Skepchick Warring with Dawkins Again

[Robert_S]

The drama did not happen until after Rebecca Watson, facing polite disagreement from some quarters used her position to call out, on stage, two people, both women, who disagreed with her. IIRC she derailed her own talk to do this, at which point people posted the video. From there it was pointed out that a guy saying "girls don't do that" would be considered sexist. From that it went from being an uncomfortable moment to potential rape all of which was gleefully reproduced by Rebecca Watson as if there was some problem other than her.

IIRC, she made a video a week later, before those talks, about the hateful responses she got.

Oh, by the way, does know where I should look for the original context for the Dear Muslima bit? I know it was on PZ's blog at Scienceblogs but the comments section is all gone. I think the comments before it would be enlightening.

It was the one titled 'Always name, names.' I remember even posting in the comment section something about 'was that really Richard Dawkins' or something like that.

Yeah, here's the page: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... ame-names/

and on a side note, here's a rebuttal to his point: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... ame-names/

The bully is the one punching down

[DaveDodo007]

The drama did not happen until after Rebecca Watson, facing polite disagreement from some quarters used her position to call out, on stage, two people, both women, who disagreed with her. IIRC she derailed her own talk to do this, at which point people posted the video. From there it was pointed out that a guy saying "girls don't do that" would be considered sexist. From that it went from being an uncomfortable moment to potential rape all of which was gleefully reproduced by Rebecca Watson as if there was some problem other than her.

IIRC, she made a video a week later, before those talks, about the hateful responses she got.

Oh, by the way, does know where I should look for the original context for the Dear Muslima bit? I know it was on PZ's blog at Scienceblogs but the comments section is all gone. I think the comments before it would be enlightening.

It was the one titled 'Always name, names.' I remember even posting in the comment section something about 'was that really Richard Dawkins' or something like that.

Yeah, here's the page: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... ame-names/

and on a side note, here's a rebuttal to his point: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... ame-names/

The bully is the one punching down

I wonder what was the reason for him to get rid of the comments?

[Cormac]

The drama did not happen until after Rebecca Watson, facing polite disagreement from some quarters used her position to call out, on stage, two people, both women, who disagreed with her. IIRC she derailed her own talk to do this, at which point people posted the video. From there it was pointed out that a guy saying "girls don't do that" would be considered sexist. From that it went from being an uncomfortable moment to potential rape all of which was gleefully reproduced by Rebecca Watson as if there was some problem other than her.

IIRC, she made a video a week later, before those talks, about the hateful responses she got.

Oh, by the way, does know where I should look for the original context for the Dear Muslima bit? I know it was on PZ's blog at Scienceblogs but the comments section is all gone. I think the comments before it would be enlightening.

It was the one titled 'Always name, names.' I remember even posting in the comment section something about 'was that really Richard Dawkins' or something like that.

Yeah, here's the page: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... ame-names/

and on a side note, here's a rebuttal to his point: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... ame-names/

The bully is the one punching down

I wonder what was the reason for him to get rid of the comments?

Because he is a suppurating arsehole with notions far beyond his ability?

[Robert_S]

IIRC, she made a video a week later, before those talks, about the hateful responses she got.

Oh, by the way, does know where I should look for the original context for the Dear Muslima bit? I know it was on PZ's blog at Scienceblogs but the comments section is all gone. I think the comments before it would be enlightening.

It was the one titled 'Always name, names.' I remember even posting in the comment section something about 'was that really Richard Dawkins' or something like that.

Yeah, here's the page: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... ame-names/

and on a side note, here's a rebuttal to his point: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... ame-names/

The bully is the one punching down

I wonder what was the reason for him to get rid of the comments?

Decontextualization.

He was advocating a pugnacious approach and someone got pugnacious on his friend. In the original thread it might very well have looked like one escalation in a series. Out of that context, it looks like a heavy handed put down.

[Coito ergo sum]

There is nothing "irrational" about Dawkins not wanting to share a podium with someone who has been a dick to him, or someone he believes to be beneath him.

Maybe. But it seems a bit petty and vindictive if you ask me. He could have just ignored her.

Or offered her coffee.

He can't ignore her if she's sitting next to him, like at the Ireland convention. He has a right, I think, to not be used by a half-witted opportunist. He has a right to take podiums with folks that are at his approximate level.

[Coito ergo sum]

Fair enough.

These folks just irk me, though. They're like born again Christians, only not religious. They have come to Jesus, metaphorically, in terms of the beliefs they've adopted over the last couple of years, and now that they have seen the light they attack anyone who hasn't done likewise. They're like the 18 year old who goes off to college, becomes a vegetarian, and returns home at Thanksgiving to lecture his parents on the evils of eating turkeys, unable to fathom how his parents can be so stupid and evil as to think and act as they do (and he did, up until 2 months earlier).

Has nothing to do with the ethical issues around eating meat. Those same kids are the ones who, a generation or so earlier, might have lectured their parents about being racists, or before that, about denying women the right to vote.

I'm not saying kids are never spoiled and self righteous, nor am I denying the zeal that the discovery of new ideas brings, but that stuff has no bearing aver the rights and wrongs of the issues.

Dawkins shut down his forum and a bunch of spoiled brats went and bitched and moaned about the injustice of it all....

There is something off-putting about someone who just discovered X, and then decides that everyone else who hasn't also discovered X is an idiot or an enemy that needs to be attacked. that's the Playbook of the Skepchicks. They just discover some new sciency thing, and then everyone else who isn't as educated as them are to be mocked and scoffed at. They fail to recognize that not too long ago, they too were among the ignorant.

[Robert_S]

Dawkins shut down his forum and a bunch of spoiled brats went and bitched and moaned about the injustice of it all....

There is something off-putting about someone who just discovered X, and then decides that everyone else who hasn't also discovered X is an idiot or an enemy that needs to be attacked. that's the Playbook of the Skepchicks. They just discover some new sciency thing, and then everyone else who isn't as educated as them are to be mocked and scoffed at. They fail to recognize that not too long ago, they too were among the ignorant.[/quote]

I enthusiastically agree with that point. We have a shared experience with it.

[Azathoth]

Fair enough.

These folks just irk me, though. They're like born again Christians, only not religious. They have come to Jesus, metaphorically, in terms of the beliefs they've adopted over the last couple of years, and now that they have seen the light they attack anyone who hasn't done likewise. They're like the 18 year old who goes off to college, becomes a vegetarian, and returns home at Thanksgiving to lecture his parents on the evils of eating turkeys, unable to fathom how his parents can be so stupid and evil as to think and act as they do (and he did, up until 2 months earlier).

Has nothing to do with the ethical issues around eating meat. Those same kids are the ones who, a generation or so earlier, might have lectured their parents about being racists, or before that, about denying women the right to vote.

I'm not saying kids are never spoiled and self righteous, nor am I denying the zeal that the discovery of new ideas brings, but that stuff has no bearing aver the rights and wrongs of the issues.

Dawkins shut down his forum and a bunch of spoiled brats went and bitched and moaned about the injustice of it all....

There is something off-putting about someone who just discovered X, and then decides that everyone else who hasn't also discovered X is an idiot or an enemy that needs to be attacked. that's the Playbook of the Skepchicks. They just discover some new pseudosciency thing, and then everyone else who isn't as educated as them are to be mocked and scoffed at. They fail to recognize that not too long ago, they too were among the ignorant.