Whiskey Fire

See No Sky

On the heels of the last post, is this:

With much fanfare, the National Academies on Monday released a report suggesting that “unintentional” biases and institutional policies were the main reasons for a continued scarcity of women on science and engineering faculties. After the report was issued, universities released the typical statements — expressing concern about bias and pledging to eliminate it.

Unpublished data, however, suggest that most professors don’t agree that discrimination — intentional or otherwise — is the main reason that men hold so many more positions than do women in the sciences. Professors overwhelmingly think it’s a matter of men and women having different interests.
....
The professors they surveyed were asked the following: “In many math, science, and engineering fields there are more male professors than female professors. Do you think this difference is mainly (a) because of discrimination; (b) because of differences in ability between men and women; or (c) because of differences in interest between men and women.”

Among professors, 1 percent cited differing ability levels, 24 percent saw discrimination, and 75 percent said that the issue was one of different interests. When broken down by gender, far more women (33 percent) than men (17 percent) in academe see discrimination as the main factor. By discipline, sociologists and English professors were much more likely to blame discrimination than were scientists. In terms of age, the responses were largely consistent, although professors over 65 are less likely to see discrimination as the main cause.

Perhaps a case of the most comforting explanation being the one most readily adopted...?

Bust into the Field

The fact that there are fewer women than men in the sciences and engineering has been found to arise from institutional bias, a higher education Malibu Barbiearianism (or, to be fair, for once, Malibu Stacyism). So says the National Academy of Sciences' committee charged with studying the problem, a panel chaired by the Pride of the Hurricanes, Donna Shalala:

Women in science and engineering are hindered not by lack of ability but by bias and “outmoded institutional structures” in academia, an expert panel reported today.

The panel, convened by the National Academy of Sciences, said that in an era of global competition the nation could not afford “such underuse of precious human capital.” Among other steps, the report recommends that universities alter procedures for hiring and evaluation, change typical timetables for tenure and promotion, and provide more support for working parents.

Sure. I'd only add that these would be nice reforms for other fields besides the sciences and engineering, as well.

This I found pretty damning:

For 30 years, the report says, women have earned at least 30 percent of the nation’s doctorates in social and behavioral sciences, and at least 20 percent of the doctorates in life sciences. Yet they appear among full professors in those fields at less than half those levels. Women from minorities are “virtually absent,” it adds.

These numbers do not seem to me to be explicable by a Lawrence Summers-like recourse to "innate differences." For some reason.

This bit amused me:

Dr. Shalala, a former secretary of health and human services who is now president of the University of Miami, said part of the problem was insufficient effort on the part of college and university administrators. “Many of us spend more energy enforcing the law on our sports teams than we have in have in our academic halls,” she said.

Oy. Fewer straight lines, if you please, Dr. Shalala.

On another note, it is pretty fun that the NY Times calls her "Dr." and Summers only "Mr." Heh. (He does have a PhD, of course.)

UPDATE:

In comments below, Echidne reminds me that the problem with Mr-Dr Summers' comments was not that he offered "innate differences" as a hypothesis, but did so in a glib, condescending way.

Scott follows up Echidne's comment by noting that Summers actually mentioned "innate differences" as just one (actually the second) potential explanation. The Deposed Tyrant of Harvard gave precedence to the argument that women are less represented in these fields because they have to take care of children, something that takes away time from their pursuit of academic brass rings. Scott observes:

his "high powered job" hypothesis is just sexism in a different form; why does having children limit the hours of women but not men? (It's also worth asking why men have also dominated academic departments in which, if Summers is correct, women must have as much or more innate ability.)

-- a point that makes me laugh mordantly, because this is dead right.

A woman I know quite well, ahem, was once told as a bit of well-intended advice that it would be a good idea not to be seen on campus so often with her children, as this might be held against her if she ever were to apply for a full time job in the department where she was adjuncting. The amazing bit about this advice was that her husband was at the time a full-time professor at that very college -- and since this couple's kids went to daycare on campus, and he was the one who ended up taking them to and from that daycare, he could be seen almost daily dragging some red-cheeked squalling brat aroung with him. And you know what? He was routinely praised for his obvious joy at being a family man and a good Daddy and so good with his adorable little progeny.

Go figure...

ANOTHER UPDATE:

Oh, and the only reason I mentioned Summers at all was that the NY Times did. From the link above:

The panel dismissed the idea, notably advanced last year by Lawrence H. Summers, then the president of Harvard, that the relative dearth of women in the upper ranks of science might be the result of “innate” intellectual deficiencies, particularly in mathematics.

Odd how sometimes the wingnut and the MSM version of events sometimes dovetail precisely, ain't it?

We Are with You in Your Anger

I perceive that Airhead Ahab is still at it. Scott Lemieux has all the squalid details and does the work of pointing out just how exactly Althouse is wildly wrong this time around -- which is a noble enterprise, but also, in a sense, futile. Pointing out to Althouse why she's wrong on the facts is like telling Tom Cruise he comes across as a tad glib on the subject of psychiatry.

This all springs from Althouse's obnoxious assertion that Jessica from Feministing was deliberately drawing attention to her breasts at the blogger/Clinton meeting, and that this is a betrayal of feminism because Bill Clinton is a sexual predator and he was standing right there behind her. The photo from which Sherlock Althouse draws all these remarkable deductions is here. And no, it doesn't provide any sort of proof of Jessica's motivations, personality, or ideas, or anything. Hell, having been fooled by photographs before, and never having met her, I wouldn't even say it provides definitive proof of what she "really" looks like. 

So, yeah, Althouse is just making shit up, and trying to compensate for her utter lack of factual support for her position by posturing, attacking, whining, finger-pointing, and pretending she's a latter day Ste. Joan d'Feminisme. (The evidence for Clinton as a perpetrator of sexual harrassment is also pretty poor -- which is not to defend his conduct, but to just state the facts.) In other words, your standard Althouse performance art piece.

And this is what really infuriates me about Althouse. I just can't stand the dishonesty, particularly coupled with the cruelty. Althouse essentially called Jessica a dirty little slut, parading her breasts around in front of a dirty old man, selling out all her professed ideals like a skanky hypocrite. And these charges are based on what? Althouse's personal interpretation of a photograph, not on any certain knowledge.

This sort of shit makes me absolutely nuts. Has for a long time, too. And not even this sort of Althousian fortune cookie, as delightfully asinine and bong-smoky as it is, is enough to make me change my mind about her:

Ah, hey, I can daydream again! I'm picturing a slugfest consisting not of brutish humans punching each other, but slugs having a nice party.

Happy slugs and puerile character assassination, that's our Althouse.

Pretty Vacant

Figures -- right after I admit to a certain affection for Althouse, that goofy-assed lunatic goes off the deep end and does something vile. So I don't like you anymore, Ann Althouse, ya dope.

I've spent more time pondering the question of just what the hell is wrong with Althouse than the question is probably worth. (Indeed, so have you, if you just read that last sentence, for whatever fraction of a second it took you.) She's clearly a nut, and has a passion for saying things that are obviously just pulled out of her ass, and then pretending they were all shit by God. But then she is the Lowes Home Depot Perfesser of Constitutional Drywall at the University of Wisconsin-Dumbass, so you'd think she would know, like, a thing, and then maybe another thing. But she never betrays such knowledge in her actual blog. This bloggy trainwreck of hers consists of the following: 

85% --  confounding ruminations on reality TV emanating from someone who sounds like she's just been whapped in the head with a 10-pound sack of birdseed;

10% -- incoherent snivelling about imaginary slights;

5% -- bizarre attempts to provoke ridiculous blogwars based on total bullshit, and then interminable snivelling afterwards about how people are mean to her.

And that's it.

It has been intimated that Althouse is a "feminist." This is incorrect. She is not an "ist" of any sort:  except, she is an opportunist. And, she's crazy.

I really don't like people like Althouse.

Oh, Sue Me

I swear, I didn't write it:

Florida State University To Phase Out Academic Operations By 2010

SARASOTA, FL—Bowing to pressure from alumni, students, and a majority of teaching professors of Florida State University, athletic director Dave Hart Jr. announced yesterday that FSU would completely phase out all academic operations by the end of the 2010 school year in order to make athletics the school's No. 1 priority. "It's been clear for a while that Florida State's mission is to provide the young men and women enrolled here with a world-class football program, and this is the best way to cut the fat and really focus on making us No. 1 every year," Hart said. "While it's certainly possible for an academic subsidiary to bring a certain amount of prestige to an athletic program, the national polls have made it that our non-athletic operations have become a major distraction." FSU's restructuring program will begin with the elimination of the College of Arts and Sciences, effective October 15.

Don't Disappear

Well, this is interesting. I'm going, anyway.

And I'm preordering this.

The Bus Will Get You There Yet

What Retardo said about a friend of ours? I'm soon going to have something to say about another big pal of Whiskey Fire. Too far is too far.

Father Logic Sometimes Gets Cosmic

Just some stuff.

1. I like being a dad generally, but here's what I hate about it: socks. Keeping track of children's socks is a pain in the ass. Infant socks get lost like mad; we have a basket of approximately 2,876 unmatched infant socks. Toddler socks are a pain because toddlers take them off and then stuff them in the butter and then in the DVD player.  Toddlers also take them off right before you go out the door, and then they take them off in the carseat, and then you have to find them on the damn floor of the minivan, where the toddler has already spilled a juicebag and the baby's thrown up. Socks for Seven-Year-Olds are obnoxious because the ones you bought for him last week are already too small and have holes in them and he uses them to blow his nose sometimes and on the whole they are just awesomely disgusting spectacles.

SOCKS. SUCK. ASS.

2. I turned off the word verification, as LJ requested. It pisses me off too. If I start getting spam I'll have to turn it back on, though.

3. Swedish cuisine:

It's the Chance of a Lifetime

So below I talked about Patriot Day, in a spirit of bitter mockery. Apparently I did not realize that Patriot Day has a True Meaning, much like how there is a True Meaning of Christmas. And what is the True Meaning of Patriot Day? Let's turn to the always sober & rational Right Blogosphere for answers. Patterico explains:

I have read that 9/11 supposedly hasn’t changed our lives. I disagree. Of course, we don’t live our lives as though every day is September 12, 2001.

Why would we want to?

But it has changed the way I look at the world. I understand that there are people out there who want me to die. Who want my family to die. Who want my children to die. Who would dance a little jig if they learned that my son and daughter had been slaughtered.

I have kids too... here, check out my little pirate girl:

Do people want Patterico's children to die? I mean, specifically? Does anyone want my kids to die, specifically?

I beg leave to doubt it. Let's be precise. There exist people in the world who are crazed ideologues, who have no qualms about killing thousands of people, including themselves, in furtherance of their unhinged religious and political beliefs.

Obviously.

But then, I always knew there were crazy murderers in the world. This person, for instance. Or this one.

Seems to me that the insanity of all these killers, including Atta, lies in their utter, sociopathic, malevolent pitilessness, a cruelty inherent and manifest in the act of reducing other human beings to mere abstractions in an imaginary contest between ultimate good and ultimate evil.

...

FUCK! Lost the True Meaning of Patriot Day again, and for a minute there, I'd thought I'd had it...

I Write Music for Soundtracks Now

That bastard Nim brings my attention to this bit of deep thought from Althouse. She thinks Keith Olbermann is a shallow blowhard who gets worked up over silly details and writes rather badly and is just generally full of himself.

No, seriously.

I love Althouse.

For those who missed it, I kinda-sorta officially outed myself as Altmouse the other day at Lawyers, Guns, & Money. It's ironic, like rain on your wedding day, but in the heel of the hunt I don't despise Althouse; she's just a big sillyhead. I know she pisses off, say, Nim a lot more; the aloof dishonesty and general disrepute she brings to the legal profession has a lot to do with that. As a lawyer his own self he takes umbrage. And fair enough. Though, oddly, I'm not ashamed that she's a member of the professoriate. I actually find her a fine adornment for academia -- sort of like a mascot, a Philly Phanatic for the noble discipline of American legal studies, only without the gravitas. Oh, but then I suppose I'm just jealous!

As a bonus, here is some YouTube video of Kevin Federline's penis.