Temple of Doom

On the Center for Inquiry‘s podcast, Point of Inquiry, Dr. Robert Price interviewed a Satanic priest, Don Webb of the Temple of Set. Turns out that Satanism is not about evil, placating the evil overlord, orgies, or even eating babies. Instead, it appears to be about dominated by humanities PhDs messing around with Jungian archetypes, self-help “magic”, and Platonism. Interesting stuff that I did not know, but it seemed a bit intellectually intense and boring.

On a personal note, I’ve decided to switch over to worshiping Chaos itself in the form of the primordial chaos dragon, Leviathan. And, we know chaos exists. Suck it, atheists.

Robert Burton on how to respond to reviewers

Apparently feelings about reviewers haven’t changed in almost 400 years:

Menac’d by critic with sour furrowed brow,
Momus or Zolius or Scotch Reviewer:
Ruffle your heckle, grin and growl and vow:
Ill-natured foes you thus will find the fewer.
When foul-mouth’d senseless railers cry thee down,
Reply not: fly, and show the rogues thy stern:
They are not worthy even of a frown:
Good taste and breeding they can never learn;
Or let them clamour, turn a callous ear,
As though in dread of some harsh donkey’s bray.

From the magnificent The Anatomy of Melancholy.

“Understanding current causes of women’s underrepresentation in science”

In the news today from PNAS (open access article):

“Understanding current causes of women’s underrepresentation in science”:

Explanations for women’s underrepresentation in math-intensive fields of science often focus on sex discrimination in grant and manuscript reviewing, interviewing, and hiring. Claims that women scientists suffer discrimination in these arenas rest on a set of studies undergirding policies and programs aimed at remediation. More recent and robust empiricism, however, fails to support assertions of discrimination in these domains. To better understand women’s underrepresentation in math-intensive fields and its causes, we reprise claims of discrimination and their evidentiary bases. Based on a review of the past 20 y of data, we suggest that some of these claims are no longer valid and, if uncritically accepted as current causes of women’s lack of progress, can delay or prevent understanding of contemporary determinants of women’s underrepresentation. We conclude that differential gendered outcomes in the real world result from differences in resources attributable to choices, whether free or constrained, and that such choices could be influenced and better informed through education if resources were so directed. Thus, the ongoing focus on sex discrimination in reviewing, interviewing, and hiring represents costly, misplaced effort: Society is engaged in the present in solving problems of the past, rather than in addressing meaningful limitations deterring women’s participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers today. Addressing today’s causes of underrepresentation requires focusing on education and policy changes that will make institutions responsive to differing biological realities of the sexes. Finally, we suggest potential avenues of intervention to increase gender fairness that accord with current, as opposed to historical, findings.

So, instead of forcing overburdened grant reviewers to attend gender sensitivity training sessions, what should we do? The authors put forward some recommendations, which I wholeheartedly endorse:

Gender Equity Committees have suggested adjusting the length of time to work on grants to accommodate child-rearing, no-cost grant extensions, supplements to hire postdocs to maintain momentum during family leave, reduction in teaching responsibilities for women with newborns, grants for retooling after leaves of absence, couples-hiring, and childcare to attend professional meetings. The UC-Berkeley’s “Family Edge” provides high-quality childcare and emergency backup care, summer camps and school break care, and reentry postdocs and instructs committees to ignore family-related gaps in CVs. Research into these strategies is needed to identify which are promising.

Cinde-really? Part the Second

The Frogger loves Disney‘s Cinderella, mainly because she thinks Cinderella’s ball gown in pretty, likes dancing, and loves all the cute animals[1,2]. As a result, I have had many opportunities over the past few months to observe this film in great detail, repeatedly. These posts resulted from subjecting the normally active mind, thirsting for stimulation, to triplicate viewings whilst traversing the wintry wastelands of the Midwest, with the second of two presented here, wherein I shall examine why the Cinderella story, rather than being uplifting, depresses me. Continue reading “Cinde-really? Part the Second”

Stupid Brain

Dear Brain,

Sometimes you make me mad. You trick me. Play jokes on me. You lie to me. But, I cannot live without you.

Love,
Josh Continue reading “Stupid Brain”