Originally a comment by Patrick G on “Vandals.”

@rjw1:

There is a vast difference between memorializing the dead and memorializing the cause. The Civil War entailed a horrific loss of life, which should be remembered. However, memorials should not celebrate the evil cause in service of which the Confederacy fought. Bridges and streets should not be named after those who sunk this nation into war to preserve slavery. Politicians and citizens should not be celebrating this Lost Cause while working to disenfranchise the descendants of people their ancestors went to war to keep enslaved.

If the Vietnam memorial said “We’d do it again, because napalm is awesome and if we’d stayed longer Vietnam wouldn’t be Communist today!”, I’d absolutely … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand there it is – there really are differences between women and men therefore it’s fine to discriminate against women and Tim Hunt wuz robbed.

Ophelia Benson ‏@OpheliaBenson 3 hours ago
@jonrotten3111 Not at all. Job comes with tenure, pay, rights. Hon position does not. Hon position can be revoked at any time.

jonrotten31 ‏@jonrotten3111 3 hours ago
@OpheliaBenson so they revoked his position over his comments without giving him a chance to apologise or explain.

Ophelia Benson ‏@OpheliaBenson
@jonrotten3111 Imagine Hunt telling a group of black scientists they should be in segregated labs.

jonrotten31 ‏@jonrotten3111
@OpheliaBenson not a good analogy because there are significant biological differences between men and women, not between races

Note that “jonrotten” uses a photo … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

No wonder Republicans are trying to pretend the Charleston terrorist attack was just some random “incident.” The New York Times reports:

The leader of a white supremacist group that apparently influenced Dylann Roof, the suspect in the killing of nine African-Americans in a Charleston, S.C., church last week, has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republican campaigns, including those of 2016 presidential contenders such as Ted Cruz,Rick Santorum and Rand Paul, records show.

Mr. Cruz, a Texas senator, said Sunday night that he would be returning about $8,500 in donations that he had received from the Texas donor, Earl Holt III, who lists himself as president of the Council of Conservative Citizens.

The council of … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Interesting priorities. This news item is from the reliably-reactionary Washington Times:

Vandals spray-painted “Black Lives Matter” and other racial messages on a memorial honoring fallen Confederate soldiers in the South Carolina community still rocked by a church shooting last week that left nine black people dead.

“Black Lives Matter” in red spray paint covered the inscription on the base of the statue, which honors the “Confederate Defenders of Charleston” who died at Fort Sumter, Yahoo News reported.

Oh no, vandals. The horror. And on a memorial to soldiers who fought for the slave-owning Confederacy, too – the horror the horror. The soldiers were “fallen” so it is not permissible to point out that they were fighting for … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Connie St Louis set up a petition. It has only 195 signatures so far. Let’s do better.

Its time to elect a female president to lead the Royal Society

The Royal Society was founded in 1660. In that time there has never been a female President at its helm. This may not be surprising in the light of sexist comments made by one of it’s Nobel Laureates, Tim Hunt, in Seoul, Korea on 8 June 2015 at a lunch sponsored by the Korean Female Scientists and Engineers. Royal Fellow and Nobel Laureate, Tim Hunt took the podium: identifying himself as a “male chauvinist pig,” he declared that he found the charms of “girls” who enter scientific fields inherently distracting, 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I like Richard Carrier’s post on Dawkins v Feminists v Tim Hunt.

Dawkins cries watery tears whines hyperbolically almost every time he is criticized. (Just google around. The number of examples documented on the Internet is so bewildering it’s become a well known trope.) It’s always the same thing: someone exercising their free speech rights to express their negative opinion of him or things he said, becomes a “witch hunt” and an “inquisition” by a wild “angry mob.”

In fact it is never any of those things, but basically a lot of serious, thoughtful, often well-argued criticism. Mere free speech. And often well done and spot on at that. Not email bombs sent to his in-box to harass him.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

This happened. The British Humanist Association publicly posted a Happy Humanist Day message on Facebook:

A humanist is someone who does the right thing even though she knows that no one is watching.

[Random bolding theirs.]

A good message, right?

Ah no, not so fast. There’s a problem.

Jane Brown Why the she? Big mistake to be so gender specific.

Did your jaw hit the floor? Mine did.

“She” is gender specific, in sharp contrast to “he,” which is not.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Anyway, happy world humanist day.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Someone’s been arguing with me about Tim Hunt on Twitter on and off since yesterday. He started off a little aggressively but it became a conversation after that. He cops to some empathy for Hunt because he cringes at things he said himself ten years ago. Ok, but that’s not a reason not to criticize what Hunt said, or a reason to call that criticism “witch hunts” or “lynch mobs.”

His latest pair of tweets, last night, is interesting.

Atticus_of_Amber ‏@Atticus_Amber 13 hours ago
@OpheliaBenson Super successful people often live in a bubble. Their own fault; but they’re often unaware of it until they get a rude shock.

@OpheliaBenson My view is that we should be administering more of

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Well this is a useful thing to have.

Via Hayley Stevens… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

This is a nice change from surly pig-headed anti-feminist science dudes – A Mighty Girl on another mighty girl.

Dubbed the ‘Malala’ of Syrian refugees, 16-year-old Mezon Almellehan goes from tent to tent each morning to encourage girls in her camp to go to school. “We have the right to attend school and I feel I have a responsibility towards the community,’ Almellehan told the Malala Fund. ‘As a girl, I can find friendly ways to convince a girl to continue with her studies.'”

Today marks World Refugee Day, an annual observance to raise awareness of the plight of the nearly 60 million refugees in the world today — more than any time in recorded history. Like four

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)