And yet she says she is glad he was called out for his "sexist" remarks.

Far as I can tell its just another case of a liberal only caring about the mob once its turned on them.

And how were they sexist? I hate to break it to you but I've seen far more women cry when criticized on the job than men.

And how is it biased against women to mention they fall in love at the office when in the very same breath he said the same thing about men?

So apparently the "pro-science" left is not pro-evolutionary psychology or any other science that does not further their settled narrative. I think we need a new term with which to refer to these closed-minded, intolerant ideologues.

lujlp Says:

"And how were they sexist?"

You seem to be having great difficulty understanding how the following statement might be viewed by reasonable people as sexist:

"I'm in favor of single-sex labs."

You honestly can't see the sexism in that statement at all?... not even a little bit?

Exactly what would you think if the CEO of Yahoo came out saying that she didn't think she should have to manage men because they tended to be more angry at work and was therefore in favor of single-sex management chains at her company?

Could you see the sexism in a statement like that, or would it still be completely invisible to you?

Artemis,
Perhaps sexist but the challenges of managing males must be different than those of managing females.

Have to be. Nature says so. Obviously there are advantages to same-sex anything (except in my opinion sex), but just as obvious excluding half of the population should not done casually.

WHOA! Did I just imply women should be excluded from an organization? YUP! I'm a sexist old white guy that thinks maybe just maybe excluding women from ship duty (incl. subs) might be more cost-effective in the long run.

CALL OUT THE LIBS! WE GOT ANOTHER ONE!

Bob Says:

"Perhaps sexist but the challenges of managing males must be different than those of managing females."

Yes... and as I said elsewhere, someone who is only capable of managing men or women but not capable of managing both *might* not be a good manager.

People who are able to manage others are able to handle each employee regardless of their gender.

That is part of what it takes to be a good manager.

When was the last time you heard a CEO say "sorry... I can only manage people who have the same sex parts that I have"

"I'm a sexist old white guy that thinks maybe just maybe excluding women from ship duty (incl. subs) might be more cost-effective in the long run."

Well the fact that you are a sexist and hence have bias in this area is going to make this conversation difficult, but I will try anyway.

Here is my question for you.

Exactly what physical limitations do women have that would make them unable to work in the lab?

Remember, we aren't talking about firefighters having to dead lift people down from a 4th story walk up.

We are talking about the ability to run experiments and analyze data. What physical/mental disadvantages do you believe women have here that would suggest there are legitimate reasons to justify discrimination?

I will point out that many many other academics have no issues managing both men and women. This suggests to me that the problem is with Dr. Hunt and not with women.

But cheering that somebody is "called out" while not wanting them to lose their job is exactly the right way to be. I have great respect for Alice -- as you'll read in her book, if you read it -- as someone who does not let what she believes politically, etc., stand in the way of defending somebody who is not in line with what she thinks or who has done some kind of dumb things that don't relate to the science in their work. Or who is just kind of an asshole.

I try to be the same way in a different forum. I will reference the science of researchers who I think are kind of jerks as humans because my personal feelings about them shouldn't stand in the way of good science getting out.

Amy,

I agree with you that no one should be "cheering" about this situation.

The entire course of events strikes me as incredibly sad.

That being said, the idea that men and women should be segregated for the benefit of the scientific enterprise is most certainly a sexist attitude to have.

As for Dr. Hunt "losing his job" I want to be clear that he has not in fact lost his job in the conventional sense.

An analogy to what has happened here closer to an NBA star losing their endorsement deals because they made some racist comment that was caught on camera.

What Dr. Hunt has lost are placements on committees and honorary appointments. He still retains his primary tenured appointment precisely because he has tenure in that position... you can't just fire a tenured professor because they said something unsavory.

I think you will agree that there was nothing particularly wrong with Nike pulling their support for Lance Armstrong when he became embroiled in that doping scandal.

Like it or not, Dr. Hunt is now embroiled in a scandal of his own, and his "sponsors" want to distance themselves from it.

Right now he is bad press, and he is bad press because of the things he said. That he said those things is not currently in dispute.

He made himself a liability to those organizations and as a result they don't want to take the heat.

I would be concerned if he loses his tenured position, that shouldn't be influenced by this in my opinion.

Right now he is bad press, and he is bad press because of the things he said. That he said those things is not currently in dispute.

He made himself a liability to those organizations and as a result they don't want to take the heat.

No, Artemis, it matters that he is "bad press" because of bloated and powerful administrations on campus that put free inquiry and free speech a distant fifth.

It's about the money.

Alice talks about this. Read the piece.

Again, they were quick to say "Off with his head." No bothering to look at whether his practices reflected any real discrimination. That should be what matters.

Hmmm. Intense work among intelligent people. I'd say he's not wrong in his assessment. Maybe the rude part was pointing it out. Therefore he must be shunned and banished. What a bunch of prudes.

"That being said, the idea that men and women should be segregated for the benefit of the scientific enterprise is most certainly a sexist attitude to have."

But what if that's what works best? After all, we know of instances where single-sex classrooms are what works best. Admittedly, single-sex labs would probably not be the most efficient way to do things, but what if the science showed that it was? What then? (And I'm not saying there's an easy answer to that question.)

As for Alice trying to separate what's happening from the rest of leftism, that's naive. Tribalism, scapegoating, and mob rule are baked into Marxist leftism. They are inseparable. It would be like saying, "I'm a Christian fundemantalist, but I don't believe anything in the Bible is literally true."

I was in New York last week and I happened to catch a television interview with Jerry Seinfeld. He says that he will no longer do shows at colleges. Not only do the college SJWs make humor of any form impossible, but they are allowed by fellow-traveling adminstrations to disrupt any performance they don't like. It's no longer a pleasant environment for a performer to work in.

Amy Says:

"Again, they were quick to say "Off with his head." No bothering to look at whether his practices reflected any real discrimination. That should be what matters."

What you are talking about here Amy is a due process procedure for removal from a position. You are saying that an investigation needs to be performed before a decision can be made.

That is what tenure is all about.

I would be more than happy to discuss the benefits of tenure as it is associated with removing people from positions... but the people of this board have made it clear that they do not actually like tenure.

To a certain extent I find all of this rather interesting.

The same people who despise tenure protections are now getting upset because a professor was removed from an untenured position without due process.

Well no shit.

I have told you and others here a million times (this is an exaggeration) that the entire notion of tenure is intended to protect against knee-jerk decisions by the administration.

When I ague this, the response I get is that these institutions are private and they can get rid of people as they so choose.

You can't have it both ways.

If you want due process procedures for the removal of faculty then you are in favor of tenure. If you are not in favor of tenure then one must accept that sometimes people will be removed without due process considerations.

Again, they were quick to say "Off with his head."

They didn't just say that, they sacked him from his various positions. "You said something offensive to someone so goodbye. Don't bother coming to the office for your things, we'll box them up and send them to you."

Remember that many of the current upper echelon of higher education were participants in the Free Speech movement. At least in the US.

But like good totalitarians in the past, they move to limit the method by which they gained power for themselves so that they may not be challenged.

Cousin Dave Says:

"Admittedly, single-sex labs would probably not be the most efficient way to do things, but what if the science showed that it was? What then? (And I'm not saying there's an easy answer to that question.)"

There exists no evidence that this is the case, but let's entertain this idea for a moment.

What metric would you use to determine the productivity of a single-sex lab compared to a mixed-gender lab?

There are already single-sex labs in some universities in the middle east and they do not out produce research in labs from Europe or North America. Does this suggest that single-sex labs are less efficient than mixed-sex ones and therefore all labs should be mixed?

The issue is that there is no evidence to suggest that single-sex labs out produce mixed-sex labs.

I'm going to put forth an even crazier idea for you Cousin Dave and show you the fundamental problem with this way of thinking.

What if it was shown that labs run by women were more productive than labs run by men?

Would this mean that universities shouldn't hire male professors anymore?

Or how about the following radical idea.

Each individual should be judged on the merits of their own personal performance without regard for what might be true "on average".

Let me get to what I believe is the crux of the issue here.

Is a private institution required to maintain an employee if they find their values to be inconsistent with their own?

For example, let us think of a hypothetical situation where the HR manager for a fortune 500 company came out and said something like this:

"I favor a policy where my company doesn't have to hire black people."

Would anyone really be surprised if that person was fired?

Why should a private company have to retain that person if they don't agree with that statement and that person happens to be directly involved in the hiring process?

Artemis,
Keep them blinders on baby! His management abilities were never evaluated either professional or personally.

His loss of "favored" status was based entirely on statements at a "Women in Science" conference that could have been intended as a "Wake up people there are some issues we should discuss in order to break glass ceilings and avoid simple stumbling blocks to your progression into management."

Whether someone finds these issues trivial or serious should depend on POV not sexist glasses.

Since he was joking and not using his management experience in a "let's get you girls promoted quickly" voice he got unexpectedly hosed.

College admins are getting more hyper-responsive to public criticism and they will throw you under the bus if you are inconvenient, but I don't think Hunt is a great example to hang onto here. He was asked to resign from two honorary positions, not stripped of tenure and deprived of the right to work.

Plus, those of us who are women in science are very familiar with these types of guys. They are nice, and will act as an excellent advocate for "their" female students and postdocs, but it's a different matter when they are in a position to judge outside scientists or, worse, women at their level of seniority. As one blogger put it:

"Look at it this way. If you were a young woman, applying for a fellowship in competition with men. what would you think if Tim Hunt were on the selection panel?"

I have no particular beef with Hunt, who is frankly saying out loud what many male scientists think privately. What does irritate me are the people who claim that this is no big deal and doesn't affect women's careers. This has been disproven in studies and, anecdotally, any woman in science above a certain age can tell you all sorts of stories. I guess that's why many of us are nodding while others are deriding the "witch hunt" against the Nobel laureate.

Bob in Texas:

"His management abilities were never evaluated either professional or personally."

Why do you think he was entitled to an investigation or due process procedure for a non-tenured position?

Are you in favor of tenure?

Because that is precisely what the tenure system ensures... that you can't be fired without an investigation.

I actually find this comical. The same group of people who always argue against the tenure system are now pitching a fit because this guy was fired without an investigation.

This is exactly what I have told this board would happen without tenure protections in academic positions.

I would have thought all of you would be happy that private institutions can fire people without having to jump through hoops.

Go figure, you guys got what you wished for and now are upset at the results.

Astra Says:

"College admins are getting more hyper-responsive to public criticism and they will throw you under the bus if you are inconvenient, but I don't think Hunt is a great example to hang onto here. He was asked to resign from two honorary positions, not stripped of tenure and deprived of the right to work."

I have been telling them this for more than a day now... they don't seem to get it.

For whatever reason they don't seem to buy into the idea that an honorary position is any different from his primary appointment.

But what if that's what works best?

I believe the evidence (such as it is) shows that mixed gender groups can have enhanced productivity. But if single sex labs were better, what would you want to do then? I am in a male-dominated field (astrophysics) and a very male-dominated subfield (instrument construction for ground-based and space flight hardware). If single sex labs were the only option, I could never have started, since all the labs are heavily, almost entirely, male, especially when I started. So your alternative is to either a) eliminate all women in the name of male science productivity or b) practice some targeted funding to set up female-only labs.

If you choose option b, I'll let you know where to send the check.

Also Artemis, we are all "sexist" (except for a few troubled souls).

Perhaps the difference between our perspectives is that I and others of my generation have worked hard to allow everyone to voice their opinion regardless of race, religion, or creed. It is hard but should become a habit if you are truly interested in others POV.

It seems (based on your comments) that you first determine a speaker's status to determine if their opinion is worth listening to. At least you did not disagree w/this in an earlier post.

That practice in my opinion is racist, sexist, and a quite unsophisticated manner to evaluate different POVs. The fact that using social status as an "opinion filter" is prevalent today does not make it right.

Astra,

On a more personal note, I know exactly the kind of professors you are talking about.

I don't think that many of the people here actually appreciate exactly how political academia can be.

This is why I keep pushing on the idea that someone who holds the position that science should be gender segregated because women are too emotional probably shouldn't hold positions that influence who gets fellowships or research funding.

Bob,

I generally find that people who hold sexist or racist biases assert that EVERYONE else is like that too.

Please allow me to dissuade you of this notion. This is a consequence of people's propensity to construct other minds out of their own.

I for one am not a sexist. I judge people AFTER I have evidence that tells me about them, not before.

"It seems (based on your comments) that you first determine a speaker's status to determine if their opinion is worth listening to."

Not in the slightest, I don't care who someone is, I treat everyone the same.

I only care about the validity of the argument, nothing more.

If you have the impression that I care about your status please let me tell you that I don't. You could be poor, rich, conservative, liberal, a high school drop out, or hold a MD/PhD and I wouldn't care about any of that.

What I care about is if you have the goods from an argument standpoint.

If you make a good argument I will be on board.

If I think the argument is flawed you will know that too.

fyi - I do think that there are very very few
instances where single sex organizations are best.

Past wars indicate that women are very effective fighters but I don't think a sniper/spotter team should be co-ed. No deep analysis just an off the cuff thought. Same w/confined spaces stuff.

Labs, offices, would not seem to be problematic. HR should have a handle on "hot spots" by now. (It's been decades but I'm sure some companies have not changed since the '50's.)

I do think Hunt's expulsion should have been handled more kindly if those organizations wanted to start culling "old white clueless guys" (which Hunt certainly seems to be).

"What if it was shown that labs run by women were more productive than labs run by men?"

Okay, first of all, it's SOP for Artemis/Orion to take other people's words out of context and twist them to "prove" how anyone who disagrees with him is evil. I mentioned a theoretical, and he immediately ran with it as if I had actually advocated the idea. (That particular way of taking something out of context, and then going off on the written equivalent of a 30-minute talking jag where no one else can get a word in, is is typical of borderlines and narcissists, and most of leftism is made of such people.) Continuing...

"Would this mean that universities shouldn't hire male professors anymore?"

If there was good evidence that female professors were superior instructors or researchers, then yes, that might have to be the rule. Although there would not have to be any actual rule... market forces would take care of it.

Now, one other thing...

Artemis/Orion clearly has no background in statistics or probability. He fails to understand the principles of statistical distribution, particularly the concept of outliers. A simple example: The majority of adults in America own a car. Does that mean that every adult American owns a car? Of course not. There are some who don't. They are outliers. The statement being true for the group in general does not imply that it is true for every individual in the group.

Most engineers are men. There are several plausible explanations for why this is, ranging from averages of aptitude (men's brains might be better for the types of thinking that engineering requires) to motivation (engineering might a a field that's just not as interesting to women, on average). But these are statements about averages, and there are outliers. I've met a number of competent and motivated female engineers. And they should have the same opprotunities, based on their skills, as men in the field do. But they are still outliers.

However, leftism starts by precluding the possibility of individual choice. All individuals (except for the ruling class) are identical and interchangable. There is no such thing as individual aptitude or motivation. When there are no individuals, when every unit is the same as every othe unit, there is no statistical distribution and therefore no outliers. So all fields should be 50% women. The only reason why any field would have less than that would be discrimination, a conspiracy so massive and insiduous that every single male child emerges from the womb already knowing about it.

Of course, this belief is based on a mathematical fallacy that's as wrong as believing that the Earth is the center of the solar system. But that's what leftists have decided the truth is, and since they narcissitically believe that they themselves are the sole source of truth in the universe, it is true. Because they say so.

Cousin Dave Says:

"Okay, first of all, it's SOP for Artemis/Orion to take other people's words out of context and twist them to "prove" how anyone who disagrees with him is evil. I mentioned a theoretical, and he immediately ran with it as if I had actually advocated the idea."

I didn't take your words out of context.

You asked me a question about what we should do if it was scientifically proven that single-sex labs were more productive than mixed-sex labs.

A portion of my response was to pose an analogous question to you.

That analogous question is what should we do if it was scientifically proven that labs run by women were more productive than labs run by men?

Those two questions are analogous.

What I was trying to get at is that if you think that the second question doesn't warrant serious consideration, then why should the first?

I also don't recall calling you evil... can you please quote that part?

You put forth a hypothetical scenario and I put forth an analogous hypothetical scenario.

That is pretty fucking standard procedure within debates and discussions.

I don't see where I called you "evil"... that is your own made up claim.

Cousin Dave,

Since I have already addressed the part where you made up that I somehow called you evil, I will now address the probability part that you managed to mangle pretty bad.

First off, you assert that if it was scientifically proven that on average labs run by women were more productive than labs run by men that it might be justifiable if universities only hired women:

"If there was good evidence that female professors were superior instructors or researchers, then yes, that might have to be the rule."

You then claim without evidence that I apparently do not understand statistical distributions.

The interesting thing is that your solution to the aforementioned hypothetical situation actually demonstrates that you don't seem to understand how distributions work.

If I say to you that on average men are taller than women... that tells you essentially nothing about any specific man or woman.

Your way of thinking would say that because men are on AVERAGE taller than women... therefore ALL men are taller than ALL women.

That is why you would advocate just hiring only women if it was proven that on average they were better.

The part you are missing is that all distributions have a characteristic variability that is often called the standard deviation (denoted by the greek letter sigma).

That standard deviation implies that the distributions of different groups will overlap to some extent... often times that overlap would be quite significant.

This means that if in that hypothetical scenario labs run by women were more productive we might expect to see MORE labs run by women than by men, but we certainly wouldn't expect to see then run by women exclusively.

That is the inherent stupidity involved in complete gender segregation within the lab.

It implies that because on average women might be more emotional than men... that we should conclude that ALL women are more emotional than ALL men and as a result segregating them will "fix" that pesky crying problem.

Here is a clue for you since you don't seem to get it.

The most productive labs are filled with the most productive minds... that means that the only way single-sex labs will promote more productivity is if there is no overlap between the capabilities of men and women so far as the distributions are concerned.

Furthermore, if there is no overlap... that would also imply that women just shouldn't do science at all because they are fundamentally outclassed.

We know that this isn't the case... therefore there is an overlap in scientific aptitude and men and women should be measured as individuals... not thrown into a bin because the average woman is one way and the average man is another.

Cousin Dave,

One final thing with regard to "outliers"... you clearly don't know what that term means, and yet you feel quite comfortable giving me a lecture on probability.

Here is some refresher reading for you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier

The point being that a statistical outlier is not considered to be a part of the expected distribution.

They are anomalous by definition.

Women who have scientific aptitude are not "outliers".

They are still within the expected distribution for women.

Good grief... apparently men who have scientific aptitude are within the expected distribution and women who have scientific aptitude are "outliers".

Do you know what statisticians often do with "outliers" in the data?... they disregard it because it is attributed to a measurement error.

It is always nice to chat with people who think that women who are good at science are the statistical equivalent of someone accidentally bumping the vibration isolation table while you are taking a sensitive measurement.

Let me get to what I believe is the crux of the issue here.

Is a private institution required to maintain an employee if they find their values to be inconsistent with their own?

Is a private institution required to maintain an employee if they find their [jokes to be offensive to people who werent even there]
fixed it for you

According to his feminist girl friend he isnt sexist, according to him is was a joke.

Have we got actually video showing the comments made before and after the one quotes that was tweeted?

Because the outrage over "sexism" from leftists and feminists is kinda like the outrage from toddlers being told no.

Loud, pointless, annoying, and ultimately meaningless

Artemis is so determined to condemn me for wrongthink that he points to a Wikipedia article that he didn't bother to actually read. All me to quote from the first paragraph of the article: "an outlier is an observation point that is distant from other observations." I think we can say that anything that has characteristics sufficiently different from the mean is "distant". Maybe we could argue about how distant is distant, but the English language isn't that precise.

So Artemis, in your Marxist-university-professor world, slandering people who disagree with you is totally cool, right? You have a very long history here of taking other poster's words out of context and twisting them to make them say something you can condemn them for, instead of what they actually said. Anything to suppress any deviation from the doctrine. If students find out that there are other schols of thought, they might start getting ideas, and we can't have that.

I have worked in many different science labs. I think it is fine to have them mixed and, if someplace wants, single-sex. Why? Some people work better around their own sex, others in mixed groups. Should EVERYTHING have to be mixed?

In my experience, the labs that were all women were cleaner, conformed more to 9-5 type hours, and more sociable. The ones that were mixed tended toward a mix of 9-5 and college-student hours (late nights, no early mornings), and were less clean, more focused. The all male labs (being a gal, I wasn't IN any, but I was around a few) were quiet, focused like lasers, and tended to be very-early to very-late.

lujlp,

I'm no fan of the often times unsubstantiated claims that feminists will make. I have argued against these claims on this blog on MANY occasions over the years.

At the same time I can recognize when something is sexist and when it isn't.

You are trying to argue that someone suggesting that we should discriminate by gender in the sciences ISN'T a sexist standpoint.

That is what you have been trying to argue.

Discrimination based upon gender is the definition of sexism... and no, I am not going by some made up BS definition of sexism involving institutional power or some other nonsense... I am using the standard definition that applies to everyone equally.

"According to his feminist girl friend he isnt sexist, according to him is was a joke."

That is great... and that diversity officer who recently tweeted that killallmen thing also claimed it was a joke (for what it is worth I don't believe her, but the point is everyone claims these things are jokes).

Also, it is possible for people who are not sexist to say things that are sexist.

The fundamental problem here is that when someone makes a sexist joke they will generate bad PR for the institutions they are associated with. Those institutions have a right to cut ties if they feel their association with someone will negatively affect their brand.

That is the market at work.

Cousin Dave says:

"Artemis is so determined to condemn me for wrongthink"

What is with your victim mentality?

First you say that I suggested you were "evil" (which I didn't)... now you say I am condemning you for "wrongthink" when I haven't.

It is possible for me to point out where you got something wrong without you taking it as a personal attack?

Please remember what Dr. Hunt said... he said it was women who cried when they were criticized.

Why exactly are you taking any criticism I offer of the arguments you have made as if I am putting you down as a person?

I am not attacking you Cousin Dave... I am attacking your arguments. There is a difference.

Cousin Dave Says:

""an outlier is an observation point that is distant from other observations." I think we can say that anything that has characteristics sufficiently different from the mean is "distant"."

You aren't getting it.

If you have a distribution of points most of them will be clustered within a normal distribution (unless the distribution isn't normal, which is beyond the scope of this discussion for the moment).

If a point is located far from that cluster of points it will be classified as an outlier.

Imagine now that we have 100 data points, we would expect that if those points were normally distributed that we would see points within ~3 standard deviations.

If we saw a point at 5 sigma we could classify that as an outlier as that point would be far from the other points within the distribution and we wouldn't really expect any 5 sigma points within a data set of 100. Such a point would be an outlier.

If on the other hand we had 10^10 points, we would expect some points out at 5 sigma and as a result those 5 sigma points wouldn't be outliers as they would still be within the collection of points... it wouldn't be separated off by a bunch of blank space.

Calling women with scientific aptitude "outliers" is making them out to be statistical anomalies like being an albino.

Albinos are "outliers" on the skin melanin spectrum precisely because they jump out of the normal distribution.

Women with scientific aptitude might be above average... but they aren't "outliers".

Cousin Dave,

You probably aren't going to take my word for it when it comes to how outliers are defined.

If you have ~4 minutes to spare here is a good tutorial video for you to watch that will show you why referring to women with scientific aptitude as "outliers" is incorrect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aDHbRb4Bf8

...but the people of this board have made it clear that they do not actually like tenure. ~ Posted by: Artemis at June 15, 2015 6:22 AM

No, the people on this board have made it clear they do not think elementary and high school teachers need tenure, that it is actually counterproductive in those environments.

I have told you and others here a million times (this is an exaggeration) that the entire notion of tenure is intended to protect against knee-jerk decisions by the administration. ~ Posted by: Artemis at June 15, 2015 6:22 AM

Pity Artemis as poor Cassandra, doomed to speak the truth but to never be believed - warning the poor, ignorant Trojans of Greek perfidy and of Troy's imminent demise.

If only we would listen to his wisdom for he is smarter and wiser than all of us put together, but don't ask for his credentials, just take his word for that.

Conan,

Some people on this board have expressed a disdain for tenure in all it's forms.

Others such as yourself limit it to elementary and high school educators.

The point remains that I have made it clear in previous discussions that educators at all levels are particularly susceptible to being ejected because they may hold an inconvenient set of beliefs or because they say the wrong thing.

I continue to find it interesting that people are now complaining that a person in academia was removed from some of his non-tenure appointments without due process or an investigation.

I bring it up because it grounds my previous arguments in a reality several people claimed didn't exist, or suggested wasn't something to be concerned about.

"don't ask for his credentials"

It is shit like this that has caused some confusion that I continually have to correct.

I am not generally interested in anyone elses credentials... but then pricks like you keep telling me I have to tell you what my qualifications are for some reason.

Then when I ask you to tell me what your qualifications are first, people like Bob then get led to believe that I am into status.

You are more than happy to then peddle that nonsense as if it were truth without mentioning the little fact that you are always the one who pushes for me to reveal details of my life that I have told you before I have no interest in sharing.

...but then pricks like you keep telling me I have to tell you what my qualifications are for some reason.

You don't have to. But if you want to be taken seriously on a complicated subject, some indication of expertise would help sell your argument.

Tell us if you're a professional statistician, a mathematics professor, someone who uses or studies statistics regularly, or even if you stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. That information would only bolster your assertion of your own expertise on the subject.

You insist we take you seriously and imply you have greater intelligence and knowledge than anyone else on this forum. Yet, when questioned about that, you insist you're not into credentials and that we're muddying the waters by engaging in unwarranted credentialism.

One can only conclude from that, that you have no credentials and have not engaged in any study or even extended readings in the subjects on which you claim expertise.

You might be truly bright - hard to tell from the brittle personality you display in your posts.

You misread others' posts and use that misreading to claim moral and intellectual superiority over them.

You never open your posts in the manner of a friendly debate, but choose to attempt to bully others as impossibly obtuse ("You seem to be having great difficulty understanding...") or open with the unstated assumption that everyone else on this forum is an uneducated rube ("I have told you and others here a million times...")

Why don't you try letting your knowledge, such as it may be, shine through, instead of trying to hammer everyone over the head with it.

You seem to be demanding that everyone acknowledge you as a genius and then get rather put out that they're not.

Also, try to be less wordy (and, yes, I appreciate the irony of using 250+ words to tell you this).

==============================

The point remains that I have made it clear in previous discussions [see what I mean about that arrogance] that educators at all levels are particularly susceptible to being ejected because they may hold an inconvenient set of beliefs or because they say the wrong thing.

You have made it clear (as if whatever you made clear is an incontrovertible fact). See what I mean about that arrogance? Not "I've stated many times my position that educators at all levels...," but "I have made clear...."

Artie, people in almost any profession are susceptible to dismissal for trivial or unfair reasons. I could be dismissed tomorrow for an unwise Facebook post or tweet (if I used Twitter) or simply for pissing my boss off.

Attempting to fix that vulnerability by imposing draconian protections carries its own set of problems - some of which can have potentially devastating effects in the long run.

Tenure may be intended to protect controversial professors, but it has the unintended side effect of also protecting incompetent teachers.

And the use of "educators" instead of "teachers" betrays your prejudice in that discussion.

Artemis: " Those institutions have a right to cut ties if they feel their association with someone will negatively affect their brand."

I agree with that. I don't know much about all of that stuff, but it's my understanding that honorary positions are offered because the institutions offering them believe they will benefit by association with the honored persons... not because they believe they're obligated to provide honor.

Tim Hunt: "Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry."

I agree with that too.

The first two of Hunt's three things, though spoken from the point of view of a man (you = man; them, they = women), are not sexist. They say exactly the same thing about men and women. And isn't it true?

The third thing, sexist or not, is a simple observation. Women cry - at work. Not all of them, but some. I've never seen a male coworker cry.

I've worked the past 20 years in a field heavily dominated by women (nursing - but about 6 years of that in research, which was about equal male/female); prior to that I worked 14 years in fields heavily dominated by men (5 years cutting down trees, 9 years in oil fields). So, about 14 years in male dominated environments, 14 years in female dominated environments, and 6 years where it was about equal.

In all three, the companies, organizations or agencies paid lip service to equality, diversity and non-discrimination. But, objective qualifications and skills being equal, supervisors, managers and staff, both male and female, found it more favorable in many ways to work with men - as supervisors, subordinates and peers - and not by enough to make anyone want to completely get rid of women.

I've seen female coworkers cry more times than I can remember. Never seen a male coworker cry. Does that have implications? Crying is usually an involuntary behavior driven by overwhelming emotion. The women who cried at work tried really hard not to cry before they cried. And it did interfere with their ability to perform on the job: they were out of action, sometimes from difficult situations where they were needed, until they were well over it. Often there were repercussions that affected others: e.g. she no longer had to work with the coworker, supervisor or patient who made her cry; or no longer had to work on the unit or do the work where she felt overwhelmed.

Women ruin everything.

"You probably aren't going to take my word for it when it comes to how outliers are defined."

You're right, I'm not. You've already shown your eagerness to take things out of context to "prove" your point. Your previous reference did not back your assertion -- in fact, it contradicted your assertion in the very first pargraph. I'm not going to bother with another one. Your problem is that "winning" the argument is more important to you than getting at the truth is. That's a very Cluster B behavior, and I don't waste my time interacting with Cluster B's.

"I don't waste my time interacting with Cluster B's"

Too late CD. Far, far too late.