Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Stiff resistance

    This is just terribly sad – Jerry Coyne gave a lecture on evolution at a public school and a lot of the students were simply “offended” in their religious beliefs.

    I am dispirited. I’ve just returned from a two-hour lecture and Q&A session at the Woodlawn Charter School, a public school run by the University of Chicago on the South Side of the city.  Some of the high-school biology students are reading Why Evolution is True, and I gave a presentation on the evidence for evolution—with a tiny bit about why religion prevents Americans from accepting evolution, for I was asked to mention that topic—followed by an hour of questions.

    Some of the questions were good, and some of the students really interested, but there was also a lot of religious pushback.  One student, I was told, sat through the entire lecture muttering about how she shouldn’t be forced to listen to this stuff since it went against her faith.  Another student’s “question” was to inform me that she was offended that I said that Adam and Eve never existed (I talked about the human bottleneck of 1200 people), and asked me how I knew that.

    And the teacher who invited me told me she encountered stiff resistance from many of her kids about evolution—resistance based solely on their religious upbringing.

    That’s just sad. It’s such a waste. So much to learn, so much to explore, and all they can do is mutter and be offended, because adults have fed them a lot of made-up crap along with the idea that they’re supposed to get indignant if anyone says anything different. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. That’s a hokey old slogan, but by god it’s the truth.

  • Steve Jones on the denial of science

    Why build a philosophy based on fixed untruths, when we have so many truths, and so many things still to find out?

  • Lads

    I’m handicapped in thinking about this by the fact that I’ve never seen, let alone read, a lads’ mag. I’ve spent the past few minutes trying to figure out what they are, which has led to my finding out what “lad culture” is, which I’m not sure I wanted to know.

    In an ironic, self-conscious fashion, “lads took up an anti-intellectual position, scorning sensitivity and caring in favour of drinking, violence, and a pre-feminist attitude to women as both sex objects and creatures from another species”.

    Oh I hate that “ironic” thing. Pretentious jerks in the UK are always telling you they’re doing or saying whatever it is “ironically,” which just means don’t go thinking I’m a jerk merely because I’m acting or talking like one.

    That get out of jail free card probably is why we get treated to so much misogynist name-calling, though – it’s “ironic” or “self-conscious” or “rebellion against stifling political correctness” or all of those. Having it both ways – all the fun of vomiting hatred and contempt onto women and feeling hip and witty and “ironic” at the same time.

    So, a study by a couple of psychologists finds that rapists and lads’ mags use the same language.

    Psychologists from Middlesex University and the University of Surrey found that when presented with descriptions of women taken from lads’ mags, and comments about women made by convicted rapists, most people who took part in the study could not distinguish the source of the quotes.

    The research due to be published in the British Journal of Psychology also revealed that most men who took part in the study identified themselves more with the language expressed by the convicted rapists.

    Psychologists presented men between the ages of 18 and 46 with a range of statements taken from magazines and from convicted rapists in the study, and gave the men different information about the source of the quotes. Men identified more with the comments made by rapists more   than the quotes made in lads’ mags, but men identified more with quotes said to have been drawn from lads’ mags more than those said to have been comments by convicted rapists.

    The writing is very muddled in that last para, but if you watch the video it becomes clear: when the test subjects thought the comments came from lads’ mags, they identified with the comments, whereas they didn’t when they thought the comments came from rapists. They also thought the comments they thought were from lads’ mags were “normal” (while the ones they thought were from rapists they considered extreme). That last one, though it’s not even a little bit surprising, is blood-chilling. Yes of course they fucking do – just as all these teeming shits think it’s “normal” to call women bitches and twats and cunts day in and day out. Misogyny has been normalized. That’s what we’re saying; that’s the problem.

    Dr Miranda Horvath and Dr Peter Hegarty argue that the findings are consistent with the possibility that lads’ mags normalise hostile sexism, by making it seem more acceptable when its source is a popular magazine.

    Exactly. I knew hostile sexism had been normalized, to put it mildly; I just wasn’t very aware of lads’ mags. Lads’ mags are joined by lads’ tv shows, lads’ websites, lads’ facebook pages, no doubt lads’ apps, and so on.

    Dr Horvath, lead researcher from Middlesex University, said: “We were surprised that participants identified more with the rapists’ quotes, and we are concerned that the legitimisation strategies that rapists deploy when they talk about women are more familiar to these young men than we had anticipated.”

    …

    “These magazines support the legitimisation of sexist attitudes and behaviours and need to be more responsible about their portrayal of women, both in words and images. They give the appearance that sexism is acceptable and normal – when really it should be rejected and challenged. Rapists try to justify their actions, suggesting that women lead men on, or want sex even when they say no, and there is clearly something wrong when people feel the sort of language used in a lads’ mag could have come from a convicted rapist.”

    Dr Peter Hegarty, of the University of Surrey’s Psychology Department, added: “There is a fundamental concern that the content of such magazines normalises the treatment of women as sexual objects. We are not killjoys or prudes who think that there should be no sexual information and media for young people.  But are teenage boys and young men best prepared for fulfilling love and sex when they normalise views about women that are disturbingly close to those mirrored in the language of sexual offenders?”

    …

    Anna van Heeswijk, Campaigns Manager for OBJECT, a human rights campaign group which campaigns against the objectification of women, said: “This crucial and chilling piece of research lays bare the hateful messages which seep out of lads’ mags and indoctrinate young men’s attitudes towards women and girls. When the content of magazines aimed at teenage boys mirrors the attitudes of convicted rapists, alarm bells must ring.

    “If we are serious about wanting an end to discrimination and violence against women and girls, we must tackle the associated attitudes and behaviours. This means tackling the publications which peddle them. The Leveson Inquiry is currently looking into the culture and ethics of the press. These disturbing findings unequivocally demonstrate the need for the portrayal of women to be included in the remit of this inquiry. Now is the time for action.”

    Men call us things.

  • Rapists and lads’ mags use the same language

    The findings are consistent with the possibility that lads’ mags normalise hostile sexism, by making it seem more acceptable when its source is a popular magazine.

  • HRW to Yemen: set marriage age at 18

    Widespread child marriage jeopardizes Yemeni girls’ access to education, harms their health, and keeps them second-class citizens.

  • PR firm edits clients’ Wikipedia entries

    Undercover BIJ reporters, posing as agents of the Uzbek government, were told that “sorting” criticism on Wikipedia was a service the company could provide.

  • Credulous journalists and a new way to mutilate women

    PR company flogs a new genital cosmetic procedure that involves injecting collagen into the vaginal wall. Journalists go “booya!” and a fad is born.

  • Evil

    More on Mansor Almaribe, sentenced to 500 lashes in Saudi Arabia for “insulting the companions of the prophet.”

    THE family of a Victorian man sentenced to 500 lashes in Saudi Arabia has made an emotional plea to bring him home, fearing he will die in jail.

    The Shepparton family of Mansor Almaribe, 45, who was also sentenced to a year in jail for blasphemy, will head to Canberra to plead for help.

    Isaam Almaribe, 21, said his father suffered from diabetes and had broken bones in his back and knees from a car accident in Australia.

    “Dad told us ‘Take me out of here as soon as possible because if I stay here I will die’ – that’s how bad his situation is,” Isaam said.

    “He couldn’t survive 50 lashes let alone 500 lashes.”

    And he was sentenced to this monstrous punishment for what, again?

    “Apparently he was in Medina with a group of fellow Shiites…and he was quoting out of a book which insulted the Prophet Muhammad’s companion. This is how it’s being described. Apparently this is a deeply offensive thing to do in the Medina apparently for people of Sunni Islamic philosophy or religion.”

    That’s from MP Sharman Stone, who is trying to get Kevin Rudd to intervene with the Saudis.

    Mr Almaribe arrived in Australia in 1999 from Iraq as a refugee and brought his family over in 2006.

    Isaam said the war in Iraq did not compare with what the family was going through now.

    “We had different problems back then but now his life is on the line,” he said.

    “To be lashed is barbaric and it’s really terrifying. Humans shouldn’t be treated that way.”

    Wife Waffa Almaribe has not slept since her husband was detained while making the Hajj pilgrimage to Medina last month.

    She collapsed in tears when she heard he would be lashed 500 times and serve a year in jail.

    “It’s very hard for me and my family and it’s so terrible,” she said.

    “My husband is a peaceful man who looked out for everybody. My children and I need him with us. I am very scared he won’t survive.”

    The family said Mr Almaribe, a Shiite Muslim, was dragged away by religious police while praying in the Sunni-dominated country.

    So that’s how it works – the hajj is a religious obligation if you can afford it, but if you go, you risk being flayed to death if you do the praying the wrong way.

    It’s barbaric.

    Thanks to Helen for the link.

     

  • What previously unknown information is in the Koran?

    Mo tries to tell Jesus, but it’s a struggle.

  • Health Sec blocks wider access to morning-after pill

    Sebelius’s move drew shock from women’s health advocates who say it goes against Obama’s pledge to reassert the power of science in his administration’s decisions.

  • Words can’t express

    Imagine going to Saudi Arabia for the hajj, all the way from Australia, and finding yourself sentenced to a year in jail and…

    500 lashes.

    To the best of my knowledge, 500 lashes is a death sentence. One hundred risks being a death sentence; five hundred just plain is one.

    What did Mansor Almaribe of southern Victoria state do? Torture a lot of children to death? Set fire to a hospital and laugh while patients jumped screaming from high windows? Shoot up a hotel or a night club?

    No.

    Saudi officials accused him of insulting the companions of the prophet Muhammad, a violation of Saudi Arabia’s blasphemy laws.

    And for that they plan to torture him to death.

    He said something (maybe) about some people who died 14 centuries ago, and for that they plan to torture him to death.

    What foul, reeking, vicious people they must be.

  • What about flashlights? Candles? Yule logs?

    Get that smirk off your face.

    CAIRO: An Islamic cleric residing in Europe said that women should not be close to bananas or cucumbers, in order to avoid any “sexual thoughts.”

     

    The unnamed sheikh, who was featured in an article on el-Senousa news, was quoted saying that if women wish to eat these food items, a third party, preferably a male related to them such as their a father or husband, should cut the items into small pieces and serve.

    He said that these fruits and vegetables “resemble the male penis” and hence could arouse women or “make them think of sex.”

    He also added carrots and zucchini to the list of forbidden foods for women.

    Answering another question about what to do if women in the family like these foods, the sheikh advised the interviewer to take the food and cut it for them in a hidden place so they cannot see it.

     

    Really? But then won’t they get ideas about slicing penises?

  • Imam says women must not touch bananas or cucumbers

    Or zucchini or carrots. Hands off unless a man has chopped them up first.

  • Kenan Malik on multiculturalism in Canada and Europe

    In Canada, as in Europe, politicians look to unelected community leaders, often deeply conservative figures, to speak for their particular communities.

  • Never ever set foot in Saudi Arabia

    An Australian man who went for the hajj has been sentenced to 500 lashes and a year in jail. Saudi officials accused him of insulting the companions of the prophet Muhammad.

  • Details details

    Following up some links from the coverage of the Burzynski matter. From David Colquhoun, an item from the National Council Against Health Fraud newsletter March/April 1997:

    The trial of Stanislaw Burzynski for cancer fraud ended in a hung jury (6-6)
    on March 4. CBS’s 48 Hours‘ interviews of jurors told the tale as to why
    they couldn’t agree.  Clearly, the jurors agreed that Burzynski was guilty as
    charged of violating court orders not to distribute his unapproved
    “Antineoplastons” in interstate commerce, but the fact that some desperate
    cancer patients believed Burzynski’s remedy was keeping them alive (or, at
    least, was keeping their hope for recovery alive) made the case too emotional a matter for them to convict him of his crimes. One juror who was interviewed admitted that she had disregarded the judge’s instructions to ignore such issues.

    The CBS reporter confronted Burzynski with the calculation that, based upon his fee system and patient load, his annual income would be $20 million.  Burzynski concurred but said that not all of his patients paid their bills.  Burzynski claims that his medicine is quite costly to produce.  Cancer
    researcher and NCAHF board member, Saul Green, PhD, pointed to prices in a catalog showing that a bottle of medicine cost Burzynski 80 cents.

    The Burzynski trial was stereotypical.  Supporters paraded with placards
    extolling the doctor and his cure, while the media reporter focused on a few
    individuals who apparently do have cancer but whose survival is no more than one would expect from any group of patients.  The prosecution is shown as dealing with technical points of law, while the doctor and his patients are “real people.”

    It is classical deception by illusion.  Viewers have no way of knowing if the
    demonstrators are really cancer patients.  A study of a laetrile rally in 1978
    found having cancer did not predict participation in an anti-FDA rally; rather being against fluoridation, disliking MDs, liking chiropractors, and shopping in health food stores were the determinants.  Viewers have no way of evaluating the real medical conditions of the patients shown.  Most are not even aware of just how normal a cancer patient can look and feel even in advanced stages of the disease.  And, no one knows the proportion of failures among the large number of patients who Burzynski has treated over the two decades he has promoted his remedy.

    Trial by placard waving emotion is a form of mob rule.  More and more it
    seems like society is letting emotion overrule the sound judgment of carefully considered law.

    And also via DC, Dorothy Bishop on “The weird world of US ethics regulation” –

    I had assumed that this trial hadn’t undergone ethical scrutiny, because I could not see how any committee could agree that it was ethical to charge someone enormous sums of money to take part in a research
    project in which there was no guarantee of benefit. I suspect that many people would pay up if they felt they’d exhausted all other options. But this doesn’t mean it’s right.
    I was surprised, then, to discover that the Burzynski trial had undergone review by an Institutional Review Board (IRB – the US term for an ethics committee). A letter describing the FDA’s review of the relevant IRB is available on the web. It concludes that “the IRB did not adhere to the applicable statutory requirements and FDA regulations governing the protection of human subjects.”  There’s a detailed exposition of the failings of the Burzynski Institute IRB, but no mention of fees charged to patients. So I followed a few more links and came to a US government site that described regulatory guidelines for ethics committees, which had a specific section on Charging for Investigational Products. It seems the practice of passing on research costs to research participants is allowed in the US system.

    Well don’t I feel proud of the US system.

  • Pour rire

    Line of the day – from Popehat, Junk Science And Marketeers and Legal Threats, Oh My! –

    As a public relations move, firing Marc Stephens and hiring the Dozier Law Group is roughly like firing Jeffrey Dahmer as your sous-chef and hiring Hannibal Lecter to take his place.

     

  • The small tent is good enough

    Jacques Berlinerblau has some advice for US atheists.

    The real priority for American Atheism concerns its political future, its ability to shape policy agendas so as to represent the interests of its constituency.

    Does it? I don’t think it does – not (as implied) to the exclusion of other things. I don’t really think of atheism as having a “constituency,” or as expecting to be able to shape policy agendas so as to represent the interests of its constituency. That sounds like political operative talk, and while I do think atheism is political as well as philosophical (in the broad sense of the word), I don’t think it’s political in that way. It’s too specialized for that. Secularism can be political in that way, but not atheism.

    The key question, then, is: What do atheists want? If what they want is to abolish religion—a New Atheist theme with deep roots in the Radical Enlightenment, Deism, and Marxism—then there is no political future. Atheism will simply remain a movement of overheated malcontents lamenting their great civic misfortune.

    I think he has that wrong, and I said so in a comment there. We don’t want to abolish religion; we want to push it back, and to put it on the intellectual defensive, where it belongs.

    “The Constitution,” vice-presidential candidate Joseph Liebermann famously intoned in 2000, “guarantees freedom of religion not freedom from religion.” It is precisely this form of demagoguery and its associated policy implications that atheists must strenuously challenge.

    Freedom of and freedom from religion are not mutually exclusive.

    Indeed. For once I completely agree with Berlinerblau. I despise that intonation of Lieberman’s; it makes me livid. (Berlinerblau gave Lieberman an extra n at the end of his name, and deprived Joe Hoffmann of his. Oh those pesky extra Ens!)

    But after that Berlinerblau goes off the rails, because he’s too intent on being political in the sense mentioned above – the James Carville sense, the “framing” sense.

    Widen the Tent: Why must the admission price to American Atheism be total nonbelief in God and hatred of all religion? Can’t the movement, at the very least, split the difference?

    Why can’t those who have doubts about God but remain affiliated in some way with a religion be included in the big tent? Conversely, why can’t those who have no religion (see below) but some type of spiritual or faith commitment enter the movement as well? Why can’t skeptics and agnostics join the club? What about heretics and apostates? In short, democratic mobilization requires numbers. Atheism needs numbers, accurate numbers. . .

    Why? Well because that’s what atheism means. Secularism can be (and is) that kind of big tent, but atheism does mean nonbelief in god (though certainly not hatred of all religion).

    Reach Out and Touch (Moderate) Faith:  And while we are at it, why can’t atheists make common cause with religious moderates?  In its first decade of operations New Atheism has virtually assured its political irrelevance by acerbically shunning the very religious folks (think Mainline Protestants, Liberal Catholics, Reform Jews, etc.) who are waging their own pitched battles with fundamentalists. “Even mild and moderate religion,” averred Richard Dawkins in the The God Delusion, “helps to provide the climate of faith in which extremism naturally flourishes.”

    Well, some atheists can do that, but some of us simply don’t want to. That’s because “political relevance” is not our only or main goal. Some of us just really do want to be free of all religion, even the mild and moderate kind, and we want to be free to say so, and to say why. We can of course make common cause with religious moderates on all sorts of issues, and we do, but we can’t very well make it on the issue of atheism itself.

     

  • Another turn of the screw

    The brains of children raised in violent families resemble the brains of soldiers exposed to combat, according to an article in Wired.

    They’re primed to perceive threat and anticipate pain, adaptations that may be helpful in abusive environments but produce long-term problems with stress and anxiety.

    “For them to detect early cues that might signal danger is adaptive. It allows them to react, to try and avoid the danger,” said psychologist Eamon McCrory of University College London. However, “a very similar neural signature characterizes quite a few anxiety disorders.”

    Absolutely nothing surprising there. Bad things keep happening, so you develop a strong tendency to react quickly…and you’re stuck with it. A lifetime of feeling extra, exaggerated fear and dread. What a gift.

    It’s not at all surprising but it’s deeply sad.

  • Jacques Berlinerblau on the future of atheism in America

    “Why must the admission price to American Atheism be total nonbelief in God?”