plenty and plenty divergent) in the same breath they're demanding that their experience of being near someone who could have conceivably decided to rape them are completely fucking valid. In reality, neither person's previous experience can tell us anything about a new situation. All it can do is justify negative emotions. Ok, but no one is saying people aren't entitled to feel what they feel!

I agree without any reservation - if something scares you, you're scared. It's a necessary artifact of evolution - the critters that don't get scared and want to run away wind up being the food. But, that doesn't make the emotion someone experiences an actual map of reality.

A false positive is better than a false negative here. Yes, there's an expense paid in the false positive; you burn energy running from something that isn't there, the caloric expenditure on the stress, all of that stuff. It's a price to pay. But to think there's not a danger when the lion is bearing down on you, well, that kind of stops you from having to ever worry about a cost benefit analysis again. You lost that argument, and now you're dinner.

Yes, we ALL have this built in to us. If we didn't, we wouldn't be here talking about it. But that doesn't make it the fucking highest ideal we should engender (is this word allowed anymore?) for how people interact: please, make sure you're as scared as possible at every conceivable situation involving strangers. Strangers who are, incidentally, far less statistically likely to do fuck all to you than your wife/husband/brother/sister/neighbor when you get home to tell them about how fucking scared you were.

ACK!

With respect to your valedictory there, Spence, yes, some people whose views largely map onto mine got there for the wrong reason. It is unfortunate, but I have to do triage as I navigate this world. The level of wrong attendant to "stop playing victim for shit that didn't happen" isn't in the same league as what Rebecca Watson and Jennifer McCreight's coterie of special brand of wrong. They're just the same category of wrong.

Thanks to anyone who's linked to my blog about Jen. And for the comments there. This brings me to a video I watched a long time ago and forgot about, which is funny since Christina Rad is coming here and PZ's all excited. I was like, um, does he know her views on feminism? She's not a feminist like he's a feminist: she's interested in women making choices for themselves and bearing the consequences of those choices. Just like everyone else. Want to be a hooker? Here, let me get the door for you - have fun, and be good at it.

Guy approaches you don't like? Tell him to fuck himself. If he touches you, fingernails in the eyes will stop anyone. That kind of shit. If you do wind up being raped, or beaten, or mugged, or harassed, or abused or, and or, and or, that sucks. Now you do what everyone else does: you fucking respond; you file police reports, you document, you sue - whatever it is that needs to be done to punish the evil fucks who violated you.

What shouldn't you do?

Sit around bitching about how your life sucks and it shouldn't happen to you. No one is so goddamned special that they shouldn't have to take the risk all of the time the everyone else has to take. Stop painting me as a victim; save that for your goddamned diary.

That's not an exact quote incidentally.

Feminists: oppressing women since men aren't doing a good enough job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TdEYqOZY_E&NR=1

For the record, I don't intend to get into an extensive debate here on the subject of whether rape is based on sexuality or power (or both); I was using that example to demonstrate the intellectual dishonesty of the attitudes of some of the feminist blogger movement. Clearly, switching gears on what the 'true' motivation behind rape is to make it fit whatever goal you want is wrong. I do have a couple of thoughts, though:

The first is that it seems a bit over-simplifies as Pinker expresses the idea. To clarify: He seems to be setting up a false dichotomy. I agree with him on the point that declaring that rape is completely non-sexual has gone too far (though PLEASE note that this is based on a viewpoint I've formed after hearing stories from several victims, I have not done any formal research on the subject) but he seems to fail to address the issue that rape can be both sexual and based on power. It would not surprise me to find that some rapes are entirely sexually based, some are based entirely on power, and many fall into a gray area in between. I haven't read The Blank Slate, though, perhaps he takes on that issue after the quote ends.

Also, Agent Smith, your argument seems to be partly based on the fact that the germination of the rape as power idea came from an unreliable source. While I do think there is a case to be made for tracing the intellectual heritage of an idea (or argument) to determine if it has any merit one can easily rely too heavily on that and end up with a sort of reversed argument from authority. The originator of the idea may be an armchair scholar, but I'm curious to know what research has been conducted on the idea by professionals and their conclusions on the subject before dismissing it for that reason. A blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut, after all.

@ERV: Uh, no? Did a Canadian send CHEAP V1AGRA messages to the programmer once? Maybe the spamfilter thinks my email address looks like an auto-generated one, or someone from my IP block is being an ass. Sorry to make extra work for you. :)

@Agent Smith: From "The Blank Slate", yes? I just read that recently. Amazing how so many of the online reviews state that this book is terrible, horrible, no-good very-bad science because of this section alone. Gee, rape can be about sex in situation a, but power in situation b, and both in c? Not possible! Just like killing is always about premeditated revenge. That's why we don't have different grades of murder, or charges of manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, etc. Because that would make killing less bad.

Grats to Rystefn! He got Jen to lock to the thread by posting to my blog entry on her mendacity!

This is a hoot, Jen says:
"Justicar is completely off his rocker and is known for filling Pharyngula comments with ludicrous crap. After he kept spamming me with tweets and multiple videos, I knew he was going to be a loony so I banned him early. That post only proved my point. It's borderline libelous to suggest that I'm falsifying data in my research because he doesn't agree with me on a certain topic.

He can continue to b'aawwww over at his blog about how butthurt he is. He has the freedom to express himself over there. "

She says it's borderline libelous. Note, that instead of just saying I'm crazy, implying I'm stalkrish (my last comment to her was like on the fifth? I gave her plenty of time to come clean) and that I should be ignored and dismissed, the one thing she didn't do is show that I was wrong.

She's a turd.

More from the, um, comment-battle - queue dueling banjos here:

Ry: Off his rocker or no, I'd still say at the very least an "I'm sorry... those things I said never happened actually happened. My mistake." is warranted.

Jen: He hasn't proved anything other than an amazing ability to twist my words. He's arguing with a strawman.

Ry: Yeah... taking "You've never been called..." to mean "you've never been called..." is so twisty that it amazed me, too.

Jen: Yeah, and you're also supposed to read things without context! Oh wait, no.

Ry: So there's some context where "You've never been called..." actually means "You've repeatedly been called..."?

It's a goldmine of comedy over there.

But you can't participate; she's stopped that conversation too!

Southern Geologist, Agent Smith:

I will confess I'm probably not the best person to ask. My GF was involved in providing a support service to rape victims in the recent past. I glean some info from her but she has probably forgotten more than I know on the topic. I might see if she is interested in weighing in.

As with anything, though, it is not a simple either-or situation. Certainly there are situations when rape cannot be explained by the power thing. For example, drug rape does not involve any power/control so it is likely in those cases that sexual desire is a dominant cause.

On the other hand, heterosexual male on male rape is very poorly explained by sexual desire. These almost always occur in bullying type situations, in which the power / control thing is the far more credible explanation. I think I did ask my GF about the possibility of repressed homosexual behaviour, but she said that wasn't the case - I can't remember the justification off hand.

So unfortunately the answer is that there isn't a simplistic explanation. Both are factors, depending on the case. But the het male on male rape seems to point to power / control in the vast majority of cases, and the situation of these cases carry over to many male on female cases as well.

See? That's why I should be invited to give talks. I can come up with that kind of stuff all day. I'm at least as qualified as 80% of current speakers at these kinds of things, and it won't be taking time and energy that could be better filled by doing research or juggling, since I do neither.

@Southern Geologist: Regarding the quotation of Pinker above, I'm not sure if you've read the book, but that is just a small portion from a rather long section on the topic. He's just explaining how "rape is never about sex!" is nonsense. Next comes the section promoting an effort to understand all the causes of rape, in order to better combat it. It's actually a good read. He gets into several other "hot button" topics and explains why the public understanding of them is overly simplistic and counterproductive.

Just got back from Barnes&Noble. I ordered Dawkins' The Extended Phenotype. I've wanted to read it for a while, could never find it, figured now I could do it in a good cause.

@highjohn: You know, that's a very good idea. *clickety-click*

This whole mess reminded me of a concept I saw on Eric Raymond's blog a while back called Kafkatrapping.

"Good causes sometimes have bad consequences. Blacks, women, and other historical out-groups were right to demand equality before the law and the full respect and liberties due to any member of our civilization; but the tactics they used to âraise consciousnessâ have sometimes veered into the creepy and pathological, borrowing the least sane features of religious evangelism.

One very notable pathology is a form of argument that, reduced to essence, runs like this: âYour refusal to acknowledge that you are guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppressionâ¦} confirms that you are guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppressionâ¦}.â Iâve been presented with enough instances of this recently that Iâve decided that it needs a name. I call this general style of argument âkafkatrappingâ, and the above the Model A kafkatrap. In this essay, I will show that the kafkatrap is a form of argument that is so fallacious and manipulative that those subjected to it are entitled to reject it based entirely on the form of the argument, without reference to whatever particular sin or thoughtcrime is being alleged. I will also attempt to show that kafkatrapping is so self-destructive to the causes that employ it that change activists should root it out of their own speech and thoughts."

Sound familiar to anyone? Maybe if we used the word "privilege"?

Ok, I edited my post to take into account this new information. Unlike some other people whom I won't name this time, I take new information into account. I don't dismiss the veracity of a claim because I think a person is crazy. Indeed. crazy people are usually pretty easy to deal with because their claims are so not in accord with reality, or even their own claims.

I also do not juggle; I could never master playing with balls in anything but even numbers. It's just how I roll.

Just posting to let you guys know I'm joining the anti-boycott and just ordered Unweaving the Rainbow.

Also, kudos to ERV for being awesome, which is understating it.

@514
Hey what about those poor victims with uni-ball (or is that mono-ball)? That's just two testicle privilige!!! By the way, you're white.

Sam Harris sent out a tweet for examples of white lies gone wrong.

I just e-mailed him.

Dear Dr. Harris:
I am glad to see that you have made it out of your cave without undue distress. Attendant to your recent Tweet with respect to asking after a white lie gone horribly wrong, I should like to direct you to the following situation.

Picture it, Dublin, Ire, 2011, inside an elevator.
"Don't take this wrong way, but I find you interesting . . ."For the results, please see hashtag elevatorgate."

Do you think that's what he was after?

I went and looked at the comments at Skepchick again. No one except John Greg has expressed any discomfort with what I posted @480. This was the most recent post.

tnt666

07.10.2011

Dear fellow atheist feminist. Note that you started as an atheist, then became a feminist atheist, but now youâve graduated to being an atheist feminist
Congratulations. I agree with nearly every word in this post except: âabout how their goals so clearly overlapped those of the humanists and skeptics and secularistsâ.
These new dogmas are simply methods for the patriarchal elite to shift power amongst themselves, again, and again. Humanism, skepticism, secularism are but godless outgrowths of Christianity.

I as all humans, was born without religion, thankfully, I was never duped by my peers into beliefs, though some tried very hard. Patriarchy and modern religions are one and the same. Those who hold privilege and power in our society SAY they want equality for women, as long as that only means nearing their salaries and having equal access to jobs⦠equalism, AS LONG AS WE DONâT SHAKE THEIR POWER STRUCTURE: PATRIARCHY. As soon as feminists start knocking on the doors of patriarchy, thatâs when men otherwise rational men become violent and stupid. Feminism is not equalism, I dot give a hoot about menâs âjobsâ, as a feminist, I am interested in changing society, I just happen to never had any religious beliefs, so I start with a clean slate. On a a side-note, the reason LGBTs are so âwelcomedâ in the atheist community, is that theyâre only asking for equality⦠theyâre not shaking the patriarchal tree of power. If feminism does not mean shaking that tree, then it means nothing.
As we say in French: Bonne continuation

If you're anti-boycott, that makes you a Gender Traitor because you're then therefore womancotting.

The ones with the uni-balls? Well, I'm sure the priests will pick up my slack.

Another hilarious post and more evidence that they aren't equality feminists but gender feminists. Notice those seeking equality are generally thought of as part of the secret "PATRIARCHY"!!!

I was a trotskyite (still have the bizarre "journals" they publish in) in college I recognize that language any day. It is a bad written, vulgar form of marxism. Just replace "Patriarchy" with "bourgeoisie". The rest of the rhetoric is the same.

@513

Wild, The article on Kafkatrapping was really good.

Highjohn, I didn't comment on the earlier post because I'm not going to read through all of the skepchick commentary to see how it played into the conversation they were having. As such, I wasn't in a position to have an opinion worth expressing, and thus didn't.

But I happy to hear you've enjoyed my thoughts, or perspective or something; I hope what you heard and read maps well what I was trying to say - in-artful as it has been at times.

I still am not going to pore over the claptrap at skepchick, but I can safely stop reading that comment at "patriarchy.

Women are not forced into submission, and are the majority of the population in my country. If they're not liking something about the politics of my country, it is entirely within their means to change it. But it would seem that they are not all agreed on where the solution lies anymore than we are all agreed.

This should give each of us a little humility in our positions - some of us have to be wrong. Since I know how wrong I am in my own field quite a lot of the time, I am not in turn then arrogant enough to think I have all the answers.

That is what makes this so much more bizarre to me; I have asked many of these Right Feminists to explain where my reasoning fails, and I even write out specifically what I think, where I don't see how they're correct.

All that prevents them from convincing me, as I've said over and again to them, is air, opportunity and good, cogent argument.

So far, I've had no takers on that one.

Things I've learned from Skepchick.douche:

1) Men can't be raped.

2) It's only rape if a male penis penetrates. So someone jam a table leg up your ass and leave you bleeding? Didn't count. Someone drag you into an alley, cockslap you then jizz all over your face, maybe giving you cthulu knows what? Doesn't count. Guy drags a woman into an alley and violates her with a pipe? Doesn't count. No penis in orifice.

The delusional shit these morons are bobbleheading to is ASTOUNDING.

Justicar,
When you say your country you mean the United States, or did I infer that incorrectly from something else? As for waiting for a cogent argument, I don't think you will ever get one. That would require that they back down the ladder of their ideology to the point where they could even possibly glimpse a shared reality with you.

@525
That sounded postmodernist, and I'm more of a logical postivist. Make that "possibly glimpse that they do share a reality with you."

An interesting read: http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorder/

I think this articles holds some interesting implications for some modern feminist-memes..

Excerpt:

Reason as immune suppression: The reason I bring this up is that intelligent people sometimes do things more stupid than stupid people are capable of. There are a variety of reasons for this; but one has to do with the fact that all cultures have dangerous memes circulating in them, and cultural antibodies to those memes. The trouble is that these antibodies are not logical. On the contrary; these antibodies are often highly illogical. They are the blind spots that let us live with a dangerous meme without being impelled to action by it. The dangerous effects of these memes are most obvious with religion; but I think there is an element of this in many social norms...

John C. Welch, I have to say that the first part of your last post was arousing. The last part ruined it.

Do not submit that one to "Dear Penthouse" until you've "cleaned" up, so to speak, the denouement. Thanks!

Yeah, I live in the United States, highjohn. But the statistics are fairly uniform in the west with respect to population disparity. I suppose I could have left it off and the post would have been just as, um, "good" as it otherwise was "good".

Please make sure you get those posts into Sam Harris; you're even free to not to use my example. You can use a real one from your lives!

Anyone know some good plug-ins for blogger? I don't like my comments there not being threaded!

Spence, Zontargs:

Thanks for the information. I'd give a more detailed response but the conversation seems to have moved on and I don't want to bring it back to an argument about causes of rape right now. That said, Spence, if your girlfriend wants to weigh in I'll be happy to post a response.

I made a post on PZ's blog in response to his comment about jettisoning those from the atheist movement whose political views he doesn't like: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/godless_goals_are_progressiv…

Unfortunately, I again found myself in a blind rage after reading his comment a second time so it is poorly written. So it goes.

I would like to retrieve one thread of discussion that I feel hasn't been properly closed up, though: The issue of Watson's credentials and whether she should be speaking at conferences or given attention when she lacks credentials. I agree with the idea that a majority of speakers should be experts of some sort (preferably scientists covering various subjects) but where does this leave Christopher Hitchens? Or Sam Harris prior to his cognitive neurology doctorate? (His bachelors was in philosophy.) Granted, both of those men were already in possession of degrees of some sort or another at the time of their entry to the skeptical community and both radiate intelligence which certainly helps (I don't know enough about Watson to say whether she radiates intelligence or not), but neither were 'experts' in the sense of being scientists when they got their start and they were both well accepted.

For that matter, what about Penn and Teller? I will happily grant that as professional magicians they have a lot of practical experience in picking out scam artists, but they're also not 'experts' in the traditional sense.

I guess what I'm asking is, where do we draw the line for what constitutes a proper skeptic? Can we discredit Watson based on her lack of scientific experience or lack of a degree(s)?* If so, what degree

*I apologize if she does have a college degree that I'm unaware of. My Google-Fu muscles seem to have atrophied from lack of use and I'm unable to find any relevant information beyond stuff that has been posted previously in this thread.

I remember A Year of Living Babblically. But an article like this is, I must confess, nearly gibberish to me. I have no training whatsoever in this area, and I barely have a child's vocabulary in it.

The only reason I can see that I'm compelled to agree with it is conclusion-wise. If this is saying anything more than bad ideas that aren't immediately deadly manage to survive and get propagated, then it's over my head. Otherwise, I suppose I can get behind it. Religion isn't good - who knew? Next week: rocks fall downward, usually.

Maybe someone here can translate the woo-sounding stuff here into something that I don't envision Deepak Chopra fapping to.

(maybe I'm laying myself too bare by this admission)

@Wild Zontargs:
Thank you for your link to Kafkatrapping. An insightful essay, and highly relevant here.

I made a post on PZ's blog in response to his comment about jettisoning those from the atheist movement whose political views he doesn't like:

I found this attitude quite disturbing as well. I'm left-of-centre with a preference for Green Party policies myself, but I think it's antithetical to freethought/skepticism to exclude a diversity of political perspectives. It would be like banana republic state banning every political party expect for the one in power.

I guess what I'm asking is, where do we draw the line for what constitutes a proper skeptic? Can we discredit Watson based on her lack of scientific experience or lack of a degree(s)?* If so, what degree

I don't think that's a good road to take - never mind Hitchens and Harris, what about people like Maryam Namazie or Paula Kirby who are also primarily known for their activism? This just seems like the mirror image of 'can we weed out people who have the wrong political views from our conferences'.

Southern Geologist,

1) All those people you just mentioned had massive professional accomplishments before becoming spokespeople for the skeptical or atheism movements. They are not hangers-on that attempt to merely gain attention and speaking funds from their internet activity and stirring controversy.

I don't even know whether RW finished a basic communications degree from a TTT. Hitchens was a highly respected journalist and had a degree from Oxford. Harris had a philosophy degree from Stanford. Those are well thought of academic credentials anyway you think about it.

2) Hichens and Harris aren't so much involved in the scientific skepticism movement as they are involved in secular humanism/atheism movements. Atheism is a philosophic position informed by the scientific evidence- but is not a area of scientific expertise. On the other hand, I would not be comfortable with Harris discussing physics or Hitchens discussing geology.

3) I don't think any of this should "discredit" RW per se. It is fine to have lay people speak on occasion about their experience. However, I just don't see what purpose she serves at skeptical events, especially as a "leader". She has no real world personal accomplishments, she has no relevant areas of expertise and fails to bring anything new or interesting to the table. Listen to skeptics guide- she has no idea what is going on half the time. Not to mention her website is now prompting pseudo-scientific babble and extreme political opinions while calling it skepticism. In other words, her resume for skeptical "leadership" is really lacking (as mine would, I'm a low-life lawyer).

I have a feeling her rise is due solely to tokenism- which is really too bad because there are lots of accomplished and charismatic women scientists out there. Provide girls with an real example of science- because RW is merely an example of hipster layabout.

@529 Southern Geologist

About what constitutes a "proper skeptic" - good question. Skepticism isn't really a profession, or an academic discipline, so we don't really have generally recognizable credentials that can be used to stand in for "skeptic." Magicians do know something about how we fool ourselves, and that's a reasonable contribution. Scientists know (hopefully) about the scientific method. But beyond that, I don't think there are any reliable criteria that are widely used. Which is why we have to be skeptical of the people who do get chosen (for whatever reasons) to be our spokespeople.

RW doesn't really need credentials to still be called a leading skeptic campaigner and pundit, apparently. (For some reason, I keep thinking of Charo, who was sort of a "leading entertainer" 20 or 30 years ago... no real talent, but she kept popping up everywhere. )

Thanks, ERV, Justicar, John, everyone for bringing some sanity, and some humor, to all this.

I'm not an atheist nor a skeptic, and I stumbled upon this whole story via the Maverick Philosopher's note about it: http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2011/07/daw…

I must say I've found the whole thing highly amusing.

I've heard of Dawkins, of course, and unfortunately PZ as well, but I never heard of this "skepchick" person who strikes me as an ego-tripping nut job of the highest degree.

@529

Southern Geologist,
I would say we can't draw a line. The only thing we can do is not attend if someone tries to venture into activities they aren't suited for. (like me trying to construct sentences, apparently). I would happily attend a Penn & Teller demonstration of magic and how we can all be fooled. A Penn & Teller lecture on Natural Selection vs Neutral Drift - I'd be sceptical.
And Science isn't they only relevant expertise here. Philosophy (at least certain philosophies) is and should be a bedrock of atheism and scepticism.
I think Sam Harris is kind of a special case. He wrote a book that the majority of Philosophy BA's could never dream of writing.

I'm new here. Thanks for the wonderful, rational site! PZ's latest irrationality on the subject of feminism that made me sick at heart. He has gone over-the-top on this issue.

My husband and I are attending TAM 9, and we plan on making our views known, in appropriate ways. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm tempted to put "male" and "female" signs on the elevator doors, so the women who need to feel rapist-free could have their own elevator, but that would probably get me thrown out of the conference. We have already cancelled our tickets for the Rebecca Watson Show. The people who run these conferences are concerned about money, and the drawing power of their speakers, so we thought this was a good way of getting our message across.

We were also at the conference in Dublin, and undoubtedly rode on the now infamous elevator-of-doom. We were never on it with Rebecca though. We avoided her like the plague, having previously accessed her personality as "toxic". We sat in the audience in horror as she refused to talk on the subject her panel had been given, and instead went on a private rant, maligning four women from a previous panel for saying that women were welcomed in the atheist community, and had often held high positions in atheist organizations. Rebecca's latest personal attack during a public speaking engagement is certainly not her first. My fond hope is that it will be her last, and that she either agrees to abide by the principles of common decency, or is denied her bully pulpit.

By the way, my husband and I kept trying to figure out who the elevator guy might have been. We interacted with all of the conference attendees for at least three days, and nobody stood out as "creepy".

Agent Smith:

This is a very strong response and my reply should be thought of more as an effort to prolong the discussion than a critique.

I agree with you that excellent academic credentials are valuable and help establish one as being legitimate, but the lack thereof doesn't necessarily mean that one has no value, though I would expect some evidence of value.

I probably shouldn't do this, but I'll use myself as an example to illustrate what I was speaking of: I have no formal degree* (dropped out of college as a result of being too miserable to handle the workload because I hated the city and college I was stuck in) but I've heard repeatedly that I'm an excellent writer and I also tend to widely read. If I was to start up a blog relating to atheism or skepticism I would expect this combination, combined with an appropriate skeptical mindset and a knowledge of my limits to garner me some respect. However, I would never expect to be given a speaking position at an atheism convention unless I had done enough high-quality writing on a given area of atheism or skepticism to prove that I could hold my own. I would expect to have to submit countless pages of writing to prove that I was capable and to prove that I had an established fan-base. Keep in mind here that I'm thinking of debunking things (or discussing a facet of atheism) that do not require an advanced knowledge of science. You don't need to be a physicist to demonstrate why ghost sightings are bullshit, for example. However, as I said earlier I do feel that most presenters at a skepticism conference should be experts.

Do you think feel this position is reasonable or is it not? Also, if you feel that I'm interpreting your point too literally here I can see that you're speaking of Watson in particular because of her background (or lack thereof) and attitude rather than untrained atheist or skeptic advocates in general. I certainly wouldn't disagree with the idea that a layman presenter should at least have a niche or bring something new to the table. No one wants to listen to several skepticism conversion stories in a row.

highjohn:

"I think Sam Harris is kind of a special case. He wrote a book that the majority of Philosophy BA's could never dream of writing."

I think you made an excellent point here. Nothing much more to say.

*For those wondering, I selected this handle prior to dropping out and plan on using it for blogging if and when I move elsewhere and restart my degree. I'm using it currently to help establish a link between personality and blogger when my blog hits.

@529

Oh no, I got everyone mad at PZ. I feel bad...
No wait, no I don't. Watson says she feels betrayed by Dawkins, I feel betrayed by PZ. But that isn't his fault, it's mine. He's a godless liberal, I'm a godless liberal. Which to me means I don't believe in witchhunts and ideological purity. I should have read his posts more closely, and I'd never really read the comments. I feel he should have said something to ratchet down the comments before Dawkins felt compelled to attempt to do so with sarcasm, which of course worked like gasoline on a fire.

I apologize for double posting but I came across two posts that came in after my reply that I think should be addressed:

Armchair Skeptic: Thank you for your reply.

For that matter, thank you Abbie for letting us indulge ourselves so freely in discussion on this thread, especially the stuff that only tangentially relates to the originally post.

Victoria: I'm glad to see that you're putting your foot down on this matter and doing what you think is morally necessary. The elevator sign idea is hilarious. As for the 'creepy' guy...Frankly, as a recovered Shy Guy, I interpret the comment from Elevator Guy as being from a lonely, shy fellow who was looking for a friend (it didn't seem to occur to anyone that he really DID mean 'you're interesting') but was unfortunately a bit oblivious as to when and how to try to strike up a friendship with a female he had never spoken to before. (This would explain why the fellow didn't put off any kind of a 'creepy' vibe.) Granted, this is just a guess on my part, but it's as valid as any other interpretation that we've seen.

"We sat in the audience in horror as she refused to talk on the subject her panel had been given, and instead went on a private rant, maligning four women from a previous panel for saying that women were welcomed in the atheist community, and had often held high positions in atheist organizations."

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

That happened before the elevator event?

If so, then I tend to think the whole elevator event is a made up story. An exclamation mark on her night's narrative.

windy, SouthernG-- Like I said, everybody is good at something! I want to encourage groups to find that within their own ranks or nearby! For instance, the OKC Atheists has a 'dialogues' series where people talk about their cool stuff, whether its math or blogging or UFOs or we had the folks from Camp Quest drive up to talk. Yay!!

From the presentations Ive seen, people are passionate and knowledgeable about their specialty, and I bet they could give damn good small presentations at national conferences like TAM, cause they gave damn good presentations in the OKC UU church.

Headliners are a different story. We have some people who are REALLY DAMN GOOD at some things! Invite them to a million conferences all over the world and see em when you can! There are some truly extraordinary people within our global ranks. But I dont think Watson is at that level, nor have I seen much initiative from her to reach that level (is she writing a screenplay on feminism and atheism? a book? designing a strategic mission for including women in X, Y, Z? nope, just dicking around on the internet). I dont think *I* am at that level. A major difference between us is that I recognize that.

Heres an analogy from my history with martial arts: You cannot give someone a black-belt before they deserve it. Their master has to *know* they are ready. *They* have to know they are ready. And then they can try for it. If you give someone a black-belt who doesnt deserve it yet, they *know* it, and spend the rest of their lives trying to prove they earned it. I think the French say the same thing about that pastry competition, Meilleurs Ouvriers de France or something... Anyway, I think Watson got her black-belt too early, and it shows. Thats how we get crap like YouTube comments at a student leadership conference.

Also, SG-- Going back to the "'Im not passive aggressive' says the person who is being passive aggressive" topic-- I get it from a shy persons perspective. Not that Im shy, I just always say exactly what I mean, and I expect others to do the same. Ive totally been known for asking dates up for coffee after a particularly fun date just because everything is closed and I want to keep talking. We have coffee and keep talking :-/ No one has even made a move while we were doing so. If I saw Dawkins on an elevator at 4 am, by himself, damn straight Id clumsily think of an excuse to engage him in a one-on-one conversation, and ask him if he wanted to grab some coffee. Imagine my shock if he thought he was gonna get some ERV b00b. I just totally get why a shy person, or any person who wanted to engage with someone they thought was cool, would say something like that. I also totally get why people who are passive aggressive and do not say or do what they mean on a semi-regular basis would think said person had ulterior motives.

@Victoria Johnson
Sounds hilarious. If any other humorous signs get posted at TAM can you take pictures to share with all of us not going to TAM?

Seems very likely many humorous signs will be posted on elevator.

Victoria-- Thanks for the insider info! Did you relate your concerns to the program organizers? I mean, not from a 'BAN WATSON FROM SPEAKING!!11eleventy' perspective, but from a 'Hey, you all need to figure out a way to keep speakers on topic. Thats not what we were expecting or wanting to hear about' perspective. They should plan for that in the future-- telling the speaker to stay on topic in advance, or have a moderator to nip that sort of thing in the bud in the future.

If you dont tell anyone, I bet the conference people just assumed everyone was happy.

But Im half Jewish (none of the religion, all of the stereotypes)-- if I buy a product and I dont like it, I complain :P

I agree with everything you said above. I don't want to discount lay people in the movement- they have done some of the best work like the 10/23 campaign (and my favorite UK skeptic Michael Marsh). Blogs, podcasts, grassroot campaigns by the lay public is great. Not to mention, beyond some critical thinking, I am not sure there can be much "expertise" in atheism.

However, when it comes to scientific skepticism, I would rather have experts as leaders and speakers (Dawkins, Steven Novella, Orac, Jerry Coyne, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Carl Sagan are good examples). Or if they are going to be non-experts, please make sure they have professional accomplishments and/or bring something new and interesting to the table- Randi and Penn/Teller are great examples of this trend. They are really just donating time out of devotion. Such a standard also assures that internet attention whores like RW, thunderf00t or the AmazingAtheist don't get massive platforms to spout sectarian crap.

Also ERV, how about Julia Galef for speaking events for student groups? She does a good job on Rationally Speaking.

I LOVE the fact that justicar called Jen's shit out when she said that RD had never been called slurs.

She responds that he is twisting her words.

Rystefn calls her out on her shit.

She says CONTEXT!

Rystefn how did we take what you said out of context when that was exactly what you said?

She says they dont hurt him because he doesn't hear them every day and they aren't tru.

Rystefn replies slurs are only hurtful if they are true then huh?

She says that isn't what she said.

On CONTEXT, Spence said, you mean like reading RD's comments within the context of PZ's blog?

She says he only contributed to that "side".

Spence says that depends on context, doesn't it?

She subsequently locked the thread from further comments.

Wow, that is amazing. I particularly love how long justicar's post was just cutting up her argument. The ONLY thing she takes issue with is the fact that he suggested she might be dishonest in other realms of her life.

Southern Geologist: I completely agree with you about the elevator guy. My first thought was that he was just shy, or may have a mild form of Asperger's, or simply not be willing to risk being turned down in public. It also did occur to me that he may really have just wanted coffee and conversation. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar! Rebecca may have automatically assumed that he was after sex because of her ingrained views about men. Also, elevator guy may have been in the group that was partying together at the bar; he may have spoken with Rebecca before the elevator incident. For all we know, he may have perceived some signal, unintentional or not, from Rebecca that she was interested. We do not have the full story- only one side's perception of the events. These are all possibilities.

I LOVE the fact that justicar called Jen's shit out when she said that RD had never been called slurs.

She responds that he is twisting her words.

Rystefn calls her out on her shit.

She says CONTEXT!

Rystefn how did we take what you said out of context when that was exactly what you said?

She says they dont hurt him because he doesn't hear them every day and they aren't tru.

Rystefn replies slurs are only hurtful if they are true then huh?

She says that isn't what she said.

On CONTEXT, Spence said, you mean like reading RD's comments within the context of PZ's blog?

She says he only contributed to that "side".

Spence says that depends on context, doesn't it?

She subsequently locked the thread from further comments.

Wow, that is amazing. I particularly love how long justicar's post was just cutting up her argument. The ONLY thing she responds to is the fact that he suggested she might be dishonest in other realms of her life.

Agent Smith @ 534.
I've been trying to resolve for myself for a while whether I could get behind tacking on more to "atheism" than just "not theism". I am now quite certain it should remain distinct. This shit has rather well resigned me to not wanting to see that. I think Dawkins has it about right with the "BRIGHTs" thing, or Thunderf00t's PEARLism. Or some model of those where they're related to, but distinct from atheism. Atheism plus I guess.

@ 536:
Don't believe all that you read. It's going to take more than a handful of noisy fanpeople of Watson's camp to tear a Richard Dawkins down, let alone limb from limb. Why? Simply he put, he's smarter than Rebecca Watson by a large margin. It just so happens to look as though more is happening than not happening. He also does more for causes than the whole of her community. We aren't going to be done with him because he pissed of some noisy people. Even if he is dead to rights wrong, which I don't concede for a second, my money always goes on those who are making progress, and not those who point and complain.

A good portion of Dawkins' "fan" club are more reflective and less reactionary than this would appear to suggest. It's like the Westboro Baptist Church representing Christianity. They make the news because they're silly, offensive and loud, but we all know they're silly, offensive and loud and have a good laugh before returning to the business of work.

Richard's error, if you can even call it an error, isn't what he said. It's where he said it. For that matter, it might be just that he said it at all. He has the oddity of being famous, which makes what would be a normal conversation into what we see here. If I had said it, it wouldn't have registered notice. He's right to point to out that we have someone here who's complaining for the sake of complaining and should probably stop being so whiny about a perceived (putatively anyway) something that is in reality just an inconvenience of life. Hell, he might have weighed in so that these people would finally fully come out of the closet as ideologues, but that's rank speculation on my part.

Turns out, people will talk to other people. Sometimes without prompting. I was fucking shocked too! But Richard knows if he says something fairly innocuous, it gets more attention because of his station than because of what it is that was said. So, he has every right, as does anyone else, to say whatever he thinks, he might have thought better of saying something--anything at all--on pharyngula. That place is not a bastion of erudition. It's a clique.

As far skepchick goes, I hadn't heard of her beforehand either if that tells you anything. Or, if I had, she didn't warrant the energy expenditure for my brain to keep a log of it. But somehow I find out she's a "leader" in the atheist/skeptical movement.

If she's a leader, I'll have to be non-excommunicated. It has never been my custom to be lead around by the uneducated. Sure, they can be right too. It just doesn't happen with the same regularity as it does with the educated. And it when it does happen, it seems to lack as many sparks.

Victoria Johnson:
I fully support the "male" and "female" elevator idea. Hell, I'll bankroll it! Wait! Even better! Get Starbucks to sponsor it!

No! Even better! Have a Starbucks elevator and a Maxwell House one - one is for those with sophisticated, discriminating taste, and one is for those who'll fuck -err- drink anything! Bwahahaha!
We can do eeet!

The rest of it, Victoria, I'm sorry to say I couldn't read. You're only a woman and you're not allowed in the boy's club. We only let Abbie in because she's a gender traitor. And no doubt a lesbian. Probably wears glasses and flannel as well. Oh wait, we already noted lesbian - that's redundant.

I have an idea who the elevator guy is. It was god. Or at least someone indistinguishable from god - you know, imaginary. She can't tell us one feature about the guy? Other than apparently he drinks coffee, hangs out in elevators and occasionally talks to people. Not exactly a good working theory to suss out.

It's not "victim" blaming or shaming. She's not a victim beyond the confines of her own mind. "I'm being oppressed as a keynote speaker because women aren't valued in the community here!" Oh really now? Then put down your fucking microphone and grab me a sandwich . . . Paula Kirby's about to talk and I'd rather listen to an adult.

endrant.

Um, I'll say it again - if anyone here is thanking me for my perspective, you need help. I've been intentionally a dick to quite a lot of people. Constant refusals to answer simple questions while claiming knowledge and status tends to piss me off.

But I was loving seeing Jennifer McCreight's (rhymes with wrong) inner coward come out today. Thanks for that, Rysefn!

This is why I wish I would hit the lotto one day: so I could rent a private jet and fly a huge chunk of everyone commenting here, esp. Abbie out to TAM, rent a shitload of suites, and then the night before, try to drink vegas dry.

Then during any sessions where the Watsonoids/PZItes are speaking, have easily read t-shirts and signs with pithy shit on them like:

"Being a victim makes you unlucky, not an expert"
"Where was my privilege when I was getting fag-bashed?"
"If I'd known it was going to start this much shit, I'd have asked her for a blowjob"
"I thought skeptics were supposed to question?"
"Tits, or GTFO"
"Why is your right to be offensive so superior to mine?"
"If Men can't be raped, what, Abner Louima was making sweet, sweet love to the NYPD?"
"WOMEN ARE JUST AS STRONG AS MEN! NOW CROSS THE STREET SO THEY AREN'T A-SKEERED!"

Basically, a glob of hungover, crotchety assholes in some kind of Grand Army of Dicks storming the Castle.

Oh the legal fees would suck, but it would be epic indeed.

And this thing really does illustrate why Carlin was so right about groups. These fuckers don't care about rational discussion, it's nothing but a big fucking popularity contest, and as long as they think their numbers are higher, they'll keep on talking as if $DEITY itself was on their side.

540:

Highjohn, I don't feel betrayed by PZ. He's always been like that. On his blog, he is mad, bad and dangerous to know. In person, he's a teddy bear. He's a smart dude, but he's passive-agressive and has a bad case of internet balls.

Dawkins on the other hand, from what I can tell, is always Dawkins. His manner doesn't change regardless of forum.

Both are smart, but in the end, I tend to respect Dawkins more.

However, none of these people are any better than anyone else. They are smarter in some areas, (although PZ trying to authoritatively comment on tech issues is hilarious in how wrong he gets things), and stupider in others. They may have degrees, or not, they are all varied.

Sometimes they have things to say you'll agree with, sometimes not. Don't invest more in anyone than in yourself. I have no doubt that one day, Abbie will say something I really disagree with. Doesn't mean I'll feel betrayed, and I'm pretty sure I'll at least be able to understand her POV, even though I won't agree.

Also..be who you are. If you're an acerbic curmudgeon online, then be that same person in real life. If you're a really mellow dude in real life, be that way online. It's a bummer finding out that the person you think is cool doesn't really exist.

John C. Welch:
You should be the guy designing logos for my tshirts.

It's so odd, when I'm staring at a blank template, I have nothing witty to say. When I'm in conversation, I almost never don't have something witty to say. I think I just need to hire someone to follow me around and say stupid shit while I'm writing.

And I want to note that I am not suggesting she isn't anything but forthright and honest in her science. I am saying that if I were her reviewer, seeing this kind of rejection of facts for ideology, or emotional attachment to a person or thing, I'd take a much closer look at her work product. The same is true of anyone else.

I do not think that fairly entails implying she is anything other than perfectly scrupulous in her science. Does anyone else?

Oh, and her biggest "argument" against me is in her opening move: I'm a nutjob, and a stalker, and I'm "well known" on Pharyngula. Yes, I've posted there in five, maybe six articles. That would make me not absolutely unheard of or completely unknown. I don't think that grants to me being well known, but it is Pharyngula so anything that's unreasonable is entirely possible, err, probable to be true.

She could not be playing the game she's playing any better than if she were Deepak Chopra. (No idea why I've mentioned him twice today. It's probably some consciousness discontinuity of m-theory that's to blame.)

#538 Victoria Johnson wrote:

"'male' and 'female' signs on the elevator doors, so the women"

This would be a fascinating experiment. What would the attendees do: ignore the patently absurd signs or meekly comply?

D.T.: To the best of my knowledge, the panel discussion Rebecca was in was on the day of the elevator incident. Did Rebecca give a date for that? The panel was held the afternoon of Saturday, June 4th. By the way, one of the other panelists was Richard Dawkins.

tes121790: I would be happy to take lots of pictures of any such humor. Have any ideas?

ERV: Actually, I did not complain to the organizers of the Dublin convention. I'm usually a person who doesn't complain a lot, and I understand that many points of view will be presented, sometimes in a manner I find offensive. I also figured that if they invited Rebecca, then they knew what they were getting. At this point, I will write them a letter of complaint. Sometimes it is bad to remain silent. Thanks for that suggestion!

Justicar: How about "caffeinated" or "decaffeinated"? Decaffeinated, of course, means "no".

I really hesitate to bring this up, and I've never talked about it before(except to my wife), but could someone point to the comments where they downplay the idea of men being raped? I'm not looking to argue with them, but I'd like to see what they say about it. I have personal reasons and I'm sure you can see that I don't care to share any details right now. A link would be appreciated.

Urgh, messed that quote up, but you get my drift.

I also forgot to thank everyone here for being reasonable and non-crazy. I used to frequent SB a heck of a lot, mainly Pharyngula, but the comments sections (of Pharyngula) just started to creep me out.

#530, Justicar: I guess you are referring to my linked article? Well, I don't think that its a good jerk-off material for Deepak Chopra, because memes provide a materialistic and mechanistic (which means real) explanatory framework for cultural information, ideas and behaviours. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme for an overview. Steven Novellas take on Memes and Themes: http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/memes-and-the-singularity/
But i am too tired right now (and lazy!) to give a common sensic recap.

You know, the hole elevatorgate-thing made me think very hard about why smart people can become soooo dump and ideology-driven. And it made me think about dangerous bullshit-memes (aka bad ideas). I noticed that there are certain BS-memes that can easily bypass my rational cognitive firewall. These are usually "Sheep in Wolf`s Clothing"-memes which look reasonable and 'good' at first glance but can have some very bad outcomes (e.g. certain forms of feminism and political correctness)...and i have to admit that i often notice and find them in my own mind only accidentally ... and why are they so resistant to rational inquiry?

The only BS-meme antidotes i found so far are clear and open examination (what are the consequences when i belive in it?) and to rationally question the practical or empirical validity (whats the proof?) of the meme....a very hard thing too do when something is very emotionally loaded.....but real art seems to be to actually 'find them'.

@D.T.: "That happened before the elevator event?

If so, then I tend to think the whole elevator event is a made up story. An exclamation mark on her night's narrative."

Since I'm taking Dawkins at his word (that he said what he meant, and meant what he said, in the context he said it), I'll also assume that Ms. Watson really met Elevator Guy. Even given that, the pattern she's establishing makes me lean towards the shifting of attention to Dawkins as being a premeditated smokescreen to protect her livelihood. "Hijacks panels to pursue personal vendettas" is not a good reference if you want to be invited to speak at the next convention.

[Godwin] Remember, a communist really did start the Reichstag Fire, it's just that everything after that was a Big Lie. [/Godwin]

@Gabby regarding rape: It has come up in most of the long-running comment threads, but check out this and search for "unwanted penetration" for a particularly vile example.

I love it! Caffeinated / decaffeinated! Thanks for the laugh!

Shit, I missed a lot of posts for some reason.

Erv: I think you sell yourself a little short. If you have offline the personality you have online, I see no reason to see why you wouldn't do fabulous presenting on a topic you care about. But let's assume that you're right about you: I'm trying to replace a Rebecca Watson; you'd have a low bar to jump. =^_^=

Your NAF post was written in a way that even though I know nothing about the field, I can still picture in my mind what it is you were doing, the dude on the phone, the PI, and, no less important, I can immediately understand the delicate footwork you do in your work to find just the right angle to make progress. There's no reason I can see you couldn't do the same in a talk.

Staying on that subject, why haven't we had Miranda Hale speaking at one of these big events? Think about it. She's not a scientist. She's not a mathematician. She's not any of the things which come rushing to the fore when you think "skeptical" and "atheist" person. She's the kind of model I have in mind when I think of an educated religious person - oh, some artsy fartsy person who's all into that it's what you feel that matters kind of woo.

But there she is. There she is with her PhD in literature. What drew me to her blog was the article she wrote just ripping apart that Catholic "Study"; she tore apart the procedures, definitions, methodology, funding, conflict of interest, the whole lot. I was floored when I looked at her profile and learned she teaches and studied literature. It is that much of a one-off that if I hadn't seen it in her own words, I'd have accused someone of yanking my non-gender-specific chain.

But no. We get Rebecca Fucking Watson.

They had a panel as earlier denoted, divvied up among four women who actually are known for something other than being known for that thing no one can really point to. Accomplished, well spoken, strong, intelligent, thoughtful women had to split their time for a panel. Rebecca Watson gets a keynote.

And then she gets to share a panel with Richard Dawkins where she immediately proceeds to not discuss the topic.

Oh, and to top it all off, on youtube, there was some minor chatter about how Richard was looking uninterested, and absent. Yet, in his 10 minutes, he addressed each previous panelist's issues head-on in addition to his own. Not only does he stay on topic, but he's generous with his already limited time for the sake of congeniality.

But we get Rebecca Fucking Watson. She's a "leader".

They shouldn't swapped her ass out with Waters on that panel. But what would she know about communicating atheism? Well, I don't know the answer to that. I'd like to find out though. But here's what I do know: she knows enough about the topic of communicating atheism to understand it's a topic that doesn't mean "discuss my hate mail, responses I get on youtube and other minutia of my own life".

But we get Rebecca Fucking Watson.

I second the "don't feel betrayed" bit. I've said on other fora with people: I don't make gods of men or women. It's ok if they get things wrong. What matters isn't that they'll get something wrong, it's what they do about it after it happens that matters.

Oh, i meant "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing"-memes of course :)

@Justicar: Watson called again. He really wants Rebecca to just stop.

@ERV 456
I know you said you don't have alot of time so you cant speak at TAM but I really think you would be popular there. Based on your blog, I think you could present a lecture on your area of expertise that was, engaging, entertaining, humorous and most importantly informative.
@Victoria 554
I don't have any ideas for signs, I'd just like to see what the Jesters of TAM come up with. Wonder how many people will take it in good humor, and how many will get offended.

One other point i think most are in agreement with. I don't think we should discourage non scientist from becoming prominent voice in skepticism/atheism. I pretty much give all credit to Penn and Teller and James Randi via Bullshit and youtube videos of Randi for getting me involved in Skepticism and atheism. As long as the person is engaging, informative, skeptical, and entertaining they are fit to promote skepticism. That's why people like Sara Mayhew(Anime cartoonist) and George Hrab (fantastic musician and runs a podcast that everyone should listen to) are rising stars in skepticism with out being scientists. They are just interesting and good promoters.
TL;DR Skeptic conferences should be open to lectures from anyone whose a good promoter of critical thinking.

I am seriously beginning to think PZ is reading too much New Media Douchebag procedure. Just when it seems this entire thing is possibly going to start dying off a bit...

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/two_awful_no-good_terribad_m…

Yes, yes, let's keep pumping this shit up. sigh. He's gonna have to change his last name to Dowdell if this keeps up.

thememe:
I know what a meme is, but there was something written about the immune system and memetics and my eyes kind of glazed over.

I am fairly certain that I have some things rattling around in my brain that are completely counter-factual. If I knew what they were, I'd excise them. But I can't know that, so I do it piecemeal by talking to people. Smart people at that.

I know that I also have some irrational fears. I know they're irrational. I know they're not based on anything real. But I still feel them. They just don't make an argument for me to act on them, or ask anyone else to factor them into anything they do. I recognize the difference between fear as a result of a threat, and fear as a result of being an evolved primate whose ancestors needed that particular concern to be hardwired to survive long to have children.

Other than what goes inside my head when I'm dealing with those fears, they are unimportant and must be dismissed. For instance, I am scared shitless by spiders. They creep. me. out. What do I about it? I deal with it and try to capture them alive to relocate them. I don't go screaming, jumping up on furniture hoping someone with better rational faculties happens by and rescues with a well-placed shoe sole. And then cry about my potential brush with death for attention.

Turns out: life happens.

Welch-- I asked him to post something in support of Dawkins, because his silence is viewed as support of the anti-Dawkins lynch mob. PZ knows as well as all of us that Dawkins fully supports women in science and skepticism. PZ has *never* said a word to me otherwise. But if that post is the best PZ can do, that is the best he can do.

PZ never asked me to elaborate on my opinion, but insisted he disagreed with me. So, thats the kind of discussion you all can look forward to at TAM, I guess.

Gabby:
From earlier today - http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/two_awful_no-good_terribad_m…
Even though Dawkins has been sexually assaulted, they're still carrying on that tripe that men are immune to its happening, and therefore don't care about it. That's the 10th post in on a new article from PZ.

This was followed up by - http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/two_awful_no-good_terribad_m…

But the discussion there seems to be trending towards me at the moment:

Miles670 said in response to Jen:
Creight,

That isn't what he said at all. You're misrepresenting him and seeing as this is the internet, that's a very silly thing to do:

http://integralmath.blogspot.com/2011/07/i-do-not-support-womens-equali…

Stay-tuned over there and I'm sure you'll catch some slices of what it is you're asking after.

For instance, I am scared shitless by spiders. They creep. me. out. What do I about it? I deal with it and try to capture them alive to relocate them. I don't go screaming, jumping up on furniture hoping someone with better rational faculties happens by and rescues with a well-placed shoe sole. And then cry about my potential brush with death for attention.

LOL

Yes, and you don't think that it's the spiders fault to scare you....or that spiders are supposed to do not scare you. But thats exactly what RW did: Not seeing tru her own neurotic shit, fears and aversions.... she desperately wants to turn it into a feminist-issue..and any further rational enquiry is forbidden...

ERV:

It doesn't matter any more, does it. The orthodoxy has spoken. Dawkins doesn't just disagree with them, HE IS WRONG AND MUST BE PUNISHED.

Anyone who doesn't agree with them in lockstep is WRONG AND MUST BE PUNISHED.

The skeptic movement doesn't have time to allow people to have different opinions and still be "skeptics in good standing". THEY MUST CONFORM TO THE ORTHODOXY, FOR WE ARE BUSY AND HAVE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO! LIKE CONFERENCES!

sigh.

Despite what PZ says, who wants to bet that TAM will be consumed by this bizarre controversy and will feature a great schism in the movement (the holy rebecca v. the female-hating Dawkins and gender-traditors)?

I don't feel 'betrayed' by PZ as I've never been particularly fond of him; I've always felt that he can be irrational when it comes to political matters and that his blog's lack of support for dissent is partly a result of his behavior. I'm a firm believer (gasp!) in the idea that a blogger largely sets the intellectual (or lack thereof) atmosphere of their blog. Generally speaking, a blog's regular readers read that blog because they respect that blogger and follow their lead. That said, I DO believe he is being particularly ridiculous and insulting this time in regards to politics as I outlined earlier. (Post #529)

Speaking of dissent...you know what would be a GREAT idea for the people who are able to attend this conference? Wearing some Support Dissent swag: http://www.cafepress.com/supportdissent

It seems particularly timely given the bloggers on Skepchick thinking they have a right to decide who and who cannot speak at that conference. (Post #480.)

Abbie: I think the local conferences idea is great for several reasons. Among other - obvious - reasons it gives speakers a sort of apprenticeship period where they can hone their chops and develop their research and speaking skills. I cannot imagine that anyone would want their first speaking position to be a national event with Richard Dawkins in the audience!

The Black Belt analogy is excellent. There is a certain amount of maturity, knowledge, and age that should be expected of a keynote speaker and I think that handing them something important like that before they're ready is going to do damage to them and to the community. Granted, I don't know how old Watson is, but the genesis of this thread (her calling a blogger in the audience out mid-speech) tells me that she is not old enough.

You have an excellent point about someone with a passive-aggressive nature interpreting things in that context; I'm pretty blunt and straightforward by nature and I expect the same of others (and tell them so). That said, and I say this as someone with a minor case of Asperger's, there is something to be said for paying attention to a person's tone and language. There is a very clear difference between 'Don't take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more. Would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?' and 'Hey, baby, wanna come back to my room for...coffee? *wink, wink*' If I can figure out the difference, she should be able to. Frankly, every time I read his statement I become more convinced that the guy just wanted to talk with her and took the wrong approach by inviting her to his room. That said, it also leaves me convinced that her story is true. If she was going to lie, why not use the second sort of line to describe his attempt at conversation? It wouldn't seem much less believable, that version of the story would give her a clear advantage, and I highly doubt she's brilliant enough to concoct the idea that making the guy seem somewhat innocent will make her story seem more realistic.

Victoria: According to Rebecca he had not spoken to her prior to the incident despite being in the bar with her which is part of what left her feeling creeped out. Frankly, I think supports my Shy Guy hypothesis. It's difficult enough for a shy guy to ask a girl out even if he's just looking to chat and strike up a friendship, so he's going to avoid doing so and getting shot down in a public place if possible.

Justicar: Don't under-rate your posting here (and on the blog). Your reasoning has been consistently solid and there is nothing wrong with being a dick when people have it coming.

In any case, thoughts on use of the Support Dissent swag at the conference, anyone? It may require a bit of a blog-based propaganda campaign so people know what it's about, but I think it could be useful. And it's not loud enough to get you thrown out!

New data: do you log in from a service the cool kids don't use? You have nothing of value to say.

New way to disagree with someone: "Go drown yourself in a bathtub"

If you disagree with the orthodoxy, then we have the right to twist whatever you say in any way we wish. If you agree with the orthodoxy, any disagreement with you is clearly twisting your words, and the person disagreeing should be treated like shit.

Oh and if you disagree with the orthodoxy, you're a sexual predator.

Nick, unless my twitter app has missed the mark, apparently, discussion of elevatorgate is strictly a dismissible offense.
https://twitter.com/#!/BrianDunning/status/89921897030107136
See? And PZ says it won't be happening either. Therefore, you have a first and second opinion which are convergent and thus correct.

But I don't know how "science" works as I was told a few minutes ago. The person who's telling me this, curiously enough, is giving me a lesson in how to quotemine - so, I'm learning a lot about the world tonight. I love being educated on how peer-review works by students; it's absolutely amazing!

thememe @567:
It never occurred to me to blame the spiders for scaring me. lol. In the same way, it's never occurred to me blame people who startle me either. Maybe if I started doing that, then I'd finally "get it". Research project!

Gabby: here's another gem for you to read.
Someone brought up that Dawkins has been sexually assaulted, though not specifically raped, so he does know what it's like to be a victim of sexual abuse. This is one of the replies to that.
Posted by: SC OM Author Profile Page | July 10, 2011 11:02 PM

It already happened to him.

No, "it" didn't. And I've read TGD, as many here have. So you do not have a cynical, callous "Gotcha!" moment, you ridiculous ignoramus.

Shut up.

Dawkins is privileged you see. His being sexually assaulted just isn't quite good enough for some people. If only he'd been molested just a little bit more, just a little harder, it would count. Perhaps if he'd resisted and gotten beaten? Oh, but that would be blaming the victim for not fighting back hard enough, and we all know that only applies against women.

ERV: are you to blame for PZ's latest post?

Thanks Justicar, but I think I found what I was looking for on Blaghag. These links were about Dawkins, I wanted an opinion on male rape victims generally. What I found was pretty foul. It came from someone called wmdkitty.

Gabby: you're welcome. I didn't do any research at all for it. I was just reading through the comments as they're coming up on pharyngula. Those reminded me you'd asked, so I thought I'd mention them since they're in the general area. I'm glad you found whatever it was you wanted.

I don't know if those shirts are going to do anything. I'm not sure what the tone of this year's conference will be. I'm only confident enough to say that people are going to show up, and stuff will happen. Beyond that, who knows.

If I were going, I'd pick one up.

Also, PZ has said all of the topics were done before this, and it's about space. I can't wait to see how Rebecca Watson shoehorns sexism into that:
when you look at the vacuum of space, not there can the outties avoid penetrating the innies. They're popping in and out and in and out and in and out all the time. Sure, they have no staying power and it's over as soon as it starts, but it's still a violation!

Exception 5R. Dawkins space; there it doesn't count.

In unrelated news, one of those steely-eyed researchers over there found out my real identity: I'm a 16 year old gamer who can't get laid; therefore, I only come online to make an ass of myself. Also, this is the reason I hate women.

I guess my secret identity as a thirty-something openly gay male is a thin veneer through which one may easily look. /sigh

John C. Welch:
I read that bit too. Further down the page, someone makes mention that what is important on Pharyngula isn't the number of letters one has to write after their name, but the quality of their commentary. At least we're getting some bounds on what counts there. Education? Doesn't affect quality of commentary. Log-in location? That bears on how good you can argue, retard.

Glad we solved that little problem.

Southern Geologist, I'm always self-deprecating. I figure it's the least I can do given how sardonic I am with other people. It just shows that I equally wield my Rabelaisian wit.

/genuflect

I left a comment on Laden's latest on this. ( -/2011/07/women_in_elevators_a_man_to_ma.php)

I finally figured out the central theme that's bugging me in this:

"Women are helpless before a man. If he chooses to attack her, all she can do is pray"

Um, bullshit? I don't get this. Admittedly, the women I know, if attacked, may lose, but that fucker's gonna look like he tried to make out with a honey badger by the time they're done. They would PREFER to not be attacked, but they know it could happen, (as does anyone with a damned brain) and so do not wait for everyone else to secure their safety.

But that is the edge case. Abbie? Edge case. Most of the women I know? Edge Cases. What's the norm? Live your life in fear and hope guys one day make it better.

Really? is that what is the norm now? Helplessness and fear?

I really wish I had the cash-flow to go get myself kicked out of TAM... Maybe I could get myself kicked out of local atheist events instead. I'm local to McWrong, so it could easily lead to hilarity and/or me being arrested.

John, I will concede that, as a general rule, a woman is less likely to win than a man in a fight. That said, if it's a fight, the defender has already fucked up. When someone attacks you, you do not fight them. You either distract and run from them, or you fucking destroy them and run. Sand in the eye and run, or thumb in the eye and run. Anything else is not self-defense, it's a fight.

I brought it to Jen's attention (assuming that she hadn't seen her posts before) that wmdkitty was a raving mysandrist. She agreed and subsequently banned her from her blog. After I told her that I disagreed with censorship in all its forms, INCLUDING banning raving loonies. But its her blog she does what she wants. I think that her saying, "I completely and unequivocally disagree with her stance" would have been good enough. I dunno, censorship just leaves a bad taste in my mouth... I also said that I LIKE having a raving "feminist" around to show that all of us "raving misogynistic assholes" aren't against good ol' feminism, which is supposed to be about equality, but this version of "feminism."

Of course it's a fight. That's why I never taught "self-defense", I taught fighting. It's a difference in attitude, and it shows across the board. Given the stupid shit so many women wear on their feet, and the lack of free leg movement allowed by many fashionable bits of clothing, running is not a really good option in too many cases.

But the bone-deep willingness to fight for yourself? That changes you. It changes how you walk, it changes how you interact with people, and there is a subtle message: "You may win, but you're going to bleed to do it. How bad do you want it?"

'I also said that I LIKE having a raving "feminist" around to show that all of us "raving misogynistic assholes" aren't against good ol' feminism, which is supposed to be about equality, but this version of "feminism."'

Which is why those "feminists" get banned when attention is called to them.

Ha ha, only kidding serious.

John:
as my mother used to tell me she was taught (in addition to martial arts), remember ladies, you run faster with your skirt hiked up than he does with his pants pulled down. Of course, that fails because he can always pull his pants up.

You never hear of a blind person being charged with rape.

I also almost never meet people who can imagine themselves gouging out someone's eyes. You'd think somewhere along the way one of those should change.

The way to make sure you're prepared to do these things if you ever need to, is train to do these things in case you need to. Like so many other things, when in a tense situation, people will are more prone to act by instinct than anything else. It is therefore reasonable to expect that people will respond to an attack in the way they've trained themselves to.

Note: thinking about what to do if the situation arises will not yield the results you want. Thinking doesn't stop a rapist. A finger through his eye socket will. And I don't mean any fingernails down the chalkboard kind of fingering either. The eye socket is a hole - get a finger to the other side of it and you're way ahead of the power curve.

Phyraxus:
I'm unsurprised. She's taking to quote mining me now. It's charming.

John, I have no interest in either teaching or learning how to fight. If you find yourself in a fight, you've already made a tactical or strategic error of the first order. As I said before, "a woman is less likely to win than a man in a fight." I will extend that to "a person being attacked is less likely to win than an attacker in a fight." Fighting is for dick-measuring contests. A pen through the eye socket is for dealing with a rapist.

"Dawkins was assaulted as a child, by an adult. There is an authority/privilege/strength differential there that is analogous to that between women and men (on average)."

And there are still gay men in the world.

There are also lots of women stronger than Richard Dawkins.

There are also a lot of godbotherers who would love to degrade Dawkins.

So it seems like you REALLY mean "Dawkins isn't a man, therefore his experience isn't relevant".

Well, you're a nutjob and your beliefs are not relevant.

"By the way, Abbie, you are hilarious and I mean that in the best possible sense.*

*Perhaps I should run that statement by the Feminist Brigade before publishing it to make sure that it doesn't qualify me as a misogynist ..."

Could we back off that sort of thing?

If you make a statement that the person you're talking to doesn't like

a) they should say so
or
b) you should say sorry or explain

but going "I guess I need to pass that by the $JOKE_GROUP to see if it's fine..." is only going to waste space and reading time with a chance of getting those feminists who DON'T have a problem with a guy asking, getting "no" and accepting that answer to feel like you're pissing on them.

If you want to continue, make it explicit: say you need to pass it by RW to see if it's not exhibiting your privilege.

"Similar behaviour has been witnessed in both men and women; even though it is physically more difficult for a woman to commit rape,"

With the advent of impotence remittance drugs, this is now eminently possible.

Plus also remember that that little barstand gets up in the night when you're asleep, something to keep in mind.

@572 Justicar

Not sure if you picked up on it, but @BrianDunning's tweet was a joke. Although it sure looks like some folks didn't get it.

Yes, yes, let's keep pumping this shit up. sigh. He's gonna have to change his last name to Dowdell if this keeps up.

OMG Y U GUYS MAKING SO MUCH BIG DEELS OUT OF THIS I DONUT UNDERSTANDS

Certainly, it's all and only some random nutbars out there. There wasn't a single overreaction at all from My Side(TM) and while you shouldn't call Dawkins a misogynist, here's a huge list of people who should apparently make all men ashamed to be men, and no mention of anyone who morph concepts of "feminism" beyond all rational and recognizable bounds.

"I repeat, though, that the story Rebecca Watson told was tempered, moderate, and polite..."

Except when sniping Paula Kirby by disrupting her own panel and attacking her in harsh, uncalled-for terms while not understanding what was said, and purposefully embarrassing-and-uncomfortable-and-could-be-construed-as-mortifying comments spoken to shut up a student feminist by interrupting yet another topic.

Tempered, moderate and polite, all right. Y U GUYS COMPLAIN??? I'M A SIT HERE AND LET ALL MANNER OF CRAP PASS WITHOUT COMMENT AND PRETEND THERE'S NOTHING BEHIND DOOR #2.

Though to be fair... Dowdell? *shudder*

Wow:

I should probably have not used that given that I haven't been around here to use 'Feminist Brigade' in a long time, or I should have added a note defining it. Sorry. I am not speaking of feminists as a whole when I use that term, I am speaking of a certain sub-set of feminist bloggers that behave as if any compliment a man makes toward someone who happens to be a woman is automatically objectifying her and saying she is worthless as a human being. Remember the explosion a while back over people at Discovery blogs saying Sheril Kirshenbaum was pretty? I will happily grant that anyone who makes a comment to the effect of 'You're hot, I'll read your blog' is probably a fucking moron, but I will not grant that this person is a rapist in waiting. I'm speaking of that breed of behavior.

That said, I again apologize for not making a note qualifying what I meant by 'Feminist Brigade.'

That said, I again apologize for not making a note qualifying what I meant by 'Feminist Brigade.'

Your mind is very pretty.

...

But don't worry, I'm sure you're pretty on the OUTSIDE, too!

I didn't say that kind of behavior wasn't condescending; I said it was not grounds for accusing someone of being a rapist.

I know. I was just being sarcastically reverse-sexist. ;-)

Sorry. Hell, here I am apologizing again because I couldn't pick up a joke when I saw it. And there I was earlier bitching about how a person can learn to detect tone...

...Did I mention a bit of Asperger's?

(I should really quit reaching for the most convenient excuse on hand. I'm going to dig myself a hole here for offending other people that have Asperger's.)

ERV@#565

"Welch-- I asked him to post something in support of Dawkins, because his silence is viewed as support of the anti-Dawkins lynch mob."

Considering 80% of PZ's present notoriety is a direct result of his heavily touted close friendship with Dawkins, this omission makes him more than a bit of an asshole.

If he demonstrates the same loyalty to the post-modern radical feminist movement as he does to his friends I guess we can start counting down to when he gets called into the provost's office for regaling coeds with bad tentacle themed adianoeta.

I read something on Reddit yesterday (can't remember where) where someone was saying that when people like RW claim that all men possess privilege it's a bit like when Christians claim all humans possess original sin. Your guilt is established at birth, and there's no way you can rid of it.

The only way you can achieve salvation is to openly confess your 'sin' and pledge allegiance to a cliquee group of self-appointed 'enlightened' people. If you do not (or if you disagree), the message is circulated that you are not a decent person (or indeed that you are some way evil). It doesn't matter what your *deeds* have been, that you don't submit to this group's belief makes you circumspect.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting, that's all.

"....when people like RW claim that all men possess privilege it's a bit like when Christians claim all humans possess original sin. Your guilt is established at birth, and there's no way you can rid of it."

That is dogmatically correct in post-modern radical feminism as part of the inherent patriarchy theory of society. Since all present human institutions have either a patriarchal basis or have been irredeemably compromised by patriarchy the only hope is to destroy all such institutions and begin again.

Of course RW billed herself as a third wave sex positive feminist until it became politically expedient for her to "Do the Dwork".

Kind of a 180 for the former hostess of "Western Bordello" night....huh.

Its pretty pathetic.

Richard Dawkins is not a misogynist, end of story. There is zero evidence, anywhere, that he is. Anyone saying that is using one comment as an excuse to grind their own personal axe ("I ALWAYS KNEW....")

Thats not hard to say.

PZ cant say it like that. He has to say it with a qualifier (but hes WRONG!!!).

While Richard always had his back.

I repeat, pathetic.

Also note the problem with all of this-- there is no discussion. PZ says I (and Dawkins) are wrong. Ive never told PZ the reasoning behind my opinion, it doesnt matter, my conclusion is WRONG. Dawkins makes a remark. Its WRONG. He asks people to explain why. NO DISCUSSION. WRONG.

No discussion.

But its supposed to be 'good for the community'.

Interesting.

This was probably directed more toward right wing hysteria but it is just as applicable many on the left. Do you take offence? Just say no:

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/06/just-say-no.html

Also note the problem with all of this-- there is no discussion. PZ says I (and Dawkins) are wrong. Ive never told PZ the reasoning behind my opinion, it doesnt matter, my conclusion is WRONG. Dawkins makes a remark. Its WRONG. He asks people to explain why. NO DISCUSSION. WRONG.

Come now, don't be so gauche. I'm sure he'll give you as MUCH time as you want to discuss WHY you're wrong!

Oh right, forgot to list the Exemplar Supreme tweet.

https://twitter.com/#!/pzmyers/status/90241642187071488

That was the final straw that just made me have to tune them out, at least for a while. Until this fetid pile of excrement dries up enough to not stink so much.

Ugh...

PZ has declared his decision ex catherdra ex pharyngula. It is disrespectful to question his wisdom on matters of official doctrine. You should accept The Truth and shout down any unbelievers.

Abbie, I'm glad to see that you've made this kind of progress.
Admitting you're wrong is the first step; welcome to the 12 step club to not being a Gender Traitor.

Pick up a coin on your way out. Just kidding - offering a woman a coin for something related to gender is prostitution. Prostitution is rape. Here, have a cookie instead. It's organic and made partly of unicorn sparkles.

Ugh. How fucking repugnant; his post about International Day Against Stoning and his hoping it's something we can all agree on.

You know, until that post, I'd been a big fan of stoning women to death for imaginary crimes. But now that I've been shamed into being labeled a contrarian, you know, I'm going to give it up.

I can't view his current status on twitter by that link. I'm probably blocked. But we all know I'm stalker; I guess this I'm going to have to start making twitter socks to keep in the "know" or something? Any experienced stalkers out there care to give a newb some advice?

Oh, and ERV, thank you for letting me "hold court" over here. Apparently, being not immediately banned means that I'm somehow elevated to some station. This would explain, of course, why it is that my remarks are immune from all criticism and everyone agrees with me, right? Maybe I'm doing it wrong.

@Justicar: I think you may have some competition here :)

"This is beyond simply disturbing. Before allowing myself to get distracted by all of this, I viewed Skepchick in a generally positive light, if somewhat ambivalently at never having examined it in detail or followed it. Now that Iâve been rummaging around in it, this is just another Off Our Backs, albeit with a skeptical theme. Nothing wrong with that per se â itâs just somewhat misleading to have an about page that claims -

" Skepchick is a group of women (and one deserving guy) who write about science, skepticism, and pseudoscience. With intelligence, curiosity, and occasional snark, the group tackles diverse topics from astronomy to astrology, psychics to psychology."

This is highly dishonest and misleading. And it only gets worse once you begin to explore the myriad of fora where time and again, Skepchick and âsexismâ and âmisogynyâ keep bursting into threads that refuse to die. And the traffic is hardly all one way, pro-Skepchick, as you might be led to believe from reading about this nonsense on Pharyngula. Seems there is quite a mass of ladies out there that really resent being misrepresented in this way."

PZ identifies and quotes at length people that blow RW's comments out of proportion but seems to be blind to the people that pretend that RD trivializes rape. And even despite his absurdly imbalanced post his resident commentariat immediately lashes out at him for not chastising RD enough. To which he weighs in to make sure people don't overlook that he has indeed dutifully criticized RD. Amazing.

I see the He-Man Woman-Hater's Club is still in session. Why don't the whole lot of you just admit your intense, searing hatred of all things not-teh-menz and be done with it?

I keep seeing your trash in the Recent comments page and it just amazes me. I can only hope that none of you leave your houses, for the sake of women (and right-thinking people in general) everywhere.

I, The Justicar of the Azeroth Justicars, do hereby solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have an intense, searing hatred of all things not-teh-menz and am henceforth done with it so help me Zod.

Well, that was easy and I feel a lot better about my heretofore pathetic life.

One minor point, The Panic Man, being as powerful as I am, I don't need to leave my house to harm women. I have buttons on my keyboard to let me do it without dirtying my dandy hands: http://boourns.cjb.net/images.php?view=952

OK, I fell for it last time, but I'm not going to now.

"The Panic Man" has got to be a Poe. Nobody could have that many rocks between the ears and still remember to breathe.

Panic Man = those ugly beasties that lurk under bridges.

@justicar

With regards to "International Day Against Stoning", presumably all men should be viewed as potential stoners and in order to protect women, we should not go anywhere near a woman if there are rocks present? Even better, we should probably wear styrofoam #1 finger things on both our hands when we're outside, just so there's no concern that we might lose control, pick up a rock and throw it passers-by.

I think this could all be resolved if we put on a play with catchy cosplay costumes. Who wants the sweet lolita dress?

[H]is post about International Day Against Stoning and his hoping it's something we can all agree on.

I cannot agree: I think every woman has the right to keep her maiden name. I think its abhorrent that PZ would be so patriarchal, insisting women take their husbands' names, as if the women had no identity of their own.

596:

Also note the problem with all of this-- there is no discussion. PZ says I (and Dawkins) are wrong. Ive never told PZ the reasoning behind my opinion, it doesnt matter, my conclusion is WRONG. Dawkins makes a remark. Its WRONG. He asks people to explain why. NO DISCUSSION. WRONG.

No discussion.

But its supposed to be 'good for the community'.

Interesting.

I've seen this before. They're now "protecting the group". RW is part of the group, so protecting her is included. If you are not part of the group, neither you nor your opinion count. It's not a herd mentality, it's a bit more vicious than that. It's a circling of the wagons against the outsiders.

Any dissent is put down, instantly and with no regard to the standards they think they hold themselves to. Because dissent = outsider = no right to any consideration on any level. It IS sad, and it IS the kind of behavior that creationists and the climategate weenies were talking about, and if you try to bring it up, then OMG FRAMING AND TONE and the attacks escalate.

Like I said. i think, in all honesty, if someone disagreed with PZ in person using the precise language he does, or even better, some of his blog pets like Nerd do, he would very quickly start being quite concerned for his personal safety.

The idea of equality is to pull everyone up to a shared and common equal status. It's not to have a roughly distributed system of situational oppression and self-loathing.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has had this impression, that if I'm *really* for equality, then I am to be expected to apologize and anguish and loathe myself for being who I am. It's unfortunate that people I halfway respect seem to hold that attitude, and relieving that my refusal to do so isn't actually indicative of my hating women. That's stupid I know, but after so much of it, I started questioning myself. I wonder how many others have done the same, and out of good intentions, became that way?

Anyway, back to lurking. Cheers. -0

Man that new thread of PZ's is a world of fun right now.

A man is misogynistic if he hits on a woman. If she likes it, it isn't misogyny. That's why its called flirting!

I see the He-Man Woman-Hater's Club is still in session.

It is? Thanks for the mansplanation!

Arrrgh! Now Watson's being interviewed on semi-mainstream news shows, with no rebuttal possible. Google "Citizen Radio" for one example; after their hatchet-job on Dawkins last week, I'm not dignifying them with a direct link. 25 minutes about misogynist atheists, Dawkins is a dick, Dawkins is the atheist God, and fuck all about what actually happened.

This isn't going to get better or go away, is it? At least, not until all the publicity value is milked out of it, or somebody else steps on a landmine.

A man is misogynistic if he hits on a woman. If she likes it, it isn't misogyny. That's why its called flirting!

Reminiscent of this classic from SNL:

Sexual Harrassment And You

It is? Thanks for the mansplanation!

Shouldn't that be femsplanation or something, to use the appropriate reverse dismissal? Member of the Female Wrongs Association or something?

I don't know. I guess I'm just not hilariously clever like that.

ERV @565,

PZ has *never* said a word to me otherwise. But if that post is the best PZ can do, that is the best he can do.

PZ never asked me to elaborate on my opinion, but insisted he disagreed with me. So, thats the kind of discussion you all can look forward to at TAM, I guess.

You got that right. He claims he's yet to here an opposing argument worthy of his attention.

A tweet from the twit Herr PZ Myers

Haven't found 'em. RT @RemieV: dishonest to quote only the idiotic posts, no? What about people who INTELLIGENTLY disagree with you?

source: twitter(dot)com/#!/pzmyers/status/90241642187071488

A people want this fuck-tarded ideologue as a leader of the skeptical/atheist movement. It's doomed. Herr Myers wants to eliminate all dissent and purify all thought.

Guys, ladies, gender traitors, lesbians and John C. Welch, I finally have the solution as to why analogies of Schrodinger's Fake Rape Victim, or Jihadist, or Black Mugger Guy fail. In response to a video I did responding to a video on youtube (which essentially, says that not only is Rebecca Watson not wrong; she's being imminently appropriate and reasonable all the way down the line):

The problem with your analogy should be obvious. In the male/female example, the woman is the suppressed minority that is being brutally abused with offers of coffee. Whereas in your random-dude/arab analogy, the random-dude is the victim/minority.

You are getting your victimhood status all mixed up.

I now am convinced and ashamed to be associated with all you. Assholes.

#617 (cthellis):"Shouldn't that be femsplanation or something, to use the appropriate reverse dismissal? "

Well, we could refer to the chromosones and call it an XXplanation.

I fucking well hope it tears the "community" in two. Then people won't think I'm associated with those fuckers anymore.

Herr Myers ignorantly spewed,

Let's stop the shouting that Richard Dawkins is some kind of raving misogynist. What's happened here is that he is at some remove from all of the details, and this issue got blown up by lunatics who felt their manhood threatened and who exaggerated the situation to an absurd degree.

Now that's some revisionist history that would make even David Barton blush. This "thing" blew up because several of Myers feces-flinging monkey troop became completely hysterical over Dawkins comments about RW Watson's actions and feelings.

They so grossly misinterpreted his words that they started a letter writing campaign using rape victims and a boycott of his works.

Of course the sane people reacted to this absurd characterization of Dawkins by speaking out against it. Pointing out that Dawkins IS not a misogynist nor a rape apologist and that their actions toward him were completely unjustified and irrational.

That's what caused it to become such a big controversy.

Shouldn't that be femsplanation or something, to use the appropriate reverse dismissal?

I have made the gender-normative assumption that "Panic Man" is male, so I thanked him for mansplaining the situation to ERV and the rest of us poor deluded womens that may still be following.

Pst, Windy, I'll explain to you how it all works because I know you're a woman and you need that. Here, let's talk about this over coffee . . .

@620 Well, we could refer to the chromosones and call it an XXplanation.

X-D

I know ERV awards the internets around these parts, but I feel obliged to make a nomination in this case.

@623

I have made the gender-normative assumption that "Panic Man" is male, so I thanked him for mansplaining the situation to ERV and the rest of us poor deluded womens that may still be following.

Ah, but are you not then stating that women cannot mansplain and men cannot XXplain? How drolly heteronormative and sexist of you!

JD, PZ simply cannot be trusted to use reason or truth when discussing "feminist" issues. You know, like how in a discussion about genital mutilation, men aren't allowed to speak because it doesn't affect us, so we need to just shut up and listen to a bunch of wealthy first-world mostly white women... because their vaginas erase the privilege they enjoy of never having that happen to them, and our penises erase our experience with having that happen to us (albeit often less extreme mutilation).

Meyers is reported to have written:

"Let's stop the shouting that Richard Dawkins is some kind of raving misogynist. What's happened here is that he is at some remove from all of the details..."

No goddammit. No.

As an aside related to my own area of expertise and for all the people who did not bother with a logic or ethics class in the core requirements because they could get equal credit for their humanities degree by taking "Misogyny as reflected in women's footwear advertisements 1906-1926"....

Dawkins statements are not:

argument from ignorance

equivocation

false analogy

Black Flag (O.J. Defense)

"Calvin ball"(this horseshit term is being flung around by Marcotte, political insiders use the same term as mentalists and short cons i.e. equivocation or the Laban Swap)

"Inhuman"(last time I checked we cornered the market on sarcasm AND blogging so I don't even get this hyperbolic shit)

His statements are lacking in diplomacy but they are NOT ethically or logically wrong.

He was not mistaken.

He is an international celebrity with an international 1st, 2nd and 3rd world audience and in a global context he is not trivializing Watson's experience. In that context of life, death and all the marbles, Watson's experience is beneath trivial, it is an expensive distraction.

Roger Crisp Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University said, very recently, "Moral indignation and blame are scarce commodities, worth preserving for the things that really matter."

That is where Dawkins is clearly coming from.

He statements are both ethical and pragmatic.

Of course if your utopia is a post-sexual merit-less empowerment world where A. Dworkin and Nathaniel Branden collide (ick)....then all bets are off.

What RW&Co. are looking for, and PZ by his turning his back on a vastly superior scientist, friend and all around human is looking for, is a broken window culture.

A broken window culture is where every offense to the culture is slammed. Kill a baby or break a window meh same thing....Whamo! Eventually people are not just obeying rules but they are giving them the widest imaginable berth.

It worked (kinda sorta) in Late 18th century to early 19th century England but 220 capital offenses led to social infantilism and it has done the same thing in Japan with its public-censure-for-everything plan.

You can't reform a culture by killing it, that's the bronze age biblical genocidal crapola mentality I thought we had all agreed to oppose.

If you are not part of the group, neither you nor your opinion count. It's not a herd mentality, it's a bit more vicious than that. It's a circling of the wagons against the outsiders.
Yeah, I've witnessed this before as well. Circling the wagons is an accurate description, as is tribalism.

You can see the difference between Dawkins and Myers, and see why Dawkins commands so much more respect than Myers ever could. Dawkins goes out and persuades those who have no strong views but can be convinced. Myers approach only works on the converted, and while his brand of tribalism helps to "rally the troops" it can also be quite negative and divisive.

PZ usually takes on what I would term "low hanging fruit" in the creationist vs. evolution debate, and the arrogant approach there is usually effective just because the arguments they are up against are so lame. Not to criticise them for doing this - at least clearing away the dross frees up the likes of Dawkins from having to deal with the dross. But when they actually come up against more challenging points of view, up go the barriers, threads get closed, opinions mischaracterised, logic and reason go out of the window.

At the end of his latest, he boldly points out the JREF rules for TAM as if it justifies his position - completely missing the fact that elevator guy's behaviour is not covered by them, as his advances were stopped immediately on request. Way to go, PZ.

I know I should post this on pharyngula but I can't be bothered signing up to an account just to watch the monkeys play in their cages.

That's right, Spence, it's not harassment unless you keep going after the rejection. Somehow neither "no means no" nor "only yes means yes" is good enough anymore. Now we have to deal with "it's no before you ask." Seriously, WTF?

If anyone is interested, I am currently having a wee debate with Watson at Skepchick on her most recent (today) Dawkins thread wherein I'm trying to get her response to tacitly and implicitly endorsing and encouraging a boycott of Dawkin's's books -- books, it has been noted, that have not skulked off into the libraryesque hinterlands and rewritten themselves because of his recent remarks, and therefore said books still contain great knowledge and wisdom and should therefore not be retractively boycotted.

Here, let's talk about this over coffee . . .

Wait, which one of us would be the oppressor?

Rystefn @ 630:

Somehow neither "no means no" nor "only yes means yes" is good enough anymore.

Interesting comment on this point on one of the related Pharyngula threads:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/gynofascists_are_invading_th…

Yeah, she's pretty good at dodging in circles around an argument, John. Anyone who can look at things logically can see she's doing, but that's not her audience, so why should she care?

@630

If anyone is interested, I am currently having a wee debate with Watson at Skepchick...

I am horrified as to the violence in some of the remarks out there!

New Rule: Every time someone comments on this topic, FSM smacks a baby otter.

Won't SOMEBODY speak for the otters?!!

Also: the speed at which people say "stop twisting my words" and then proceed to twist others' words in all these threads has given me whiplash.

I'm totally suing SOMEone...

I've posted what I think will be my last word on the subject (at Skepchick).

Watson really is a master dissembler and twister of words. Cripes, she's worse/more dangerous than sethmanapio! And disingenuous? Man, she's a pro.

Cthellis: where is this debate happening?

John Greg: thank Zod she's not a radical spiderist though.

At Skepchick.org, in the "Dawkins Overflow Thread".

"John Greg: thank Zod she's not a radical spiderist though."

No shit. I'm terrified of the creepy-crawly little buggers too!

Justicar @550 Your comment got me to remembering the first time that I was called a "gender traitor", which was in 1974. I commented to a women's group that their stated goal of "achieving equal rights and equal access for all people", and their current project of an art show consisting of "art made by women, of women, and for women" were at odds with each other. Shades of cognitive dissonance! If women were excluded from something, it was unjust, unfair, and so forth. If men were excluded from something, that was okay because- well, just because it was okay.

So, as a certified gender traitor, now can I join the boy's club? Abbie, Windy, and the other ladies could probably use some help making coffee.

OK, I found it over there. It was a short discussion.

I wrote a parable about Radical Spiderism today, and those who don't agree that blaming the spider is the proper way of handling the situation are just spider apologists, brainwashed by the spiderarchy. Let's hope it serves some use for some people in checking their irrational emotions through their rational thoughts.

Let's hope.

*Prays to Dumbledore*

As a completely irratioal arachnophobe, I support all movements to keep the octo-limbed bastards out of my world. yyyyyyeeeeeegghhh

633:

NJ, and of course, the first reply to that comment? Yeah. About what you'd expect. Seriously, at this point, unless you agree in blind lockstep with PZ, Watson, or sadly it seems, laden, you are nothing more than a target for shit flung by the local simians.

Then again, when you walk around clapping yourself on the back all the time about how much better, and smarter you are than anyone else, eventually, you become a diarrhetic chimp commune. It's inevitable.

It's also avoidable. Just remember, there are 7 billion people and even more computers on this planet. most of them are probably smarter than you, and could replace you without trying terribly hard. Once you internalize that, the rest is easy.

"It's also avoidable. Just remember, there are 7 billion people and even more computers on this planet. most of them are probably smarter than you, and could replace you without trying terribly hard. Once you internalize that, the rest is easy."

This. Perspective is a bitch though.

Although, I fully stand behind (but a little far away because of fear) my spider allegory. Also, my 7 second video completely sums up the whole of this shit. I could only have improved it by splicing in Dawkins saying, "idiotic retard".

I disagree, John Greg. She's bad, but she's not nearly to the levels achieved by seth. One time, that guy spent a week insisting that I wrong in saying "that should totally fall under depraved indifference" because it didn't currently fall under depraved indifference - despite the fact that I clearly pointed out that in some jurisdictions it did. It was a work of art in twisting... Although, since Rebecca was privy to that and many other arguments we had, I'm sure she's picked up a lot of the trade and added a fair amount of her own over the years.

Apparently, its only racism when a white is unjustly suspicious of a black, but not the other way around. I shit you not, he is literally suspicious of "the man" and justifiably so because he has been oppressed.

Just like a man is sexist if he thinks a woman is a gold digger. But a woman is justified when she thinks a man might be a rapist, WHY? Because nearly all rapes are committed by men on women!

(Why, most violent crimes are committed by minorities you say? Therefore, by their logic, you are justified in being suspicious? Well, that doesn't count because they have been oppressed! THUS they do not have privilege!)

If you disagree, well, you are just privileged (or a gender-traitor)!

The lack of logic, it BURNS! The goggles, they do NOTHING!

I'd love to see a panel discussion with PZ, Watson and Blaghag on one side, and ERV, Dawkins, and oh, I dunno, Hemant on the other. The audience would get to play too. The rules are, when you respond to someone, you have to respond via the general tone they use online.

so by "panel discussion" I mean "chaos".

@641

It's also avoidable. Just remember, there are 7 billion people and even more computers on this planet. most of them are probably smarter than you, and could replace you without trying terribly hard. Once you internalize that, the rest is easy

Also, the insults at least get a lot more entertaining: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/frustrations/374d/

...and oh, I dunno, Hemant on the other.

Gods damn, how is everything about that man so sexy?

647:

Dude, I don't know. I'm not gay, not even close, and I still think he's a damned fine-lookin' hunk o'man. The fact he has an amazing intellect, and really tries hard to live up to his own ideals, even treating those who disagree with a certain consistent respect?

If I was gay or a straight female, I'd be ALL over that shit.

For fuck's sake, John.

A sexually deviant rapist predator like you . . . who won't you OBJECTIFY and SEXUALIZE in your quest?!

Poor Hemant.

(ps, take pictures if you can)

Rystefn, you know, you're quite right. I well remember some of your battles with him. seth is a work of art ... chthonic art at that, but still....

Long after you left Skepchick seth involved me in one of his dictional masterpieces, which led to my eventual leaving of Skepchick at that time. He had me pulling my hair out with Internetz crazy-madness.

I have a thousand thoughts
1) Rebecca's original video was fine. It is a little creepy to approach someone in an elevator at 4 in the morning
2) The response was also fine, it isn't that big a deal
3) Some of the responses at Skepchick and other places border on deranged. Calling Dawkins a "rape apologist" is beyond ridiculous.
3b) Some people are more interested in their fantasy version of what happened than what did. These are the people who insist the man approached her for sex, chose a venue where he would be able to intimidate her and has been shown absolutely that he knew she just wanted to sleep.
3c) some people over there seem to think that any woman who disagrees with the idea that all men are potential rapists and should keep away from women after dark is just posing as a woman
5) His post was itself ridiculous. The idea that as long as there are things much worse happening to other people you shouldn't really complain basically makes no sense.

Shelley, his post wasn't "there are worse things than that, so stop complaining." It was "There are REAL things happening in the world, so stop complaining about nothing." That's a damned strong point.

G.Shelley:
The idea behind what Richard Dawkins said isn't that because worse bad things are happening somewhere means we shouldn't deal with less bad things. He's saying that the elevator incident is not in the category of "bad" at all. In other words, she might have been complaining about not getting the right kind of fries with her order - it's not what one would want to be the case, but it isn't bad that it happened. It's a non-event.

In order for your number 5.) to hold water, it would need to be the case that there is something bad that actually happened. Dawkins says it is not. And I agree.

Rebecca's video on the whole was fine. Boring, useless, but fine. But then she brings up the ordeal which she takes as a chance to admonish all men on behalf of women everywhere. She, in short, said, I don't appreciate x, therefore, women don't like x and further therefore all men should not do x.

So, if that's a valid chain, then I'm going to start letting it be known that paper makes me uncomfortable. Especially newspaper. I'm not allergic to it, per se; but just the smell gives me chills, the touch gives me chills and dries my mouth. It really bothers me - almost all paper. Therefore, to make my life easier, DO NOT walk around with a newspaper because you might run into me and make me uncomfortable.

Sorry, no. My discomfort with newspaper is my problem to work through; it is not a problem for the rest of the world to try to maneuver around.

Same thing with crayons: the smell and the touch give me chills and make my mouth go dry. Also, so do toothpicks. Just thinking about all of that right now has completely dried out my mouth like someone tossed in some alum powder.

This doesn't privilege me to tell anyone to do fuck all about anything. It is entirely my problem.

Same thing with not wanting people to speak to you in certain places/times. Don't like that people will talk to you while you're out in public? Don't be out in public. It's why I don't go paper stores, newspaper stands, and I never colored with my children. My problem, my responsibility to work around it - not anyone else's.

Inquiry: did she call for a boycott of Richard Dawkins, or did she just say that she, personally, wasn't going to buy anymore of his works?

She said that she wouldn't buy any more and that she would no longer recommend anyone do so either... which has a strong implication of advising people not to.

I think Justicar, as a homosexual, is sexually objectifying men and his posts make me uncomfortable. In fact, I think he probably should post on the other side of the street.

Does anyone want to talk about my anguish over this incident?

Dear Breeder:

Yes, I know you can get married . . . but think of your American male sisters will you?

Signed,
The Dawk

D.T. said:

"Inquiry: did she call for a boycott of Richard Dawkins, or did she just say that she, personally, wasn't going to buy anymore of his works?"

Rystefn said:

"She said that she wouldn't buy any more and that she would no longer recommend anyone do so either... which has a strong implication of advising people not to."

Actually, if we look at her position of power in the community and the degree of her influence over her followers, fans, etc., it is somewhat more than that. In my opinion her statements amount to a passive/agressive and profoundly intellectually dishonest endorsement and encouragement to boycott everything Dawkins, i.e, talks, books, etc.

As I pointed out earlier, I presented my thoughts on this issue to Watson over at Skepchick.org in response to an incredibly insulting attempt by Watson to shame someone who asked her if Dawkins's recent comments somehow rewrote his books into idiocy, but she just played remarkably childish and manipulative word games to avoid actually confronting the issue on an intellectually honest way.

She is but a child, an insecure child bloated with the success of Internetz "fame".

I think she is falling apart and even perhaps morphing into a sort of contemporary version of Andrea Dworkin, albeit without the Dyke side of it all.

I also think she is, like many, many "celebrities" before her, succumbing to her own press and believing in her own "myth", so to speak, which is of course the most toxic form of self-image self-destruction there is.

"Inquiry: did she call for a boycott of Richard Dawkins, or did she just say that she, personally, wasn't going to buy anymore of his works?"

I believe that she said she was not going to buy any more.

However, when you're a leader, people will follow. It's expected. And people did.

The problem with the idea that she didn't intend this is that why bother saying? It's not like RD is going to change his mind just because he's lost one punter, is it. And therefore why tell him? He already knows she doesn't like his attitude. So the only purpose left is really that she wanted other people to join in to coerce RD.

"Dude, I don't know. I'm not gay, not even close, and I still think he's a damned fine-lookin' hunk o'man."

And until you've tried, how do you know you won't like it?

EVERY man is a potential homosexual. Maybe there's a "gay switch", which would certainly be of comfort to those wanting gay marriage banned: that COULD switch that gay switch and ruin the next generation!

Funny how Rebecca's helpers are helping the religious right in their gender hate.

Sorry, but I just can't let this one stand :

We sat in the audience in horror as she refused to talk on the subject her panel had been given, and instead went on a private rant, maligning four women from a previous panel for saying that women were welcomed in the atheist community, and had often held high positions in atheist organizations. Rebecca's latest personal attack during a public speaking engagement is certainly not her first. My fond hope is that it will be her last, and that she either agrees to abide by the principles of common decency, or is denied her bully pulpit.

That would have to be the same audience that I sat in. The one where most people listened with open mouths to Paula Kirby and Tanya Smith completely dismissing the existence of sexism in the atheist movement. The one where I asked Rebecca whether she was going to say something about this, and she said she was going to do it at the next panel, because the time was up. The same audience that cheered and applauded when Rebecca made her remarks on the later panel. Sorry, Victoria Johnson, but lying is never a good thing to do to sway an audience, not even on a blog. You may have looked on in horror as you say, but you would have been the only one. I note that the Watson-hating fanclub here welcomed your lie warmly and uncritically.

"because their vaginas erase the privilege they enjoy of never having that happen to them, and our penises erase our experience with having that happen to us (albeit often less extreme mutilation)."

Although this would mean that the advice to kick the bloke in the nuts should be discarded, since women don't know the pain that causes.

At least circumcision has a point: lower infection rate because there's no warm, moist area to grow bacteria.

What's a little eye-opening is that the insistence that women aren't as sex mad as men is very similar to the demand to mutilate women: women aren't allowed to enjoy sex. One makes it a social stigma to do so, the other one makes it a medical improbability.

Again the feminists are helping promote the same ideas as the religious suppressors of women do.

Oh, and to reduce the posts, to this claim:

"I will extend that to "a person being attacked is less likely to win than an attacker in a fight." "

Sorry, if you know you're in deep shit, you fight for something.

To some extent, being attacked by three people is easier than being attacked by one. You KNOW you're FUBAR. So you go all-out. No messing. Take them out and if that means they could die, you KNOW that it's them or you. Meanwhile they think that they have you. So going first, you have surprise (most KOs are from a punch never seen). So if you're lucky, one goes down for good. Now the two remaining are shocked. That gives you a chance to put another one down. If you do, the last one thinks that they're now fooked and they weren't in this for THAT to happen. So they scarper.

But you can beat a thousand assailants if you're too far away, so distance is ALWAYS your first option.

If you can't get away, TAKE NO PRISONERS. You're fighting for your life, they're fighting for your fanny. And you have just the one life, whereas there's plenty of muff in the world, so no point in getting hurt getting yours.

"I should really quit reaching for the most convenient excuse on hand. I'm going to dig myself a hole here for offending other people that have Asperger's"

That'd be me!

Don't worry, Southern Geologist, I wasn't intending censure (well, not much, barely a tap on the wrist), but there are women and men who want more than equality for women and given there are men who want LESS than equality, this isn't a problem. You need two extremes of equal nutcasery to have the proper position somewhere in between. Cutting off one extreme doesn't work. See "Overton Window" for what happens when you do that.

These feminist still, in the main, recognise that "no means no" means that men still can ask, even when they know women are better than men.

The situation here is that Jen, for example, isn't willing to accept that. Therefore making it specific to Jen hammers home the problem: she's setting herself up as the One True Source Of Right Thinking and that's pissing off not only men, but women too.

When you can make your point specific, you may be able to get actual change. If you make it general, it's more likely to be brushed off as "just hatin'".

You may have looked on in horror as you say, but you would have been the only one. I note that the Watson-hating fanclub here welcomed your lie warmly and uncritically.

What lie? She was talking about her and her husband. "We sat in the audience in horror", not "We, the audience, sat in horror..."

Rorschach-- You mean this video on YouTube we can all watch, with the heading "Communicating Atheism" where she barely touched on "Communicating Atheism" and there was nothing I would describe as 'cheering'?

It is possible, is it not rorschach, that SOME of the audience was not happy at watson's actions and that SOME of the audience was, and NEITHER OF THEM (either part of the audience) WAS WRONG?

I don't have anything useful to say here right now. I just feel compelled to snag post 666.

A WILD SPAMMED COMMENT APPEARS!

LOL!!

Well, The Guy in question just has to be outed now, just for the record.
Looks like the next conference is going to be comfortably held in that elevator, if this keeps up.

Wimminz can take the stairs.

Oh boy... this should be tons of fun!

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/07/12/announcing-my…

Well, I think one important thing we can all take away from this is that Rebecca Watson is definitely NOT an attention whore.

Damn, I shouldn't have slept - good material here.
Rorshach:
I have not uncritically accepted anyone's views of what the audience were like during Paula Kirby's panel. I watched the video. I don't seem to remember a single boo. I don't seem to remember a single person standing up and calling them on the carpet for throwing their sisters under a bus. Rebecca was in the audience; she could have availed herself of doing it there.

And, rereading the comments, she spoke for her and her husband. Novel, isn't it? She spoke for herself and her husband (whom she presumably knows and talks to about things occasionally). She's not saying her perception of events is the universe's perception. She said she knows what she thought about, and she knows what her husband thought about it. Seems imminently reasonable to me - constraining her opinion to two people, one of which she can absolutely know to be a fair representation, and the other she can be fairly confident in. Well, unless you want to posit that her husband might not be honest with her. I am not so much an ass to assume that of him.

Perhaps you could even try learning from this little exercise: don't speak for the whole fucking world. State your perspective; state your opinion; represent what you think. Just because you think/feel something doesn't mean it generalizes. Asshole.

Oh, that's right - the Q&A is NOT the appropriate time for her to ask a question or voice her displeasure because she can't monopolize the time since the speakers have the power. I have watched the video twice, and I fail to see where any of the ladies on the panel have said that sexism is a done deal, an afterthought of a bygone era.

Indeed, it started off with the announcement that though fully a third of the audience that day were women, it's still not good enough. But that it's better than it has been, so it's progress but not yet quite where it needs to be.

The panelists discussed their personal interactions and perspectives. Why are their perspectives somehow invalid, but Rebecca Watson's perspectives The Gospel?

Oh wait, I know why: Paula Kirby is privileged. Mary Ann Waters is privileged. Rebecca Watson? She's being oppressed.

Paula Kirby: ladies, don't want to be invited to speak. Start speaking. Do not wait for the door to be opened for you; open it and walk through. If someone stands in your way, puts an obstacle in your path, kick him in the balls, walk over it and get the job done.

You: how dare you say sexism doesn't exist?! TRAITOR!

cthellis:
Better luck next time!

Chris Mooney is an extremely petty individual as well- I can guarantee you despite this ridiculous write up (RW has important "work" in the movement) he didn't even know her prior to the controversy. And I also guarantee you that our favorite little templeton prize winner doesn't give a crap about "elevgatorgate" beyond attempting to slander Dawkins reputation.

I really hope Rebecca is happy. A week ago, she was a new atheist that displayed utter contempt for religion (sometimes, despite Steven Novella urging, she couldn't keep it to herself). This week, she is a concern troll arguing the atheist movement is a secret vehicle of male privilege.

Proof positive ideas doesn't mean anything when attention is available. Now PZ is really in a catch 22- his girl is now working with his mortal enemy to discredit the movement.

Oh yes. So true! Not at all. ;^}

I'm sure, just like Jen McC, she just wants it all to go away so she can get back to her nice quiet, happy life!

lol@ERV

No, she's not.

This reminds me of Bob Saget's comedy central roasting where Gilbert Gottfried was doing his "raped and killed a girl in 1990" refrain.
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=179741&title=gi…

I don't know why though.

On Skeptchick "The Privilege Delusion" RW wrote:

Despite the fact that Iâve seen hundreds of comments from those of you who plan to do the same, Iâm sure Dawkins will continue to be stinking rich until the end of his days. But those of us who are humanists and feminists will find new, better voices to promote and inspire, and Dawkins will be left alone to fight the terrible injustice of standing in elevators with gum-chewers.

Well, i seriously hope that she doesn't think that self-proclaimed Feminist Primadonna Rebecca Watson herself should be that new voice for humanists and feminists?!!!

That's right. A prestigious oxford professor that devoted his life's work to advancing biological sciences, a best selling author, and brought the atheist movement to the forefront of american society should be left in the dust. Why? Because we have a completely uneducated, non-scientist, internet celerity to provide a new voice to "promote and inspire"!

Give me a break. Also why was the "stinking rich" comment included? Is it additional part of the male patriarchy to have money now?

Tom:
It's the same reason that Paula Kirby is useless and retarded now. Apparently, work hard for all of your life and become "successful" and you're suddenly too inept to know what it takes for "regular" women to "make it".

Silly Richard Dawkins. I feel so sorry for him being such a great writer. Why, if only half as many people bought his books, attended his lectures, realized that "atheist" isn't a slur, well, then he'd be twice as able of understanding.

There seems to be some inverse relationship between success and having insight on what it takes to become successful. This is a highly asymmetric model, which I think deserves further scrutiny. How do all these clearly inept people make it to the top, or even the high middle area, while all of the people who really know how it works, who really understand what it takes, who really "get it" can't seem to do it? No doubt it's part of the Spiderarchy.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/aboutus/
"Chris [Mooney] is a science and political journalist..."

Mooney as a professional journalist will no doubt refuse to broadcast a one-sided view of the events. He will demand that RW identify EG so that he can ask him about his side of the events.

Dawkins will be left alone to fight the terrible injustice of standing in elevators with gum-chewers.
So wait a minute. This started out with Dawkins making a point that standing in elevators and chewing gum weren't worth worrying about. And now that has somehow been twisted around to being the only thing he's worried about. Is Rebecca Watson really that detached from reality?

Still, watching Rorschach's post - laden with emotionally loaded terms (lying, hating) - being demolished by windy, Abbie and John using, you know, logic and evidence made my day. It really shows which side of this debate is sticking to critical thinking and rational skepticism.

@670 mk: "Suffice it to say that it involves not only what one skeptic man (now infamously) said to Watson in an elevator at 4 in the morning, but how Richard Dawkins then dove in and minimized the incident.

Weâll be discussing this and the lessons to be taken from itâas well as Watsonâs important work to spread skepticism and, especially, to make the skeptic movement a more welcoming place for women."

And the previous blog post there was called "Newsflash: Astroturfing Works". Yes. Yes it does. Head, meet desk.

"Comments here will be considered as possible questions and jumping-off points for the show."

Somehow, based on the teaser, I think I can guess which comments will not be considered.

Mooney will demand that RW's tale fits his accommodationist narrative. She likes the attention. He likes a chance to take shots at Richard Dawkins and the new atheists in generally. Merely a relationship of mutual opportunity. That is all.

Tom@#682

"Mooney will demand that RW's tale fits his accommodationist narrative. She likes the attention."

Will someone please toss a small hand mirror between them so we can watch these two silly gits fight to the death.

A WILD SPAMMED COMMENT APPEARS!

LOL!!

NOOOOOOooooooOOOOOOO!!

That's it, I'm done with the lot of you~!

cthellis:
Better luck next time!

*weeps bitter tears of bitterness*

667:

I don't have anything useful to say here right now. I just feel compelled to snag post 666.

(nelson) HA-ha(/nelson)

Sincerely,

Satan.

680:

That's something that the PZ Blogpets don't get. There is nothing wrong with blunt arguments, or calling someone out in a direct fashion. Cthulu knows I'll not say profanity is wrong either, nor is a really good rant. Sometimes, *sometimes* even being abusive is called for, to get the point across that you are really, really unhappy.

But it can't be your only tactic, it can't even be your favorite tactic and I say this as someone who has turned abusing companies who don't like to listen to polite into a bit of an art form. I'd much rather NOT have to do that. Yes, it's fun, but it's depressing. "Really? I told you the same thing in a calm, polite fashion a month ago and you told me to pound sand. I abuse you like Dibs in public and all of a sudden you're so willing to listen. WHY ARE YOU TEACHING ME THIS TACTIC?"

However, it's what PZ likes, it's what Jen and Laden and all the others like. "They disagree, they are other, they have no rights, bring the rain." It's not just their first tactic, it is, from what I can tell, their only tactic. And if you dare say "Look, there's a difference between blunt and...whatever the fuck this is", then you get attacked just as viciously for being a "coward". (Which is amusing given that PZ never comes CLOSE to his blog tone in public. So who's the coward?) It's all bullshit.

It's why I dig people like Abbie and Hemant. Hemant is blunt and forthright, but he manages to do so with some respect for the other. Even when he thinks, and calls them stupid, he never descends into the pharyngularity. Abbie is *perfectly* willing to return fire in as withering a barrage as possible, but she has always seemed (to me at least) to be just as willing and able to actually discuss things with people who disagree at their level. If they're being decent, she seems to return the favor. if they're being tools, well, okay, that game can be played as well.

The set of replies to Rorschach is a perfect example of this. They aren't exactly *genteel*, but they are to the point, and primarily attacking his points. a lot of folks should learn from this.

It seems hard to understand how Mooney will navigate his base desire to attack both Dawkins and PZ in this instance--both of whom he has painted with the same broad, illogical brush--with each one being the focal point on "both sides of this serious, serious divide" that is totally only the fault of some random internet commenter shmucks, and totally isn't being used as a bludgeoning tool by other prominent members of the community.

The set of replies to Rorschach is a perfect example of this. They aren't exactly *genteel*, but they are to the point, and primarily attacking his points. a lot of folks should learn from this.

Why should we listen to anything you have to say when you are an incorrect, scurrilous buttmunch whose points can have no actual meaning because of something something tone warrior something traitor poopyhead?

What Mooney and Watson have in common is that they have both been at the centre of schisms in the 'skeptic movement' due to proscriptions on behaviour. When Mooney was telling PZ to change his behaviour in order to not scare off liberal theists, PZ's response was that "nobody has a right to be not offended". When he stabbed a nail though a cracker, no actual harm was done to anyone (though some Catholics decreed it a hate crime). Plenty of people were offended, but his position was that it was their problem; he shouldn't have to modify his behaviour in order to pander to their feelings.

Things seem a little different this time around for some reason.

@Mark

Things seem a little different this time around for some reason.

You don't get it because of privilege. Or something...

LOL @ Mr. Deity.

"Now, had she been chewing gum..."

I was just about to link that Mr. Deity with a "this will end well."

Also, more YouTube commenters to support whateverthefuck you feel like! Hooray!

I'm sure it's already somehow brought in Jewish Conspiracies and the 2012 apocalypse...

That was just fucking brilliant!!

This is why I stick with the funny people. I need jokes to cope with stress. You guys have been great, but the Mr. Deity crew just knocked it out of the park.

Re Rorshach @ 661

Rorshach: How on earth can you interpret my personal feelings as "a lie"? I expressed how I (and my husband) felt about the presentations. I never said that the whole audience felt that way. Indeed there were people present who supported Rebecca, including Skepchick fans, PZ, and members of the Horde. There were also some people that agreed with us; we have spoken with some of them at the conference. I wouldn't venture to guess how many people fell into each camp.

I am offended by being called a liar, as I value my honesty and integrity rather highly. However, given the sort of profanity-laden feces-slinging that characterizes "argument" in the typical thread on Pharyngula, I guess I should be happy you didn't suggest various activities with a rotting porcupine.

As to honesty, I use my real name when I comment. Is Rorschach your first name, your last name, or an anonymous cover?

@#688

I gather that if I look deep into my heart I will find enlightenment. Good job there's still a way for this man of privilege to be saved!

@#689

Amazing!

Justicar #672

For the record Victoria and I talk all the time about many things. We also read each other's posts before they are posted - both as an editor and as ERV has stated it is best to write, wait, and edit most postings.

@Bob Johnson:
I was working under the premise that you and Victoria spoke. I only put it that way to point out the absurdity of the completely unfounded charge by Rorschach up-thread. If it came across as anything otherwise, then I profoundly apologize for it as nothing more than to ridicule the gentleman up-thread was my intent.

he never descends into the pharyngularity.

I used to descend into the pharyngularity, before it got too popular. /hipster mode off

So, why doesn't Rorshach come back and apologise?

That's one of the things that drives me batty about all these Internet battles. When some poster is proven to either be clearly in the wrong or to have lied they so rarely, rarely fess up, admit it, and apologise. Are people really so afraid of admitting error? I always apologise when I am proven in the wrong. If you ask me, to do so is liberating.

Anyway, I tried to comment on an earlier Rystefn post yesterday, but for some reason it was not allowed and never appeared. I got a message saying I was being moderated. I don't know why though. It was a quite reasonable message explicating Watson's dishonesty and word games in our wee debate about the Dawkins boycott. So, ERV, what did I do wrong? Was it my white male privilege that did me in?

Sorry, John-- I dont see any of your comments in the spam trap, or in the very sneaky 'pending comments' trap. Is the one you left #658?

Ooops. Yep. That's it.

/blushes in his ancient embarrassed blindeness

I 'umbly offer you my apple oagies.

"... the very sneaky 'pending comments' trap." LOL.

Lovely spaaaam, wonderful spaaaaaam...!

Victoria Johnson: "Rorshach: How on earth can you interpret my personal feelings as "a lie"? I expressed how I (and my husband) felt about the presentations. I never said that the whole audience felt that way. Indeed there were people present who supported Rebecca, including Skepchick fans, PZ, and members of the Horde."

FOR THE HORDE!

Hello everyone,

I am a first-time poster. In fact, apart from a few posts here and there at richarddawkins.net, this is perhaps the first time that I have ever posted in an "atheist/skeptic/science-type" blog. However, I am an ardent lurker of various humanist websites, and I have been following the likes of Pharyngula, WEIT etc for a number of years now. I very rarely read the comments sections of these blogs: my internet/faffing about time is extremely limited, and I have such a range of interests on the 'net that I find it hard to become too embroiled in any one thing for a prolonged length of time.

In saying that, I have become extremely involved over the last week or two in the recent Elevator Guy travesty, finding myself unable to sleep most nights because I am up until the wee hours of the morning, ravenously inhaling as many reader comments to the various blogs relating to this issue as is humanly possible. As a result I have been exposed to a veritable Smörgåsbord of differing tones, views and attitudes in the comments sections of the various blogs, and it has been a truly enlightening experience.

I had no idea that the various skeptic blogs contained such a wildly differing array of posters. I began my voracious blog-reading escapade at Pharyngula, where I read Dawkins's first post shortly after it had been posted. My initial reaction was overwhelming amusement: I had been surprised at how seriously the posters at Pharyngula has been taking Watson's anecodote, and it was a real breath of fresh air for me to read Dawkins's cutting dismissal of its relevance. The resulting shit-storm in the comments was nothing short of ludicrous. Hundreds upon hundreds of outraged fuck-wits screaming blue-murder about "privilege" and "ivory towers" and how a renowned supporter of womens' rights "just doesn't get it" (I'd put that last bit in italics for emphasis, but I don't know how to do it). It really did pain me to see that the vast, vast consensus of opinion was strongly in favour of that snivelling blow-hard Watson, and overwhelmingly against the legend that is Richard Dawkins. I was starting to wonder just what in the hell I had been doing spending so much time reading atheist blogs when the majority of the people who frequent them were such quick-to-be-offended, no-nothing douche-bags. (That "Caine, Fleur du mal" guy in particular- what a prick! Does he know how to do anything apart from condescendingly refer to people as "cupcakes" and tell them to "fuck off"?)

This has been an overly-long ramble and so I shall cut to the chase: thank FUCK for blogs such as ERV. I had only ever heard of ERV a few times before, and I remember watching her hour-long talk with PZ Myers a few years ago, but I had never checked out her blog until a few days ago. I have read all of the posts here, and I am really glad to find so many learned and coherent individuals who share my views on the matter. I have also been made of aware of other blogs, such as The Friendly Atheist's and Miranda Celeste's, and I now have a whole cavalcade of new and excellent blogs to check out. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the 95% of you who have posted in this forum for helping me to not lose my sanity over the past couple of days. I think that I would have just given up on these kinds of sites if I hadn't encountered you all. Cheers.

Hello Mr. DNA,
I concur. ERV's blog is one of the rare places where sanity is always the soupe-du-jour. I too rarely read the comments on the sundry science blogs I frequent, and post even less, but like you I made an exception here.

I think two of the most popular critical thinking/skeptical posts at Pharyngula are "Shut up", and "Fuck off." Amazing, really.

Justicar @696.

No offense taken; no apology required. I read your post exactly as you intended. I just wanted everyone else to be clear ("For the record") on my position.

PS- Sorry for the delay getting back to you, as I was getting my garden in shape for when I'm off to TAM 9.

@ Mr. DNA: [shift]+[comma][i][shift]+[period] keys in front of the stuff to be italicised, with [shift]+[comma][forward slash][i][shift]+[period] keys at the back end.
I'm still nervous of [Enter]. Have visions of the carriage shooting across and punting my tin of Special Brew across the room. Just pile in, and check with the [Preview] button. Stiff upper lip and all that, old chap.

I think two of the most popular critical thinking/skeptical posts at Pharyngula are "Shut up", and "Fuck off." Amazing, really.

Which is a shame, because "fuck up" and "shut off" are far more amusing commands.

Mr. DNA:
As the leader of the 5% team here on ERV, I am authorized to say you're welcome. I don't know if the "other" group will say anything.

John Greg:
shut up and fuck off!

We just sent Mr. Deity an extra donation (we're already subscribers). He is bound to receive a lot of flak over his last video, so I might suggest that a few words of support, or even better a donation (if you can afford it) would be great.

I thought about, but my involvement in this has already reduced my income - google disabled my ad sense account because my content presented a "threat" to their advertisers' interested. So to protect their advertisers, they disabled my account.

Meh. I guess I'll have to forgo hookers and beer for a while.

Amendment. Send a donation to Justicar. Support hookers and beer.

lol
Not why I mentioned, but I appreciate the sentiment. Just that, you know, if you're going to take the unpopular side in such a thing, there are consequences. I knew that going in, particularly with the approach I decided on. Meh.

Frank: Great minds think alike my man.

John Greg: If I was PZ I would be deeply, deeply concerned at the overall douche-baggery that seems to prevail in the Pharyngula comments scetion. Although perhaps I just don't "get it". :/

dustbubble: Thanks for the help, but I have been faffing about trying to do as you suggest and I can't get it to work. Am I supposed to write the word out that I want italicised, highlight it, and then press [shift]+[comma] or [shift]+[period]? That's probably completely wrong, but I'm too idiotic to decipher your help. Thanks anyway, though!

cthellis: "Fuck up" (which is similar to the old faithful "fuck off") is a beautiful expression, although I was not aware that it was very common outside of my native Scotland. Do you live there?

Justicar: It is painfully obvious that from your posts both here and in various other blogs over the past week or so (Miranda's; Ophelia's etc.), that you are a fully paid-up member of the 95% to whom my initial post was directed. Although I have also learned through actually reading the comments sections over the past wee while that Ophelia won't be reading this comment. Too many "epithets" for her liking. And not enough broomsticks. ;)

I've just renewed my subscription to Mr. Deity (yes, I was a lapsed misterdeist).

Here is the epistle of support I sent him:

"O Mr. Deity,
When I changed credit cards, I had forgotten to carry over my subscription to your show.
Seeing your latest video reminded me I should give a tithe of a tithe of a tithe of my income to such a worthy 'cause'. I expect you will lose some of your fan base after you've defended Mr. Dawkins, so I hope this will make up for it a bit.
Amen,
Frank Habets
Patron Saint of tomato sandwiches"

ZOMG, you read my blog! I'm telling everyone!

I have to say, I was taken a bit aback reading Ophelia scolding Rebecca Watson about not wearing the right kind of clothing. Particularly given that about a month ago Ophelia had an article about how it's nobody's fucking business what people are wearing, and it's sexist to point it (IIRC - not going back to find it).

Rebecca, in my estimation, was perfectly right to essentially tell Ophelia where to shove that kind of talk. It was nice to see that "Twatson" is a worse crime than gender traitor. She majorly objects to "genderized"insults, but apparently is content with the "Dear Dick" letter campaign.

The tone card from Ophelia Benson. This past week has certainly been an interested exercise in revealing people's inner-selves instead of what they tell everyone they are, present company excluded.

So, take heart, Abbie, you're slightly less despised than I am . . . barely.

I want to stay in the 5% . . . playing the victim is current atheist fad you know. Try as I might, I haven't been able to myself cornered in any elevators, so I don't have a good reason to cry out . . .

Justicar:
"This past week has certainly been an interested exercise in revealing people's inner-selves instead of what they tell everyone they are, present company excluded."

So what have I learned from this whole escapade? Read the comments section! The spur-of-the-moment, unedited comments from certain posters has indeed been extremely revealing, as I have found out a great deal about the character of the various bloggers to whom I have been invested for the past few years. I have Ophelia's blog bookmarked: I find her to have a snappy writing style, and she tells a good anecdote. But you know, all of this crap coming from her over the past week or so, lambasting ERV and yourself for daring to have a sense of humour, is very disheartening. And her support of Watson is obviously also extremely disappointing. She obviously doesn't get it.

This might be bad form, and if it is then I have no porblem with it being removed, but I just watched this YouTube video about the whole deal (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqU9JFbtucU&feature=channel_video_title), and I think that the dude sums it up well. I'm not normally a huge fan of The Amazing Atheist, but this video points out the honest-to-goodness lunacy of the whole ultra-feminist position in relation to this issue.

LOL!

"Not even 'for sure hit' on."

I think Abbie should make it a rule here that no one is allowed to quote me. Invariably, the section being quoted has a typo! My keyboard is oppressing me - help!

This event hasn't changed my mind about most people in it. Ophelia's blog is sometimes interesting, sometimes not. Pharyngula is one I check every few weeks and skim over it to see if there's anything I shouldn't live without knowing. I've contributed to maybe 5 or 6 threads there. Maybe. I don't mind a rough and tumble crowd in the least, but at some point the conversation has to go from a string insults to something of substance or I lose interest. Well, unless you're really, really clever with the insults. I now only skim those blogs real fast now, mainly to see how much shit's being talked about me. =^_^=
I've never paid attention to TJ on youtube; he's always been too erratic and off-putting to me. Plus, I've never heard him say anything interesting. But he subscribed to my channel last night, so I'm not sure if my channel is heading in the direction I want it go or not . . . on the other than Wildwoodclaire1 subscribed to me. She's a hoot, and does excellent geology videos as well. Her pwnage video series, travels with creatards, is awesome if I do say so myself.

Reading up-thread, I really need to start using "preview" before I post. I'm making a lot of silly grammatical errors. le sigh.

If you want to see someone who does top notch science videos on youtube, check out "thelivingdinosaur". He's a PhD biochemist I think. He has a series titled "Holy Hallucinations", and they're animated quite superbly. He probably spends 3 weeks or so making a video.

Look at me babble!

Can we have some GeekAid for Mr.DNA here please? (A redirect to some hyperlink on html codes (x or other) is not going to work).
He's not an idiot, I believe. And I'm a jiner to trade, and a gey auld yin forbye. So I likely am, and floundering a bit.

Thing is, Mr.DNA, gif I schaw Yee thon Runes, ye Device eates thame upp, and enacts ye magicke Spell which chaunges ye Wordis intil thair shiftet schapes.
I shall try to disguise them. Substitute [the character above the comma on that key] and [the character above the dot, next door] for [ { ] and [ } ] (ignoring the square brackets, I should add ..
Type piecewise into the box, literally, no fancy-dan highlights.

{i}.. get ti Freuchie whaur the French-men gang ..{/i}
then see if you've done it right with the onscreen [Preview] radio button.

See? Much more satisfying than dreary old "fuck off".

Ok, this video is the bees knees. This religious girl . . church of radical atheist feminism.

dustbubble:

ahhahahahaaaa!!! Can you believe that I did actually try this method before asking for help, and it didn't work! I must not have done it correctly. But now I have! Thanks for spelling it out to me in terms that even an idiot could understand. I think that's the reason that I finally got it. Now I just need to figure out how to do quote tags...

Justicar:

I unsubscribed to TJ's videos a while back, but I had to re-subscribe after watching this video. It's just beautiful.

You mean this video on YouTube we can all watch

OK, so I actually bothered to watch Watson. This is the face of modern feminism? Someone should take advantage of the opportunity and hook a dynamo to Elizabeth Cady Stanton's grave.

I'll watch his next couple of videos and see how they go. It's not like he needs my support anyway - he's the most popular atheist on youtube I think. He has something like 1.75 times Tf00t's audience.

Dave:
apparently. She's a "leader" in the atheist movement. News to me since I was unaware I was a follower. Shows how low on the totem pole I am.

It is AMAZING what white womens privilege can do to stir up a hornets nest of conversation!

RD was so right as both a rationalist who agrees that manufactured controversy has actual value (food supply)--and Rebecca is right too, because in the white woman's universe, every man that doesn't merely tip his hat and acknowledge her privilege is non-Victorian(on top of the list of privileged well-fed individuals has always been white American women to dump some protein on) ...

I mean, we all know that stirring the gene pool is what males are designed to do--which is good for all of us-- and that in the end, she has positioned herself right center to a bunch of men who can really stir up conversation--and cleverly, manufactured controversy that will ensure her gametes get noticed.

http://pornalysis.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/inspiring-white-females-to-a…

OK, so I actually bothered to watch Watson. This is the face of modern feminism? Someone should take advantage of the opportunity and hook a dynamo to Elizabeth Cady Stanton's grave.

I must warn you, this can have dire consequences...

The fearless leader Herr Myers,

Comments closed here, because I've put up with enough of the hysterical delusions of people offended by calm, nuanced, proportionate statements ...

And with that thousands of irony meters explode all over the interwebz in a light show that can be seen from space.

From Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon [1]:

If I were designing a phony religion, I'd surely include a version of this little gem---but I'd have a hard time saying it with a straight face:

If anybody ever raises questions or objections about our religion that you cannot answer, that person is almost certainly Satan. In fact, the more reasonable the person is, the more eager to engage you in open-minded and congenial discussion, the more sure you can be that you're talking to Satan in disguise! Turn away! Do not Listen! It's a trap!

What is particularly cute about this trick is that it is a perfect "wild card," so lacking in content that any sect or creed or conspiracy can use it effectively. Communist cells can be warned that any criticism they encounter is almost sure to be the work of FBI infiltrators in disguise, and radical feminist discussion groups can squelch any unanswerable criticism by declaring it to be phallocentric propaganda being unwittingly spread by a brainwashed dupe of the evil patriarchy, and so forth. This all-purpose loyalty-enforcer is paranoia in a pill, sure to keep the critics muted if not silent.

So, do we need room under the bus for Dennett too?

[1] Chapter 8, Belief in Belief

JD, you have to wonder whether PZ actually reads the comments to his own posts. Any objective observer can plainly see (thanks, dustbubble) that most of the Pharyngula commenters, at least over the past week or so, have been anything but "calm and proportionate". I mean- WTF is he talking about? How is "fuck off, gender-traitor" and "you just don't get it..." "proportionate"? Richard Dawkins must have a very red forehead, what with all of the violent facepalming that he is currently engaged with.

Especially just for justicar I will now, for the evening, shut off and fuck up.

Um....

Mr. DNA, I'm afraid that when it comes to Pharyngula, I just don't get it either. I must be a simpering mysogynystyc (say! what about all those Ys eh?) rapist apologist nazi sympathiser, etc....

Oh yes, oh yes, I am so sorry I know it's all been said before so just crucify me as a parrot ... a dead parrot ... a bloody dead parrot with a handkerchief on its head.

Gosh. It's so pleasant here. And it seems, at first droppings, to be so calm, and intellectual. Say, are we elites?

Ooh! Pop-eyes!

Oh, and Justicar, I too have read your blog. Can you do me a great, great favour (please note the Canadian spelling) and tell everyone?

JD said:

"And with that thousands of irony meters explode all over the interwebz in a light show that can be seen from space."

ROFLOL! Truly.

thx Nibi, very intersting read.

You know guys, i came to the hole elevatorgate-'debate' with quite an open mind. I don't think there is prevalent sexism going on in secular movements....and i can't see why the elevator-incident has anything to do with sexism at all. But I could have been wrong, as I was often wrong on various issues in the past. Maybe its me, who lost every sense of reality and perspective....quite possible...
I wanted to see some compelling evidence and reasoning that proves their point. But there wasn't any (Hint: No, anecdotes, 'appeal to emotion'-stories and cheap character assassination campaigns DON'T PROOF anything). That's why I find it somehow disturbing why many high-profile atheists and skeptics buy into Rebecca Watsons bullshit. *arghhhh*
Maybe it's just because they want to be 'good guys', and not Satan-preachers (aka misogynists, rapist-defenders...).
Pleeaaase....PZ Myers...Phil Plait..and many others, come back to reality!!!

john Greg, when I start detecting your quoting from my blog while you're casually talking, then I'll confirm you've read it!

Does anyone know how much Rebecca Watson gets by way by a speaking fee? It would be interesting to see how much money one makes as a useless blowhard.I digress.

We should get Rebecca Watson a tshirt:
I'm not half the woman PZ Myers is!

Well, slap my flimsy wrist and call me a total moron, but I just had to post a nasty, evil, wicked thingy over at Watson's place PR market:

http://skepchick.org/2011/07/frequently-answered-questions/#comment-128…

I am so ashamed.

But I just could not help myself.

The sycophancy just curdled my tummy and ruined the fine pinot noir that I was supping ... sipping ... well, one or the other.

We should get Rebecca Watson a tshirt:
I'm not half the woman PZ Myers is!

Ahahahaha!!! Screaming with laughter!

Jeebles I wish I was gay; I'd come over and rodger your dodger for a fortnight.

First time commenting here at ERV.
If there is a good thing to come out of this nonsense its that I have discovered this blog, among others, and had revealed the sad fact that even where critical thinking is supposed to reign, is suppose to be our default mode of operations, our band isn't wholly immune to cults of personality.

Rebecca Watson stands revealed, I think, with her latest blog "The Privilege Delusion" as a very shallow, and petty person. Consider her current dismissal of Dawkins, all his work and his current efforts to promote reason, to oppose religious misogyny everywhere over a simple disagreement. Lets keep in mind, this is the result of a difference of opinion. How petty can one get? The hypocrisy of her allies is no less annoying. It is completely okay to get worked up over terms like cunt, but anyone can be a dick. As Christopher Hitchens might say, "Its all enough to make a cat laugh."
Since everyone else has kindly shared their blog and their thoughts on Watson, I hope no one will mind me doing the same. Enjoy.
http://www.maxiitheblindwatchmaker.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the wonderful comments and the blog.

Well, as long as that's all you have on your mind. If you'd offered me coffee, we'd have to have to words, you potentially sick fucker.

You might as well have just typed over there, "I came, I saw, I learned nothing".

It would be hysterical if all of the gender traitors showed up wearing a tshirt that read that. Particularly when he's on the panel about feminism: are we being oppressed?

*imagines*

The campaign against Richard Dawkins is just depressing. I may not agree with everything Richard Dawkins says but this is a professor, a scientist, someone who has actively advocated for education and equality of women being oppressed in religion, an author who has sold more books and inspired individuals with them than anyone in atheist history (in my opinion).

Rebecca Watson, I don't know who you are but on track record alone you don't hold a candle to Dawkins. And this is coming from someone who cringe when he hears Dawkins say "us evolutionists".

Lets observe again what Dawkins great crime was? Rape? Being a pedophile? Cheating on his wife? Siphoning money from his organization?

.... A sarcastic post on Pharyngula to focus on more pertinent issue in a shit storm of comments.

Cheng Vang:
if Abbie hadn't already given out all of the internets, I'd recommend you for one.

We put heroes up on pedestals only to knock them down later, and elect new heroes.
Or, in the language of Catholics everywhere: we put female heroes up on pedestals so we cn look underneath their dresses...

PZ is a cowardly, wannabe Richard Dawkins lite--and there is something in Minnesota that just ain't quite right when it comes to girls and women--after all, Minnesota girls are a huge part of the sex pipeline of prostitution. I wonder exactly what it is those minnesota moms are teaching their girls abouut money, power, and 'fame'.

1977:http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20069806,00.html

1999: http://www.heart-intl.net/HEART/080105/JuvenileProstitutionMinn.pdf

Now:http://www.ncjfcj.org/content/blogcategory/191/286/

Maybe they mommas is a bit too close to them...

Cheng Vang (#737),

The campaign against Richard Dawkins is just depressing. ...

So true as was your description of his contributions. Yet in PZ's mind the insane and unjustified strawmaning of Dawkins comments that led to a call to boycott him and and claims that he was a rape apologist were "calm, nuanced, proportionate statements"

Myers has lost the plot. His cred has taken a huge hit and I have a feeling people will be using the "calm, nuanced, proportionate statements" as new meme whenever PZ goes another rant regardless of the topic. It's hilarious.

Have any of you caught Greta Christina's mendacious blog missive?

She has completely misrepresented what Dawkins said. Ugh.

Greta: A shitstorm in which many men, including Richard Dawkins, have argued that this is a trivial issue, or even a non-issue: that it's ridiculous for women to be cautious or fearful when they're propositioned by a strange man in a strange country alone in an elevator at four in the morning;

Richard: If she felt his behaviour was creepy, that was her privilege, just as it was the Catholics' privilege to feel offended and hurt when PZ nailed the cracker.
And: Rebecca's feeling that the man's proposition was 'creepy' was her own interpretation of his behaviour, presumably not his.

What a turd she is. Must write response . . . ok. I'm back. Response blog is clear for launch.

Spam filter ate my post. *sniffle*

Anyone check out Greta Christina's latest blog? Ugh. It's so dishonest. I would say go tell her what you think, but she's conveniently going to be not able to respond because of TAM.

I tried to find some kind of rational argument to be had in PZ's blog. Yeah, big mistake, there wasn't. Nothing but emotional appeals, character assassination, and "privilege."

I called PZ out asking him if this is really PZ's brand of "feminist." I doubt he read it -_-

Read Greta's hatchet job. Gosh. At least she's not trying to hide the fact she's outright misstating what Dawkins said. I wrote a reply blog about it, but she's out of town. I doubt she'd read it anyway - I'm persona non grata. Persona non greta?

Bleh

Justicar #739:

Anyone check out Greta Christina's latest blog? Ugh. It's so dishonest.

Don't just say it, show it.

I would say go tell her what you think, but she's conveniently going to be not able to respond because of TAM.

Yes, of course. That is, after all, what the organizers of TAM had in mind when they scheduled it for this weekend -- they totally knew that this was going to happen and scheduled it just so Greta Christina would be able to make a blog post about it that she can't respond to comments on owing to her obligations at TAM. Because, y'know, James Randi can see the future.

...seriously, how the fuck do you not think that you sound like Alex Jones by saying that?

---

Phyraxus #740:

I tried to find some kind of rational argument to be had in PZ's blog. Yeah, big mistake, there wasn't. Nothing but emotional appeals, character assassination, and "privilege."

As I said to Justicar: don't just say it, show it. Also, why the quotes around privilege? Does it not exist because feminists like to talk about it, or something?

I called PZ out asking him if this is really PZ's brand of "feminist." I doubt he read it -_-

Judging by how you did over there, my guess is that he read it and decided it wasn't worth his time. Besides, I have this sneaking suspicion that you're just looking for validation in the form of being engaged by the Grand Poopyhead, considering that many other people (myself included) responded to you and you're not saying anything about that.

Setar:
I have shown it - unfortunately, as my post to which you're now referring says, Abbie's spam filter is holding it hostage. However, if you click my name, it'll take you to my blog whereat I have a rather detailed refutation of some of the more glaring problems.

Nowhere did I imply that the TAM people organized it to be convenient to her. I implied that it's convenient she dropped the article and then left for TAM. And it is convenient for her in that way. There's nothing wrong with that; it is just a statement of fact: she writes article, she posts articles, she announces she's not going to be able to be in the conversation because of TAM. I don't see the problem here.

Try harder, Setar. You must do better than this.

You know, I've decided RW is right.

Men asking her at 4am is creepy and we shouldn't do it. We should avoid actions that creep someone out.

On a completely unrelated point, Pat Robertson is creeped out by abortion, so women should NEVER have an abortion.

He's also creeped out by women having jobs and so women should give up their jobs and work at home.

He's also creeped out by gay men so gay men should get back in the closet. And armed gays? No way, get out of the military, it creeps Pat out.

Could you PLEASE think of the poor old fundie xian, people!!! Stop creeping them out!

Especially you gays: objectifying and looking with covetous eyes on Pat's arse. He KNOWS you want a bit of it. So stop sexualising him! STOP BEING GAY! Just so simple.

(unfortunately, Pat really DOES think like this. I just wanted to point out that so does Rebecca, Jen, PZ and Greg)

*applause* for Justicar, *headdesk* for Greta. This has turned into a skeptic/atheist "We invaded Iraq because Saddam was responsible for 9/11". No, that is not why this shit started. Doesn't change that it happened, but it is NOT why it started, and it makes it easier to misunderstand what is going on now.

Time for another episode of "Spence's illustrations of why Watson fans are not good skeptics". Number 47 in a countably infinite series.

Phyraxus said:
I tried to find some kind of rational argument to be had in PZ's blog. Yeah, big mistake, there wasn't.

Setar responded:
As I said to Justicar: don't just say it, show it.

Setar, see if this argument seems familiar to you:
Atheist: I went to see if there was any evidence that god existed. Yeah, big mistake, there wasn't.
Religious nut: Don't just say it, show it. Show me that god does not exist

You see Setar, in rational skepticism 101 we learn that you cannot show a negative. If your argument is that god does not exist, or that there are no rational arguments on the pharyngula thread, then these are things that cannot be evidenced. If you believe the reverse - either that god does exist, or that there are rational arguments on the pharyngula thread - then the burden of proof falls on you to show it, not Phyraxus. The correct response would be for you to provide a counter-example. Having said that, based on experience so far, your ability to identify rational arguments may not be as good as you think it is.

But thank you for coming here and arguing like a creationist. It helps to pad my new series out.

I was reading Greta's post until she got to the same trope that says, less directly:

"Look guys it's simple: You're wrong. If a feminist tells you something, she's right. Your option: agree with her. If you disagree, you're wrong. Period. The content of your disagreement matters not at all. If a woman disagrees with a feminist, she's a gender traitor and you're still wrong."

that's what this grand movement is telling men: you're not ever allowed to disagree or question anything we say. Shut up.

Aha! Found something I've been looking for. About 2 years ago, an authoritarian far-right politician, Nick Griffin (scumbag leader of the facist British National Party) won a seat in a European election, and by precedent, was allowed a seat on a panel of UK politicians on the BBC.

During this discussion, he said something that really caught my attention. It can be found at 07:25 on the following youtube video: youtube link

For convenience, I post what Griffin said here:

"I've said that a lot of people find the sight of two grown men kissing in public really creepy. I understand homosexuals don't understand that, but that's how a lot of us feel; the Christians feel that way, the Muslims, all sorts of people. I don't know why, that's just the way it is."

The parallels between this and the current debate are striking. Nick Griffin wishes to outlaw certain behaviours not because they cause harm, but based on what he finds "creepy". He points out that the people who disagree with him don't understand (they don't "get it"). And he invokes a whole bunch of people who he claims would agree with him, without asking first. He just assumes they all agree with him.

Of course, radfems will explain this away with the word privilege, even though objectively their position is next to that of Nick Griffin and Dawkins would be consistently opposed to both of these viewpoints. But to them, Nick and Dick are both wrong - not because of their viewpoint, but because the assessment is purely one of "privilege", not the actual meat of the issues at hand.

What they don't see is the similarities between the authoritarian right and the authoritarian left. Different sides of the same coin, unfortunately.

Dammit, I was hoping Greta would come across better through this... She's usually very thorough and careful.

Meanwhile, speaking of heroes an pedestals...

http://www.atheistrev.com/2011/07/price-of-hero-worship-in-atheist.html

Well, it isn't so that controversial views and variety of opinions shouldn't have a place in secular movements. Because Sam Harris was mentioned somewhere before: His last book caused some interesting debates (imho he made some good points, but I can't agree on everything). Furthermore some people think that his soft spot for some forms of mysticism and Buddhist thought is questionable....and you know, that's perfectly fine. I think he's intellectual honest and is is engaging in rational debates, tries to make his points..and he's cool with it, when people can't agree with him.
I am clearly missing such attitudes from the new feminist atheists.....instead they sound like religious nutheads...

I'm guessing it won't be long before men aren't allowed to carry a penis within 50 feet of a woman:

http://www.blaghag.com/2011/07/why-kerfuffles-happen-and-we-wont-just.h…

Check out which posts get all the 'likes'.

thememe: I am clearly missing such attitudes from the new feminist atheists.....instead they sound like religious nutheads...

Agreed. Someone (I can't remember) commented that the Dworkinite radfems are essentially "the Tea Party of feminism".

I hope RW and the Pharyngula crew don't listen to Chuck and Leighton's latest Irreligiosophy podcast, they'll have a seizure. Those two really love to piss people off and they will probably be very happy if the Skepchick pitchfork mob go after them. There's a standing joke on the podcast of Leighton being a misogynist, sexist pig and he really goes to town on elevatorgate. Disgusting behaviour from two ex-mormons.

http://www.irreligiosophy.com/?p=1806

thememe @ 753

The new feminist atheists sound like religious nutheads, because they are religious nutheads. Equality feminism was rational; it gave women the vote, equal pay, and other basic legal rights. It was based on pragmatic actions in the real world.

Gender feminism is a whole different animal. It is based on many beliefs and ideologies.

There is a belief in 'male privilege', even though men make up most of the imprisoned, the homeless, the suicides, and the casualties in war and on the job. There is a belief in 'patriarchy', not as an anthropological term for a system of inheritance through the male line, but for a vast conspiracy of all men all over the world, for thousands of years, to keep all women oppressed. There is a belief that all men are potential rapists; some women live their whole lives in fear of men because of this belief. There is a belief that any heterosexual male who is sexually attracted to a woman is somehow 'sexualizing' her and turning her into an 'object'. There is a belief that any failure of a woman to achieve a goal is due to some man preventing her. There is a belief that all people are born as 'blank slates', and that the apparent differences between men and women are all caused by socialization. There is a related belief that this means that we can, and should, use this to 'deconstruct' our current society and 'reconstruct' a new utopia.

These are some of the core beliefs of the new religion of radical feminism. Mostly, they are accepted on faith. Frequently, any evidence to the contrary is ignored and/or denied. Note PZ's "there is NONE" response- there is no possible contradictory evidence to his world-view. He derides the entire field of evolutionary psychology, which challenges his 'blank slate' belief. Evolution applies- except when it comes to human behavior.

And, like any religion, if you don't 'get it', you need to be converted or killed. In this debate, 'killed' just means intimidated into silence, or being expelled from the community, goals that many in the atheist/skeptic community are now pursuing.

There is also the paranoia, the persecution complex, and the victim-status that we have seen in the religious. There is a belief that if you don't agree with me, then you are out to get me. Any one who disagrees becomes an enemy. Any woman who disagrees is a gender traitor- no matter what she has accomplished in the real cause for women's rights.

I haven't called myself a feminist for years because of what the term has come to mean.

I am shocked and saddened that people who are so rational and skeptical in other fields are so irrational and credulous in this case. It is another example of the compartmentalism the human mind is capable of.

Iâll tell you why it was creepy. Itâs not because it was an enclosed space, or because it was 4am. Itâs because the guy was probably an ugly looking dude.
If it was some hunk like Scott Clifton who offered her coffee, Rebecca wouldâve been all like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW8j3x3GzxY

Great post Gender Traditor-

Did you read Christina Hoff Sommers "Who Stole Feminism" and Steven Pinker's "Blank Slate"? Both make stirring arguments in favor of equality feminism and against the heavily marxist, heavily post-modernist influenced gender feminists....

I just woke up - let's see how this goes.

Tom:
No, I didn't. But I don't need to read a book to spot sexism when it's happening. Is it also worth noting that Pavlovian responses don't work on me either, either in suggestion or smell. (but the reverse does with paper, toothpicks and crayons - I might have to write an article on this). Also, those 3d stare at them long enough and see the thing inside thing, I can almost never do. Maybe I'm defective.

Hez:
I have no real comment, except that to say when Rebecca Watson is in the mood, she'll let you know. How fucking arrogant. When it's time for you to hit on me, I'll tell you advance that you're now permitted. Otherwise, back of the bus!

Gender Traitor:
That name sounds familiar. Haven't we met somewhere else?
Without even discussing privilege too much, I would point out that I, a gay guy, am being told by a white, straight, married (but soon to be divorced - the privilege denied me she throws away!), woman that because I'm male and white I somehow occupy a space of privilege in regards gender relations. Yes, I suppose that's true. For one thing, most gay people I know are fucking scared little kitties, and don't need her Victorian prudishness to decide whom with they want to sleep.

And you know what - in my area, the chance of being gay and sexually assaulted are statistically indistinguishable from being a woman and being sexually assaulted. But I don't "get it". I suppose I don't "get it" in the way that I don't "get" people lead their lives constrained by irrationality. That, I admit - I don't get.

The podcast of which you reference has put me off to it before I've listened. They're tired of celebrity atheists. You know, the ones known because they're atheists.
"I am getting extremely tired of atheist celebrities." Skip a sentence or so "I am referring to people who seem to have gained an inexplicable sort of celebrity simply for being outspoken atheists."

With sarcasm, not at the list but at the fact these people are having a conference, and are "famous" if I'm reading this correctly, "Oh look, TAM is coming to Vegas! Just look at all the atheist celebrities! You can see Richard Dawkins, the man who has repeatedly been dubbed our leader! And what's this? There will be atheist bloggers (gasp) there like Rebecca Watson and Jen McCreight featured alongside legitimate scientists like Elizabeth Loftus and Carol Tavris. Think of all the autographs you could get! "

Yeah, that Richard Dawkins - if he hadn't been an atheist, no one would have ever heard of him or something.

To everyone who mentioned it, *takes a bow*. Thanks.

Hey, should we all do a podcast and get a website called Skepdick.org? Abbi, you can our Rebecca Watson - just crack stupid jokes while we menz talk about science and stuff - mmkay?

*hides*

Justioar, apparently someone already owns Skepdick.org, they just haven't done anything with it. I'm too lazy to look into it beyond that, but I'm all kinds of on-board with actually going forward with something like that (obviously without treating Abbie as the useless incompetent - I'm much more suited to that role than she is).

Also, sorry for disappearing like that. Had to write a hit-ton of stuff for chemistry. The good thing about procrastinating is that you can die at any moment, and anything you put off past that, you never have to do. Sadly, I had to live a few more days at least.

I've never been good at chemistry. For some reason, my brain refuses to treat it as math. I have to substitute in and out like crazy, and then reverse the substitutions after I've finished. May I never have to balance another chemical equation as long as I live!

It's a little sad too, since chemistry produces such elegant reactions. Oh, and I suppose also because it's occasionally useful for doing something important . . . like the barking dog!

My hat's off to anyone who can look at it and read it straight out. You and your "chemistry privilege".

Oh, I have an idea for a blog article now while I wait on some answers to a few comments I've seen. Hrm. Let's see if I can make it interesting.

Incidentally, don't forget to check out Abbie's latest article. Apparently, vaccines aren't evil. Or she's part of the conspiracy - Abbie, are you?

Someone on butterflies and wheels managed to get some interesting information about RW at the Dublin conference by simply going through PZ Myers tweets from that time.
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2011/hows-it-going/#comment-98199
Oh dear!
There's even a picture of elevator guy! (well a line-up at least!)

Getting drunk and missing events, what a responsible, positive role model for the young ones... Really nice that PZ thinks thats 'cute'.

If I was in a position of influence I would be deliberately 'holding Watson back' too, but its got nothing to do with her gender.

Tom @759

Yes, I've read both excellent books. If people really want to address feminism, and/or the biological basis for human behavior, as a topic in a future skeptics/atheists' convention, these two people would be great speakers. Christina Hoff Sommers also wrote "The War Against Boys; How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men", which is largely a critique on our public schools. Steven Pinker could also describe how violently and maliciously he and other evolutionary psychologists have been attacked by those who feel threatened by any biological basis to behavior, and don't understand that it is NOT biological determinism, or a negation of free will. Or an excuse to pillage, plunder, and rape!

Justicar @760

I don't know if we have met. There are quite a few "gender traitors" in the world; we just have often learned to keep our politically-incorrect mouths shut much of the time. The closets are getting pretty crowded with all of us...

Yeah, I've spent far more than my fair share of nights staying up into the wee (actually, generally into the not-so-wee) hours drinking more than my fair share of alcohol when I had things to do the next (technically, the same) day. I show up to the thing. Mostly, I don't schedule things in the morning for exactly that reason, but that would be the responsible thing to do, right? Does that disqualify me from becoming a speaker at these sorts of events?

My mistake, Gender Traitor:
I stereotyped you I guess - if you seen one, you've them all, ya know? Besides, apparently, you all share a brain or a hivemind or something I can't quite yet understand. I'm sure one day I'll "get it" though. =^_^=

I have two articles now that deal with your issue. It's not that "we" aren't listening to women that the other side is bitching about. The problem isn't that at all. The problem is that there are women who don't agree with them. So, what they're really saying is that "we" are listening to the wrong kind of women.

Apparently, you're not a woman if you don't agree - it's the only situation in which their statements that "we" aren't listening to women can be logically coherent. No, not that we disagree - that there simply aren't women who do. How do we know? Because they're saying x and we don't agree with x; therefore, since we aren't listening to them we aren't listening to women. It's stupid.

I think that I'm still a woman. Let me check. Yep. I've still got my "credentials".

Seriously, I think that many of the radical feminists feel much more hatred towards "gender traitors" than to the men who don't agree with them. They seem to expect that men "won't get it", will be "misogynistic pigs" and so forth. I wonder if they really stop to think of how often they denigrate all men as a monolithic, malignant group. Can we say "patriarchy"? It's sad. Most of the men I know, gay and non-gay, are quite nice people who truly respect women as equals. (I've met the occasional Neanderthal.) I'm sure that my experiences don't count for some reason, just like Paula Kirby's experiences don't count. Privilege?

Gender Traitor, that is a slur against Neanderthals, and it's not ok. What's next, you going to start calling them "cave-men"? Your privilege, as a member of a nonextinct branch of humanity, renders you unable to see the trials and challenges of living in a world dominated by the extant.

Gender Traitor @ 757:

The new feminist atheists sound like religious nutheads, because they are religious nutheads.

cf. La Marcotte:

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/the_nice_guy_defense

Gender Traitor @ 768:

I think that many of the radical feminists feel much more hatred towards "gender traitors" than to the men who don't agree with them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy

COMPLETELY UNRELATED BUT HILARIOUS NONETHELESS:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14135523

Yes, Paula Kirby isn't able to understand what "normal" women experience. Apparently, her superwoman powers are awesome sauce. I treat everyone I meet with a baseline level of respect, which can go either up or down based on - wait for it - what the person does and says in life. It doesn't seem to fluctuate based on color or genital arrangement.

I'll take your word you have your credentials - I am definitely not interested in being the gay guy in charge of checking ids in that way!

hey, just because you have a vagina and a uterus doesn't make you a woman.

Funny: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2011/hows-it-going/#comment-98206

When someone asks for concrete facts or possible actions that could be taken.....it's time to close the church....lol

@ NJ #770:

Holy shitcrackers, is comment number 5 on that Marcotte article SERIOUSLY suggesting that all men should be PREEMPTIVELY locked up?

Seriously, WTF?

Funny: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2011/hows-it-going/#comment-98206

When someone asks for concrete facts or possible actions that could be taken.....it's time to close the church....lol

Dude, check out my Mercotte impersonation in #368.

I just had an interesting thought.

I have *never* had trouble at atheist/skeptic conventions. The hosts and attendees have been nothing if not gracious.

Paula Kirby says the same.

I wonder if people do genuinely treat Watson 'differently' because she doesnt present herself professionally-- her disastrous Skepticon last year, YouTube comments in presentations/attacking students, drunk/partying all the time, hijacking panels, and so on. People treat her differently than they treat other speakers because she acts like an immature woman-child. Watson is too dull to figure out why people treat her differently than say, Dawkins, so she decides it must be sexism. Her frustration about people not 'respecting' her has kinda blown up into 'this' *gestures at the internet*

Hmmm...

*psych minor gang sign*

@ 774 Marco:
To be fair, he was trying for hyperbole. Just the same, the sentiment behind that comment is genuine, and disturbing.

From Skeptic Moneys' blog entry on Skepticon 2010:

"After our dinner break, P.Z. Myers started his bit. He used a deck of card to make an analogy to evolution and asked for an assistant from the crowd. They started by playing a hand of poker. The game went something like this⦠if she wins she gets a bag of old peanuts, if he wins she has to sleep with him"

John @ 773

I take your comment as humorous, but on the serious side, lots of trans-people that I know would definitely agree with you. The genitalia and the gender identity are separate issues. In my case, both are female.

ERV @775

Telling a bunch of men at a bar, late at night, to not hit on her and not sexualize her is sort of like saying, "Don't think of a pink elephant" repeatedly and being surprised if someone mentions a pink elephant. Does she realize that she is the one bringing the subject of her sexual availability up to begin with? Does she think she is so attractive that unless she beats the men off with a stick, they will be all over her? If so, she has "sexualized" herself.

@776 frank:

It is rather.

Y'know, the more this debacle goes on, I can't help but be reminded of the George Romero film, The Crazies...

[threadjack]

As it happens, Marco, just three months ago I saw, for the first time, The Crazies on the big screen. One of the original prints, too. Bonus: There was an intro short featuring G. Romero himself discussing the movie, and addressed specifically to the audience of our local art-house cinema.

[/threadjack]

And for sure, there are elements from The Crazies at work here.

Abbie @ 775:

I think you may be on to something there. It's perfectly sensible, really: Act like a child and get treated like one. What a concept!

@782 frank

O.O

Damn you and your art-house privilege! :-P

There is one (other) good thing that's come out of all this, though. My (female and very definitely not in agreement with Watson) best friend have now taken to calling each other misogynists in EVERY SINGLE THING WE SAY TO EACH OTHER.

The lulz are too good not to... hehe

More like act like a mature adult and you don't get treated like one. Unless you're a man. Hey, wait - that explains why no one is has mentioned a single word about Richard Dawkins!

He does have privilege!

Abbie - shame on you, how could you?!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Rebecca Watson needs not to be a paid, invited speaker here. The panel she shared with Dawkins titled "Communicating Atheism" should be re-titled, "The Vagina Monologue: E-mail Edition". You ever notice what the topic is she manages to remind us that, apparently, she's hot shit because so many men write in telling her they want to bang her or something?

She calls herself the "sexy" skeptic.

Bleh.

Say, I wonder if he "hug me" campaign at TAM is going to warrant a video when someone, you know, walks up and hugs her.

Ok, I'm going to be sincerely sexist for a moment, sorry in advance. I'm having a conversation on my youtube channel, and a guy/gal has said:
"to take something like attraction and love and convert it into a form of hatred with all of these little twists, but feminists can work wonders."

I noted that this is true of *some* feminists are like that.
S/he counters with the challenge: show him/her even one example of a "feminist activist" who is "well established" who isn't like that.

I ignored the activist part, but it wasn't entailed by the comment to which I responded. I listed, among others, Paula Kirby and Mary Ann Waters. Not good enough as they're not active or well established within feminist circles.

I'm beginning to think s/he's arguing for a definition of feminist that excludes from its confines women unlike Rebecca Watson et al.

So, ladies (sorry, gentleman, I won't be valuing your opinion highly here because of the nature of the person whom I dealing with - namely, it's going to have to be what women think about feminist women in feminism circles enough to give them sufficient cred):

If you could pick one well-established, feminist woman who is dissimilar from the Watson clan, who would it be? I need me an esteemed woman!

Thanks.

Funny: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2011/hows-it-going/#comment-98206

Interesting. I was unaware Bruce Springsteen was so astute. Apparently he is more than a white T-shirt and jeans jacket!

I take your comment as humorous, but on the serious side, lots of trans-people that I know would definitely agree with you. The genitalia and the gender identity are separate issues. In my case, both are female.

As friends with a still-pre-op-because-dammit-the-surgery-is-so-fucking-expensive-and-it's-still-a-pain-in-the-ass-to-get-willing-doctors-even-in-NJ-because-fuck-the-Catholic-run-hospitals, I must respek-knuckles the absolute truth of this statement.

cthellis @ 787

The surgery is much cheaper in Thailand, even with the plane fare. And it is the best in the world, as they do so many of these surgeries there every day. Also there is no significant b.s. to go through to get some kind of "approval". Your pre-op friend might want to check this out. Canada is also cheaper and easier than the United States. We are so "civilized" here (snark).

I'm sure he's already investigated any number of options and is weighing them. It's not a topic that tends to come up in casual conversation, you know? ;-)

Makes me wonder if there's some bureaucratic monkey-crap in place in the state which can get in the way of official gender-changing if surgery is performed out-of-state or out-of-country.

Mary Ann Waters should totally have been Anne Marie Waters. Sorry.

I personally like to believe that the reason nothing has been heard from Richard Dawkins on the matter since his last comment on Pharyngula is because he is busy sitting home, with a well-prepared cup of hot tea, thinking to himself, "I've survived 25+ years of mind-numbing creationist, pseudo-intellectual, anti-scientific babble head on, and now some bloggers think they can take me. Don't they know I run this motherfucker. KING KONG AIN'T GOT SHIT ON ME!"

Regardless, whether one agrees or disagrees with Dawkins, he's voiced his opinion on the issue and there is no reason for him to argue it over the web. Maybe it will come up during TAM (probably), we'll see. On the bright side, at least now whenever religionists try to claim that atheists devoutly follow Dawkins no matter what, we can point to this shitstorm and tell them to fuck off with their tired strawmen.

On the bright side, at least now whenever religionists try to claim that atheists devoutly follow Dawkins no matter what, we can point to this shitstorm and tell them to fuck off with their tired strawmen.

Is your insufferable optimism natural, or do you make a conscious effort at it?

I think we can grossly resume this mess as this:

Rebecca did to Stef what EG did to Rebecca. Using a priviledged position and making her feel unconfortable. In a place with no way of escape (read "respond").

Anyone comes and says you can't compare the two situations because creepy is worse than being publicly umiliated, I'll refer him/her to the shitstorm Prof. Dawkins went through.

"Rebecca did to Stef what EG did to Rebecca."

Nope. Rebecca verbally assaulted Stef whilst EG didn't, and the location was externally more hostile for Stef than for Rebecca.

And looking at the shitstorm RD has gone through hasn't proved that the two cases are equal.

"There is a belief that any heterosexual male who is sexually attracted to a woman is somehow 'sexualizing' her and turning her into an 'object'."

Which many have now made up into "If I *think* you are attracted to me, you're sexualising me".

EG asked if she wanted a coffee. If he'd wanted sex, he could have asked for that instead. You have to ASSUME he meant sex. But why not assume he was refused because he wasn't hawt?

"Nope. Rebecca verbally assaulted Stef whilst EG didn't, and the location was externally more hostile for Stef than for Rebecca."

Agreed, 100%

"And looking at the shitstorm RD has gone through hasn't proved that the two cases are equal."

No, but he has gone through it for simply saying that there are worse things than the EG incident. This is most surely one of them.

That doesn't mean that the shitstorm RD has gone through is in any way showing that the situation RW dropped Stef in is as bad as the creeping out that RW felt IN HER HEAD.

RW insulted Stef and set her up as a bad person, aiding and abetting violence against women.

EG creeped RW out because she gets creeped out if she's talked to by EG when she's tired and wants to go to bed. If EG had said "Nice ass, sugartits", you'd be somewhat similar.

Ok, Wow. Are you not following? Do you not see that I TOTALY agree with you?

If someone tells me I can't compare (in ANY possible way) the EG incident to Watsongate, I will show them the stupid reactions to RD's comments. Most of these were on the basis of "you can't lessen a situation because there are worse situations".

And I am not sorry to say I DO agree with RD on that one. Being proposed for coffee at 4 in a lift doesn't compare with being buried alive for talking to a stranger. Sure these issues need to be talked about (creepy move/being buried alive), but in my own personnal head being buried alive gets the priority.

Also, are you consciously looking for confrontation where there is none?

*shrug* I get you Phil. I think Wow is just worked up from the GMO post :P

It's not that they simply do not compare - that implies they're in the same logical space in some way or another. It's that they can't compare. It's not that something worse happens elsewhere. It's that something bad does - her elevator thing isn't a thing. It's a nonthing.

Justicar (big fan here, just suscribed to your channel (had I known about it earlier, would have done earlier, too)):

That's the point. Exactfuckingly! Not being an english speaker, I think I have dificulties bringing my points across.

Abbie: Thanks for that. I might be a bit strung up myself (no way!).

"Ok, Wow. Are you not following? Do you not see that I TOTALY agree with you?"

Um, you say they're the same. I say what RW did with Stef is worse than what EG did with RW.

This doesn't look like agreement.

And I'm still not clear what you're on about referring to RD, because it's not pertinent whether you think the RW/Stef vs EG/RW is equal or different either way.

PS Abbie, weren't YOU worked up in the GMO thread? You certainly seemed somewhat hysterically against the actions.

#801:

Not being an english speaker, I think I have dificulties bringing my points across.

So am I. This can be a huge problem sometimes, because I don't know enough four-letter words to express my anger appropriately :)

803:

cunt
fuck
twat
gays
dyke
Kent

Havoc ensues...

Bush

?

Mind you, "poot" is four letters. No havoc (and ensuing hilarity) ensues.

#792:

It's mostly insufferably natural :D (why is that creepy?).

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I will try to memorize them...I am always interested in improving my English conversation skills.

#806:

Silly me, that last part was supposed to read "Why do you ask? Is my optimism creepy?"

Ooh! What a palaver! Just caught sight of it in a side bar on blog, and thought "Eh? This sounds mental. Better have a quick shufti".
Initially decided "Yuk. American campus politics, as per. Ugh. If I close the door very quietly and stay downwind I should be alright."
About sixty-eight metres of comments in tiny print across the blogs later, and I still have not a scooby as to what on earth is this really about.
Now, having endured that footage of Dawkins and Co. at the conference in question, I'm coming round to the view that he lobbed the hand-grenade posts intentionally, a desperate attempt to emphatically decouple himself from these ninnies, and damn the torpedoes.
Can't see why they're suddenly all so affronted. Professor Yaffle has been arsey like that for as long as I can remember. How could they not know?
Might even buy one of his bloody books now, instead of nicking them. His writing is the only interesting thing about the man, as far as I can see.

I'm very pleased that this miserable episode has profited me, at least, in that I found your interesting (and sane!) blog. Although it does make my head hurt a bit.
If Myers went back to writing about his work, as well as you do about yours, I might start reading his stuff again.

Dustbubble: welcome :)

I'm still reading through all the comments, and am cureently around 280.

Regarding these:

I have been the victim of abuse, rape, and associated pictures when I was 11. My handle is my real name, anybody wanting to check these claims out can refer to the French police.

Yet, I don't feel any creepy feeling or offence when another man walks the street and doesn't change sidewalks. Am I a mysoginist for that?

I just drove home in my Shrodinger's car. I would like everyone to know that I got home safely and without being bitten by any pitbulls. It's a dangerous world out there, but I knew I was safe because all the decent guys were across the street and all the rapists were on mine. I'm a chick, so I'm easily spooked. Nice to meet y'all. I think this is the only place in the atheist "community" where I can possibly feel comfortable. Sigh.

@DustBubble I think Watson got on Dawkins' nerves when she hijacked her panel speech with her own agenda: YouTube Threats(AKA Atheism IS Too Scary For Womyns). Dawkins looked utterly disgusted with skep "chick" and I felt his pain. Then she made an unnecessary and snide remark about Bill Maher halfway through.

Dont get too comfy, Disappointed. Theres a vicious pitbull sitting in the corner *points to upper left*

:P

Don't listen to her, Disappointed! Just do what I do: carry a couple of steaks to toss out for a distraction.

Hey, Abbie, have you thought of doing short videos on like chemistry in the kitchen, or something that all of us non-chemist types can enjoy some of what it is "you people" do in the lab without any of the work?

Just a thought. =^_^=

Uh-oh. Getting hooked now. Watched some more vids, and tried to reconstruct the *actual* sequence of events. Fascinating! It's a rare privilege to see a full-on Kremlin power struggle played out in real time, with pictures.
Why do I feel safe in predicting that Lift-Geezer's identity will go with her to the grave?

Shocking new developments!
http://sneerreview.blogspot.com/2011/07/elevatorgate-dawkins-strikes-ba…

Sigmund-- Its particularly funny considering her hateful dismissal of AA president Dave Silvermans appearance on the 'OâReilly Factor'.

Watsons meme is forced, and not really that great.

Whereas Silvermans appearance gave us not only a fantastic meme, but a rage comic panel which no one can live without now.

I agree, the Watson meme has no great value in of itself. She isn't really a stereotypical feminist - too many "hot college girls tickle parties" in her past for that.

ERV, how was she dismissive of Dave Silverman? I must have missed that.

Linky!

I forgot how awful that article was.

So now I wont feel bad about mentioning out loud that Watsons hair is incredibly unattractive and in desperate need of professional corrective dying and a professional cut, and I, personally, will buy her a bra that fits, since she apparently doesnt own one. You know, since its okay for us all to give each other grooming/wardrobe advice. 'Truths' and such.

Ahh abbie, don't forget Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/knowledgeable-neil

Damn, someone needs to get RW meme and combine it with the scumbag meme.

Something that might say, "Scumbag Feminist says"
"Men are Rapists till proven innocent"

Or make it funny, I don't know how that might happen though. Other than being presented in meme.

Okay, Rebecca is complaining that guys are hitting on her all the time at conferences.

Well, okay but what does she mean by that?

Does that mean guys are flirting with her and that annoys her because flirting is sexualizing? Or does she mean that men are straight out constantly propositioning her for sex?

If it's the first case then I think she's a hypocrite because she does that to men. (as has been noted by previous bloggers) If it's the second case then maybe she's just interpreting men as propositioning her? I mean based on her knee jerk assessment of a guy asking her out for coffee, it sounds like she kind of projects sexual intentions on to men. Am I naive for thinking that way?

I almost never get memes. I guess I have to turn in my nerd cred or something.

Well, off to see Harry Potter!

Today's SMBC seems pretty apt, especially the red button:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2307#comic

Also, "You are starting to creep me out, Brian."

You know there's a LOL coming.

Rebectionary:

Mansplaining = Accusing someone of demanding equal rights, but preferential treatment. Pointing out that men have feelings and experiences too.

You just don't get it = I don't have a valid justification for my position.

You get it! = You agreed with whatever I just said, no matter how nonsensical. Good boy.

I get it! = I'm sexualizing you very much. Do you want to go back to my hotel room for coffee?

Privilege = Anything different about your background or heritage that I can use against you to justify discrimination and/or needless accusations. (When the first one fails, there's always another. E.g. "You're a white straight male, therefore you don't get it." "No, I'm gay." "You're a white male, so you don't get it." "No, I'm part Native American." "You're male, so you don't get it." "No, I'm a butch-looking lesbian." "You're an educated rape apologist." "Omigod, how did you know? That's exactly what I am!")

Sexualizing = Substantially shy of objectification, but sounds controversial enough to garner attention. After all, we all know that men don't actually mean what they say. *Wink.*

Creepy = Nerdy, socially awkward, and/or unattractive. (As compared to threatening, menacing, scary, abusive.) harassing.)

(I don't think the crowd at Laden's will appreciate my definitions.)

Is there any reason to believe EG even exists?

Disappointed #826

Is it original work on your part? because, let's face it, that's fucking spot-on!

Kuddos aplenty!

It's my original work. I was trying to argue rationally on Laden's blog, then realized that it's just like talking to a fundie, but worse, it's under the name of reason. BTW, here's a phrase from the Privilege Delusion in Watson's blog:

"I knew that eventually I would reach a sort of feminist singularity where I would explode and in my place would rise some kind of Captain Planet-type superhero but for feminists. I believe that day has nearly arrived."

So I guess she's, you know, their new superhero or prophet or something. I suppose this happens with all movements. People give in to social pressure and stop thinking independently. And then the most opportunistic and shameless creep to the top and start advancing their own goals.

It's official. Skepticism has become a cult. I think Myers and Plait will eventually come around (and I'll always like Drescher), but the rest of them are a lost cause.

Also if I read "women are scared of men" one more time, I'm going to vomit. Apparently, I never got that memo. Am I supposed to start being scared of men now? And elevators? And coffee? And propositions? And walking alone? Fuck, why bother living, then? Also, take a look at this: http://tinyurl.com/6636zdl In particular, read the comments (there are only two). I like how Laden thinks he can identify a male voice online. Apparently we females even sound weak. Gag me.

I'm overreacting. Because I'm a hysterical female, of course. K. Gonna go hide under the bed in case an asteroid hits Seattle or something.

You guys are fantastic. (And so are pitbulls.)

Sigh. Bluharmony, some women are afraid of men. Some women are exercising a judicious caution. Some women are dangerously overconfident. And quite a few people have pointed out that physically isolating a woman and then pushing her boundaries is a typical first step for a sexual predator. Among the signers of the Open Letter to Richard Dawkins are women who have been raped in elevators. YMMV, but it's not appropriate to tell people that they aren't entitled to their feelings.

Sigh.

And quite a few people have pointed out that physically isolating a woman and then pushing her boundaries is a typical first step for a sexual predator.

That's loaded language. Pushing boundaries, or politely asking if someone might consider changing their mind, maybe. Physically isolating, or taking an opportunity to speak one-to-one - it's not as if he pushed her into the elevator. Maybe the guy is a social phobic and doesn't do well in crowds. Besides, I would bet that 'Please don't take this the wrong way' is not the usual opening line for a rapist. The point is that I don't know what was in his mind, and neither do you. He made a mistake, clearly, partly in who he approached in this way. Another woman may have responded entirely differently. Maybe most wouldn't have, who knows? RW may have been concerned for her safety, although I would suggest that given that she has previous with regard to inserting her agenda into things a cynic might think that 'Fuck me, am I going to milk this one' was more her line of thinking.

The point is, that even if she was scared shitless, nothing happened and it makes it no more or less likely that an actual rapist is ever going to get into an elevator with her. She had every right to make her displeasure known and to voice her opinion. On the other hand, others have a right to say that however big a deal this was to her, it doesn't give license to anybody to lay down the law as to what happens at atheist events and to make blanket statements on behalf of women in general, and then to dismiss dissenters as being traitors or delusional.

The whole kerfuffle is now about far more that social etiquette, it's become about a particularly intolerant and dogmatic form of feminism being pushed on certain supposedly skeptic blogs by people who take their own OPINION to be fact and take dissent as proof of all manner of traits not even remotely in evidence. It's exposed what many see as a kind of 'Cargo Cult' skepticism, particularly at Myer's place. His habit of closing threads with passive- aggressive, dismissive, verging on straw man posts is being noted.

That's a pretty recherche source, bluharmony. But thanks, most illuminating, especially Laden's prebuttal-quick comment. (Now there's keen! Hunting down "Wales Online")

" I have every bit of trust, however, that he'll be coming out with something, perhaps at TAM now in progress in Las Vegas that re-endears him to the masses."

Uh-oh, chongo! ... and the Tiber foaming with much blood. It's indicative of the fast-gathering insularity of this claque that they should seriously entertain the delusion that a cantankerous old git like Dawkins gives two curly shits about what they, thee, me, or "the masses" think of him. That's what makes him worth reading.

Thank you for being one of the rare voices of reason in all of this. I agree especially with the last few comments - the whole issue has a distinctly anti-skeptical flavour. Please see my post if you're not too tired of reading about it!

http://notungblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/the-not-so-skeptical-community/

bluharmony - Greg's comment on that article you posted is most certainly sexist. How can a comment on a blog have a 'male voice'?! Crazy!

I agree with every word of what ThreeFlangedJavis said. I like PZ, but I take him for what he is: internet entertainment.

@dustbubble He posted that link to RW's Facebook page. That's how I stumbled on it.

By the way, I see nothing wrong with propositioning a single woman leaving a bar. There's often a correct assumption that a single woman is there for a reason - she might want to have some fun too. Have I been living on a different planet to think that this is actually a common practice? Did I imagine all the propositions I've received in the past? Who cares what Rebecca said to other people about being tired and who knows if he heard? He politely asked a question that hadn't been asked before, and respectfully took no for an answer. According to her own account.

Having men with good intentions change their behavior won't keep women any safer from criminals. And it's ridiculous to say that men can't imagine a woman's experience. Of course you can. We're all human. All of us have been bullied, taken advantage of, raped, assaulted, or hurt somehow.

And I take EG's words at face value. He probably was interested in Rebecca. But I bet he doesn't feel that way now.

Laden is wrong to assume that this is the minority position. (Check the "like" stats on her video, for instance.) It's by far the majority position outside the core of this insular community. And calling all of us misogynists and rape apologists is ridiculous. Most Western men aren't rapists, and I refuse to treat them as such.

Further, women who participate in their own objectification and also objectify others should be the last to complain about it. And people who don't understand that being a public figure, especially a snide and condescending one, leads to internet trolling should find something else to do. To equate internet trolling with sexism in the atheist "community" is preposterous. If you feel you're facing a tangible rape or death threat, contact the police, don't do a self-obsessed presentation about it. I can read YouTube comments directly on YouTube if I have nothing better to do.

It's a posh hotel in the classy bit of a tiny Western European provincial capital. On an island. In the ocean.
The guests are all registered and accredited. It's silly o'clock in the morning, so any random jackeen strolling in the front door would be carefully inspected by the staff to make sure he wasn't arseholed, after a sly post-chucking-out drink. ("Open to non-residents" does have limits. Legal ones.)
And even the Republic, like the top end, and the island next door, is heaving, I mean crawling, with intense surveillance and very, very discreet security. The Old Woman Of Windsor Herself was in town just a few weeks before, a hair-raising first in itself (for the 10,000 Gardaà and so on who had to turn out).
A posh hotel in Dublin city centre?
Elevator Guy had better be real. I'm guessing there will be cam tapes. And disks. And microphones. And metal detectors. Motion sensors, sniffers, and stuff I can't even imagine. The streets outside, the service entries, the bars, the lifts, corridors, kitchens, even the bloody toilets, aircon, and drains, I bet.
Not for us peasants, of course. In case some Person of Consequence gets billeted there. Say, a Euro Finance Minister who's not averse to discussing Uganda. Or the Pope :D
"Because they haven't gone away, you know .."

But who cares about religion when we must first battle this global male conspiracy!? Quick, tag everyone who doesn't agree with the "misogynist" label, even the womyn. That'll show'em.

I've been following this imbroglio since it began, more or less. As an atheist, a former blogger, and a recipient of the "you just don't get it assault " in a different iteration of the Endless Feminist Wars, it reminded me of why I retired from this stuff in the first place. I swore I wasn't going to say anything. But after reading this on however many blogs at this point, I finally have a question I'm really curious about, and I figured this is probably the best place to ask a question and have a chance of getting it answered. Without having an entire agenda assumed to be behind the question.

Does anyone know how Rebecca ended up banned from the JREF forums?

Does anyone know how Rebecca ended up banned from the JREF forums?

If I recall correctly, for using mod privileges to ban people with whom she had a personal issue but who had broken no rules... also sockpuppetry.

Considering RW's sockpuppetry history, who wants to bet that elevator guy was also a sockpuppet?

If you want the story on Rebecca Watson's dismissal from JREF, read my blog post on it. It goes down the reasoning, with screen caps by the admins themselves.

http://integralmath.blogspot.com/2011/07/rebecca-watson-delenda-est-upd…

Thanks. She keeps making the same mistakes and not learning from them, doesn't she?

I can't speak for all women, but she - and people like her - are a big part of the reason I'm not involved in the community.

Jillian, it's one thing to say it here. It's quite another to let the event organizers know about it. They seem to work under the premise that nothing she's done is a big deal; one gentleman from the last event has said that they don't owe anyone an apology for it. Doing what she did to Stef, therefore, is in keeping with their vision as to how these conferences should go.

I went on a cruise (Amazing Adventure style) with her about four years ago, then met her again when I was doing a short presentation at Dragon*Con. My impression was that she does not want more women in the "skeptic/atheist movement," and that I was extremely unwelcome, especially one the cruise. Obviously, the men and couples didn't make me feel that way, although they were both overprotective and making socially inappropriate passes. I'd rather have the latter without the former, though.

Rebecca won't learn from her mistakes until she's actually punished for them. So far, they've worked in her favor. Any controversy is publicity. So with every word we type, we're helping her in some small way. Perhaps not here. But everywhere else.

@828

Regarding Watson's Captain Planet reference: In her panel section in Dublin, she mentioned an email to the cast of SGU that told the cast to grow up (no discussion of the writer's actual complaint). She found it ironic or funny that the writer also included the tagline " With great power, comes great responsibility" from Spiderman.
Apparently, her superhero allusions are better than anyone else's allusions. Just as her illusions are better than anyone else's illusions.

My question is this:

If she didn't know who EG was, and no one else knew him or saw him either, then how would she know that he's a member of the atheist community?

Makes no sense.

(Ah, I wouldn't recognize the Spiderman reference because I'm a woman, not because I don't like comics, of course.)

@845

Blueharmony, That goes along with something that puzzled me. In her presentation on the Communicating Atheism panel in Dublin, she talked about some really horrible youtube comments and email she has received, and I mean really horrible, threats of rape, murder, etc. But I was struck when she said that these comments came from members of the atheist community. How would one know? Even if the writer said he was an atheist, that doesn't mean he is? In fact you don't even know "he" is even a he? Or even an adult?

There's nothing to indicate that the emails or comments are from anyone in the atheist community. They're anonymous or under a fake name.

And given the "Always name names," rhetoric, she should be naming real names if she wants to make the argument that they're from atheists. Did people just go crazy or something? What's next? She's going to tell skeptics when the world's going to end, and they'll believe?

I know it's one thing to say it here - this is actually an argument i've been having with myself for some time now. The irony is that I probably share a huge number of views with Rebecca, Amanda, et. al. - my politics are comfortably left-wing. I care about women's issues, racial issues, all of it. I was a women's studies major at UNLV under Ellen Rose. I used to house sit for Kate Hausbeck. I don't name drop to prove how cool I am; I do it to show I'm not BS ing. I did feminist talk radio. I was a crisis intervention counselor on a domestic violence hotline. I care about these things.

I really think that the postmodern, New Left approach that dominates social justice issues nowadays is totally misguided and usually makes things worse, not better. But I also think that any attempt to discuss this with the people who currently engage in it is worse than useless. It turns into a Jerry Springer-esque brawl that makes those involved look stupid, and makes the attempt to work for improving things look disreputable. So I argue with myself - should I speak up, or should I say nothing. And I can't decide.

As someone who first became aware of the online skeptical community at the height of the ID wars when the likes of Sal Cordova were regularly being given a kicking at Pharyngula, I find the current state of affairs a little sad. There's a seductive delight in seeing one's enemies torn to shreds with a well-reasoned argument followed by some witty insults. When faced with such obvious wrongness as ID it doesn't seem so unreasonable to be inflexible, dismissive and sometimes just offensive. Unfortunately a kind of gradual mutual reinforcement of the offensiveness seems to have happened along with a more ideological flavour to the content. The end result is a very aggressive, intemperate defence of opinions on issues not quite as clear cut as the evolution/ID one and it doesn't look all that clever. Unfortunately just about any criticism will be taken as tone trolling and the rotting porcupines will be invoked.

Despite all of that, the Prof can has quite a turn of phrase and is still worth a read even as he gets crustier. I'd like to think that RW is PZ's Wormtongue and that the spell can be removed, but the signs are that their agendas overlap.

I'm far to the left myself, but only in terms of economic policy, foreign policy, and equality -- not special privilege. (Although I do support diversity programs.)

Perhaps we could try to create a place for reasonable people to speak up. On the web, there's always room for new ideas. I'm not afraid of the consequences. It's not like atheists, skeptics, or feminists are well-liked groups in the first place. But then, isn't that how the so-called skepticism movement started?

This should be a discussion about rape shield laws and economic conditions that facilitate violent crimes. We should be talking about how to recognize and deal with sexual abuse in the family, where it's most prevalent. We should be educating women on how to be independent and take care of themselves. Instead, we're debating if a non-violent man should cross the street when a woman approaches. But why should he? It's his right to be there too.

You can't fix past wrongs by creating new ones.

@847

Blueharmony, There's also a youtube video of a Watson presentation where she's discussing email that she's gotten from "pro-life" (specifically, life begins at conception) atheists and how this is a problem in the atheist community. While atheism just means you don't believe in God period, I would still expect that atheists, while possibly having a variety of opinions, would tend not to be "prolife" with that definition. So, I was wondering once again if she assumes that all her communications are from atheists and does she assume that a significant proportion of atheists always disagree with her (when all I can see is that some individuals do)? It's like she's a missionary and atheists are the heathen that she's bringing salvation.

@849

well said

@847 Unfortunately, all you can conclude from the fact that someone is an atheist is that they don't believe in gods. That's all, nothing else.

Obviously I'm pro-abortion. But I can't honestly say when "life" begins. I think the more important question is when life independent of the mother is possible, or when sentience begins, and that's certainly not set in stone.

In response to this last exchange that's going on, I have to say that all of this "offensive" talk that gets tossed hither and tither makes my asshole want to suck a lemon. I grow weary of all the yammering about "tone" and word choice.

I grew up in North Carolina where, despite all of its failings as a center of social progression, there exists a good concept of what is polite and what is not. Politeness entails honest representation of one's thoughts and feelings. It's not reduced to high diction, careful prose, clever word choice or some idealistic exchange of equanimity. I might not put things in a form that lacks robust language, but it cannot be this that makes the thing impolite.

After all, if I tell someone I fucking love their ideas, I've yet to see anyone take offense at this. No, the word selection seems to only matter when there's disparity in views. It therefore, to my mind at least, entails the ideas themselves. I've yet to find a polite way to tell someone they're idiotic, or full of shit. However, telling them as much is to extend to them the courtesy that they might know where they stand in my estimation. This gives them information on how it is they should grade me along some continuum of friend/foe.

Our Revolutionary War here in the states was crafted in calligraphy, high diction and on weighty parchment. It was phrased in as prosodic fashion as one could want. This did nothing whatever to ameliorate the meaning behind it: we disagree and will kill you if you attempt to protest our disagreement. No, the language isn't what did it - it was the idea. The "offense" taken would have been equal had our forebears merely written, "Dear King Asshat: please go fuck yourself; we are in rebellion."

People in this issue, among others, make a point to tell me I'm being unpleasant in the same breath they're invoking Schrodinger's Rapist as a guide to how a good society should function. But I'm the unpleasant one for saying "Rebecca Twatson".

/endrant.

I really must admit I am absolutely taken by, destroyed by, and completely destracted and blown away by the idea of assholes sucking lemons ... I mean, well, just WoW!

I think justicar, and of course our loving host ERV, is/are my new hero/rroine.

And, by the by, in case you didn't know, I am, in deepest secrecy, and with my arch assistant Baldrik, Schrodinger's Rapist. Yes, I am. Ooh!

I am just waiting for the right moment to, er, um, ah, pounce.

Yes, that's it ... pounce. Kitteh like.

Hmmm. So, where's the tender vittles.

....

Actually, to be serious for a moment. One of my favourite comments elswhere is the one that describes Watson as the Skeptical movement's version of Paris Hilton, i.e., all PR and no substance.

True enough, I think.

I think I'm taking some issue with this "Schrodinger's Rapist" schlik.

Shouldn't it be "Schrodinger's male", who may or may not be a rapist? For me, "Schrodinger's Rapist" is akin to "every male is a rapist who may or may not rape you". I find this strongly offensive. Of course, I don't have the right to be offended, I'm a priviledged white male.

Also, my AtBC handle of Schroedinge's Dog is at least 3 years old and has nothing to do with this case. I chose it because the bloody cat gets all the attention...

For me, "Schrodinger's Rapist" is akin to "every male is a rapist who may or may not rape you". I find this strongly offensive.

That's not a bug, it's a feature. Shall I link you to some posts which say exactly that? Hell, Greg Laden said it specifically of me, though he wouldn't go so far as to call himself a rapist directly (though, as a man, he obviously must be).

The thing that drives me most crazy in all this is all the "skeptics" insisting that anecdote = evidence and that something that happened exactly once in their entire life is a statistically significant sample size. "I was raped in an elevator, therefore all women SHOULD be afraid of all men in all elevators always and forever." You're more likely to be killed by a toaster than raped in an elevator, do you have a toaster in your home?

I really, really don't get this. People who were mauled by sharks are generally more likely than the average person to understand how long the odds are and don't advocate for shark hunting and they all go back out on the water after. When people ask "aren't you scared it'll happen again?" they generally answer things like "what are the odds that'll happen?" Yet apparently, your average surfer is more rational than a community that self-describes as "rational people." WTF?

Ok, bored now.
Think I know what's up.
Fortunately it's too libellous to publish.
Obs.
1) Americans Say the Funniest Things.
2) They also Rule the Universe.
3) I have shoes older than these people (except RD).

Back to mugging up on biol. Yay! Exciting!

Alls I know is I want to see a band started called "Arsey Like That" with lead singer Professor Yaffle.

Why do we stop at Schrodinger's Rapist?

Why not:

Schrodinger's Mugger?
Schrodinger's Robber?
Schrodinger's Killer?
Schrodinger's Thief?
Schrodinger's Sociopath?
Schrodinger's Criminal?
Schrodinger's Nice Guy You'll Never Meet Because of Your Irrational Fears?

It strikes me that we're only focusing on rape because any other serious crime would lead to acknowledging that men face danger too. And that would be... unbearable.

And wouldn't it be sexist to assume that ever woman is Schrodinger's bitch?

How about Schrodinger's Radical Feminist?

This is the type of thinking that's a problem for me. Why don't you men just wear "I'm not a rapist" stickers on your forehead and back. That way we stupid women will know for sure. Except for this tiny problem: rapists will wear them too.

Morons.

@854

Don't necessarily disagree. Tone is not relevant to the soundness of an argument. You'd better be damned sure of your ground before going nuclear though, or you can look very silly. Besides, nobody is backing down after the 'go fuck yourselves'' have been exchanged, so that approach probably shouldn't be first port of call.

I realised what confused me about the Schroedinger's Rapist argument a few days ago.

When I'm walking about in the dark in the city (which I do often, because I like walking about in the dark in cities and have done since I was a teenager), I'm scared of exactly two things. A) Getting mugged and B) ghosts, because I might be a skeptic but I also watch a lot of horror movies and creep myself right out.

I'm also 100% more worried about getting mugged by women - particularly where I live now, which has a leetle problem with female gangs.

I don't understand why everything always goes straight to rape. That's not even on my top 10 list of fears-about-strangers.

Phil@856:
As noted, this is a feature of the conjecture. To make it more clear, each man is simultaneously a rapist and not a rapist. One doesn't know which state a given man is until the wave (rape?) function collapses in the form of a sexual assault attempt. This is why it's so repugnant. Any person one happens across is potentially any number of a host of different unpleasant things: rapist, murderer, burglar, mugger, car thief, pick pocket, scam artist . . .

As the Schrodinger's Rapist thing posits, it isn't possible to know until the function collapses into the attempt to commit x offense. This is true enough I suppose. But then it goes further to argue that because the potential set of events that might happen can't be known in advance, we are therefore invited to treat everyone as though they are the worst case of thing that we individually happen to fear most.

This is xenophobia in a very base form. It's also on its face stupid. It is entirely possible that the next person I meet will murder me. After all, there exist people who are murdered and people who do the murdering. So, it is something of which I am well-advised to be aware of. However, almost no one is a murderer. Given these two realities, my concern over being murdered is legitimate, but should be constrained by the fact that almost no one I meet will be a murderer. Even much less often is that one meets 1.) a murderer and 2.) the kind of murderer who wants to murder you.

I decline the repugnant invitation to presume in advance that because it's slightly possible someone I meet will do me harm, that I should then treat them in some way as though they have already harmed me.

Concern is appropriate because there's a non-zero chance something might happen. Fear about it is irrational because it almost certainly will not happen to me. If I happen to find myself in a warzone, then my level of concern might justifiably rise to the level of a rational fear of near imminent attempts to kill me. That I'm in a war and people are constantly killing and dying around me gives me good reason to think that it's a far more likely probability I am in actual mortal danger at nearly every turn.

Walking down the street? Not so much.

To apply this kind of logic to condom use, say, consider that condoms almost never fail to work. But they do sometimes fail to work. Therefore, I should treat them as though won't be effective and dispense their use since, you know, I can't know if this particular condom will fail or work properly. Be aware the guarantee isn't perfect and factor that in. Do not act as though the slight chance of failure is so high that it gives one cause for outright fear.

I'm glad to see my lemon metaphor did not fail to charge one's imagination. =^_^=

ROFL. In reflection of their deep degree of willingness to dialogue and to condone dissent and disagreement, I have now been kicked off of Skepchick.org. Presumably for quite calmly and rationally pointing out some of the more egregious hypocrisies of Watson, and, ooh the shame of it all, repeating the opinion stated elsewhere that she is the Skeptical community's Paris Hilton.

Oh well. So much for dissent and dialogue.

For the record, there are two people banned at ERV: John Kw*k (whos ban is liftable if he opens his own blog), and Andrea Whittemore (permabanned-- if you threaten me, you have no right to comment on my blog).

Just putting that out there... Also, no closed comment threads on ERV, ever... Though if this one gets too cumbersome, I will open a new one for you all.

John@864: don't do that! Ever! Bad John!

Justicar@863: why do I feel you somehow read my mind?

A few men are rapists. Most men are not. Even if a man has rape fantasies, as long as he does not act on them, he is not a rapist. Rape fantasies are common for men and women. In any case "Schrodinger's Rapist" (every man is both a rapist and not a rapist) is a logic fail.

The "privilege" argument is an ad hom and a logic fail.

"You don't get it" is a useless statement. It's far better to say, "It seems you didn't understand, let me explain..."

Statistically speaking, focusing on the threat of stranger rape over all other more common and severe threats is a logic fail.

Stating that all women are walking around afraid of rape is wrong. If anything, I think about being robbed or mugged, which is far more common. I rarely think about rape because given my lifestyle it's improbable (but not impossible). In any case, my existence proves the statement untrue.

Believing that women are capable of everything, yet require special concessions, is a logic fail.

Name-calling (misogynist, gender-traitor, rape-enabler, etc.) is a logic fail.

Generalizing based on an anecdote is a logic fail.

Constant use of loaded language and hyperbole is a logic fail.

Blowing insignificant incidents out of proportion is counterproductive.

Finally, our society is no longer a patriarchy because women are not largely excluded from power. In fact, in many important fields (like the present generation of attorneys), women have a greater than 50% presence. Further, in the hard sciences, all else being equal, a job is more likely to go to a woman. The doors really are open, and this would be a great time to walk through them.

Sexist men do have a tendency to think that women are illogical and hysterical. And now, it seems, they need to look no further than feminist theory to confirm their beliefs. That's one of the reasons I'm so offended. It seems feminist theory is all about judging people based on stereotypes rather than who they are.

Bringing this type of feminism into skepticism is a tremendous skepticism fail.

I don't bother commenting on Skepchick (prior to this incident, I've never even read it) because I know my comments aren't welcome & will be deleted, exactly the way most critical comments are.

Surprisingly, the comment I posted that is probably responsible for my being banned has not, at least not yet, been deleted.

On my blog, only Abbie's dog is banned. Pee on my leg and you lose the right to write there!

Phil: I don't need to be a mind-reader. The points I made are profound . . . in their obviousness.

But, you know, as my parable counsels: if a spider startles you, you should blame the spider for your irrational reaction. It simply should know better.

I can't even stand to read skepchick, let alone attend its comment section.

Did you read the latest PZ post?

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/my_position_on_communicating…

There is something there I don't like: hypocrisy. FSM knows I enjoy PZ a lot, and respect him even more, but I think my mind will indeed be changed unless he starts using his critical thinking abilities.

And a mirror...

Phil Giordana@#871

"Did you read the latest PZ post?"

Wow. That is some serious multitasking....ass kissing, piggybacking, coat tailing and all after enthusiastic backstabbing, white knighting and turncoating.

If he were not old, flabby and probably under endowed Meyers could have a hell of a career in porn.

I know that the first man to raise a fist is the one who runs out of ideas but if I were Dawkins, I would sock Meyers right in his hairy fat disloyal face....both of them.

The man is a swine.

I remember a time when there was almost no way to get banned over at Skepchick. In fact, there was apparently a great deal of discussion and debate before they even temp banned me for saying that I hoped someone would die. How things have changed.

I'm like Abbie, myself, in that I've never banned anyone (no one has threatened me) and it would take quite a lot to get me to do so. Once I put up a moderation filter because a couple of people were howling at the gates to verbally abuse my girlfriend and I declared that they would not be able to say anything to her through me, so it would be better to drop the subject. Oh, and I deleted a bunch of comments at the request of the person who made them for safety reasons. That's it.

Per a twitter conversation I just had, I have no found out why Rebecca Watson was justified in being afeared. In the United States, 1 in 4 female university students is raped.

How crime statistics relating to the population of female university students in the US applies to a non-university student in Ireland wasn't exactly explained. But it was noted that I'm an idiot for not understanding how.

Further, every other minute a man, woman, or child is raped in the United States. How this relates to Rebecca Watson in Ireland (or even the US for that matter) was, again, not entirely clear. Again, it's because I'm an idiot.

Although, there was something mentioned about the fact that since Rebecca Watson grew up in American with its customs and social structure, she's entitled to carry that over to Ireland with her. Whether or not this justifies her thinking she can vote in their elections was, again, not immediately clear.

I wish I knew how to save a whole twitter conversation!

Jen McCreight just liveblogged the TAM Diversity Panel on The Friendly Atheist:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/07/17/liveblogging-th…

"DJ says he doesnât want to be telling people the content that people should believe, that we should just talk about the methods of critical thinking. He doesnât want reorganization away from science and to politics.

Observation: From looking around, only white dudes were clapping for that. SHOCKING."

So this is what passes for rebuttal in the skeptical movement nowadays. What is happening?!

875:

Oh she's just full of precious little bon mots:

DJ still disagrees, saying that historically skepticism has been about evidence, not social movements. Uh, who the hell cares about history when weâre trying to make things better?

Yeah, Fuck all that shit that happened before! We're too smartier to make any mistakes! Especially mistakes other non-smartier people made!

Hemant, what have you done letting me blog the diversity panel? Iâm going to convert your blog to a feminist cesspool.

I prefer "idiot collective" but sure, your phrasing works too.

Jamila and Debbie and Greta enthusiastically say yes. They get in from maybe one issue, they meet people they like, they make friends, they have fun, and they build communities.

Until you find out you're not wanted because you disagree with TEH FEMINIZT WIZDUM!!!! Then you realize it's just as stupid as any other group.

exists. Greta adds that these issues arenât mission drift. Weâre just applying our mission to topics that will bring in more diverse people.

Um...that's...mission...drift. Also, emperor? Yer Nekkid.

Apparently weâre going to be whizzing through physics and astronomy, which means my reporting will probably be horrible. I apologize ahead of time.

Ptolemy. Something. Oh FSM, I want to go to sleep so badly.

â¦Sorry Jennifer. I feel a certain kinship since we share a name, but Iâm burnt out. Iâm going to stare at your pretty photos while Hemant snarfs down his very very late lunch.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO BLOG ABOUT SHIT THAT'S NOT ON MY LIST OF THINGS I WILL CARE ABOUT! THIS ISN'T ABOUT MEEEEE! I WANT A SAMMICH AND A NAP!

Could she be more lame? Well, at least she's not into that hir and sie idiocy, so I suppose, yes, yes she could.

876:

Yes, she certainly switched off when the science talk came on. "I'm going to stare at your pretty photos". Call me ignorant, but isn't this the polar opposite of feminism?

Also, she left off the important details of the science talk. Of those who applauded it, what were their genders and racial characteristics?

#875, #876

Just astonishing. It is self-evident that Jen's idea is that diversity in skepticism means more people that share her political viewpoint, and alienating as many people as possible that don't share her view.

Of course, should anyone want to alienate any of her little group, they must be teh evil personified.

History of astronomy? Pfffffft. What's THAT got to do with critical thinking and skepticism? /PicardFacepalm

"Greta adds that thereâs a difference between feeling unwelcome because people disagree with your opinions, and feeling unwelcome because people are making sexist and racist jokes, or if thereâs no child care, or if itâs totally unaffordable to students."

This comment pissed me off; what a load of shit. Conservative or libertarian atheists do not feel unwelcome (generally speaking) because people disagree with their opinions, they feel unwelcome because certain bloggers feel the need to slur them and make straw men of their politics as often as possible rather than opening up any kind of a serious dialogue, and even go so far as to lie and claim that conservative or libertarian atheists have contributed nothing to the movement.

Granted, I don't give a fuck personally -- for the most part -- and these things would not stop me from making it to a conference if I had the time and money, but then, I have thick skin. I'm a gun rights advocate and a wilderness advocate and broadly libertarian to boot, so people from all over the political spectrum hate me. You get used to being informed that you're a long haired, filthy, dope smoking, capitalism hating, violence craving, poor hating hippie scumbag after a while and eventually your give a shit breaks.

However, some people aren't as thick-skinned at me, and don't like it when bloggers frequently assert that conservative (or libertarian) atheists and skeptics hold the exact same views as religious nut Republicans, because, well, clearly conservatives are one monolithic movement with no room for dissent because they disagree with my views, ya know. For fuck's sake, I've even seen the claim made that you can tell a commenter is libertarian if they're an atheist and want abortion banned. This is some seriously bizarro world bullshit given that the standard libertarian position on abortion is 'What a woman does with her body is none of the government's fucking business.' This kind of behavior is commonplace, unfortunately.

I'm not saying this kind of thing will necessarily hurt someone as badly as a slur about race or gender, but it's certainly does have an effect. I think we also need to realize that a person who likes to pretend that they are correct about every fucking political matter and go so far out of the way to avoid having any serious discussion of their views that they make a straw man out of all of their opponents is not a good skeptic. (I mean this in a general sense. We at ERV seemed to have picked up on that based on the comment thread thus far.)

Also, does anyone else read this as being extremely condescending toward women and minorities, or is it just me?

"Greta: What youâre saying is historically we had issues that were interesting to middle class educated white men, and we should still only talk about those issues. Thatâs why weâre not attracting diverse people."

"In the United States, 1 in 4 female university students is raped."

If true (and I suspect that if it isn't, the difference is a definitional problem: is a bit of smooching rape? What about "I know you want it", which is commonly a prelude to that sort of thing, but not always, then again I'm not USAian) then this is a big problem in the USA. It may be a problem with the repression the generally puritanical streak that the US embraces enacts.

Then again, the "Summer party" seems to be merely girls getting their tits oot fer the lads and the lads getting a boner over it. As an outsider, that's about all I know about the summer student parties anyway.

This isn't a problem with atheist conferences, though.

It's a problem with US Student life. Maybe US culture full stop.

Scented Nectar pointed out that 1 in 4 fallacy in a comment on Justicar's blog:

http://integralmath.blogspot.com/2011/07/skepchick-may-farce-be-with-yo…

And I think you meant "spring break"... :)

Yes, she certainly switched off when the science talk came on.

Added irony in that it was a woman talking about traditional 'middle class educated white men' issues, could there be some kind of lesson in that wrt to the previous panel? nah, IGNORE

Added irony in that it was a woman talking about traditional 'middle class educated white men' issues

Yes but she's probably just a misogyny-apologist a la McGraw.

Re: 40 year old misquoted statistics.

The cited campus rape statistic is just one, there are lots of them and they self perpetuate in a context where they are not held up to scrutiny because to criticize the veracity of the assertion is, in itself, to take a side and to deny post-modern feminism the reparative power of a lower standard of intellectual honesty.

And aye there's the rub.

Why Dawkins will probably not be giving RW a good groveling any time soon....

ERV pointed out a disjointed gibber on the IBP blog from its post-punk perpetual student turned food critic(there are too many white people in this restaurant) turned rich white lady sponge etc..

Dawkins was referred to as a "a knob about the global humanitarian crisis of patriarchal oppression"

He was so branded, for agreeing with a lecture wherein Christina Hoff Sommers called out a popular American law textbook, rife with factual error and defended by its authors on the grounds of its being related to women.

Now I certainly don't agree with everything Sommers has to say, Dawkins would not either, but that a free pass has been given at the expense of truth is undeniable.

I believe this "pass" deeply damages the feminist movement in this country and is killing in others.

There are a great many feminists who are excusing themselves from the kind of stare-into-our-navels fabulism that Jen McCreight and a RW are finding advantage in touting.

I agree with Sommers and I disagree with her but the one line on which Mckinnon, Dawkins, the Ghost of Dworkin and I could all fist bump in agreement is:

"Worst of all, misinformation about violence against women suggests a false moral equivalence between societies where women are protected by law and those where they are not."

"Yeah, fuck that reason and logic at our meeting about reason and logic! It should be all about appeals to emotion and political agendas! That way we can get women and gay people and stuff to come!"

Are these people even aware of what they are saying? Are they next going to suggest that the meals include fried chicken and watermelon to attract more brown people? I wish I could be joking when I say this, but given how they've completely abandoned reason in favor of emotion, to the point that bringing up the idea that women even try to use reason is met with vicious attack, I am sadly, completely serious.

"Apparently weâre going to be whizzing through physics and astronomy, which means my reporting will probably be horrible. I apologize ahead of time.

Ptolemy. Something. Oh FSM, I want to go to sleep so badly.

â¦Sorry Jennifer. I feel a certain kinship since we share a name, but Iâm burnt out. Iâm going to stare at your pretty photos while Hemant snarfs down his very very late lunch."

Giggle, I'm too dumb to understand science. Gonna look at something pretty instead. Can I knit a sweater for anyone?

How stupid is this person!? I'm sorry, but if this is what women thought like, who would want us involved in skepticism? We'd belong at home, making soup or something. Fortunately most women don't. They are just as bright and capable as men.

As for libertarians, I disagree with their political views. But our disagreement is about values, not substance. We understand each other perfectly well. Same with some republicans. That doesn't prevent friendship or interesting discussions from occurring, and that doesn't lead to personal attacks. Occasionally we get frustrated with each other, but so what?

Also, it is irony of the highest order that "feminist" white men are dismissing, marginalizing, and shaming the voices of liberal feminist women in favor of their wives or women that belong to the "in-group."

You should see how many times I've been called an idiot over on Laden's blog. Ganging up on a "weakling" woman to do that doesn't bother them. And what is it that makes me an idiot? The belief that women are strong and capable of taking care of themselves. As for the belief that we shouldn't sacrifice intellectual integrity for the sake of diversity? I'm sure I'd be stoned or excommunicated if I even brought it up.

Why would I want to be involved in their community? Fuck that. I'm better off hanging out with fundie housewives. If there's a difference.

"If this were" what women thought like." (correction)

"As for libertarians, I disagree with their political views. But our disagreement is about values, not substance. We understand each other perfectly well. Same with some republicans. That doesn't prevent friendship or interesting discussions from occurring, and that doesn't lead to personal attacks. Occasionally we get frustrated with each other, but so what?"

This is exactly what I'm talking about, actually. There are many people like you who write comments on blogs that have a relation to the skeptic or atheist community and happen to disagree with libertarian or conservative atheists. Do they give a fuck about that? No. Well, in most cases no. My experience with other conservative or libertarian atheists (including ones I disagree with) is that they accept that their politics should not dictate their entire life and are perfectly willing to mix with people who share different political views.

However, a relatively small and extremely vocal contingent of bloggers act as if any atheists or skeptics who disagree with their political views are useless and slur them every time they get the chance. It is this group that send out e-mails to polite bloggers saying that they would like to attend skeptic conferences but will not do so because of the way they're treated by members of the skeptic movement. Greta is either being intellectually dishonest or completely clueless by claiming that the problem these conservative or libertarian atheists have is the former rather than the latter.

Shit, I should have done some proof-reading before posting that. In the second paragraph an error occurs: "It is this group that send out e-mails to polite bloggers saying that they would like to attend skeptic conferences but will not do so because of the way they're treated by members of the skeptic movement." That should have been "It is because of this group that people send out e-mails to polite bloggers saying that they would like to attend skeptic conferences but will not do so because of the way they're treated by members of the skeptic movement."

Agree with comments by bluharmony and Southern Geologist. Whilst everyone can agree on platitudes ("we want peace", "we want to save the planet"), real discussion about politics is all about compromises and choices, and those compromises usually require comparing apples and oranges - hell, not even that, comparing apples and rocks. Those require value judgements that reasonable people can disagree on. But to the RW/PZ's of the world, their viewpoint is the only valid one and everyone else is just a moron for not seeing it.

On other points - I was going to post on the 1-in-4 rape stats on Justicar's blog, but it seems that you now need an account somewhere to post, which is the very reason I don't post at Pharyngula. Is the spam already that bad, Justicar?

I stumbled across this at JREF as well, not sure if it has been raised here. An example of Rebecca Watson and co driving women who disagree with her perspective from the skeptic movement, posted by mod Darat:

http://skeptopia.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/why-ill-never-return-to-jref-forum-or-the-amazng-meeting/

So much for encouraging diversity, and more women. It seems skepchick's main achievement is driving women away from the movement.

"It seems skepchick's main achievement is driving women away from the movement."

While the opposite of Skepchick's (the organization) mission statement, it is necessary to their survival.

As more women with qualifications beyond a blog and the preferred genital configuration participate, less and less of what Jen, Rebbecca, street jugglers, producers of novelty t-shirts and Marcotte have to say remains pertinent or even give the continued appearance of being lucid.

Certainly PZ Meyers and Laden have a vested interest in keeping women of a certain gravitas away. As long as pseudo-intellectual hipster chicks remain the most prominent female voices PZ et al can tout their progressive feminist street cred while controlling the messages as aging straight white guys.

In respect to my correcting his definition of ad hominem, Laden just said "fuck dictionaries." Then he said that anyone who resorts to pointing out the use of ad hominems on his board doesn't have a valid argument. Moreover, he said that complaining about the use of ad hominems in response to arguments makes me a whiner, and I should just suck it up. Finally, he concurred with people calling me an idiot. I've seriously never been so insulted in real life or online. I don't want to sound like a girl or anything, but they're making me want to cry. All in the name of feminism.

I used to consider myself quite liberal until I came into contact with the spit-flecked, teeth-gnashing, privilege-whining contingent of "liberals" who seemed so very, very determined to tell me that I was some kind of strange underclass of human being that could only survive in the real world with the assistance of 'allies' and people-like-them.

That was when I realised I would do anything just to get away from idiots like them.

This whole RW thing has absolutely confirmed to me that there is absolutely nothing for me at these conferences. Sure I'd like to see Dawkins talk but I don't think it's worth it given the company. Also. They're freaking insane. They're freaking insane cultists. This is not what I want in my skepticism.

"It seems skepchick's main achievement is driving women away from the movement."

That appears to be Rebecca's main goal. In the end, the fight is mostly about this (and I think it's particularly true when it comes to attractive single women). It's a fucking cat fight with deluded white knights defending someone's honor, when that someone has none. She can't stand the thought of sharing the spotlight or being replaced. All in my opinion, of course. Unlike some people, I can't read minds.

BTW, it appears that Grothe is actually on our side, though he can't come out and say so. He did say on Stef's blog, "I tend to agree with you."

You're completely right about aging white men feeling threatened by women with actual credentials. As for Skepchick, her priorities were obvious to me from day one.

I'm liberal in my politics in that I favor a welfare state with a free market economy on everything but the essentials: minimal food & shelter, education, health care. And I favor purely defensive foreign policy as well as race, sexual orientation, and gender equality. But I don't know if this is possible (or even "best,") and I'm willing to admit that. Because these are my political, non-evidence based views reflecting my personal values.

Ugh.

I think SouthernGeologist hit on what leaves me put off by this rhetoric.

From my understand, I think an issue like gay rights is a Big Deal. But it's not an atheist issue. Maybe it can comfortably find a home in a skeptic club or something. But I don't need that. I'm not so petty as to throw away progress one group is making on one issue of mine because they aren't explicitly inviting me in to be there as a class of person who requires prodding to participate.

Start killing some gays, or beating the shit out of them, or having meetings about why we hate them, and I'll have a problem. Leaving it out of the conversation altogether? This doesn't disenfranchise me in the slightest.

And guess what? When I'm in a group of people and something happens to which some nitwit says, "that's gay", I use my big boy mouth and say, "I don't appreciate that and I'll thank you pretend as though your home training isn't as bad as it is." I don't need to go make a youtube video about it to get support about how Teh Gays aren't being welcomed in the atheist community.

It's not the platform. I don't go to an Italian restaurant and bitch about not finding Chinese food on the menu as being some kind of systemic problem to keep the Chinese down. It's just not platform.

Are women as a whole really so weak that without a special invitation and super special sets of rules ruthlessly enforced, they aren't capable of walking among the godless?

Of course I'd love to live in a society where looking out into an audience is a fair statistical representation of the general population. It just doesn't happen for purely statistical reasons, in addition to other things. It doesn't mean there's a problem in the society, or that the group isn't accepting of people who show up. Not targeting a demographic for handheld invitations to a thing isn't to say the group is excluding them. Want to be a part? There's the door - use it. Don't want to be a part? Same thing - there's the door, don't use it.

If someone gets handsy with you, knee him in the balls and shout at him for accosting you. It works in bars. It works outside bars. I have every confidence that it will work inside an atheist conference.

Being made to think of myself of some kind of emotionally vulnerable group requiring kid gloves before I can brave all the adults in the room puts me off. Before I found out that my gayness was an issue requiring special sensitivity in atheist groups, I was perfectly capable of walking into one without thinking about being a gay atheist. Now, I guess I should wear a sign so you people know to pity my poor lot in life.

Send flowers and condolences to
123 Fuckme Runninga Way
Upyours, USA 06969

Or make a donation to your favorite non-gay charity. Or gay charity if you feel that the guilt money needs to be spent.

The religious right in America doesn't have shit on the feminist right in America with respect to diminishing women.

"My experience with other conservative or libertarian atheists (including ones I disagree with) is that they accept that their politics should not dictate their entire life and are perfectly willing to mix with people who share different political views. "

What's all this hogwash about "different" opinions and shit? Toe the line . . . or else, motherfucker. We are freethinking and open-minded so long as you agree with what we tell you to agree with.

How the dynamics change if the guy next to me is republican, democrat or other form of lunatic escapes me.

Of course, I'm what PZ derides as a "dictionary atheist". Yes, I am. That's because it's what the word means; your political agenda to bootstrap every idea you have onto atheism and atheists doesn't mean we have to let them stick. Go find a new word for that particular brand of whatever - atheism has gotten along just fine without this nonsense being foisted onto it.

ERV

If I quoted a snippet of something you wrote and declared you homophobic at a large convention, when you dont think (and many other dont think) what you said was homophobic, and you had no means of responding to that accusation, that would be wrong, and you would be (rightly) mad.

First AFAIK Watson didn't call her misoginystic, but her arguments yes.

It doesn't matter what Macgraw thinks she said herself, or what she thinks she did herself. It does matter what she actually said and did. She did mischaracterize Watson and did parrot misoginystic arguments. Sorry. That's the point she should have been addressing instead of whinning about been a so-poor-little-student-that-couldn't-respond-on-a-plain-even-field-life-is-soooo-unfair.

Watson didn't start this. Her orignal complain take 1 min of an 8+ min video. It would have ended there if so many people, men and (for MY surprise) women (including McGraw), didn't start to chastisize Watson for that 1 min in an 8+ min video. It's telling how so many of these (including McGraw) that critisize Watson's original 1 min in an 8+ min video, invariably choose to mischaracterize it ('She's against men hitting on women in any circunstances'), or just to play stupid ('what? He just asked for a coffee! A COFFEE for Dawkins sake! At 4 am! Without have ever spoken to her before! What's possibly wrong with THAT?').

Now, why I have this feeling that, if the elevator episode had ended badly, either Watson had accepted the 'invitation' or not, that these same people would be saying things like: 'how could she be so naive to think that an invitation for coffee at 4 am, could possibly means anything but sex?', or 'didn't she knew that a woman should not take an elevator alone with a stranger, in a foreign country, at 4 am?'?

Justicar@#897

That's well said. Why do I give a fuck what a Minnesota cow college evolutionary biologist has to say about Obama or economic theory.

Yet somehow I am supposed to care what a may or may have not graduated from communications college 30 something malignant narcissist has to say about not only the western intellectual tradition but post-modern feminist interpersonal and political theory?

Fuck that.

The Bride is looking for an obstetrician. By that logic we should just tell Marv (the guy who fixes our cars) to be ready to crank her up on the rack in 8 months.

For 600 bucks not including travel and board I am not going to listen to some random hippie hobo hold forth on anything.

Amazing Meeting my ass. Clip joint and mutual admiration society.

Post 900 coming up. What will they win Don Pardo?

Enraldo:
this post by you strikes me as being thought up by the kind of mind who gets language put into laws that differentiate between "incidents of genocide" and "genocide" as though there's a difference of note.

Let me put it another way: I'm not saying you're a racist, I'm just saying that all the words you say are racist. I'm sure you're not a racist even though what you say is nothing but racist.

It's disingenuous.

What does it matter that she spent 1 minute on it or 2 minutes? The content of what is said doesn't fluctuate because of the length of time required to say it.

If I give a six hour long speech and put in, "And all niggers should be executed" does this become less bad because it wasn't the whole of my speech? If I reverse that and have a six hour long speech advocating that position but put in a line "I send my father birthday cards every year, unfailingly", is my speech improved?

Then again, I think you've answered all of my questions in your last paragraph: you have a "feeling". QED huh?

I get that set of steak knives! 900, bitches!

Bluharmony:
I too have political opinions. Why the rest of the atheist community is somehow obliged to listen to them is not immediately obvious. It's not the topic. It's not the subject. It's not implied by the subject beyond the political position that the government should remain secular. That may or may not imply some shared politic we should all have. It's just irrelevant to the theme: there is no god. Stop passing laws to tell me there is.

Beyond that, find a different group, or a sub-group in the atheism movement. Whatever form it might take on the personal level, it is not a fitting topic for a panel discussion on atheism.

Justicar, I think I should, by right, propose to you at a TAM convention! Damn, I wish Prof. Dawkins would invite you to a panel! Rarely have I seen such rational thinking (well, except for your privilege, of course, it shows)!

Could I write this in french so I can get understood?

Phil, while I'm flattered to have my name mentioned in the same sentence as his, from a purely pragmatic position, I would be an extremely unwise person for him to sit down with right now. He's already being harangued enough for what he said, and what I've said is far, far more brutal. (And I make no apologies whatever for the fact that my satirical treatment of Rebecca Watson's nontroversy is highly unfriendly - it's not good satire if people are offended)

Write in any language you want, but I only have an mediocre understanding of one language. I'm sure I butcher it daily!

Beside all of that is the fact that I'm not a particularly gifted speaker, though I can turn a phrase. I have nothing particularly unique to say that would be generally intelligible by the public-at-large. Plus I have no particular desire to be a face for anything; I'm perfectly content writing my blog, making crappy videos on youtube and perhaps in some small way spurring people on to hold nothing sacred - to challenge any claim of any import with ruthless interrogation.

It's been the only method we've found that has a track record for consistently providing answers to questions. Plus, I don't care one jot about how people feel. My care is what is true. This present silliness indicates that this is a concept quite foreign to much of this community.

Odd, I'm an unwelcome presence in a skeptical community for being, you know, dubious about what I'm told I should believe.

Justicar:

You know what makes me feel better? It's the fact that there at best 15 redundent commenters on Pharyngula (no actual data, but I think I'm close). Look at this very thread here, we are not so many commenting, and the same pattern arises for each blog.

it's really a storm in a teapot.

@Justicar: Brilliant.

@Enraldo:
"It would have ended there if so many people, men and (for MY surprise) women (including McGraw), didn't start to chastisize Watson for that 1 min in an 8+ min video. It's telling how so many of these (including McGraw) that critisize Watson's original 1 min in an 8+ min video, invariably choose to mischaracterize it ('She's against men hitting on women in any circunstances'), or just to play stupid ('what? He just asked for a coffee!

The reason women replied is twofold: (1) Rebecca doesn't speak for all women and (2) she's dead wrong.

What happened to Watson IS NOT OBJECTIFICATION. Listening to someone talk all day, then saying she's interesting and you'd like to chat, is not objectification no matter where or when it happens (with the possible exception of a strip club or similar). It may be inappropriate, and Watson is free to say what she prefers, but she can't speak for all of us. Having a different view on this matter is not misogyny (hatred of women) or anywhere near it. And realistically, there's no fucking difference between being called a misogynist and being told that what you think or say is misogynistic (and also stupid). Especially when it isn't.

And no, if she were raped, none of us would defend the rapist. The case would be taken to court, where, unlike here, actual evidence is required to convict. There's a reason for this rule. Can you figure out what it is on your own? Moreover, have you noticed that in this case WE DON'T EVEN HAVE A DEFENDANT? All we have is an accusation thrown out into thin air without any corroboration.

"A COFFEE for Dawkins sake! At 4 am! Without have ever spoken to her before! What's possibly wrong with THAT?')."

Nothing. I welcome all requests for coffee in an elevator. And if I'm in a bar until 4AM, I welcome all men to proposition me because I'm probably looking for some company. Even if I say "I'm tired" when I excuse myself. Because I'm capable of saying no. And if it's a rapist doing the talking, then it doesn't matter what he says or if he speaks at all; he'll rape me anyway unless I take some responsibility for my own safety.

PZ's advice to dress nicely and chat a woman up before taking her to one's hotel room won't help me if rape is the intent. In fact, it's far more difficult to escape from a hotel room than an elevator, and trying to teaching a guy how to best trick me into consensual sex is offensive. Not to mention, it's patronizing and sexist. But not misogynistic. Because there's a difference.

No one is defending Dawkins. He used faulty logic, and he was rude. So what? It doesn't make his work in evolutionary biology any less relevant. Moreover, his annoyance at this mess was justified.

Eneraldo Carneiro-- Unless we are talking physics, if you have to posit alternative dimensions and alternative time-lines to even hypothetically make a point, you are not making a point.

"Greta: What youâre saying is historically we had issues that were interesting to middle class educated white men, and we should still only talk about those issues. Thatâs why weâre not attracting diverse people."

How do the issues in atheism and skepticism change based on the demographic in attendance? How is the employment of critical thinking different with women and minorities in attendance?

Organizations supporting atheism and skepticism are nothing but social clubs. They serve no other purpose, so I guess money and power rule.

The point, to me, is that it is divisive and unproductive to call out an ally while you are on a stage. The point is that there is aa way to have an argument - even an extreme argument - with an ally, and a way to declare war on an enemy, and common sense says you should know which you are doing before you open your mouth.

I mentioned I used to blog. I did political humor blogging. I also mentioned my politics are on the left. So when I blogged, I made fun of and picked on people. I can be a dick when I want to. But I was targeting people who were never going to be my allies on anything. I don't care if I hurt Jonah Goldberg's feelings. I don't care if Michael Medved or Joseph Farrah or Victor Davis Hansen cried in their beer after I was done with them. In fact, because they were my enemies, I hope they did. Because I'm not an idiot, I know they didn't, but that's neither here nor there.

I've had plenty of arguments with friends and allies, and I have tried very hard not to use the same sort of snarky, bitchy, scorched-earth tactics when I fight with them. I have failed on occasion - i'm human. But when Rebecca Watson brings those sorts of tactics to near on someone directly out out the starting gate, then what she is communicating to that person - and everyone else - is that that person is an enemy. Everything else follows predictably from there.

Ya know, it is amazing how Rebbeca has increased her mating fitness in the whole thing, ain't it?

Or, in other words, her slander of a man who hasn't yet had a forum to defend himself sure was profitable, and divisive--and sure does its part to uphold the clannish patriarch PZ Meyers.

http://pornalysis.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/academic-culture-is-the-etic…

@Spence:

Just piping in, folks, with a few quotes that some of you might have missed from the comments section in the link that Spence posted, where an ex-mod from the JREF forums explains why she doesn't feel comfortable attending the likes of TAM any more, due to the preponderance of women such as the Skepchick crew being more interested in self-promotion and partying as opposed to, you know, advancing the principles of critical thinking. I apologise about the length of this post, which is mainly a copy & paste job from Spence's link, but I find these to be very revealing:

uncayimmy posted:

"Itâs interesting that I should see this blog today because I had just (out of curiosity) decided to check out Rebecca on the JREF Forums.

I had heard the name mentioned a number of times, so I wanted to see her contributions in the trenches, so to speak. She posted there nearly 7,000 times before being banned for acting like an adolescent. Do you know how many posts she had in General Skepticism and the Paranormal? A mere 124. Science? 130. Religion and Philosophy? 140.

How in the hell did she become some Skeptic Guru? Well, it ties into what you describe about the forums and TAM. Itâs about popularity. She spent most of her time hanging out in Community, chatting it up and goofing around. Sheâs undoubtedly fun and somewhat charismatic. She certainly did NOT rise to the top (so to speak) for her insight and skeptical approach to things."

noblecaboose posted:

"I just remembered one of the things that first started to bug me about Ms. Watson. At my first TAM, I went to the âSkepchick Pajama Partyâ which was a âladies onlyâ gathering (though some men did show up). It was different from the Forum Party which was hosted by Rebecca, but I still expected to see Rebecca there, since she was a prominent female in the movement and she was THE Skepchick. What I found out was that the men were having a âScotch and Cigarsâ party at the same time for men only, as a counter-party to the all female Skepchick Pajama Party. The year I attended, Rebecca didnât even make an appearance at the pajama party, preferring instead to crash the menâs party and hang out with the boys, who were her clear fan base. I found it incredibly rude of her, as it devalued the womenâs party and it also showed that she was more interested in being the token girl than part of a group of women. Far from being interested in bringing more women into skepticism, she seemed to just wanted to be fawned over by drooling men."

Along with the sleuthing that Justicar has been involved with, there seems to be a distinct pattern emerging here of Watson being an all round contemptible bitch. I was only vaguely aware of her three or so weeks ago- now I find the fact that she is a prominent and influential member of the skeptic community to be deeply disturbing.

By the way Justicar- what happened to your long blog post from a few days ago about Watson, where you outlined your intention to thoroughly investiagte her past actions? It isn't there any more.

LMAO: " a skeptical guru" is like, an oxymoron or something....

"a guru of skepticism" is like a jack of no trades.

Just in the interest of full disclosure great grandma used to make me hot chocolate with little purple, green and white marshmallows.

Then she would explain why.

She died at 98 and was buried by the survivors of her 9 children wearing her sash and with her arms folded around her marching spear.

My grandmother was a successful industrialist.

My mother was a petroleum engineer and later a well reputed theoretical mathematician who shopped for tailored suits at Sax with Ayn Rand and swapped off color jokes with Friedan.

The Bride, physically and emotionally abused and eventually abandoned by her mother spends the balance of her days in the trenches for women, abused, assaulted and legitimately threatened women, to exhaustion and to her own beggary.

To the extent I can, I "get it".

I'm missing a blog entry?

*activates rainbow power to dash off and check, leaving fairy sparkles behind*

Ok, I'm back.

"My specific and explicit purpose is to start a campaign to have Rebecca Twatson excluded from the selection of people who are paid to speak at our events. Her presence is a net drain in time and money."
From: http://integralmath.blogspot.com/2011/07/ceterum-censeo-rebecca-twatson…

It's still there, happily getting along with its neighbors. For the moment, I'm writing on other topics as I can only take listening to her talk in short doses. I believe, you see, in intellectual osmosis, and I don't want to get too close for obvious reason. Like Nietzsche said: when you long-stare into the empty-minded, they suck you in and clobber you with stupidity. I think that's an exact quote. Mm hmm.

bluharmony:

No one is defending Dawkins. He used faulty logic, and he was rude.

This is untrue. I am defending Dawkins. I also disagree with your assessment of his logic. Just so we're clear.

I think we also need to realize that a person who likes to pretend that they are correct about every fucking political matter and go so far out of the way to avoid having any serious discussion of their views that they make a straw man out of all of their opponents is not a good skeptic.

This is just what I would expect a long haired, filthy, dope smoking, capitalism hating, violence craving, poor hating hippie scumbag to say. It is also completely wrong, and so wrong that it is not worth telling you how wrong it is because you would already know if you weren't so wrong.

. She did mischaracterize Watson and did parrot misoginystic arguments.

Not so much. As with basically everyone else, she directly implied that Watson perfectly well had the right to be uncomfortable, but disagreed that the incident--even if it was Elevator Guy propositioning behind the flimsiest of obfuscation--automatically qualified as objectification, sexualization, and sexism. This was, in fact, specifically mentioned before PZ's first post weighing in. (Not that PZ bothered linking to it, which seems a bit odd since he's perpetually bothered when, say, creationists criticize and cherry pick his comments, and do not provide a link.)

You can say Stef's initial comments were not particularly clear, but that's the kind of thing that can be easily clarified by--say--posting in the comments. Something Watson did not do until the next post, with the "10,000 readers" comment that spawned ERV's first remarks here.

Regardless, Watson's response was to specifically target and intend to intimidate, humiliate, and--yes--silence a young atheist, skeptic, and feminist on a difference of opinion regarding feminism.

Something that Watson and other Skepchicks have gotten into much haranguing with others in the past. Something Watson felt the need to cover her tracks on when one of her posts from five years back with HILARIOUSLY over-the-top objectification and sexualization was brought up. (Though her update, if she was speaking genuinely, should have forced her to criticize a number of PZ's and Jen's posts in reply as the steam continued to pick up.)

In all, she claimed her perspective has matured over time. But her response to Stef showed Watson to be extremely juvenile.

This is what was criticized by most, and has been given carte blanche by many. Many who continue to point fingers back to Elevator Guy (but shouldn't be) and many more who think that Stef's comments excused Watson's response (which they did not), and many more still who are criticizing others as "overreacting to what Watson said during her talk" (which, if there is room for interpretation and perhaps some connections were "not meant" means they should also be criticizing Watson and defending Stef's first blog post using the exact same reasoning.)

You don't get to pick and choose what to be skeptical about and what to be rational about; it's a lump sum. As well, Watson does not get to claim to have perspective and maturity; she has to demonstrate it before we believe it.

One way would have been to reply, say, "shit, I'm sorry, I was pretty riled up about other things, and may not have read your post very carefully. I still don't agree with you, if I understand the gist of your first post, and we should talk about it..." Instead, everything that has occurred has been a vicious cycle of ego-stroking and ego-defending.

If Woody had gone straight to the police, this would never have happened.

@Justicar

Ah, my apologies. I wasn't aware that it was that far back. 7th June? Jesus. This whole charade has been going on for quite some time now. Anyway, keep up the sterling work. I don't know of anybody else who is actually doing anything constructive about this Watson character.

I mean, of course, July. 4:26am... time for sleep.

Well, I'm not really doing anything about it either. I write lines pointing out the features that define the system.

My influence is small, and it's not as though my tone has won me many people who are going to direct people to blog to read it. (Or my other stuff, some of which is interesting - like my this week in woo bit, among other things).

To the extent my blog will "take off" is to the precise extent that other people get on board with what I'm doing. I suppose I could start writing with more eloquence, but doing as much isn't my style with respect to communicating information. The idea of my writing what I write is to convey information fairly directly - each layer of difficulty added to that by way of, say, larger words or metaphor serves to frustrate that.

Take my spiderism parable. It's not great prose or anything, but it is in that vein. It's decent writing for the five minutes it took me to jot it down and post it. A lot of people are apparently confused by it if my e-mail is anything to judge by.

I'm not looking for fanboys/girls or anything, but feedback is always nice provided it's not just along the lines of "that sucked" or "that's awesome". Anyway, I'm not trying to hijack Abbie's thread here! I'll keep writing - perhaps people will start reading.

Justicar-- One of the best ways to get readers is by commenting on lots of blogs and putting your address in the url bar. Personally, I also dont mind comments as links if the topic is relevant "Hey, I just covered this topic too! LINK!"

If you just openly spam your site on any post though, thatll get you banned :)

Oh, I try not to clutter up anyone else's place as an advertisement for myself. It's hyperlinked in my name; people can click if they think I'm rubbing two thoughts together.

One thing I don't do is embed links at other people's place. People can read the address in full before clicking it so they know what they're getting beforehand.

I'm banned on a lot of blogs right now: Ophelia's where at I've commented in all of one thread before this, Greta (whose blog I've never before commented on), blaghag, presumably skepchick, pharyngula. You should listen to your colleagues here and ban me too! I'm vile and repugnant!

But thanks for stating outright your policy here. However, I'll still try to remain infrequent with linkage. =^_^=

@Rystfn: Noted. I think Dawkins was wrong in not understanding that elevators posed a minuscule amount of danger, and more so to women than men. Also, the bubble gum situation was not analogous, due to possible perceived danger. I don't really mind his comparison to Muslim women, since he was comparing great harm to no harm. Also, there's the issue of tone. But nothing he did warranted the response he got from RW. That's the point at which I started to get really upset.

Not wishing to come across as one of Justicar's fanboys here, but in his defense with the linkage he was just showing me a blog post that I thought had been lost in cyberspace- turns out that I'm just a twat and didn't look hard enough. :)

Blu, you are more likely to die today than to be raped in an elevator at any point in your life. The danger is not miniscule. Miniscule is dramatically overstating it. In the last decade, about as many people have been adopted by Angelina Jolie as raped in elevators. Are the odds of being adopted by Angelina Jolie something worth worrying about, taking into account, or even mentioning?

Also, the bubble gum situation was not analogous due to the exact thing he was attempting to bring attention to? The difference was the perceived (i.e. not real) danger, and by leaving it out of his analogy, he drew attention to the fact that the danger people were talking about was, in fact, completely imaginary. Sarcastic analogy - Dawkins does it right.

Also, the tone he used was entirely appropriate, in that the only correct response to stupidity is ridicule.

Only halfway through these comments, but Harry Christ this is great! It´s like, sense.(Quiet night here in Bogota where, incidently, I have to "manage high-level threat" most days)

@Rystefn: I concede. I've never even thought to be afraid in an elevator. I've been afraid of it getting stuck, not of people. Those rapes that do occur in elevators are usually in dark, deserted garages, anyway. I'm not a fan of the bubble gum analogy because (and this is news to me) some women are seriously afraid of men. But I don't believe that Watson was afraid, not for a second, if the incident even happened.

Dawkins wins. Dawkins Foundation to sponsor childcare at atheist conferences. That's feminism I can get behind -- not Watson's childish and vindictive nonsense.

Curious, all those childcare responses.

Suddenly the radfems are saying how jolly great Dawkins is after spending weeks calling him an evil misogynist who hates women because of All His Privilege.

Bluharmony:
For one, the claim is factually not true. In the last ten years, almost all victims of sexual assault in elevators have been male. We're talking something like fewer than 10 people near as I can tell. Even if they were all women, one attack per year isn't a cause for panic, or even concern. Particularly since we're good on this year's attack as it happened before the conference in question.

Of course, this is goofy math here. And it's not related to Dawkins' point in the slightest.

To grant your premise we first have to accept that there was danger. The facts do not bear that out. She did walk out of the elevator untouched. Therefore, her actual level of danger wasn't there. It all happened inside her head, and was not congruent with reality. In other words, she's complaining that things she imagines in her head are being treated with due respect.

Tone cannot be a relevant concern from those going after Dawkins now since these are the selfsame people who fully support his tone provided it's directed at their enemies. If his tone is appropriate in the one case, they are in no position to cry foul when he's using it to gore their ox. If it's tone, then I expect that the letters of apology are in the mail from each one of these people to every religious person Dawkins has personally addressed in the same way, with their full support.

I do not expect this will happen. Therefore, the tone argument is nothing more than a complaint that it's unfair when he addresses their stupidity in the exact way he addresses anyone else's stupidity. All that's different is they don't like it happening when their faith in something is its target.

Dawkins has remained 100% consistent.

Further, Watson has likened this ever so delicately to her fears of sexual assault and those of other women, which Dawkins should have known about considering she explained to him her e-mails detailing all of the rape events she claims to get. She wrote this explicitly in her privilege delusion post. To claim she's not suggesting she had a legitimate fear of being sexually assaulted, or that it's not part of the picture is to ignore what she says and writes. Further, if the concern wasn't about sexual assault, what then was it? She mentioned being sexualized in "that way" as a segue into explaining her fear of being mugged?

@Justicar. I agree. My comment about tone was a general one; I'm not a fan of using ridicule toward anyone, and that was the one thing that I always complained about with Dawkins. But I'm not complaining now. This was brilliant, simply brilliant. And he was absolutely right; the threat was nonexistent, and the incident was "zero bad." It was a publicity stunts from someone who has nothing to offer but publicity stunts.

I think this is the part where we're supposed to hug it out or something.

I'm not entirely familiar with the netiquette of someone agreeing with me.

Justicar, I'm going to riff on some of your earlier thoughts, post #897 in particular:

I think the problem of introducing politics to the atheism or skepticism movement is two-pronged: The first is the exclusionary issue that comes with losing those with minority political views because some people think that they should use the stage (or blog) as a place to grandstand and cast hellfire down upon all who disagree. The second issue is does this belong here?

I am not opposed in principle to the idea of various atheists and/or skeptics taking on social issues and the skeptic movement taking on the role of a record label that promotes various 'artists' who use it in part as a forum to get contributions to charity or something along those lines, assuming it is done correctly. I feel that doing so at a conference, during speeches, is by necessity going to be exclusionary because the audience will share a political leaning with certain speakers that will give them an advantage and may react unkindly to those who disagree. For example, if Watson was to propose donating to a charity that supports shelters for battered women she would receive a lot of support. (I would support such a charity, for the record.) If Hell froze over (or I had my PhD) and I was speaking and suggested donating to a charity which gave battered women handguns accompanied by handgun defense courses to help prevent future abuse I would likely be booed off the stage, and if not, would be razed during the Q&A for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with any facts relating to that matter.

For that matter, if I was to advocate for donating money to groups that are trying to save the California desert from being destroyed in the name of 'green' energy by massive, inefficient solar farms and state that I was in favor of doing away with all of that in favor of rooftop solar there is a good chance a schism would result that would light up the atheist blogosphere with a war between the 'STOP GLOBAL WARMING AT ALL COSTS' crowd and the wilderness preservation crowd. And this is a problem. The skeptic movement should not get consumed in a global warming debate of this variety as it has nothing to do with skepticism or atheism -- except perhaps skepticism about the use of stimulus money to destroy wilderness -- and should focus on more relevant topics like debunking global warming denialism.

I think that a more reasonable 'record label' approach would be for conference websites to include a bio on each speaker and list their favored charity, social movement, etc. in said bio and include a few useful links for anyone interested. If a person finds something distasteful they're free to ignore it rather than being beaten over the head with it and feeling the need to argue about the issue and muddy up conferences. Not only does it prevent people from using their speaking time as a bully pulpit rather than sticking to the assigned subject, it also helps prevent those who happen to support unorthodox charities from being harangued during or after their speech.

By the way, Justicar, I found this comment interesting:

"Being made to think of myself of some kind of emotionally vulnerable group requiring kid gloves before I can brave all the adults in the room puts me off. Before I found out that my gayness was an issue requiring special sensitivity in atheist groups, I was perfectly capable of walking into one without thinking about being a gay atheist. Now, I guess I should wear a sign so you people know to pity my poor lot in life."

It reminded me of a comment a Middle Eastern scholar made some time back (on a message board) on the culture of the gay rights movement: He spoke of a famous Arab poet (whose name unfortunately escapes me) who was known for writing various love poems about men. In the past he was known as a great Arab poet because his poems were quality work irregardless of whether he was writing about women or men. He has lately been co-opted (in Arabic studies academic culture, at least) by the gay rights movement as a gay poet. He posed the question, "A great gay poet or a great Arab poet - which is more inclusive?"

I don't really have any particular problems with what you've said here (except irregardless [sic]; that means, literally "with regard"). Let's say Rebecca Watson is speaking at a meeting. Everyone knows her issues. Having a short bio that includes that is perfectly fine in my book - Rebecca Watson supports kitties international, a no-kill pet sanctuary, and our lady of battered housewives halfway house, for whom she actively campaigns to raise money and awareness.

This is pretty boilerplate level stuff that attends many introductions - a short bio on work, interests and areas of expertise. I hate listening to them as I'd rather hear the speaker talk than to hear someone talk about the speaker, but I get that it's marketing for the speaker so I shut up and sit through it. No real heartburn there anymore than having a couple of seconds tacked onto every commercial to read off its website. Part of the game. No biggie.

I could even see a subpanel set of events that are scheduled in between bigger events where people can discuss different aspects atheists from different walks of life have to contend with. It's good to be well-rounded, and I'm all for learning something.

But when I go to a meeting to listen to a speech that has a title and a theme and then get entreated to something else, it pisses me off. Don't fucking advertise buy one get one free if it's really buy 20, get the next ten free. I don't like being backed into something to which I didn't earlier agree to. It's rude to say the least.

And unprofessional.

Look at how Dawkins manages to slip in little bits here and there without detracting from his venue. He mentions feminism and feminists quite often. As an example of ways in which we can marshal arguments. He doesn't co-opt an entire talk and do that. It's a line here, a line there, it's matter of factly put and moved on from. No heartburn there either.

But to go from something like that to a "atheism should adopt" and add in whatever pet project you want is too far. For one, there is nothing about atheism that entails any political issues beyond secularism (which is more important than atheism in my opinion anyway). It shouldn't be a sexist organization, but that isn't the same as saying it should be an organization that has as a mission statement the conquering of this social problem. Nor should it be lobbying for my right to marry my insignificant other. I appreciate that most atheists think that way, but it's not necessary that they do, and I don't think it's helpful to the atheism movements.

If a right wing conservative fag-hating atheist is still working towards having religion taken out of government, we have a common goal. Why must it be that his/her failing to adopt all of my other positions should somehow retard progress on a common goal?

Like I said: so long as the convention isn't advocating my death, or whatever, I am perfectly fine with its never coming up. Atheism is kind of a one trick pony.

Besides, if we manage to get religion put in check, a great deal of these other social problems kind of have a way of taking care of themselves. And the right wing conservative fag-hater I imagined, well, people die and are replaced by a new generation. The younger crowd are fairly ok with gays being married and in the military and women being presidents and all that. Of course I want the marriage rights RIGHT NOW. But that isn't the universe I live in. Social progress of this kind takes a long time, and the gay movement has had an unusually steep slope to its progress anyway.

It sucks for *me*, but my interests aren't the only ones in question here. There are those who will live in the world I leave behind after I'm dead. If I'm smart, patient and persistent, that world can be better than one I live in, and it's perfectly fine with me if I don't get to enjoy its fruits. I'll gladly deal with the heartache if the next generation has no one who will.

To shoot myself and everyone who comes after me in the foot because I'm a petulant child is not being a good steward for those come after me.

I had the student newspaper interview me once on being a gay person. That annoyed me. I'm a person first. After that, it also happens to be true that I'm gay. And a lot of other things. I guess I'm just not so much the provincial thinker that other people are. Meh.

Justicar:

Thanks for the correction on improper use of the word.

As for this:

"But to go from something like that to a "atheism should adopt" and add in whatever pet project you want is too far. For one, there is nothing about atheism that entails any political issues beyond secularism (which is more important than atheism in my opinion anyway). It shouldn't be a sexist organization, but that isn't the same as saying it should be an organization that has as a mission statement the conquering of this social problem. Nor should it be lobbying for my right to marry my insignificant other. I appreciate that most atheists think that way, but it's not necessary that they do, and I don't think it's helpful to the atheism movements."

Nail on the head.

As for the right-wing conservative fag hating atheist bit: I realize you're just trying to illustrate a point, but I do think it's worth noting that a statistics blog I used to read posted a study a couple of years back that tracked opposition to gay rights across political and social boundaries; long story short atheists who self-identified as 'conservative' or even 'Republican' tended to share the same views on gay rights issues (by percentage) with the more liberal demographics. Unsurprisingly (to me, at least), religiosity was the prime factor which could be used to determine religious views with politics being present but secondary. (In other words, someone who was self-described as 'extremely religious' AND conservative was more likely to hate gays than someone who self-described as extremely religious and liberal.)

I'll see if I can dig up the link, but I have my doubts as I can't recall the name of the blog.

Oh, don't go out of your way. It was a hypothetical, so the stats won't change that.

Justicar @900

It's not disingenuous, there is a difference. I don't know who, or what you are. I don't know what do you think. I can't. Telepathy is not one of my skills. All I have is what you do and/or say. So all I can do, and in fact, I must do is to argue with what you say. I can only engage your arguments. And your arguments don't give me the full picture of who or what you are. They don't tell me where you came from, what your experiences were. I can't say though that you are or are not this or that. So it doesn't matter. What matter are your arguments. And when I engage your arguments, I'm just doing that, I'm not engaging you, personally.
Besides, people are not straight lines. People are messy, and can and do have contradictions. Rational people can say and behave irrationally sometimes. One can be liberal about some issues and conservative on others. People can sincerelly believe themselves are not doing bigotry when they are. So, to say something like: as I'm not misoginystic, I'm don't claim to be one, I don't see myself this way, then nothing I say, or do, can be labelled as misoginy, is a fallacy. A red herring. Instead of clarify or defend ones arguments, defend oneself as if it was a pesonal atack.

If I give a six hour long speech and put in, "And all niggers should be executed" does this become less bad because it wasn't the whole of my speech?

If and when you give such a speech we may talk about it. Here we're talking about a 1 min of an 8+ min video that don't have the slightest resemblance to your hypothetical 6h speech. That you, as many, choose not to address the real case to make a point, but keep coming with such hypothetical 'what ifs' it's telling. QED too.

bluharmony @904

The reason women replied is twofold: (1) Rebecca doesn't speak for all women

Neither do you, don't you? But maybe this need some clarification: I'm not surprised that women disagree with women. I'm surprised by the amount of misoginy, and sexism coming from women toward women, the mischaracterizations, distortions. Maybe I should not be surprized but I am.

...and (2) she's dead wrong.
What happened to Watson IS NOT OBJECTIFICATION....

Well, now that's a disagreement don't you think? There is such a thing as "objetification" at all? If yes, what it is? What counts and what doesn't? For you it seems it only can happens, if it does at all, in strip clubs and similar places. Many women seem to disagree with you. I tend to disagree also, but need some clarification here.

It may be inappropriate, and Watson is free to say what she prefers, but she can't speak for all of us.

Neither do you. But she can speak for herself, doesn't she? That's what she did, as far as I can tell.

Having a different view on this matter is not misogyny (hatred of women) or anywhere near it.

I'm sorry, but I'm not so sure on that. It seems to be part of the broad disagreement on this whole issue. I may be wrong but I don't see misoginy as a black or white, take or leave kind of issue. It's a spectrum. Where's the demarcation line? Unless one declares plainly and openly ones hatred of women, including a T-shirt saying 'women sucks', or something, we cannot point out misoginy? If that's the case, then we can say that misoginy practicaly don't exist. I don't think so. Things are more subtle, and insidious. Like this:

Though most common in men, misogyny also exists in and is practiced by women against other women or even themselves. Misogyny functions as an ideology or belief system that has accompanied patriarchal, or male-dominated societies for thousands of years and continues to place women in subordinate positions with limited access to power and decision making

I think I agree with that (what doesn't mean I can't change my mind), so maybe it's not unfair to call misoginy on some statements over this issue, as Watson and others did.

And no, if she were raped, none of us would defend the rapist.

Oh.. Really? "Us" who may I ask? Well, as I've said, it's a feeling yes, but it's not as if blame the victim have never happened ever.

All we have is an accusation thrown out into thin air without any corroboration.

I may have missed this "accusation" part. Do you have a quote?

..I welcome all requests for coffee in an elevator. And if I'm in a bar until 4AM, I welcome all men to proposition me because I'm probably looking for some company...

Really? Glad to know. I would take a note of that if I was sinlge. But, so what? Yes, many women don't mind been hit anytime, anywhere. Some like to have sex with anyone, anytime, anywhere. Some even like to be beatten during sex. So because of that Watson don't have a legitimate issue to complain about?

And if it's a rapist doing the talking, then it doesn't matter what he says or if he speaks at all; he'll rape me anyway unless I take some responsibility for my own safety.

Hhmm, like what exactly? Don't be at bars late at night? Don't be alone with strangers in elevators? To dress "properly"? To have the "right" behaviour? To carry a gun? To have body combat training? Seriously, I need to know if I'm missing some advice I must give to my 16yo daughter, beyond what her mother and I already gave, and give every time she leaves home.

I didn't like that PZ's post either, and ever mentioned it. What's the point? It's sexist but it's not misoginystic? Would help me more if you give some examples of what misoginy, and/or objetification, actualy is. Telling me what it's not doesn't help.

We agree on the rudeness and stupidity (a fine example of a very smart guy been very stupid) of Dawkins' remarks. But I don't follow why you are bringing this. It's because of the "Dawkins sake" joke? Bad humor perhaps, but it doesn't mean I'm throwing his books I have on fire. I don't need to agree with someone every time on every issue.

ERV @905

See if this looks like a point to you:
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2011/07/bad_form_rebecca_watson.php#comment-4496344

Cheers

"And if it's a rapist doing the talking, then it doesn't matter what he says or if he speaks at all; he'll rape me anyway unless I take some responsibility for my own safety."

Hhmm, like what exactly?

"Don't end up staggering around wankered at dawn in the inner city" is advice I'd give to anyone.
It's mine to my own kids, and indeed to myself.

Yep, that's a good advice.
But, now let's be more specific: to stay until 4 am, after a conference, at a hotel bar, drinking, and chating with a group of people with similar ideas and ideals, then went to your room, anouncing that you're going to sleep, it's ok, or it qualifies as "end up staggering around wankered at dawn in the inner city"?

In reply to EC #937.

Your rebuttal includes false equivalencies, or asocciations. Most importantly, you are making the implicit assumption that EG is a rapist. If he is known to not be a rapist, and in this instance he is most certainly known to not be a rapist, heck, he wasn't even pushy -- he presumably accepted No for an answer -- then your equivalency is false.

I know I did not argue that well. Perhaps a more eloquent or skilled rhetorician can improve on it for me?

Just a thought about marshalling arguments and diminishing the impact of white female and feminists privilege from co-opting the debate.

Males need to identify the sexual abuses in their childhood in order to gain any advantage in such a discussion--men have to understand the primacy of rape fear starting with themselves.

Otherwise, the loudest mouths take the prize, not the truth, or wisdom, or statistical fact.

I was trying to harness some of the anger that I feel about womens dismissals of womens violence as having a place in the discussion. This below is a bit of my response to one such woman ( who actually kind of gets it)

"...on the feminist bingo board, men with actual knowledge of the abuse that women perpetrateânot on huge grown men who are potential rapists, but the violence that women perpetrate on little boys who canât speak for themselves--is dismissed as men having :mother issues," rather than an acknowledgement of womens violence and power-rape.

But let me give you a clue about things that I am not alone in feeling, remembering, or experiencing as a YOUNG male, before I had to re-experience womenâs rape anxiety and its projections, and its violence perpetrated against MY voice, I am certain I was raped dozens of times before the age of ten: If I NEVER have another auntie âhug meâ while smashing her double Dâs so deeply in my face that I literally could not breathe, I will be a man who can hear you; If I never have another woman stand there and shame me with my pants down or my red-slapped face in a corner because she ran out of language to discuss spilled milk with a four year old, I will get i; If Inever haveto see the neighbor woman fondling her sons penis through the crack in thedoor, while she âbabysitsâ me, I can learn to listen to you; and if I never ever have another woman pinch the tip of my dick so hard that I cryâbecause I wet myself at three, I will understand your fears; and if I never ever have to face that wall, or stay in my room for a whole day because what I said about mom and the post man in front of dad, I will hear you, too.

But for now, I have had enough of talking about rape anxiety, and not hearing about the horrors that little boys face when they are too small to rape, or fight against the female rapists that raise them.

And I sincerely hope you can learn to listen too, and putyour fear and rage aside long enough to actually begin to solve the problem that creates rapists. You know, after all, some 30% to 80% of rapists report that they were sexually and physically abused by women when they were little boys. You can look the stat up yourselfâthat is if you actually care about the issue, and arenât just ârambling onâ to get attention.

I mean rape is about power, right? Sure, âcall the baby sitter, will ya hon? Mom needs to get out out of the house tonightâ; that house often a scene of these unreported crimes.

And sorry Virginia, but womenâs violence has EVERYTHING to do with the discussion.

JG @938

you are making the implicit assumption that EG is a rapist.

Maybe, but only as much as dustbubble @936 was making the implicit assumption that Rebbeca was "staggering around wankered at dawn in the inner city". That you call out my implicit assumption but not dustbubble's it's telling.

That EG accepted a NO for an answer is not something he deserves a medal for, as he shouldn't have asked her, that way, in that circunstances, in the first place. Period.

EC: Why not? I agree he doesn't deserve a medal, that's the minimum standard of acceptable behavior, but I've yet to see anyone actually make a cogent case that there is anything wrong with asking. Sorry, but fuck you, an honest question, honestly asked, is never wrong. We have no evidence to suggest it was any other kind of question, so there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking it. Period.

Rystefn @941

If you see nothing wrong in ask a woman for sex, when you're alone with her, in an elevator, where she can't scape (you said something about honesty?), at 4 am, without have ever exchange a word with her before, ignoring her declared wishes to go to bed, sleep....well...then there's nothing I can said to you further, as you seem to think that any man is entitled to ask any woman for sex anytime, anyway, anywhere, HE pleases, no matter her feelings and wishes may be.
Really, there's not a "cogent case" I can make that will change your mind in the slightest.

Eneraldo Carneiro @942
Wait, did Watson tell EG that she wanted to sleep, or had she never exchanged a word with him before?
Hotel elevators in Ireland that are equipped with both cameras and alarm buttons are places one needs to be able to escape from, if they are politely asked for coffee?
I agree, there is not a cogent case that *you* can make to change my mind, either. That doesn't mean there is no case that can change my mind, however.

Wareyin @ 943

sigh
Yes, and yes. What part did you missed?
To ask "politely for a coffee" to a woman you did never spoke a single word before, in an elevator, when alone with her, at 4 a.m., ignoring her previus stated wish to go to her room to sleep, is not polite by definition.
As you seems oblivious of what is going on I'm not sure what do you think the case is.

So Rebecca never talked to EG before the elevator, but she explicitly told him that she was tired and wanted to sleep. How can you tell someone something without talking to them? Did she hold up a sign?
Yes, I must be missing something here.

And EG was in the same building.

As far as we know, he didn't follow her there, so if he hadn't spoken to her before, how would be manage to speak to her at all, if not while standing there with nothing to do with another person in the lift?

Sign language?

And did EG hear RW's "previus stated wish to go to her room to sleep"?

And what if the answer could have been "How about tomorrow, I get up for breakfast at 8am, see you there?" if she was just tired but no other reason for "no" existed?

And what, exactly, is wrong about asking politely and accepting "no" as an answer?

"If you see nothing wrong in ask a woman for sex"

What, exactly, is wrong about asking a woman for sex? Is it dirty? Unnatural?

And where exactly does "Don't take this the wrong way, I want to talk to you some more, how about a coffee" get translated into "Lets fuck"?

"where she can't scape"

RD already answered that: the emergency stop.

And doesn't she have knees? If you smack a bloke in the nuts, does he not cringe?

"you seem to think that any man is entitled to ask any woman for sex anytime"

What, exactly is wrong with that?

And where, exactly, was that stated?

Or are you hearing the words you expect to hear, not the ones being said? It's rather easy to get het up when you're making both sides of the conversation.

Eneraldo Carneiro, I think you mentioned that English is not your first language, so I will help you out a little here. If English is your first language, maybe you can follow my logic.
Rebecca Watson claims that she never spoke to elevator guy, but she (and you) also claims that elevator guy ignored her wishes to go to sleep. How do you think elevator guy knew that RW wanted to go to sleep, when RW says she had not talked to him? You are blaming him for not respecting wishes he could have been unaware of.
That makes the rest of your qualifiers silly.

I am starting to think that this event never even happened, anyway. I've seen that Rebecca Watson has put out another video, but her story is changing. That makes it sound like a fabrication, to me.

Wow @946

And where exactly does "Don't take this the wrong way, I want to talk to you some more, how about a coffee" get translated into "Lets fuck"?

Planet Earth, Adults Land.

What, exactly, is wrong about asking a woman for sex? Is it dirty? Unnatural?...

It depends on the circunstances. To kill can be right or wrong. In war, or self-defense, right, otherwise in general, wrong. Circunstances. Dirty? Yes, it can be. Unnatural? If you are a stupid moron I can't say it's unnatural, as to be stupid is the nature of stupid people.
But...hey?! I thought it was not a sex proposition, "just a coffee" right?

And what if ...

What if we have an actual adult mature conversation, for a change?

RD already answered that: the emergency stop.

So, the elevator stops, between floors, where she can't scape. Brilliant.

And doesn't she have knees? If you smack a bloke in the nuts, does he not cringe?

Some krav-maga training would be handy! But, hey! To smack a bloke in the poor little guy's nuts would be VERY sexist! Not allowed.

Wareyin @947

I'm brazillian, portuguese speaker.

How do you think elevator guy knew that RW wanted to go to sleep, when RW says she had not talked to him?

He was an attendee of the conference she was a speaker, so he would have one of those "badges" (I'm not sure if thats how you call this) hanging around his neck, with his name, and maybe picture on it. Ha may be easily around the group she was in in the hotel bar listening to the conversation but without engaging in it. As I would if in the group were someone as Dawkins and PZ Myers. She may as easily have aknowledge him around and knew he was listening. And she may even sopoted him in the audience of speech she gave earlier. If he wasn't an attendee that wouldn't be a problem of the "skeptical community", in the first place.
Of course I'm rellying on her acount of the incident. I have no reason to doubt it. It's not an unusual human male behaviour.
I saw the new video and no, she didn't change versions, she just sumarise refering to the comments she recceived. Unless you want her to use the same exact words of the previous one, in wich case I would be the one suspicious.

Eneraldo, according to Jennifer Oullette Elevator Guy was "an intoxicated Irish guy". I haven't figured out where she got this specific information but PZ approvingly linked to it recently so I presume it must be accurate. It's also rather curious. If the guy was a drunk Irish guy then are we 100% certain that he was a delegate at the conference and not some dopey businessman who just happened to be staying at the same hotel and who decided to try a dodgy chat-up line?
I come from Dublin and it's not a big town geographically. Most Irish atheists probably already live in that city and would not have required a hotel room.

Sigmund

I've read Oullette's piece, and it's not about EG incident only, when she talk about it, it's briefly, she's focused more on the reaction internetwise, than in the incident itself. So I don't rely so much on her acuracy in particular, and I don't think PZ does.
Watson's original account doesn't mention, as far as I remember, if the guy was "intoxicated". However, she says that she had been drinking herself, so if he was hanging around looking for an oportunity to show his charm and seduction skills, it's suposed that he may have been drinking too, I don't know...
Anyway I may be wrong, but I don't think this is so relevant after all.

Eneraldo, you are guessing when you say he was an attendee. You are guessing when you say he may have been in the group, listening. You are guessing when you say she may have spotted him in the crowd at her speech, earlier. And yet you are blaming EG for all these things that you are only guessing that he did. Do you see the problem?

RW also admits that she was drinking? That makes her testimony even less reliable. And when her first claim is that he invited her back to his room for coffee after saying "Don't take this the wrong way", but her second claim is that he sexually cornered her, then she changed her story.

I'm an adult on planet Earth. If I invite someone to drink coffee, that does not mean I am inviting them for sex. Maybe you can't converse with a woman without only having sex on your mind, but that is not a problem for all men.

I also wanted to point out that for Rebecca Watson, youtube comments are a problem with the "skeptical community", even though to the rest of us, they are a problem only with the "youtube community".

"Eneraldo, according to Jennifer Oullette Elevator Guy was "an intoxicated Irish guy"."

A tautology, surely?

And the only odd thing about the situation with this information added in is that it wasn't a pint offered: the Irish seem almost pathologically disposed to buying drinks. IMO, most fights in an Irish bar are over who's going to buy the next pint (the winner getting to buy the drinks).

"And where exactly does "Don't take this the wrong way, I want to talk to you some more, how about a coffee" get translated into "Lets fuck"?
"Planet Earth, Adults Land.""

No, Planet Testosterone, Dick-followers Land. Just because YOU can't keep your pecker in your pocket doesn't mean every bloke is as dangerous a sex pest as you.

"But...hey?! I thought it was not a sex proposition, "just a coffee" right?"

Well at least you're now admitting it wasn't a demand for sex.

Now, given you insist that it's circumstances that make sex dirty, what circumstances would make it dirty here; and, since you have to assess all circumstances, what makes it non-dirty.

No circular reasoning, please. We're skeptics, not religious kooks.

Wareyin @944

And yet you are blaming EG for all these things that you are only guessing that he did. Do you see the problem?

Now this is getting sillier. Unless I'm missing (due to my louzy english) some obscure meaning of 'to blame', I hardly see how can somebody be "blamed" for been an attendee in a conference, or for been around listening to a group's conversation.
You ask me this question:

How do you think elevator guy knew that RW wanted to go to sleep, when RW says she had not talked to him?

And I've just give you an answer.

but her second claim is that he sexually cornered her,

No secound claim. Been hit inside an elevator = been sexually cornered. IMO.

If I invite someone to drink coffee, that does not mean I am inviting them for sex.

Ow, really? How exactly do you invite someone for sex? You just come out of the blue and say: 'hey, lets fuck?' I'm not very experienced, and I surely never was, nor I am, ever close to a PUA type, but I had some experiences and I, as far as I can recall, have never, ever directly invited any of my partners for sex. Surely never in the first time we had sex. Ever.
A female friend of mine was picked up once by a line like: "would you like to leave and have some beer?", or something like that. She accepted knowing that it was an invitation for sex, because they were drinking (and chating) already, but she couldn't resist to ask jokingly: "do you want to go to a hotel,right?". Context.
So, yes, nonetheless the loads of sweet, respectful, kind, caring, gentle guys like you and me around, I think a woman is pretty much authorized to interpret a line like: "I find you interesting and I would like to talk more, would you like to come to my hotel room for a coffee?" as an invitation for sex. Specially if they have never exchange a word before, and they are in an elevator, at 4 a.m.. Context matters.
When a man talks or approaches a woman without any sexual interest, I think he should avoid to say and do ANYTHING that could be interpreted as sexual interest, don't you think?
I know. It's tricky business. But can be learned. It helps to listten to what women themselves have to say about how, where, and when they like and don't like to be approached.

In Eneraldo @956

Where is

Wereryin @944

please read "Wereyin @952"

Thanks

Wow @955

Well at least you're now admitting it wasn't a demand for sex.

If you have nothing better to do than to fragrantly distort and misrepresent what one have said, or cannot engage in an argument without using such cheap and imcompetent tactics, I have no interest in pursue this conversation with you.
Go to the kindergarten and play with your little friends. It will be better for everyone. Maybe not for your little friends, I guess.

Sigmund@950

Eneraldo, according to Jennifer Oullette Elevator Guy was "an intoxicated Irish guy". I haven't figured out where she got this specific information but PZ approvingly linked to it recently so I presume it must be accurate.

So that would rule out Moss, because of the accent. It must have been Roy.

So that would rule out Moss, because of the accent. It must have been Roy.

Holy crap, it fits perfectly!

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

Eneraldo, maybe it is your English.
You have no idea that Elevator Guy knew Rebecca Watson wanted to sleep, so you make up a lot of reasons why he might have. That is a lot of maybes, not a lot of facts. If EG did not know she wanted to sleep, then he did not disregard her feelings. If he did not disregard her feelings, he was polite.
Asking someone to have coffee does not mean asking someone for sex. Period. Full stop. You say you aren't very experienced, and that shows.
A woman is allowed to interpret EG's invitation any way she wants to. That does not mean he was asking for anything but coffee and conversation.
The funny thing is, there are a lot of women posting here and other places who are saying your views are wrong. Are you listening to them? No one woman speaks for them all.

Eneraldo, when a man asks me for coffee in his hotel room because I'm interesting, my first assumption would be that he's asking me to drink coffee with him in his hotel room because I'm interesting. I appreciate that in romantic comedy movies coffee often seems to mean "sex" (although usually it turns out later that it doesn't, and there is thigh slapping and hilarity and comic misunderstandings) but in the reality I live in it usually means "it's 4am and if we want to talk without sounding like slurring idiots, we probably need caffeine."

I'm also not sure how people in other countries interpret phrase "Don't take this the wrong way" - I don't know if Americans use it or if it's specific to other cultures, but what it invariably means is, Please listen to the words I'm actually saying to you, I don't mean offence, I don't mean to be weird, I'm actually just saying something pretty bluntly. That to me is a fairly good way to stop someone assuming you have a "sexual interest" in them.

Nothing about EG's actions - even filtered through RW's femcult vision - suggests to me that he meant anything else.

And I don't even know why this is still an issue. No one knows anything about this guy and unfortunately everyone is not a psychic. You can make stuff up forever, suggesting what he meant and what he didn't, but the fact is that you don't know. The power of the question posed is that in the right/wrong hands it can be twisted to mean whatever anyone wants in this controversy, but you need to realise that you are now convicting someone on someone else's frankly dubious translation of an innocuous invitation.

Please take what I've said in this context: I'm just a woman and I have a different opinion from another woman. I'm not scared of men in elevators (I *am*, however, scared of elevators which is another issue entirely) and while I have preferences in how men interact with me I would not suggest that these would apply to all women.

Wereyin @961

you make up a lot of reasons why he might have.

As I said, to answer your question that implied that he may naver possibly know, as they didn't spoke each other before. Anyway, how's this game where you call me out for "guessing", when you do this all the time, as you dismiss the account of the only person that was actually there, and keep making excuses for a guy you don't know, in a situation you didn't witnessed either.

If EG did not know she wanted to sleep, then he did not disregard her feelings. If he did not disregard her feelings, he was polite.

To approach a woman you don't ever spoke before, when alone with her, inside an elevator, at 4 a.m., inviting her to your room is unpolite, and creepy, no matter what words do you use to wrap it up. And it doesn't shows much regard for her feelings as well. IMO. It doesn't matter if he heard she was going to sleep or not, as at 4 a.m. this would be a very reasonable assumption.

You say you aren't very experienced, and that shows

As, I've said already, so teach me. How exactly do you invite someone for sex? What exact words (and I mean words only, without non-verbal communication) do you use to unambiguously make yourself clear? I'm really curious.

A woman is allowed to interpret EG's invitation any way she wants to.

And that's what Rebbeca did: she just expressed her feelings (unconfortable, creepy) about an incident that happened to HER, and asked people not to do that, but you dismiss that all the time. Your hypocrisy shows.

there are a lot of women posting here and other places who are saying your views are wrong. Are you listening to them? No one woman speaks for them all.

Nobody claims to speak for "all", so what? Unless there are 100% consensus among women, Rebbeca should STFU? I don't speak for "all" men so I should STFU? Well, if that's the criteria, as YOU don't speak for all men STFU you sir.

Rayshul @962

Bolds added

...when a man asks me...my first assumption...in the reality I live in...

I think I can give you, for now, the benefit of the doubt here, that you are not intentionally been obtuse, and that you really live in a reality where what people say is ALWAYS what they meant, and where ALL men ALWAYS take an "no" for an answer. A reality where women are not raped or sexualy harassed, and where there are no sexual predators, or, if there are some, at least they carry some kind of sign that allow women to spot them at distance, or are easily identifiable somehow. A reality where the police doesn't need to advice women to avoid been alone with a strange man in an elevator. I'm so much glad that YOU live in such a place and time, that if it's not a secret I would know where on Earth it is.

Anyway, the point I want to make is that, and please, please, don't take this personaly (especially as pretty much every women against RB seems to be making this), the point is that this is not about YOU. It's not about YOU we're talking. It's not about YOU we should talk.

I mean, of course you may have a whole lot of experiences to share, and I pretty much would appreciate to hear about them: cases where you were approached, both properly and improperly, things that men say that turn you on/down, approaches that make you unconfortable and creepy, ones that make you jump, anything. You, and any other women in this conversation, should do then your own videoblogs with all this interesting stuff. If you will, of course. Then we can talk about YOU.

But here, now we're talking about a particular experience of a particular woman, who express her feelings about it. No experience that you may had, in any way demean hers, or entitle you to be dismissive about it.
You say

I'm just a woman and I have a different opinion from another woman.

And I really fail to see where this difference lies. You were not there, you didn't witness the incident, did you? So there is little you can talk about doesn't it? And certainly you are not entitled to say anything whatsoever about Rebbeca's feelings, are you? It' not up to you to say how she should or should not have felt. It's just not up to you, or anybody else for that matter.

To approach a woman you don't ever spoke before, when alone with her, inside an elevator, at 4 a.m., inviting her to your room is unpolite, and creepy, no matter what words do you use to wrap it up.

(...)

Nobody claims to speak for "all", so what?

(...)

Your hypocrisy shows.

Indeed.

Eneraldo, wow. You got STFU from my posts? Where? I can't find it.
You obviously have no idea how to interact with people, based on your posts here. You want to be taught how to ask for sex? Why don't you go ask RE how to ask a woman for sex? She seems to be someone you think you can learn from, and she must be one of the few women you might listen to.
At least you bothered to add IMO in your post. Now if you can just learn that others have equally valid opinions about when and where they are allowed to talk, we'll be making progress. Maybe even *more* valid opinions, since we may have actually had experience.

Re my post @966:
I meant to tell Eneraldo to ask RW (Watson) how to ask a woman for sex. My phone's autocorrect does not like those abbreviations! (STFU, RW, IMO)

Eneraldo @964:
Seriously? You are telling us that Rebecca's interpretation of one (made-up?) approach by one (imaginary?) guy should tell us all how we are not allowed to approach any woman, while also telling Rayshul (a woman) that since she wasn't there, she, as a woman, can't say how she feels about being asked for coffee? Really?

Are you some 15 year old kid trying to prove his feminist cred so that the girls at school will have sex with you? Really, every time you decide that the only reason to interact with a woman is to have sex, it shows how *you* are, not every other guy out there who might actually want to talk to a woman over coffee without any sex at all.

Wareyin @966

You obviously have no idea how to interact with people, based on your posts here. You want to be taught how to ask for sex?

No thanks. I've figured it out myself years ago, but I appreciate your concern. That's not the point. The point is that you claim that EG's hit on Rebbeca, when their're alone, in an elevator, at 4 a.m., can't possibly be interpreted as a 'hit on', right? He said that he finds her "interesting", and invited her for "a coffee" in his room. You claim that this may not be interpreted as having any sexual conotation, or impication. More. Given your's, and other's, outrage, it's even preposterous to interpret things that way, right? That means that this is not the usual way a man interested in sex would approach a woman, that a man sexualy interested in a woman wouldn't say: "I find you interesting, would you like to come to my hotel room for a coffee?", because this must be taken as just an inocent invitation for coffee, nothing more, nothing less. And the fact that this was inside an elevator, at 4 a.m., and that they never exgange a word before means nothing. If that is so, I just ask you for an example of how an actual sex invitation would look like to make a comparison, but you carefully avoid to answer this simple direct question. You do so because "I find you interesting, would you like to come to my hotel room for a coffee?" is what a man could, and would say to express sexual interest. So you are been disingenuous and intentionaly obtuse, what qualifies you to go to play with Wow on the playground.
Another way to show this is the case is this: if to say "I find you interesting, would you like to come to my hotel room for a coffee?" doesn't have any possible sexual conotation, then this particular choice of words is gender neutral and would be used in an interaction between people of the same sex, isn't it? How is it? Is it common for a heterosexual male to approach another male, with whom he'd never spoken before, in an elevator, at 4 a.m., saying that he finds the other one "interesting" (is this a word straight males commonly use to refer to each other?), and he would invites him for a coffee in his room? Is it common for strange people, that have never spoken to each other before, to meet and , out of the blue, one invite the other to his/her place?
I don't think so. No way a straight male would say to another male that he finds him "interesting". Never. Ever. Unless, males have a very different behaviour where you came from. What I don't believe for a secound.

Why don't you go ask RE how to ask a woman for sex?

She did tell how NOT to do already, but you won't listen don't you?

Wareyin @968

Seriously? You are telling us that Rebecca's interpretation of one (made-up?) approach by one (imaginary?) guy

Seriously, if you want to follow this path to claim that the whole incident was made up by Rebbeca then we have nothing to discuss further don't you think?

should tell us all how we are not allowed to approach any woman,

That's a strawman and you know it, but you can't avoid it because your claims depends on the mischaracterization of the incident. You simply can't address it as it was.

while also telling Rayshul (a woman) that since she wasn't there, she, as a woman, can't say how she feels about being asked for coffee? Really?

Another mischaraterization. Intentional. As I've said Rayshul can and may say how she feels about been asked for coffee or anything else wherever and whenever she wants to. The point is that this simply tells me how Rayshul (whomever she is) feels, but nothing about Rebbeca's feelings. Because Rayshul is a woman that don't entitle her to say how another woman should've felt on something. Neither does Rebbeca of course. The difference is that she didn't do that.

Are you some 15 year old kid....

Your attempts to piss me off are pathetic, and childish.

it shows how *you* are, not every other guy out there who might actually want to talk to a woman over coffee without any sex at all.

Of course. And that's some piece of advice you would give to a daughter of yours: 'don't worry about strangers, you can and may talk to them anytime, anywhere', 'if a stranger approaches you in an elevator, without anybody else around, late at night, and invites you to go to his place for a coffee, a coffee is all that he possibly wants, 'cause, men are always straight, and honest', and 'if you say no to a man, anytime, you need no worry because all men ALWAYS take no for an answer'.

Eneraldo, you have a hard time reading English, don't you? Either that, or you are very dishonest. I never claimed that EG's approach to Rebecca, if it even happened, could not possibly be interpreted as "hit on". I claimed that "hit on" is not the only way to interpret it.

You go on and on about me mischaracterizing the argument, while distorting and outright lying about what I actually wrote in the comments preceding yours. I can't and didn't edit them. They are still there. Reread them. Anyone else looking in here can, and will see exactly who the dishonest, strawman debater is here.

I'm sorry that your posts come off as a 15 year old, inexperienced kid trying to prove how feminist he is to get laid. You have admitted to having little experience, so I thought that a young age was the most charitable way of interpreting that. So you imply you are not 15? Are you now claiming to be older? If so, maybe your lack of experience could be caused by something else, possibly being creepy?

Another point you seem to be purposefully missing, Eneraldo, is that Rebecca is changing her story. Her first recorded telling of this story had EG saying "Don't take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more. Would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?" The story has now dropped the "talk more" bit. One has to wonder, how can EG talk more with Rebecca, if they had never talked before? I guess it makes sense to drop that part to make the story sound better, huh? Especially if the story is either made up, or the result of a tired and or drunken memory (read likely distorted).

Oh, and I just noticed how you think "interesting" is something men never say to each other? Really? Wait, are you a poe?

Wareyin
I'm not the one having reading problems.
What I've said was:

I'm not very experienced, and I surely never was, nor I am, ever close to a PUA type, but I had some experiences and I, as far as I can recall, have never, ever directly invited any of my partners for sex. Surely never in the first time we had sex. Ever.

If you interpreted it as meaning "little experience" = 15 years old then you really are very fucking stupid. OEC kind of stupid.
That this is allegedly the "more charitable" interpretation you can think of it's also telling. Why is that? A "little experienced" man is either young or creepy? That's the only options? Again, why? Would it be because in the end of the day you are that kind of machist that thinks manhood is all about having as many pussy as possible? And that loves to brag about his conquests? Not been very experienced is demeaning in some way for a grown man? A man may necessarily have had unaccountable sex partners? There is a lower number? So a man that don't fits this model is a teen or a weirdo? If that's so, then all that talk that not all man are interested in sex when approaching a woman is just hypocritical bullshit of yours.
Or, the option I think is more probable, you're just a troll trolling.

I never claimed that EG's approach to Rebecca, if it even happened, could not possibly be interpreted as "hit on". I claimed that "hit on" is not the only way to interpret it.

Really? Then we agree that sex is not out of the picture. So it's legitimate that Rebbeca have interpreted things this way. And given that she was there, and you were not, who's the one entitled to make such judgment call? Not you troll.
"If it even happened"? Yeah, sure. She may have made it all up, but she couldn't fool you. You're too smart.

One has to wonder, how can EG talk more with Rebecca, if they had never talked before?

You mean, if they talked before, then he knew she was going to sleep and ignored it, and cornered her in the elevator, anyway regardless. Or else they didn't exchange a word before and he just cornered her in the elevator and invited her to his room, out of the blue, because he wanted to, and didn't care how she would feel about it. She felt it was inapropriate and creepy. That's enough to me.
But you claim that the whole story was made up, so you can keep dismissing it ploting as many scenarios as you need right? Well, be my guest. By now I'm a bit tired of feeding you troll, and I need to have some serious work done.
Keep playing, but take care, don't hurt yourself, and don't stole the stuff of the other kids, ok?
Good boy.

Cheers

"Then we agree that sex is not out of the picture. So it's legitimate that Rebbeca have interpreted things this way."

It is, however, a projection.

Thoughtcrime at one remove, as it were.

Given that "no" was the response and accepted, there's no EVIDENCE that sex was the correct interpretation.

And you know what really defines a SKEPTIC?

The demand for EVIDENCE.

Think on it.

Eneraldo, so sorry that I interpreted your claim of having little experience plus your ignorant interpretations as meaning you had little experience so were likely young.
It's now obvious to me that you came here tone trolling from phawrongula, as evinced by your love of obscure acronyms (PUA is one I've never seen before but must be even more rare for a non native english user). Congrats on accusing me of being a troll before I realized you just came here to mansplain and project your silly inexperienced understanding of human interactions onto others.
Maybe someday you will be around real women enough to know how little they like white knights.

Great post! Not only in its own right but as a comeback to PZ's dishonest shit-stirring and well-poisoning. I wish I'd been aware of it earlier.

Re: Wow

"And you know what really defines a SKEPTIC?
The demand for EVIDENCE."

Or another beer--and that knowing, motherly smile that denotes 'snugglin, and mebbe more--'", you dumbass femtard.