“Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.” -Louis Pasteur
Well, it's been another doozy of a week here on Starts With A Bang, and we've run the gamut from the far future to the smallest theoretical scales, from Hubble to the highest energies. If you missed anything, catch up on all of the following:
- The last light in the Universe (for Ask Ethan),
- Disney's Game of Thrones (for our Weekend Diversion),
- The most extreme view into deep space (for Mostly Mute Monday),
- The limit of what Hubble can see,
- String theory, black holes, and reality (a live-blog of the latest Perimeter Institute public lecture), and
- The most energetic particles (for Throwback Thursday).
In addition to all that, I had a new piece appear over at Forbes that the skeptical-minded among you may supremely enjoy:
You've all had your say over here; now let me pick out the best of them and do them justice right here for our Comments of the Week!
Image credit: Janella Williams, Penn State University, via http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2013-news/Luhman3-2013.
From Andrew Dodds, speculating as to the utility of brown dwarfs in the far future: "I’d guess that if there were civilizations still out there, a brown dwarf would be taken as a valuable prize to be mined and allowing a star to form seen as a great waste.. but I don’t think that can be taken into account!"
You know, it's interesting to think of what might be of utmost importance out there, in our galaxy's far future. Would you want the hydrogen from the brown dwarf, what might be a relatively rare element out there? Would you want to dive deep down, inside, and pull out the heavy elements past the sea of metallic hydrogen? Would you want the slow, low burn of deuterium fusion (which happens in brown dwarfs) to keep on going, perhaps outliving the M-dwarfs due to their low luminosity?
Image credit: MPIA / V. Joergens, via Joergens, Viki, 50 Years of Brown Dwarfs - From Prediction to Discovery to Forefront of Research, Astrophysics and Space Science Library 401, Springer, ISBN 978-3-319-01162-2.
I don't think you would, though. The prospect of using two sufficiently massive brown dwarf to create a true star -- a red dwarf -- is too great. The brown dwarfs cool down quickly, within the lifetime of our Universe already, and become virtually useless. Honestly, they're not much better than a Jupiter-like planet after a few billion years, and gas giant worlds are a dime-a-dozen. But consider what a red dwarf is. Where else, other than in a star, can you get a self-sustaining nuclear reactor that emits exa-Watts (look that prefix up, those of you who don't have it memorized) of energy on a consistent, continuous basis for literally trillions upon trillions of years?
Someone admonished me for my oversight in not coining the term red straggler, as two brown dwarfs merging -- and causing the ignition of hydrogen fusion -- would be exactly that. On timescales of ~10^15 years and up, this may be our best hope for light in our Universe, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Image credit: Anderson Mahanski, of the Mountain (Gregor Clegane) and the Red Viper (Oberyn Martell).
From Denier on Game of Thrones in the style of Disney: "My favorite is of Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane playing a happy game of ‘guess who it is’ with Prince Oberyn Martell."
It's very funny you say this, because although the books and the show diverge in a great many ways, the demise of Oberyn at the hands of Ser Gregor is practically identical in both treatments. Make no mistake: Oberyn -- like a great many "good guys" in Game of Thrones -- is no hero in his own right, he's merely the "less bad" guy when compared to the mountain.
Still, it's funny how, given human nature, we always find ourselves taking sides in a conflict like that. It reminds me a lot, honestly, of "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly," where all three main characters are bad guys to varying degrees, with no one of them being an out-and-out "good guy." In the Game of Thrones world, the closest we get to a good guy is Eddard Stark. And what do we get to see of that? We get to see Dark Helmet's words ring truer than ever:
So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team (inset) / NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team (main).
From Ragtag Media on visible light, infrared and visualization: "I feel that this simple visualization will be lost with the [infrared] [James] Webb one. Does anyone know with the [JWST], how much natural images we will we loose and have to rely on artist renditions?"
Part of the reason these images -- like the XDF and HUDF, above -- are so amazing is because they already go beyond what we can see in visible light! The HUDF image has two filters in the near infrared, at longer wavelengths than the human eye can perceive (by about 50 and 200 nm, respectively), and the XDF image goes all the way to 1.4 and 1.6 microns, or double what humans can see. You might be used to infrared images looking like this:
Image credit: Chris Fastie, from a link at http://publiclab.org/wiki/near-infrared-camera.
The middle image is false colored, the right image is more typical of what we display. But what's actually going on in an image? We assign color to various filters, and so it's only a question of what information we want to highlight. In visible light, we assign violet/blue to about 400 nm, red to 650-700 nm, and fill the spectrum in between. But James Webb will start about at 550 nm (yellow/green), and go all the way to... about 10 microns, or about 30 times the wavelength range that humans can see! (And less well out to about 30 microns, which would increase its range to around 90-100 times what we can see.)
Image credit: NASA / JWST science team.
How we color it is up to us, but if you -- for example -- like the images that Hubble returns, you can pretty much expect the same. Brian Koberlein wrote a great piece on image colorization for astrophotography that I suggest you check out if you want more information.
Image credit: NASA / Hubble team, via http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/farthest-galaxy.html.
From PJ on long-range interferometry: "I wonder, could another be built to use as an interferometer – say, with a baseline of several hundred Km.? Easier to achieve in space than the limitations of land based systems."
PJ, this is an excellent idea. Wouldn't you want another James Webb, another Hubble, another anything of your best telescope, to do interferometry? In fact, it's beyond an excellent idea: it's the ultimate plan for achieving the highest resolution information available. On the ground, we built a second Keck Telescope a little ways away to do long-baseline interferometry: two 10-meter-class telescopes that can talk to each other across great distances. And we've gone even farther than that. Think, if you will, of the aptly named Very Large Array and other incarnations of this based on the same concept.
Image credit: Architectural rendering of the now-completed Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer (MROI) delay-line facility and beam-combining laboratory, via http://spie.org/x25797.xml.
Long-baseline interferometry like this is incredibly useful. When you have a big telescope, you can see fainter objects because you can gather more light. You can also achieve higher resolution because you're collecting light over a larger area. Well, interferometry is like getting the resolution of a telescope the size of your baseline, but with the light-gathering power of the size of the actual telescope. It's a cheap, practical way of achieving those very high resolutions without breaking the bank to build a monster telescope.
There are synching issues that happen if these telescopes aren't at a fixed distance, however, which can be overcome, but only with great difficulty and expense. This is, by the way, the very methodology that the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration is using -- by combining a huge number of VLBI (very long baseline interferometry) stations around the world -- to hopefully get the very first image of the event horizon around a black hole: Sagittarius A* at the center of our Milky Way. Check back in about 8 years, and we may just have that image!
Image credit: screenshot from the perimeter institute live stream.
From four different individual commenters on Amanda Peet's
lecture on String Theory and a few of its more interesting/dubious claims...appearance. Oh.
"If Amanda Peet believes in string theory, then I’m in. She’s got that girl-next-door vibe while smoking hot at the same time."
"Not the Amanda Peet you’re thinking of, I’m afraid. http://individual.utoronto.ca/amandapeet/"
"don’t know if you’re thinking of the same Amanda Peet, but this Amanda is far from hot, in fact, she’s trying desperately to look like a man. … hair.. clothing.. body language…"
"Whats wrong http://individual.utoronto.ca/amandapeet/? Is it her knowledge and wisdom that scares you off ? There might be a possibility that not everyone agrees on your definition of hot!"
I don't know how many of you know this, but there's a huge, systematic problem that I've seen firsthand in physics (and to a lesser extent, astronomy) departments all across the world and in particular all across the United States: the problem that women in this field are judged first for their appearances and then second for their actual merits in the field. In fact, I wrote a lengthy post about this a couple of years ago, one I might have to bring back and revamp for a Throwback Thursday soon.
Why? Because very, very clearly, it's still a problem.
Image credit: UK National Commission for UNESCO, http://www.unesco.org.uk/.
It would be super easy for me to ignore these comments and focus instead on something else, like the relevant, work-related comments that you made. But -- as someone who both has a unique (and perhaps unusual) appearance and gets to go through life without being harshly judged because of it -- I kind of have a responsibility to speak up for those who are judged harshly (and super unfairly) because of theirs.
I don't think any of you who did this are bad people, and I don't think any of you meant to make anyone feel bad. But here's what I want you to take away: every time you do this -- every time you pass judgment on someone in any field on anything other than their merits and skill in that field -- you're treating them as though they're less valuable, intrinsically, than someone who you would judge solely on their skill and merits. If you don't intend to treat women as though they're automatically less valuable than men, then don't pass judgment on their appearance, life choices, or anything other than their merits. It's that simple, and anything less than that simple, basic form of decency makes this world a less equal place to live.
Image credit: Boyle, P.J. arXiv:0810.2967 adapted from Croninet al.
And finally, one last physics comment, from Andreas on the GZK cutoff and the highest energy cosmic rays: "There’s a thing which was not mentioned in this very interesting article and I’ve been wondering about: redshift. If the ultra-high energy particles have been created millions to billions of lightyears away, due to expansion of space, they should exhibit a much lower energy now than when they’ve been created. I suppose this means that they must originate from somewhere relatively close to us or else the GZK cutoff would have bitten them relatively early, right?"
It's actually a little more sophisticated than this. Yes, we can assume that if there are particles hitting us above the 5 × 10^19 eV energy threshold -- something not observed by the best, most accurate, most recent cosmic ray observatories at all, like Pierre Auger -- they must be originating somewhere closer than about 10 million light years distant, otherwise the pion-producing interactions with the CMB photons will strip away energy too quickly.
But what about farther out in the Universe?
Image credits: Earth: NASA/BlueEarth; Milky Way: ESO/S. Brunier; CMB: NASA/WMAP.
10 million years of travel time is nothing compared to the age of the Universe, the CMB temperature or the number of potential energetic sources out there. But there are plenty of active galaxies within, say, a billion or three light years (300-900 Mpc), and even in that time, the CMB temperature was still only about 3.3 K (instead of 2.7 K). The amount of redshift would bring the energy down from ~5 × 10^19 eV to ~4 × 10^19 eV, which again, is almost nothing.
But what's more effective is the fact that you do have a chance -- above about 10^17 eV -- of producing an electron/positron pair from a CMB photon scattering off of a proton. The cross-section is very low, but over billions of years, the chances add up. So it's very likely that the highest energy cosmic rays originate from galaxies that are farther away than 10 million light years but closer than about 2 billion light years, give or take.
Thanks for a great week, and thanks even more for being open to a little constructive criticism. Let's all do our best to make this Universe the best place it can be, for each and every one of us in it.
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I am the one who started the Amanda Peet comments and I want to point out something I thought obvious, but I guess was missed.
Dr. Amanda Peet has the same name as a celebrity. It is no different than in the movie Office Space where one of the characters was named Michael Bolton and Michael Bolton's music was brought up. Celebrity Amanda Peet just happens to be a model / actress / spokesperson rather than a singer.
Secondly, no one detracted from Dr. Amanda Peet's science because of her appearance. Not one. She was criticized, but the criticism was based entirely on the merits of the presentation.
Additionally, science isn't the boys club it once was. I can't speak to Physics, but my forensic scientist wife works in a lab that is better than 80% women, and getting ever more female as the old guys age out and retire. Female student majorities in university science programs are becoming the rule, not the exception.
There was a lot of interesting content in that discussion thread. It is disappointing that you chose to ignore all of that in favor of talking up sexual discrimination where there clearly wasn't any.
Denier, if it's any consolation. I knew you were referencing the actress.
there’s a huge, systematic problem that I’ve seen firsthand in physics (and to a lesser extent, astronomy) departments all across the world and in particular all across the United States: the problem that women in this field are judged first for their appearances and then second
Wrong, Ethan.
It's an issue everywhere. It's probably much LESS a problem in STEM. What you forget here is
1) Selection bias. There are fewer women than 50:50, therefore the small number of people thinking with their genitalia appear more numerous to the women when in STEM heavy locations. There aren't any more of them, but there are more per-woman.
2) America hates intelligent or educated people. Doubly so if you have an English accent..! The Jock-vs-Nerd schism is so entrenched that even those in neither camp see the Jock as the "better person". So picking on Nerds is socially acceptable. Women Nerds are still Nerds to them. Picking on them has to belittle their mind. Picking on male Nerds has to diminish their masculinity. It's only a difference of how it's acceptable (or rather not) for that gender to be considered.
3) Myscogyny. This is far smaller a fraction than you think, since any conversation that can be considered negative by the hearer (whether involved or not) will, if it's negative, be seen as due to sexism. But this person does exist. They will belittle women wherever they are. So some steelworker joe will come on a nerd site and post about "hawt cutie scientists" and YOU will see it as some problem in STEM.
4) Acceptable tropes and confirmation bias. It's acceptable, even lauded, for males to be protective of females. Therefore if you can FIND a place where they may be being attacked, you can elevate your self worth by defending them. You will look for it, therefore you will find it. That is confirmation bias.
fewer than 20% of nerdish men are "Phwooar!" lads. Vastly more (though likely still less than 20%, that's how much fewer, but I wouldn't be gobsmacked if someone came up with a figure of some significant level over 20% for this group) are in manual labour or unemployed. This may be because STEM nerds tend to be from the lower end of the strata and they see the problems and are uncomfortable with the attitude therefore do not get normalised to it because of their social intelligence (different from interpersonal skills) and restrict themselves from it. Yet worry they are still the same as them. Higher class people are normalised to "traditional roles", and the intelligent there don;t go into STEM since there's much less money. The unintelligent go into management.
if I wanted to insult you, Ethan, I would belittle your physique as being a wimp. Or your sexuality by calling you gay. These are INSULTS. I may be anti-male, and this may be an attack on you because of your gender, and that would be SEXIST. However, you have to believe that I'm insulting you not because of who you are, but because of your gender.
If you were female, I would belittle your physique by going "Nice tits, luv! Get 'em oot!". Why? Because we ACTUALLY DO give women total control of their body. Therefore acting like it's mine belittles you. If it wasn't thought you had right to your own body, it wouldn't be insulting. Would it?
And doing so would be an INSULT. Not sexist. Unless YOU were to put into MY head that I am doing it not because of who you are, but because of your gender.
DO NOT FUCKING DO THAT. EVER.
That's cheap, a cop out, an insult and cowardly.
Cheap: it's no different from "God moves in mysterious ways" when arguments of the triomni god is put forward. It isn't an answer, it's an excuse not to, yet still "win".
Cop-out. It stops you being a villain (why am I insulting YOU? If it's your gender, you can't change that, therefore it;s not your problem, it's mine. If it's something you did, it might actually be your problem. Not mine.
Insulting. You assert a negative and unarguable ("No I'm not" is never accepted once the accusation is made) malice on me.
Cowardly. By invoking practically every male human's protective and nurturing instinct for women (and children, remember, they go first, even in the hey day of "misogyny") you pull ranks of other men to support you and attack me. It's called a Bully Pulpit. And bullies are cowards.
Yes, negative attitudes exist to women.
They exist to men.
Why?
Some people are, in fact, just complete assholes.
Stop making the asshole my problem merely because I share a gender with them (sort of, there are vastly more than mere male or female).
Ethan, just a pointer to you. You have been assessed on this site by people visiting not on your science skills (even those nutters who believe you are satan's right-hand-man) but on your ridiculous costumes in the pic. Or your beard.
Is this evidence of misandry in STEM?
Were they all from sexists?
"I share a gender with them (sort of, there are vastly more than mere male or female)."
So your a hermaphrodite?
Read it, Rag.
There's more than just the male/female.
There's the gender of the mind, the body chemistry, sexuality and so on as well as the "Do they have a innie or an outie?" that most think define gender.
There's androgyny, chimerism (as the extreme form of twin formation), there's people who don't identify with a sex, and those who don't even contemplate sex.
But you gotta go "huh huh huh" because you think there can only be male or female, end of story.
Tell me, Rag, do you know that gay people exist?
Yes?
Then you must be gay, right?
No?
How come? You just appear to believe that because I know there are people out there that aren't in the false dimorphism of male vs female that I must be the only one you've heard of.
Knowing something exists doesn't mean you're one.
Try opening your head for a change.
Or stop being such a pillock.
Either should help.
Rag, consider Shakespear: The lady doth protest too much".
Those most caricaturing the gender they belong to may be chest-beating to hide the fact that they don't believe they are.
Just like the loudest fundies are those who are terrified because they DON'T believe their shit.
Making noise so that nobody will know what they ACTUALLY feel like.
Your catcalling may be hiding something you know inside, but don't think you're supposed to be.
Wow, Wow. Just, wow. Where to even begin...
0) It *is* an issue everywhere. That it may (or may not - evidence?) be less a problem in STEM doesn't mean it isn't a problem in STEM. If you're in the hospital, the doctors don't ignore you because the guy down the hall is sicker than you.
1) Basically what you're saying here is, 'they do it, too!' but it's less noticeable because there's fewer of them. Not only do you present that claim without evidence (and what anecdotal evidence there is suggests it to be unlikely), it wouldn't excuse the behavior even if it were true.
2) I don't actually see this happen, though. There are never as many (and usually zero) comments deriding a male intellectual's physique as a female intellectual's attractiveness on their respective presentations.
3) Again, he never said it was *only* a problem in STEM. He's talking about STEM because he works in STEM! We all have limited spheres of influence and expertise.
4) You act like one has to spend all day scouring the Internet to find such examples, rather than stumbling on them over and over again in everyday reading. That one finds something while looking for it doesn't actually imply that that thing is exceptionally rare.
Look at the same problem in geekdom. The whole 'fake geek girl' trope, GamerGate, etc. I still think that geekdom as a whole is a more accepting place than much of the rest of society, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight these things and try to be better.
Look, I get defensive, too. I'm a software engineer, and when I read about these problems in 'Silicon Valley' and usually it's not a tech firm but a VC firm, I think, "They're not 'us'! They're those finance-industry assholes!" But I recognize that that isn't really helpful. I don't know if it happens more or less in our alleged meritocracy than elsewhere, but it happens a non-zero amount of the time, and that's not good enough.
Even if we in STEM are better than average in this regard (and again, I haven't seen hard evidence that we are), well, let me just quote a wiser man than I: "Just because something's cool doesn't mean something else doesn't suck." -- Butt-Head
To your conclusion: Ethan never said, or even implied, that all men are the problem. Some people do that, and those people are wrong, but he didn't, so your assertion that he's "making the asshole [your] problem" is utter nonsense. He's just saying, to everyone, 'don't do that.' So if your response is, 'I don't do that,' great, you're all good. Perhaps one day online ad targeting will be good enough that one can show such PSAs only to "assholes" but until then, here it is.
All that and I didn't even get into your false equivalence about negative attitudes towards women vs. men....
HOUSTON... I Think We've Found Wow Problem.
I knew there was probably a deep seated sexual issue that brought about so much anger, rage and hate.
Now that we know the root cause of your reprobate manifestation. we can start the healing process.
Would you care to step into the good DR. Wilhelm Von Wowzerstein office:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2012/09/23/weekend-diversion-yo…
So we can begin therapy right away?
Bullshit.
STEM has fuck all to do with it. Assholes (See Ragbag above, for example) have to do with it.
What the fuck? Who are "they" I'm supposedly talking about?
What "It"?
It's what SJW is all about: don't make concrete claims, insinuate. Don't accept someone else's claim on themselves, YOU are the sole authority. Because you're "the good guy".
Knob off.
Ethan, talk to Abbie (ERV) here in scienceblogs about how she's not ALLOWED to determine for herself whether she feels threatened.
What?
What sort of "issue" do you think pertains? Do you think I am a hermaphrodite?
Well, for sake of illustration, if I am, how would that "cause such anger, rage and hate"?
The answer will prove something fundamental about your fundamentalism, Rag. No doubt you will not let yourself consider it.
Okay, Wow, some people are dicks and literally nothing else tangible or intangible has anything to do with it. Sure. Let's go with that. What do you propose we do about it? Nothing? Ignore it? Don't call them out when it happens? Let everyone fend for themselves?
I guess so, because you say as much. ("Women can look after themselves.") Personally, I'd rather live in an actual society where we actually care about one another than some Mad Max-style anarchistic hellscape. Call me crazy!
If I see someone being harassed - whether it's at a scientific conference, on social media, or at a football game - what's so horribly, horribly wrong - to the point that it inspires such wide-eyed vitriol from you - with saying to the harasser, "Hey, not cool"?
"Let’s go with that. What do you propose we do about it? "
The same could be asked of your "It's a problem in STEM".
The answer is likely the same thing, except it now has a hell of a lot less labeling of out-group/in-group and caballism.
And actually get down to the problem.
It's an individual, not a group.
You know, the whole "The reason why Germany is in such trouble is because if International Jewery" thing.
Once you tag a label on people and then use that tag to treat them not as human beings but as a group, you can then shortcut past any deliberation and get straight down to punishment, without all that messy thinking.
"They a Jew? Put 'em in the concentration camp".
Much easier to get to a decision based on group identification than to find out if the individual is guilty.
"Nothing? Ignore it? Don’t call them out when it happens? "
Isn't that what you're doing when you said that my observation that it happens to men should be ignored because it is less frequent, as far as you are aware?
This would be why you inserted those options into my answer, answering your question to me before you'd even finished asking, right? You do it, so I would too. Because you're a normal, good, guy, right?
There are two people on this thread, Ben
Ragtag who treated the woman as a "Sex object", going "Hubba hubba!". IOW the one treating women with disdain.
And me, who is decrying your White Knight routine and viewing it with skepticism, both for its motivation and its results, which treats you with disdain.
And which one do you protest?
The one that is belittling women, which your efforts are to protect, or the one that belittles you, who you do not claim to be here to protect and defend?
The latter of course.
Which really does put a spotlight on where your priorities really lie.
So few back-and-forth exchanges and already fulfilling Godwin's Law? How disappointing.
As for labeling and cabalism, I am a man who works in STEM. I wear that label quite proudly, which is why I give a shit when someone else goes around tarnishing it. No, the problem isn't 'all men in STEM' or even the simplistic 'men in STEM', and I'd tell anyone that if they said it was. But no one here said that; it's a straw man. Yes, the problem is assholes, who in this case happen to be in STEM, but there's enough of them here that it's perceived to be an endemic problem for the field. Ignoring that - or ranting that everyone but you is imagining things - isn't going to make it go away. Getting them to stop being assholes is what'll make it go away, and help a lot of people along with the helping the field's image. That's what we're doing.
I never said - nor do I believe - that harassment should be ignored when it happens to men. You're the one who brought up harassment against men, seemingly as some sort of excuse for harassment against women. And if you meant it another way, as I'm sure you'll now attest, you need to work on getting your point across better. Because what other conclusion could one draw when you answer, 'Men should stop harassing women,' with, 'well, y'know, women harass men, too'? Yes, sometimes, but that's not what we're talking about right now! It's not salient to the discussion! You might as well answer with, 'well, sometimes cheese goes moldy in my fridge.' True, and unfortunate, and something should be done about it, but you're having a different conversation than the rest of us.
You're right that it all should stop, but, lacking omnipotence, we need to focus our efforts. Some of us are choosing to focus on the clearly vastly more prevalent case first. You're welcome to do different, but asserting that we shouldn't narrow our focus is, at best, trying to make the perfect the enemy of the good, and at worst, a disingenuous effort to 'help' by diverting focus from where it really needs to be.
Frankly, I couldn't really parse most of Ragtag's comments, so ignored them. But I certainly don't see where he's saying anything like what you claim he is. I'm starting to think you hallucinate, because you've misrepresented what I've said really, really badly as well.
Look, your position seems to be, "I don't give a shit." I get that. Really I do. My friends would laugh their asses off if they heard you imply I was an SJW. I don't give a shit about most things in the world. I don't have the time or energy. But I do care about people - all kinds of people - treating each other with decency. You can believe what you want about what I choose to see (and I can do the same about what you choose to see) but my subjective experience is that there's a pervasiveness to men's assumed superiority. It's not present in all men, it's not present in a majority of men (I don't think), but it's present in a large enough proportion to be a self-evident pattern. And it's a pattern that needs to be broken.
Frankly, I don't think these men, these assholes, are ever going to change their minds - we'll have to hold out hope for subsequent generations for that - but we may nonetheless be able to change their behavior. If we could get all of them - and any women or others, too - to stop, that'd be wonderful! But it's unlikely on any front, so I'd be happy to have few enough doing it that it's no longer an obvious pattern. The best way to do that is convince more people like you, who are probably the majority, to give a shit. To give a shit enough not to ignore it when it happens because each instance is just one asshole and therefore no big deal.
I'm not HERE to protect and defend women. I will sometimes do that elsewhere, but no one is directly attacking women here, now. I'm here to protect and defend my own ideals. So, yes, my priority right now is on myself, in that sense. What's wrong with that?
"So few back-and-forth exchanges and already fulfilling Godwin’s Law? How disappointing."
Yeah, so you don't understand Godwin's Law either, then. Figures.
OK, smarty, what do you think it means? That you've won? No. Do you think it's ended? No. It's merely an observation that any conversation will eventually involve comparisons with Nazi Germany.
No more or less than that.
It means nothing about the argument. At all.
"I never said – nor do I believe – that harassment should be ignored when it happens to men"
Our survey said: Beh Beeeeh.
No, you insisted that pointing out the existence of misandry was a failure. If you didn't want it ignored, you would not have done that.
"‘well, y’know, women harass men, too’? Yes, sometimes, but that’s not what we’re talking about right now! "
See! RIGHT AFTER you claim you don't want it ignored, you then say you want it ignored.
The short of it is that it illustrates that the harassment women get does not automatically deserve to get labelled with the "sexist misogyny" label.
Insults from one person to another can be merely insults.
To "elevate" them to the sin of sexism is to void any other conclusion,since to do so is morally wrong, to "enable" the sin, to actually participate in it by doing so.
This isn't about protecting women. Nor is it about, really, white knighting.
It's about treating humans as humans, not as a label.
Which is what you're not doing, what Ethan is guilty of falling for, and what you don't want to acknowledge.
Because you won't be the Hero in the story.
Because at base, it's about the self image of those who decide they must defend others. Will they or no.
"Frankly, I couldn’t really parse most of Ragtag’s comments, so ignored them"
Yeah, the "misogyny" (if it is that rather than just ordinary internet trolling) wasn't important enough to bother with for you.
Highlights the important issue for you, really, doesn't it.
So the saying "Treat a whore like a lady and a lady like a whore". is not correct in STEM?
Hmm, no wonder I never went down that path for a career.
"Ragtag who treated the woman as a “Sex object”, going “Hubba hubba!”."
I didn't post it though, think it.. sure I admit it.
But then WOW you tell me would you Tap that:
http://hdw.eweb4.com/out/918234.html
???
YES Or NO
" I’m starting to think you hallucinate, because you’ve misrepresented what I’ve said really, really badly as well."
Yes, and his hallucinations reap a delusion of grandeur at times.
"What sort of “issue” do you think pertains? Do you think I am a hermaphrodite?"
Well, it looked like that's what you said. Of course it's hard to tell seeing as English does not appear to be your first language so I will give you a break there and ask again.
You said this:
"“I share a gender with them (sort of, there are vastly more than mere male or female).”
How should one of proper English speaking like myself take this?
Can you elaborate?
OK, since I was the one who commented that I don't find Amanda's looks and apperance hot, and then went to focus on what I thought to be a poor lecture on BH, and am now "almost" being treated as a sexist or a bigot... I would like to comment.
Firstly, I've stayed awake till 2 AM my time just so I could watch the lecture live. Not because I cared who gives the lecture (man or woman) or how they look, but because I was very interested in what they have to say.
Secondly, as far as the apperance remark. When did it become inapropriate to make a comment on someone's dressing and apperance? If you, Ethan, held a talk at i.e. MIT, and went wearing a dress and high heels, I would make a same comment. I honestly don't care if someone is straight or gay.. left or right.. men or woman. I really and honestly only care who they are as a person and what's in their hand. But on the other hand, I have eyes, and I did notice that she was wearing man trousers, shoes and shirt. Is it sexist to comment that I don't like it? In my mind, true rights and equality exist if she can dress however she wants, and if I can say that I don't like how she looks.
In my mind, somewhere along the lines we lost track of things. i.e. if you say you don't like what Israel is doing with Palestinians, you are accused of being anti-semitic. If you say that you don't like black gangs in suburbs, you are accused of being rasist. If you comment on someone's apperance, you are called sexist.... etc..
IMO, a sexists comment would be to say that Amanda's place is in the kitchen and not in a University. Or something along those lines... that's sexist.
So instead of actually discussing weather her talk was any good or not, which I think is a bigger issue, we are left here discussing what probably noone here was thinking, but which you thought we are thinking... and that is some sort of woman inequality.
p.s.
"... I really and honestly only care who they are as a person and what’s in their hand."
should be ".. their head".. :) sorry.. auto-correct
"Can you elaborate?"
HOW?
YOU are the one claiming that there's some deep-rooted "problem".
I can't explain what you mean. You have to do that.
Is it you don't want to? Or that you don't know why you said it?
My statement said nothing about deep-rooted problem with my sexuality or sex. Not a thing. Not a thing about rage anger or hate being driven by something I never said.
You need to explain what you're talking about.
"IMO, a sexists comment would be to say that Amanda’s place is in the kitchen and not in a University. Or something along those lines… that’s sexist. "
No, that would be really insulting to her.
Which could be an insult.
Trolling.
Click-baiting.
A "Joke".
If they believed it to be true, then it could be sexist.
However, I don't think it's true. So why must I assume that they do?
"RIGHT AFTER you claim you don’t want it ignored, you then say you want it ignored."
Do you really, really not understand the difference between "the conversation we're having right now on the topic raised by the original article author" and "things that happen somewhere in the world at some time"? That there's a difference between "let's not talk about that right this second" and "let's all as a society choose to pretend that problem doesn't exist"? I'd give you an example to show how ludicrous that is, but I already did so in that same paragraph!! So you're once again misconstruing my statements, even when I try to elaborate on them further. What you're saying is, if I'm not screaming about something non-stop, I'm tacitly endorsing it. Which I guess is why you felt the need to condemn Nazis in this, again, unrelated discussion?
I'm not going to waste any more time with someone who refuses to even properly read what I'm writing. This is why I don't normally, for all your gleeful labeling (I thought you hated labels?) of me as a white knight, get in arguments on the Internet. They're usually just a damn waste of time, because it's usually just idiots who start them. "Trolling. Click-baiting. A 'Joke'." Hear hear!
Sinisa Lazarek That was a fine summary. it's what is know as Political Correctness Gone Wild and it's on full display EVERY WHERE. And people like Wow are afraid of people clinging to guns and religion, he should be more frightened of those carrying the banner of PC Police.
Re: 28, do you realise that is PRECISELY what "ignore that" means?
What are you going to do about oppression and attacks on men? Ignore it. Say "We're not talking about that now".
That is ignoring it.
It can't be made any simpler than that.
Wait Time Out. BenHead You Are A Software Engineer?
Do You Freelance? I have a Project needing some attention.
Feel Free to contact me if interested:
drwilhelmvonwowzerstein@gmail.com
Now, again on #28, I notice you still (wantonly?) ignore the point of pointing out the problems men face.
It isn't proof that there's oppression or sexism in the world, and everyone is affected (even if you want to insist some are more affected than others, this is an irrelevant point here).
It's that these issues you frame as sexism do not have any evidence other than the claim by you that someone else is being sexist to support it.
That's as much proof as personal revelation is for the existence of god.
Why should I take your claim it's sexism, when the proof is no better than that of the existence of a physically present god?
Ethan really didn't see the ridicule or comment on his various forms of ridiculous costumes he's shown here when he's changed them for a new picture.
Why?
Because they were not sexist, as far as he could see.
They were, however, PRECISELY THE SAME ACTIONS as are being blamed on sexism.
That would be merely wrong on his part for doing so, but nobody is perfect.
No, what makes me post as I did was his attempt to then make people (such as SL, with whom I have had several rows with, so I'm no fanboi, correct, SL?) take the blame for this crime of perceived thought (not even damn thoughtcrime).
And telling everyone else how they partake of some blame for a prick's comments merely because they chose a degree or career sans degree in Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics and that prick may possibly have the same career or education choice as you.
No, SL didn't think they were being sexist.
They should know.*
But no, because it was rolled up into that maelstrom of moral evil called "misogyny", SL was made to feel, even if Ethan (who never mentioned SL's comment, ergo is innocent of blaming SL) that he too is an evil woman hater. And had to post a defence.
When he'd never even been accused.
THIS is the evil of the statement Ethan made.
Making the innocent feel they have to prove innocence.
Making others feel they must be blamed for the actions of others.
I've done enough things in my life I regret. I don't need anyone piling on things someone else did. Especially when the "thing they did" is asserted as being so, when it is unevidenced conjecture of one particular reason for the action seen.
It's like the idiots blaming claiming 97% of climate scientists are all lying to make grants: asserting motive that they assert, not that is the only expanation for the actions (saying AGW is real. Could be a con. Could be tru. What happened to the "Could be true"? Not an option. Not ALLOWED to be an option).
Blame individuals for their acts.
Don't blame unnamed thousands in a bloodbath of guilt by association.
* note: granted, you can be the easiest one to fool, but we have very little evidence to go on, far less than they have available to them, so still balance of the evidence proffers an innocent verdict
Of course, Rag, when it comes to shouting at religious nuts, you're all for complaining about how impolite (what else is "Political Correctness" other than someone telling you what you said was impolite, look at the root word for both: Polis) it is.
You want the freedom to be a bigot to others.
You don't want anyone else to be allowed to be a bigot to you.
"It’s like the idiots blaming claiming 97% of climate scientists are all lying to make grants"
Not all of them are looking for grants, just the main charlatans. The rest are just victims of group think or hangers on to a feel good issue that they can try and hitch their moral wagon to so that they somehow feel important or self fulfilled from a cheap form of grace that allows them to proclaim "look what I've done for humanity".
Rubbish I Say.
They can't even look at this image with a scintilla of a thought about what could be wrong with recent ground based temperature recordings in these locations.
https://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/screenhunter_3274-oct…
This is what 19 years of global warming looks like. It occurred from 1918 to 1937:
https://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/screenhunter_8929-may…
This is what 19 years of no warming looks like:
https://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/screenhunter_8930-may…
@Sinisa Lazarek #24
You're fine. The other 2 commenters are fine too. You and everyone else were simply responding to the content of my post. I don't believe for even the briefest of moments that Dr. Amanda Peet's looks would have been mentioned by anyone had I not chimed in.
If it had been Dr. Michael Jordan giving the lecture I would have chimed in about being able to dunk a basketball from the free throw line and presenting on string theory. If Dr. Schwarzenegger where on the bill I would have made a crack about getting to the choppah. If it had be Dr. Ackbar, I would have wondered if he knew it was a trap, because I am juvenile.
I don't mean to belittle sexism, but making false accusations of sexist behavior in a public forum is a big deal. That kind of thing can haunt careers. The damage of any off hand comments you made about Amanda Peet are nothing compared to the damage of Ethan's comments towards you.
I have a lot to say on this, but I am going to wait for Ethan's promised Throwback Thursday piece.
@ Wow
"(such as SL, with whom I have had several rows with, so I’m no fanboi, correct, SL?)"
- true :) we had more than one rougher "disagreements" during the years here
" SL was made to feel, even if Ethan (who never mentioned SL’s comment...."
- actually he did. "don’t know if you’re thinking of the same Amanda Peet, but this Amanda is far from hot, in fact, she’s trying desperately to look like a man. … hair.. clothing.. body language…”
I did comment that as a reply to Denier's #1 comment under the original post. And I do think she's trying to look like a man and her styling is just bad.
But my opinion about her looks has nothing to do with my opinion about her as a scientist, and I did address both. And I do feel wrongly accused because nothing could be further from the truth then me judging women by their looks only (in other words as sex objects) and only then by their brains.
What I don't like about Ethan's comment is IMO it's very biased in one direction and very wrong. How you are percieved by others is NOT ONLY what you do in life as a job or profession, but is your overall persona and behavior.
What is not ok, is when you take only apperance and disregard the rest. Just as IMO the vice versa is just as bad... thinking that if you are really smart, or good in your professional life, that everything else shouldn't matter or be discussed. Personally, I would be insulted if I, as a person, would be judged solely on my work, or the school that I went to. Yet, Ethan's sentence: " every time you pass judgment on someone in any field on anything other than their merits and skill in that field — you’re treating them as though they’re less valuable" sound like that to me. I didn't go to the University for reasons I had no control over, I don't have a PhD, I am not a scientist. Does that make me a less "valuable" person then i.e. Amanda. Of course not. So if I am to be valued by rest of the world by all that I am (what I do, how I behave, how I look, how I dress, how I interact with other people, etc.. ) then sorry, but physicist are not excluded from that.
Not sure if this comment will get through because I usually get sent to the penalty box of moderation when I mud wrestle with the board pig W.ow but here goes:
@36 Sinisa Lazarek
I would be insulted if I, as a person, would be judged solely on my work, or the school that I went to.
Well, that's just how the damn world work me'boy. It's called No Gas, No Grass, NO FREE RIDES.
As Harsh as it sounds it really is the way it is, the world is a Predation system.
Now, This is where Philosophy/ Religion Morality and all that comes in but then Wow The hand Waver jumps out of the bushes and then we have to explain the log in his eye whilst he points out ours and it becomes a round robin path to nowhere.
What The HELL Else is there to judge you by than you're works?
And Your School? WTF, So you went to a school that was a bazillion dollars and only rich kids go there so we should automatically give you a pass?
not saying you said that but Yes I have seen it and It's Bull Shit. For Fuck Sake I dropped out in the 10th grade and make 6 figures a year BECAUSE I Provide Services People NEED.
Our society does get to wrapped up in titles and educational programs etc BS.
For the record, the actual statement that has some merit is:
No Gas, No Grass, No Ass... No one Rides for Free
That's The Culture of Predation our society is. Right, Wrong OR Indifferent. That's Where we are.
AND There is on the vent horizon something wicked this way comes.. And It Is The Rise Of The machines.
I have a financial understanding of the way our modern monetary system functions of which 99% of the population does not. The system is changing and there is another side to the monetary coin of capitalism and that is production.
Human's will be needed to a lesser and lesser degree in a modernized society where robots will slowly take rule.
Where will your mathematical formulas find you then?
Robots Only Use Logic, No Morality, or Yea Jesus and The Devil Made me do It chronologies needed.
Think About It. Political Decisions Matter... Your Vote Has Consequences.
More So Than You may Realize.
@Wow
"No, he talked about the person that you also talked about. The only one.."
I don't know why you think Ethan was only talking about Denier when his first sentence is: "From four different individual commenters on Amanda Peet’s… appearance"
4 not 1
Missed that.
Oops
Ta.
Wow likes to whine a lot,huh?
It is because of statements like that that you are considered a buffoon.
"It is because of statements like that that you are considered a buffoon."
I guess you've never heard of Lysenkoism or the Eugenics movement.
You were commenting on your perception that climate change is bogus, remember?
Yes, and I see that you can't comprehend the relationship between them. But let's start with your false assumption that I think climate change is bogus.
How long have you called it "climate change" the climate always changes, it's called the weather.
Nice slight though on the goal post move from Globull "warming" to "climate change".
Here dean, if you can't comprehend buffoon's typing skills then read here:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136
If the link does not work because you do not have a subscription, the google: WSJ The Myth of the Climate Change '97%'
Also, see here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/07/17/that-scientific-global…
If can't see or no subscription google:
That Scientific Global Warming Consensus...Not! Forbes
Or Google: "Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project" Which has about the same credibility as the 97% consensus one, which is shaky.
"google: WSJ The Myth of the Climate Change ‘97%’"
Owned by Murdoch, a denier.
The article is a hack piece of mythology and reasoned unthinking.
IOW a load of empty bollocks.
"Not all of them are looking for grants, just the main charlatans."
So Lomborg, then. And Wegman. And Anthony Watts, Chris Monckton, Fred Seitz (when he wasn't dead) and so on.
"Or Google: “Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project”"
Which list includes:
"Dr" Ginger Spice
Dr Doom
and so on...
"That Scientific Global Warming Consensus…Not! Forbes"
Not in an opinion piece.
By http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Larry_Bell
Now pair that professorship Larry has with a rightwingnut owned and led institution (not run by a scientist) and your earlier claim: “Not all of them are looking for grants, just the main charlatans.”.
Conclusions are obvious.
So Ragtag, you have no scientific support for your loonatarian take on climate change, just a bunch of people who rival you in how uninformed and disingenuous they are. How utterly unsurprising.
The press release touts a fleet of satellites yet ignores the measurements from these satellites, the most comprehensive set of global temperature ever compiled, which do not support the claim that 2014 was the warmest year on record.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/19/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-ro…
Anthropogenic Global Warming and Its Causes:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/05/anthropogenic-global-warming-and-…
1350+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarmism:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supportin…
You will get no respect referring folks to watt: there isn't any reason to expect an honest display of information from his group.
The pop tech list has been trashed and debunked over and over again: authors are not climate scientists, the "journals" are mostly industry supported magazines, etc.
You have to want to ignore the science to believe those sources.
I don't need your respect I just need you to quit stealing peoples money via the tax man and fear mongering like the Ozone hole up high is to thin were all going to die OH Wait.. To much ozone down here lower to the ground now Uggg were all going to die so we must TAX..TAX..TAX Spend To Retrofit.
Montreal Protocol Knows Best.. No More Dichlorodifluoromethane Bad.. Bad.. For Ozone layer.. Buy Tetrafluoroethane Good for it... years later guess who the boogieman is GLOBULL WARMING and Guess What?:
"This proposal responds to the President’s Climate Action Plan and also addresses certain
aspects of the three petitions referred to above. First, this action responds to the one aspect of the
three petitions that EPA found complete, namely petitioners’ request that EPA change the listing
of HFC-134a from acceptable to unacceptable in new MVACs. Page 34
http://www.epa.gov/ozone/downloads/SAN_5750_SNAP_Status_Change_Rule_NPR…
So Guess who will bare the cost AGAIN.
"1350+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarmism:"
Sorry, Poptart has been told by the authors THEMSELVES (and that includes Roger Pielke, not known to be a stooge of the IPCC!) that his list misrepresents their research.
Not to mention he's got hundreds of duplicates, even then.
IOW, that's a load of bollocks on a blogroll of blogrolls by a lunatic unable to accept anything other than their assertions as being true.
"the most comprehensive set of global temperature ever compiled,"
Of course, since RSS also shows a rise, the UAH (which used to be discarded when it was not saying the IPCC were wrong) has had a history of errors never addressed by the owner. It is also one of the LESS comprehensive sets of temperature records.
But do you know how satellites measure temperature?
They use a proxy: radiance values.
They then use a COMPUTER MODEL along with a CLIMATE MODEL to turn those radiance values into what may be the temperature profile.
Funny how computer models are A-OK for you, as long as they tell the right story, huh?
They are measuring not the surface temperature, but a depth of atmosphere.
And both sets of satellite data have been rife with errors in their corrections (that you otherwise call "faking the figures") and have a known problem with El-Nino/La-Nina cycles, because of their measure being a depth of atmosphere, not the surface.
IOW you're ignorant, but heavily over-opinionated.
"I don’t need your respect I just need you to quit stealing peoples money via the tax man "
And there we have his problem: He's a greedy fucker.
I never have how understood how libertarians justify using all society has to offer to reach a certain position then say "I never received a whit of help so nobody else should either". That, together with their inability and lack of desire to think rationally about anything sum give their most accurate dwacription: leeches on society.
So Guess who will bare the cost AGAIN.
I think your biggest fear is having to learn proper spelling and correct use of uppercase letters.
Greedy? Yeah what ever, I am sure my household has contributed more in resources to the local community than yours.
"I never have how understood how"
And the little dope questions my grammar?
ROTTFLMFAO!!!
dean, why do you subject yourself such public embarrassment, are you a masochist or something?
Yes i screwed up. The difference is I admit it, and I recognize science denialists like you for what you are.
"Yeah what ever, I am sure my household has contributed more in resources to the local community than yours."
Doubtful.
"ROTTFLMFAO!!!"
So you're a teenager?
"I am sure my household has contributed more in resources to the local community than yours."
Given we're probably in completely difference countries, I'm sure that's right.
But it's also correct that I've contributed more in resources to the local community than you.
And I didn't get greedy for doing it, either.
Guess us atheists are just nicer people than you fundies.
So, Dean, I gather you only have a 'tiled' floor to roll around on ...
"Yes i screwed up"
My Gawed ol'boy You have me even feeling sorry for you now.
You even fuck up your admission of fault.. It's CAPITAL I you nincompoop.
"So you’re a teenager? "
Nope, wife kids pets the whole Nuclear Family Thing.
Wife quit her job (60K a year 20 years ago) To stay home with the kids, I picked up the slack in income and she represented us in the community.
Our last name is on a brass plate embedded in one of the new schools we helped build and we started an education foundation so that we can have a more control over dispersion of funds. Not a mega million dollar one but for a small town of 10,000 we had no issues buying a 3D printer which was not cheap a few years ago and so on many more projects funded... But I owe you no explanation because you two are like tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber
I provide information and you ignore and then You ask for proof, I provide you with respected news organizations publications and you scoff and ask for more, I provide more and more and yet you both bitch and complain and bitch and complain.
If the law were to purchase new ropes for your hanging you would bitch and complain at the structure of the hangmen noose is not up to Eagle scout caliber or the rope diameter is not correct.
You live the letter of the law and miss the spirit.
AND
With all of Wow's (Italian) hand waving I would not be a bit surprised if does not kiss the palm of his hand when he walks through the front door of his home saying to himself "HI Honey, I'm Home".
But enough, I am going to take PJ of Perth's advice and be the bigger person and just ignore you two dolts in this thread from now on.
I am done slumming with you two gutter snipers, I have higher standards and I will be the better person and move on from this thread.
ta-ta
Is there anyway that Ethan could break out the ban hammer on Ragtag and Denier.
Because this bullshit is getting really tedious.
This is a science blog not a message board for conservatives to spray their imagined grievance musk all over the walls.
There are plenty of other places on the internet for that. Where you can indulge your delusions and insecurities like children are want to do.
OK, so you're infantile.
"I provide information and you ignore "
Refuting your rubbish and pointing out how wrong it is is the OPPOSITE of ignoring the "information" you provide, Raggie.
But enough, I am going to take PJ of Perth’s advice and be the bigger person and just ignore you two dolts in this thread from now on.
Ah, yes, the troll flounce(tm).
"Fire a few parting shots, say I'm leaving, then come back later because my insults weren't allowed to stand, and I have to insist they are true".