You should really go read this comments thread on Pharyngula. It’s the Eighth “Skeptic’ Circle” – an ongoing collection of high-quality blog posts which “praise science and reason, and smirk and mock the gullible and credulous.”
Dean of Dean’s World decided to submit this post (written by Trudy Schuett, a men’s rights activist) from his blog. Trudy’s post is a response to a post of mine, which criticized men’s rights activists for using outdated statistics to discuss intimate homicide. (Not coincidently, my post was included in the seventh Skeptic’s Circle).
Here’s where it begins to amuse. Trudy’s rebuttal of my post was not only rejected, the editor, P.Z. Meyers, found it so ridiculous that he openly mocked it when he posted the Skeptic’s Circus:
This article from Dean’s World on Men’s Issues and Stats has but one virtue: irony. Look at these opening lines in disbelief.
It seems the ignorance of feminists is not only alive and well, but growing at an astonishing rate. Or maybe it’s deliberate, this dissemination of obvious untruth. I vote for the deliberate, as I’ve never met a feminist or women’s shelter advocate yet who could hold an entire conversation without resorting to at least one fabrication.
If you must read further, watch the phony strawman go up in the second paragraph, too. Ouch.
Ouch, indeed.
This rejection infuriated Dean so much that he posted a sour grapes attack on the entire Skeptics Circle tradition.
The angry link from Dean’s world caused a few anti-feminists to swarm on the thread. And here’s where it’s very entertaining: a long debate ensues between the anti-feminists and the Skeptics, and the anti-feminists make total idiots of themselves. If you enjoy the “Alas” posts debunking anti-feminists, you’re pretty much guaranteed to enjoy this thread, too.
Also, note that in the comments on Dean’s World, Richard Bennett calls me “the Josef Goebbels of the women’s movement.” Lovely fellow, that Richard.
Unfortunately, P.Z. Meyer’s spam-prevention program has gone haywire, so people who haven’t already “joined” the site might not be able to post. So you can read the thread, but you might not be able to post to it. What follows “below the fold” are two responses I wrote intending to post on in P.Z.’s comments, but which I’m instead posting here. (UPDATE: I’ve just discovered that I can join P.Z.’s site, as long as I used IE rather than Firefox to do so.)
* * *
Trudy Schuett responds to a piece that appeared in the last Skeptic’s Circle that was full of straw men and name calling, she provides numerous references and citations to back up her point, and you go after her for responding in kind in her opening paragraphs?
In the comments of your blog, Dean, I challenged you to find any 100-word passage in my original post that can match the first hundred words of Trudy’s post for both insulting content and lack of substance. I renew my challenge now.
I really get bored by these sorts of personal attacks. Let’s ignore them, and look at the substantive issue that was under discussion.
1) I claimed that anti-feminists and MRAs tend to use out-of-date data to support their claim that women murder intimate partners (e.g., spouses & lovers) as often as men do. More recent, nationwide data shows that, contrary to MRA claims, women are murdered by intimates
more often than vice-versa.
2) Trudy responded by claiming that I had distorted my data by citing out-of-date articles, and that more recent MRA articles make us of more recent data. To support her point, Trudy cited this collection of citations by Dr. Fiebert.
3) I pointed out that Trudy’s substantive claim is not true; recent MRA articles about intimate homicide often use outdated data, just as I claimed. (The most recent example I found – this article by Glenn Sacks, a prominent and well-respected MRA – was published just last month). In fact, in the article by Dr. Fiebert that Trudy herself cited as an example of an MRA who uses recent data, all of the cited data regarding intimate homicide was from 1992 or earlier. (It did have more recent data regarding other topics, but I never claimed that MRAs preferred outdated data regarding all topics, just regarding intimate homicide).
Neither Trudy nor any other poster on Dean’s World ever provided a substantive rebuttal to my response to Trudy.
As far as I can tell, if we brush aside the name-calling and other irrelevant silliness, that is where the substantive debate stands. And the debate over substance – not the name-calling – should be what we pay attention to.
* * *
Richard B. wrote:
But [Weitzman] lied. Peterson’s examination of her data showed that when tax effects were considered, her data showed living standards were a wash.
Compare that to what Peterson himself wrote, in a discussion on USENET:
I see that the Weitzman controversy lives on. I have a couple of comments. First of all, let me say that I am the person who published the research showing that her much cited numbers (73% decline in standard of living for women, 42% rise for men) were wrong. The “real” numbers from her study are 27% decline for women, and a 10% rise for men, on average. So her numbers do show a gender gap (as does every other RELIABLE study I know of). (See article in American Sociological Review, June 1996 Vol 61, pp. 528-540.)
So Peterson made it clear that he found a gender gap – not a “wash,” as Richard claims Peterson found.
Richard really should have known that without being told – since he was, like myself, a participant in that same Usenet discussion. Having the actual researcher you’re discussing pop up to correct you in a Usenet discussion is unusual – not unlike the scene in “Annie Hall” in which Woody Allen pulls Marshall McLuhan out from behind a movie poster.
ALVY: (Sighing and addressing the audience) What do you do when you get stuck in a movie line with a guy like this behind you? I mean, it’s just maddening!
The man in line moves toward Alvy. Both address the audience now.
MAN IN LINE Wait a minute, why can’t I give my opinion? It’s a free country!
ALVY I mean, d- He can give you- Do you hafta give it so loud? I mean, aren’t you ashamed to pontificate like that? And-and the funny part of it is, M-Marshall McLuhan, you don’t know anything about Marshall McLuhan’s…work!
MAN IN LINE (Overlapping) Wait a minute! Really? Really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called “TV Media and Culture”! So I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan-well, have a great deal of validity.
ALVY Oh, do yuh?
MAN IN LINE Yes.
ALVY Well, that’s funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here. So … Come over here … a second.
Alvy gestures to the camera which follows him and the man in line to the back of the crowded lobby. He moves over to a large stand-up movie poster and pulls Marshall McLuban from behind the poster.
MAN IN LINE Oh.
ALVY (To McLuhan) Tell him.
MCLUHAN (To the man in line) I heard what you were saying. You know nothing of my work. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.
ALVY (To the camera) Boy, if life were only like this!
Amp, it’s true that there has been some problems with posting as a non-registrered commentor at Pharyngula, but if you refresh the page (having saved your comment somehow) then it should be possible for you to post.
We would love to see you participate.
BTW, can you explain their obsession with refering to your real name? I’ve noticed that they always go at great lengths to point it out, instead of refering to you as Ampersand.
The use of an internet personality’s real name is often used as an act of aggression by those who assume that said personality must have had some pressing reason for obscuring his identity in the first place. It’s like “outing” someone. And indeed, there are some cases in which revealing an internet persona’s real name can do them very real harm. I know someone who actually lost his job (as a schoolteacher, in a very conservative rural community) when a malicious person “outed” him to his employers as the owner and maintainer of a fandom website which he had been running pseudonymously.
Since Barry himself does not particularly work to keep his real name a secret on the internet, though, I have no idea why these people might be bothering. But I do think that that it’s likely meant as an aggressive act.
Yep, Elkins, agreed. It’s a way of being intimidating while trying to maintain a pretense of civility.
So this is the Goebbel’s thread. I have to say, that’s some pretty funny stuff. That and the complete oblivion the rampant amounts of hostility and strawmen.
That’s interesting that people feel that they can intimidate others by using their real names. I can see why this could be the case some times, but to expect that it would work when someone is open about their real name makes me wonder if there might not be a deeper issue – perhaps they feel an overpowering need to make clear that Ampersand is a man?
I always post under my own name, and has done so for quite a few years. This means that some times I have to be careful about what I say because of my employers – this is mostly when I talk about public IT systems in Denmark, where I work freelance for one of the players, and part time for a different player (they are both aware of this), and thus can’t give out too much information.
If people want to know who I am, etc., they can always do a google search – as far as I know, I’m the only one in the world with my name (or at least with my spelling).
Yeah, I have to apologize for the flakiness of my comment facility. There’s something wrong deep in the bowels of the software, and I’m going to be delving into it this week.
The good news, though, is that Richard Bennett is managing to get his comments through, and it’s comical to watch him self-destruct.
Kim: I forgot all about the Josef Goebbells comment! I’ve updated the post to reflect that.
Kristjan: Actually, I tried refreshing several times, without luck. But your post encouraged me to try again – this time using a different browser. So I discovered that I can register on PZ’ s site, so long as I use IE rather than my usual Firefox. :-)
And yeah, I’ve noticed that while people who are both pro- and anti- me will sometimes call me “Barry” if they prefer real-world names, some of the folks who really hate me will make a big point of using my full name “Barry Deutsch.” Bizarre.
Oh, no…I’m responsible for making someone use IE?
I am so ashamed. I will work hard on correcting this bug right away.
What made it most worthwhile for me was the shocking exposure of the fact that the women who run and staff shelters are wasting our hard-earned tax dollars on CHAMPAGNE !!!
bean, we really, really need to talk…
Is this the same Richard who left Table Talk in a huff when they forced him to quit using multiple pseudonymous acconts?
From my experience, the ones who hate you do it as a form of intimidation ‘I know your name, I know who you are, you aren’t doing this anonymously, watch your back’ kind of aura to it.
The ones who like you tend to do it as a form of emotional appeal – it’s still a tactic of debate manipulation, but it’s more acceptible in my mind, though still disrespecting to the persons potential desire for having their internet identity over personalized.
Sir, I’ve seen Josef Goebbels, I’ve met Josef Goebbels. and you sir, are no Josef Goebbels.
for one thing, you don’t look anything like an irate, hairless ferret.
it’s things like this that make me believe that someday, some bloke like this Richard whazziz, is going to say something completely ludicrous. like “feminists faked the moon landing to land George Lucas a job in Hollywood, because he’s a dirty feminist who doesn’t want Padme to wear a bra.”
and finally, one of thier like minded bunch is going to call them on it. at which point, they reveal every political idea they’ve espoused for the last decade was a sham, leading up to a punchline of seeing just how far they can get other small minded people to follow them.
I’m having a hard time finding the Skeptic Circle debate that is supposedly raging on with Mr. Richard. Can someone please give a direct link to the debate itself so I can read it? I feel left out!
Kim, it’s the first link;
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/the_eighth_skeptics_circle_must_be_malebolge/
What I found most fun is when Richard linked to a study and then perhaps three people pointed out that the study he linked to didn’t support his position…
I am ashamed to admit that I’ve been known to use someone’s real name in an Internet discussion because I first met them under that name and I’m spacing out. Only once I know of, and I cleared it that same day, but it happens…
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Re: The use of real names as an intimidation technique. I think mythago’s comment is illuminating.
Multiple names, multiple email addresses and obscuring their identity are really, really common affectations of anti-feminists, which I don’t get. I don’t know what the association is between anti-feminism and obsession with identities, but it’s a very real phenemenon I’ve noticed. I had a troll who would carry on entire conversations with himself but pretending that he was up to 7 different people, to make it look like there was an outpouring of support for his crazy positions. I had trouble banning him, because he was using IP masking software, something he bragged about frequently as if he were fucking James Bond or something, comments like, “I’m everywhere and nowhere at once.”
The flip side was that he was obsessed with “outing” me, even though I don’t hide my identity. He would post my address, names of family members, my office address, and even information about the town I grew up in.
My guess is that those who treat male domination as a near-religion have a god complex. But my guess may change tomorrow. But no matter how you look at it, it’s weird.
It is unnecessary to point out again how ridiculous the “real name” thing is in Barry’s name (the connection between “Ampersand” and “B. Deutsch” was clear before the creation of Alas, a blog, and is explained by Barry himself in his interview with Ted Rall in Attitude 2, a printed book avalaible on the major online stores).
For me, the way Bennett wrote “Barry ‘Ampersand’ Deutsch” sounded instantly like what believers of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion believe to be the decisive argument against internationalist communism: “Y’know, Leon Trotsky‘s real name was Lev Davidovich Bronstein; hmm… how’bout that?”
However, while Bennett’s sexism was obvious from the start, I didn’t want to assume anything about his potential antisemitism, but now, based on the information provided by Trish Wilson in her profile of that person (scroll down), it is safe to say that he supported, at the very least, an openly antisemitic organization, since he is, according to Trish, one of the original signers of the infamous Father’s Manifesto (“Learn how jews destroyed American children”, “Understand The Talmud Subverts American Family Law”, ad nauseam).
I guess his comparison to Goebbels was meant as a compliment. As for Dean Esmay, I am hardly surprised: I know the beef you and many people got with Mac Diva (not discussing the reasons here), but, if I recall correctly, she was among the firsts to denounce his collusion with people like Bennett. That Esmay, Reynolds and, say, Eric Olsen’s Blogcritics get to define what blogging is doesn’t reflect well on the American blogoverse (I’m not saying it is better elsewhere).
in Barry’s name: sorry, I meant ” in Barry’s case“.
(Also, I didn’t link to the Christian Party, but if you want to see Adolf Hitler’s opinion on the Jews quoted approvingly, feel free to google it.)
Yeah, I quit using my real name once I started getting gross mutilated fetus pictures in the mail — and I live in the middle of nowhere. They even knew my middle name. I’ve never even been an abortion rights activist, but since I was involved in feminist campus activism, I got harassed anyway.
Amanda, I hope you know that I use ‘Penelope Taynt’ on Pandagon because it’s an Amanda Show joke, and I love reading your stuff.
I guess his comparison to Goebbels was meant as a compliment.
LOL!
I, too, had been trying not to go the anti-semitism route with my hypothesizing–although I can’t claim that I didn’t think it–but given the information you’ve provided…yeah, guess they just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that Amp’s been getting regular checks in the mail from the Zionist Conspiracy.
Blech. Just once, just once, mind you, I’d like to have one of my nastier and more paranoid suspicions turn out to be utterly groundless. ..
Dude, is that like the secret feminist conspiracy? Because if Amp’s getting checks, where are mine, then?
Jewish conspiracy, feminist conspiracy, what’s the dif ? I never get MY checks, either.
I bet bean indoctrinated her charges at the women’s shelter to lift mine from my mailbox before I could get home from work. [shakes fist] I’ll get you, bean !! AND your ill-gotten cases of Piper-Hesdick, too !!
Piper Hesdick? That sounds kind of scary…
I never get *either* of those checks. And I’ve yet to make a dime off of being a member of the “cultural elite” either. How elite can it be if there’s no damned *money* in it?
And Bean never brings home any of that champagne from the shelter either.
My life sucks.
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