Mykeru, what a Cnut, eh? Discuss.

[Steersman]

Steers makes a joke:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bg820D4CEAEZOvm.jpg

Steersbore making dick jokes is like Ophelia Benson rapping.

http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/299/29v5.png

What? Canucks can’t make jokes, even if “contrived” ones? Too much “cultural appropriation” for you? Besides, practice makes perfect, or at least better ....

[Dick Strawkins]

Not so much. West Africans appropriated the wax prints from the Dutch, who had appropriated them from the Indonesians. What was that you were saying about doing research?

http://beyondvictoriana.com/2011/04/10/ ... ic-yoruba/

If she really is Native American, then she's appropriating my culture by writing in English. I demand she stop this at once, however she is free to continue discourse in her native Pretendian, or whatever it may be.

Native Peoples, don't do that ...[/quote]

And stop using computers too.

She does have one option for communication that hasn't been appropriated by others...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5RmUQOFky90/T ... ignals.gif

[Gumby]

Steers makes a joke:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bg820D4CEAEZOvm.jpg

YEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

Fucking epic.

[JacquesCuze]

The important thing is that when your limited view of tenure is shown to have a high chance of not being correct, that you dig as fast as possible.

Apparently you did read nothing of what I posted, where I posted a 100 year history of the NEA and AAUP most emphatically describing tenure first and foremost as a protection of academic freedom.

As I said, I fail as a communicator.

[bhoytony]

Steersbore making dick jokes is like Ophelia Benson rapping.

http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/299/29v5.png

What? Canucks can’t make jokes, even if “contrived” ones? Too much “cultural appropriation” for you? Besides, practice makes perfect, or at least better ....

Not Canucks, just you. You're as funny as ball cancer.

[Gumby]

An update to the Peanuts shoop posted earlier:

http://i.imgur.com/6gY5b6A.png

[JacquesCuze]

I'll stop now, because as everyone at the pit knows by now, welch ain't gonna stop.

[Suet Cardigan]

Re this cultural appropriation thing: the World Wide Web was invented by one of us Brits, so will all foreigners please get the fuck off the web.

[Git]

I'll stop now, because as everyone at the pit knows by now, welch ain't gonna stop.

Listen, and understand. Welch is out there. he can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you paste long comments of text in a DDOS attack.

[Git]

Actually, I will say this, generally Welch is a lot more right then wrong, and I speak as someone who has argued the fuck out of an argument with him in the past. On many occasions. And I think he is wrong on several major issues.

But he'd be the first to admit to that too. Maybe just on different things, mind you :)

If you're getting to the point of ignoring him Jaques, then maybe you should go back and reexamine your arguments, from first principles if you have to.

[JacquesCuze]

Actually, I will say this, generally Welch is a lot more right then wrong, and I speak as someone who has argued the fuck out of an argument with him in the past. On many occasions. And I think he is wrong on several major issues.

But he'd be the first to admit to that too. Maybe just on different things, mind you :)

If you're getting to the point of ignoring him Jaques, then maybe you should go back and reexamine your arguments, from first principles if you have to.

I've never said I was going to ignore him, or even threatened to.

Strawkins told me his experience of what academic scientists felt of tenure. I explained my experience of what I think the professors and the community think of tenure as well as how tenure is defended by various law professors.

Welch then complained that by copping to my experience, it meant I had done no research and was speaking out my ass and implied that *everyone* knows that tenure has nothing to do with academic freedom.

I (think) I refuted his complaints by showing a 100 year history of the NEA and the AAUP defending tenure primarily as a way to ensure academic freedom. And if the two largest unions of professors and educators have been saying for a 100 years that tenure is about academic freedom mostly, why shouldn't the public believe that?

He responded by complaining what I wrote was long and boring and then told me I should ignore him, and since then has been pretending that somehow I have wavered in my views.

But I haven't been planning on putting him on ignore. That was his suggestion.

[Skep tickle]

PZ has a post up, and he seems to contradict Horny. I wonder if HJ will get on his case and correct him?

Sex differences are real
Equality by PZ Myers
But they’re more complicated than many people assume, and even where they exist, they say nothing about how you should treat people.

He links to an article by Ronald McDonald that I can't be bothered to read (I do wonder how he'll get in a dig at Dawkins, or maybe Islamaphobia, but I'm not curious enough to waste time reading him). So far, 37 comments and I didn't see one by HJ. Has he been dismissed already?

The title of the post seems misleading in that PZ focuses on areas of overlap, not differentiation, between the sexes in the body of the post, without giving examples of those "real" sex differences he acknowledges in the title. So IMO he seems to be pretty much agreeing with HJ's point of view despite trying not to completely lose all of his credentials in the world of biology. Like HJ, PZ seems to be ditching the biological definition of sex in favor of some fuzzy warm non-definition that encompasses every person on earth with every possible genetic and/or developmental anomaly.

PZ writes, near the end of his post:

Everyone — from the trans-exclusionary radical feminists to the most egalitarian and liberal of us — recognizes that sexuality and gender are too complicated to be reduced to a one-dimensional, single binary switch. Once you’ve conceded that, you’re just bickering over the depth of the trough in the bimodal distribution, and nothing in that argument justifies treating the minority case as less than human, or compelling individuals to live in the pigeonholes you’ve assigned to them, no matter how miserable you make them. It’s not even justifiable to label them freaks, weirdos, or anomalies: they are part of a continuum of human behavior that includes every one of us.

It’s as if people are so committed to the idea that there are only two possible valid human natures that they are prepared to wish away all evidence to the contrary.

Here he is in comment #4:

Well, like the title says, the sexes are real — if you’re plotting something to express the proportions that fall into various categories, I think you’d have to draw more of a dumbbell shape than an ellipse. And then the guardians are all standing around saying that the existence of a dimple in the distribution justifies denying autonomy to all the people living away from the two poles.

Now, there's a leap: claiming that people who stick with the standard biological definition of "sex" are "guardians" who think that "justifies denying autonomy to peopl" who have any feature that falls within a tail of the curve describing the "other" sex, e.g. height, intersex conditions, etc) or that said people are "less than human".

That's baloney. Perhaps he's projecting?

Biologically, "sex" is related to reproduction. Not all members of the species can reproduce; not all of those who can will do so. There are all sorts of reasons individual members might not be able to reproduce; "intersex" conditions are among those reasons. But that doesn't warrant trying to PC away the biological meaning of "sex".

As I posted on Matt Cavanaugh's site yesterday, expanded here with more examples:

Just because there are people with holoprosencephaly doesn't keep us from saying that humans have 2 cerebral hemispheres, nor do we consider kids with that condition as sub-human. (Some of the more extreme variations are pretty "monstrous", including cyclopia...but also not usually compatible with life.)

Just because there are people with renal agenesis doesn't keep us from saying that humans have 2 kidneys, nor do we consider people with 0 or 1 kidney to be sub-human.

Just because there are people with one cardiac ventricle instead of 2 doesn't keep us from saying that humans have 4 heart chambers, nor do we consider people with 3 chambers to be sub-human.

Just because there are people with fewer, or more, than 46 chromosomes doesn't keep us from saying that humans have 46 chromosomes, nor do we consider people with 45 or 47 or some other number consistent with life to be sub-human.

Just because there are people with intersex conditions, or whose gender identification doesn't match their biological sex, isn't a reason to say that the human species doesn't consist of 2 sexes, nor that anyone who doesn't fit some definition or another is sub-human.

Etc.

I haven't read through the comments yet. Does PZ come out & say what he thinks DOES differentiate the sexes?

[Gumby]

I'll stop now, because as everyone at the pit knows by now, welch ain't gonna stop.

Listen, and understand. Welch is out there. he can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you paste long comments of text in a DDOS attack.

:lol:

http://i.imgur.com/g7QVq9d.jpg

[Mykeru]

Actually, I will say this, generally Welch is a lot more right then wrong,

Let me put it this way: Welch may not be wrong, but he just ain't right.

ifyanowaddimean

[Skep tickle]

Actually, I will say this, generally Welch is a lot more right then wrong, and I speak as someone who has argued the fuck out of an argument with him in the past. On many occasions. And I think he is wrong on several major issues.

But he'd be the first to admit to that too. Maybe just on different things, mind you :)

If you're getting to the point of ignoring him Jaques, then maybe you should go back and reexamine your arguments, from first principles if you have to.

I've never said I was going to ignore him, or even threatened to.

Strawkins told me his experience of what academic scientists felt of tenure. I explained my experience of what I think the professors and the community think of tenure as well as how tenure is defended by various law professors.

Welch then complained that by copping to my experience, it meant I had done no research and was speaking out my ass and implied that *everyone* knows that tenure has nothing to do with academic freedom.

I (think) I refuted his complaints by showing a 100 year history of the NEA and the AAUP defending tenure primarily as a way to ensure academic freedom. And if the two largest unions of professors and educators have been saying for a 100 years that tenure is about academic freedom mostly, why shouldn't the public believe that?

He responded by complaining what I wrote was long and boring and then told me I should ignore him, and since then has been pretending that somehow I have wavered in my views.

But I haven't been planning on putting him on ignore. That was his suggestion.

Just think of welch as the counterexample to HJ's claim that PMS does not exist, and move on. :)

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Here is PZ's argument in welch like brevity.

http://i.imgur.com/b2oNHU8.jpg

Doesn't matter what metric you use you get 2x binary peaks and a middle ground into which SJ fits.

So sex is real! Except when it isn't!

I'd call that a win/win.

Peezus is a scientist. So he writes a post about sex differences that not only contains no data, he doesn't see the need for data before making a conclusion --

How many? I don’t know. Does it matter?

He adorns his post with little graphs, but the graphs have no quantification -- they're just doodles of what he imagines the distributions are. To me, they look like: a penis; a fedora; & 'do you want to titty-fuck?'


Peezus' writing is usually simplistic and fucking stupid. This one is obtuse, so it takes a bit of rereading to discover that it, too, is way fucking stupid.

Are boys really unsuited to cooking or other domestic chores? In these cases, are these distributions a meaningful way to identify what human beings should do? No. In fact, they erode the sharpness of the entire distinction. You can be male in one characteristic and female in another.

I suppose one could talk about domestic chores being part of trad gender identity, but not a characteristic of 'male' or 'female.' Christ, Peezus, get your SJ lingo down right!

Aww, fuck it -- looks like I'm gonna have to write another post!


P.S. Any clue why Peez, HJ, and Thimble are so obsessed with tiny penises?

[Guestus Aurelius]

I think the PutZ should look up "anomaly" in the dictionary. "Freak," too, although with that one I'll of course grant that its common pejorative usage renders it a poor choice when trying to convey neutrality.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Oh and Lil' Alex is in complete agreement with HJ that male & female sexes aren't real

Sex is a framework, not a fact – a means of interpreting biology, but not a part of it.

and

What reason is there to choose genes rather than body parts when diagnosing sex, and not vice versa?

Alex, too, is obsessed with penises, and feels their presence or absence is irrelevant to one's sex. Seeing as Alex describes himself as a "looney left cunt," I find myself agreeing with him on at least one point.

[Apples]

I'm just an academic scientist and typically scratch my head over matters financial, but the thing I still can't wrap my frontal cortex around is how CEOs, CFOs, etc. can run their companies into the ground, thus impoverishing many others, and still collect hefty bonuses and other monetary rewards. Even if there was some binding contract that forced the payments, you'd think the arsewads would have just the tiniest bit of self-respect required to eschew monetary reward, in light of fucking things up so much for so many.

[youtube]-WCFUGCOLLU[/youtube]

[another lurker]

Steers makes a joke:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bg820D4CEAEZOvm.jpg

Steersbore making dick jokes is like Ophelia Benson rapping.

http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/299/29v5.png

What? Canucks can’t make jokes, even if “contrived” ones? Too much “cultural appropriation” for you? Besides, practice makes perfect, or at least better ....

Steersie, I like it when you joke, even if contrived:P

*pouncetugs*

[another lurker]

Steersbore making dick jokes is like Ophelia Benson rapping.

http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/299/29v5.png

What? Canucks can’t make jokes, even if “contrived” ones? Too much “cultural appropriation” for you? Besides, practice makes perfect, or at least better ....

Not Canucks, just you. You're as funny as ball cancer.

I heard he likes kitties as well!

[windy]

PZ writes, near the end of his post:

Everyone — from the trans-exclusionary radical feminists to the most egalitarian and liberal of us — recognizes that sexuality and gender are too complicated to be reduced to a one-dimensional, single binary switch. Once you’ve conceded that, you’re just bickering over the depth of the trough in the bimodal distribution, and nothing in that argument justifies treating the minority case as less than human, or compelling individuals to live in the pigeonholes you’ve assigned to them, no matter how miserable you make them. It’s not even justifiable to label them freaks, weirdos, or anomalies: they are part of a continuum of human behavior that includes every one of us.

It’s as if people are so committed to the idea that there are only two possible valid human natures that they are prepared to wish away all evidence to the contrary.

Here he is in comment #4:

Well, like the title says, the sexes are real — if you’re plotting something to express the proportions that fall into various categories, I think you’d have to draw more of a dumbbell shape than an ellipse. And then the guardians are all standing around saying that the existence of a dimple in the distribution justifies denying autonomy to all the people living away from the two poles.

Now, there's a leap: claiming that people who stick with the standard biological definition of "sex" are "guardians" who think that "justifies denying autonomy to peopl" who have any feature that falls within a tail of the curve describing the "other" sex, e.g. height, intersex conditions, etc) or that said people are "less than human".

That's baloney. Perhaps he's projecting?

He may be talking about the TERFs there. And, since he has spoken possible heresy, he has to reassure the congregation that he's still one of the good guys by condemning some bad ones.

[Steersman]

<snip>What? Canucks can’t make jokes, even if “contrived” ones? Too much “cultural appropriation” for you? Besides, practice makes perfect, or at least better ....

Steersie, I like it when you joke, even if contrived:P

*pouncetugs*

:) Thanks.

[Clarence]

Try putting me on ignore now. It'll save you a lot of crying time later.

I'm not sure how my putting you on ignore keeps you from seeing my posts that you find long winded boring tedious and uninformed. I would be surprised to find that ignore works that way.

You do remind of a lot of similarly abused SJW feminists who also failed to understand how their twitter works.

I think I won't put you on ignore and thereby force you to read my drivel.

Also when you're being an ass, I'll let you know.

You're being an ass.

I don't have welch on ignore because he is far more often awesome (even, sometimes when he doesn't agree with me!) than an ass. But yes, there are times when he can be an awesome ass. I try not to take welch personally. I also like his vast technical knowledge.

Plus, his name on here reminds me of grape jam. I like grape jam.

[Steersman]

[.quote="bhoytony"]
Steersbore making dick jokes is like Ophelia Benson rapping.

http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/299/29v5.png[/.quote]
What? Canucks can’t make jokes, even if “contrived” ones? Too much “cultural appropriation” for you? Besides, practice makes perfect, or at least better ....

Not Canucks, just you. You're as funny as ball cancer.

I heard he likes kitties as well!

Indeed. And I've even been known to actually like kids which is probably strikes two and three in bhoytony's ballpark.

Although he is correct that he was only targeting me rather than all Canucks - a "race" or "breed" (in Andrew's lexicon) that seems to have produced a few notable comedians; I hope to pick up some of that talent by osmosis .... my new firmware is supposed to have that feature ....

[Clarence]

Maybe when Steersman is over there arguing with Caine it's actually Josh Spokesgay arguing with Tigzy?

There isn't enough time contained in the the lifespan of the universe for Steersman to be an official spokes-anything.

Also, in order for a significant number of Slimers to also have active and constantly used accounts on FTBs, would require a level of crazy that I doubt even a paranoid schizophrenic could muster.

[Southern]

You'd almost think that 'bitch' and 'cunt' are not pejoratives used exclusively by misogynistic males against women.
But that can't be right, can it?

Evidence that doesn't fit the narrative must be FLOOSH dismissed.

It's either an artifact of researcher bias, internalized misogyny, or men pretending to be women online. Because patriarchy.

They're all fucking shitty niggas who behave like bitches who should go to hell and have a spiked dick inserted into their cunts until they turn into fags with a bleeding pussy, then the only work they would ever be able to do is selling their rotten pussy and gapping asses in the street for some neckbearded bastard to piss with his smelly cock while he screams "eat it, whore!"

[Steersman]

I'll stop now, because as everyone at the pit knows by now, welch ain't gonna stop.

Listen, and understand. Welch is out there. he can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you paste long comments of text in a DDOS attack.

:lol:

http://i.imgur.com/g7QVq9d.jpg

:lol: :clap: Ah, when one picture is truly worth a thousand words ....

[BarnOwl]

I tried reading Alex Gabriel's "article" on binary gender wars or whatever, but the obscurantist prose made my brain hurt. Maybe he should attend ScienceOnline Together 2014 with the PeeZus, to improve his writing and to help find some new target to demonize, now that Bora is out of the picture.

A developmental biologist's definition of intersex encompasses a wide range of genetic mutations, chromosomal abnormalities, and other conditions that can lead to external genitalia that are ambiguous, or that don't correspond to the individual's chromosomal or gonadal sex. A 46, XY individual with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome would have female external genitalia and a vagina (but no uterus or fallopian tubes), with internal testes (which are usually removed because they can develop germ cell tumors). A 46, XY individual with Swyer (Sry gene mutation) syndrome would also have female external genitalia and a vagina, but only streak gonads internally - these individuals usually have a uterus and fallopian tubes, because there are no testes to produce the anti-Mullerian hormone. Of course there are a wide range of other intersex phenotypes that occur, but PZ went off on some tangents about penis vs. clitoris, height, cooking etc., which didn't seem very helpful at all.

Related to the above, I think that Germany's recent law regarding male-female-intersex categories at birth seems quite reasonable and progressive: http://world.time.com/2013/11/12/boy-girl-or-intersex/.

[Southern]

It's probably a good thing PZ has never tried to troll this place, because he could have some fun.

Maybe he already has...Maybe he's a regular poster here....Maybe the rest of us are also regulars at Pharyngula adopting troll personas and we're oblivious to everybody else doing exactly the same thing....Maybe when Steersman is over there arguing with Caine it's actually Josh Spokesgay arguing with Tigzy?

http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/new ... 30/3a0.jpg

OK. I'll stop now.

Let's start a House Committee for Un-Pitty Activities right now and interrogate everyone to be sure!

"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Free Thought Blog network?"
"Have you ever masturbated while thinking of Rebecca Watson being violated by tentacles?"
"Have you ever tossed out your Surlies because things were that bad?"

We'll find the bastard in no time.

[Old_ones]

All in all, I just can't figure out why the public (incuding me) thinks tenure is supposed to be about academic freedom and is surprised to learn that academic scientists disagree about that and believe it is merely a part of the total compensation package much like health insurance, gym benefits, and free cereal and ramen?

My own experience in academia as a chemistry student makes tenure seem far removed from academic freedom. Chemistry has had its share of heated debates, but findings and results that could cause job ending controversies are rare in this field (although this example counts and there are probably others). On the other hand, it isn't hard to think of examples of this sort of thing in other disciplines. If you were an evolutionary biologist with an evo-psych bent, how many PZ clones would need to be in your department (or your field more generally) to dissuade you from starting a research program on gender roles in great apes? How many papers criticizing the feminist conventional wisdom would it be safe to write as a sociologist?

I can agree that the majority of questions and findings in academia aren't controversial enough that their proponents should need tenure for protection, but I don't see the harm in offering it to all of your academics who meet certain standards as a safety measure. My experience of tenured professors isn't that most of them are layabouts. Maybe I've been privileged in that regard.

I dunno, was Darwin's theory widely adopted quickly or did it require time, persuasion, and academic freedom?

With no knowledge, and not having researched it myself first hand(!), I can speculate that prion theory, plate tectonics, string theory, certain theories of global warming (ie Nir Shaviv's), and Neil Rish's works (including "The Importance of Race and Ethnic Background in Biomedical Research") might all have benefited from the kind of academic freedom protected by tenure.

Yeah, I see your point. In fact Galileo managed to get his findings out even with the catholic church accusing him of heresy, so maybe all these modern conventions about not putting dissenting voices on the rack are a bit outdated. :lol:

On a serious note, my argument might not be based on data (FLOOSH and all that) but I don't see your response as being wrong. Tenure might have benefited some of the things you listed, and if it didn't, then so what? I read your objections based on the fact that your graduate school was using early tenure as a recruiting tool for faculty, and frankly I'm not sure why I should be upset by that. You are probably aware that universities aren't willing to recruit just anyone. If you are already impressive enough to be recruited then presumably you've gone at least part of the distance to proving you merit tenure.

[Clarence]

I'll stop now, because as everyone at the pit knows by now, welch ain't gonna stop.

Listen, and understand. Welch is out there. he can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you paste long comments of text in a DDOS attack.

:lol:

http://i.imgur.com/g7QVq9d.jpg

:lol: :clap:

[ROBOKiTTY]

Day 6: I still have no teeth and still can't eat. :crying-green:

[Clarence]

Actually, I will say this, generally Welch is a lot more right then wrong,

Let me put it this way: Welch may not be wrong, but he just ain't right.

ifyanowaddimean

But that could APPLY TO EVERYONE AT THE PIT. Even me. :shhh:

[Southern]

I know a lot of people who could buy and sell the pit and probably FTB as well, and they're not happy with how people at their own income/wealth levels are behaving. Are they to be ignored just because they're rich?

If he's talking shit, then he's talking shit, but his income has no bearing on content.

Let's just do a reverse Swift and eat the rich.

[Tigzy]

Here is PZ's argument in welch like brevity.

http://i.imgur.com/b2oNHU8.jpg

Doesn't matter what metric you use you get 2x binary peaks and a middle ground into which SJ fits.

So sex is real! Except when it isn't!

I'd call that a win/win.

Peezus is a scientist. So he writes a post about sex differences that not only contains no data, he doesn't see the need for data before making a conclusion --

How many? I don’t know. Does it matter?

He adorns his post with little graphs, but the graphs have no quantification -- they're just doodles of what he imagines the distributions are. To me, they look like: a penis; a fedora; & 'do you want to titty-fuck?'


Peezus' writing is usually simplistic and fucking stupid. This one is obtuse, so it takes a bit of rereading to discover that it, too, is way fucking stupid.

Are boys really unsuited to cooking or other domestic chores? In these cases, are these distributions a meaningful way to identify what human beings should do? No. In fact, they erode the sharpness of the entire distinction. You can be male in one characteristic and female in another.

I suppose one could talk about domestic chores being part of trad gender identity, but not a characteristic of 'male' or 'female.' Christ, Peezus, get your SJ lingo down right!

Aww, fuck it -- looks like I'm gonna have to write another post!


P.S. Any clue why Peez, HJ, and Thimble are so obsessed with tiny penises?

You know why I reckon Peez wrote that post? He was caught idly doodling some tits, and had to hastily cook up an excuse to rescue his femcred.

'The - they're graphs. Really. For a, uh, blog post I'm thinking of writing.'

[Clarence]

Day 6: I still have no teeth and still can't eat. :crying-green:

*Pats the kitty*.

It's ok. DOG will forgive you. Hopefully you can get well soon!

[Southern]

You know why I reckon Peez wrote that post? He was caught idly doodling some tits, and had to hastily cook up an excuse to rescue his femcred.

'The - they're graphs. Really. For a, uh, blog post I'm thinking of writing.'

Tits? Don't be silly, PZ Myers, a renowed professor of biology and notorious feminist, would never do that.

Those are tentacles.

[Steersman]

Day 6: I still have no teeth and still can't eat. :crying-green:

I thought you said it was just your wisdom teeth? Still sucks – I had a molar removed about a month ago and it still obliges me to be careful of where and how I chew. I’m looking forward to having the ability to regrow teeth …. Science, any time now would be good ….

[Steersman]

FWIW and relative to the ongoing saga of the freewill/determinism saga, it seems I’ve been either banned or put into moderation for the following comment of mine on Jerry Coyne’s post about a young child, now a woman of 21, orphaned by her fundamentalist parents playing with rattlesnakes for fun and “prophet”; two follow-up comments of mine don’t even show “awaiting moderation”. In any case:

While I certainly don’t want to make light of the tragedy you’ve described or its deplorable manifestation of egregious child abuse – did you know that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which might reduce the incidence of that crime by defending a child’s right to freedom of religion, has been signed by every country in the world except Somalia, South Sudan and the United States, a situation that Obama has described as “embarrassing” [understatement of the year], and one due largely to “the opposition of religious conservatives”? – I would have thought that, given your apparent commitment to “hard determinism”, you would have been more sympathetic to that “time to go” trope or meme.

His response:

All right, Steersman, you are out of line here. A two-year-old child doesn’t have any degree of freedom at all; she was forced to lose her parents because of their stupid beliefs. And believe me, we can influence people to stop this kind of delusion, a delusion that kills children, through environmental influence, i.e. calling them out.

Your comment is ludicrous, insensitive, and should have embarrassed you. I suggest you stop frequenting this site; I don’t want your nonsense here.

And, in fact, you have made light of this tragedy. You’re just too obtuse to realize it.

I had thought that he might have taken “the bit in the teeth” and run with the UN Convention issue as that seems a more effective response than being rather self-indulgent and histrionic over a tragedy that happened some 17 to 20 years ago – the girl lost both parents to the same cause. But I’m somewhat amused and impressed that he made reference to the “degrees of freedom” idea that I’ve been peddling thither and yon as it seems a way off the horns of that particular dilemma; Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that ….

[Mykeru]

Made for the project in progress, I will just leave this here:

FTB_spike.gif

(1.54 MiB) Downloaded 207 times

[welch]

The important thing is that when your limited view of tenure is shown to have a high chance of not being correct, that you dig as fast as possible.

Apparently you did read nothing of what I posted, where I posted a 100 year history of the NEA and AAUP most emphatically describing tenure first and foremost as a protection of academic freedom.

As I said, I fail as a communicator.

I offered you a highly useful suggestion, that of brevity. Make your statement as short as possible, no shorter, no longer. Strive to make your points clear, and avoid unnecessary verbiage, no matter how you wish to wallow in it. It's pretty cool how easier it is to make a point when it's not dulled by kilograms of unneeded flare.

Your reaction to that was pretty fucking impressive. Well, de- more than im-, but definitely fucking -pressive.

[welch]

Actually, I will say this, generally Welch is a lot more right then wrong, and I speak as someone who has argued the fuck out of an argument with him in the past. On many occasions. And I think he is wrong on several major issues.

But he'd be the first to admit to that too. Maybe just on different things, mind you :)

If you're getting to the point of ignoring him Jaques, then maybe you should go back and reexamine your arguments, from first principles if you have to.

I've never said I was going to ignore him, or even threatened to.

Strawkins told me his experience of what academic scientists felt of tenure. I explained my experience of what I think the professors and the community think of tenure as well as how tenure is defended by various law professors.

Welch then complained that by copping to my experience, it meant I had done no research and was speaking out my ass and implied that *everyone* knows that tenure has nothing to do with academic freedom.

I (think) I refuted his complaints by showing a 100 year history of the NEA and the AAUP defending tenure primarily as a way to ensure academic freedom. And if the two largest unions of professors and educators have been saying for a 100 years that tenure is about academic freedom mostly, why shouldn't the public believe that?

He responded by complaining what I wrote was long and boring and then told me I should ignore him, and since then has been pretending that somehow I have wavered in my views.

But I haven't been planning on putting him on ignore. That was his suggestion.

Rats. I was hoping for an ignore, followed by weeks of you telling me how you're ignoring me every time I post. How I miss the Debaser Glory days.

[welch]

I'll stop now, because as everyone at the pit knows by now, welch ain't gonna stop.

Listen, and understand. Welch is out there. he can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you paste long comments of text in a DDOS attack.

:lol:

http://i.imgur.com/g7QVq9d.jpg

IT'S DA CALHOUNINATOR! GET TO DA CHOPPAH!

[welch]

Actually, I will say this, generally Welch is a lot more right then wrong, and I speak as someone who has argued the fuck out of an argument with him in the past. On many occasions. And I think he is wrong on several major issues.

But he'd be the first to admit to that too. Maybe just on different things, mind you :)

If you're getting to the point of ignoring him Jaques, then maybe you should go back and reexamine your arguments, from first principles if you have to.

I've never said I was going to ignore him, or even threatened to.

Strawkins told me his experience of what academic scientists felt of tenure. I explained my experience of what I think the professors and the community think of tenure as well as how tenure is defended by various law professors.

Welch then complained that by copping to my experience, it meant I had done no research and was speaking out my ass and implied that *everyone* knows that tenure has nothing to do with academic freedom.

I (think) I refuted his complaints by showing a 100 year history of the NEA and the AAUP defending tenure primarily as a way to ensure academic freedom. And if the two largest unions of professors and educators have been saying for a 100 years that tenure is about academic freedom mostly, why shouldn't the public believe that?

He responded by complaining what I wrote was long and boring and then told me I should ignore him, and since then has been pretending that somehow I have wavered in my views.

But I haven't been planning on putting him on ignore. That was his suggestion.

Just think of welch as the counterexample to HJ's claim that PMS does not exist, and move on. :)

The preferred term is "manstruating"

[JacquesCuze]

Yeah, I see your point. In fact Galileo managed to get his findings out even with the catholic church accusing him of heresy, so maybe all these modern conventions about not putting dissenting voices on the rack are a bit outdated. :lol:

Apparently, when Galileo got tenure, he never received another raise (perhaps demonstrating the long history of poorly paid tenured professors.)

http://i.imgur.com/GpuvZ9U.jpg

On a serious note, my argument might not be based on data (FLOOSH and all that) but I don't see your response as being wrong. Tenure might have benefited some of the things you listed, and if it didn't, then so what? I read your objections based on the fact that your graduate school was using early tenure as a recruiting tool for faculty, and frankly I'm not sure why I should be upset by that. You are probably aware that universities aren't willing to recruit just anyone. If you are already impressive enough to be recruited then presumably you've gone at least part of the distance to proving you merit tenure.

I think I was just annoyed. I had taken classes from this one prof for example, and he was okay, but he wasn't amazingly great as a teacher. And he was clearly fresh out of grad school himself. It wasn't clear to many of us that he deserved tenure. (In comparison one of our better professors didn't get tenure and ended up leaving for UCLA).

At the time, there was my wife, and my brother, and many people I knew in other departments and at other schools, struggling for much of a decade to get their Ph.Ds or to find a tenure track position.

The department I was in (actually many departments at that school), seemed to me (and I was a student but was certainly not well connected enough to really understand what was going on, or even to assess the research) to just be fast tracking tenure just to build their empires.

And you can say that was uninformed on my part, and petty, and it probably was, but hey, I thought tenure was supposed to mean something, and the evidence I saw was that it was being handed out for political reasons and out of favoritism rather than academic reasons.

I saw that same behavior play out in several departments in the years I attended and lived in the community with my wife getting her Ph.D there.

That and a few other things soured me on the noble principle of tenure, OR at least the claim that tenure was about academic freedom.

And hey, I won't deny there may be a large element of sour grapes to my complaint.

[welch]

Oh and Lil' Alex is in complete agreement with HJ that male & female sexes aren't real

Sex is a framework, not a fact – a means of interpreting biology, but not a part of it.

and

What reason is there to choose genes rather than body parts when diagnosing sex, and not vice versa?

Alex, too, is obsessed with penises, and feels their presence or absence is irrelevant to one's sex. Seeing as Alex describes himself as a "looney left cunt," I find myself agreeing with him on at least one point.

The difference, at this point, between them and Ken Ham is really that Ken Ham can grow a pretty fuckin' awesome beard, and those cunts can't.

[welch]

Try putting me on ignore now. It'll save you a lot of crying time later.

I'm not sure how my putting you on ignore keeps you from seeing my posts that you find long winded boring tedious and uninformed. I would be surprised to find that ignore works that way.

You do remind of a lot of similarly abused SJW feminists who also failed to understand how their twitter works.

I think I won't put you on ignore and thereby force you to read my drivel.

Also when you're being an ass, I'll let you know.

You're being an ass.

I don't have welch on ignore because he is far more often awesome (even, sometimes when he doesn't agree with me!) than an ass. But yes, there are times when he can be an awesome ass. I try not to take welch personally. I also like his vast technical knowledge.

Plus, his name on here reminds me of grape jam. I like grape jam.

the sad thing about that? People, at least in the US, see my last name every time they go in a store, or damned close. (maybe not trader joes, but fuck that collection of twee hipsters.) And yet, it is like there is some fucking genetic inability to spell "welch" correctly.

Best one yet?

"wealtsch"

It was pre-internet so the idea someone may have been trolling me didn't come up, at least with that term. I just stared at it and eventually said "No, you're just fucking with me now." Nope. They were serious.

HOW?

[welch]

I tried reading Alex Gabriel's "article" on binary gender wars or whatever, but the obscurantist prose made my brain hurt. Maybe he should attend ScienceOnline Together 2014 with the PeeZus, to improve his writing and to help find some new target to demonize, now that Bora is out of the picture.

A developmental biologist's definition of intersex encompasses a wide range of genetic mutations, chromosomal abnormalities, and other conditions that can lead to external genitalia that are ambiguous, or that don't correspond to the individual's chromosomal or gonadal sex. A 46, XY individual with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome would have female external genitalia and a vagina (but no uterus or fallopian tubes), with internal testes (which are usually removed because they can develop germ cell tumors). A 46, XY individual with Swyer (Sry gene mutation) syndrome would also have female external genitalia and a vagina, but only streak gonads internally - these individuals usually have a uterus and fallopian tubes, because there are no testes to produce the anti-Mullerian hormone. Of course there are a wide range of other intersex phenotypes that occur, but PZ went off on some tangents about penis vs. clitoris, height, cooking etc., which didn't seem very helpful at all.

Related to the above, I think that Germany's recent law regarding male-female-intersex categories at birth seems quite reasonable and progressive: http://world.time.com/2013/11/12/boy-girl-or-intersex/.

I love the germans. They're ruthlessly pragmatic, and I love that instead of sweating new words, they just jam a bunch of existing words together until they get something that works and move on.

Also, the idea of German Love Poetry makes me giggle. "ACHTUNG! FRAULEIN!"

[JacquesCuze]

I tried listening to PeeZee's lecture but admittedly my thoughts drifted

http://i.imgur.com/nJXlSye.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/NvqHw3s.jpg

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

Here is PZ's argument in welch like brevity.

http://i.imgur.com/b2oNHU8.jpg

Doesn't matter what metric you use you get 2x binary peaks and a middle ground into which SJ fits.

So sex is real! Except when it isn't!

I'd call that a win/win.

Peezus is a scientist. So he writes a post about sex differences that not only contains no data, he doesn't see the need for data before making a conclusion --

How many? I don’t know. Does it matter?

He adorns his post with little graphs, but the graphs have no quantification -- they're just doodles of what he imagines the distributions are. To me, they look like: a penis; a fedora; & 'do you want to titty-fuck?'


Peezus' writing is usually simplistic and fucking stupid. This one is obtuse, so it takes a bit of rereading to discover that it, too, is way fucking stupid.

Are boys really unsuited to cooking or other domestic chores? In these cases, are these distributions a meaningful way to identify what human beings should do? No. In fact, they erode the sharpness of the entire distinction. You can be male in one characteristic and female in another.

I suppose one could talk about domestic chores being part of trad gender identity, but not a characteristic of 'male' or 'female.' Christ, Peezus, get your SJ lingo down right!

Aww, fuck it -- looks like I'm gonna have to write another post!


P.S. Any clue why Peez, HJ, and Thimble are so obsessed with tiny penises?

You know why I reckon Peez wrote that post? He was caught idly doodling some tits, and had to hastily cook up an excuse to rescue his femcred.

'The - they're graphs. Really. For a, uh, blog post I'm thinking of writing.'

Those are knees, not titties.

[Cliché Guevara]

http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/02/ ... pe/358320/

Today Conor Oberst filed a libel lawsuit in a New York federal court against [the woman], a resident of North Carolina, who falsely accused him of rape in the comments section of the xoJane website in December of 2013 and again, some days later, on her Tumblr page. The suit counters [her] baseless allegations and states that Oberst never had any physical contact with her, either at the concert in Durham, NC at which she claims the attack took place, or at any other time. The only connection between Oberst and [the woman] was one of artist and fan – a fan who has posted laudatory comments about Oberst elsewhere online, including describing attending his band’s concert as the “Best memory ever!”

... Through his attorneys, Oberst requested that [the woman] recant her false accusations, but she ignored the requests. Oberst has thus been forced to proceed with this libel suit in order to set the record straight and to clear his name. Oberst is seeking to promote the truth and repair the distress this has brought upon him and his family. Oberst intends to donate the proceeds of this suit to charities benefitting the victims of violence against women.

[Gumby]

the sad thing about that? People, at least in the US, see my last name every time they go in a store, or damned close. (maybe not trader joes, but fuck that collection of twee hipsters.) And yet, it is like there is some fucking genetic inability to spell "welch" correctly.

Best one yet?

"wealtsch"

It was pre-internet so the idea someone may have been trolling me didn't come up, at least with that term. I just stared at it and eventually said "No, you're just fucking with me now." Nope. They were serious.

HOW?

Like yours, my last name is very short. It's not a common surname, but it's dead simple to both pronounce and spell. I won't dox myself here but suffice it to say I have seen and heard it mangled hundreds of times over the course of my life. I'd change my last name to Smith but morons would probably start writing it as "Smoonthoth" if I did.

[Tigzy]

It's like that guy here - Gaffin - everybody seems to get his name wrong.

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

It's like that guy here - Gaffin - everybody seems to get his name wrong.

Yeah, poor Grimalkin. S/h/it's vids are awful. Or maybe I mean awesome? Not sure, whenever I try to think of s/h/it I just come up with fog.

[Gumby]

It's like that guy here - Gaffin - everybody seems to get his name wrong.

Who?

[DaveDodo007]

All those arguing about Myers tenure are missing the point, P Z is worth his weight in advertising gold to the University of Minnesota Morris. Him just being linked with the place covers his salary, how would I, from the UK even know Morris existed let alone have a University and being a SJW/feminist is hardly a crime in academia quite the opposite in fact.

[Bourne Skeptic]

the sad thing about that? People, at least in the US, see my last name every time they go in a store, or damned close. (maybe not trader joes, but fuck that collection of twee hipsters.) And yet, it is like there is some fucking genetic inability to spell "welch" correctly.

Best one yet?

"wealtsch"

It was pre-internet so the idea someone may have been trolling me didn't come up, at least with that term. I just stared at it and eventually said "No, you're just fucking with me now." Nope. They were serious.

HOW?

Like yours, my last name is very short. It's not a common surname, but it's dead simple to both pronounce and spell. I won't dox myself here but suffice it to say I have seen and heard it mangled hundreds of times over the course of my life. I'd change my last name to Smith but morons would probably start writing it as "Smoonthoth" if I did.

Hitler isn't that short. But you're right, it is easy to spell and pronounce.

[Tigzy]

It's like that guy here - Gaffin - everybody seems to get his name wrong.

Who?

The one who did the video where he said Ophelia Benson was rotating around on a giant haemhorroid.

[Tigzy]

It's like that guy here - Gaffin - everybody seems to get his name wrong.

Who?

The one who did the video where he said Ophelia Benson was rotating around on a giant haemhorroid.