Continued: (Ed) Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

There are some fun parody Twitter accounts about atheism plus:

WHITE PEOPLE: Listen up. Stop generalizing about a race, and stop telling a whole race what to do. Got it? #atheismplus

https://twitter.com/atheismplus/status/450425488951869440
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.@atheismplus Yes! Plus, now that Jimmy Wales identifies as both a skeptic and male, there's no reason we can't shake him down for money.

https://twitter.com/AngrySkepchick/status/449347366731403264
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@AngrySkepchick Jimmy Wales is a white male?! And to think I've been citing Wikipedia in my scholarly Tumblr essays! Never again.

https://twitter.com/atheismplus/status/449348011756240896
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So how will the Ben Radford, Karen Stollznow drama effect TAM this year since she is one of the highlighted speakers?
 
adamwho said:
So how will the Ben Radford, Karen Stollznow drama effect TAM this year since she is one of the highlighted speakers?
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I'm guessing that someone will make a killing selling TEAM RADFORD t-shirts from under the table of one of the less reputable vendors.
 
d4m10n said:
I'm guessing that someone will make a killing selling TEAM RADFORD t-shirts from under the table of one of the less reputable vendors.
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Judging by the way the donations have gone, I'd be quicker to put my money in Team Stollznow shirts.
 
d4m10n said:
I'm guessing that someone will make a killing selling TEAM RADFORD t-shirts from under the table of one of the less reputable vendors.
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Heh, looks like some in the slymepit are unhappy with you.
 
Uh oh. Looks like PZ might have his FREEZE PEACH taken away...

http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/8993

MORRIS, Minn. — Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter Friday to the University of Minnesota–Morris after one of its professors encouraged students to trash all copies of an independent student publication because of the views it expressed. The following day, all the papers disappeared from their bins. Police say they are investigating.
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I'm conflicted. Isn't it a professor's job to police what the students think and say outside of the classroom? That's the only way to protect the free and open marketplace of ideas, right?
 
Sounds like they might have had themselves a good ole fashioned book burning over there in Morris. Oh, no wait, in this day and age of environmental awareness the would have been a book recycling.
 
SimplyAghast said:
Uh oh. Looks like PZ might have his FREEZE PEACH taken away...

http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/8993



I'm conflicted. Isn't it a professor's job to police what the students think and say outside of the classroom? That's the only way to protect the free and open marketplace of ideas, right?
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Regardless of which side you're on (conservative, liberal), defacing your opponent's publications is a slippery slop that will inevitably provoke similar actions from your opponents and further escalation. It's amazing someone prominent on "Free Thought Blogs" appears to only approve of free thought that agrees with his thought.

As a government employee activist against free press, he's certainly made himself vulnerable to losing his livelihood.
 
I've always got a chuckle out of the name Free Thought Blogs. Sure, maybe at one time it wasn't heavily censored but for as long as I've been familiar with it, free thought couldn't be farther from the truth.

is he advocating his ideology in class or going about his censoring ways strictly in his private life ?
 
Stout said:
I've always got a chuckle out of the name Free Thought Blogs. Sure, maybe at one time it wasn't heavily censored but for as long as I've been familiar with it, free thought couldn't be farther from the truth.

is he advocating his ideology in class or going about his censoring ways strictly in his private life ?
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Good question. He wrote a blog post about the time a female student accused him in private of Very Bad Things, so I'm betting he does what he can to emphasize to students that he's not interested in such things.

And I love how the Thunderdome threads are billed as unmoderated, say what you want how you want. And they're strictly moderated.
 
Is that the one where he ran to the college administration to head off a possible false rape charge. I always wondered why he blogged about that one.
 
Stout said:
Is that the one where he ran to the college administration to head off a possible false rape charge. I always wondered why he blogged about that one.
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Yeah, here it is:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/05/15/bat-sex-is-not-protected-by-ac/#comment-824608

That’s not just a gay thing, MAJeff. I won’t meet privately with students either — I always keep my office door wide open, and when I’m working with students in the lab, I find excuses to move out and let them work on their own if it turns into a one-on-one event. I just can’t afford the risk.

I was also subject to accusations of harassment, once upon a time. A female student came into my lab when I was alone, unhappy about an exam grade, and openly threatened me — by going public with a story about a completely nonexistent sexual encounter right there.

Zoom, I was right out the door at that instant; asked a female grad student in the lab next door to sit with the student for a bit, and went straight to the chair of the department to explain the situation. I had to work fast, because I knew that if it turned into a he-said-she-said story, it wouldn’t matter that she was lying, it could get dragged out into an investigation that would easily destroy my career, no matter that I was innocent.

I was in a total panic, knowing full well how damaging that kind of accusation can be. Fortunately, I’d done the right thing by blowing it all wide open at the first hint of a threat, and getting witnesses on the spot.
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As we've been told repeatedly by the FTB/A+ folks, false claims of rape and other sexual impropriety are exceedingly rare.

And we definitely shouldn't forget fellow FTB blogger Jason Thibeault, who also employed the "women make crazy accusations" defense:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2013/08/10/the-web-of-trust-why-i-believe-shermers-accusers/

Are these accusations untrue? I'm inclined to believe that's the case. But we should totes believe that Bill Nye, Lawrence Krauss, Michael Shermer and just about every other prominent male atheist is guilty of the crimes with which they've been accused because false claims are "exceedingly rare."
 
SimplyAghast said:
I love how the Thunderdome threads are billed as unmoderated, say what you want how you want. And they're strictly moderated.
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Certainly I'm not allowed to post in PZ’s ‘dome. Too dangerous for the immoderately unmoderated safe space, I suppose.
 
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SimplyAghast said:
…we should totes believe that Bill Nye, Lawrence Krauss, Michael Shermer and just about every other prominent male atheist is guilty of the crimes with which they've been accused…
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I'm lead to wonder, who is the most prominent American atheist man yet to be accused of some sexual impropriety?
 
d4m10n said:
I'm lead to wonder, who is the most prominent American atheist man yet to be accused of some sexual impropriety?
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I was going to say David Silverman, but he was accused, too. I'm worried about Neil deGrasse Tyson being next on the list. He lacks privilege and doesn't seem too interested in the witch hunt, so he may fly under their radar.
 
So that makes two of the male FtBloggers that were involved in false rape accusations and bumps FtB into my number one spot as a go to when discussing the subject.

I wonder how the ratio of male FtBloggers who have first hand experience with false rape accusations compares to that of the general population.
 
Tyson is an all-around awesome guy, but despite being a top-notch advocate for science, I would not characterise him as active in the atheist subculture. I may well be wrong about this.
 
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