David Koepsell has a beautiful piece at the CFI blog which you must read right this minute. It’s in the form of a letter to his daughter.

Dear Amelia,

It broke my heart last week when we were talking as I drove you to school. You saw the poster for the Avengers movie and asked who “the girl” was. When I explained she is Black Widow, and that she is an Avenger, you laughed and said “how can she be an Avenger? Avengers are superheroes, and she’s a girl.” It horrifies me to know that already, there are forces at work on you that convince you that somehow, girls and women cannot be anything you want. And I meant it

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Updating to add: I had it in mind all along that Hunt was pushed out of a non-tenured position, but the post doesn’t reflect that. He wouldn’t be pushed out of a tenured position because of his remarks, and I wouldn’t advocate that he should be.

Many of the usual suspects – Dawkins, yes, but not only Dawkins – are raging about the illiberal attacks on Tim Hunt. But they’re doing it by ignoring the time and place at which he made his oh so funny “joke.” They’re ignoring the fact that he said it in a work environment. Picture an admiral trash-talking about women in the Navy, at an official Navy event. Would that be generally considered a … Read the rest

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And more from the Department of Please Please Please Please Stop, Dawkins Division:

Richard Dawkins ‏@RichardDawkins Jun 14
“A moment to savour”? Really? Please, Guardian, could we just lighten up on the witch-hunts? #ReinstateTimHunt. http://reason.com/archives/2015/06/13/the-illiberal-persecution-of-tim-

Again with the putative witch hunts – again used by a man, to rebuke women for rebelling against casually contemptuous treatment. Wouldn’t it be nice if Richard Dawkins actually came out against some item of casually contemptuous treatment of women? Wouldn’t it be nice if he didn’t keep insisting that because stonings and forced marriages are so horrific, therefore women in places like the UK and the US should stop rebelling against casually contemptuous treatment? I think that would be nice. It would make … Read the rest

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Via Sarah Tuttle, via Jen, a useful sign:

Sarah Tuttle ‏@niais
Ok. I made a lab sign, if anyone needs one. #TimHunt #DistractinglySexy #WomenInScience #STEM #SafeLab

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Our friend Jen Philipps:

jen phillips ‏@ClutchScience Jun 12
Collection protocols may vary, but tear production is reliably abundant. #DistractinglySexy

As luck would have it, the tears of girl scientists make excellent embryo medium #DistractinglySexy

Sarcastic Rover (whom I have a crush on):

SarcasticRover ‏@SarcasticRover Jun 15
Can being a woman prevent others from doing their job? No… that’s stupid. #distractinglysexy

And a couple more floating around –

… Read the rest

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More on Hemant’s post about the “Secular Policy Council.”

He starts with pointing out that a lot of their content is identical to content from the Secular Coalition for America – where she used to be Executive Director until she…erm…left it a year ago. Mary Ellen Sikes points out in a comment that the content has a Creative Commons agreement. That sounds benign until you remember that Rogers used to work for them. Quoting Mary Ellen:

If you check the bottom of page 3 of the SCA’s Model Secular Policy Guide, you’ll see the following: “Permission is granted for the reproduction of this document in whole or in part without consent of the authors and the Secular Coalition for America.”

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Oh my god.

You know I’ve always wondered why all those Big Name atheist and secularist types signed up to the “Global Secular Institute” now more modestly named the Secular Policy Institute. You know I wondered it very loudly and without muffling or disguise.

Now we know.

Hemant has a post today titled Notable Atheists and Scientists Are Disassociating from the Secular Policy Institute. I did a loud sustained intake of breath – “gasped” is inadequate to describe what I did – when I reached this bit:

Daniel Dennett in particular told me he asked to be removed from their list after learning that Rogers had filed a lawsuit against the Secular Coalition for America(which made some

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The BBC tells us:

Female scientists have been sharing “distractingly sexy” photos of themselves after a feminist website encouraged them to respond to comments by a Nobel laureate.

Here’s one:

Andrea Bidgood ‏@Andreabigfoot Jun 11
#distractinglysexy hot science at work. Haven’t cried all week

Whoaaaaaaaa throw some cold water over me.

Many of them are hilarious, such as:

Morgan Kelly ‏@MorganWKelly Jun 10
Smelled like dead oysters at the faculty meeting. Hope I wasn’t too #distractinglysexy

They distract in India too:

Jane Evans ‏@jede39 Jun 10
@rhiannonlucyc @VagendaMagazine Indian rocket scientists #distractinglysexy

And Stephanie Evans, whose feed is full of STEM and women in STEM goodness:

Stephanie Evans ‏@StephEvz43 Jun 10
Idk how any men were

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A genius tweets:

Mark J. Perry ‏@Mark_J_Perry Jun 12
Cartoon of the Day: The Gender Disparity in STEM explained
(HT: @stevenfhayward) @CHSommers @AsheSchow @instapundit

No.… Read the rest

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I’m back.

The return trip was one nightmare after another – the Buffalo to Chicago flight canceled due to (I’ve just learned) tornadoes; the process to rebook unbelievably badly handled by American Airlines that’s AMERICAN AIRLINES; the  rebooking entailing a four hour wait in Buffalo and a time of arrival in Seattle five hours later than the scheduled one; the Buffalo to Detroit flight made to sit at the gate for an hour because of a storm in Detroit, and – now this was really unfair – the train from the airport to downtown Seattle made to sit in the third station for twenty stinking minutes because of an accident on or near the tracks farther up the line. … Read the rest

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I saved up and splurged on taking the tour to Niagara Falls yesterday afternoon and evening. I didn’t say anything about it beforehand, because Taslima had decided to go with me and if I had mentioned it we would have had to take a security detail with us.

We went first to the Botanical Garden and the Butterfly Conservatory, and then in stages down the gorge with stops to gape in awe, ending up at the Falls. One of my favorite views is a few yards back from the falls where you can see the edge kind of hanging in the air but not what’s behind and below it – but you know what’s behind and below it, yet the … Read the rest

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I’m going to Niagara Falls this afternoon. I was here for nearly 3 weeks in 2007, and I never managed to get to the Falls, though I did get to the Finger Lakes (all the way to Skaneateles) and Niagara-on-the-Lake, which were cool. The omission has always bugged me, so I’M GOING.

So there.

Meanwhile I think I’ll have time for a walk this morning. Ima go over to the entrance to the university, if I can make it without being run over – there are literally no sidewalks here. None. You have to walk in the street. Hey, you’re not supposed to be walking in the first place, so don’t look at us! It’s extra fun because people go … Read the rest

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I’m about to go to the 2 hour Point of Inquiry interview of Richard Dawkins. Could be interesting.… Read the rest

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A great moment. At the secularism panel just now with Barry Kosmin and Ron Lindsay and Phil Zuckerman, moderated by Paul Fidalgo, Paul asked the audience, how many of you have attended a Secular Sunday Assembly?

A LOT of hands went up.

Ron said something I didn’t hear, and Paul said, “That’s a great question – how many of you have gone twice?”

One hand went up.… Read the rest

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Taslima took this action shot yesterday.

… Read the rest

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Taslima tweeted yesterday evening –

… Read the rest

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I got here.

Talked to all the people at the reception.

Dropped food on the floor.

Generally misbehaved.… Read the rest

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I upset quite a few people the other day with that Nail polish post. Some of the people who were upset are, frankly, assholes, and they can go ahead and be upset, but a lot of them aren’t, and I’m sorry I upset those people.

I didn’t like or agree with everything in that Elinor Burkett article, and I skipped over most of them – but maybe I should have said I wasn’t endorsing the whole thing.

Someone in a Facebook group recommended this tumblr post cis by default, and I found what it says resonates with me a lot. It starts with some body discomforts, and then moves to the social.

I also just had a lot

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The second one was the next day, after I’d re-read some Anne.

May 25, 2009

But physical punishment or ‘correction’ has been morally unproblematic until very recently, some of you retort.

I don’t buy it. I’m at least very skeptical. I agree that it’s been widespread – but not that it’s been morally unproblematic. Of course it was morally unproblematic to some people, to many people, but I’m claiming that to a substantial minority it was not. (I’m talking about the 19th century onwards, if only because there’s so much more literature for children and about children starting then. I could talk about Hogarth on cruelty – but I won’t, for now.)

After writing about Anne of Green Gables from … Read the rest

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