Essentially.
Watched about fifteen minutes of Blade tonight. What I learned was that it is cool when you torture morbidly obese vampire IT managers for information. Heart wrenching when you do the same to Kris Kristofferson (playing a human). We have a word for this.
UPDATE: After viewing and hearing whispered rumors (this is called irony) of the discussions following this post, I’ve decided to take down from The Finch and Pea for several reasons. A version will remain posted at She Thought.
First, The Finch and Pea is my intellectual playground. “On Catholic Priests and Sketchy Skeptics…” was written in response to a specific request from friends within the Skeptical Movement to share my thoughts on the negative communication strategies within their community. It was directed at that community and belongs in a venue directed at that community.
Second, sub-point in the article regarding the negative impact of falsely assuming that gossip widely shared within a group, but not outside the group can have on people new to the community. This point is important, but somewhat tangential to the main thesis, which is that gossip paired with public silence distorts the perception of problem behaviors in the community.
In addition, it included a reference to an individual’s widely acknowledged reputation within the community. Despite extensive disclaimers that this reference was specifically restricted to the most superficial level of widespread gossip, it has been misconstrued as a direct allegation of misconduct, which it was not (indeed the rest of the article suggest such a reputation can develop with no history of misconduct). Reviewers of the article agreed that the sub-point could not be made without such a reference, at least not without massive hypocrisy.
Nevertheless, this has completely distracted from the main thesis.
As I have said all along, I think it is up to the community to set its standards of behavior and I am, therefore, willing to acquiesce to them. I may believe that you need to rethink them, but I will still acquiesce to them.
The lovely and talented Greg Laden makes an admirable effort to make the “so-called New Atheists”[1] out to be totally punk:
The new atheist response to being told to quiet down is to point out that being told to quiet down (or be more civil or follow certain rules) is step one (or two) in a series of steps that the established religio-normative culture routinely uses to end the argument and let things get back to what they think is normal.
No one likes to be told to shut up. And, to be fair to Greg, he is primarily describing the way “so-called New Atheists” feel, not saying that this represents some objective reality. The rest of the post includes an excellent discussion of the beneficial diversity of opinions and approaches. Continue reading “New Atheists Punks”
Via The New York Times, a new Gallup survey suggests that alcohol consumption and financial success are positively correlated.
In accordance with the standards for inferring causation that seem to prevail in my scientific field (genomics and systems biology), I’m going to conclude that the secret to financial success is to drink more.
The Finch and Pea 