The live kitten, trapped up to the shoulders in concrete, was found on the property of Isaac Wyler; it died shortly after being rescued. Warning: picture.… Read the rest
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Being a freethought parent
Jul 9th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe religion bit is easy. It is far harder to teach children that everyone is equal when all that they see around them is a very unjust world.… Read the rest
The unapproved chorus
Jul 9th, 2012 4:58 pm | By Ophelia BensonJadehawk does a great fisking of Paula Kirby’s recent declaration of war. I’ve been half-wanting to address the substance but half not wanting to, because there is such a thing as boredom and too much of one subject and let’s move on already. But now Jadehawk has done a thorough one, so that’s that off my mind.
(What I would have said, if I’d said it, is that the whole idea that the answer to systemic injustice is to redouble one’s own efforts is just fatuous, and also strikingly illiberal. Why should anyone have to redouble her efforts in order to overcome systemic injustice? What the hell is wrong with trying to get rid of the systemic injustice? Why … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
How something can be a given
Jul 9th, 2012 11:06 am | By Ophelia BensonSo Leeds Skeptics in the Pub has uninvited Steve Moxon. Now they’re discussing the matter. There’s one crux that I think is interesting, and I think more clarity on it would help a lot of people who are disputing about it. It’s a crux we’ve discussed here at FTB, too, especially in last week’s hangout.
This is the crux:
… Read the restAmy: There are some things that should be a given in any skeptical society, and the equality of its members in terms of gender, sexuality, race etc should be one of those things. Having Moxon speak just gives credibility to the idea that his wacky, bigoted views on women are worthy of debate.
Norman: Not sure how anything can be
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
One way to think of the children
Jul 8th, 2012 5:00 pm | By Ophelia BensonTaslima and I have been thinking along the same lines today.
Not only no thinking. Worse than that. No thinking because no challenging of beliefs. Thus no learning, no changing of mind, no change, no progress, no education.
The Texas Republican party has come out in favor of stagnation and ignorance and dogmatic, fixed beliefs.
… Read the restIf we want to make the world a better place, we have to stop the system that forces our children to read the books of barbarism and lies and believe everything without asking questions. If we do not inspire our children to study science and have a thinking mind, we will see the crowds of ignorant people everywhere. If we do not encourage
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Brian Cox on the Higgs boson and science funding
Jul 8th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“We’ve spent more money in one year on bailing out the banks than we’ve spent on science in Britain since Jesus.”… Read the rest
Lone star state v thinking
Jul 8th, 2012 2:51 pm | By Ophelia BensonNo thinking please we’re Texas, says the Republican Party of Texas. It says it in its party platform.
We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
Not only no thinking. Worse than that. No thinking because no challenging of beliefs. Thus no learning, no changing of mind, no change, no progress, no education.
The Texas Republican party has come out in favor of stagnation and ignorance and dogmatic, fixed beliefs.
Boy, there’s a program. Less curiosity and progress and … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Saudi woman seeks asylum in UK
Jul 8th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe daughter of King Saud doesn’t want to live in Saudi Arabia.… Read the rest
Shoot-the-woman porn
Jul 8th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe video shows the woman being riddled with bullets at close range, in front of a cheering crowd of men. Cheering.… Read the rest
How can we trust any of the claims enough to debate them?
Jul 8th, 2012 9:37 am | By Ophelia BensonStephanie Zvan made a crucial point yesterday about inviting a certain kind of (contrarian or “controversial” or anti-consensus) speaker to give a talk. She started from something LeftSidePositive said in a previous comment.
(or indeed if the audience should be expected to have the tools to critique it thoroughly if it is not in their field)
QFT. If you have a speaker who is willing to misrepresent the conclusions of a paper, how does an audience who’ve never seen the paper properly question the speaker?
Charlotte and Amy amplified the point today on the Leeds SITP Facebook page. In response to a suggestion that
… Read the restThe only way SITP can come out on top is if the members take
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Another illustration of how privileged women are
Jul 8th, 2012 8:48 am | By Ophelia BensonAnd how they dominate and exploit men.
A man Afghan officials say is a member of the Taliban shot dead a woman accused of adultery in front of a crowd near Kabul, a video obtained by Reuters showed…
In the three-minute video, a turban-clad man approaches a woman kneeling in the dirt and shoots her five times at close range with an automatic rifle, to cheers of jubilation from the 150 or so men watching in a village in Parwan province.
“Allah warns us not to get close to adultery because it’s the wrong way,” another man says as the shooter gets closer to the woman. “It is the order of Allah that she be executed.”
Actually it turns … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Taliban shoots woman in the head for “adultery”
Jul 8th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA blue bundle huddles in the dirt, a man shoots her five times at close range with an automatic rifle, to cheers of jubilation from the 150 or so men watching.… Read the rest
When Steve met Tom
Jul 7th, 2012 5:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonIt was at a UCL debate on the question: Is Feminism Sexist and does the MRM even exist?
They went to dinner together. Isn’t that convivial? They totally know each other. More surprising, they’re not the same person. They sure sound like the same person.
… Read the restThe debate ran as I would have expected and there were no surprises. Tom Martin gave a good account of himself; Steve Moxon attempted the impossible and tried to explain the complexity of evolutionary psychology in under 1 minute (please read his book); there were a number of “can’t we all just get along?” types; a couple of male-feminists who were disappointed in the comments from men (hell, let’s be more honest;
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Drilling down through all the layers
Jul 7th, 2012 4:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonMore Steve Moxon.
The Guardian’s Northern Blog on why even UKIP didn’t want him.
… Read the restMoxon’s opinions have now cost him his place as UKIP’s candidate in Sheffield‘s local elections, where he is standing for the Dore and Totley ward, a Liberal Democrat stronghold in Nick Clegg’s constituency. The party has dropped him after attention was drawn to a post he wrote on his blog last August which endorsed the reasoning in the testament of the Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik.
He wrote, inter alia:
That pretty well everyone – myself not excluded – recoiled at his actions, does not belie the accuracy of Breivik’s research and analysis in his ‘manifesto’, which is in line with most scholarship
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Texas Republicans say No to critical thinking in schools
Jul 7th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“Higher Order Thinking Skills focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”… Read the rest
Unthinking capitulation to the hegemonic oppressive politics of PC-fascism
Jul 7th, 2012 10:13 am | By Ophelia BensonSteve Moxon took part in a debate at the Cambridge Union in January. The motion is quite funny, because it would do nicely as a summary of The Paula Kirby Thesis:
This House Believes the Only Limit to Female Success is Female Ambition
So pull your socks up and get on with it! No whingeing, and by “wingeing” I mean “reporting on social factors that impede women.”
Moxon didn’t altogether wow the reviewer.
… Read the restSteve Moxon, on the other hand gave an appalling performance, his odd choice of showing a powerpoint presentation giving him the air of an enthusiastic but often inaudible lecturer and his offensive thesis that women should aspire to the traditional female role of being young, beautiful
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Meet Steve Moxon
Jul 7th, 2012 7:57 am | By Ophelia BensonI understated the awfulness of Steve Moxon. Google turns up more.
Like the fact that he was dropped by UKIP because he said nice things about Anders Breivik.
… Read the restSteve Moxon, author of the classic anti-feminist book ‘The Woman Racket‘, was dropped as a candidate for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in this week’s local elections over comments he made on his blog previously regarding Anders Breivik. Whilst stressing how appalling and insupportable Breivik’s actions were, Moxon had noted that his manifesto presented an accurate account of the spread of political correctness in Europe. This was picked up by a local paper in the city that Moxon was standing in (Sheffield), forcing UKIP to drop him as a
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Leeds Skeptics in the Pub reach out to women
Jul 7th, 2012 7:26 am | By Ophelia Bensonand punch them in the mouth.
Upcoming event July 21: a talk by a dude called Steve Moxon on Y women R so dumb.
Talk by Steve Moxon. Leeds psychologist Dr Gijsbert Stoet finds no evidence that women under-perform through internalising false stereotypes, a recent major review reveals no sex-discrimination in academia, and ground-breaking field research shows that it is actually in favour of women in recruitment; so why is it women tend not to ‘get to the top’?
It iz becoz they R so dumb.
Recent science confirms the sexes to be not just different but dichotomous, albeit that confounds with other factors often obscures this, and on many measures there is more variation within- than between-sex.
Some … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Ohio Supreme Court agrees to hear creationist appeal
Jul 6th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA teacher was fired for teaching creationism in science class, has appealed on First Amendment grounds.… Read the rest