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Old 9th August 2013, 06:55 AM   #241
Aepervius
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Originally Posted by Lorentz View Post
You present only anecdotal evidence there.
*cough*

The best kind to present in a skeptic forum .

*cough*
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:06 AM   #242
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Originally Posted by blobru View Post
If by "why she stuck around" you mean why she continued to work with her accused assaulter on a podcast, one reason might be she felt the pluses of doing the podcast (her own enjoyment, opportunities to interact with fans, publicity for her writing endeavors, etc) outweighed the minuses (working with someone who had treated her badly, very badly if her description is accurate). As if she were reasoning to herself, "I'm not going let this jerk's creepy behavior force me out of a job I love doing." Maybe that reasoning worked for her for awhile, until the minuses (the number of incidents, growing realization of how serious they were - experiencing harassment and how best to react being very much a learning process - and that they weren't likely to stop) finally outweighed the pluses, and she quit.
That's a reasonable description of how it might have gone.

However, if there really was "physical ... sexually assaulted," then yikes.

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Old 9th August 2013, 07:15 AM   #243
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it seems to me that a person has been accused of a serious crime publicly with zero details at all. at least Radford knows who is accusing him.

who? where? how? etc..

how could this person, or anyone, defend themselves from someone telling everybody you're a rapist but not going to the police?

think i will amend thread title to include this, if no-one objects?
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:20 AM   #244
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Originally Posted by s_pepys View Post
think i will amend thread title to include this, if no-one objects?

except, on trying i realised, i dont know how.
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:21 AM   #245
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Originally Posted by s_pepys View Post
it seems to me that a person has been accused of a serious crime publicly with zero details at all. at least Radford knows who is accusing him.

who? where? how? etc..

how could this person, or anyone, defend themselves from someone telling everybody you're a rapist but not going to the police?

think i will amend thread title to include this, if no-one objects?
Radford has not been accused of rape.
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:22 AM   #246
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Originally Posted by Checkmite View Post
Radford has not been accused of rape.
no. he was accused of sexual assault. sorry.

i think the point still stands though.
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:24 AM   #247
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Originally Posted by Checkmite View Post
Radford has not been accused of rape.
the accused rapist im referring to is Michael Shermer. again, apologies if i was unclear.
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:30 AM   #248
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This has actually been a pretty even and informative discussion. Thank you to all involved. Especially to blutoski and chillzero who have already said basically everything I've thought to say.
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:32 AM   #249
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Originally Posted by s_pepys View Post
no. he was accused of sexual assault. sorry.

i think the point still stands though.
Well then; how is a person supposed to defend himself? A blatant "nothing of the sort ever happened" would at least be a promising first step.
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:37 AM   #250
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Originally Posted by Checkmite View Post
Well then; how is a person supposed to defend himself? A blatant "nothing of the sort ever happened" would at least be a promising first step.
sad and depressing this is.
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:38 AM   #251
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Originally Posted by Kevin_Lowe View Post
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but that is my understanding about the law in every jurisdiction I am aware of. I've not yet been able to find a single instance of an actual prosecution based on someone having sex with someone merely because their judgment was impaired. The people putting it about that there is such a law never cite any specific laws, cases or names so I've become fairly certain that this is just an urban myth.

Encouraging someone to get drunk so you can sleep with them, knowing they would not sleep with you sober, is definitely sleazy but not illegal (again, as far as I can determine given I'm not a lawyer).

That curious phrasing, "Mr. Shermer coerced me into a position where I could not consent, and then had sex with me", makes me wonder what exactly the writer of that phrase was trying to get at. If they had written "could not defend myself" that would make sense, or "coerced me into a position where I felt I could not withhold consent" would make sense too. Maybe it's just a random infelicity, since not everyone writes in flawless English all the time. However the more I think about it the more I struggle to see an interpretation of the words as written which fits better than the interpretation that Shermer pressured her to drink, and when drunk she consented to sex.
To me the best account that would fit that quote would be that she was pressured into drinking more than she would have liked and had sex with her while unconscious. To speculate consent was given flies in direct contradiction to "a position where I could not consent."
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:41 AM   #252
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Originally Posted by s_pepys View Post
sad and depressing this is.
How so? If Radford or Shermer or whomever were to straightforwardly say "that's nothing but lies; I did no such thing,", I'm sure that would be more than enough for a significant number of people to completely absolve them.
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:42 AM   #253
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Originally Posted by Checkmite View Post
How so? If Radford or Shermer or whomever were to straightforwardly say "that's nothing but lies; I did no such thing,", I'm sure that would be more than enough for a significant number of people to completely absolve them.
i was referring to the whole sorry mess.
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:46 AM   #254
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Originally Posted by Checkmite View Post
How so? If Radford or Shermer or whomever were to straightforwardly say "that's nothing but lies; I did no such thing,", I'm sure that would be more than enough for a significant number of people to completely absolve them.
personally if it was me. i would go straight to a lawyer or even to the police myself.

assuming i was innocent of course although even if guilty your first point of call would be a lawyer.
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Old 9th August 2013, 07:58 AM   #255
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Originally Posted by s_pepys View Post
personally if it was me. i would go straight to a lawyer or even to the police myself.

assuming i was innocent of course although even if guilty your first point of call would be a lawyer.
Oh, absolutely. The people who have openly accused the named individuals of these things have certainly put themselves at risk of civil, maybe even criminal (I don't know) penalties if it's determined the accusations are fabricated.
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Old 9th August 2013, 08:14 AM   #256
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Originally Posted by jjramsey View Post
Do you mean "red herring" or "red flag"?
I meant 'red herring'. The fact that her individual case is not prosecutable is, to me, irrelevant to whether she should notify the police because of the claim of pattern in her email to PZ.

She claimed that she is a victim of a crime perpetrated by Michael Shermer. She believes that she is not the only such victim. You don't second guess the police, you go in and make your statement and let them do their job.

The red flag here is that while she is not willing to go to the police, she is willing to send an email to PZ to publicly accuse somebody of committing a crime against her on her behalf, while she remains anonymous. If she is willing to publicly accuse somebody of a crime, she should be willing to make that accusation to the people whose job it is to investigate crimes.
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Old 9th August 2013, 08:27 AM   #257
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Originally Posted by cwalner View Post
I meant 'red herring'. The fact that her individual case is not prosecutable is, to me, irrelevant to whether she should notify the police because of the claim of pattern in her email to PZ.

She claimed that she is a victim of a crime perpetrated by Michael Shermer. She believes that she is not the only such victim. You don't second guess the police, you go in and make your statement and let them do their job.

The red flag here is that while she is not willing to go to the police, she is willing to send an email to PZ to publicly accuse somebody of committing a crime against her on her behalf, while she remains anonymous. If she is willing to publicly accuse somebody of a crime, she should be willing to make that accusation to the people whose job it is to investigate crimes.
You don't need to hear many accounts by rape victims to understand why some choose not make formal complaints to police.
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Old 9th August 2013, 09:25 AM   #258
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Originally Posted by Lorentz View Post
Oh I grant you that, there are lots of crackpots posting nonsensical threads on JREF. I enjoy reading what nonsense people come up with and I recognise what you mean by the Galileo Gambit. However, I've not seen a thread yet where such nonsense claims have anything near majority support. I've browsed through a few anti-AGW threads here and it's the anti-AGW stuff that gets debunked, not AGW itself. I'll go further and say that based on my observations of JREF, minority views (in the U.S., which most posters are from), are minority views on JREF. Can you point to one or two where you think that is not the case, other than religious ones?
Hard to say without a survey. But JREF aside, it's simply a fact that prominent skeptics are AGW deniers and I don't think they're posing in order to mollify membership: I think they are sincere and it is attrating that demographic.

Michael Shermer is director/chair of the Skeptic Society, which makes it more or less that organization's official stance. Penn Jillette, obviously. I believe the Australian Skeptics also have the official position that AGW is a hoax. I have given up sparring with Barry Williams about that topic in particular - it seems his mind is pretty set.

This was a bigger deal a few years ago when there was a foofaraw triggered by NCSE expanding their scope by adding AGW denial legislation to their science watch list. Their funding was impacted (I think about a third of donors threatened to cancel their memberships, but I haven't followed up to see how many really did) and also created a rift with organized skepticism, in that some of the leadership discussed weakening ties with NCSE. This was around the time I resigned from BCSkeptics - the leadership referred to NCSE as 'drinking the kool-aid' and I felt this was indicative of an unalterable policy failure.

Daniel Loxton pointed out that this was proof that skepticism does not really do what it claims to do: we had a perfect opportunity to take a leadership role on a public misunderstanding of a vitally important scientific topic, and we couldn't get it right. The expression he used is that skepticism "fell down" when it was really tested.




Originally Posted by Lorentz View Post
Specifically on your claim that hostility to feminism is a minority position, I may or may not agree with that, depending on how you define feminism.

There is certainly hostility on JREF to what I earlier referred to as "Internet feminism", which does not carry major support in society in general either. On the other hand, I think you'd find it hard to find anyone here who doesn't subscribe to every single goal of first wave feminism. So which feminism do you refer to here?
A good point: I do mean the basic belief that women should be treated as equals, with knowledge that there will be some minor differences that need accomodation, and that affirmitive action may be required in some situations as well. I think this is the majority view.

A minority of people would disagree with some or all of those premises, and they seem to find solace within skepticism because outsider views are encouraged and certainly not disqualification for membership.

Just as a concrete example: I have had to take people aside in my worksplace and nonprofits when they deliberately insult a person's religious beliefs, and some of the worst examples included drawing pictures. It's a sign of sociopathy in my opinion (I'm not a psychiatrist, but my wife is and we've discussed individual examples). A few years ago I practically stopped attending Vancouver Skeptics in the Pub because Blasphemy Day was essentially a CFI sponsored 'draw pictures of mohammed getting buggered' day. Aside from the sophmoric humour, I felt that if these organizations are doing any type of unintentional membership screening, they are screening stable people out.




Originally Posted by Lorentz View Post
I know very little about rules of conduct for non-profit organisations in the U.S. and I'm not aware of rules of conduct for skeptical organisations, so I'll provisionally accept your take on this. I think in my country these things are regulated by laws to a larger degree (socialist Europe and all that).
I'm actually a Canadian, but rules of conduct are different than laws (although laws can be actioned with them - such as the obligation to report allegations of crimes).




Originally Posted by Lorentz View Post
I do agree that having someone associated with this would be a risky choice for CFI, as Internet Feminism has a full rage-on for anything even resembling MRA and Internet Feminism now has a significant presence within the skeptic community. I do not however agree with your implication that therefore he would be a bad choice of director.

Is your point that they should have known that he would be contentious, or do you view him as inherently flawed for his views?
I think they were very aware of the risk associated with his views but weighed it against other factors. My feeling is that possibly the most important factor in their decision was that his uncle Lorne is a prominent networked Canadian philanthropist and was willing to bankroll CFI Canada to the tune of six figures. The board has been a basket case from day one because the structure set up for a normal non-profit's democratic governance does not reflect the actual autocratic governance.
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Old 9th August 2013, 11:01 AM   #259
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Originally Posted by blutoski View Post
Hard to say without a survey. But JREF aside, it's simply a fact that prominent skeptics are AGW deniers and I don't think they're posing in order to mollify membership: I think they are sincere and it is attrating that demographic.

Michael Shermer is director/chair of the Skeptic Society, which makes it more or less that organization's official stance. Penn Jillette, obviously. I believe the Australian Skeptics also have the official position that AGW is a hoax. I have given up sparring with Barry Williams about that topic in particular - it seems his mind is pretty set.
Apparently Shermer was once indeed an AGW denier, but that's more than a few years ago. From a post on his blog in 2008:
Quote:
I mentioned above that I have only ever published one article about the environment, and that was recounting my conversion from global warming skeptic to believer in my monthly column in Scientific American. In that column I closed with this sentence: “Because of the complexity of the problem environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.”
From an interview with Jillette in 2008, I gather that he does believe the world is warming and most of that is anthropogenic, but he just "doesn't know" about the generally accepted proposed solutions, which all involve government interventions. As he's an avowed libertarian, this hardly surprises me.

A quick google didn't yield me anything on Barry Williams; the name is also unfamiliar to me.

This leads me to conclude that the first two examples you mention are either untrue or, more likely, out of date. Do you have more?

Thanks for your clarification of the other points.
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Old 9th August 2013, 11:10 AM   #260
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Originally Posted by kajata View Post
I think one of the responses in PZ's blog's comments section, to a similar remarks such as yours, says it well...
Your quote doesn't seem to address anything of my post?
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Old 9th August 2013, 11:21 AM   #261
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Originally Posted by Darat View Post
Your quote doesn't seem to address anything of my post?
I'll try again.

You said "An accusation of rape is a very serious accusation and must be investigated by the police."

I'm saying that's sometimes easier said than done as it can be an emotionally anguishing process that some people feel they can't handle, deal with the blowback, face the person who violated them, etc.
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Old 9th August 2013, 11:29 AM   #262
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Originally Posted by Lorentz View Post
Apparently Shermer was once indeed an AGW denier, but that's more than a few years ago. From a post on his blog in 2008:


From an interview with Jillette in 2008, I gather that he does believe the world is warming and most of that is anthropogenic, but he just "doesn't know" about the generally accepted proposed solutions, which all involve government interventions. As he's an avowed libertarian, this hardly surprises me.

A quick google didn't yield me anything on Barry Williams; the name is also unfamiliar to me.

This leads me to conclude that the first two examples you mention are either untrue or, more likely, out of date. Do you have more?

Thanks for your clarification of the other points.
It didn't yield anything? I would assume you'd get a bunch of Brady Bunch related hits
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Old 9th August 2013, 11:29 AM   #263
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Originally Posted by Lorentz View Post
From an interview with Jillette in 2008, I gather that he does believe the world is warming and most of that is anthropogenic, but he just "doesn't know" about
This is Jilette's universal "Get Out Of Jail Free Let's Talk About Something Else Or I Won't Stop Shouting" card.
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Old 9th August 2013, 11:40 AM   #264
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Originally Posted by Lorentz View Post
Apparently Shermer was once indeed an AGW denier, but that's more than a few years ago. From a post on his blog in 2008:
He did make that announcement in 2008 but has since backpedalled on select points. I would say that at this stage he's concentrating on questioning the forecasts of human impact and therefore the need for government sponsored countermeasures. I thought it was just me, but Jim Lippard confirmed the other day that he was hearing the same message from Shermer even as recently as a few months ago.


Originally Posted by Lorentz View Post
From an interview with Jillette in 2008, I gather that he does believe the world is warming and most of that is anthropogenic, but he just "doesn't know" about the generally accepted proposed solutions, which all involve government interventions. As he's an avowed libertarian, this hardly surprises me.
That sounds right. More below.



Originally Posted by Lorentz View Post
A quick google didn't yield me anything on Barry Williams; the name is also unfamiliar to me.
Barry's the founder of Australian Skeptics and was editor of their journal until 2008, and was succeeded by Karen Stollznow, but there was a fallout and she has been replaced by Tim Mendham. I think it would be fair to describe Barry as a staunch libertarian.

IMO, the disappointing element about this with the directors of BCSkeptics, Penn Jillette, Michael Shermer and Barry Williams is that their best explanation for views that oppose their own is that scientists are incompetent and politically motivated toward liberalism. This is essentially politically motivated conspirational thinking, and disappointing in skeptical organizations that make such a big deal of criticizing that behavior in others.




Originally Posted by Lorentz View Post
This leads me to conclude that the first two examples you mention are either untrue or, more likely, out of date. Do you have more?
Even if they're older examples, they did coincide with a a period of rapid membership growth, and would have a long lasting impact on membership - and a few years' later - leadership demographics.
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Old 9th August 2013, 11:54 AM   #265
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Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
You don't need to hear many accounts by rape victims to understand why some choose not make formal complaints to police.
Consider: if the rape occurs in a city that neither the victim nor the perpetrator nor any of the likely independent witnesses live in (as will often be the case with conferences), then really, what's going to happen? The witness might be able to give a statement; maybe she knows enough information about the perpetrator for the police to be able to track down a phone number or something and get a statement from the perpetrator. Then what? All the physical evidence is gone (not that groping would leave much anyway). All the witnesses are gone. The victim and perpetrator usually aren't able to travel back to that city for the purposes of facilitating the investigation (and the police usually can't take trips across the country to take statements or gather evidence either). Bonus negative-points if another country is involved somewhere in there.

So what actually is accomplished? Nothing meaningful. Actually it can even be counterproductive; if any of the individuals we're discussing actually had gone to the police first and the investigation was never able to move forward due purely to the circumstances, they would just be criticizing for not "allowing the police to do their jobs"; we'd be lectured not to form any opinion until the (limbo'd) investigation reaches a "conclusion", or the fact that the police never made any arrests would simply be spun as suggestive that the allegations were false.
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Old 9th August 2013, 11:59 AM   #266
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Originally Posted by blutoski View Post
IMO, the disappointing element about this with the directors of BCSkeptics, Penn Jillette, Michael Shermer and Barry Williams is that their best explanation for views that oppose their own is that scientists are incompetent and politically motivated toward liberalism. This is essentially politically motivated conspirational thinking, and disappointing in skeptical organizations that make such a big deal of criticizing that behavior in others.
What's more troubling is that those scientists are in all likelihood more apolitical than either Jillette or Shermer (and Williams, too, if your description holds).
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Old 9th August 2013, 12:11 PM   #267
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Next!

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngu...you-a-grenade/


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Old 9th August 2013, 12:17 PM   #268
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Originally Posted by blutoski View Post
IMO, the disappointing element about this with the directors of BCSkeptics, Penn Jillette, Michael Shermer and Barry Williams is that their best explanation for views that oppose their own is that scientists are incompetent and politically motivated toward liberalism. This is essentially politically motivated conspirational thinking, and disappointing in skeptical organizations that make such a big deal of criticizing that behavior in others
I agree completely. Thinking that there is anywhere, on any subject, a scientist conspiracy, is to betray either complete ignorance of how the scientific jungle works, or deliberately misleading.

p.s. My genuine thanks for your calm and clear explanations, without ever assuming malicious intent on my part when I questioned your claims. It may be you're that rarest of creatures in the skeptic community: a skeptic?
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Old 9th August 2013, 12:23 PM   #269
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So are there any "big name" celebrity skeptics out there who are not misogynistic horndogs?
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Old 9th August 2013, 12:29 PM   #270
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Originally Posted by kajata View Post
I'll try again.

You said "An accusation of rape is a very serious accusation and must be investigated by the police."

I'm saying that's sometimes easier said than done as it can be an emotionally anguishing process that some people feel they can't handle, deal with the blowback, face the person who violated them, etc.
Are you forgetting that the accusation of rape has already been made? We are not talking about a hypothetical here we are talking about an actuality.
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Old 9th August 2013, 12:32 PM   #271
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Originally Posted by Checkmite View Post
Well then; how is a person supposed to defend himself? A blatant "nothing of the sort ever happened" would at least be a promising first step.
I could see someone facing such an accusation could seek out legal advice and often legal advice starts with a "don't make any public statement" so I'd say there is nothing we can infer from the apparent silence from the accused?
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Old 9th August 2013, 12:45 PM   #272
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In the other thread related to this someone posted this link to Blake Smith's Facebook post. Up thread it was mentioned that Blake has supported Karen and that was enough for some people. If you scroll down there is a non-response by Ben, but more telling are the responses by Matthew Baxter, who I gather is Karen's husband.

Matthew's posts are the most convincing evidence for me. Something about them just rings true. They sound like a man who has tried to be polite, tried to be direct and has tried to handle this as well as possible, but just hasn't gotten through. The frustration comes through so clearly.

Anyway, just thought that should be in this thread.
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Old 9th August 2013, 12:48 PM   #273
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Originally Posted by Darat View Post
I could see someone facing such an accusation could seek out legal advice and often legal advice starts with a "don't make any public statement" so I'd say there is nothing we can infer from the apparent silence from the accused?
To a point, yes I suppose; but if the silence doesn't come to an end at some point with, say, a C&D letter or some other legal notice to the accuser, then I think there becomes something we can infer from it.

On the other hand, if even a short statement is made - like Radford's in the comment section of that one blog post - then of course we can infer things from that.
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Old 9th August 2013, 12:50 PM   #274
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Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
She was allegedly raped. Sex without consent is rape.
Originally Posted by H'ethetheth View Post
I think, considering the involvement of alcohol, the word "coerced" should be replaced by "put", unless he literally forced her to drink, that is.
That wouldn't make things much better though, assuming he actually set out to achieve this.

...which we don't know.
Originally Posted by blobru View Post
If it was just a reckless drunk act at a party where one wasn't reasonably sure of the norms and boundaries (can't quite tell from these last two quotes, as permission isn't always explicit; hmm - though the wording does make it sound like a reckless drunk act, doesn't it), then it is to me, too....
Originally Posted by Kevin_Lowe View Post
There's a widespread myth that if a man has sex with a woman who is a bit plastered that it is rape, but not if the state of drunkenness is reversed.

This myth, oddly enough, seems equally popular with radical feminists and self-pitying "men's rights activists". Both groups seem to love the idea.

However it's just a myth. No jurisdiction I am aware of has any such law. Having sex with a person who is so paralytically drunk that they cannot manage words like "yes" or "no" is rape, but only if they are literally so drunk that they are incapable of conveying consent.

I think that's the niggling worry with the Shermer accusation, because it's vague enough that it could just be consistent with a regretted drunken fling, and a misunderstanding about what the relevant laws say.
Originally Posted by Lorentz View Post
Just to make sure I'm understanding you correctly, having sex with someone who is almost paralytic is legally rape, but merely having sex with someone who's had so much to drink that their judgement may be severely impaired is not?

I hope you're right. I've always thought it disturbing that this should be 'rape', considering how many people have drunken flings.
Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
To me the best account that would fit that quote would be that she was pressured into drinking more than she would have liked and had sex with her while unconscious. To speculate consent was given flies in direct contradiction to "a position where I could not consent."
First, if "he coerced me into a position" means he got me drunk, I have issues with that right there. No one makes you drink. Now if he dropped a roofie in the glass, that would be a different accusation.

However, getting drunk is no reason to put any guilt on the victim, but the claim he coerced the drinking, that's a different matter and it would seem to me that unless Shermer knew the victim had a drinking problem and plotted his fiendish scheme, I can't agree the victim was victimized as the statement claims.

But we still have the sex with an intoxicated woman. Here is a different dilemma, sometimes this is rape, clear and simple, but sometimes it isn't. And how are we to know from the claim? A lot of people get drunk and have sex. This came up before with the extremist feminists claiming any man having sex with any intoxicated woman was raping her. One person's objection I recall was something like, "That's ridiculous. My husband and I have had drunk sex and it wasn't rape."

I cannot say if this was rape or simply morning regret from the description we've been given.

PZ notes the accusation is consistent with Shermer's behavior in other situations. I've seen him in the company of very attractive women and it doesn't surprise me he has sex with them. It doesn't surprise me he has multiple partners.

Shermer is mildly attractive, he appears to have money, he is intelligent and educated, and he is a minor TV personality. Women are bound to be attracted to him, and he's bound to know that many of them are. While the availability of willing women doesn't rule out date rape or stranger rape, it does leave one to question if a disappointed sex partner is a possible explanation for the accusation, especially the way it was worded.

I don't profess to know the truth, nor do I want to blame any victim because they were drunk. But one does have to consider the evidence in an unbiased way and the accusation in this case, corroborated by others who find Shermer's behavior around women obnoxious, is not enough to convince me what is claimed is not heavily slanted by the beholder, not necessarily in a dishonest way, but perhaps in a self preserving way.

Last edited by Skeptic Ginger; 9th August 2013 at 12:56 PM.
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Old 9th August 2013, 12:53 PM   #275
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Originally Posted by Caper View Post
All skeptics do is rape and pillage (Brian Dunning)...... I guess that's what happens when you take god out of your lives.
Originally Posted by chillzero View Post
You seem to be confused about the definitions of 'skeptic' and 'atheist'.
(not going to bother with the rest of the wrong here, as I suspect you are simply trolling)
I thought it was more a joke than a troll, just saying.



Originally Posted by kajata View Post
I'll try again.

You said "An accusation of rape is a very serious accusation and must be investigated by the police."

I'm saying that's sometimes easier said than done as it can be an emotionally anguishing process that some people feel they can't handle, deal with the blowback, face the person who violated them, etc.
I think people live in a fantasy world if they believe the criminal justice system works at all to sort these claims out. Cops are often biased believing accusations are lies and prosecutors don't respond very empathetically if there isn't enough evidence to take a case to court.

Everyone who is raped, especially date rape, cannot expect justice in the courts so I don't fault any person who chooses not to file charges or report an assault.
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Old 9th August 2013, 12:53 PM   #276
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Originally Posted by The Shrike View Post
So are there any "big name" celebrity skeptics out there who are not misogynistic horndogs?
I'm 100% certain the majority are not, but let's face it: this has been a very bad year for the rank-and-file's confidence in the leadership of organized skepticism (I would include Brian Dunning's cookie stuffing allegations as brand-impacting too).

I expect CFI, JREF, and Skeptics Society are going into siege mode right now, and I don't think it would be overreacting.

From a management perspective, it's a fact that the greatest difficulty that an organization faces is not actually external competition, but rather in managing the internal changes that are required to accomodate rapid growth. If the changes to org structure are delayed or a poor fit, the effects on staff are not limited to morale... adherence to values can also suffer. It's speculation on my part, but I suspect the original governance and operations structures have not been modified sufficiently, and did not scale up safely.
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Old 9th August 2013, 12:59 PM   #277
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Originally Posted by blutoski View Post
I'm 100% certain the majority are not, but let's face it: this has been a very bad year for the rank-and-file's confidence in the leadership of organized skepticism (I would include Brian Dunning's cookie stuffing allegations as brand-impacting too).

I expect CFI, JREF, and Skeptics Society are going into siege mode right now, and I don't think it would be overreacting.

From a management perspective, it's a fact that the greatest difficulty that an organization faces is not actually external competition, but rather in managing the internal changes that are required to accomodate rapid growth. If the changes to org structure are delayed or a poor fit, the effects on staff are not limited to morale... adherence to values can also suffer. It's speculation on my part, but I suspect the original governance and operations structures have not been modified sufficiently, and did not scale up safely.
I am especially curious to hear Grothe's response now that Poppy has made further statements.
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Old 9th August 2013, 12:59 PM   #278
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Originally Posted by Darat View Post
Are you forgetting that the accusation of rape has already been made? We are not talking about a hypothetical here we are talking about an actuality.
This is starting to feel very larsenian.

You said "must be reported to police".

I'm saying that's sometimes easier said than done for the victim.

Seriously, is what I'm saying so out there?
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Old 9th August 2013, 01:07 PM   #279
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Originally Posted by kajata View Post
This is starting to feel very larsenian.

You said "must be reported to police".

I'm saying that's sometimes easier said than done for the victim.

Seriously, is what I'm saying so out there?
I did not post what you say I did, please do not make things up about what I've posted.
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Old 9th August 2013, 01:09 PM   #280
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Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger View Post

...

I cannot say if this was rape or simply morning regret from the description we've been given.

...
I agree with this, and - if this is indeed some form of morning regret - Shermer should sue the pants off PZ. I consider PZ's willingness to name name's before there is any real clarity on the situation reprehensible.

ETA: unless it comes out that PZ had knowledge of evidence that we have so far not heard.
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