Category: Sexism
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Damore's Pseudoscientific Google manifesto is a better evidence for sexism than it is for intellectual sex differences
Pseudoscience is effective. If it weren’t, people wouldn’t generate so much of it to try to justify opinions not supported by the bulk of the evidence. It’s effective because people trust science as a method of understanding the world, and ideological actors want that trust conferred to their opinions. They want their opinions to carry…
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The Rolling Stone Fallout and What This Means for Rape Victims
I’ve been following the fall-out of the Rolling Stone article a Rape on Campus as well as their evolving preamble to the story, first expressing doubt, then seemingly dismissing Jackie’s account, now falling somewhere in-between with assertions that they have supporting evidence that Jackie was assaulted that night, but no idea of the details. I…
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NYT Helps in Typical Rape-victim Smearing
We should have predicted this when we discussed the UVa Rape story in Rolling Stone last week, it was just a matter of time before people would start suggesting the central figure in the story, Jackie, might be fabricating. I would be surprised if this response did not occur, because sadly it is so typical.…
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Rape on Campus Should be a Never Event
The Rolling Stone article, “A Rape on Campus” should be a must read for every one who attends college, plans to attend college, or has children or loved ones on a college campus, especially one with a significant fraternity presence. UVa is my alma mater for two of my degrees, but this story reminded me…
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Rebecca Watson's Skepticon talk is NOT an example of science denialism
I was recently pointed to this post by Edward Clint which purports to show Rebecca Watson using the 5 tactics of science denialism during her talk “How Girls Evolved to Shop” which was critical of evolutionary psychology at Skepticon. I watched her talk, found it entertaining, informative, wondered why I haven’t been invited to Skepticon,…
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Keep Akin in the race!
Everyone has heard about Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape” and the push now coming from the GOP to get him out of the race. But is this really fair or ideal? The problem with removing Akin from the race over this is that his gaffe was not just one exposing his scientific ignorance, but because…
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Forcing Doctors to Perform Unnecessary Medical Procedures is Unethical and Unlawful
Many bloggers and commentators have expressed outrage over the decision by Virginia to require ultrasound examination, possibly transvaginal ultrasound, prior to women obtaining an abortion. From Bill Maher to Dahlia Lithwick people are outraged and have even suggested that it should be considered rape to force women to undergo vaginal examination by ultrasound prior to…
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Should IQ and Race be studied and what is Lysenkoism anyway?
Dan MacArthur has started a big discussion on whether or not the relationship between IQ and race should be studied. Inspired by a pair of essays for and against the idea it has created a pretty healthy debate among the sciencebloggers including Razib with whom I will likely never agree on this issue. For the…
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I’m proud of ScienceBlogs
You know, we catch a lot of flack around these parts for being too “political”, and for straying away from “science”. Well, that’s a big load of crap, and two posts by Isis show why. It is impossible to separate politics from science from personal life, at least on one level. Now, perhaps I’ve become…
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Artificial Arbitration at American Apparel?
Jezebel proclaims: Dov Charney May Be More of a Scumbag than Anyone Realized, and I agree if the reporting on a sexual harassment case, Mary Nelson v. American Apparel, rings true (the opinion is unpublished, and I haven’t obtained a copy yet). Charney is the founder of American Apparel, and has been the focus of…