Shermer, it's not a guy thing

This is part two of my discussion of the Shermer vs. Benson debate, where I talk about the mistakes made by Michael Shermer. If you haven't read part one you'll be missing a large part of the conversation and the history. As I mentioned at the start of that article I am responding to a number of different blog posts and in order to avoid biasing others opinions I ask that everyone read the source material in order before reading my posts.

So again here is the list: First watch this video starting at 11:30. Then read 1, 2, and 3.

Now, here's a short pause for those who haven't followed this yet...

Disagreement ≠ Sexism

When researching for my posts about the Shermer vs. Benson debate I have found a common problematic thread running through the arguments that I want to discuss. That issue is this: just because I disagree with you does not mean I am sexist. If you respond to my disagreement by calling me sexist you derail the conversation and I can no longer say anything (and no longer take you seriously).

Before I go further I want to show you an example of what I am talking about. As context, Ophelia Benson has responded to accusations that she lied in her original article on "It's a guy thing" here in this blogpost. In the comments one poster pointed out that Benson had made factually unsupported allegations against Shermer and that Shermer responded with clarifications.

The problem is, that a later poster (comment #26) decided to take this comment that didn't contain sexism and then make it sexist by adding her own words thereby implicitly accusing the original poster of sexism (the additions are in italics):

Ophelia made a factually unsupported allegation against Michael – because she’s a girl.

Michael, quite reasonably, responded to this with clarification, well-supported refutation and a clear explanation of the broader problems of which he considers this symptomatic – because he’s a boy.

/fixed for you.
…and you know, when defending the indefensible, you coild least try using less flowery, long winded and turgid explanation and just get straight to the point, lol.

Let me start by saying, please, don't do this!

This type of argument makes it impossible to debate these issues because any time a man disagrees with a woman people can simply say "oh he just doesn't agree because he's sexist." So instead of saying we disagree because we're sexist, tell us why we are wrong. Then, if we do say something that is actually sexist, tell us! Just, don't accuse us of being sexist merely because we disagree.

Otherwise, how can a man ever hope to enter a debate when faced with this sort of attitude. It suddenly feels like an us vs. them world. We are stuck listening, and when we see problems with an argument we aren't allowed to say anything because we are told criticizing a woman is the equivalent to saying women aren't as smart as men. Trust me, were not saying this. I'll I ask is that you wait until someone explicitly says that to accuse them of it.

Lack of Skepticism in the Skeptical Movement

I’ve been waiting to write about the recent Shermer vs. Benson showdown and the related PZ Myers Cameo. This recent debate brings up two issues that I have begun to notice more and more within the skeptical movement which are:

1.  Prominent bloggers (like all of us) fail to properly use skepticism when they write about issues they are passionate about. In this case that issue is sexism within the skeptical movement.

2.  There is lack of skepticism applied to blog posts written by prominent bloggers.

Now, before I discuss the problems and these issues there is a lot of background material. I would request that everyone—even those familiar with this debate—to review the history I will be discussing before reading what I write. I ask this both because I don’t want to prejudice your views with my discussion and because I believe reading the history in chronological order can prevent people from being biased by other bloggers views.

Without further ado here is the reading material:

First: Listen to the question posed to Michael Shermer and his response starting at 11 minutes 30 seconds in this video.

Second: Read Ophelia Benson’s response to Shermer’s comment entitled Nontheism and Feminism: Why the Disconnect?

Third: Read Shermer’s response to Benson entitled Feminism Disconnected: A response to Ophelia Benson and a Caution on Tribalism in Secularism.

Last: Read PZ Myers response to Shermer entitled That’s not a “response,” Michael, it’s a “denial.”

Note: this debate is rounded out by numerous other blog posts but I’m going to limit myself to the posts listed above as I think they are the best examples of problems by prominent bloggers.

Republicans fight reality with rhetoric once again

The Republican Joint Economic Committee recently released an article entitled: Historical Tax Rates: Rhetoric vs. Reality. This article was an attempt to attack a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report which found that changing the top marginal tax rate had little effect on the economy. The problem is, that despite this article's title alleging combating rhetoric with reality, the Republican article is full of its own rhetoric and its own misleading statistics. But to be nice I will start with the one thing that they correctly stated:

While the effective marginal income tax rate is more relevant than the top statutory income tax rate, neither rate fully reflects the overall burden of taxation on the economy. A comprehensive measure would include every kind of tax (income, sales, property, estate, etc.) collected at every level of government (federal, state, and local). Without a more complete measure, it is impossible to accurately determine how much or how little taxes affect the economy. (emphasis added)

You would think that after pointing out that it is impossible to accurately determine how taxes affect the economy without comprehensive analysis that Republicans would stop their parties mantra that increasing tax rates will negatively impact the economy. You would also think that they would then advocate doing more research to determine the effects of higher taxes on the economy. But rather than waiting for that sort of analysis they put on their hypocrite pants and state:

Given the much greater share of income now subject to the top [tax] rate, any future [tax] rate increase will have a much greater effect on the economy.

It doesn't get much worse than this when an article waits only 4 paragraphs to completely contradict itself. I wonder whether the authors merely forgot that they wrote it was impossible to accurately determine how much or little taxes effect the economy without more data or whether they are just so trapped in their own ideological world that they forgot reality also applies to them.

Lets Redefine Marriage

American progress has been characterized by redefining our notions of equality. When we founded this nation equality was limited to white males and freedom was limited by the color of your skin. As we have grown as a nation we have redefined these words and we are better for it. Slowly, we changed our understanding of freedom to include all races not just people of European descent. If we had not changed our definition of freedom to include all people we would still have slaves today.

We also changed our definitions of equality. No longer do we treat only white men as equal. We have expanded our definition of equality to include all races, women, and men. If we had not women would still be forbidden from voting and segregation would still plague our society.

Social progress is itself defined as changing the definitions of our most sacred institutions to create a more equal and loving society. This is one of the greatest things about our Nation. Despite our history of discrimination and hate, we have grown as a nation to become more accepting of outsiders and different points of view. Over and over we have redefined words such as equality and freedom to become more inclusive of the differences between us.

Vanderbilt all-comers rule

I recently saw a video that pulled the classic dishonest straw man trick.  The video discusses a policy at Vanderbilt university called an "all-comers" policy. This policy is a non-discrimination policy and applies equally to all university student groups (but not fraternities and sororities).  The policy has sparked a debate by christian student groups who dishonestly claim that the policy prevents them from choosing their members based on religious belief.  But, before we get into the debate lets look at the policy itself.

Where can you get Universal Health Care?

Its been a while since I posted anything but a recent CNN health article titled "Where in the world can you get universal health care?" gave me the need to post again.  This CNN article talks about some of the countries that have universal health care but by using the simple rhetorical trick of omitting facts the article makes it appear that universal health care is not widely used in the first world when in fact it is the most common health care system in the first world.  The health care debate in the U.S. is at a peak right now after the recent supreme court ruling upholding the new health care bill.  Thus, this CNN article discussing the countries where universal health care exists is timely.  However, the article is also highly misleading due to its rather absurd omissions.