Nerds. Nerds EVERYWHERE...

[Steersman]

It's finally Dawkins-Throws-PZ-Under-the-Bus Day (everything you see below was either tweeted or re-tweeted by Dawkins):

[.tweet][/tweet]

Coyne is NOT HAPPY with Myers and lets us know it:<snip>

Never thought I'd see him use his shit-kickers for anything but blog-filler. But, apparently, I was wrong and he's going to put them to good use.

Probably right (largely) to do so. But there is probably some truth to PZ's claim that media and government have taken some advantage from Williams' death. Just that the amount of advantage was probably greatly overshadowed by compassion, probably even some "ask not for whom the bell tolls", for the man and an appreciation of his contributions. Which tends to make PZ look petty at best, and more likely an ignorant and hypocritical dickhead.

[James Caruthers]

PZ Myers is nothing. He's the emotionally immature internet troll that never grew up.
His blog post using Robin Williams' death as fodder for a click-bait Bread and Circuses argument is more proof of his limited intellect and paper-thin us-against-them ideology.

Yeah, the Williams article really feels like trollbait to me. I'd expect to see someone posting that shit to a chan to incite rage.

[Steersman]

In other news:

In another part off the world, this dood agrees with PeeZuss Christ and his point about Robin Williams, the media and brown peeps:
http://blog.jim.com/images/arab_spring.jpg

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

:lol: :clap: Now, that's what I call fast. Or maybe just a coincidence? :-)

[Tribble]

So you don't think it's a problem that people are regarded as special simply by virtue of showing up on moving picture machines? You take no umbrage with the fact that you know who the hell Paris Hilton is?

1. Williams was special. He had an extraordinarily rare talent that he developed into his becoming one of (if not) the greatest comedic actors of his generation. Which is hardly 'showing up on moving picture machines.'

2. Your non-sequitur is just plain stupid. Why should I take offense at knowing about Paris Hilton getting on TV. I know how her family bought her into 'celebrity status' and I don't care. If she can make good money being a 'celibrity' good for her. I don't follow her or care about her. Same goes with Kim Kardashian. I don't take offense to silly shit like this, either:

http://www.idealaunch.com/blog/wp-conte ... nuggie.jpg


In fact, the only thing 'offensive' I've found on this thread in days and days and days is your idiotic argument. It's a condescending load of nihilistic shyte.

[windy]

Check your species privilege, dead humans.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new ... Y7RXfQT.99

RIP, World’s Oldest Eel
The eel, 155, passed away in a Swedish well late last week

[Angry_Drunk]

There once was a robot named Steersman
Who was programmed to seek disagreement.
Got banned left and right
(Even over at WEIT!),
Yet the Slymepit would never deny him.

Well, I got trolled hard. Live and learn.

Nah, Steersman is many things, but a troll isn't one of them.

[Gumby]

In other news:

In another part off the world, this dood agrees with PeeZuss Christ and his point about Robin Williams, the media and brown peeps:
http://blog.jim.com/images/arab_spring.jpg

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

:lol: :clap: Now, that's what I call fast. Or maybe just a coincidence? :-)

I'm the South Park of shooping. Crudely drawn, but timely.

[another lurker]

I have a snuggie (a Canadian knock off), but alas, I have never used it:(

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

So you don't think it's a problem that people are regarded as special simply by virtue of showing up on moving picture machines? You take no umbrage with the fact that you know who the hell Paris Hilton is?

1. Williams was special. He had an extraordinarily rare talent that he developed into his becoming one of (if not) the greatest comedic actors of his generation. Which is hardly 'showing up on moving picture machines.'

2. Your non-sequitur is just plain stupid. Why should I take offense at knowing about Paris Hilton getting on TV. I know how her family bought her into 'celebrity status' and I don't care. If she can make good money being a 'celibrity' good for her. I don't follow her or care about her. Same goes with Kim Kardashian. I don't take offense to silly shit like this, either:

http://www.idealaunch.com/blog/wp-conte ... nuggie.jpg


In fact, the only thing 'offensive' I've found on this thread in days and days and days is your idiotic argument. It's a condescending load of nihilistic shyte.

I was with you up until the unwarranted slur on the snuggie. I am shaking with what is probably rage...wow. just. fucking. wow.

[Tribble]

chill girl sister punisher rape enabler https://twitter.com/lizzyf620 has had a fun series over the past few days

Not just a chill girl sister punisher rape enabler, but a transphobe too.

Chromosomes are are a patriarchal social construct.

Oh, she's amazing. The exact kind of girl that left me tongue-tied and speechless when I was young. It'd take me WEEKS to get up the nerve to ask someone like her out.

And get crushed by the rejection... Life as a young man... I miss being that effortlessly fit, but I don't miss the rest. Not even the hair.

[James Caruthers]

PZ Myers doubles down on his own stupidity (last comment from his long incredibly stupid blog post):

"Celebrity culture. Fuck it.

These people do not have an emotional connection to Robin Williams, the man; it’s fine to like the actor/comedian and enjoy his work, but look at this thread, and my twitter feed: people are freaking out that someone pointed out that the obsession with celebrity is getting in the way of caring about things that matter. I’m mainly feeling that I should have been more rude, because asking me to have been nicer about the dead famous guy is completely missing the point."

What goes around, comes around. Reality bites back like a motherfucker. How many of us will mourn when you fucking die? Probably not many given that you'll be a "dead less than famous guy," particularly in the atheist community after trashing practically everyone.

Humans acting humanly--by caring about someone whose craft has affected them emotionally.

Oh my God, that is just wrong! Non-dictionary atheists must care about the most righteous beings, SJWs and their celebs (like PZ, but don't mention that).

Being atheist is about putting others down for the sake of improving the world (yeah, that's it), and agreeing with Peezus. And that you don't like it means that you're just more humans acting like humans. Quit it.

Maybe if Peezus had seen Williams satirizing religion, it would be better, although nothing makes up for not caring properly about following the PZ dogma: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyat ... ious-joke/

Not that I care about that per se, but I do suspect that it would have prejudiced Myers differently, had he known. Too late now, he can't pretend that Williams maybe matters, for signaling some agreement with the demands of the intolerant Peezus.

http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Social justice warriors care about causes, not people. They care about people to the extent that caring to the person functions as a testimonial to the community that they are "good people." They are obsessed with being perceived as good, while simultaneously advancing the political/social justice agenda.

I don't know if Peezus is this way, because I get more of a generalized misanthropic vibe from him. Suey Park, Rebecca Watson and many modern feminists are more accurately described by the above paragraph. Even though I am a miserable white cishet shitlord, I can feel the insecurity that comes off of them in waves, and also often the attempts to manipulate and control others through being perceived as good while engaging in poisonous, parasitic or duplicitous actions.

I'm not making a moral argument because I think atheism should be about morals. But I have noticed that, for all their lip service payed to "feelings" and "helping people feel good," social justice warriors do not seem to care enough to a) give positive advice that will actually improve the lives of others or b) give any thought to the feelings of any person who does not march in lockstep with their ideology.

I would not, for example, dox any member of FTB or Skepchick. But I know for a fact that Martin Wagner would, if he believed the person didn't believe about life the way he believes. I think he even called it his moral duty.

It seems Peezus and Co simply exist to lend credibility to the religious argument that atheists are immoral.

[acathode]

I guess I don't understand why none of PZ's regular fuckers can't recognize the simple fact that the Robin Williams post is in really poor taste. Any moron would instantly see that - no matter what they might think of Williams or Myers.

It's just the usual tribalism + progressive SJW dogma.

PZ is a bigwig in the "regular fuckers" social ingroup, for another ingroup member disagreeing with PZ creates a conflict which might quite realistically end up with the one disagreeing being socially shunned by the other members in the ingroup. On top of that, PZ waved his big wand around and said "racism!", and that's as close to magic that you can come in SJW land... if you have "racism", you can argue pretty much anything you want and still be right. Because fuck it, for ingroup people, intent is magic...

From there on, you can pretty much see them helping each other in building a narrative which makes PZ right and everyone else wrong, by twisting words, ignoring certain things, inventing other stuff wholecloth, miss-representing and strawmanning the critics points, and playing by the ingroup rulebook that is magnitudes more lax than the standards they demand everyone else to follow. In the end, they manage to craft a "official story" that they can convince themselves with that nothing is wrong, PZ is completely justified and correct, and everyone else is evil/wrong - and they end up in the old, comfortable "IT'S OK WHEN WE DO IT!" (because [bullshit reasons]).

That [bullshit reasons] are completely ludicrous to any neutral onlooker doesn't really matter that much, since it's much more about appeasing the ingroup rather than convincing anyone in the outgroup, arming the ingroup with a official story that they can profess if pressed. As long as they have their official story, they aren't naked and unarmed in a discussion, and they can cling to it no matter how stupid they look or how many holes other poke in it - they'll still cling to it, so that they never ever concede a point or apologize.

Say what you want of the SJWs, but at least they are quite aware of the game they play and it's rules: Never, ever apologize, and never, ever admit you were wrong.

[James Caruthers]

I guess I don't understand why none of PZ's regular fuckers can't recognize the simple fact that the Robin Williams post is in really poor taste. Any moron would instantly see that - no matter what they might think of Williams or Myers.

If Robin Williams had been Robina Williamsdoter, he'd be backpedaling and apologizing so fast their heads would spin.

It's like making a crocodile hunter joke a day after he was killed, except the joke is "fuck the crocodile hunter and anyone who mourns for him."

[Tribble]

Someone reboot the Steersdroid, it's stuck in "Both sides of the 'rift' just need an adult to show them the way to peace and harmony" mode again.

Okay, so I am not insane. That makes me feel slightly better.

I was going to warn you... But then, nobody warned me... So I left you to figure it out.

[Skep tickle]

Ironic that Miri should report having such trouble with men constantly over-apologizing to her, when women are the ones w/ that reputation. See, for example:

<snip link to, & quote from, an online article of The Daily Telegraph>

<snip link to short video by Pantene, a hair care products company, about what it might look like for women not to say "sorry" so much>

http://www.livescience.com/8698-study-r ... ogize.html

Study Reveals Why Women Apologize So Much

If you think you hear women saying "I'm sorry" more than men, you're right. Women apologize more often than men do, according to a new study.
<snip couple of paragraphs from livescience.com about the 2010 study/ies with N=33 and N=120 undergrads>

I wonder whether those men who want to develop or maintain a relationship w/ Miri find themselves always on the defensive - walking on eggshells lest they offend her. :think:

Any time I see an "experiment" like that, I'm skeptical that it is representative of the actual population. Too often these magazines and newspapers grab on to results without telling you if they are worth reporting. In this case, there were a total of 33 men and 33 women taken from a "psychology department participant pool." This is hardly a reasonably sized sample and hardly a well-stratified or representative sample.

<snip evaluation of methods & limitations of the study/ies reported in the livescience article>

I don't know that you can conclude anything from this study, but the conclusion above is certainly "soft" to say the least. It seems self-serving to me, so I'll await a more accurate study design.

Sure; I don't disagree re the myriad limitations of these studies.

But note that I used those to offer a modicum of support my statement that "women are the ones w/ that reputation" (reputation for over-apologizing), and I paired it w/ a bit from The Daily Telegraph about a feminist conference and a short video from a shampoo company.

If you have counter-examples (other than Miri's post) showing that men generally have that reputation, rather than (or even in addition to) women, please do feel free to post it. :)

[Skep tickle]

Benson has yet another post* up about Dawkins' use of pedophilia & rape in a logic exercise:

*No need to get your panties in a bunch, I haven't linked it

[SoylentAtheist]

Myers has only had one girlfriend/wife/sexual partner in his life and yet his hobby for the past five years has been hanging out at skepchicks parties! He's even admitted that he's had about a dozen offers of sex at these conferences.
Something doesn't quite add up for me.
Do people actually 'offer sex' this way at conferences? My experience with the mating game is that people tend to flirt with each other and ony if you get distinctly positive sexual signals would anything approaching an offer of sex be made. Perhaps I'm too innocent for these things and 'fancy a fuck?' is commonplace at these events. Or, at least, commonplace for starfucking skeptic groupies.

Perhaps someone offered Little Paul a cup of coffee in the morning when he was looking a tad rough for the wear at the bar the prior night.

[Steersman]

<snip>

<snip>
An HJ apologist too? You are trying way too hard to.find balance. Your retconning of HJs point is ridiculous.

<snip>
And, pray tell, what science would that be? The science that recognizes different combinations of genotypes and phenotypes? Or your own idiosyncratic variety?

But that some scientists are somewhat careless in noting philosophic niceties or details hardly precludes the possibility of them being wrong. Unless you happen to be into scientism ....

For accuracy: The 2 x 2 table (XX & XY on one axis, male & female on the other axis) is the "normal" scenario. The implementation by nature is much more complicated than that, yet still the correlation between genotype (XX or XY) and gender-phenotype (female or male) is extremely high. No doubt it meets any reasonable criterion for statistical significance. ;)

:-) Though I'm not sure that "statistical significance" [SS] really addresses the question of assigning labels to any combinations of genotype & phenotype. Which seems more related to philosophical issues, including those of epistemology & linguistics. As suggested earlier, one might even argue that an over-reliance on the term [SS] is shading into scientism .... ;-)

To recap briefly: "Intersex" conditions include an eclectic mix of genotypes ... and an eclectic mix of phenotypes ... which match up in a wide variety of ways - with the biological features often (but not always, w/ current knowledge) explicable by underlying genetic & hormonal variances from "normal".

Indeed. Seems quite true that we are all unique - no one else has even the same genotypes that each of us has. Which, I think, tends to make the terms "male" and "female" useful abstractions - kind of like "patriarchy". Or Adam Smith's "Invisible hand". Or maybe even like "god" .... ;-) But to try and insist that any of those have some kind of causal efficacy or substance seems to commit the "sin", the logical fallacy of reification: "treating an abstraction as if it were a real thing".

[sinister]

Benson has yet another post* up about Dawkins' use of pedophilia & rape in a logic exercise:

*No need to get your panties in a bunch, I haven't linked it

That @latsot being sure is strange. I wonder if it owns any mirrors?

[Skep tickle]

<snip>

<snip>
And, pray tell, what science would that be? The science that recognizes different combinations of genotypes and phenotypes? Or your own idiosyncratic variety?

But that some scientists are somewhat careless in noting philosophic niceties or details hardly precludes the possibility of them being wrong. Unless you happen to be into scientism ....

For accuracy: The 2 x 2 table (XX & XY on one axis, male & female on the other axis) is the "normal" scenario. The implementation by nature is much more complicated than that, yet still the correlation between genotype (XX or XY) and gender-phenotype (female or male) is extremely high. No doubt it meets any reasonable criterion for statistical significance. ;)

:-) Though I'm not sure that "statistical significance" [SS] really addresses the question of assigning labels to any combinations of genotype & phenotype. Which seems more related to philosophical issues, including those of epistemology & linguistics. As suggested earlier, one might even argue that an over-reliance on the term [SS] is shading into scientism .... ;-)

To recap briefly: "Intersex" conditions include an eclectic mix of genotypes ... and an eclectic mix of phenotypes ... which match up in a wide variety of ways - with the biological features often (but not always, w/ current knowledge) explicable by underlying genetic & hormonal variances from "normal".

Indeed. Seems quite true that we are all unique - no one else has even the same genotypes that each of us has. Which, I think, tends to make the terms "male" and "female" useful abstractions - kind of like "patriarchy". Or Adam Smith's "Invisible hand". Or maybe even like "god" .... ;-) But to try and insist that any of those have some kind of causal efficacy or substance seems to commit the "sin", the logical fallacy of reification: "treating an abstraction as if it were a real thing".

Useful abstractions? No causal efficacy or substance?

One word: reproduction

[Tribble]

Not really. Consider that some 49% of the population has an X-Y genotype along with a penis and testes - whom we call "males" - and that some 49% of the population has an X-X genotype along with a vagina and ovaries - whom we call "females". And the other two percent includes individuals who happen to have X-X genotypes and penis and testes, and those who happen to have X-Y genotypes and vagina and ovaries. Now you can either call those 2% anomalies, or you can call them "other sexes", but it seems rather clear to me the whole process is one of attaching labels to particular combinations: there is (apparently) no such thing as an absolute "male" and an absolute "female" - maybe in some Platonic realm, but even that looks like a stretch. As the philosopher Alfred Korzybski put it, "the map [the label] is not the territory [object]".

Well then for totally not trolling you seem to be ignoring a little thing called "science". I'm sure that's incidental in your calling it as you see it your posts. Carry on though, I guess it's funny to watch.

Uh, what's unscientific about it?

Also, I'm not sure how it's related to HJ's point. IIRC HJ was claiming there's no such thing as biological sex. But here the point is that biological sex is not always determined by XX vs XY.

Long story short, the vast majority of "biological sex" is determined by hormones (especially testosterone) and their effects on the body. The Y chromosome itself codes for very little: its main role is to initiate the whole masculinization process, rather than specify each of its steps. As a result, it is possible (though of course very rare) to have a Y chromosome while having a mostly female body, if something interferes with the masculinization process.

CAH and CAIS are two examples of conditions in which an XY genotype leads to a "mostly-biologically-female" body and, apparently, mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipoid_con ... yperplasia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_a ... y_syndrome

/XY Boobies!
//Read Melissa Hines' book. It's cool.

Yes, deleterious mutations that reduce, often to zero, the reproductive fitness of the recipient. It's not something, in my mind, to be celebrated or to be used as some unscientific social-construct to attack the underpinnings of biology and sexuality in pretending these errors prove that for the vast majority of people (over 95%), karyotype does predict 'gender' and 'sexual orientation.'

[Dornier Pfeil]

Phil, it's not our place to decide if A+ is "shite". Only Dr. Carrier (as poor McWrong has already denounced it), can decide whether or not to pull life support from it.

May I ask for a link to that denunciation? I'm curious to read it.

You win. I was under the impression when someone says something along the lines of:

So why did I leave? Honestly, I’m a perfectionist control freak who hates working in groups.

(bolding mine)
that an inference would be that it's a withdraw from both spheres, as both are groups, although I was originally under the impression that A+ & FfTB were linked together, considering the overlapping of commenter/supporter/blogger types. That has "clearly" changed however, and I was under the wrong impression. You're right though, she never specifically denounced A+ as a whole. I'm bad at this source thing and I tend to jump to conclusions. ;)

I will wholly admit that it was my mistake in leading you on. :shifty:

Actually I was really curious to read that denunciation of A+. I didn't in the least doubt you that it existed. I beg your pardon for forcing you to show the falseness of your post.

[austin]

PZ Myers might not be as dumb as he appears. He knows at the back of his mind he has a group of dedicated shit for brains groupies who will defend literally anything he says. He knows also the only way he generates significant traffic is to personally attack someone, creationists don't work anymore, nobody really significantly gives a shit about the social issues by themselves. Juxtapose some apparently ill posed comments about Robin Williams with a relevant social issue and walla a gazillion blog hits, to feed the feeding frenzy. I wouldn't be surprised if he privately has utter contempt for his groupies, but like L Ron Hubbard, keeping them occupied in their imaginary witch hunts and faux social warriorhood might make for a generous retirement based on tour events for his groupies and maybe another book or two based on his blog posts for the groupies to fawn on. Failed scientist, failed gnu atheist four-horseman, but successful atheist hyperfeminist slum lord. Just a few bedtime thoughts.

[Dornier Pfeil]

PZ Myers doubles down on his own stupidity (last comment from his long incredibly stupid blog post):

"Celebrity culture. Fuck it.

These people do not have an emotional connection to Robin Williams, the man; it’s fine to like the actor/comedian and enjoy his work, but look at this thread, and my twitter feed: people are freaking out that someone pointed out that the obsession with celebrity is getting in the way of caring about things that matter. I’m mainly feeling that I should have been more rude, because asking me to have been nicer about the dead famous guy is completely missing the point."

What goes around, comes around. Reality bites back like a motherfucker. How many of us will mourn when you fucking die? Probably not many given that you'll be a "dead less than famous guy," particularly in the atheist community after trashing practically everyone.

Wow.

There is a time to point out the silliness of celebrity culture, and that time is when someone like Paris Hilton gets kicked out of a nightclub for wearing neon underwear and it makes the news. Not when a beloved performer who suffered with clinical depression tragically commits suicide. How can this distinction possibly be lost on anyone with a modicum of intelligence?

Peezus is no different than the sort of snob who feels compelled to brag to you that they don't watch tv, or that they have no interest in whatever popular event everyone else is excited about. Being "aware" of ebola in Africa, or of police brutality somewhere across the country, or of violence in the Middle East means nothing. Most of us are in no position at all to do anything meaningful with that "awareness," especially some unimportant cowpie professor in the middle of nowhere. Knowing a bit of superficial information about "serious" news doesn't empower him to do the slightest thing about it, but that's OK, because he only wants to use it to show how much better he is than you anyway -- he pays attention to important information, unlike all you sheeple. It's an opportunity for him to cynically indulge in some moral posturing to win some irrelevant internet status points. That's what makes him even more pathetic and disgusting to me.

It's double sad that of the things that PZ CAN do about the troubles of the world, however small and limited, he and his choir mockingly refuse. He could set the example on reducing carbon footprints by not flying, for instance.

[Skep tickle]

Latsot, Oolon, & Avicenna, were among the attendees at PZ's talk in (at?) Hebden Bridge

This guy has blogged about it already:
http://badreason99.blogspot.com/2014/08 ... ridge.html

Sounds like he found it interesting, but he did make this comment:

Later I asked a fellow local how on earth we’d managed to get the world famous PZ Myers (hot foot from the dreaming spires of Oxford) to come and speak at Hebden Bridge. “Well he’s on his way up to Edinburgh. I suppose it was on the way” he suggested.

Now don’t get me wrong, Hebden Bridge is a lovely place (it is, after all, in Yorkshire) and I urge you all to visit if you are ever up this way. But it is not normally on the beaten track of internationally renowned academics.

[sinister]

Reproduction? Gross. :lol:

[Brive1987]

PZ Myers might not be as dumb as he appears. He knows at the back of his mind he has a group of dedicated shit for brains groupies who will defend literally anything he says. He knows also the only way he generates significant traffic is to personally attack someone, creationists don't work anymore, nobody really significantly gives a shit about the social issues by themselves. Juxtapose some apparently ill posed comments about Robin Williams with a relevant social issue and walla a gazillion blog hits, to feed the feeding frenzy. I wouldn't be surprised if he privately has utter contempt for his groupies, but like L Ron Hubbard, keeping them occupied in their imaginary witch hunts and faux social warriorhood might make for a generous retirement based on tour events for his groupies and maybe another book or two based on his blog posts for the groupies to fawn on. Failed scientist, failed gnu atheist four-horseman, but successful atheist hyperfeminist slum lord. Just a few bedtime thoughts.

The horde turned during bunny-gate.

But I think the answer lies in the recent perfect storm. He is speaking to a half empty trades hall in the middle of no-where pop 4500, was shunted to the also rans side-room in Oxford, was ignored by even the looney medic let alone the A listers and can't wait to get back to Morris (pop 5,200) where he can be a someone again. A summer camp from hell.

The poor man is venting and trying to reassert his creds. But all he has done is dig himself deeper and more clearly delineate his marginalised status.

Which is of course a win. For "us".

[Brive1987]

That PZ fan-post was hard reading. I find that sort of celebrity culture so very offensive.

I shook hands with PZ and thanked him before leaving and should like to take this opportunity to say how flattered we all were that he took time out to come and share an evening with us ...

Why Hebden? Well you takes what you get offered.

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

Meyers seems to have suspended comments on his Dear Muslima post. I guess he can't trust even Cainaji to keep The Herd in lockstep while he's asleep in England.

[jugheadnaut]

I strongly suspect Peezer's snarky dismissiveness of Robin Williams is largely due to his participation in What Dreams May Come. This was the only Williams work he mentioned in his blog post, in the context of it being something a typical white religious racist would cry at. What Dreams May Come is based on a fanciful rendering of the fundamentalist Christian vision of life after death. I'd imagine most atheists could watch it and not feel challenged any more than they would by the Norse mythology of Thor. But for a petty, immature Manichean like PZ, it was pure Christian propaganda. And for an A-list actor to be involved was unforgivable, and it put Williams on his shit list.

[austin]

Elevatorgate was apparently like the K-T extinction event huh? What happened in that elevator has ramifications we have yet to fully comprehend even to this very day, like a quantum fluctuation? Like Moses, PZ Myers emerged from Elevatorgate with the new 10 commandments of radical feminism with Rebecca Watson, his Aaron right by his side. As Spock would say, fascinating.

[Brive1987]

Elevatorgate was apparently like the K-T extinction event huh? What happened in that elevator has ramifications we have yet to fully comprehend even to this very day, like a quantum fluctuation? Like Moses, PZ Myers emerged from Elevatorgate with the new 10 commandments of radical feminism with Rebecca Watson, his Aaron right by his side. As Spock would say, fascinating.

http://i.imgur.com/Z240Zza.jpg

[sinister]

Someone reboot the Steersdroid, it's stuck in "Both sides of the 'rift' just need an adult to show them the way to peace and harmony" mode again.

Okay, so I am not insane. That makes me feel slightly better.

I was going to warn you... But then, nobody warned me... So I left you to figure it out.

Haha! Thanks?

[DW Adams]

FreeFromThoughtBlogs are down?

[Steersman]

<snip>
Which, I think, tends to make the terms "male" and "female" useful abstractions - kind of like "patriarchy". Or Adam Smith's "Invisible hand". Or maybe even like "god" .... ;-) But to try and insist that any of those have some kind of causal efficacy or substance seems to commit the "sin", the logical fallacy of reification: "treating an abstraction as if it were a real thing".

Useful abstractions? No causal efficacy or substance?

One word: reproduction

Again, I think you're failing to differentiate between the labels we apply to things, and the things themselves. For instance, procreation happens because of the "hardware", not because of the labels assigned to groups or collections of pieces of hardware. More particularly, it seems possible if not probable, though this is somewhat of a guess (though I seem to recollect reading about a case of it), that, for instance, an X-Y individual can have functioning ovaries and a functioning uterus and can therefore support conception, and the carrying of a fetus to term. Male or female? It is not the "male" or "female" which engage in the procreation, but the physiological mechanisms which don't have, as far as I can see, any intrinsic labels attached.

You might want to take a close look at that article on Korzybski's work:

Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski remarked that "the map is not the territory", encapsulating his view that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself. Korzybski held that many people do confuse maps with territories, that is, confuse models of reality with reality itself.

[Old_ones]

Old_ones, thanks for posting that rant. I was about to do so.

For accuracy: The 2 x 2 table (XX & XY on one axis, male & female on the other axis) is the "normal" scenario. The implementation by nature is much more complicated than that, yet still the correlation between genotype (XX or XY) and gender-phenotype (female or male) is extremely high. No doubt it meets any reasonable criterion for statistical significance. ;)

To recap briefly: "Intersex" conditions include an eclectic mix of genotypes (not just XX and XY - everything from XO to XXY to people who are mosaics" or "chimeras" & don't have just one sex karyotype), and an eclectic mix of phenotypes (not just "male" and "female", starting with appearance of external genitalia at birth then including internal reproductive organs and secondary sex characteristics and self-identification of gender and gender "presentation"), which match up in a wide variety of ways - with the biological features often (but not always, w/ current knowledge) explicable by underlying genetic & hormonal variances from "normal".

No problem, Skep Tickle. I'm glad you found it you found it cogent.

[KiwiInOz]

Since my flow cytometry came back this week showing exactly what kind of leukaemia I am dealing with I now have a somewhat more urgent desire to see Peezus reach his well-deserved demise (before I reach my less-deserved one).

That sucks, screwtape.

[FTB} But given that being murdered is less bad than being raped, count yourself lucky that you're not getting divorced. [/FTB}

[AndrewV69]

In other news:

In another part off the world, this dood agrees with PeeZuss Christ and his point about Robin Williams, the media and brown peeps:
http://blog.jim.com/images/arab_spring.jpg

What are the translations? "Peezus says, 'Off with their heads'"? "Heads will roll"?

Heh!

On a more serious note, remember what Razib said regarding extermination being the objective rather than a means to an end?

Also I do not write or read arabic. But you can try here for a translation of the site.

There are a lot of references that unfortunately you are not going to get. For example "Daash" is a derogatory reference to IS (formerly ISIL))

Kind of puts the pissing and moaning from the SJW, PeeZuss Christ, and all the other contemptible pissants in perspective does it not?

[SoylentAtheist]

I guess I don't understand why none of PZ's regular fuckers can't recognize the simple fact that the Robin Williams post is in really poor taste. Any moron would instantly see that - no matter what they might think of Williams or Myers.

It's just the usual tribalism + progressive SJW dogma.

PZ is a bigwig in the "regular fuckers" social ingroup, for another ingroup member disagreeing with PZ creates a conflict which might quite realistically end up with the one disagreeing being socially shunned by the other members in the ingroup. On top of that, PZ waved his big wand around and said "racism!", and that's as close to magic that you can come in SJW land... if you have "racism", you can argue pretty much anything you want and still be right. Because fuck it, for ingroup people, intent is magic...

Can't someone just wave their magic hand and say "Mental Illness" and be done with Little Paul?

[Steersman]

Good night all. This has been a memorable day wherein Saint Pizzle has finally managed to say something so egregiously retarded that even Jerry Coyne felt enough of a rocket up his arse to say something. Is there a word like shadenfreude, but more specific, describing how one derives pleasure from the misfortune of another, but only because they're a cunt?

:lol:
<snip>
I've also experienced the acute spike of deep depression and despair that drove Williams to that final act. This week in fact, I had a dose of it that lasted quite a few hours (then eased, thankfully) so it's super fresh to me. That kind of thinking, that your life is just not worth living anymore, is incredibly powerful and awful.

Indeed. I expect many if not most of us have had at least a “close encounter” with that type of thinking where one seems to go in the proverbial ever diminishing circles and it feels like the walls are closing in. Reminds me of a passage from “Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas” [A savage journey to the heart of the American dream] in which one character, Dukes' lawyer, I think, had taken some LSD and was consequently subjected to several hours of “hellishly intense introspection”. Been there, done that ....

[James Caruthers]

Peezus is no different than the sort of snob who feels compelled to brag to you that they don't watch tv, or that they have no interest in whatever popular event everyone else is excited about. Being "aware" of ebola in Africa, or of police brutality somewhere across the country, or of violence in the Middle East means nothing. Most of us are in no position at all to do anything meaningful with that "awareness," especially some unimportant cowpie professor in the middle of nowhere. Knowing a bit of superficial information about "serious" news doesn't empower him to do the slightest thing about it, but that's OK, because he only wants to use it to show how much better he is than you anyway -- he pays attention to important information, unlike all you sheeple. It's an opportunity for him to cynically indulge in some moral posturing to win some irrelevant internet status points. That's what makes him even more pathetic and disgusting to me.

Good point. I've often thought it was a sort of intellectual liberal circlejerking to moan about the plight of x oppressed group over in y country that you cannot possibly do shit about. Reminds me a bit of people who obsessively watch the cable news or read a conspiracy website because "I've gotta be informed. I don't want to be one of those uninformed sheeple."

Crying about injustice in some other country raises the question: do these SJWs want the USA to be the World Police, or not? If not, then the USA can't do shit about their pet SJW causes in other nations, because that oppressive place is a sovereign nation and we have no right to help citizens of another country who asks for aid if we don't have the (crystal clear enthusiastic) consent of their government. On the other hand, if the SJWs DO want America to intervene on causes they care about overseas (without the approval of the local sovereign government), then clearly they are okay with making the USA into Team America World Police, in which case they have no right to bitch when Team America is zipping across border lines to slap down some oppressed pocks or tap a suspected terrorist.

In other words, sauce for the goose. *invokes the robot ghost spirit of Steersman*

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/ ... 2xhe41.jpg

[Steersman]

In other news:

In another part off the world, this dood agrees with PeeZuss Christ and his point about Robin Williams, the media and brown peeps:
http://blog.jim.com/images/arab_spring.jpg

What are the translations? "Peezus says, 'Off with their heads'"? "Heads will roll"?

Heh!

On a more serious note, remember what Razib said regarding extermination being the objective rather than a means to an end?

Vaguely, but yes. Didn't read his post, just skimmed your quote.

[Also I do not write or read arabic. But you can try ... for a translation of the site.

It was just a jest, a "rhetorical question". :-)

<snip>
Kind of puts the pissing and moaning from the SJW, PeeZuss Christ, and all the other contemptible pissants in perspective does it not?

Indeed. Part of the reason for my earlier jest that you were proffering your own "Dear Muslima moment". :-) Good sport; everyone gets to have a kick at that ball ...

[James Caruthers]

Meyers seems to have suspended comments on his Dear Muslima post. I guess he can't trust even Cainaji to keep The Herd in lockstep while he's asleep in England.

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

[Steersman]

<snip>
In other words, sauce for the goose. *invokes the robot ghost spirit of Steersman*
http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/ ... 2xhe41.jpg

:lol: "The ghost in the machine"? ....

[jugheadnaut]

Dawkins attempt to grapple with the Ontological Argument in GD demonstrated his lack of philosophical credentials - and beyond "proving" God does not directly intervene in worldly affairs - theology is basically one big philosophical construct.

The typical scientist is outside their pay grade when as an atheist they cross swords with anyone with philosophical training in the philosophical arena, though I'd say Steve Novella and Sam Harris are better at this than RDs.

Not say the Ontological Argument is correct :shock: But you really only have two options here - dismiss it with a smirk because it's "obviously" wrong and produce alternatives that miss the point altogether or plunge down a complicated abstract logical and philosophical mind fuck of a rabbit barrow. A place no self respecting natural scientist would quite rightly ever allow themselves to go ...

Perhaps I am wrong here, but I thought the vast majority of philosophers regarded the Ontological Argument as being of historical interest only and that it has been conclusively disproven as it is based on a false premise (a non-existing entity having a property). In my introductory philosophy course in college, it was presented as being interesting in that most modern minds easily discern it to be a weak word game, yet it vexed the best and brightest minds for centuries. I later took a much more advanced course called Religion and Critical Thought, which was in the curriculum of the Department of Religion. The first part of the course presented what the instructor believed to be the most cogent theistic and anti-theistic arguments. The Ontological Argument was waived away in less than a minute as not being worthy of modern consideration.

Maybe today there are philosophers who use it purely as a thought experiment into systems of logic. But I believe the only people currently taking it seriously are theistic apologists who love the idea of God's signature being found in the very axioms of logic or mathematics. Or they cynically regard it as something that credulous rubes might accept, and bringing them to God requires no higher justification, such as the argument being 'true'. This would mean Dawkins' polemical ridicule is rightly calling a spade a spade, which, IMHO, is superior to using philosophical training to give a spurious sophistication to the Ontological Argument.

[welch]

http://ct.fra.bz/ol/fz/sw/i59/2/5/1/fra ... db22a2.jpg

[Steersman]

Re: Robin Williams

(snip)

Q.Why do so many married men die before their wives?
A.Because they really really really want to.

(snip)

Somewhere recently I read the delightful statement that "50% of marriages end in divorce, the other 50% end in death."

Since my flow cytometry came back this week showing exactly what kind of leukaemia I am dealing with I now have a somewhat more urgent desire to see Peezus reach his well-deserved demise (before I reach my less-deserved one).

That definitely sucks big time; sorry to hear that. We are all, of course, facing a death sentence with the cold wind of mortality blowing up all our kilts. Just that some of us are a little closer to the front lines, to the exit door, than others. But a traumatic experience - my sister dodged a bullet when her breast cancer turned out to be benign, and my sister-in-law's melanoma eventually yielded to a relatively new and largely experimental round of chemotherapy - but not before leaving a few marks on my brother's and sister-in-law's psyches. Hopefully you'll have similar luck ....

[Guest]

Damn you John C. Walsh!

[Old_ones]

<snip>
Which, I think, tends to make the terms "male" and "female" useful abstractions - kind of like "patriarchy". Or Adam Smith's "Invisible hand". Or maybe even like "god" .... ;-) But to try and insist that any of those have some kind of causal efficacy or substance seems to commit the "sin", the logical fallacy of reification: "treating an abstraction as if it were a real thing".

Useful abstractions? No causal efficacy or substance?

One word: reproduction

Again, I think you're failing to differentiate between the labels we apply to things, and the things themselves. For instance, procreation happens because of the "hardware", not because of the labels assigned to groups or collections of pieces of hardware. More particularly, it seems possible if not probable, though this is somewhat of a guess (though I seem to recollect reading about a case of it), that, for instance, an X-Y individual can have functioning ovaries and a functioning uterus and can therefore support conception, and the carrying of a fetus to term. Male or female? It is not the "male" or "female" which engage in the procreation, but the physiological mechanisms which don't have, as far as I can see, any intrinsic labels attached.

You might want to take a close look at that article on Korzybski's work:

Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski remarked that "the map is not the territory", encapsulating his view that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself. Korzybski held that many people do confuse maps with territories, that is, confuse models of reality with reality itself.

Procreation doesn't happen because of the hardware; procreation started as an asexual process. Sexual reproduction evolved because it was an efficient way to produce genetic diversity, which is an advantageous thing for a population to have. That isn't speculation, its well established biology. There are a variety of particular ways in which it can happen. In our species it requires two partners with distinct equipment, in earthworms there are no sexes because each individual has both kinds of equipment.

To shift gears, I don't think this "map is not the territory" crap is very useful or intellectually honest. You may as well be telling me that the earth isn't round because it bulges at the equator and there are divots in it and other irregularities.* You'd have a point of course; I couldn't come up with a perfect model of the earth's actual shape that accounted for every subatomic particle. At the same time every reasonable model I could come up with for the earth would be very much like a sphere. So the earth is still round even if all the models we have for it are actually models. All available evidence points to the surface of the earth having a curvature.

Similarly, no reasonable model of human sexual reproduction that you could make would not have males and females. You might have reproductively viable hermaphrodites, you might have individuals who are a-pubescent, you might have any number of karyotypes, that's all granted. But those are bulges on the earth's essentially round surface. A mole hill on a golf course might prove that the earth isn't perfectly round, but you can't tell me it opens the door to the possibility that the earth is a triangular prism.

*full disclosure, I'm lifting this example from Issac Asimov (http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/ ... fwrong.htm)

[Old_ones]

PZ Myers might not be as dumb as he appears. He knows at the back of his mind he has a group of dedicated shit for brains groupies who will defend literally anything he says. He knows also the only way he generates significant traffic is to personally attack someone, creationists don't work anymore, nobody really significantly gives a shit about the social issues by themselves. Juxtapose some apparently ill posed comments about Robin Williams with a relevant social issue and walla a gazillion blog hits, to feed the feeding frenzy. I wouldn't be surprised if he privately has utter contempt for his groupies, but like L Ron Hubbard, keeping them occupied in their imaginary witch hunts and faux social warriorhood might make for a generous retirement based on tour events for his groupies and maybe another book or two based on his blog posts for the groupies to fawn on. Failed scientist, failed gnu atheist four-horseman, but successful atheist hyperfeminist slum lord. Just a few bedtime thoughts.

Its a good strategy in the short term. He's basically a social justice-y version of Rush Limbaugh. On the other hand, I don't think the atheist community is going to want its own Rush Limbaugh forever. The more obnoxious crap he spews the more likely it is that he and his claque of assholes are going to be shunned by the rest of the community.

Here's hoping anyway...

[austin]

Screwtape - skipped over that one, wow man, I don't know you, dunno what to say but that I second that this totally fucking sucks, I wish you all the best!!!!!

[Brive1987]

Dawkins attempt to grapple with the Ontological Argument in GD demonstrated his lack of philosophical credentials - and beyond "proving" God does not directly intervene in worldly affairs - theology is basically one big philosophical construct.

The typical scientist is outside their pay grade when as an atheist they cross swords with anyone with philosophical training in the philosophical arena, though I'd say Steve Novella and Sam Harris are better at this than RDs.

Not say the Ontological Argument is correct :shock: But you really only have two options here - dismiss it with a smirk because it's "obviously" wrong and produce alternatives that miss the point altogether or plunge down a complicated abstract logical and philosophical mind fuck of a rabbit barrow. A place no self respecting natural scientist would quite rightly ever allow themselves to go ...

Perhaps I am wrong here, but I thought the vast majority of philosophers regarded the Ontological Argument as being of historical interest only and that it has been conclusively disproven as it is based on a false premise (a non-existing entity having a property). In my introductory philosophy course in college, it was presented as being interesting in that most modern minds easily discern it to be a weak word game, yet it vexed the best and brightest minds for centuries. I later took a much more advanced course called Religion and Critical Thought, which was in the curriculum of the Department of Religion. The first part of the course presented what the instructor believed to be the most cogent theistic and anti-theistic arguments. The Ontological Argument was waived away in less than a minute as not being worthy of modern consideration.

Maybe today there are philosophers who use it purely as a thought experiment into systems of logic. But I believe the only people currently taking it seriously are theistic apologists who love the idea of God's signature being found in the very axioms of logic or mathematics. Or they cynically regard it as something that credulous rubes might accept, and bringing them to God requires no higher justification, such as the argument being 'true'. This would mean Dawkins' polemical ridicule is rightly calling a spade a spade, which, IMHO, is superior to using philosophical training to give a spurious sophistication to the Ontological Argument.

It is definitely flawed - but apparently if you want to really understand "why" at a technical rather than hand waving level you need to engage with shit like this: http://mally.stanford.edu/ontological.pdf.

I'm trying to hunt down another really detailed document I had on it. If memory serves its pitch was that at a "proper logical level" it should work - except there is a subtle mischaracterisation which can only really be understood by initiates of the field.

On a common-sense pragmatic level it "obviously" is wrong.

[Brive1987]

Here are some pics of interest I stumbled across:

http://i.imgur.com/qXFjuF6.jpg

[Brive1987]

http://i.imgur.com/G0zHa8c.jpg

[Steersman]

<snip>

An HJ apologist too? You are trying way too hard to.find balance. Your retconning of HJs point is ridiculous.

Not really. Consider that some 49% of the population has an X-Y genotype along with a penis and testes - whom we call "males" - and that some 49% of the population has an X-X genotype along with a vagina and ovaries - whom we call "females". And the other two percent includes individuals who happen to have X-X genotypes and penis and testes, and those who happen to have X-Y genotypes and vagina and ovaries. ....

Consider that most of the human population has four limbs--thus we call them tetrapods.

But there are humans who never grew arms, some never grew legs, while others are amputees. How can you call humans "tetrapods," considering those facts?

True. But we don't have a large group of those without limbs insisting on separate toilet facilities (sort of). And not too many able-bodied looking, in another case of misplaced flattery of the "crippled", to have some of their limbs removed. While I think the issue is a bit of a tempest-in-a-teapot, and that one might reasonably argue that what at least some of the trans-activists really need is some electro-convulsive shock therapy instead of surgical or hormonal interventions, the fact of the matter is that the issue is one that has some relevance and bearing on various aspects of "feminism", not least those related to the nature-nurture debate.

Good grief, of course words aren't absolutes, there are exceptions to the "rules," and there is no such thing as an absolute human ....

True enough. But as Korzybski pointed out, "many people do confuse maps with territories", something which seems applicable to no few trans-activists and gender-ideologues. Hence the necessity for emphasizing that dichotomy, and for disabusing them of that "delusion".

The world simply isn't Platonic at all, hence there is no reason to demand the sorts of caveats that merely example that fact.

Probably not, although that might be moot. But one wouldn't need to lock one's doors - if there weren't any robbers. If people didn't use words incorrectly then one wouldn't need those "sorts of caveats".

[Brive1987]

http://i.imgur.com/wt5aN4T.jpg

[Brive1987]

http://i.imgur.com/7MWKP71.jpg

[Brive1987]

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

That is all.

[austin]

PZ Myers might not be as dumb as he appears. He knows at the back of his mind he has a group of dedicated shit for brains groupies who will defend literally anything he says. He knows also the only way he generates significant traffic is to personally attack someone, creationists don't work anymore, nobody really significantly gives a shit about the social issues by themselves. Juxtapose some apparently ill posed comments about Robin Williams with a relevant social issue and walla a gazillion blog hits, to feed the feeding frenzy. I wouldn't be surprised if he privately has utter contempt for his groupies, but like L Ron Hubbard, keeping them occupied in their imaginary witch hunts and faux social warriorhood might make for a generous retirement based on tour events for his groupies and maybe another book or two based on his blog posts for the groupies to fawn on. Failed scientist, failed gnu atheist four-horseman, but successful atheist hyperfeminist slum lord. Just a few bedtime thoughts.

Its a good strategy in the short term. He's basically a social justice-y version of Rush Limbaugh. On the other hand, I don't think the atheist community is going to want its own Rush Limbaugh forever. The more obnoxious crap he spews the more likely it is that he and his claque of assholes are going to be shunned by the rest of the community.

Here's hoping anyway...

Yay I just learned how to link quotes, what an idiot. Anyway good analogy. L. Ron Hubbard and his gig goes on to this very day, these things can take on a life of their own for a long long time.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Debunked? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?