Debra Doyle seems to be on the same committee - does she know about him?

Why would he *want* to join SFWA? To give his writing greater legitimacy?

He continues: “Only Ann Coulter even tries to write serious books”.

Maybe he’s an extraordinarily straight-faced satirist?

He was on the short fiction jury with me a few years back. He didn't seem like a loon in our e-mail discussions.

That year, we added "The Pagodas of Ciboure" by M. Shayne Bell and "Little Gods" by Tim Pratt. I had made a strong case of P.D. Cacek's "A Book, By Its Cover," as well.

So, even though there are thousands of men writing fantasy for publication as a first preference, only female fantasists are to be excoriated for fleeing from the Cold Hard Purity of Math and Science, huh?

What a dipshit.

Is this the same "Vox Day" who co-authored Rebel Moon with Bruce Bethke? (Capsule review: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, only bad.)

Sheesh, what an ass. Is it too late to revoke his nomination?

All the hard science in the world, no matter how accurately written, is not going to mean squat to a reader if she is not engaged by the characters and the story.

But as I am both a woman and a feminist, working on writing both fantasy and "soft" SF, and not about to buy word one penned by this vitriolic individual, I expect Mr. Day/Beale would classify me among the "mentally polluted".

I find myself strangely unperturbed by the prospect.

And I'm even mentioned by name on his web page.

Sheesh, what an ass. Is it too late to revoke his nomination?

Well, no. By "this year's" jury, Patrick means the upcoming awards, meaning works published in 2003 and 2004. The jury has already completed its service by adding David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas to the final ballot (which, as I've said here before, was exactly the choice I would have made).

He seems to be criticizing works like Catherine Asaro's books, which indeed often focus on romance with strong female protagonists. And yet, Dr. Asaro is also a brilliant physicist. (And also President of the SFWA Board of Directors.) I suspect she knows a good deal more about, say, quantum physics than he does.

Which prompts the question, does he know any hard science?

In fact, isn't he the one writing soft fantasy? What's the matter, Vox, is your mind too mentally polluted to write hard sf?

The SFWA® President shall appoint, and the NAR editor administer three Nebula juries . . .

If it's Asaro he's after, it's interesting that she appointed him.

Can I throw up now?

"Is this the same "Vox Day" who co-authored Rebel Moon with Bruce Bethke?"

According to his web page, yes.

Mind you, SF has always been full of people with nutty opinions. Ray Palmer, for years the editor of Amazing, believed whack-job author Richard Shaver's contention that malign "disintegrant energy robots" hidden in caverns beneath the Earth were using ancient pre-human technology to control the planet's surface dwellers and make war on one another. Not only did Palmer publish multiple Shaver stories expanding on this theme, he and Shaver also promoted it as actual non-fictional true-type truth and recruited other writers to expand on it. By comparison, garden-variety misogyny and Jew-baiting seem almost prosaic.

This being the case, arguably SFWA is wise to make sure the crackpot demographic is represented in its deliberative bodies. (And Cloud Atlas is certainly an unexceptionable jury choice.) As with so many aspects of SF's subculture, one is left saying, on the one hand, hurray for our fine and broadminded tolerance; and on the other hand, eeuw.

(Comment amended to reflect shsilver's correction below. Speaking of human fallibility.)

holding triple Ph.D.s in molecular engineering, astrophysics and Chaucer.

Do you think he has Mary Sues with profiles like this in any of his books? "The brilliant Dr. Hoet Bealadore sat in his office with a schematic for a new kind of nanoprotein on his computer screen and Chaucer's original manuscript of The Canterbury Tales open on his lap. He meditated on the subtle interconnections between these two apparently unrelated objects -- the former a product of his Ph.D research in molecular engineering at MIT, the latter the result of his archival work at Magadalene Library, Oxford, for his other doctorate. He sat in a specially constructed, climate-controlled laboratory/library. Nestled amongst the inferometers and fractionators and nanobot monitors were a Shakespeare folio, Jane Austen's seventh novel and a chapter of Ulysses written by Joyce in Dublin. Bealadore chose to do his work from here these days, indepedently, ever since his tenure case at Harvard had been derailed by Susan Estrogen, the bitter and childless chairman -- or rather, chairwomyn! -- of the English department.

Richard Shaver, for years the editor of Amazing, believed that malign "disintegrant energy robots" hidden in caverns beneath the Earth were using ancient pre-human technology to control the planet's surface dwellers and make war on one another.

Well, that certainly explains a lot. A lot of what, I don't know.

Anyone ever figure out, I wonder, how he first discovered the existence of these energy robots? Came to him in a dream? The inescapable conclusion given the facts to hand? "Messages" of one variety or another?

Mind you, SF has always been full of people with nutty opinions. Richard Shaver, for years the editor of Amazing, believed that malign "disintegrant energy robots"

I thought Shaver was just an author and the editor was Ray Palmer during that period.

I'd certainly like to meet some of those critics he's talking about who hold triple degrees in astrophysics, molecular engineering and Chaucer. Me, I can't even figure out where the light goes when we shut the refrigerator door.

de-lurking--

First, I typed in a very long rant. Then I deleted it and started to say something derisive and withering, yet succinct.

That turned into another rant that included words and phrases like: "misogynist," "morally bankrupt," "despicable," and "disguised as fact-based analytical opinion subject to debate."

And then my description of that rant started to turn into another rant.

I must be tired. So I'll go back to lurking, and only echo Patrick's "eeuw," and state that nothing makes my night like a woman-hating creep spewing idiocy and worshiping at the altar of Ann Coulter.

--re-lurking

shsilver, you're entirely right--that was a brain fart. I've corrected the comment.

Richard Shaver, for years the editor of Amazing, believed that malign "disintegrant energy robots" hidden in caverns beneath the Earth were using ancient pre-human technology to control the planet's surface dwellers and make war on one another.

Um, Ray Palmer was the editor of Amazing. It's at least arguable whether he actually believed Shaver's stuff, or had just found a reliable moneymaker.

Not to say that Shaver himself wasn't a loon. His paintings of the underworld, distinct from the ghastly prose, did show a fair amount of talent.

You've caught enough of my brain farts, I thought I'd return the favor.

Eeeeuuuw.

But what kills me is that he has kind words to say both about Pat Wrede and Lois MacMaster Bujold on his site. Not to mention praising Charlie Stross and Umberto Eco.

I don't know. Just doesn't compute.

Oh, and just as I was saying, oh, good, not all the creepo weirdo bigots live over here - the guy actually lives in Italy. I almost even thought I knew him, but I don't think it's him.

All I can think of is this:
uuhhhhhhhh...

and yes, I was thinking about Asaro too when reading that drivel.

It's pure asshattery, I tell you!

Or, alternately, just an exercise in "look at me, I'm outraging your sensibilities." Ho hum.

Ahah. I wonder if it would make his brain explode that I'm majoring in science, read science nonfiction for fun, and prefer to read and write fantasy and historical fiction?

Richard Shaver, for years the editor of Amazing, believed that malign "disintegrant energy robots" hidden in caverns beneath the Earth were using ancient pre-human technology to control the planet's surface dwellers and make war on one another.

I wonder if Bill O'Reilly also made contact with these robots.

He's humble, too.

"Vox Day" is just his own special way of spelling "Vox Dei", which, if I'm not mistaken, would mean "Voice of God" or some such.

He also has violently bad hair.

I don't fit the gentleman's pattern. *I* write romance novels in space about strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent but lonely men who finally fall in love with rugged men who love them just as they are. :-)

Sadly, I have merely a B.Sc. (Hons) Maths & Physics, Dunelm and more years' experience as an industrial scientist than I wish to think about right now, not 3 Ph.D.s, so clearly am not qualified to think of myself as a Real Scientist.

Is this website now multimedia? Cause I swear I'm hearing a therimin as I'm reading it. It's like a really bad sci-fi movie, with a bad-guy who is so off kilter you want to say "no one who is such a moron could ever make it to the position of power he is in right now."

Not to be blandly practical-minded about this, but inasmuch as Mr. Beale and the rest of the Nebula novel jury members seem to have discharged their duty by selecting a novel that most would agree is of overall Nebula finalist caliber, and have done so with an apparent minimum of fuss, does it matter what his politics or personal opinions are, particularly in relation to being a Nebula jury member? The jury did make a reasonable selection, in my opinion.

Evidently Dr. Jekyll helped to judge the Nebulas and Mr. Hyde writes as 'Vox Day'.

does it matter what his politics or personal opinions are, particularly in relation to being a Nebula jury

Depends, how do we know his mysogyny didn't tip the scales one way or the other? Sure the jury made a reasonable selection, but can we be sure he didn't vote against someone because they were a woman, liberal, a feminist, or Jewish?

John, I think it's already been noted that the Nebula novel jury's choice (for non-initiates: The Nebula jury adds one book to the list of finalists; the other nominees are chosen by vote of the membership) was just fine.

The humor of the situation, in my opinion, is the ongoing degradation of the prestige of the once-coveted Nebula Award. Certainly if I were running a literary award that was widely perceived as being increasingly tarnished by arcane rules, unabashed logrolling, and general ridiculousness, my next move would definitely be to recruit me a yawping borderline anti-Semite and woman-hater for the award's jury. Just as an exercise in branding, if nothing else.

Josh, I think it's pretty silly to speculate. How do we know the other jurors didn't make their choices based on equally dreadful criteria?

I repeat my contention that the really dim bulb in this story isn't the cannily opportunistic "Vox Day", it's SFWA.

Patrick: I repeat my contention that the really dim bulb in this story isn't the cannily opportunistic "Vox Day", it's SFWA.

Agreed. On a more serious note than my previous comment--I shouldn't really comment until I've done some more background reading on the guy, but on the facts as presented in the original post, this doesn't really incline me to take SFWA or the Nebulas seriously. Now, since I'm not qualified to be a member of SFWA, maybe I should sit down and shut up--but I'm one of those people busy working on becoming qualified for SFWA, and this is not leading me to think that SFWA will welcome me with open arms should I actually achieve the requisite publication record.

Well, as far as I can recall, his claim of being a former columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press is correct.

However, I seem to remember him being one of their first console game reviewers. Not quite the same thing....

"this is not leading me to think that SFWA will welcome me with open arms should I actually achieve the requisite publication record."

Errr... SFWA has someone in it whose politics you find icky, therefore it would turn its back on you?

As far as I know, the only entrance requirement for SFWA membership is publication credits; if you have them in order, it seems doubtful they would not accept you. At the very least, when I applied for membership, they didn't ask me about my politics.

It's hard for me to comment authoratatively about the Nebulas one way or the other, since I'm still relatively new to SFWA and to the Nebula process (sitting on the short fiction jury this year was instructive and mostly pleasant). I will say that about half the time I'm at peace with the winners of the awards, and the other half of the time I've never heard of (much less read) the winner, and I don't know if that's a statement that reveals more about me or about SFWA. The non-jury process does seem unwieldly and silly to me, however.

John: "Errr... SFWA has someone in it whose politics you find icky, therefore it would turn its back on you?"

No, SFWA has seen fit to appoint to a jury panel for a supposedly prestigious award someone who has explicitly stated his contempt for people like me, people like some of my friends, and people like some of the writers I admire.

I'm sure SFWA will be only too pleased to take my money, but the impression it gives me is not a good one. I have no problem with SFWA containing people whose politics I find icky; it would be very surprising if any organisation with that many members did not contain some, and I'm sure many members would find my politics icky, and take the same view. I do have a problem with SFWA apparently being unconcerned that one of the people involved with the Nebulas feels that someone like me by definition is not worthy of being considered for the Nebulas.

Something like this *does* matter, even if the novel ultimately selected is of worthy calibre, even if the novel selected is of worthy calibre and is written by someone who's a member of one of the groups declared incapable of writing quality material. Because it makes me wonder if SFWA would actually care if the final selection was unduly influenced by someone's prejudices.

Sorry, I can't get past the part that goes "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics..."

Ummmm. My wife, Dr. Christine M. Carmichael, is an Active Member of SFWA with a Ph.D. and B.Sc. (Honors) in Physics. She's a first-rate scientist and engineer, as well as Project Manager /Principal Investigator in superconductor physics. She's a full-time Professor of Physics. An 7-year-old (somewhat obsolete) version of her resume, which includes a few technical publication titles, may be found at Carmichael resume. Since then, she's had more Physics publications, including "Imaginary Mass, Momentum, and Acceleration: Physical or Nonphysical?" [Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Complexity Science, 17-21 May 2004] and "Demonstration of Beats with a Double-Driven String" [The Physics Teacher]...

Is my wife being accused of not being a woman, or of not writing the Science Fiction that got her into SFWA, or of not having the innate ability to be -- say -- President of Harvard?

Come to think of it, I will not bother to tell her about this idiot. As to Chaucer, she knows Classics better than Day/Beale -- unless he also mastered Latin, ancient Greek, and Middle English as my wife did when she studied at the University of Edinburgh.

It's not as if I have to defend her honor as a grandmaster of Quantum Mechanics, but she fought sexism her whole academic life, since Physics in particular is a Last Bastion of male chauvinist fools.

I suggest that Day/Beale read about how Sophia Kovalevskaya had to fight to become the first woman with a PhD in science in any European university, over a century ago, and exactly why "Madame Curie" won two Nobel Prizes. Then Day/Beale needs to think long and hard about whether he's helping to move us into the future, or back before the 19th Century.

And wasn't there some dame who read up on Galvani and Volta and then penned a little manuscript about Frankenstein? Maybe the daughter of a pioneering feminist, and author of what Brian Aldiss reasonably considers the first modern Science Fiction novel? Sheesh!

Julia Jones writes:

"Because it makes me wonder if SFWA would actually care if the final selection was unduly influenced by someone's prejudices."

Leaving aside the question of whether it should be SFWA's job to actively monitor the political correctness of all its members to see if they conform to a particular standard, all selections are influenced by someone's prejudices; it's axiomatic (it's merely that some prejudices are more obnoxious than others).

Presumably Mr. Beale could have voted to nominate works to the general Nebula list; presumably he gets to vote to determine the winners of the Nebula. Indeed, it's entirely possible his vote could be the determining factor, if the vote is close. So his prejudices could be relevant then as well. Fact is, so long as he's a member of SFWA, his prejudices will have an influence on final selections. It's unavoidable, unless one proposed to enact a political screening test to keep the sexists and racists out. And even then you'd just catch the stupidly obvious ones, and we know generally speaking that SFWA members are not stupid.

From what I know of Beale's politics, he's a jackass, and a fairly ignorant jackass at that. I feel pleased that my own politics, to the extent that they play any role in Nebula selection, are likely to counteract his (indeed, inasmuch as I sat on the short fiction jury this year, and we nominated a story by Eileen Gunn, it's more than likely). Were you to join SFWA, provided you meet the entrance requirements, at the very least you could take pride in knowing you are also diluting the influence of this jackass on future Nebula Awards.

Having said that, I'd be hesitant to bar anyone from potentially participating in the full range of SFWA activities on the evidence of his political jackassery. I do agree with PNH that he's not exactly the intuitive choice to help rehabilitate the Nebula award's reputation. On the other hand it might not have occured to the jury selection folks to look at his politics, but rather at his SFWA-relevant qualifications, which is to say his publishing track record. I know SFWA didn't ask me about my politics prior to empaneling me, and had they asked, I'd've been likely to tell them that they were none of SFWA's damn business.

Given the final choice of the Novel Jury, it's difficult to say that the jury en masse did a poor job in the selection process -- either Beale was an active participant in a good choice, meaning that he has some critical faculty outside his own prejudices -- or the other jurors treated him as damage and routed around him.

Could this be Vox/Beale's ideal version of the Nebula Jury process? (mercilessly swiped from Jeremy Osner's comment over on Making Light):

And in order to demonstrate his worthiness, his testicles are felt by the junior present as testimony of his male sex. When this is found to be so, the person who feels them shouts out in a loud voice testiculos habet ("He has testicles") And all the clerics reply Deo Gratias ("Thanks be to God"). Then they proceed joyfully to the consecration of the pope-elect.

- Felix Hamerlin, De nobilitate et Rusticate Dialogus

John Scalzi writes:

"Leaving aside the question of whether it should be SFWA's job to actively monitor the political correctness of all its members to see if they conform to a particular standard..."

Oh, let's _not_ leave that aside, at least until you explain who it is you think is suggesting that SFWA do that. Note that the person you're replying to said, in the very post you're replying to: "I have no problem with SFWA containing people whose politics I find icky; it would be very surprising if any organisation with that many members did not contain some, and I'm sure many members would find my politics icky, and take the same view." So clearly she's not the strawman you're looking for.

I don't know about that, Ed.

When Julia says "Something like this *does* matter," in regards to the political positions of someone on the Nebula Jury, and then wonders if SFWA *cares* about the Nebulas being "unduly influenced by someone's prejudices," it does seem implicit that she feels SFWA should care, and thereby, do something to avoid such things. Which leads fairly directly to the question of whether it's SFWA's job to monitor its members' political correctness.

I of course think it's wonderful that she is personally tolerant of all sorts of opinion, regardless of whether that opinion is wise or unwise. I am wondering if she feels SFWA, the organization, should be any less tolerant, and if so, why. If she would be willing to accept someone like Beale as a card-carrying member of SFWA, why should she rather strongly imply he is not acceptable as a juror -- and that SFWA, the organization, should know better?

Depends, how do we know his mysogyny didn't tip the scales one way or the other? Sure the jury made a reasonable selection, but can we be sure he didn't vote against someone because they were a woman, liberal, a feminist, or Jewish?

As has been pointed out, we can't know. But I think it's worth noting that Cloud Atlas wrestles precisely with these questions of human liberty, sexism, racism, slavery, and communist clone revolutions. Oh, wait, never mind that last one. Cloud Atlas is, in the end, a deeply humanist and liberal book. It happens to have been written by a man (one who as far as I know isn't Jewish), but if we can judge from the content, he is both a liberal and a feminist.

(As an added bonus for Making Light readers especially, it also features a vanity press publisher getting the crap kicked out of him by goons. Hurray!)

SFWA has seen fit to appoint . . .

I’ve got no brief to defend SFWA as an organization, but as far as this particular case goes, could we please stop saying this? You might as well say “America selected John Negroponte to be intelligence czar.” The Nebula jury is not appointed by the organization as a whole or by the membership at large, as far as I know. I certainly wasn’t consulted.

I’d rather not be tarred with the Vox Dei Selection Brush, even if that also means I can’t take credit for, say, the selection of Mr. Scalzi for the short fiction jury.

He neglected to complain about "romance novels in space about strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent but lonely women who finally fall in love with . . ." each other.

Myopia can be amusing sometimes.

Alex Cohen: (As an added bonus for Making Light readers especially, it also features a vanity press publisher getting the crap kicked out of him by goons. Hurray!)

Snort. You almost tempted me to read it, but alas not even that happy prospect can overcome my dislike for that kind of narrative structure.

Way upthread, Magenta Griffith said, Debra Doyle seems to be on the same committee - does she know about him?

As I said to somebody who raised the Vox Day/Theodore Beale question to me in correspondence at the time:

"Mr. Beale's nom-de-rantage -- or, for that matter, his day job -- never came up in his dealings with the Nebula Jury, and I suspect never came up in his dealings with whoever vetted his credentials for SFWA membership. (Which is, despite the existence of Mr. Beale, in my opinion a good thing. I really don't want any non-political organization of which I'm a member to start asserting the right to vet its membership rolls based on political opinion, since while I may be swimming in that organization's mainstream today, there's never any guarantee about tomorrow.)"

Which, as it happens, remains my opinion on the issue. And thanks for asking.

As a member of SFWA's BoD, I can say that we have no input in who goes on these juries. Which is a shame in this case, since I already knew about this bozo and would have made some noise. But I agree with David Moles: SFWA didn't make this appointment.

That said, I also don't hold a lot of truck with the Nebulas (Ray Feist has called them glorified bowling trophies). Or any other awards, for that matter. But I think I will make some noise now, since I don't want him to show his face in this sort of position again.

Derryl

Shaver claimed to have visited the center of the Earth through a Being John Malkovitchesque tunnel in his basement. From Wikipedia:

In the 1960s and 70s, now living in obscurity, Shaver looked for physical evidence of the bygone pre-historic races. He found it in certain rocks, which he believed were "rock books" that had been created by the great ancients, and embedded with legible pictures and texts. For years he wrote about the rock books, photographed them, and made paintings of the images he found in them to demonstrate their historic importance. He never succeeded in generating much attention for his later findings during his lifetime, but in recent years, there have been exhibits of Shaver's art and photographs.

It's not mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that there was speculation that Shaver was schizotypal, that he displayed several of the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, but in non-dangerous manifestations. Very likely, he simply had vivid dreams or hallucinations and the letters supporting his claims were probably just imaginative fans playing along, not realising they were encouraging Shaver's mental illness.

As for Mr. Beale, I don't know what his excuse is.

"Yep, that Ted, he may have believed public schoolteachers to be ignorant Leninists, and women who have abortions to be worse than Mengele, and female scientists to be nothing but trained dogs, and sometimes he went a little funny in the head and made a few provocative comments about how those darned Jews really deserved everything they've ever gotten because after all they bring it on themselves, don't they, but you could always trust his judgement when it came to science fiction."

As I recall, in the Shaverian universe, one of the reasons the Dero [disintegrative etc.]won out over the Tero [non-disintegrative etc.] for control of the earth was because the latter had gotten it into their heads that the former could be always be reasoned with so long as you kept the conversation light.

John, I doubt very much that anyone wants SFWA to get into the business of vetting anybody's politics.

However, the mere fact someone's crackpot notions about Jews or women (or crop circles or ancient astronauts) can be defined as in some way "political" doesn't shield them from mockery. Nor is it impermissible to raise an amused eyebrow when the organization once run by Damon Knight and Poul Anderson is reduced to running on the volunteer efforts of chuckleheads you'd cross the street to avoid.

As I've said more than once, I have very mixed feelings. I do in fact approve of my subculture's habitual tolerance for head cases of all sorts. I also periodically feel, after glancing encounters with some of them, like I need to go boil myself in antibiotics. The proper response to this particular ironic wrinkle in the human condition isn't "outrage", it's "laughter."

He neglected to complain about "romance novels in space about strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent but lonely women who finally fall in love with . . ." each other.

Sounds good. Know any books like that?

Jack Womack:

"As I recall, in the Shaverian universe, one of the reasons the Dero [disintegrative etc.]won out over the Tero [non-disintegrative etc.] for control of the earth was because the latter had gotten it into their heads that the former could be always be reasoned with so long as you kept the conversation light."

Well, that's the great thing about fiction, isn't it: You can make the outcome whatever you want it to be.

Speaking for myself, I don't think I could even be accused of tolerating stupidity lightly -- I have a long-documented tendency to enthusiastically stomp on its head with spiky shoes. However, of all the dumbassery Beale may be rightly accused of, in this specific case, bad judgement in science fiction does not, in fact, appear to be part of it. So it could very well be that your mocking comment may be correct. Which would be ironic.

Patrick: Indeed, mockery is a fine thing when judiciously applied, as are the further clarifications of your position for my edification. Many thanks for that. I would agree that if nothing else, SFWA would benefit from a better class of chucklehead.

Someday, editors willing, I'll have enough pub credits to join SFWA, and when, after a lifetime of service, I run for SFWA President, my platform will be "a better class of chucklehead."

flawless victory asked:

Sounds good. Know any books like that?

Well, Ammonite by Nicola Griffith is the first one that comes to mind. This site here will probably point you in the right direction.

Keith says: "Shaver claimed to have visited the center of the Earth through a Being John Malkovitchesque tunnel in his basement. From Wikipedia...."

Thank you so much for the link to that fascinating article. I'm really intrigued now and hope I can find some of his art and his photographs of the "rock books".

I tell ya'. It takes all kinds to make a world.

What's so wrong with saying there should be standards? You can even say that Day falls inside of the acceptable range of tolerance, but denying that there should be any standards at all is a bit confusing. I haven't seen anyone put that forth, but I have seen people, PNH included, dance around the suggestion that standards are a bad thing.

I think this guy's sort of a John Dvorak with literary credits, and a very wide mean streak.

I don't see how not to take his comment about women SF writers is a deliberately mean poke at Catherine Asaro.

He's also ignoring people like C. J. Cherryh, who uses solid physics and sciences, not to mention linguistics, without needing to have the kind of textual flag waving Beale apparently wants, and uses in his own work. (Which, by the way, is much harder to find than the work of Asaro, Cherryh, Tepper, or Tiptree).

Oh, and the degree in Chaucer throwaway comment just made him look dumb. You don't get a "degree in Chaucer." You get a degree in English, Linguistics, or Medieval studies, but not Chaucer.

Josh Jasper:

"What's so wrong with saying there should be standards?"

There are standards: Three professional-level short story sales and/or the sale of a novel. As far as I know, those are the only relevant standards for admission to SFWA. The membership requirements are otherwise mute; there is no behavioral or political standard, which, given the cheefully unconventional nature of science fiction writers, is probably a good thing.

"I have seen people, PNH included, dance around the suggestion that standards are a bad thing"

Color me confused.

Standards for personal and political opinions, as a membership qualification for SFWA, or for a Nebula jury, are a bad thing.

Okay? No dancing.

John Scalzi writes:

When Julia says "Something like this *does* matter," in regards to the political positions of someone on the Nebula Jury, and then wonders if SFWA *cares* about the Nebulas being "unduly influenced by someone's prejudices," it does seem implicit that she feels SFWA should care, and thereby, do something to avoid such things. Which leads fairly directly to the question of whether it's SFWA's job to monitor its members' political correctness.

Considering that she explicitly _says_ she's not talking about membership standards, I think that only leads to "monitoring memebers' political correcting" by way of a big detour through a pile of straw.

If she would be willing to accept someone like Beale as a card-carrying member of SFWA, why should she rather strongly imply he is not acceptable as a juror -- and that SFWA, the organization, should know better?

If I understand you correctly, you think there should be no difference in the standards for being a member and the standards for being appointed to the jury. That doesn't sound right to me.

David : Standards for personal and political opinions, as a membership qualification for SFWA, or for a Nebula jury, are a bad thing.

I figure it's a fair standard to not let someone on a jury if you know (for a reasonably certain value of "know") they're going to be voting based on gender rather than merit. How is that a bad thing?

If it's as hard to find volunteers for the job of jurying an additional selection into each of the categories as it all too often is to find people to take on for lots of other tasks in all-volunteer organizations, I expect the person setting up the juries was glad to get anyone who could be arm-twisted into doing the job.

As for screening for acceptability of opinions, you don't want to go there. This year, we think Beale's are uncool. In five year's time, who knows who'll be considered unacceptable. Witchhunt bad, tolerance [leavened with humor, as PNH advocates] good. As for his ungraciousness to Dr. Asaro, if she was indeed his target, I'd think the reaction he's getting here and elsewhere is probably punishment enough--he's been labelled "jerk", and so he shall be known, regardless of any good qualities he may possess. I know it's hard for many, here and elsewhere, to acknowledge that a man of his opinions may have good points; still, it is a possibility.

Besides, the thought of his possible paranoia and discomfiture when a female physicist and writer of fantasy novels offers him a chance at a responsible job in the organization entertains me. What's she up to? What did she mean by this? What's happening here? Is this his chance to stand up for the Good, the True, and the Right, or is it a Trap, set up by eval godless feminists?

Ed Galliard says:

"Considering that she explicitly _says_ she's not talking about membership standards, I think that only leads to "monitoring memebers' political correcting" by way of a big detour through a pile of straw."

Well, Ed, I can't help that you can't seem to parse the difference between what she says about her own personal inclinations about membership, and what she strongly implies about what SFWA's position should be about those people whose views are politically incongruent. If you're out there in the straw, you're out there by yourself.

"If I understand you correctly, you think there should be no difference in the standards for being a member and the standards for being appointed to the jury. That doesn't sound right to me."

Well, good for you, Ed. However, I think it's perfectly fine. And as it happens, it's not just me who thinks it: It's right there in the Nebula rules. The only additional qualification required to sit on the juries is for members who sit on the Script Jury, two members of which need have had a script "professionally produced." But even that doesn't affect all the members of the jury.

However, I do invite you to try to amend the Nebula rules to make the juries more exclusionary. Good luck with that.

Years ago the Coevolution Quarterly/Whole Earth Review covered the Shaver stuff in their cult issue which was expanded into the book "The Fringes of Reason." They reproduced an item from the letter column of Amazing during the Shaver period which will convince you that either insanity is spreadable by wood pulp or that Indiana Jones was alive and well and carrying a machine gun in the mountain caves of China during the late 40's. Hmmm--I wonder what the copyright status of 50-year-old letters to magazine editors would be...

I figure it's a fair standard to not let someone on a jury if you know (for a reasonably certain value of "know") they're going to be voting based on gender rather than merit. How is that a bad thing?

I think it's absolutely appropriate for someone in the position of choosing jury members to have such a standard in his or her head. And how are you going to prove they don't, already?

But let's say we had such a standard in the Nebula rules. What good does it do? How do you enforce it? How do you keep one half-decent standard from turning into an ever-growing laundry list of well-intentioned bad ones?

(You start with an amendment to ban flag burning, you end with something as long as the EU Constitution. Don't go there. Just leave the First Amendment where it is.)

Forgetting about the other issues for a moment...shouldn't somebody in a position to judge other's work actually have some kind of literary standard themselves?

I read excerpts from some of the books on his web site...the man can not in fact write himself out of a paper bag....

Hey, I wouldn't have picked him either. I agree with Patrick that the correct response to this is laughter.

John Scalzi writes:

Well, Ed, I can't help that you can't seem to parse the difference between what she says about her own personal inclinations about membership, and what she strongly implies about what SFWA's position should be about those people whose views are politically incongruent. If you're out there in the straw, you're out there by yourself.

I was wondering why you insisted on conflating the argument that selection for the Nebula jury should have higher standards than the general membership requirements with your strawman idea that the general membership requirements should include some political test. I had hoped there was some innocent explanation for it, but now I understand that you were just using a low, dishonest rhetorical trick. Sorry I wasted my time talking with you.

Ed Gaillard writes:

"I had hoped there was some innocent explanation for it, but now I understand that you were just using a low, dishonest rhetorical trick."

If by "low, dishonest rhetorical trick," you mean to say "noting what was actually being written," then yes, I guess I did exactly that.

Poor Ed. It must be a difficult thing to be flummoxed by language.

If by "low, dishonest rhetorical trick," you mean to say "noting what was actually being written," then yes, I guess I did exactly that.

Unluckily for you, "what was actually being written" is all available to anyone reading the thread, and I'll happily let them read it and decide.

Poor Ed. It must be a difficult thing to be flummoxed by language.

*yawn*. You're just not very good at this.

Shall I type slower for you?

Guys. Don't make me stop this car.

You never let us have any fun!

Guys. Don't make me stop this car.

Rats. I was all ready to post "Heeeeee's touching meeeeeee!"

If the Nebula jury rules are modified to exclude cretins, you just know this guy will dash into a phone booth, change into Martyr-Man, and go crying to Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity about how he's being persecuted by the traitorous liberal media for his red-blooded true patriotic American beliefs.

Oh dear. I've had email correspondence with Mr Beale; all I can say for sure is he didn't sound like a loon -- a Christian conservative, certainly, but that's not a hanging offense in my world. Patrick's diagnosis of his public pronouncements as being "an exercise in "look at me, I'm outraging your sensibilities" very plausible. On the other hand, he's been asking for an interview, and this fracas isn't exactly encouraging me to say "yes". And on the gripping hand, I've been known to give credit where none is due.

(I wonder if he already knows that my father avoided Auschwitz by coming down with a summer flu, and that I'm married to a feminist?)

I should add that the matter of Mr Beale's membership of SFWA is encouraging me to retaliate in the only appropriate way -- by upgrading to lifetime membership. (If you're worried about an organization you're a member of being infiltrated by people who hold views you disagree with, get in there and do something ...)

Patrick:

Are we there yet?

Charlie Stross:

Excellent! That's an easier route to Life Membership than Harlan took.

What ever happened to Jerry Pournelle's motion, which I seconded, a decade or so ago at a SFWA Business Meeting, that after 30 years of Active SFWA membership, one is automatically elevated to Life membership?

I'm so very happy to be a Life Alumnus at Caltech.

The danger is, of course, Life members of anything are more likely to have their arms twisted to become Committee Members, and even (gasp) Officers.

Nobody seems to have brought up the obvious question: are we *sure* Vox Day isn't a stringer for the Onion?

The Board was surprised to find out that Beale is a nutbar. Which, considering he says his nuttiest things under a pseudonym, makes sense. SFWA can't vet people for politics, should not do so, and I'll note that even if Catherine had taken these picks to the Board, if someone else was there instead of me we'd still have him on the jury. Rumour has it you can't know everything going on about everyone. Maybe we can set up a registry where everyone declares their beliefs. (Joking.)

JVP, there is a SFWA membership category like you describe. Can't vote, but you're a lifetime member.

Derryl

As with so many aspects of SF's subculture, one is left saying, on the one hand, hurray for our fine and broadminded tolerance; and on the other hand, eeuw.

This nice man sitting next to me in Starbucks is now edging away because the laughing fit provoked a coughing fit that sounded like the latter stages of TB. You is an evil man and I like it. Please don't stop.

As for the topic/s under discussion: I remain mum. Last time I ventured to have an opinion on a SFWA matter being discussed in a public forum a Certain Famous Candadian SF Writer tried to bitch slap me cause I wasn't a SFWA member. Tried.

MKK

It seems to me that the argument here needs to concentrate on one thing, and one thing only. The point of the SFWA jury is to come up with the best and fairest and most sensible nominations possible. Preconceived notions about who can and who cannot write good sf strike me as pretty much a bar to doing that job properly. T. Beale clearly thinks women can't write hard sf, or indeed anything he would consider properly sf; this seems to me to disqualify him from the job.

If as seems also likely from his other comments elsewhere, he has problems with Jews, that is another nail in his coffin. Sexists and anti-semites do not leave their poison in the cloakroom when they come into the committee room.

As usual, one finds oneself swooning in awed wonder at the famously open minds of the liberal literati!

Christian? Yes. Conservative? No. I note with amusement that no one has bothered disputing my actual statements, as the two examples given would amount to a "few", wouldn't they? There's no shame in not wishing to wrestle with arcane mathematics when one can simply wave a wizard's wand instead; four extensive pages of critical notes from Pat Wrede was all it took to convince me to switch from writing mediocre science fiction to marginally less mediocre fantasy.

The reason I volunteered for the Nebula juries was to try to do my small part to rectify a situation where unreadable dreck is winning awards while far more noteworthy authors such as Neal Stephenson and others go unnominated. As for my having kind words to say about Bujold, Eco, Stross and Wrede, that should hardly come as a surprise as they are all very good writers and I am acquainted with everyone except Mr. Stross. Non credo che abbiamo incontrato, signora; riconosco il suo nome ma perche non lo so.

I shall also be sure to let everyone know about my virulent Judenhassen at the very next bat mitzvah I attend. Clearly, medieval persecutions of Jews held no popular appeal whatsoever and it is denying the Holocaust to suggest they did. Anything else? Ah yes, the name. I'm surprised that despite at least one conspicuous mention of Classics, no one was able to follow the Latin into Greek. Perhaps the one gentleman can ask his wife to explain it to everyone....

Adieu, dear friends, adieu.

"What's the matter, Vox, is your mind too mentally polluted to write hard sf?"

Yes, I'm thinking of taking some Women's Studies classes to correct the situation. If only my Ann Coulter doll would stop telling me that Math is Hard, I'd be able to write about strong, beautiful, independent, but lonely women in space and the rugged men who respect them for themselves.

Hmmm--I wonder what the copyright status of 50-year-old letters to magazine editors would be...

I reckon it'd be "orphaned": ie, under copyright, but impossible to track down the owner of the copyright. If it's something you've ever tried, yours might be a good story to tell over at the EFF site Orphan Works... Until March 25th, the US Copyright Office is soliciting input on potential fixes to the problem.

Vox Day:

I don't understand. Are you denying that you said: "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics" but, instead, you're saying that some linear superposition of Barby and Ann Coulter said: "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics?"

Or are you saying that a woman cannot both be a feminist and able to write hard science fiction?

Or are you saying that a woman cannot both be a feminist and a Physics professor?

Or what?

Please note that I am not attacking you. I am admitting that I had trouble understanding one paragraph of your because it seemed to deny the existence of my wife. I am giving you a chance to correct my misunderstanding.

I agree with you that Neal Stephenson is a good writer, although he needs a good editor. I agree with you that Bujold, Eco, Stross and Wrede are all very good writers. I agree with your statement that you had the best of intentions on the Nebula Jury. I did not accuse you of antisemitism.

I am just one reader of Patrick's blog. But if you can clarify things for me, you have reduced from n+1 to n the number of readers of this blog that you need to persuade.

Are you denying that you said: "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics"

No, why would I deny it? Sure, it is theoretically possible for women to be feminist Physics professors writing science fiction. I have no doubt that one or two such unusual beasts exist floating about the fringes. However, because of the inclination of women towards Women's Studies and other math-free majors, the pool of potentials is extremely small. If only 13 percent of Physics PhDs are female, as Physics Today claimed, then I don't see why it should be controversial to state that few women are capable of writing hard SF.

I note that The Hard SF Renaissance declares the big names in hard SF in are: Greg Egan, Gregory Benford, Geoffrey Landis, G David Nordley, Paul McAuley, Nancy Kress, Kim Stanley Robinson, Charles Sheffield, Brian Stableford, Allen Steele, Bruce Sterling, Robert J. Sawyer, Poul Anderson, David Brin, Greg Bear, Hal Clement, Ben Bova and Larry Niven. With the exception of Ms Kress and Mrs. Robinson, these names strike me as overwhelmingly male. And Mrs. Robinson is one homely woman judging by her picture on her web site.

I believe I have a reasonably accurate snapshot of the state-of-the-field after getting book-bombed by genre publishers for the past year. Like my fellow jury members, I slogged my way through an astonishing amount of equine ejectus. And speaking of equine ejectus, I note that the cover of the award-winning physicist's latest indicates rather strongly that what is supposedly the recent best in our field is nothing but a romance series. It's not even a good romance cover... geez, win a Nebula and you STILL can't get Fabio?

I'd think the reaction he's getting here and elsewhere is probably punishment enough--he's been labelled "jerk", and so he shall be known, regardless of any good qualities he may possess. I know it's hard for many, here and elsewhere, to acknowledge that a man of his opinions may have good points; still, it is a possibility.

Ah, you're of the opinion he really cares about the illogical bogosities spewed by a few liberals who don't bother to address his comment but get all lathered up about their implications?

Face it. Most women CHOOSE not to hack math-based fields because it's real work, and because they tend not to have the inherent skills needed -- partly due to societal forces, but also because of natural inclination.

This leads thence to fewer SF authors, because SF readers are a harsh, perceptive, and unforgiving bunch when it comes to the science in SF.

Larry Niven's first HC edition of Ringworld had a character teleporting around the world on his birthday, staying with the sun. Niven made a mistake, though, and had him going around in the wrong direction. Fans noticed (It's been fixed in all subsequent editions)

For Ringworld Engineers, people not only did models showing it was orbitally unstable, but also showing that there had to be a mechanism to deal with the forces of erosion. This was on their own time, not at his request.

Such consideration of the underlying presumptions of a story is not atypical of fans of SF.

If a woman isn't sharp as tacks with regards to science, she can't write SF. The fans will shred her first -- and then she'll either quit or drift into writing fantasy, which is far more forgiving.

T. Beale clearly thinks women can't write hard sf, or indeed anything he would consider properly sf; this seems to me to disqualify him from the job.

Actually, no, you should read what he said more carefully. This sort of perceptual myopia is one of the reasons women do poorly at math. Math requires precision.

This was not a statement directed at every single woman on the planet. It was a generic statement which dealt with women as a group, and one of their common qualities -- a general dearth of math skills leading to a dearth of hard science skills.

It does not say by any means it is impossible for a woman to have those skills. Only that they are far rarer in women than in men. Causation can be debated but isn't relevant to this discussion, per se. At least until this point in human time, women generally don't write hard SF and usually don't write SF at all.

Since any SF author who grasps the difference between SF and Sci-Fi (that is, any one worthy of respect) grasps that the difference between those two is either bad science or bad fiction and usually both, a dearth of science skills makes for most women attempting to write SF and producing SciFi instead. This is fine if you are writing for TV and some movies, but if you do it for books you will get blown away by the readers.

...then I don't see why it should be controversial to state that few women are capable of writing hard SF.

Because, Vox. Liberals don't want to hear the actual implications of statistics. It makes it much harder for them to maintain their cherished presumptions in defiance of real facts.

BTW -- as a final comment, this has caused me to actually look at the last 4 years of Nebula awards, and it does remind me why it is I tend to ignore them. From the 2000 Awards to the 2003 awards, 4 years, 4 book/story categories, five or more each category, I see about 7 names I recognize at all(Gaiman, WJWilliams, GRRMartin, LMBujold, MResnick, GBear, UKLeGuin) and 1 that sounds familiar (CDeLint). I've only read stuff from 4 of those (and, for two of them, what I read is their fantasy), and it says a lot that not one of the authors I read *regularly* have anything at all in the nominations -- the Nebulas are pretty much a circle jerk for members of SFWA. Most of it is probably crap that no one except members of SFWA read.

Keep patting yourselves on the back, though.

Vox, I find it interesting that you are so focused on a question that has nothing to do with the merits of the works themselves.

Frankly, it seems far more likely you perpetuate the stereotype of women not being capable of handling hard SF because it serves your own interests in some way. Maybe you should give some thought as to why that is.

-l.

(PS- Stan Robinson is male. You'd buy more credibility with your audience if you'd at least get your facts right.)

I understand that the words complained of are these:

"Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics."

This statement contains an assumption: that to write "hard" science fiction, one must be a physicist. One, moreover, who is abreast not merely of the possibilities suggested by, let us say, interesting extrapolations of theory, but possessed of specific technical expertise of the level that would be gained during the acquisition of a doctorate in physics. That Vox Dei thinks this is true is made clear by his later:

"If only 13 percent of Physics PhDs are female, as Physics Today claimed, then I don't see why it should be controversial to state that few women are capable of writing hard SF."

Of course this idea is nonsense. If Vox Dei actually thinks that science fiction is about physics, he's plain, flat wrong. The idea is manifestly absurd. Articles in physics journals are about physics. Science fiction, like all fiction, is about people. Specifically, it is about how people adapt themselves and their societies to technological change and advances in scientific knowledge. An understanding of the human condition and character, and an ability to think critically about history is far more important for this purpose than detailed understanding of physics at the technical level. The science should not conflict with what is known; it need do no more than that.

But there is a far worse logical squib involved here. The Nebula awards are severally given in recognition of the merit of a specific work. Vox Dei says - tendentiously - that he was making a statistical statement about a class of writers - women. Of what possible relevance to the Nebulas is such a statement, even if true, unless it is to demonstrate that Vox Dei is prejudiced against a whole class of writers?

For that, of course, is the real issue - the man's misogyny. I cannot say, on the evidence available, that his obvious prejudices have affected his judgement. I do say that as an active member of SFWA myself, I shall be scrutinising the Nebula ballot with even more than usual care.

Nick B writes:

"Since any SF author who grasps the difference between SF and Sci-Fi..."

Read: "Anyone who knows about the arbitrary dividing line that I've constructed in my head for the explicit exclusion of women..."

See, it all makes much more sense when you actually say what you mean.

The idea women can't handle the physics of Hard SF is outright stupid. For God's sake, my book has gotten praise for its "cool speculative physics," and I cribbed most of it from pop science books. If new fields of speculative physics can be reasonably explained to the average science-oriented person (as they can), then women are as equally capable of understanding them as men, and certainly women writers are capable of using them for their writing, and speculating on their potential aspects. If the ideas were so abstruse that only a subset of men were capable of understanding them (much less capable of writing and explaning them to others), it's rather doubtful they'd be the centerpiece of a genre of writing that is explicitly meant to be popular, and has been popular for years. A genre doesn't survive by being inaccessible to a large audience.

If Vox allows that women are capable of understanding the physics of Hard SF as readers, it's difficult to see how they would not be able to grasp the physics as writers. If he does not grant that women can understand the physics as readers, than he would also have to conclude that I can't handle physics either, since I can reel off the number of published women SF writers who have far more formal training in physics than I, even though I have been praised for my SF book's physics. And then if he grants that indeed I can't handle physics, perhaps he can explain why my astronomy book (which discusses a fair amount of currently speculative physics concerning the origins and nature of the universe) has been so widely regarded.

Personally I believe that the reason that so many women don't write hard SF is not that they're incapable of the physics involved, but because they recognize that hard SF technoporn is largely dead boring, and may prefer to spend their time writing stories in which their characters have an integral dimensional value >2, which is, sad to say, not exactly the strong suit of "Hard SF" as a genre.

Therefore, we may equally posit that the reason that women don't do hard SF is not they are not capable of the physics, but that they are capable of writing more and different sorts of writing, and therefore choose to do so. After all, why draw exclusively crayon when you have the access and ability to utilize oil paints, pastels and Photoshop?

We may also equally and more simply posit that Vox has his head up his ass on this matter.

Let's be clear what's going on here. Vox and his sock puppet Nick are using well-understood rhetorical tricks to start an argument.

Every regular reader of Electrolite knows that a) their basic assumptions are not only false, but logically untenable, b) they probably don't actually believe those assumptions themselves, c) all they want is to get attention, and d) nothing we say will "convince" them.

Adieu, dear friends, adieu.

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Alex:

We know. I for one am representin' for the folks who might randomly come along and wonder if Vox and Nick represent anything more than the lunatic fringe.

Also, it's just plain fun to beat on the willfully stupid.

Can I start a tangent?

I didn't know "hard SF" means "SF in which the science is theoretical physics." Is that what it means? I used to be told it was "SF in which the science is in the foreground."

I'm bugged a little, because if "soft SF" means, as I think it probably does, "science fiction in which the science is the background and the fiction is the foreground," and which might feature an emphasis on social sciences:

what do you call science fiction in which geoscience(including climatology) or biological science (including evolution) are dominant? Or the kajillions of cybery things?

What do you do with Darwin's Radio, Heavy Weather, or Trouble and her Friends? What do you call them?

It's not that I need stiff little boxes for things, but a common language would be nice.

this would be hilarious it it didn't make me want to vomit all over my keyboard.

jonathan: i want to meet your wife! she sounds fantastic.

Lucy says:

"I didn't know "hard SF" means 'SF in which the science is theoretical physics.' Is that what it means? I used to be told it was 'SF in which the science is in the foreground.'"

That's been my understanding of it as well, and I would suspect the understanding of most long-time readers of the genre. Although with science fiction, "science" has been as often than not equivalent with "physics" (particularly the further back you go) which might be the source of Vox's point of view.

"If the ideas were so abstruse that only a subset of men were capable of understanding them (much less capable of writing and explaning them to others), it's rather doubtful they'd be the centerpiece of a genre of writing that is explicitly meant to be popular, and has been popular for years. A genre doesn't survive by being inaccessible to a large audience."

Of course, the flaw in your argument practically underlines itself, as even the writers of hard SF have openly lamented its decline into increasing market irrelevance. I was very surprised to discover that preorders for my most recent comic book were in excess of 300,000, still nothing but a drop in the bucket compared to the 50 million+ for the Left Behind and Harry Potter series. I doubt most SFWAns here have even heard of GP Taylor, and yet likely outsold most of those big SF names prior to even coming to America.

SFWA will continue to be primarily made up of marginal, semi-pro writers as long as it insists on being a safe house for wallflowers who prefer to write about people the way they wish they were instead of as they are. Ideas can be intoxicating, but great literature is dependent upon characters to whom the reader can relate. I've seen very, very little of that in the past year, even in those works that made the Nebula ballot. The fact that many individuals here are so distinctly uncomfortable with unfamiliar views makes it easy to understand why their art is so crippled. Nick is no sock puppet, Vox Popoli is populated by everyone from radical libertarian gays to wheelchair-bound socialists and George Bush-worshipping Three Monkey Republicans.

Try stepping outside your petty assumptions for once, you might actually find that it improves your writing. Or stick to believing in your cartoon bogeymen and writing about them if you wish, it makes absolutely no difference to the vast majority of the six billion people out there.

" I for one am representin' for the folks who might randomly come along and wonder if Vox and Nick represent anything more than the lunatic fringe. Also, it's just plain fun to beat on the willfully stupid."

Lunatic fringe? Okay, let's compare the annual circulation of the leading magazine:

Asimov's SF magazine: 50,000
Analog SF & Fact: 40,000
Focus: 3,000,000
Charisma: 250,000

According to Mr. Dozois, there were about 100 more SF titles published last year than there are Christian publishing houses. And I'm on the fringe? Right.

It is kind of fun, now that you mention it....

Make that MONTHLY circulation, sorry.

The Nebula award has long been known as the award give to writers by writers. (I almost said 'peers' but this really opens a can-o-worms.) So, politics, beliefs, and even flaming predjudices have nothing to do with it. What are the qualifications for voting on the awards in general and, in particular, serving on the jury itself? That you be a published writer.

Says nothing about whether you're a loony-toon with a frighteningly poor grasp of logic and facts. Or even a writer with different literary tastes.

The hope is that a work selected despite the wide range of beliefs and tastes of it's selectors will truly be an exceptional work.

Does this mean we can't make fun of Vox Day (Or VD as I like to call him) for his distressing use irrational arguments?

Of course we can. It's like finding one of those dishes of leftovers in the back of the refrigerator that is busy creating it's own little ecosystem. You comment on it, you drop it in the trash, and you don't swallow it.

I've been accused of writing hard science fiction (by people who write some of the crunchiest hard science fiction going, at that), and I can't hack the physics.

That's why I send long letters and drafts to people who *can* hack the physics, and let them tell me where I'm wrong. It works good.

Do the romance novels in space count if the women are rugged and the men are beautiful? If the men are beautiful and the men are smart? What about if everybody gets way too busy to actually have time for any romance? I'm having a hard time finding my marketing category here....

*goes to sit next to John and Charlie*

Drinks are on me, guys. Apparently I'm a boy. But the first guy who tries to check for testicles is drawing back a stump.

Vox says:

"Of course, the flaw in your argument practically underlines itself, as even the writers of hard SF have openly lamented its decline into increasing market irrelevance."

Uh-huh. And how many Hard SF books are published each year? It's popular enough for the purposes of my comment. Moreover, saying one genre of entertainment is more popular than another genre does not suggest the first genre is not popular, nor engaged in addressing a "popular" audience. So your nice little attempt at obfuscation of the issue does nothing to address the fact your original assertion ("women can't handle the physics of Hard SF") is pan-hit stupid, or mitigate the suggestion that your head is pretty far up your ass.

Also, arguing that Charisma magazine has a larger circulation than Asimov's would be like me arguing that Modern Maturity has a larger circulation than The Watchtower. In both cases this may be true, but it doesn't mean anything useful, because the comparison is bogus (it also suggests that the sets of subscribers of any of these magazines have no overlap, which is probably false).

Incidentally, when I call you the "lunatic fringe" I am discussing your hypoxic opinion as to the capabilities of women, not your identification as a Christian. I realize it's valuable for you to be able to maintain that people's irritation with you here has something to do with your religion, but inasmuch as I know quite a few devout followers of Christ who would also think you have your head up your ass regarding your opinion re: women/physics/hard SF (including some people in this comment thread), allow me to suggest that's not it.

In other words, leave Christ out of it. He deserves better than to be used as flak cover by the likes of you. Or at the very least, He deserves to be used by someone who argues better.

I am ambivalent about this thread.

As a First Amendment absolutist, I strongly defend the right of Vox Day to make the unpalatable statements that he does. He also seems to have some strange personal definition of Hard Science Fiction other than that which I have published:

HARD SCIENCE FICTION contained within "IF YOU LIKE THIS, THEN YOU'LL LIKE THAT" miniencyclopedia of The Ultimate Science Fiction Web Guide.

"The definition of "Hard Science Fiction" is important. The analogy is between the 'Hard Sciences' such as Astronomy, Physics, and Chemistry, ruled by mathematics and repeatable laboratory experiment on the one hand, and 'Soft Sciences' -- fuzzy subjective fields such as Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology where no two humans are identical the way two
electrons are, and yet we still try to apply empirical methods."

"It is partly a matter of attitude. The Bible tells us:

'Who seeks hard things, to him is the way hard.'"

"Indeed, the disciplined author who attempts to capture the rigor of Hard Science in fiction, in terms of plausible setting and mechanism, and in the skeptical yet pragmaticly quantitative attitude of the scientist, the writing is itself quite difficult to achieve."

I am somewhat uncomfortable with the attacks on him as a human being, as opposed to the attacks on his ideas, some of which I also find very offensive.

I am in the same quandry in the flap over the President of Harvard and his famously insensitive "provocative" remarks about the inherent capability of women to do Science and Math.

I put it to Vox Day, and readers of Electrolite, that there is a statistical deficiency of women in Science and Math -- in the United States of America. Since this is not the case worldwide, it appears to say more about America than about the genetics of gender.

The crux of the matter is that women can and have reached the greatest heights of accomplishment in Science and Math, against a disgusting male chauvinist bias (which is most intense in Physics of all disciplines) in faculty appointment, promotions, deanships, and hiring outside of Academe. That sexism is not a feminist manifesto. It is doing terrible damage to America's standing in the world, in terms of patents issued, papers published, corporate leadership, and the like.

Two more examples. The two leading women in 20th Century mathematics are generally acknowledged to be Emily Noether and Olga Taussky Todd. I had the honor of knowing the latter, who explicitly spoke frequently of Emily Noether, whom she had met. When Olga Taussky Todd came to Caltech, many years ago, her husband John Todd (from whom I took a Theory of Algorithms class, one of the first such anywhere) was given a professorship. The far more famous wife was given only a Research Fellowship. After years of this shameful situation, Caltech grudgingly gave Olga a professorship as well. Her obituary is available online, and many longer versions were in the most prestigious journals.

The crux (and I use that word advisedly with Christians) is that certain positions, such as President of Harvard, and (to a lesser extent) the Nebula Jury, require an admixture of leadership with the overt job definition. That is, the standards are higher as to what one may say ex officio, which should thus be carefully separated from one's personal opinions.

I have, for instance, the greatest respect for the scientific work of William Shockley, and the uttermost contempt for his racism. Yet I feel that a Nobel Prize entitles one to say the most shocking things, if only to promote debate, in which one hopes the truth shall eventually emerge.

I attended lectures by Velikovsky, found his theories to be fringe nonsense of pulp magazine lunacy. However, Velikovsky made several correct predictions (craters on Mars, radio emissions from Jupiter, role of electrostatics and electrodynamics in solar system evolution). Hence I believe that the scientific community was wrong-headed in their threatened boycott of Velikovsky's publisher.

The best defense against obnoxious speech is not censorship or ad hominem attack. It is speech on the contrary position.

The Truth shall set ye free.

The question of what is the truth is a deeper matter, which this blog may be too small to contain.

sdn:

I am far too in love with my wife to be objective. But she does speak on panels at Science Fiction conventions, and so I advise that you look for her in such venues. We mostly go to West Coast cons (that Coast goes at least as far as Arizona), such as Westercons, various cons in San Diego and LA, occasional baycons, Orycons, Norwescons. And, of course, Wolrdcons.

"Incidentally, when I call you the "lunatic fringe" I am discussing your hypoxic opinion as to the capabilities of women, not your identification as a Christian."

I'd be surprised if you didn't actually mean both, but okay, as you say. In any event, a belief in gender-based differences is hardly lunatic fringe either. I realize that the science fiction community is almost as enamored with the idea that women are Just The Same as men in All Things as it is with time travel and multiple universes, but wishful thinking doesn't make it true.

Give examples, John. You haven't shot down a single thing I've said yet, you've simply made random assertions of your own. Give me that list of women publishing hard SF, those big names in that big, big market. Now, according to Locus, 251 SF and 282 Fantasy novels were published in 2001. How many of those 251 were hard SF? And of those, how many were written by women? Five? Ten? Do you seriously think your groundless opinion is satisfactory proof?

It's possible that women are not writing hard SF due to reasons other than Math is Hard, but you haven't made that case. In fact, you haven't even begun to make a case for anything at all, except your own inability to make a point. It's humorous to hear someone who has no evidence and nothing to offer except general comments criticizing anyone else's ability to argue a case.

I wonder if it would be as "offensive" to argue that women often write more interesting characters due to their greater sensitivity and interest in relationships? I also find that to be the case, and there would certainly appear to be a dearth of male romance writers. Or is that just more fevered nonsense from the "lunatic fringe"?

"The crux (and I use that word advisedly with Christians) is that certain positions, such as President of Harvard, and (to a lesser extent) the Nebula Jury, require an admixture of leadership with the overt job definition. That is, the standards are higher as to what one may say ex officio, which should thus be carefully separated from one's personal opinions."

I agree, but given that I was actually using two completely distinct names for my op/ed column on a well-known political site and my SFWA Nebula Jury stint, it's obvious that this is simply a case of a certain fecalicious girl doing her bit to stir up the easily stirred. That's fine, it's what she does and she does it well. But a glance at the NAR will suffice to demonstrate that I have no problem whatsoever with recognizing excellence in genre writing, regardless of gender, given my Nebula recommendations for the recent work of Tanith Lee, Patricia Wrede and Theresa Edgerton, among others.

"If only 13 percent of Physics PhDs are female, as Physics Today claimed"

The particular article is "What Works for Women in Undergraduate Physics?," Physics Today, v56n9, Sept 2003.

A relevant quote which "Vox Day" somehow--coincidence, surely--neglected to mention:

"A "leaky pipeline" explains part of the problem. Judging from figure 1, women opt out of physics at every step up the academic ladder. Pacific University physicist Mary Fehrs and Roman Czujko, director of the Statistical Research Center of the American Institute of Physics, found that those women who chose not to remain in physics had performed on a par with their male colleagues who stayed in the field."

So it's not that women -can't- do physics, as "Vox Day" claimed. It's that they don't want to, which is something entirely different. No surprise to thinking human beings, naturally, but it may come as a revelation to "Vox Day."

(Why don't they women want to get the advanced degree in physics? Could it have something to do with male sexism in the higher sciences? Nature, May 22, 1997 has an article in which reviewers on peer review journals "persisted in overestimating male achievements and underestimating female performance," but that Journal Citation Reports (how often articles are cited and used by other authors, and a yardstick not dependent on the gender of the author) "found women to be virtually equal in productivity and creativity.")

Teddy,

Your argument is so incoherent that it's difficult to even address. This is complicated by the fact that you constantly change what you're actually arguing whenever you're pressed.

But okay. Here goes.

"Women do not write hard science fiction today."

You can twist the definition of hard sf many ways, but if it's science fiction in which the science is an important aspect, then Nancy Kress, Elizabeth Moon, Sarah Zettel, Ursula LeGuin, Catherine Asaro, Connie Willis, Laura Mixon, Nicola Griffith, and Joan Slonczewski have written hard sf. Your first statement is false.

"...because so few can hack the physics."

Few women can master physics at the Ph.D. level, true, but then again, few men can either. So what? You also assume that the two statements are causally connected, but don't provide any evidence. I'd think that most women writers choose not to write hard sf because they don't want to.

"...stick to fantasy where they can make things up..."

You don't know crap about fantasy if you think it's any easier to do the research to do it well. Getting fantasy economics, sociology, magic, religion right is hard.

"...without getting hammered by critics holding triple Ph.D.s in molecular engineering, astrophysics and Chaucer."

You don't get a Ph.D. in Chaucer. (For that matter, you don't get a Ph.D. in "molecular engineering.") And even if you did, what exactly would a Ph.D. in "Chaucer" have to say about a hard SF piece? Your argument doesn't make any sense.

You are saying that when a woman abandons writing hard SF, it's because she can't hack it. But *you* write soft fantasy, right, Teddy? What's your Ph.D. in again? Do you consider that you moved from hard sf to fantasy because you couldn't hack it?

Your bottom line is that this is somehow caused by feminism. An exceedingly odd charge, because feminism -- a radical socio-political philosophy that considers women to be people -- isn't the cause of few women going into physics. Sexism is, of precisely the disgusting brand that you peddle.

Finally, I'll just point out that a work by a conservative Christian made it onto the Final Ballot without any help from the jury. Gene Wolfe is considered by many to be one of the finest writers today. Being a conservative Christian hasn't hurt his career.

So if you're looking for a reason to explain why you haven't won any Nebulas yet, you're going to have to come up with another excuse.

Re: Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics.

In my honors mathematics courses, I was taught that "At least one A is B" is a sufficient and complete refutation of "No A are B."

Dr. Christine M. Carmichael. Q.E.D.

In the spirit of the scientific method, I present data for the inspection of the good folks here at Electrolite. All observed firsthand, of course.

My latest published work of fiction is hard science fiction. Using Physics, too. It has been five days since the story was made public and the cheque arrived, and I have yet to have my breasts confiscated by the proper authorities.

I work in the oldest science fiction bookstore in Canada (we think in North America too). Every single staff member, barring the owner, is female. We read and write and sell science fiction. The same authorities have failed to appear at my place of employment. Customers seem to like our recommendations, though.

Books I have reviewed recently for said bookstore: Elizabeth Bear's Hammered (waves hi to Bear), Chris Moriarty's Spin State, City of Pearl and Crossing the Line by Karen Traviss. One I'm looking forward to is Karin Lowachee's Cagebird. You'd have to ask them if anyone confiscated their breasts. I don't know firsthand, of course.

I hope this helps all and sundry in the furtherance of science.

Jonathan Vos Post:

"As a First Amendment absolutist, I strongly defend the right of Vox Day to make the unpalatable statements that he does."

Well, as do I, and I'll also defend his ability to be seated on a Nebula jury, which is not a first amendment issue, merely one of institutional protocol. I wouldn't want to be in SFWA if one had to jump through doctrinal hoops to freely participate in its activities.

At the same time, I'm also happy to say he's got his head up his ass, based on the particular position we've been addressing. I'm happy to grant that in other subjects, he may not exhibit such profound sphincto-cranial tendencies, and heck, there may even be subjects on which he and I agree (whether this means be both have our heads up our respective asses is to be left unconsidered for now).

But for this particular topic, there's a definite head-ass conjunction on his part, and there's little harm in recognizing this, so long as one also address the issue subtantively as well.

Vox:

Nice try, but daring me to back up my assertions when you haven't bothered to back up your own isn't going to work. You say that women don't write Hard SF because they can't handle the physics, but you don't have the facts to back that up. We may agree that women tend not to write hard SF, but the fact they don't does not suggest that the reason this is the case is to their inability to handle the physics involved. Women tend not to write Westerns, either; would you suggest it's because they don't know how to ride horses? Correlation is not causation, which is a concept which apparently you have not learned.

To repeat: My recent SF book has been praised for its treatment of speculative physics, yet my training and schooling in physics is far below that of any number of female science fiction writers, including several in SFWA; prove to me that these women are less capable of writing Hard SF physics than I am by dint of their gender, and then we'll have something to talk about. In other words, Vox, before you ask me to address the motes in my eye, get that beam out of your own eye first. Until you do, you'll merely continue to be a fascinating example of sphincto-cranial interaction.

What you really want to do here, I suspect, is try to make some sort of victory out of the idea that (duh) men and women are different and have different capabilities in a number of fields. I myself find this non-controversial; men and women are physiologically different, quite obviously in matters of gross anatomy and rather more subtly in things like brain structure. This is not news. I also suspect that in general there may be cognitive tasks that one gender does more efficiently than the other. Again, this is not news either.

But it's also generally not worth making a big deal about. Presuming for the sake of argument that men were better at physics than women, if we were to superimpose the sets of "men's ability to understand physics" and "women's ability to understand physics" upon each other, we would very likely find that the sets overlap almost exactly, with only the thinnest slice at the top of the male set remaining unexposed. I rather strongly suggest that even in this scenario, the subset entitled "The Physics Required to Write Hard SF" would be nestled comfortably well within the sets of both men and women.

(And this is likely to be the case with any cognitive ability one would choose to describe -- in every case, the potential for one sex to outperform the other purely on this basis of physiology (as opposed to, say, various cultural and enivironmental factors) is likely to be so small as to be trivial.)

However, as Elizabeth Bear pointed out, if a woman has a desire to write Hard SF but is not sure of the physics involved, she can easily have someone check her science to see if its tenable, as she did. This fact alone rather efficiently renders your assertion about women, physics and hard SF utterly irrelevant.

We can ask why women don't write Hard SF with any regularity; it's an interesting question. But suggesting that it's because they can't handle the physics is almost certainly not the case, and would be irrelevant even if it were.

You're a "lunatic fringe" not because you're a Christian and not because you hold to the concept of difference in gender, but because you hold a position that is clearly intellectually indefensible, yet appear to give it the same weight as fact. Really, that's just silly.

Jess, yes, exactly. When I quit nuclear physics grad school, everyone argued with me by pointing out how well I was doing in my classes. The attitude was that anybody who can do physics will do physics, and there I was disproving it. Lots of very confused people there.

I write hard SF. I write fantasy with vacuum tubes in it. I write fantasy with nothing at all to do with physics or engineering in any way. I write stories because they interest me, and I do the research I have to do to get there.

My dad's father is a retired Lutheran pastor, and he's willing to swear to anyone who needs to know that not one of the things he did as a pastor in all his decades of ministry required the use of his genitals. I'll swear the same thing about physics research, either for its own sake or for a story, if you like: it didn't require the use of my genitals, and I didn't have to borrow my lab partners' either. I promise.

To sum up, Vox, you're arguing that women are incapable of writing hard SF, yet your "evidence" consists of statistics about the number of women who *do* write hard SF rather than the number of women who are *capable* of doing so. You can't provide evidence to back up your original argument because such capability is impossible to quantify, although it's been amusing to watch you try.

I would further note that I don't often give the time of day to misogynist asshats, but this is not because I am incapable of doing so. (Q.E.D.)

Vox, as the old saying puts it: "on the internet nobody knows you're a dog." (At least, nobody knows you're a dog unless you bark at them.) By the same token, nobody knows (or gives a shit about) your personal views unless you wave them about and yell "look at me!"

Now, I've never met you. I therefore have no way of knowing whether you really mean the things you're saying, or whether you're just trolling for flames. So, because I'm a nice guy, I'm going to give option #2 the due consideration it deserves and keep an open mind on the matter. (Just so you know I am not automatically assuming you're a vile bigot, by my lights.)

Anyway. My main point is ...

You've chosen to lay your bedroll in the field of SF, as witness your membership of SFWA and presence on an SFWA panel.

You have then burped up a mass of rhetoric that -- to my eyes -- looks calculated to alienate (a) women and (b) anyone remotely to the left of the political spectrum. For the purposes of assessing the impact of your words, it doesn't matter whether they're supported by the evidence or not -- we're talking perceptions here. Draw a Venn diagram of the population. You've started by pissing off 50% and then dropped another great big circle bracketing close to another 50% halfway over it.

The people who live and work and pitch their tents in this field have long memories. You'll have to share the same field with them for a long time -- decades, maybe -- if you want to be in it at all. And you've just offended 75% of them?

This is Not Clever. You may not need them now, but you have no idea what your circumstances will look like in ten years' time. Twenty years. Thirty. Five minutes hence. (Etcetera.) Pissing people off for no good reason is counter-productive. In a corporate environment it's sometimes termed a career-limiting move.

I think you just made a career-limiting move.

Take some advice from Uncle Charlie, who did his trolling back in the stone age, when the net was young -- start barking, very loudly. Yap your head off and make damn sure everyone knows you're a troll. That way, when you meet editors and agents and other writers in person you can charm them and they'll maybe forgive you your youthful errors.

But for your own future sake, do try to stop digging before the hole caves in on you.

You don't know crap about fantasy if you think it's any easier to do the research to do it well. Getting fantasy economics, sociology, magic, religion right is hard.

Alex,

As a fantasy writer on her way to a double Ph.D. in anthropology and folklore, I must thank you for bringing this up. Just because those subjects are termed "fuzzy" does not mean they are simple, and I always sigh in irritation when I hear/read the implication that fantasy is for the weak.

Can you write fantasy without understanding those things? Certainly. Just like you can write SF and substitute technobabble for rigorously extrapolated science. I'll even forgive you for either of those shortcomings, if you tell a good enough story to distract me from them. Any kind of writing has its looser end, where you don't have to know what you're doing in great detail.

But to write it well, in either fantasy or SF, takes knowledge and thought. (Though not necessarily a Ph.D.)

Charlie writes:

"I think you just made a career-limiting move."

Now, now, Charlie. You'll just be feeding his persecution complex.

Lots of writers are jerkwads, even in SF, and so long as they can actually write (and sell), their jerkwadishness hasn't stopped them.

Actually, John, being a jerkwad may not hurt one's sales once the work is out there, but it can and does affect one's ability to sell the work to begin with, even if one is perceived as having a saleable name. I've seen it happen, more than once.

Why should editors and publishers give themselves the headache of dealing with a jerkwad when there are plenty of talented writers around who aren't jerkwads they can buy from?

-l.

John, whether or not there's any merit to his claim that women can't/don't write hard SF[*], women edit SF. And work as agents. And lots of those who do are SFWA members or get to hear about this sort of thing.

Getting right up your prospective editor's or agent's nose is a great way to start a business relationship, right? And even if it isn't an insuperable obstacle, it's still a handicap he'll have to overcome.

([*] I tend towards the "don't" rather than "can't" explanation, and attribute it to social patterning that includes redefining hard SF as "stuff women don't write". As the old joke about problems in Artificial Intelligence goes, if a machine can do it then it is no longer AI.)

Charlie, Laura:

Clearly I'm not an advocate of pissing people off for no apparent reason (refer to #8 here). But I guess I'm pretty sanguine about personal stupidities, as I believe that they are (eventually) correctable, given a willingness to learn. Also, it does not necessarily follow that his misogynistic jerk-like tendencies re: women and physics are followed through by a similar opinion toward women's capabilities in other areas. He may be appropriately respectful of a female agent or editor. One may hope.

Anyway, I prefer prejudices and stupidities out in the open, where I can see them, and where the community can strive to whack them out of their holder. I leave open the possibility Vox Day can be taught, and has a willingness to learn, and may yet one day regret his sphincto-cranial position on this particular matter.

As an aside, Charlie, I think you underestimate the right on this particular position -- there are a lot of "right"-ish folks who would equally hold Vox' position re: Women/physics/hard SF as complete and utter nonsense. His position isn't right or left; it's just stupid and sexist.

[decloak via Elizabeth Bear]

Zounds, you guys didn't already KNOW that Vox Day aka Beale was a Wingnut Extraordinaire?! He's been a Figure of Fun among the more...uninhibited out in Left Blogistan, particularly of the female-friendly bent, since at least early last summer.

Echidne of the Snakes, Bartholemew's Notes on Religion, Trish Wilson, Dark Window, and yours truly have all featured our favorite skinhead-with-a-flaming-sword who preaches misogyny and bloodshed and privilege, this past year.

He thinks that we shouldn't have the right to vote.

He thinks that we don't belong in the workplace, except in brothels, because that's what we'd really rather do anyway, since we're lazy.

He claims to be a Libertarian, but then endorses positions so Authoritarian, they'd make the Persians look like liberals.

His Wingnut Daily column he owes to the fact that his father helped set it up, as discovered by Bartholemew via WoC.

And given that his "hard" sf experience consists of one co-authored game tie-in novel, and the rest of his books are Explicitly-Didactic Angelic Warfare stories (think Frank Peretti without the energy or characterization and twice as long) aka "fantasy," that he would pick a fight on this subject with the rest of his chosen profession just seems to finally lay the longstanding question, "Vox Day, sophisticated ironist or batshit crazy?" to rest...

I don't think anyone here would have suggested he was a sophisticated ironist. Nothing he's written here suggests either sophistication or a sense of irony. The question was whether he was a garden-variety jerk or something else entirely. Looks like he's in the "something else" camp. Pity.

Ah, Bellatrys... still bitter that even the leftist who hosted the debate judged that I kicked every comer's posterior on the suffragism issue. Couldn't even win what you thought was a gimme, could you.... Also wrong about Daddy setting anything up, totally wrong about why I got the column - Daddy doesn't own the Pioneer Press, the Boston Globe, the Atlanta Journal/Constitution or any of the fourteen other papers my column has appeared in regularly, you know.

What else? The SF book is not in the least bit hard SF, the game tie-in is the game I designed and produced - and which sold 2.5 million copies - and I've never endorsed an authoritarian position in my life. Being near brain-dead, Bellatrys has a problem distinguishing between discussing the desirability of a CONCEPT and calling for GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION intended to force the end result.

As for this notion: "Getting fantasy economics, sociology, magic, religion right is hard." It's apparently hard to the point of near-impossibility for the SFWA crowd. Religion in 75-85 percent of fantasy is wretched, it's like listening to people blind from birth attempting to describe the primary colors. The typical fantasy religion shows no similarities to any historical religion, all too often reflecting instead an areligious "balance" concept that says more about the writer's self-perceived political moderation than anything else. This has nothing to do with my faith either, read Naguib Mahfouz's work and you'll too snort with disbelief at the hapless "religious" characters encountered in most fantasy. They're about as realistic as an astrophysicist who can't add, subtract or multiply.

And economics? Don't blame Mr. Stross for my high opinion of him, but he's the first SF writer I've read who understands the first thing about the field since Heinlein, and he is light years beyond the grandmaster. It may prove educational to look at the NAR and notice who else besides the "batshit crazy wingnut" sees the ground-breaking brilliance too.

What VD seems to have missed is that a lot of male writers of hard SF are not that good at physics, either. And then there are the women who do physics, but don't write. Not everybody wants to be a writer; I'm happy to read good SF.

Vox says:

"Don't blame Mr. Stross for my high opinion of him..."

No worries on that score. Charlie rocks.

However, rather than reliving presumed past victories, or trying to bait Bellatrys so you can again attempt to steer the conversation away from the fact you're being beaten like a pinata on the "women/physics/hard SF" front, you should either put up some factual evidence for your assertion, or admit you haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.

See? He thinks he won. He never answered anyone, he never obeyed any of the rules of logic, he never acknowledged that his premises were proven false, he was the source of ROFL fits and inhalation incidents from here to Ultima Thule since June, and he thinks he *won.*

Blondesense, Trish, I gotcher popcorn here, if you want to pull up a chair... (Just to warn you guys, he will never concede. He'll just change the subject, declare victory, and leave.)

Mr. Stross, I appreciate the brave attempt to give me the benefit of the doubt, but it's entirely possible that by your standards, I may be a vile bigot. I don't require people to agree with me to be on good terms with them, but I also understand that is not a universal position.

I do appreciate the career advice, but this isn't my career. It's an enjoyable hobby, but it would make for a pretty stupid career considering that you make more money in two days on a 1.5 percent move on the GBP/USD than the average writer gets for a book. (Sell it in 2005, by the way). As for female editors and agents, who cares? Like every business, publishing is all about the numbers; I've signed contracts for ten books, I've met precisely one editor once in all that time and I don't have an agent. Anyone who is dumb enough to pass on a promising and mutually profitable project because they don't like my attitude or my opinions is not someone with whom I ever want to work.

I suppose I might as well point out now that if anyone had actually bothered to read the column instead of limiting themselves to the one quote, I clearly subscribe to the DON'T school, not the CAN'T. The column is incoherent otherwise. An inability to hack something stems from disinclination more often than it does from a complete lack of capability. I can do the math myself, I simply don't want to because I hate it. I assume this is the case for those many bright women who choose to major in Wiccan Studies, Political Geography or other similarly non-rigorous programs that render hard SF, (along with many other professions), out of the question.

For those of you who are apparently unfamiliar with political commentary, it is a rhetorical field. It has been since the days of ancient Greece. Trying to apply mathematical precision to any non-economics column written by anyone on the right or left is a fool's game as we ALL engage in rhetoric every time out. Would it have been more accurate to write "of the few published writers of hard SF, even fewer are women, possibly because college girls prefer to study fields other than those mathematically rigorous programs required to provide an author with a suitable background preparatory to his, (or her), career as a science fiction author"? Yes. Would I ever write that in column? Never.

I am mostly bemused.

The following is a random collection of tangents. (Pseudorandom? Oh, never mind.)

I got a bachelor's in math, which doesn't qualify me to hack the physics, and doesn't qualify me as a mathematician, either; but I can write sf with science in. I do like, um, technopr0n. *blush* And I can't get my physics-doctoral-candidate husband to read some of the hard sf I like, possibly because it's too close to "work" for him. :-p When I do want to read about science/math/"hard" things, sometimes I go to sf for it. Most of the time I go to textbooks or articles or popular science/math.

I have sometimes thought that (good) fantasy is at least as hard as (good) (hard) sf, if one has to rank these things. Anthropology, social dynamics, linguistics, architecture and engineering and economics and meteorology and metallurgy and medicine and--*falls over, THUD*

I know there are very many fields of study I don't understand, and a good many I'm not smart enough to understand, but it never stops me from reading, researching, and all-around trying. It's depressing, but whether or not I'm "smart enough," I'll never find out if I just *stop.*

Again, you're hopelessly wrong, Bellatrys, as Dark Window not only posted on his blog but also emailed me to express his disappointment that none of you could make a dent in my economics-based case against suffragism. I'll dig it up and post it for you at VP if you like. Nice try, though. Always fun to bitchslap you again. Your cheek flushes such a lovely shade of red.

Beaten like a pinata, John? You still haven't answered a single question. Where's the names? How many books? I figured five, maybe ten per year tops, and thanks to Alexia, we have nine names. He's including a romance novelist, of course, so I'd say he's stretching it, but we're in the same ballpark.

Look, my dear, dysfunctional friends, I own several Nancy Kress books. I have already stated that I have the Hard SF Renaissance which features Zettel and Slonczweski. Ergo, the normal, socially-functioning individual would reason that "no" does not necessarily indicate ABSOLUTE ZERO. Go read the freaking column! If I believed women were genetically incapable of understanding math, then why would I mention the intellectual cauterization at university?

I'm getting the impression that the average individual here would answer the question: "do I look fat" with "yes, you appear to have gained 2.36 kilos".

Vox, the least you could do is have the backbone to own your opinions, instead of backpedalling and pretending you meant something you clearly did not.

Can't hack it = 5. unable to cope with successfully or manage. (emphasis mine)

Unable = 1. Lacking the necessary power, authority, or means; not able; incapable. 2. Lacking mental or physical capability or efficiency; incompetent.

(American Heritage Dictionary 4th edition, 2000)

Your opinion of women is amply clear in context of your many posts on the subject.

(I'd link to a couple of your more egregious examples, such as your column on why women should not be allowed to vote, and your how-to column coaching well-educated women to tell men on their first date that they're planning to quit their high-paying job and go back to being an aerobics instructors, but I'm not interested in giving you any more bandwidth, so let others look them up if they'd like.)

Why pretend otherwise?

-l.

Teddy,

I think you are entirely missing the point of the argument. Any of us, I suspect, would have enjoyed a discussion of "Why do comparatively few women write hard SF?" I know I wrote (and then deleted) a response to your post where you argued that most fantasy portrays religion poorly. I'd love to have a conversation about that. Who does it well? Why is it portrayed badly? What makes for good or bad religion in fiction? Etc.

But the point is not the merits of these arguments. The point is that I don't want to have the discussion with you, because you're an asshole.

Always fun to bitchslap you again.

Jesus would be proud of you. You're such a good Christian.

Vox writes:

"Would it have been more accurate to write 'of the few published writers of hard SF, even fewer are women, possibly because college girls prefer to study fields other than those mathematically rigorous programs required to provide an author with a suitable background preparatory to his, (or her), career as a science fiction author?' Yes. Would I ever write that in column? Never."

Which shows that you are a rather poor rhetorician, as you seem incapable of making words say what you want them to.

However it does suggest awareness of another rhetorical trick, which is: When getting your ass kicked because of a foolish, stupid statement, try to reframe the statement to say something else entirely. I am disinclined to let you get away with that.

Even if you wrote those words above, your thesis would still be incorrect, for the reasons that have been amply detailed in this thread (among them, that a good writer can compensate for lack of knowledge in a particular field by availing him or herself of expert help).

So: Your thesis is wrong and you lack the rhetorical skills to present your thesis in a coherent fashion. And if your thesis statement doesn't match the details and intent of your column, then it would appear you're not a very competent columnist. That's 0 for 3 for you, Vox. How did you get your column gig?

Vox writes:

"Beaten like a pinata, John? You still haven't answered a single question."

As I said, Vox -- you first, since it is your rhetorically idiotic statement that started this whole ball rolling. You appear to be unable to, which is why you continue to choose to try to shift the focus off yourself. But again -- why would we want that? Look: Either you meant what you wrote, in which case you're an ignorant sexist, or you didn't mean what you wrote, in which case, you're a bad writer. Which is it?

Based on your backtracking comments here, it appears that you're leaning toward the "bad writer" camp, although given some of the material of yours that I've read, "ignorant sexist" is not out of the question. And of course, it may be a tantalizing combination of the two.

Either way, you still haven't provided factual material backing your ridiculous and bigoted claim. Nor, in my opinion, does it appear likely that you ever will. And again, we're back to you having (to put another spin on use my new favorite phrase) a sphincto-cranial event of monumental proportions.

Although I do take back the pinata comment. Pinatas don't get beaten as hard or for as long.

"(PS- Stan Robinson is male. You'd buy more credibility with your audience if you'd at least get your facts right.)"

No, really? I am SOOOO embarrassed! Just look at me blush!

Let me explain something to you, Laura. I will write very, very slowly* so everyone can follow it. Sometimes people say things that are not precisely true for rhetorical effect. For example, the use of "no" in the place of "very few". And sometimes, people say things that are not true at all for humorous effect. This is known as irony, or sarcasm.

You see, Laura, pretty much everyone who reads science fiction knows that Kim Stanley Robinson is a man. Since the very existence of this thread indicated a certain pedantic turn of mind bordering on complete social dysfunction, I even added a reference to his picture to indicate that I understood he was in possession of a penis.

In the unlikely event I make any ironic or sarcastic statements in the future, I shall be sure to explain them in full detail at the bottom so as not to further risk my credibility.

*I did not actually write this very slowly. That was more sarcasm. Isn't humor fun!

Vox writes:

"This is known as irony, or sarcasm"

Or, alternately, as poor writing, and subsequent attempts to explain away same.

People who do not well employ sarcasm and irony should not use them as rhetorical devices, Vox. That's a free writing tip for you.

"Jesus would be proud of you. You're such a good Christian."

I was wondering how long that one would take to appear. Try reading the Bible sometime. The last I looked, I didn't get the idea that "sons of vipers" and "whitewashed tombs" were compliments. Then, of course, there's the whole hurling the money-changers out of the Temple bit.

This isn't to say that I'm a good Christian, however. I'm not. Fortunately, the grace of God abounds, enough for even the most flawed among us.

And John, at least you're admitting that you're not making a case. You're now trying to set up a false dichotomy because you misconstrued the column in the first place, most likely because you haven't read it. Are you really finding it so hard to follow the thesis?

1. Susan Estrich is bitter that she and her 50 little friends are not granted the intellectual respect that she believes they are due.
2. She believes this is due to male oppression by three men.
3. I posit that it is instead because she and her friends have no genuine accomplishments, only degrees.
4. I argue that their degrees mean nothing, because women have a disproportionate inclination to pursue programs of study in non-rigorous, mostly useless fields.
5. I assert that these programs of study intellectually cauterize them and render them incapable of rational linear thought.
6. I state that any woman so cauterized is useless for many fields of study, including writing hard SF.

And that's as far as it goes as it relates to this subject. Of the 30 thousand or so people who read that column, only this bunch here was dysfunctionally pedantic enough to get hung up on a single rhetorical turn of phrase. Even the usual feminist hatemailers understood that... as did the girl who baited you all into getting your panties in a bunch. Nicely done, Fecalicious!

But somehow, John, you think it makes more sense to postulate that despite my obvious familiarity with the hard SF works of various women, I am dedicated to a theory of genetic female inferiority while simultaneously being in denial of the existence of books I own, than to admit you failed to grasp an obvious rhetorical device.

Impressive logic.

From Dictionary.com:

Hack
5. Slang. To cope with successfully; manage: couldn't hack a second job.

Yeah, you can't front on that, Laura.

I'm alternately amazed and appalled.

Mr. Vox, I'm sure Jesus is as proud of you as you are of yourself for your percieved 'bitchslapping' of another human being, as well as your denigration of the people on this list.

Let your light so shine before men, indeed.

I would encourage you to sit down, shut up, and go read the Sermon on the Mount again.

Please stop making others on this list who are Christians look bad by your example.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Vox writes:

"And John, at least you're admitting that you're not making a case."

Would that you would do the same, Vox. I don't have to make a case because you are obviously unable to adequately support your own, and -- to remind you yet again -- it's your dumbass statement that got the ball rolling.

"John, you think it makes more sense to postulate that despite my obvious familiarity with the hard SF works of various women, I am dedicated to a theory of genetic female inferiority while simultaneously being in denial of the existence of books I own, than to admit you failed to grasp an obvious rhetorical device."

It's possible, Vox. On the other hand, I have a degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago (specializing in the philosophy of language), and therefore have ample training in rhetoric, so I doubt that rhetorical deficiencies on this end are the issue.

I read your column Vox, and I grasped your obvious rhetorical device. It doesn't impress me. As continually stated, your rhetorical device is obviously bad: Poorly stated, poorly supported, and rheorically incoherent. To restate: Your thesis is wrong and you lack the rhetorical skills to present your thesis in a coherent fashion. Your latter-day attempt to brush off your sexist and ignorant statement as sarcasm is baldly transparent as backtracking; even if it were true, it shows that your use of such devices is appallingly clumsy. Again one wonders how you got your columnist gig, or, alternately, if anyone bothers to edit you, as you so clearly need.

However, your statement does seem to confirm that you have settled into the "bad writer" excuse for your dumbass and sexist statement. Wonderful! Glad to have that settled.

Vox Day ::: (view all by) ::: March 05, 2005, 09:24 PM:

From Dictionary.com:

Hack
5. Slang. To cope with successfully; manage: couldn't hack a second job.

Yeah, you can't front on that, Laura.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What language is this guy speaking? Is he from this dimension?

He said woman Can't hack the physics but he said that this doesn't mean he's saying women 'can't' do physics. Laura gives him a defintion of what 'hack' means. He comes back with a different definition as if it somehow refutes the original point but his definitition still comes down to saying 'Women can't do physics.'

It's like his arguments only go back to the last post he's responding to. He's totally out of context on the entire discussion. It's like he can't hold the entire argument in his head or he can't even remember what the original argument was.

Why are we wasting so much time on this guy? When they came up with the phrase 'kneejerk' reactionary, they were thinking of him.

I know Laura is expending as much energy as she is because she's both that hard SF writer and a professional engineer who had run into this attitude her entire career (though probably expressed without quite the lack of rationality we see here) and because we have two daughters who have to go into a future populated with wingnuts like VD.

Our attitudes toward the roles of any human in our society is a worthy topic of rational discussion. Guess what this isn't.

Hmmm. OK.

In my church, we are taught that all human beings have inherent worth, and deserve to be treated with dignity. As angry as I am about your disingenuous postings and insulting attitudes, I'm not going to stoop to further sarcasm.

But I will say, Theodore/ Vox, that it's pretty obvious what the source of your attitude toward women is, and you're not doing yourself any favors by laying your personal dirty laundry out there for the world to see.

-l.

To avoid confusion here: The thesis statement under examination is:

"Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics."

Vox, I understand you're using this as a supporting argument for your larger broadside at Estrich. However, again, this statement is not supportable in itself. That being the case, it's also not very useful making a case against Estrich, and the other various arguments you'd choose to make.

i think we all need to drop this and move on.

But... there's still more candy inside him!

Oh, all right. I'm done too.

Having spent a number of years of my misspent youth deep in the trenches of screamy-teenaged-girl fandom, I have to say that it's hilarious how much screamy-teenaged-girl rhetorical tactics resemble the tactics of this fellow.

Any moment now, he will slag someone as "just like those beeyotches in highschool I hated so much", and the invocation of Snacky's Law will be complete.

Glad to know all that brain-fried USENET postings of my college years were not a total waste.

"i think we all need to drop this and move on."

As you like. I do find it more than a little ironic that the very people who entered the fray making personal attacks are such delicate flowers about enduring them in return. People disagree with me. Fine. People think it's appropriate to attack me, and not my ideas. Also fine. But it seems a little much for people to expect to be able to do so without taking any return fire.

"Yeah, you can't front on that." That means one does not have the ability to assume a defensive posture against it, Steven. It's been in common American English usage for at least 14 years - that's a literal quote from the Beastie Boys "Sabotage" and originally derives from basketball terminology.

Anyhow, if anyone wishes to continue any aspect of this discussion, however acrimonious, they're certainly free to do so at VP.

Non credo che abbiamo incontrato, signora; riconosco il suo nome ma perche non lo so.

That should be "Non credo che ci siamo incontrati". You recognize my name because I've been pretty active in online fandom.

Vox, apropos your mean culpa over KSR's gender, I'd just like to add that "I meant to do that" is an acceptable excuse from my cat -- after all, she's small, furry, and has a brain the size of a wallnut -- but it does not make you look good in a flame fest. Which, after all, is ultimately about scoring points before the peanut gallery because you're not going to change your mind, and neither are the people you're debating.

As for making an economic argument against enfranchisement of women -- feh. Would you also make an economic argument against enfranchisement of non-white people? Or an economic argument in favour of slavery? Methinks your value system needs a little fine-tuning if you think economic arguments against human rights have any validity.

" Would you also make an economic argument against enfranchisement of non-white people? Or an economic argument in favour of slavery? Methinks your value system needs a little fine-tuning if you think economic arguments against human rights have any validity."

Absolutely, if I was challenged to do so by someone. Dark Window, a leftist blogger, (now sadly on hiatus), with whom I am on friendly terms, called me on a statement that I could do so. Which I then did. Context is everything, but as I've learned by now, it does not exist in the blogosphere.

But there are real differences in our perspectives, Charles, and the fundamental one here is that I don't see enfranchisement as being liberty-enhancing in any way. The post-Hussein Iraqi elections are as meaningless as those wherein Saddam scored 100 percent of the vote. More to the point, they are as meaningless as the USA's have been since JP Morgan was selecting both the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees. (See Carroll Quigley's TRAGEDY AND HOPE).

I'm generally anti-democracy as were America's founding fathers. As for women's suffrage in particular, it might serve some well to consider why giving women the franchise was literally the first plank in the Fascist program. My position is quite demonstrably the anti-fascist one.

As for what you cleverly labeled my mean culpa, it served rather nicely to illustrate the thoughtless, knee-jerk behavior I've encountered here. I thought it was quite funny to watch whats-her-name stick her head right in the noose despite the clear heads-up in her predictable attempt to dismiss me the easy way. I do this in almost every polemical column, it is a source of much amusement to the blog regulars on both sides of the spectrum. The major in Chaucer was the same thing from two weeks ago.

When you receive regular hatemail, you either ignore it or turn it into cannon fodder. Most columnists choose the former, I prefer the latter. It's probably a character flaw.

"I'm generally anti-democracy as were [snip totemic gods]"

Well, that's nice to know.

"why giving women the franchise was literally the first plank in the Fascist program" ... not in my time-line. I think you may be using "fascist" in some new and non-standard context. Which in turn implies a certain jerking of knees (or indeed, elbows).

Anyway, thanks for clueing me in about whether to write you down as a troll or a bigot. Congratulations: you appear to be both.

"Since any SF author who grasps the difference between SF and Sci-Fi..."

Read: "Anyone who knows about the arbitrary dividing line that I've constructed in my head for the explicit exclusion of women..."

See, it all makes much more sense when you actually say what you mean.

Yes, ***I*** created this "arbitrary" line.

Do you know ANYTHING at ALL about SF? Given the definition of SF as "what SF Editors publish", I suppose publication might be relevant, but it might also reflect on the quality of editors today compared to the days of yore.

The distinction between SF and "Sci-Fi" dates back to at least the early 70s, and probably further than that (I haven't really looked for the first appearance of the distinction, that's just at least how old it is from my own experiences)

Simply put: "Lost in Space" was Sci-Fi. "Star Trek" was passable SF.

Next time, learn something about your subject before you make a blathering post showing anyone who knows jack what an ignorant fool you are.

Vox, I find it interesting that you are so focused on a question that has nothing to do with the merits of the works themselves.

His point, ma'am, is that there are few female SF authors of merit whatsoever. This clearly is going to reflect on the works themselves.

This strikes him (and me) as unfortunate. It would be nice to see women entering hard-to-learn fields like engineering, physics, chemistry, and math in per-capita numbers more like those of males. It would be nice to see women learning things in lower grades which would help them deal with the kind of things hard SF demands.

Robert Heinlein once spend a day and a half calculating (by hand, on paper, in the days before calculators) the value needed to reach a certain orbit at a certain place in time. The information was part of a single throwaway paragraph in (if memory serves correctly) "The Rolling Stones".

Sorry, I don't see too many women even knowing where to LOOK for the knowledge of how to determine such information, much less actually being able to do it without even a calculator.

Instead, women go into useless majors which primarily exist to make college professors who teach those useless majors... oh, and towards making "public intellectuals".

Just what the world needs more of.

Not engineers, not physicists... "public intellectuals", yeah, give us more o' them!

I am somewhat uncomfortable with the attacks on him as a human being, as opposed to the attacks on his ideas, some of which I also find very offensive.

Be afwaid. Be wewy, wewy afwaid....

This sort of rank dunderheadedness is the exact problem. You can't even talk about the notion without some idiot getting "offended" by the mention of it.

GET OVER IT.

Women DON'T ENTER "HARD" SCIENTIFIC FIELDS.

Just look into the aggregate enrollment statistics for schools and colleges and universities (oh, my!), and this is clearly the case.

This is FACT. You don't have to LIKE it, but it's not something to be "OFFENDED BY".

FACTs don't "offend". They ARE.

If you don't like it, then DO something -- like encourage young women to stop with the Barbie "Math is hard" BS and actually learn the bloody stuff.

Discourage any young girls you meet or know from expressing the ubiquitous "eeeewwww!!" response when the subject of math comes up.

Raise your daughters to eschew onanistic "Women's Studies" programs in favor of a hard science major.

Sticking your head in the ground because you're "offended" only means another generation of females get denied the possibility of learning things men learn all the time.

What are you afraid of, finding out that women really ARE mathematically inferior to men? According to modern feminism, that's not possible.

Above all, though, learn to deal with statistically-obvious statements YOU DON'T LIKE without attacking the person who points out the Emperor's lack of clothes.

Leave Larry Summers alone -- he made a verifiably accurate statement.

Attack the problem, not the one who wants to work towards fixing it by making people think about it and discuss it. That is the only way problems get solved, when people deal with facts and not fancy

You know, I honestly don't know how offended to be when the guy who says that women can't hack the physics of hard SF then says that Star Trek was "passable SF."

Charlie Stross,

Vox is quite aware of your politics, and does not believe it means that he should not read your fiction or be unwilling to befriend you: see what he wrote about that here.

I started reading his blog when he was making the case that FDR's internment of the Japanese was totally wrong and had no real reasoning behind it aside from sheer racial prejudice, and that Michelle Malkin was basically pulling her book length argument in favor of internment (and racial profiling) out of her behind.

I do not agree with Vox often, but I've enjoyed reading his blog, and I wish more people would take the tack he takes, that political disagreement does not mean that those with different beliefs should not be your friends. We're increasingly living in a world where friendships, romances and associations in general do not cross poltical lines, and I can't help but think that takes a few steps closer to politicide on a grand scale, and after the last century, I think humanity could use a respite from that.

The Fascists he's talking about are Mussolini's crew. He's using the capital letter to distinguish them from fascists in general.

I suspect you and he mean different things when you talk of democracy. I think you mean what poltical scientists would describe as liberal democracy: majority rule with a fair amount of respect for individual rights. (Most English-speaking people mean this when they use the word "democracy.") Vox, on the other hand, is speaking of unrestricted majority rule, as in a society where 50.5% of voters can have the remainder killed. I also suspect that he believes liberal democracy will inevitably degenerate into democracy, but I do think you and he have different definitions of the word "democracy." (And yes., I'm giving away that I've studied in a field Vox regards as nigh-worthless: political science.)

Telling him he's making a career-limiting move sounds a lot like an argument to consequences, btw.

For what it's worth, he's a big booster of your fiction and has probably brought you some business, and will probably continue to plug you no matter what you say about him.

Vox:

Mussolini's rhetoric on female suffrage was belied by his actions, and I wish you'd note that. Either you're unaware of the restrictions he later placed on women voters, or you're choosing not to mention it. Which is it?

I also wonder how you account for the support for socialist ideas, and the enactment of them, before there was female suffrage. Woodrow Wilson did not have women voting for him, but he was able to do many things that, from reading your blog, I believe you regard as socialistic, and they were quite popular at the time among male voters.

I'll note here that I do not agree with Vox often (so the mob coming to burn my house to the ground because I am against female suffrage can extinguish their torches: I do not agree with Vox on that subject). However, I do agree with him when he argues that most of the people vocally disagreeing with him are incapable of making a logical argument. I've seen lots of Argumentum ad hominem, as when people drag out that his father had trouble with the tax authorities or talk about his books in relation to the arguments he makes, some Argumentum ad populum , a little Begging the Question (people have been assuming he just has to be wrong, and not making arguments that he is wrong, aside from anecdotal evidence) and some of the ever popular Straw Man, as when Vox presents his argument in six points and people continue to attack a chunk of his argument taken out of context. I've also seen a lot of attempts to use anecdotal evidence, as in "well I'm a female Phd in mathematics and physics, therefore I disprove Vox's claims." This doesn't mean Vox is right in his claim, but those arguing with him are making cases that a high school debate team would find laughably illogical.

The crucial thing we should ask is "Do Vox's admitted and open prejudices against the group as a whole prevent him from recognizing the accomlishments or talents of individual members of that group?" Unless we have other jurors coming on here and providing evidence that Vox dismissed people from consideration solely because of their gender, I think the answer to that is clearly no.

This doesn't mean that I think Vox is always right, or that I even agree with him about female SF authors or women in science. But I don't think his views in validate his judgements about books, and I don't think he (or anyone who holds similar views) should be automatically excluded from being on the jury.

If it could be shown that he was excluding people from consideration, not based on the merits of their work, but on their gender, race, preference in bedmates, religion or politics, then there would be a strong case for kicking him off the jury. But no one has yet come up with any evidence that he's doing that.

Broken into parts because of the rule that post with more than seven URLS in them must be reviewed. Great way to eliminate links to references, and I despise it.

Charlie Stross,

Vox is quite aware of your politics, and does not believe it means that he should not read your fiction or be unwilling to befriend you: see what he wrote about that here.

I started reading his blog when he was making the case that FDR's internment of the Japanese was totally wrong and had no real reasoning behind it aside from sheer racial prejudice, and that Michelle Malkin was basically pulling her book length argument in favor of internment (and racial profiling) out of her behind.

I do not agree with Vox often, but I've enjoyed reading his blog, and I wish more people would take the tack he takes, that political disagreement does not mean that those with different beliefs should not be your friends. We're increasingly living in a world where friendships, romances and associations in general do not cross poltical lines, and I can't help but think that takes a few steps closer to politicide on a grand scale, and after the last century, I think humanity could use a respite from that.

The Fascists he's talking about are Mussolini's crew. He's using the capital letter to distinguish them from fascists in general.

I suspect you and he mean different things when you talk of democracy. I think you mean what poltical scientists would describe as liberal democracy: majority rule with a fair amount of respect for individual rights. (Most English-speaking people mean this when they use the word "democracy.") Vox, on the other hand, is speaking of unrestricted majority rule, as in a society where 50.5% of voters can have the remainder killed. I also suspect that he believes liberal democracy will inevitably degenerate into democracy, but I do think you and he have different definitions of the word "democracy." (And yes., I'm giving away that I've studied in a field Vox regards as nigh-worthless: political science.)

Telling him he's making a career-limiting move sounds a lot like an argument to consequences, btw.

For what it's worth, he's a big booster of your fiction and has probably brought you some business, and will probably continue to plug you no matter what you say about him.

Part II

Vox:

Mussolini's rhetoric on female suffrage was belied by his actions, and I wish you'd note that. Either you're unaware of the restrictions he later placed on women voters, or you're choosing not to mention it. Which is it?

I also wonder how you account for the support for socialist ideas, and the enactment of them, before there was female suffrage. Woodrow Wilson did not have women voting for him, but he was able to do many things that, from reading your blog, I believe you regard as socialistic, and they were quite popular at the time among male voters.

I'll note here that I do not agree with Vox often (so the mob coming to burn my house to the ground because I am against female suffrage can extinguish their torches: I do not agree with Vox on that subject). However, I do agree with him when he argues that most of the people vocally disagreeing with him are incapable of making a logical argument. I've seen lots of Argumentum ad hominem, as when people drag out that his father had trouble with the tax authorities or talk about his books in relation to the arguments he makes, some Argumentum ad populum , a little Begging the Question (people have been assuming he just has to be wrong, and not making arguments that he is wrong, aside from anecdotal evidence) and some of the ever popular Straw Man, as when Vox presents his argument in six points and people continue to attack a chunk of his argument taken out of context. I've also seen a lot of attempts to use anecdotal evidence, as in "well I'm a female Phd in mathematics and physics, therefore I disprove Vox's claims." This doesn't mean Vox is right in his claim, but those arguing with him are making cases that a high school debate team would find laughably illogical.

The crucial thing we should ask is "Do Vox's admitted and open prejudices against the group as a whole prevent him from recognizing the accomlishments or talents of individual members of that group?" Unless we have other jurors coming on here and providing evidence that Vox dismissed people from consideration solely because of their gender, I think the answer to that is clearly no.

This doesn't mean that I think Vox is always right, or that I even agree with him about female SF authors or women in science. But I don't think his views in validate his judgements about books, and I don't think he (or anyone who holds similar views) should be automatically excluded from being on the jury.

If it could be shown that he was excluding people from consideration, not based on the merits of their work, but on their gender, race, preference in bedmates, religion or politics, then there would be a strong case for kicking him off the jury. But no one has yet come up with any evidence that he's doing that.

Note: the earlier version of this, which contained eight links, can be ignored: I've jsut broken it into two parts and thus avoided the horrors of more than seven links.

To steer the conversation totally away from Mr. Vox, let me ask this:

Why do people pick 'physics' as the epitome of hard science when they make statements like this?

So-and-so 'can't hack the physics'-- why physics? Why not chemistry? Molecular biology? Biochemistry? Why not math by itself?

What makes physics so special?

FWIW, I hold two bachelor's level degrees in hard science, but it was the applied science (statistics, economics) that truly and well kicked my ass.

Nemo Ignotus: I've also seen a lot of attempts to use anecdotal evidence, as in "well I'm a female Phd in mathematics and physics, therefore I disprove Vox's claims."

As his claim is that women can't hack physics, that does disprove his claim.

Tracina,

He's laid out his actual claim, vice the truncated version, above. I'll repeat it here.

1. Susan Estrich is bitter that she and her 50 little friends are not granted the intellectual respect that she believes they are due. 2. She believes this is due to male oppression by three men. 3. I posit that it is instead because she and her friends have no genuine accomplishments, only degrees. 4. I argue that their degrees mean nothing, because women have a disproportionate inclination to pursue programs of study in non-rigorous, mostly useless fields. 5. I assert that these programs of study intellectually cauterize them and render them incapable of rational linear thought. 6. I state that any woman so cauterized is useless for many fields of study, including writing hard SF.

I don't agree with him, but he is making a broader argument than a claim that women can't hack physics. The original column is here.

I think there's plenty of grounds for criticism, but people are attackign a straw man, not what he actually wrote.

Oh, for further background, the Susan Estrich vs. Michael Kinsley fight he's referencing.

I was going to let this pass, but since Nick B is back in the game:

it says a lot that not one of the authors I read *regularly* have anything at all in the nominations

This is classic. "The external world doesn't agree with my own prejudices, so the external world must be wrong." I'm no great defender of the Nebula Awards; they've certainly given the award to works that I consider substandard. But I read those works before I render judgment; I don't dismiss the awards simply because they give them to authors I haven't heard of.

Try reality. You might like it. Or, as I suspect the case may be, you may not. Nevertheless, it's a lot bigger than you are.

I was going to end on that snarky note, but I've thought better of it. Nick, I don't know what kind of science fiction you like, or who those mysterious authors you read but don't get nominated are, but here are some of the authors from that same 2000-2004 Nebula period that you might like: Jack McDevitt (hard sf), Linda Nagata (hard sf by a woman!), Jeffrey Ford (like Kafka but weirder), Michael Swanwick (writes all kinds), Geoff Landis (hard sf), Wil McCarthy (funny hard sf), Tim Powers (highly researched fantasy; _Declare_ is a fantasy spy thriller and is amazing), China Mieville (ultra-odd fantasy)... you know, I'm already tired of typing.

There are some amazing writers in that list. As I went through it, I also realized there are plenty of writers I haven't read myself. But you're seriously missing out if you just dismiss every one of those nominations merely because you haven't heard of them yet.

Nemo (if I may truncate your name):
Yes, he laid out that claim at one point in the discussion. However, before that, he actually wrote "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics..." Those are his own words. Now, of course you can make a case for that not being what he actually meant, given what he later said, but given his reframing and backpedaling when his statements are refuted (as when he tried to claim, after referring to KSR as female and being called on it, that he knew that all along and was making some subtle and brilliant point by it), I remain unconvinced. I am willing to be convinced, but am not at this time.

Damn, I was going to stay away, but there's still candy on the floor.

Nick B:

"Do you know ANYTHING at ALL about SF?"

Hmmm. Let's see:

Four science fiction novels sold? Check.

Upcoming book on the history of science fiction film, which includes a general overview of the entire genre? Check.

Research into the field going back several hundred years: Check.

Need to pathologically dismiss women's abilities to write Hard SF for unfathomable but asshattedly stupid reasons of my own: Oops. Guess I missed that one, Nick. You can have that one.

Now, since I do in fact know quite a bit about science fiction, both as a writer and a researcher, Nick, allow me to give you my informed, expert opinion on your position: You have your head so far up your ass that you can see your epiglottis from the other side.

For the further demolishment of your dumbass opinion, feel free to scroll upwards in the thread and see all the way "Women can't write hard SF because they don't have the science" has been smashed into bitty pieces by people who, by dint of also being SF writers, actually do know what they're talking about, which, alas for you, doesn't appear to be a condition you are very much burdened with.

Nemo Ignatus:

"But he is making a broader argument than a claim that women can't hack physics."

Well, and so what? The fact he's making a larger argument does not mean that "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics" is not invalid on its face and should not be noted as such -- and since this comment thread happens to be populated by science fiction writers and readers, it's not surprising they would focus on that particular, wrong statement. Writers don't get to choose what their readers focus upon, and in this case, focusing on this statement is not an irrational activity.

And it's also worth noting that because his women/physics/hard sf position is an invalid argument, his overall argument is also substantially weakened -- one of the pillars of his argument has been smashed, making the entire rhetorical edifice that much more shaky than it was. In all, not a good showing on Vox's part.

Of course this idea is nonsense. If Vox Dei actually thinks that science fiction is about physics, he's plain, flat wrong. The idea is manifestly absurd. Articles in physics journals are about physics. Science fiction, like all fiction, is about people. Specifically, it is about how people adapt themselves and their societies to technological change and advances in scientific knowledge. An understanding of the human condition and character, and an ability to think critically about history is far more important for this purpose than detailed understanding of physics at the technical level. The science should not conflict with what is known; it need do no more than that.

Hurrah for Dave Luckett and Lucy who bring up the point: is Hard SF all about the physics?

I mean, why physics? Why does physics have the perception of being the Hard Science? Does microbiology not count? Genetics? Botany? Geology? Chemistry? Granted, a lot of these sciences come down to physics in the end, particularly on the micro end of things. Would these all be socked away as Not Hard Enough?

I like very much the explanation that Hard SF is where the story is about the science, where the science has been brought to the forefront.

I'm not sure how to respond to Vox's supposition that women don't write physics because we can't hack the physics. (Responding is particularly hard because he keeps backpedalling on this statement, saying it was meant to reflect societal influences, etc. etc.) I have both memories in school of being encouraged to delve into sciences, and of being dissuaded as well--sometimes because of my sex, sometimes not. I was the only female on my high school's Academic Decathlon team (Theme: Microbiology! Take that, physics!) and one of three girls that tried out. I can't argue that I haven't seen instances of societal influence pulling women in other directions. But it seems to be a logical fallacy to ascribe 100 percent of that behaviour to "fear of physics" and societal influences.

This is a case of somebody trying to invalidate the creative endeavours of an entire group of individuals (in this case, women) by implying that A) their own creative endeavours (writing in general) are inferior B) that this is because they belong to that group (women--we just can't hack it!) and C) people in the group who don't fit the original statement are statistical aberrations and therefore don't count. I tried talking my way around the misogyny and I just couldn't do it, sorry. It's a lot of time and energy I've already expended on this....so adieu.

I really can't add much else to the arguments already presented here at this time. I've got to go slay some monsters and write some Hard SF to prove that I'm not brainwashed by society and/or functionally incapable of the thought processes required.

...

Note for Meester Vox: I am not a member of the SFWA (yet) and some people might call me embryonically liberal, which up until as recently as five years ago, would have made me flinch in horror, such epithets ringing hard in my Reagan-Republican-Utah-raised little ears. (As I've come to find out, these labels are useful only for the broadness of their inclusivity. Otherwise they are pretty much meaningless to me.) But, I hardly think that having you as a member would cause the SFWA to be tipping over into great moral abyss. I suppose the criteria I would want in a writing organisation is that its members actually be writers, and by some coincidence, that seems to be SFWA's criteria as well. Presupposing that people would bar you somehow from said organisation because of a difference of opinion says more about you, I think, than the organisation.

Hmm. Upon further reflection, I can see that Vox did hint in his original post that he knew KSR was in fact male. I withdraw that as an example of backpedaling.

Tracina,

Feel free to truncate my name, although I will state for the record that I do not have a submarine and I am not a captain.

Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics is what he said. And I think he did mean it. I think he's wrong, but very few people have been giving reasons why he is wrong. (I think he's wrong because the smaller number of women in physics doesn't say anything about the ability of women in general. It just says there's a small number of women in physics. The small number of female hard SF writers may correlate with the small percentage of women in the hard sciences, but correllation is not causation and there are certainly other factors to be looked at.)

He was clearly making a joke when he talked about KSR: the original post is here. I don't think he's been called on it at all: he was quite aware that KSR is male, and was making a joke out of it.

Tracina,

I got my post in before yours. Mea Culpa: I think we are now in agreement that he knew very well who KSR is and was not backpedaling.

Why physics, Stella? Because physics is as tidy a source of data as most people can arrange. Math by itself is disconnected from real world data and off building castles in the sky, and chemistry and biology and, good heavens, economics, they all have so many things affecting the data that it just can't be made pure and clean and shiny no matter how hard you scrub.

Reductionism. I really think that's what it is. Physics is the closest you can get to Platonist attitudes of math while still having any claim to make sense of an observable world.

You're right, Tracina -- he was making a joke about KSR. Vox, I apologize for missing that.

-l.

PiscusFische wrote:

"Presupposing that people would bar you somehow from said organisation because of a difference of opinion says more about you, I think, than the organisation."

Well, in Vox's defense, there were indeed some folks further up the comment stream who seemed to imply a politics check re: SFWA's Nebula juries would not be a bad thing, and in fact, it would, and very much so. Vox has got his publication credits, and that's all he needs, so he should quite obviously be able to participate in all SFWA activities.

To massacre Voltaire's sentiment, Vox may have indefensibly stupid opinions, but I for one would fight for the right for him to be an SFWA member with indefensibly stupid opinions. Lord knows he wouldn't be the first, or the last.

Four science fiction novels sold, John? Yet your web site claims only one "conventionally published", plus a sequel is on the way. Actually... I think print is dying anyhow, so congratulations on steering your way around the gatekeepers.

However, you do seem to be under the impression that repeatedly insisting that individuals have their heads inserted in bodily orifices is equivalent to making an argument. It isn't. Didn't they teach you the Socratic method while you were pursuing your philosophy degree?

Also, I'm curious to know if you plan to share your unique brand of intentional misinterpretation with Maureen Dowd, who today wrote "Arabs put their women in veils. We put ours in the stocks." Have you ever put a woman in the stocks? I didn't think so. Have at her, champ. You also might wish to correct Thomas Friedman, who today wrote of the European militaries: "They might be good for peacekeeping, but not for winning a war against a conventional foe." But what about a conventional war against the Bahamas, or Argentina? And we HAVE ABSOLUTE PROOF that Britain can defeat Argentina in a non-nuclear war. Go get him!

As I said before, every columnist makes use of hyperbole for rhetorical effect, every time out. The good ones, the bad ones, left and right.

With regards to the Fascists, Charles, I am referring to The Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle, written by Benito Mussolini in 1919. I translated it in a column last summer; no doubt Ms Dal Dan can point out plenty of errors should she so please.

He didn't need their votes once in power, Nemo. The 1924 election was an orchestrated sham and he claimed the dictatorship that year.

Vox Day: "I do find it more than a little ironic that the very people who entered the fray making personal attacks are such delicate flowers about enduring them in return. People disagree with me. Fine. People think it's appropriate to attack me, and not my ideas. Also fine. But it seems a little much for people to expect to be able to do so without taking any return fire."
~~~~~~~~

Hmmmm. Listen to another series of overwritten, not-on-topic responses or wax the cat?

Hear kitty, kitty....

I agree with John and others that Vox/ Beale has every right to be in SFWA.

Vox, let's try this again.

1. You first said women can't hack the physics.

2. When called on it, you said you didn't mean women _couldn't_ do the physics but that they chose not to.

3. I provided a definition demonstrating that "can't hack it" means someone is _unable_ to do something -- not that they choose not to.

4. You provided a similar definition and then seemed to think (from your "can't front me" comment) that you had disproved something I said, when in fact you were merely reinforcing my point, that you'd tried to rework your original statement without having to own your shift in position.

This is merely one example of why your reasoning is so flawed, it's impossible to resolve anything.

-l.

John Scalzi:

Why is his claim invalid on its face? I think it's invalid, but not on its face. (Does the smaller percentage of women in the hard sciences indicate that women in general can't hack the hard sciences? I don't think it's controversial to argue that there are less female hard SF writers because there are less women in the hard sciences (though correlation does not indicate causation), but his broader argument, that this is due to women in general being less capable at the hard sciences than men, is a different matter).

I also think that dismissing his claim on its face, without presenting reasons why his claim is wrong, is a big mistake. It leads to people who are told all their lives that claims like his are untrue but are incapable of giving reasons why it is untrue and who, when confronted by people who believe those claims are true, can't put up an intellectual defense of their viewpoint, and end up dropping back on logical fallacies.

Give the guy the debate he so clearly wants: what's the harm? If he is wrong, you'll be showing why he is wrong to a much broader audience. As it is, if someone comes into this fresh from their high school debate class, they're going to wonder if they could get away with just annoucing that they're right and the other team is wrong, and not providing any argument beyond that.

Heck, do it on his own blog.

There's no need to apologize, Laura. I have several of Mr. Robinson's very good novels, including the Mars series. And as John already pointed out, Piscus, I never said anything about people wishing to throw me out of SFWA or the Nebula Jury. The only statements were made by those who wished to do so or by those who disagreed with the notion of thought-policing the organization. Nor did I believe that anyone would even try to do so; this is a relatively civilized dustup by Forum standards.

My definition of hard SF is essentially that of the anthology I previously mentioned. It isn't just physics - it's mildly annoying that people insist on practically performing an exegesis on one throwaway line from a column on a broader, tangential subject - it's the use of the non-social sciences to provide the foundation of the story. I'd even be open to considering the inclusion of economics, although as I stated before, Mr. Stross is the only one I've encountered doing anything interesting with it and I'd just as soon that dear John Maynard stayed buried and forgotten.

I will say that if anyone manages to get in a tizzy about tomorrow's column on what appears to be the peaking of the US housing market, I'm going to have to seriously wonder about the sanity of the regulars here.

Vox wrote:

"Four science fiction novels sold, John? Yet your web site claims only one 'conventionally published', plus a sequel is on the way. Actually... I think print is dying anyhow, so congratulations on steering your way around the gatekeepers."

Yeah, I gotta update the site. What can I say. To be brief: Three books sold to Tor (Old Man's War, The Android's Dream, The Ghost Brigades) and one to Subterranean Press (Agent to the Stars).

"You do seem to be under the impression that repeatedly insisting that individuals have their heads inserted in bodily orifices is equivalent to making an argument."

No, I'm just pointing out the obvious, and there's no U of C training required for that. And for the record, I don't insist. Indeed, I wish you would pull your head out.

Also, suggesting that "you've got your head up your ass" is the whole of my argument rather conveniently elides the rather more formal dismantling of your argument upthread from here. But neither is this surprising, since in the main your primary display of rhetorical facility consists of various attempts at obfuscation. When one's point is unsupportable, the obvious tactic is to try to change the subject.

Nemo Ignatus:

"Why is his claim invalid on its face? I think it's invalid, but not on its face."

Well, to review the infamous statement: "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics." It's invalid on its face because, of course, women do write Hard SF (including at least a couple in this thread), which is enough to invalidate the statement. Further, since the physics involved in writing recognizably "hard" SF is not so esoteric as to be beyond the layman or laywoman (and here I speak from experience), neither is this supportable. And as also noted upthread, one can still write "hard" SF without the benefit of formal physics training simply by having a physicist check the writing for logical flaws.

All of this is evident without any real digging; the argument is invalid on its face, and Vox is left trying to suggest he was trying to employ sarcasm and irony, which doesn't really seem to be supported in the larger text of the column.

What is true is that Hard SF is largely a man's field, and it's perfectly legitimate to question why that is, and even to suggest that schooling and cultural environment play a role. If Vox had said something like "Women don't seem to write much hard SF -- could it be because so few have formal training in higher-end physics?" then the statement would be non-controversial and indeed a good starting point for conversation and would have dovetailed quite nicely into the larger point he was trying to make with his column -- and it would also appear to be closer to what he seems now to be saying he meant.

That he didn't suggests that he's a not very clear writer and/or needs an editor to help him better frame his thoughts, or that he feels the audience for his column will like it better if he makes hyperbolic, sexist and unsupportable statements. Which, if is the case, says quite a bit about who Vox sees as his home audience, in that rank and unsupportable sexism is merely a "throwaway line."

Nick B:

I have read many of the online book reviews of Vox Day's 100 favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy novels. Sometimes I agree with a comment of his. I have not said that he is evil, or stupid, or even that he has bad taste -- except in what he says that I find offensive. Elmer Fudd's accent seems not to play a role in this, except so far as Vox Day seems to live in a cartoon only vaguely resembling what I take to be the real world.

"If you don't like it, then DO something -- like encourage young women to stop with the Barbie "Math is hard" BS and actually learn the bloody stuff. Discourage any young girls you meet or know from expressing the ubiquitous "eeeewwww!!" response when the subject of math comes up."

I left the world of Aerospace, where I earned (correcting for inflation) over $120,000 per year plus benefits worth about a thirds of that. I took over a 70% pay cut, because of my perception of the urgent need to overcome a failed public school system, and actually teach people to cope with the real world, through Math and Phyics.

I have lit quite a few candles, rather than curse the darkness. Among the 3,000 or so students that I have taught are those from 2 years of Elementary Algebra and Intermediate Algebra that I taught as part-time Professor of Mathematics at Woodbury University. Most of these students were nonscience majors, mostly Animation, Architecture, Business, Design, Fashion Design, Graphic Arts, Interior Design, Fashion Marketing, and the like. Half of those students were young women. Some had failed algebra twice or even three times before. I was known for getting through to such students.

Nick B. and Vox Day are correct to cite the talking Barby Doll's line "Math is Hard." Another of Barbie's lines was "Let's go shopping." This is a corporate prejudice, sanctioned by bad parents and bad teachers. I applaud the conceptual artists who switched the chips between Barbie and G. I. Joe.

I overcame much of the result of that prejudice, in my classrooms. My students learned Math. They liked Math. Some came in saying that they hated Math, and/or couldn't do it. They left able to do it and -- in several cases each semester -- having been converted to Math being their favorite course.

I also taught 3 courses of Astronomy at Cypress College to roughly 100 students, half of them of the female persuasion. They were typically not Science majors. Some were biased against Math and Science -- although I did not see that bias as along gender lines.

Those young women who felt inadequate with Math and Science appeared to gain from my telling stories -- where appropriate in the curriculum -- about women who rose to the very peak of accomplishment in the Sciences, such as Carolyn Herschel, who wanted only to escape a dysfunctional parental regime and sing Opera, yet ended as Assistant Astronomer Royal. The female students had not heard such stories before, and some were moved by them. Once student determined to go forward and someday write a Ph.D. dissertation on why women scientists' biographies are not in the standard textbooks.

I feel that I've made a difference in many people's lives, usually for the better. Susan Estrich has nothing to do with this.

I have not been citing the many articles on women in Math and Science, which I have read in Physics Today, the bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, the New York Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and other sources. I have been writing in this thread based on personal experience.

How, pray tell, is Vox Day making the world a better place for specific individual human beings? Not angels, mind you. People.

Unless Angelology is a Hard Science.

As to economics, I Am Not An Economist -- except that I've published a number of refereed papers on Mathematical Economics, and written two MBA Dissertations, in both cases having the degree granted with Honors. There are some interesting studies on the economics of slavery -- taking into account differences in agricultural productivity in the American South versus New England, contrasting multicrop and monocrop, comparing different management structures, and factoring in the cost of insurance against slaves escaping. But the people who published these do not trumpet a conviction that slavery as such is A Good Thing. There are also many good studies of the economics of prostitution, but none that I've seen advocate girls becoming whores on the basis that women are lazy, and/or can't hack Physics.

Your definition of "Sci-fi" lacks historical veracity. Google the term in conjunction with "Forry Ackerman" to determine the facts.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan said: "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But not their own facts."

1. You first said women can't hack the physics.

Yes.

2. When called on it, you said you didn't mean women _couldn't_ do the physics but that they chose not to.

They can't because they earlier chose not to. Why do you think that I'm comparing the number of women in PolyGeo class to the number in CompSci? You cannot ignore the context of the column and expect to make sense. If I did to Maureen Dowd what you're trying to do to me, I could argue that she believes that the reduction in stature of famous women is required: "Maybe temperamental, power-mad divas always needed to be brought down a peg."

3. I provided a definition demonstrating that "can't hack it" means someone is _unable_ to do something -- not that they choose not to.

Yes, it also means to break into a computer. And to hit with an axe. So what? As should already be clear from the context, there are at least THREE groups of women to consider. Some are mentally incapable of handling physics, they just don't have the brainpower. Some are educationally incapable of handling physics because of the educational path they chose to take. A few have the ability and the education, but they are a statistically insignificant outlier and don't factor into the discussion.

Reading the column makes clear that it is the CHOICE of this second group which I am mocking, since it's precisely the choice that Estrich and her ilk have made. The conclusion that they deserve the contempt in which they were held confirms this; how could they deserve it if they were simply born incapable by virtue of their sex?

4. You provided a similar definition and then seemed to think (from your "can't front me" comment) that you had disproved something I said, when in fact you were merely reinforcing my point, that you'd tried to rework your original statement without having to own your shift in position.

The definition provided is similar, not identical. "Can't hack a second job" indicates precisely the sort of unwillingness I am describing in the column. I've never denied the hyperbole of the statement in the column, nor have I modified my position from my very first post here. If you believe I have modified my position, then surely you can explain how I have done so.

If the root problem is that you believe total precision of language is required in editorial commentary, do feel free to join John in taking Ms Dowd and Mr. Friedman to task.

Vox Day writes:

"If the root problem is that you believe total precision of language is required in editorial commentary, do feel free to join John in taking Ms Dowd and Mr. Friedman to task."

Your problem, Vox, is that Ms. Dowd and Mr. Friedman, irrespective of their politics, are rather more competent columnists than you, and it's rather more clear when they're using rhetorical devices for effect (one can also name right-leaning columnista who are also more competent than you with their rhetorical usage, if it will immunize one from claims of political bias).

Point is: If you have to spend this much time explaining to a group of intelligent readers and writers your vast palette of mad rhetorical skillz, chances are reasonably good you're not using those rhetorical skills with any sort of facility.

But then, as you confuse the comment "you have your head up your ass" as an argument, this isn't entirely surprising.

That one line may have been a throwaway for you, Vox, and I don't have much to say about Estrich, not having followed that conflict -- but your statement wasn't just a trivial sidebar as far as I'm concerned. Trust me, as a woman in the sciences, I've seen those kinds of statements over and over my whole life.

I'm a chemical engineer who was in the top of my class in math, who taught myself to program back before it was the thing everyone was doing, and you have no idea how many times I was told I couldn't be an engineer because I'm a woman and women aren't good at math.

I'm not saying I'm Nobel material, but I'm no slouch. And I love technology and science, and its promise to enrich people's lives. I enjoy being a part of that process and making a small contribution. I'm willing to fight my own battles and take my lumps when I'm not performing up to snuff. But I do expect to be given a level playing field to work on. When people presuppose who I am and what I'm capable of, and make decisions based not on my merits but on some mythical female template they try to squeeze me into, it pisses me off.

Yes, these are anecdotes, not statistics -- but just about every woman you talk to in the sciences will tell you similar stories. A strong strain of inhospitability toward women is present throughout the field.

I think there are a number of reasons for it -- and there are plenty of welcoming types in the field -- but the fact remains that a significant number of those in positions of authority don't think women can "hack it" and don't want women coming in, messing up their scene. And then people scratch their heads and wonder why women stay away from the sciences.

Fewer women than men may be at the top of that math/ science/ analytical curve -- I have some theories about why that is that have less to do with native ability and more to do with societal and genetic reproductive pressures -- but so what? Let those with the interest and the capability pursue their dreams.

Stereotyping isn't just harmful to the person who encounters it; it also harms the system, by reducing the number of qualified people making contributions, performing at their peak.

-l.

Laura J. Mixon:

"That one line may have been a throwaway for you, Vox..."

Let's not cede the idea that it's a "throwaway line," since in context it's clearly meant to support Vox's larger argument (go back and read the column). Vox is trying to reposition it as a "throwaway" mostly so he can feel free to suggest that this is another example of certain hysterical people (and if you know the Greek root of "hysteria" you'll know what I mean) getting worked up over some silly little line. It's not silly, and in the context of his larger column, it's not little, either.

I submit that while Vox may not be a particularly good writer, he did write what he intended to write, and his writhing around the point now, and his attempt to downgrade the rhetorical importance of the line, is simply an attempt to escape the consequences of his own actions.

Nemo:
No submarine? Damn. Another dream deferred.

You and I have a difference of opinion about what claim of Vox's is under discussion. You see it as his six-point broader claim re: Estrich et al; I see it as his assertion that women can't hack physics. I don't see the second as a straw man for the first, but as a separate (though related) point.

Nick B wrote:

His point, ma'am, is that there are few female SF authors of merit whatsoever. This clearly is going to reflect on the works themselves.

Dammit, I checked the weather channel today and it didn't say anything about it raining stupid fucks.

Sorry, I don't see too many women even knowing where to LOOK for the knowledge of how to determine such information, much less actually being able to do it without even a calculator.

Huh. Kalpana Chawla and Laurel Clark blew up in the last space shuttle disaster, but an ignorant asswit like yourself gets to keep hanging around with us on the material plane. Joy.

Urg.

*removes self from lurkville*

Hi guys and gals. I just came out to say this: Please don't mistake this guy's words and thoughts for that of the majority of Christians (and Christian writers). Judging by the other Christian writers I know (myself included), this is not the popular opinion and, frankly, I'm embarrassed.

I know a few of you, and I've seen enough of several others that I know you would not make this mistake, but for the rest... :)

I have this insane desire to appologize for Vox's words and actions, even though I know it won't do anything or make him behave.

*sigh*

*returns to lurkville*

To answer Stella's comment atout, 'Why Physics?'

Face it, in certain circles physics is 'sexy.' Not in the traditional Miss/Mr. Universe sense, but in an intellectual sense.

Point in case. Last year Brian Green, who has written books on string theory, was part of a debate I attended (about Dark Matter) at the New York Museum of Natural History. There were other, equally fascinating scientists there - of both genders. A scientist from Bell Labs who had invented and done experiments with something called 'gravitational lensing' was the man who convinced me that dark matter does exist. I'd done my homework and came as a skeptic, but he won me over with his replicable, demonstrable well-thought-out and flawlessly executed research. There was a line for autographs afterward and I made sure to get him to sign my program while thanking him for his valuable work.

Brian Green, on that same line, was mobbed. He might as well have been a rock star. His fans (no other word for it, sorry) all but drooled over the man. And what had he contributed to the debate? Not a hell of a lot, but he was talking about alternate universes and mind-blowing possibilities. The sorts of things science fiction writers love to showcase in their plots. The sort of things that make your poor, tired brain stretch, snap and reshape itself into new patterns.

That sort of mental high, that societally-correct altered consciousness is, I think, why many people like read (and write) hard science fiction. It makes their mental universe expand. It makes their spirits soar. Theoretical physics is a frontier of the mind, promising horrors and magic, new worlds and new lives. The real-life scientists that can communicate these wonders to us (Einstein, Feynman, Green) can become the pop icons of the scientific world. At least, I'm fascinated with all of it, and choose the panels I go to at conventions accordingly. I've noticed editors like Stanley Schmidt of Analog and hard science fiction writers showing up at the same panels, and I've watched them mirror my delight at any new concepts expounded there.

And really, science can be much like magic past a certain point. Manipulating new worlds with the theories of theoretical physics is as close as most rational people get to practicing wizardry.

A few have the ability and the education, but they are a statistically insignificant outlier and don't factor into the discussion.

Wow.

This is just kind of astounding.

By this one little statement, not only does he blithely declare all counterexamples unimportant and irrelevant (!), he also manages to belittle the abilities and achievements of the people who constitute those counterexamples, thus perpetuating the kind of social barrier those women have had to overcome in the course of getting to where they are today.

All in one little sentence. Amazing.

VD, you're a part of the problem, not the solution.

Jodi Meadows:

"Please don't mistake this guy's words and thoughts for that of the majority of Christians (and Christian writers). Judging by the other Christian writers I know (myself included), this is not the popular opinion and, frankly, I'm embarrassed."

No worries, Jodi. I think everyone's aware Vox speaks for himself and not for the general body of Christ.

This has been a most instructive thread.

I've learned that my ability to vote is a sign of fascism, that all the female physicists I know do not exist (indeed, I myself do not exist, if you count biology as a hard science), that Star Trek is passable SF, that there is somehow a distinction between SF and sci-fi, and that Ann Coulter writes serious books.

All this new knowledge makes me giddy!

And while I'm at it -- since I'm an out-of-the-closet social scientist in this debate about hard sciences -- I'd like to speak up in defense of Women's Studies and the other social sciences VD has slammed along his way.

I will freely admit, to begin with, that it is possible to coast through those fields without thinking very much, at least on an undergraduate level. I wish that weren't true, but it has a lot to do with the way college is currently viewed and organized in our society, which is a whole separate debate.

But the social sciences do not "intellectually cauterize" their students. When approached as something other than a ticket to a diploma the student doesn't really care about to begin with (a problem that has nothing to do with math), they teach critical thinking about human behavior and the societal forces that shape it -- which is far from easy, non-rigorous, onanistic, or any of the other adjectives VD has attached to them. And on a practical level, our society -- and I mean outside of academia, not just within -- has more need for people with those skills than it does for theoretical physicists.

There's a subtext running through Vox/Nick's arguments that has just made its way to consciousness for me: That feminism has encouraged women to study "soft" majors--like Women's Studies--and thereby has hurt the cause of women in science.

Ah. Because it's so obviously true that feminism 1) encourages the study of "soft" majors, and 2) therefore without feminism, there would be more women in "hard" majors. To which I will point out that prior to the advent of feminism as a force to be reckoned with, it was both legal and common to refuse to allow women to take classes in "hard" sciences--and that without the education both men and women received in the "soft" sciences that enabled them to recognize forms of sexual discrimination, that situation was unlikely to change.

"VD, you're a part of the problem, not the solution."

Mm-hmmm. There's more women in the notorious Women Studies program at the University of Minnesota than there have ever been women writing hard SF since Jules Verne first put pen to paper, but I'm part of the problem. Come to think of it, there may be more PROFESSORS in that one women's program than there have ever been female hard SF writers. Did anyone ever give me the number I requested?

Let's see, that U of M program has nine core professors, plus another 60 affiliates. And, of course, not a single scientist in the bunch, not even an economist.

Yeah, it's definitely GOT to be those darn perpetuating stereotypes. But this has been great, thanks, there's definitely column fodder here. Do let me know when someone gets an official hard SF-writing head count together.

PiscusFische wrote:

"Presupposing that people would bar you somehow from said organisation because of a difference of opinion says more about you, I think, than the organisation."

Scalzi replied: Well, in Vox's defense, there were indeed some folks further up the comment stream who seemed to imply a politics check re: SFWA's Nebula juries would not be a bad thing, and in fact, it would, and very much so. Vox has got his publication credits, and that's all he needs, so he should quite obviously be able to participate in all SFWA activities.

To massacre Voltaire's sentiment, Vox may have indefensibly stupid opinions, but I for one would fight for the right for him to be an SFWA member with indefensibly stupid opinions. Lord knows he wouldn't be the first, or the last.

...

I retract that particular statement then.

VD says:

"Do let me know when someone gets an official hard SF-writing head count together."

Well, and once again, Vox: You need to prove your thesis first, since it's your statement that got the ball rolling. Demanding supporting arguments of others when you can't or won't do so yourself is pretty lame.

Poor, deluded Vox. He's under the impression he's come out ahead.

Vox: There's more women in the notorious Women Studies program at the University of Minnesota than there have ever been women writing hard SF since Jules Verne first put pen to paper...

Which has what to do with anything? I may as well say, "There are more men in the Rural Health program of West Virginia University than there have ever been men writing hard SF since Jules Verne first put pen to paper."

After all, there are plenty of men who don't write hard SF either--but you're not arguing that it's because men can't hack the physics.

"Which has what to do with anything?"

Silly Tracina. Expecting a logical argument from Vox. If he couldn't try to change the subject, he wouldn't be able to argue at all.

Mm-hmmm. There's more women in the notorious Women Studies program at the University of Minnesota than there have ever been women writing hard SF since Jules Verne first put pen to paper, but I'm part of the problem. Come to think of it, there may be more PROFESSORS in that one women's program than there have ever been female hard SF writers. Did anyone ever give me the number I requested?

I'm sorry, but I fail to see how women participating in women's studies precludes their participation in the writing of hard SF. That's a false alternative: you seem to be stating that because this program exists and attracts women at a greater degree than the writing of hard SF, that it is detrimental to the aggregate forces of womyn power. Is that what you are trying to say here? Because that's what I am getting from that statement.

A silly digression: (Why isn't VD asking the hardball question of why men aren't writing Harlequin romance? Could something be wrong with their emotional receptors? Could they be unable to make the tender connections that presage successful romantic relationships?)

PiscusFische: He did actually mention something like that upthread.

I'd be surprised if men didn't write genre romance fiction, personally, although for marketing reasons they probably have female pseudonyms.

But if not many men are not writing genre romance fiction, it's not because of their sex. The most successful romance novel of the last couple of decades was Bridges of Madison County, written by a man; author Nicholas Sparks also writes romances in a best-selling fashion, to name but two.

Basically, it would be a position no more tenable than "women can't write hard SF because they can't hack the physics."

Scalzi: Must've missed that one somehow. :) I jokingly brought it up because I think the logic is just as silly as his original statement about women and physics.

calling patrick:

you started this! help!

sdn, shaking head

Actually, it was Vox who started it.

It's worth noting Vox is now back over on his site, repeating the same silly lines that got his ass handed to him here to a rather more congenial crowd. It's nice to have sycophants.

Another lurker coming into the light.

I've read this thread for the last two days. At first it left me speechless. But I think I found a few words about Vox/Beale.

As a woman who writes mostly fantasy, and who studied the 'soft' science of psychology, the first words that popped to mind were 'psychos', 'delusions of grandur', 'desperate need for attention', 'deeply narcissistic' and 'misogynist'. Those are the polite words.

If he really believes the things he says-- there are no words to describe how over the edge of reality he is.

An opinion and a suggestion. Debating with a man who posts pictures of himself holding a flaming sword and spews hate as if it is truth, is only feeding his need to be the center of attention.

I think that is his real motivation in writing his warped views of the world, to gain attention. The views he expresses are designed to push buttons. He has certainly managed to get the attention he sought from the very people he hates.

By all means, expose his ideas to the world and let people see exactly how vile and hateful they are. Point and laugh even, but don't feed his need for attention. Alas, every person who treats him seriously and as someone capable of engaging in a real debate is giving him the validation he seeks.

Just the opinion of a lowly, female fantasy writer, who decided to take the easy way out and study the human mind instead of quarks.

I think that is his real motivation in writing his warped views of the world, to gain attention.

Very much agreed.

Nemo: "I do not agree with Vox often, but I've enjoyed reading his blog, and I wish more people would take the tack he takes, that political disagreement does not mean that those with different beliefs should not be your friends."

I totally agree with you about the ideals of friendly political disagreement. But I just can't see Vox Day as a shining example thereof. I mean it's not his voicing of unpopular opinions, and it's not even his humorously deficient rhetorical capability. It's that he's acting like an asshole.

Now, he might well have valid reasons for his behavior that would be obvious to one who knows him, but I'm afraid his behavior disinclines me to know him.

Funny things about the Internet: People who make clumsy assertions and then expect others to produce the facts that would disprove said assertions.

John Scalzi: I'd be surprised if men didn't write genre romance fiction, personally, although for marketing reasons they probably have female pseudonyms.

You are correct--men do write genre romance, and they use female pseudonyms. The authors' true names are usually listed in the copyright notices.

Silly Tracina. Expecting a logical argument from Vox.

Oh, no, not at all. I just wanted to see if it was true that my uterus would shrivel up if I overheated that brain thingie of mine by thinking hard.

Jaime: "...who decided to take the easy way out and study the human mind instead of quarks."

Whoo, that one nearly killed my keyboard. Good one!

"Do let me know when someone gets an official hard SF-writing head count together."

How about just a head-count of the women (both scientists and laypeople) writing 'hard' SF who have poked their heads up in this comment thread?

I notice Mr. Day seems disinclined to so much as acknowledge our existence. Apparently, looking through the girls when they raise their hands isn't limited to the classroom.

(full disclaimer: I also write fantasy, 'soft' SF, genre mystery, YA, lit-fic, and Lovecraftian category romance. So there.)

Tracina: Oh, no, not at all. I just wanted to see if it was true that my uterus would shrivel up if I overheated that brain thingie of mine by thinking hard.

Damn, I wish that worked. I could have saved a fortune on birth control.

Blarg. I kept forgetting to comment on this:

..."or stick to fantasy where they can make things up without getting hammered by critics holding triple Ph.D.s in molecular engineering, astrophysics and Chaucer."

Uh huh. For several years, I attended the Kalamazoo, MI, Medieval Congress. (I've heard claims that it's the biggest gathering of medivalists in the world. I don't have the figures to prove or disprove that, but it is a fact that if a tornado hit Kalamazoo during Congress week, the world would lose the vast majority of its medieval scholars.) Each year, there was at least one panel of medieval mystery writers, and there were often panels on contemporary medieval-setting fantasy novels, too. You'd better believe that writers whose research was sloppy got hammered--and unless you've seen something similar in action, you wouldn't believe the level of nitpicky detail in all the different fields involved these critics went into. So don't try to convince me that it's easier to get away with stuff in fantasy, eh? I know better.

An opinion and a suggestion. Debating with a man who posts pictures of himself holding a flaming sword and spews hate as if it is truth, is only feeding his need to be the center of attention. I think that is his real motivation in writing his warped views of the world, to gain attention. The views he expresses are designed to push buttons. He has certainly managed to get the attention he sought from the very people he hates.

And you wonder why people scoff at the pseudo-science of psychology. Why don't you try simply asking a few of the SFWAns who know me? Ask Rosenberg or Bethke how accurate your analysis is. The number of provably false statements about me on this site alone now outnumbers the one statement to which people have taken exception about fifteen-to-one.

I've never posted a picture of myself with a flaming sword - that was a Star Tribune photo shoot - and I certainly don't write op/ed columns with the intention of attracting attention from insecure female science fiction writers and the men who are dominated by them. I don't hate any of you, but some of you are certainly good for a laugh.

Again, I ask the very simple question that no one has yet seen fit to answer. How many female writers of hard SF exist? How many hard SF novels were published in 2004 by women? Locus says there were 2,158 SF-related books published in 2001. Nine or so names have been bandied about thus far, some very questionable. That's less than half of one percent or as those of us in the normal world might reasonably say, none.

Semi-related: In Friday's WashPost Gossip column, Rush Limbaugh is quoted as saying "Women still live longer than men because their lives are easier."

Again, I ask the very simple question that no one has yet seen fit to answer. How many female writers of hard SF exist?

What part of this don't you understand? More than zero, and with that foundation destroyed, so goes the rest of your argument. You also infer false causality. No one argues that few women write hard sf. But to claim that, somehow, feminism is responsible for that is bizarre, and you certainly have said nothing to support it.

Let me ask you a different question: how many women wrote hard sf before the feminist movement? By your logic, half of golden age hard sf should have been written by women. (I'd grant Frankenstein, btw, as hard sf, by the standards of the time. But of course Mary Shelley was a feminist, so you probably don't want to bring her up.)

Can't stay away, can you, Vox?

Your question of how many women do write Hard SF is logically irrelevant to your assertion that they can't write Hard SF because they can't hack the physics. As has been pointed out to you time and again, women certainly are capable of writing hard SF regardless of their personal expertise in high end physics, and do, thereby disproving your assertion. Indeed, the existence of one hard SF-writing female is enough to disprove your assertion, and as had been noted by Elizabeth Bear among others, there are more than that in this thread alone. Likewise, your attempt to assert that 9 = 0 in the "normal" world is so laughably stupid that we'll spend no more time on it here.

You are incapable of proving your assertion factually, and must therefore appear to want to "prove"it by backing into it -- i.e., "the fact that so few women write hard sf proves that they can't (as a general class)." Unfortunately for you, the fact there are relatively few women writing hard sf does not and can not prove that they can't write hard SF, merely that they don't. As to why they don't, well, who can say? Why do so many men not write hard SF?

The reason no one sees fit to answer your question, Vox, is that it's utterly, completely and totally irrelevant, and had you any ability to argue logically you would understand this to be so. Sadly, you do not, and all you can do is to attempt to muddy the rhetorical waters in an attempt to draw attention away from the failures of your own argument.

You just can't or won't grasp the concept that you've been outthought and therefore wail again and again for people to play your game by your rules. Well, Vox, your rules are stupid, they're illogical, and it makes no sense to play them that way. You have your own Website for that; go back there if you want to control the game.

Bsd n th bv srs f cmmnts, fnd myslf mzd t th hrd mntlty f mst cmmntrs n ths thrd. Spkng s smn wh hs fllwd th cntnt f Vx's blg nd clmns fr lng tm, cn hnstly sy ths s n f th mst rctnry dscssns 'v vr rd. Flks, yr gnrnc f Vx's wrldvw bcms clrly mr mnfst, vry tm y pst cmmnt. Cngrtltns.

fnd t rnc tht th Lft--whch 'm sr s rprsntd by sld prtn f ths thrd's cmmntrs--prds tslf s bng th "tlrnt" nd f th pltcl spctrm; yt y fnd n vxtn n dvng fr th jglr vr sntnc r tw, ftr dmrbly dmnstrtng yr drth f knwldg f th mn's ctl blfs.

ftr rgrdng sch tctcs, "nmprssd" s th ncst wrd cn cnjr n dscrbng th lt f y.

Already addressed that, Alex. The statement is well within the bounds of rhetorical hyperbole in political commentary. Go bug Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman, among virtually every other commentator, if you disagree. In fact, my statement is far more accurate than Friedman's. He wrote that Europe's militaries couldn't win a war against a conventional foe. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, they would probably lose to Russia, the USA, China, Taiwan (maybe), Turkey, Israel and Egypt. That leaves around 120 countries that they would defeat in a conventional war.

Are you getting on Friedman? No. Can you produce 120 female writers of hard SF? No. So, what's the difference? Friedman isn't hurting your precious sensibilities and I am.

I'll just write John's bit for him here to save him the trouble:

YOUR HEAD IS UP YOUR ASS! YOU ARE SO GETTING SPANKED! I'M GETTING PUBLISHED AGAIN SOON SO THE QUOTE YOU TOOK OFF MY OWN WEB SITE IS WRONG OR AT LEAST IT WILL BE IN THE NEAR FUTURE! CRANIAL-RECTAL! FRIEDMAN IS BETTER THAN YOU SO THE SAME LOGIC DOESN'T APPLY. I LIKE CHEESE! HEAD! ASS!

You know, Jaime, I don't buy into that whole psychosexual thing, but it does strike me that Mr. Scalzi appears to have a certain fixation with the posterior.

Wes drives by to say:

"I find it ironic that the Left--which I'm sure is represented by a solid portion of this thread's commenters--prides itself as being the 'tolerant' end of the political spectrum; yet you find no vexation in diving for the jugular over a sentence or two, after admirably demonstrating your dearth of knowledge of the man's actual beliefs."

Incorrect assumptions in the following paragraph:

1. That every one here is "left."
2. That 'tolerance' requires rolling over for stupidity.
3. That one must factor in someone's total set of beliefs in order to disprove a factually demonstrably false statement that have written.

We've gone over this before, Wes. Either Vox meant what he wrote, in which case he deserves his thumping on the grounds he's a sexist pig. Or he didn't mean what he wrote, in which case he deserves a thumping on the grounds he's an unfathomably poor writer. Either way he deserves a thumping, and a thumping is what he's getting.

Vox:

To restate, yet again:

1. In context, your statement is clearly not hyperbolic; indeed, it's a supporting strut of your larger argument. Attempting to redefine it now only accentuates the weakness of the argument.

2. Citing other columnists' use of hyperbole does not mean a) that your statement was hyperbole; b) that you are competent to use hyperbole.

3. None of the above renders your demand for the names of female hard SF writers at all logically relevant -- and indeed, if, as you claim, your comment was hyperbole, why are you fishing for evidence to confirm your own hyperbolic statement? Whoops, tripped up yet again by your own lack of logic.

4. Make fun of me all you want, but the fact remains your argument is weak and stupid. Attempting to make fun of the people who point out you have no argument worth considering does not invalidate the fact that your arguments are not worth considering.

Now, run back to your comment monkeys and declare victory, Vox. I'm sure they'll pat down your fur for you.

Good lord, I can't believe I've spent my weekend here. I am leaving now. Someone else feel free to finish this off.

1. It's a supporting strut, but an unnecessary one, being more illustrative than anything else. You could take that paragraph and the following one out and the argument would hold together fine. I'm not redefining, I've been attempting to clarify. You're still trying to argue that I didn't know about writers I obviously did know about. How do you explain that dichotomy? Do you seriously think I'm that stupid?

2. How many examples do you need? I said everyone does it. I found it immediately in the only two columns I read today. Are you implying there's a need for hyperbole licenses, or perhaps just a list of hyperbolically approved subjects?

3. No, I'm mostly curious about the accuracy of my assumptions. My initial guess would have been three women-written hard SF novels published per year. With a more flexible definition, maybe five. What would you say?

4. Actually, John, you've done an excellent job of that yourself with statements like "the fact remains your arguments are weak and stupid.... not worth considering." Well, if it's a fact, I guess that wraps it all up nicely.

As for running off and declaring victory, you're confusing me with Michelle Malkin. I leave that for others to decide. But I'll tell the comment monkeys you said "hi".

Jodi--

Welcome.

Fear not, we know that Vox Day, or whatever his name is, does not speak for Christians or Christianity. Did I think Christianity needed a spokesperson, I'd sooner ask our host or our moderator to take on that position. Being sane people, and aware that Pride is dangerous, they would probably decline: but they are both Christian, and both articulate, and would thus be more plausible in that role than VD, who appears to be neither.

Mr. Sclz:

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>r h ddn't mn wht h wrt, n whch cs h dsrvs thmpng n th grnds h's n nfthmbly pr wrtr.

nd wht f th ppl wh rd hs wrds, prsd thm n th grtr cntxt f hs thr wrtngs, nd ndrstd whr h ws cmng frm, wtht dgnrtng nt nm-cllng nd prsnl ttcks? Tht y, prsnlly, ddn't "gt" hs rhtrcl dvcs dsn't mk hm lsy wrtr, ncssrly. t smply cld b tht y r nfmlr wth hs styl f wrtng nd mkng pnts. Bt, f crs, y dscnt ths s pssblty. H's jst "bd wrtr." Tht's s mch sr.

>nd ndd, f, s y clm, yr cmmnt ws hyprbl, why r y fshng fr vdnc t cnfrm yr wn hyprblc sttmnt?

H md ths sggstn s mns fr y--nd thrs--t dsprv hs ssrtns, f thy wr wrng. Ths fr, n n hs tkn p th chllng.

Don't leave yet Scalzi! I just got here! Come on let's have some more fun!

How about we play a game... You name a female SF writer... and then I'll explain why they suck.

Can we please start with Ms. Bear? P L E A S E?

Thanks, Vicki. :)

but they are both Christian,

Did not know this.

and both articulate,

Did know this. :D

(You really do learn something new every day!)

By th wy, ds tw lng cmmnts, hr, stll qlfy s "drv-by?"

Vox: How many hard SF novels were published in 2004 by women? Locus says there were 2,158 SF-related books published in 2001. Nine or so names have been bandied about thus far, some very questionable. That's less than half of one percent or as those of us in the normal world might reasonably say, none.

This assumes that all of those 2,158 books were hard SF. It is quite safe to say that they were not--even if you count all those media tie-ins as hard SF.

Okay, here's what I regard as the Vox's claim (and unlike John and Trancine, I do think he made this claim, hyperbolic as it was: his style is often hyperbolic, so I guess I'm just used to it)

There are few female hard SF writers, because there are few women in the hard sciences (physics in particular), because women are predispositioned against those sciences, preferring non-rigorous fields.

I think the first two parts are uncontroversial: there are few female hard SF writers, and there are few women in the hard sciences. (I'll believe that Vox means physics, chemistry, mathematics and engineering.)

It is the reason why that I think is open to debate.

There are many possible reasons.

Vox's reason, that women are predispositioned against the hard sciences, presumably due to genetic differences between men and women (Vox, correct me if I am wrong). I think it's not impossible that this is the case, though I think there's very little evidence to date. We're still in the infancy of the sciences that could provide us with an answer to that, and it's also possible that women have a predisposition but it's not actually that great. It's also possible that women have no predisposition whatsoever, but men do.

The idea that might be due to societal discouragement of women form getting into the hard sciences (I consider this weak, because two old-boy enclaves of the past, law and medicine, have, since we as a society began allowing women to enter those fields en masse, gotten ratios of male to female that are much less skewed than those in the hard sciences.)

Then there is another theory, which I subscribe to: women are picking other, more lucrative fields than the hard sciences. This is due to rational calculation. If you major in the hard sciences, you'll come out of school with a lot of debt and your earnings, over your total career, are less than in other fields like law. Against this is the fact that women are in medicine in a ratio much less skewed than that of physics, math or chemistry, and I would consider medicine very much about hard sciences.

I don't think we have enough information to really say which of these are correct. So I don't think Vox should just be dismissed: he might be right. I don't think he is, but we really don't have enough information to put forward much beyond speculation.

There are some other things he's stated that I think he's dead wrong on (the idea that studying a non-rigorous field ruins your mind irrepairably, for instance), but that's another series of arguments and I am tired of this one, as I think it long ago reached the point where any chance for productive debate vanished.

"This assumes that all of those 2,158 books were hard SF. It is quite safe to say that they were not--even if you count all those media tie-ins as hard SF."

You have reading comprehension, or logic problems... or perhaps both.

The statement assumes nothing. It's not a question of a percentage of hard SF. Its what percentage of total women sf, actually write real SF, and not romance in space.

Do try harder.

Wes: By the way, does two long comments, here, still qualify as "drive-by?"

Well, that remains to be seen. In general, people who drop onto a board out of the blue and write a "you guys" post (as in, "Wow, you guys are so [whatever, usually negative]") are still drive-bys even if they post more than once. It's the quality of the action, not the duration.

"the idea that studying a non-rigorous field ruins your mind irrepairably, for instance"

Having read Vox's columns and blog for well.. ever...

I can see where you'd get that idea. You'd be wrong though. As he really professes the best way to ruin a mind is subjecting it to Government Schooling...

I've never seen Vox make the case that exposure to soft study ruins the mind.

And for the record... I'm a drive-by. I would stay longer... but well...

It's kinda boring.

Nate:
Vox said: How many female writers of hard SF exist? How many hard SF novels were published in 2004 by women? Locus says there were 2,158 SF-related books published in 2001. Nine or so names have been bandied about thus far, some very questionable. That's less than half of one percent or as those of us in the normal world might reasonably say, none.

In other words, he is saying that 9 represents one half of one percent of 2,158.

Those 9 names were supposedly the number of women who write hard SF.

2,158 is the number of "SF-related" books published in 2001, according to Locus. Not, note, hard SF books, but SF-related.

His calculations assume that all 2,158 books were hard SF, and, incidentally, that each of the 9 women wrote no more than one book.

As for Vox's assertion that there are very few women writing hard science fiction...

Don't read very well, do you?

He made this suggestion as a means for you--and others--to disprove his assertions, if they were wrong. Thus far, no one has taken up the challenge.

So he makes the assertion and the burden falls on others to disprove it?

Wrong.

*g* Nate, the issue is not whether or not I suck, but whether or not I, and S. Evans, and Leah Bobet, and Marissa K. Lingen, and others who have not spoken up in this thread *do* write hard SF.

It's the opinion, in the very least, of Peter Watts and David Brin that I do. I figure they're qualified to judge. Therefore, I'm willing to identify myself as a female hard science fiction writer, although if forced to categorize myself, I'd say I owe far more to the New Wave.

The literary skills of the writers under discussion are not at issue. And I would say that Mr. Beale is fortunate that they are not.

But if you want to embarrass yourself providing a little free advertising for me, I'm always amused to watch my Amazon rank improve. And I'm really very, very much not scared of you.

>t's th qlty f th ctn, nt th drtn.

h, s. Bt 'll bt tht f 'd drppd n "t f th bl," mkng dltry cmmnts bt th cmmntrs, n n wld'v spkn f "drv-bys."

>Dn't rd vry wll, d y?

Jst fn, thnks.

>S h mks th ssrtn nd th brdn flls n thrs t dsprv t?

Wrng.

Np. Tht's nt wht ws syng. Y mght wnt t rvlt yr wn rdng cmprhnsn sklls. ws rspndng t nthr cmmntr's rmrks, n whch h ccsd Vx f fshng fr vdnc t ft hs thry. n rlty, Vx ws chllngng hs >d hmnm ttckrs t prv hm wrng, snc h'd lrdy md cs fr hs hypthss. N n dd.

"John Scalzi, author of precisely one "conventionally published novel..."

More accurately, author of four novels, of which one is out on the market and the other three awaiting their release dates (i.e., sold to publisher Tor and Subterranean Press). Also author of five non-fiction books.

But isn't that just like Vox *not* to get his facts straight.

Oh, wait: You *meant* to get your facts wrong as a rhetorical device, didn't you.

No wonder you got so roundly spanked over at Electrolite.

Bye, now.
John Scalzi

Yeah, sure... I haven't read the comments above since my last post, but you weren't spanking him then and I doubt if you are now... You people are rabbits at a knife fight, I suspect you haven't addressed for a moment, to refute in the least, the points either of us have raised. Mindless whining and naysaying isn't winning. On the internet, you can't shout your opponents down with Deaniac outrage.

I am especially sure of the above since a "writer" of your "talent" apparently doesn't even know the definition of "published", to wit:
pub·lish [snip]
v. pub·lished, pub·lish·ing, pub·lish·es
v. tr. 1. To prepare and issue (printed material) for public distribution or sale.
------2. To bring to the public attention; announce. See Synonyms at announce.
v. intr. 1. To issue a publication.
--------2. To be the writer or author of published works or a work.

Being sold to a publisher is not being PUBLISHED. You are 'author of precisely one "conventionally published novel"...' -- no more, no less.

Until someone actually risks the money on printing and distributing it, it's possible it never happens. As a matter of fact, I believe that happens more than a small percentage of the time. I could be wrong. I *know* it happens with Hollywood scripts a lot, I haven't looked into publication statistics. Regardless of how often it happens, you are exactly as Vox/Beale described.

Let me go through this again, for Nate, who might not understand the significance of what I was saying.

Vox divided 9 (the number of women he says were put forward as hard SF writers) by 2,158 (the number of SF-related books published) and came out with less than one half of one percent, which he dismisses as so small a percentage as to be nonexistant, thereby rendering the number of women who write hard SF nonexistant.

However, to get what percentage of hard SF is written by women, he would have to have divided the number of hard SF books written by women (a number which may or may not be 9, depending on the number of women who wrote hard SF and how many books they wrote) by the number of hard SF books published (which is certainly not 2,158, since that is the total number of SF-related books published that year and not all of them were hard SF). Got it now, sweetie? See, math isn't all that hard. You just have to concentrate.

This has made for a most interesting read. I'm entering the discussion pretty late and I'm sure many have given up on it by now, but I did find a couple things to be worth commenting on.

First off, I did follow Vox Day's entreaties to go read his column, so cleverly titled "Why Women Can't Think". And I was struck by the fact that no one had addressed the section where he quotes his earlier column from 2003: "the feminist vanguard has embraced an anti-intellectual dogmatism that imprisons the current generation of young women in the academic convent of Women's Studies, robbing them of both foundational knowledge and the capacity for rational linear thought, thus ensuring that this generation, like its foremothers, will also fail to accomplish anything worthy of historical regard."

Or, to state bluntly the insinuation that is untrue: the generation of women whose daughters are currently in school have not accomplished anything worthy of historical regard.

Now, me, I graduated with a bachelor's degree in History. I also have a master's degree in Engineering, it's true, and am perfectly capable of hacking the physics necessary to write hard SF, both through ability and by education. But it's clear that the main issue here is an inability not in the hard sciences, but in a soft one. Namely, History.

Well, John has also demonstrated the author in question shows a significant lack in logical skills, and I think these are related.

Most if not all of historical academia would disagree with the suggestion I quote above. And in fact, when Vox tells us what women SF writers he respects, he himself is disagreeing with his own proposition. Since we can presume he considers writing something worthwhile that gets published and is influential to be an accomplishment worthy of historical regard.

And from this I can actually conclude three things. One, which people have spent plenty of time on, is that Vox is a stupidhead and a sexist. The second is that he believes it is fine to assert most anything in the process of trying to make a point, with no need to be consistent. He thinks it is a valid rhetorical trick that we simply don't understand. And this leads to my third conclusion, which is that Vox is less troubled than the rest of us by the cognitive dissonance of carrying contradictory beliefs in his head.

Unfortunately the practice of carrying contradictory beliefs in one's head without feeling a need to resolve them is on the upswing in America.

This is actually a practice that is core to many instances of prejudice - that one can believe that Joe here is smart and capable of running the whole estate and can be trusted to do so, for example, while also believing that blacks are an inferior, lazy and immoral race. Vox can say, to himself and to us, "Look, I have respect for these women over here" without re-examining or questioning his underlying belief that most women are irrational, insufficiently educated to make intelligent decisions in directing government, and contribute little of worth to society. We can come up with counter-examples until the cows come home and he will happily agree with us that those examples exist without seeing the need to discard his prejudices, or to temper the reflection of those prejudices in his writing.

Wes: But I'll bet that if I'd dropped in "out of the blue," making adulatory comments about the commenters, no one would've spoken of "drive-bys.

Here, they might very well have done so. A drive-by is a drive-by. The majority are negative, but not all.

Vox is less troubled than the rest of us by the cognitive dissonance of carrying contradictory beliefs in his head.

Such as considering himself a Christian, and proudly taking pleasure in causing pain to others.

Nate B: You might--just might--wish to rethink your comments re:publishing and what Scalzi or the others on this thread know about it in light of the fact that our host is a senior editor at Tor, that book publishing does not work the way Hollywood does, and that many of the people here are authors.

A sidenote: I must observe that this statement of Mr. VD's from early on in the slugfest:

Daddy doesn't own the Pioneer Press, the Boston Globe, the Atlanta Journal/Constitution or any of the fourteen other papers my column has appeared in regularly, you know.

is, while accurate in one sense, completely misleading in another. The last time Vox Day appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (my hometown newspaper) was about four years ago, back at the end of 2000. It appeared there regularly for about two years, and hasn't been back since.

Furthermore, it was not a column on politics, or science, or even books. Nope. It was on video games, specifically reviewing titles for PlayStation, XBox, and the like. That seems to be what Vox Day wrote about back when he actually appeared in newspapers, as far as I can tell (and which the almighty LexisNexis confirms for me).

I realize this has little to do with this particular flamewar. I simply find it amusing.

VD said: "Again, I ask the very simple question that no one has yet seen fit to answer. How many female writers of hard SF exist? How many hard SF novels were published in 2004 by women?"

How many male writers of hard SF exist? How many hard SF novels that are written get published? How long is a piece of string?

It is poor scientific practice to automatically assume a causal relationship between two observations. Why not argue that zillions of women write hard SF, but all those horrible, piggy, misogynistic publishers keep refusing to publish their work?

There are women with doctoral degrees in the hard sciences. There are women with PhDs who write hard SF. There are women without PhDs who write hard SF. There are women with PhDs in hard sciences who write fantasy (or other genres). There are women whose hard SF novels get published. These are all facts.

The majority of published hard SF novels were not written by women. That is a fact, too. It may be interesting to speculate the reason(s) for this; however, I am not aware of any definitive proof that it is caused by a) women's mental deficiencies, or b) women's lack of doctoral degrees, or c) misogyny on the part of publishing houses. Please cite any (factual, preferably peer-reviewed) evidence you might have regarding these issues.

Well put, Anne.

Folks might be interested in this review of a book regarding women, ambition, and recognition.

http://www.broaduniverse.org/broadsheet/0502njm.html

The author's basic thesis is that one of the reasons women don't succeed in fields in as large a percentage as men do is that recognition of one's mastery is a fundamental component of achieving success. And according to the author, study after study (after study after study) demonstrates that at every single level, the achievements of girls and women are not given the same level of recognition as those of their male colleagues.

Iow, without sufficient reinforcement of their efforts, people -- male or female -- stop trying. And apparently, in general, women get a good deal less recognition than men.

-l.

As an aside, the other thing I thought when I first started reading this thread had to do with the middle part of the initial quote:

[women...] write romance novels in space about strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent but lonely women who finally fall in love with rugged men who love them just as they are [...]

I have to say that I *have* been looking around and been disappointed how much this is true in space opera and how little this reflects the actual predelictions of strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent women, at least in fannish society, who are just as likely to fall in love with non-rugged intelligent, goofy men who have bad feet and shouldn't be given a hammer much less a blaster and who challenge them to learn and to change even as they love them with a fierce passion. (For example.)

I've been reading Bertrand Russell, who wrote "On the whole, women tend to love men for their character while men tend to love women for their appearance." If women really do tend to love people for their character (which I don't entirely buy into, but the idea has its appeal as a standard for both genders), why hasn't the influx of women writers to this field introduced more study of situations in which the protagonist and/ or main love interest is not rugged and beautiful? Aren't we lacking a celebration in our literature of something we manage to celebrate in our lives?

Well, John has also demonstrated the author in question shows a significant lack in logical skills, and I think these are related....[snip]... And in fact, when Vox tells us what women SF writers he respects, he himself is disagreeing with his own proposition.

Ummm, you speak of logic and then set forth this abortion?

1) Vox/Beale has not said women cannot possibly do anything of the sort -- only that the women capable of it are far, far rarer than men. This is because of the technical skills required to keep the science accurate, which women (as a group, not in their entirety) assiduously ignore. "History" doesn't enter into it, and your muddled description to claim that makes no basis for its claim.

2) Possession of an engineering degree suggests you have the capacity for tech. It doesn't guarantee it.

There are incompetent engineers out there just as there are incompetents in any field -- not to claim you are. Your arguments in this post certainly don't impress me with your reasoning skills, however. One utterly unjustified assertion about History and one oddball connection reading claims into a statement in which no such claim is made does not speak well for your reasoning ability.

To insert an actual fact into the discussion, more women than men currently graduate college with degrees in science and engineering. These women are apparently able to hack hard science just fine.

Nate B: You might--just might--wish to rethink your comments re:publishing and what Scalzi or the others on this thread know about it in light of the fact that our host is a senior editor at Tor, that book publishing does not work the way Hollywood does, and that many of the people here are authors.

1) It's Nick, not nate.
2) I don't give a rat's ass about what they do for a living, that's probably how so much dreck gets put forth as SF when it's SciFi... they don't grasp the difference due to both incompetence as editors as well as authors. Campbell is no doubt spinning in his grave at seeing what gets called "SF" these days.
3) The definition of "Publish" is not debatable no matter your profession.
4) Also, I note Vox lifted that blurb from Scalzi's own website. It's rather amusing that Scalzi is taking issue with "facts" as he himself is making them.
5) I did ack that I might not be correct. You aren't citing stats proving me wrong, I note... just trying to suggest some idiot "authority" might possibly call me wrong. If they quote actual, verifiable statistics for me, I'll believe it. If they make bald-faced claims, I'll value it as much as the electrons it's written with.

Nick B.:

As you can see, upwards on this thread, I am married to a woman who writes science fiction, including Hard SF, and is a Physics professor. I have also cautioned against ad hominem arguments, and said that I agree with some of Vox Day's comments in his online book reviews. So, without treating me as an enemy, can you please explain what you mean by:

"women capable of it are far, far rarer than men. This is because of the technical skills required to keep the science accurate, which women (as a group, not in their entirety) assiduously ignore."

I am not fighting, just asking.

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Nick: When John Scalzi countered VD's statement that he was "the author of" only one novel according to Scalzi's website, John was not debating the definition of the word "publish." He was providing more information than was available on his website as to what he has "authored". There is a significant delay in publishing between when something is written and when it hits the shelves as a published work.

Further assertions as to the definition of publish are irrelevant to what John said.

It is poor scientific practice to automatically assume a causal relationship between two observations. Why not argue that zillions of women write hard SF, but all those horrible, piggy, misogynistic publishers keep refusing to publish their work?

Ah, yes, the inevitable feminist repression argument.

If this had any basis, then there would be a collective of women out there who would get together, pool funds (or convince any of the tremendous mass of old women who control the majority of assets in this country by inheritance to join them for the big profits possible) and KICK ASS. If (the ignored, repressed) women were REALLY ***that*** much better than men they could do this.

Ergo, the assertion is blatantly false.

While there may be some women out there who are underestimated, the same can be said for men. If the former was any large percentage of the female populace, however, there are ready means of fixing the problem available to them.

In fact, women make all manner of choices which limit the end results, and those limited results follow from those choices, not from choices made by men about their works and actions.

Is this more of the "logic" your female HARD SF writers use? Yep, I'm impressed so far. You can see why women do so well in the romance novel department.

Receptionist: How do you write women so well?
Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.

It's Nick, not nate.

Oh, sorry. Somehow conflated you two. Probably was thinking "sock puppet."

I don't give a rat's ass about what they do for a living, that's probably how so much dreck gets put forth as SF when it's SciFi... they don't grasp the difference due to both incompetence as editors as well as authors.

So you're saying they don't know what it means to be published? Upthread, you said: Until someone actually risks the money on printing and distributing it, it's possible it never happens. As a matter of fact, I believe that happens more than a small percentage of the time. I could be wrong. I *know* it happens with Hollywood scripts a lot, I haven't looked into publication statistics. The folks here, having more experience than you (or, for that matter, I) in the publishing industry, can tell you that once you've signed the contract and gotten the advance, the publisher has already started the publishing process. Printing and distribution are only the parts most visible to the people outside the industry--the publisher is already laying out money for production in various ways long before the books hit the press or the bookstore. In publishing industry terms, Scalzi has every right to say that the books currently being produced, but not yet printed, are being published.

You aren't citing stats proving me wrong, I note

What statistics apply? Publishing does not work the way Hollywood script production does. What percentage of books sold never get printed? I don't think anyone has that figure for the industry; the best anyone could tell you would be what percentage of books that is for any particular publisher, and I don't believe those figures are public. I could be wrong about that. Our esteemed host, or one of the other publishing industry experts, could tell us, perhaps.

Nick B: I'm sorry, I changed the subject too fast and you didn't catch it. When I said that VD's examples of accomplished women in hard SF contradicted his previous assertion, the assertion he was contradicting was the one I quoted and restated just previously in the same post, namely that no women of the previous generation have accomplished anything worthy of historical regard.

Does that clear it up for you?

Regarding my engineering degree, certainly the having of such a degree does not in and of itself demonstrate technical competence. Read what I said: I also have a master's degree in Engineering, it's true, and am perfectly capable of hacking the physics necessary to write hard SF.

If that "and" I put in bold had been a "thus" or a "demonstrating" then I would have made the assertion you are contradicting. But I didn't. I asserted that I have an engineering degree and I asserted I have skills in physics. Most of my skills in physics come from the two years I spent as a physics major at a highly esteemed liberal arts college, not my engineering degree. I switched out of the physics department partly because it was insufficiently applied for me and wasn't teaching me the answers to the questions I wanted to know - it just wasn't in the curriculum. You can find out more about that switch as well as lists of all the courses I've taken over here. I didn't list any courses I didn't pass, partly because there were none.

I realize this might threaten your native desire to simply disregard what I say as the natterings of an irrational, illogical female mind, but such is life.

"Ah, yes, the inevitable feminist repression argument."

Er, it wasn't an argument.

"If women were REALLY ***that*** much better than men they could do this."

No one suggested that women are =better= than men. It has, however, been suggested that your and VD's claims that women are =less able= than men might be faulty, and have yet to be proved.

"Ergo, the assertion is blatantly false."

It wasn't an assertion, or an argument -- hence my statement that I am unaware of any evidence to prove misogyny by SF publishers. It was presented as an illogical line of speculation for explaining the gender inequality in published SF, as a means of illustrating the similar lack of evidence in your and VD's claims.

Dianora: Thanks for posting that Time link. I know that if you count Chemistry as a hard science, the number of women and men in the hard sciences at Grinnell College when I was there (1992-1996) at least ballanced.

Vox Day wrote:

"Do let me know when someone gets an official hard SF-writing head count together."

Sure! You just get back to us when you find a universally acceptable definition of "hard SF" and a metric to measure it by.

Vox again:

Let's see, that U of M program has nine core professors, plus another 60 affiliates. And, of course, not a single scientist in the bunch, not even an economist.

Jigna Desai, associate professor. BA in Astrophysics from MIT.

She's the second core professor on the list.

Jacquelyn Zita, BA in Biology from Washington University.

She's the ninth core professor on the list.

Two "lab science" degrees in just thirty seconds of research, Vox. Now, if you didn't know this, it means you didn't do any research before you started tossing out "facts" in public. If you did know this, it means you'll lie to preserve your caricature before you'll incorporate contradictory evidence honestly into your arguments. A third and possibly more charitable interpretation is that you're just a really, really sloppy reader.

Not that I expect any of this to penetrate. It is, after all, merely true.

Nick B: Ah, yes, the inevitable feminist repression argument.

If you'd read more carefully, you'd have noticed that comment you object to followed It is poor scientific practice to automatically assume a causal relationship between two observations. Which point was made by her example--a deliberate rhetorical device.

Given that you so value logic and rationality, do you think you might like to try arguing the merits of an issue rather than continually insulting the people who seek to engage you in rational, logical debate?

To insert an actual fact into the discussion, more women than men currently graduate college with degrees in science and engineering. These women are apparently able to hack hard science just fine.

Really? LET's INSERT FACTS HERE
The graph shows you're lying. Ok, not "lying", "being disingenuous". Are you used to people NOT checking your facts?

Then there's SAT scores

And AP scores

Both indicative of that which we speak.

About now, of course, you're getting all giddy because of the wonderful graph on that page showing women getting more "science" **Bacc's** than men. Oh, gosh, **I** am paying attention, though, so I note the information on a previous page which calls attention to the prevalence of females in soft sciences, not hard sciences... which is... gosh!! THE ENTIRE POINT BEING DEBATED..

A degree in "Psychology", "Sociology", "Political Science" (which probably includes the aforementioned "Women's Studies" at a guess), and "Biology". is a degree in "Science" -- it's not a degree in a "Hard Science". This would be Math, Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, and Computer Science -- and anything taught by those departments (Hint: A Computer Science degree from a business school isn't a science degree. Nor is an "Ag Engineering" degree from an Ag department)

I'm not denigrating those degrees, only pointing out that to attain them one may easily lack a critically relevant grasp of science as a process and its underlying function, and usually those degrees don't require math past beginning calculus, if even that much.

=====

BTW, also, please note, the mention in there of the declining enrollment of males in colleges -- which, literally, is the sole reason for women passing men at all in the overall grouping, no matter how relevant to this discussion.

This is outside the scope of this discussion, but, simply for consideration, does the phrase "The War on Boyhood" mean anything? Think that might be of some longer-term importance to the US's technical dominance?

Hint: A Computer Science degree from a business school isn't a science degree.

You confuse me. Would you equally say that an arts degree from M.I.T. isn't an arts degree?

I have a computer science degree from a liberal-arts college, and none of my software-industry employers has suggested that it doesn't count. When the college created the degree, it was made as mathematics-intensive as possible, to avoid the stigma of offering a purely vocational major.

Nick B, could you please explain how someone with a doctoral degree in biology, working as a biological scientist, can succeed while lacking "a critically relevant grasp of science as a process and its underlying function"? Such a scientist might, say, be researching the genes that contribute to the pathology of a disease or the signal tranduction pathways that direct a cell to undergo apoptosis. Would such a grasp of scientific processes not be necessary in order to design well-controlled experiments and to interpret the data?

I've been reading Bertrand Russell, who wrote "On the whole, women tend to love men for their character while men tend to love women for their appearance."

Actually, this is clearly simplistic in the first consideration, and generally faulty under second consideration.

Women use a number of factors, the most obvious being indicators of affluence and power as the first level of triage, with the second being the males ability to schmooze them.

Men use a number of factors, but probably fewer, the first one being appearance, and the second one being approachability-outside-of-appearance, i.e., the feeling of likelihood of rejection or humiliation if one asks. Some guys are rather sensitive this way, so never develop those skills.

Note, of course, that "sensitive" is one of those qualities women claim to want a great deal, but effectively eliminate by making men schmooze them.

In the longer term only does character enter into it for either side.

Yes, yes, feel free to blather about how you and none of the females you know pay any attention to power and affluence. Even if you are not fooling yourselves (which is far more likely) then you are in a minority, not the norm.

Women TALK a lot about wanting "good men" -- they tend to pick out shit (power, affluence, pickup skills all xlate to being a shit one way or another on average, with some exceptions -- the more visible those three traits the more likely he's really a shit down deep).

It's got a lot to do with the Prince Charming affect. Women subconsciously think PC exists outside their heads, then get bitter when they don't find him after dumping any number of passable guys because it wasn't perfect.

Note, every above statement about "women" is a generic statement, not intended to apply to any specific individual case, so don't quote anecdotal evidence to refute it. I **know** there are a **goodly** number of **exceptions**.

Repeat: I **know** there are a **goodly** number of **exceptions**.

No disemvowelments?

I am reminded of a picture of TNH manually describing a certain Mr. du Toit. But if anything, smaller.

Women TALK a lot about wanting "good men" -- they tend to pick out shit (power, affluence, pickup skills all xlate to being a shit one way or another on average, with some exceptions

Yup. All those happy long-term marriages and partnerships: they're populated by one beautiful person and one wealthy shithead. Exceptions (as in the earlier argument about female Ph.Ds writing hard SF) don't count.

My husband must be the beautiful person, because he's certainly not the shithead.

I may add that if I had submitted a paper saying "No X are Y" in either my mathematics or English classes, the professors would have gleefully failed me had I ignored counterexamples, no matter how rare. "No 18th-century black women published poetry." "Phillis Wheatley. F." "No prime numbers are even." "2. F." The professors wouldn't have considered it a rhetorical device; they would have penalized it as sloppy thinking, and they would have been right to do so.

"women capable of it are far, far rarer than men. This is because of the technical skills required to keep the science accurate, which women (as a group, not in their entirety) assiduously ignore."

Ummmm, your wife (presumably) is an example of an exception to this, not a refutation of it.

I believe, if you look at my earlier posting about how to deal with it beyond "Being Offended" by simple facts is fairly simple. Encourage young girls to appreciate math. I dunno if that's Nature or Nurture, but I'd say we should find out.

Go ahead, go speak to any gaggle of young girls, say, 11 years old. Start talking to them about math, and see how many of them give some variance of "Ewwwww" when the subject is broached... which they then heterodyne onto each other, as a result of peer pressure (which young girls are more subject to the force of). Math isn't cool for a young girl. If there is a responsive girl there, she will be the outcast and probably read fantasy novels (NOT SF!). Probably, she'll go into a bio science rather than a hard science and become a major Tolkien or Piers Anthony fan.

Show them a moebius strip and they will be bored.

A similar group of boys you are far more likely to find one or more -- the overall response towards the math is still going to be much more receptive than "EEwwww!"

Show them a moebius strip and they will go: "COOL!"... and some of them will probably want to know more about them.

Advance ahead a few more years, say, to 16yos and you will see the longer term affect. Lots of boys in high school hard science classes (Physics, Chemistry, Trig/Calculus) and far,far fewer girls.

(note also the effect of the "war on boys" noted earlier and its effects on the above)

I'm not proposing a solution, I'm trying to call attention to the problem.

I am not certain women aren't (as a group, no specific individual) inherently less capable than men -- it may well be that there is a difference in brain formation which gives boys/men a natural advantage (If men as a group are stronger than women due to physiology, as they clearly are, is it nor possible that there are other things they do better with their brains?). Yes, go ahead "be offended". I don't care.

Note, PLEASE -- that this is very, very much not -repeat NOT- a claim of "superior maleness" -- I only suggest that it is POSSIBLE, first off, not a given -- and, more critically, I readily ack that girls/women almost certainly have skills which are equally valuable in other circumstances.

Superiority in a given arena does not equate to superiority as a class. Just because someone is a world-class athlete does not make them a better person, nor "superior as a whole".

"Women use a number of factors, the most obvious being indicators of affluence and power as the first level of triage, with the second being the males ability to schmooze them. Men use a number of factors, but probably fewer...."

This appears to me to be a simplified, selective, and not-unbiased presentation of the scientific evidence that has been gathered wrt human mate selection. Could you cite your sources?

Oh, sorry. Somehow conflated you two. Probably was thinking "sock puppet."

Ah. Two words: "Ad Hominem". Here: "Osculate my posterior".

Don't read very well, do you?

Just fine, thanks.

Not if you think Vox asserted "that there are very few women writing hard science fiction" That's not what he said. If you don't understand that, you're wasting our time.

So he makes the assertion and the burden falls on others to disprove it?

Wrong.

... In reality, Vox was challenging his ad hominem attackers to prove him wrong, since he'd already made a case for his hypothesis. No one did.

He made a case for the assertion "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics" ?

Is that what you think?

If so, that's unspeakably sad.

Thanks to the people who indulged me on my tangential request for clarification about hard sf. I just want to be sure that when I call a piece of writing something, I'm saying what I set out to say.

Now, if I said something was "gritty soft SF with hard elements," would I be saying something intelligible?

Hint: A Computer Science degree from a business school isn't a science degree.

You confuse me. Would you equally say that an arts degree from M.I.T. isn't an arts degree?

I have a computer science degree from a liberal-arts college, and none of my software-industry employers has suggested that it doesn't count. When the college created the degree, it was made as mathematics-intensive as possible, to avoid the stigma of offering a purely vocational major.

Aw, gawrsh, wilbur....

Look, if you know jack about bleeding CIS then you know it breaks down into at least three major schools of learning -- Software, Hardware, and Business. The first usually is taught by the "Arts and Sciences" college, and emphasizes programming and its theory. The second usually by the Engineering college and emphasizes electronics and THAT theory, and the last by the Business school. The business school end usually replaces hard science courses with business courses -- physics for macroeconomics, accounting practices for calculus, etc-- business theory.

Reasonable and sensible, but it precludes by said exclusions consideration as "hard science".

Science is a PROCESS. If you don't grasp physics, chemistry, and/or math, then you don't grasp science anywhere near as well as if you did.

It's this lack of grasp of the scientific process which allows Xtian idiots to conflate Evolution with ID, and confuse a zygote with a human.

It appears on the left side by producing things like "global warming" and Kyoto protocols, Amory Lovens proudly sneering "The only physics I ever took was Ex-Lax", as though it were something to be proud of.

In both cases it's not science, it's crap dressed up in the trappings of science, which look fine if your ignorance of science is sufficient that you don't know what to look for.

In no event is it a good thing.

He was providing more information than was available on his website as to what he has "authored"

Sorry, no. Go read what he wrote on Vox's website. He was imputing that Vox was being inaccurate in his comments (the critical issue) and that it was due to sloppiness overall (not just in it being inaccurate through no fault of Vox's) and suggesting far more personal success than really accurately should be supposed (my interpretation, but the tone certainly suggests it).

Getting a novel bought is certainly better than having it sitting unsold. It's nowhere near the same as having it published -- both in influence and also in pure success rating, since, once published, you have sales numbers to base claims of success on (or lack thereof to sweep under the rug)

I realize this might threaten your native desire to simply disregard what I say as the natterings of an irrational, illogical female mind, but such is life.

LOL, now you are imputing to me something you presuppose without basis or justification. You just falsely figure that anyone who has noted the statistics and grasped that something might be implied by them which you personally don't like must be a sexist bigot.

For what it's worth, if you want to go looking for bigots, stick to those on the left. Among educated people the extreme majority of racist, sexist bigots I've met have all been people with left-leaning polticial positions -- the more left-leaning the more racist, the more sexist.

I've been very careful, OTOH, to assert the fact -- repeatedly -- that a general statement about women in science does not get invalidated by a single (or numerous individual) counter-examples, nor does making the general statement mean in ANY way to suggest that it is not a *general* statement about women as a group and applies in no manner whatsoever to any specific individual.

The fact that I can say with some accuracy that "all the air in your room isn't going to suddenly go in one direction, compress in the corner, and leave you to strangle in vacuum" does not say anything about one or two molecules doing that without your even noticing.

Nick:

Go ahead, go speak to any gaggle of young girls, say, 11 years old.

Have you done this? More importantly, have you done this out of the presence of guys? Sorry, maybe you're a guy and that's not possible for you.

But I've done this, and I assure you the response is not uniformly "Eeeew". For two years in college I was part of a Women in Science program that took 11 and 12 year old girls to college classrooms for a couple hours each Saturday and gave them a taste of different sciences. I helped out with workshops on Biology, Physics, Math, and Computer Science myself. The girls involved in the program were all enthusiastic.

Of course, they had already selected to take the program, so they weren't necessarily representative of the population at large. People vary. That's one of the beautiful things about people.

I applaud you for wanting to examine the influences of peer pressure on educational receptivity. And I would challenge your assertion that young girls are more sensitive to peer pressure than young boys. Boys get shamed out of the literary /verbal and art realms in elementary school just as girls get pressured (or ignored) out of the sciences.

You pegged the age of 11 quite appropriately - this is the age at which girls tend to start believing they aren't good at math, even if their skills are on par with their male peers. Somewhere in this age group a gender differentiation appears with regard to perception of skill - Boys tend more to believe that if they find something dificult or impossible, it is because the thing they are trying to do is hard; girls tend to conclude it is because their ability is insufficient.

This is just one example of hundreds of ways in which our educational system affects wether or not children follow their natural inlinations, interests and abilities in what they study in school and what they do as adults.

Of *course* there are plenty of girls who think a moebius strip is cool.

I went to an alternative high school, where it was easier to follow your inclinations than in most high schools. And there were more girls than boys in *my* calculus class. The fact that our entire math program was taught by women probably didn't hurt that statistic. People do tend to follow into places where there are role models - people who can mentor them, and show them something is both possible and fun. People who have something in common with oneself.

Society is complex, isn't it? Any time you point to a single factor as being the cause of something broad and pervasive, you're probably missing something. And if you chose that factor based on your impression of the world, rather than on a factual understanding, if your purpose is understanding society, you should welcome correction if it comes. Shouldn't you?

"Getting a novel bought is certainly better than having it sitting unsold. It's nowhere near the same as having it published"

It's pretty much the same thing - the author's gotten over the hard part, and has money in hand. From then on, it's pretty much on a conveyor belt to printing, and out of the author's control. If the book ends up not being published, it's probably not due to the quality of the author's writing.

Similarly, you're a father once you've knocked a woman up, even though it'll usually be nine months until you can hold the result in your hands.

The sales numbers aren't really that significant, anyway, because a fine novel can suffer low sales due to poor marketing efforts by the publisher. The author doesn't have that much influence on the process once the publisher has bought the book. What the author does have influence on is the writing, the quality of which is reflected by the sale to a publisher.

Step 1: Say, "Prove it!"

Step 2: Say, "THAT doesn't prove it!"

Step 3: Return to Step 1.

It'd be interesting to find out how this little story came to your attention. Was it the Vanguard-Disc list, which featured the same World O'Crap link last week? Does Gimbel's tell Macy's?

I've been very careful, OTOH, to assert the fact -- repeatedly -- that a general statement about women in science does not get invalidated by a single (or numerous individual) counter-examples,

Then how, precisely, can it be invalidated?

If I were to argue that "I have never heard the 'Women prefer jerks' argument from a happily married man" (true), and you then replied "I am a happily married man", surely you agree that this would cast some doubt on my hypothesis?

Uh, Wil, the answer to this question lies at the start of the post, which has said "via World O'Crap" all along.

There are women with doctoral degrees in the hard sciences.
Far fewer than men. FAR.

There are women with PhDs who write hard SF.

Feel free to enlighten me. Name some. Don't name "Elizabeth Bear". Jodi attempted to suggest that one over on Vox's website, it got shredded within minutes. She's "hard SF" like "The Day After Tomorrow" is an SF movie (In case you need to be told, it's crap. Entertaining crap with cool FX, but scientifically, *crap*)

There are women without PhDs who write hard SF.

See above.

There are women with PhDs in hard sciences who write fantasy (or other genres).
Irrelevant. I'm not claiming women are poorer writers than men, at least as far as literary qualities go. I'd suspect they might even be better. I'd suspect Vox would agree with that statement.

There are women whose hard SF novels get published. These are all facts.

No, these are assertions. You don't justify a single one of them at all, either with examples (which doesn't really make them facts, either, but at least makes them more than mere unsupported assertions), links, or with publishing statistics (which would make them facts, were such stats to back up your assertions

That you fail to grasp this difference is one reason why women do so poorly at the hard sciences.

====

In any event -- more critically -- your assertions do not refute that which Vox has claimed, which is that women do much, much more poorly in writing SF in general, and Hard SF in particular, than men do -- primarily due to an overall poor grounding of females -- as a group -- in the hard sciences.

Since that is mostly what this thread is about, your assertions serve no purpose.

Consider:
---
The significance of this is obvious -- even with a few random female "Hard SF" authors out there, their own obvious market is shrunken by the lack of female appreciation of the hard sciences.

Men tend to read about men. Women about women. Far from a hard and fast rule by any means, but clearly it's much easier for a man to write correctly about men and for a woman to write correctly about women (counter-anecdotes need not be provided, General statments, folks.).

This means that a woman's best works will likely be about female central characters... which, if the audience is largely male, is not going to be as well received as if there is a decent female readership out there.

... so perhaps, rather than sexist editors, it might be that there is simply a smaller market for such, at this point in time, as well.

This is somewhat tangential to what Vox raises but certainly relevant to the issue.

The net effect is that women's SF is more likely to be in the space-opera-romance form rather than the hard SF form, as it can appeal to women who might otherwise read romance novels, increasing sales but doing nothing for the quality of women's SF-as-SF

BTW -- Men started ignoring this opera form in the late 30s, when real SF is considered to have begun. You're almost 70 years behind.

Nick B, since you're so insistent on the importance of the scientific process, please note that when you are citing anecdotal evidence, saying "in my experience" is fine. However, if you want to make claims such as "Women DON'T ENTER "HARD" SCIENTIFIC FIELDS. This is FACT" or "Women as a group do poorly at math," you'll probably be asked to cite the evidence of these claims.

Judging from recent publications such as the textbook "Gender Differences in Mathematics" (Cambridge University Press) your claims are in fact not based on fact.

Yup. All those happy long-term marriages and partnerships: they're populated by one beautiful person and one wealthy shithead. Exceptions (as in the earlier argument about female Ph.Ds writing hard SF) don't count.

My husband must be the beautiful person, because he's certainly not the shithead.

[sarcasm] If you say so. [/sarcasm]

Ah, yes, "the exceptions disprove the rule."

It's a generic statement, get a clue. It does not cover all examples -- and it's about humans, which is even more less all-encompassing. It's damned near impossible to make generic statements about humans with any "true" accuracy (say, oh, "95%") when dealing with complex concepts like human relationships.

Hell, you can't make reliable statements about the skin color of residents of Idaho.

"All those happy long-term marriages and partnerships: they're populated by one beautiful person and one wealthy shithead"

Yep, you find lots of 'em in Hollywood. Rebecca nd John... oops. Brad and Jennifer... oops. Meg and Dennis... oops.

The more beautiful she is, the more likely she is to be mercenary. Not a guarantee. Just a prediction of likelihood.

The more wealthy he is, the more likely he's going to be a shitheel, not the least of which because there will be lots of shitheels out there who are out to take his money using whatever tricks they can and very few scruples about it. Not a guarantee, just a prediction.

It's damned near impossible to make generic statements about humans with any "true" accuracy (say, oh, "95%") when dealing with complex concepts like human relationships.

I couldn't agree more. We're on the same page.

Why do you insist on making such statements?

/There are women with PhDs who write hard SF./
"Feel free to enlighten me."

Well, my wife, for one.

"That you fail to grasp this difference is one reason why women do so poorly at the hard sciences."

"Reason"? Once again you are implying an erroneous causal effect.

I'm afraid this final example of your ignorance has placed you in my "not worth wasting time on" category.

No one suggested that women are =better= than men.

AS you have stated, yes, this is correct. The assertion was that there are better women out there who are getting passed over for lesser men, however.

This is a not inconsiderable distinction. Were this the case, the point is that then said women would be able to deal with the issue by bypassing or eliminating the interfering males through any number of available techniques in modern society.

There was a time when sexism was real and significant.

It does still exist in pockets, but the largest congregation of them only rear their heads when someone in the GoP tries to actually attain high office. Suddenly THAT person gets accused of being a mere puppet or a parrot, despite, say, a PhD and many years of highly effective service in high-powered positions. Clearly, that woman could not have succeeded on her own merits....

It has, however, been suggested that your and VD's claims that women are =less able= than men might be faulty, and have yet to be proved.

No, the data clearly suggests it. Women consistently score lower than men on SATs and APs, don't take hard science courses in either high school or college to even close to the same level as men, and don't attain degrees in those subjects anywhere near as much as men -- and what catch-up they've done in the last 10-odd years may debatably be tied to the war on boyhood.

Whether this is nature or nurture is a valid question, and not within the realm of any of our (NB/VD/LS) comments... but even that question is not going to get asked when Vox, I and Larry Summers can't even put forth the question without sending everyone into a gibbering circumnavigatory prance of weeping denial.

Nick B, could you please explain how someone with a doctoral degree in biology, working as a biological scientist, can succeed while lacking "a critically relevant grasp of science as a process and its underlying function"? Such a scientist might, say, be researching the genes that contribute to the pathology of a disease or the signal tranduction pathways that direct a cell to undergo apoptosis. Would such a grasp of scientific processes not be necessary in order to design well-controlled experiments and to interpret the data?

Fran, once more, as I have repeatedly stated to others, you are attempting to use the anecdote to refute the general statement.

As a simple rule (with exceptions of its own): The more math you took, the more math you use in a daily basis (not canned calculations but places where you yourself do stuff), the closer to a hard science you are dealing with.

The best definition of a "hard science" is how much the whole of the science is subject to numbers, statistics, verification, testing, and prediction. Emphasis on the latter -- as Robert Heinlein put it, "The validity of a science is its ability to predict". Validity goes one to one with "hard".

Hence, much of physics is hard science. Cosmogony is probably not. Some parts of Biology are hard science. Much is not. Psychology is not hard science, as it can predict only a limited amount.

Offhand, the professional of whom you speak qualifies. It has lots of tests for validity of reasoning and places to make predictions which test the underlying theories.

Yes, the person in question, if they could write, probably has some potential to write good SF, perhaps good hard SF.

It's worth noting Vox is now back over on his site, repeating the same silly lines that got his ass handed to him here to a rather more congenial crowd. It's nice to have sycophants.

Yeah, John, I don't see you over there posting to his crowd in anywhere near the volume he has already posted here , to support of your views in a hostile environment... He presumably got tired of preaching to a brick wall.

[gauntlet] > --- flies across the forum, lands at John's feet.

More balls to stick your head out of your clan of sycophants than it is to stay amongst them as you have with the lone exception I've seen so far.

Your logic demonstrates the GIGO principle quite effectively, BTW.

But I've done this, and I assure you the response is not uniformly "Eeeew". For two years in college I was part of a Women in Science program that took 11 and 12 year old girls to college classrooms for a couple hours each Saturday and gave them a taste of different sciences. I helped out with workshops on Biology, Physics, Math, and Computer Science myself. The girls involved in the program were all enthusiastic

OK, pardon me, but... statistical universe?

How were these girls selected -- from a pool of volunteers, as I'd be willing to bet, or was it, say, a whole classroom full of random girls, which I seriously doubt?

If it *WAS* a random class of girls, were they from a private or magnet school or just a general, everyday, mediocre school class?

I'm willing to lay huge odds you aren't considering data selection bias, simply by knowing how such groups usually get formed.

In other words, your impressions aren't formed from typical young girls, but from a bunch already preselected for some interest in the topics.

Another point, and this is of some relevance -- the women of today are not the products of todays schools, but yesterdays. Were those things done before or are they just now, in the last 10 years, being encouraged?

"Women DON'T ENTER "HARD" SCIENTIFIC FIELDS. This is FACT" or "Women as a group do poorly at math," you'll probably be asked to cite the evidence of these claims.

Feel free to go look at the bleeding time article someone else just posted trying to prove this assertion wrong. They failed, utterly, since there is no breakdown between "sciences" and "hard sciences" but this is almost certainly inferrable from the breakdown which is provided of women working in the different fields on another page.

Yes, I placed it forth as an assertion (guilty) because I presumed anyone who was serious about it could figure it out from the miasma of data one encounters when investigating anything at all (and the recent kerfuffle over Larry Summers SHOULD have some of you bothering to look into the data to justify or refute what he said...(or doesn't the data matter?? ) or the fact that, when employed in that manner, one gets an idea in one's head of how many hard science-types are females -- men do notice these things, you know. We're wired that way.

Perhaps women don't notice hard-science females -- I'd think you would, considering they are something on the order of 1 in 10, so they stand out like a lighthouse beacon.

You really think the BK commercials with a programming group which has a lot of geeks and one girl is atypical? Actually, the girl *is* atypical. Most programming groups don't have *any* females in them.

[gauntlet] > --- flies across the forum, lands at John's feet.

That's a trick, seeing as how John left...

And however many books John has or hasn't had published, he is a good author and a smart guy. I've met him in person, read Old Man's War, and exchanged email with him on tech subjects. I was generally satisfied with his carriage of himself in this debate, but I had to agree with him that he was getting nowhere in terms of convincing VD, and that it had become a waste of his time. I'd rather see him spend his time writing books.

It does still exist in pockets, but the largest congregation of them only rear their heads when someone in the GoP tries to actually attain high office. Suddenly THAT person gets accused of being a mere puppet or a parrot, despite, say, a PhD and many years of highly effective service in high-powered positions. Clearly, that woman could not have succeeded on her own merits...

Is this a reference to Ms. Rice? That was an amazing twist, wasn't it? The left didn't even significantly try to argue against her on the basis of her horrible, detrimental goals and policies, but instead was effectively hamstrung by its own PC position. The administration managed to successfully argue that it wasn't possible for the woman to be considered on the basis of her positions on policy without putting her down on the basis of her gender and color, while all the liberals I knew, including the black women, hated her for the position because of her ideals and her history, not her gender or her race. I never heard anyone accusing her of being a parrot. I did hear people who thought she was a highly influential person. A poisonous influence that has helped destabilize our position in world politics and made us less safe as a people here and abroad.

Now, what did this have to do with the price of tea in China?

Oh, right, your belief that the Left is the main repository of sexism and bigotry in the country. Sadly, sexism is no one political spectrum's sole possession. It is distributed throughout, and in pernicious ways. And many directions. Sometime we should get into a discussion of the incarceration of men and the societal tolerance of violence against men. You and I might be on the same side in that discussion.

Now, if I said something was "gritty soft SF with hard elements," would I be saying something intelligible?

Interesting question. I'd say yes, and break it down thusly:

"Gritty" is a stylistic description, not a content one. Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane are gritty. You can certainly use this stylistic technique in SF.

"Soft SF with Hard Elements" This describes Star Trek, really. The science in them is consistent and strongly relevant to many stories, which is what makes them "with hard elements", but it's not the genesis for most of the stories nor the entire backdrop, only for some of them.

If you want to look at some pure examples of Hard SF, either Hal Clement's "Mission of Gravity", or Robert L. Forward's "Dragon's Egg" are real purist's examples.

Most "hard SF" is not so hard. The science is central, but not the entire genesis of the story, as it is with those two. This does not reflect on their literary qualities, mind you, only their SF ones. I like 'em, but I don't make any promises you will.

Most series television is necessarily going to tend towards soft-to-middlin SF

I'd rather see him spend his time writing books.

And I really never expected him to go there, for any reason, not necessarily cowardice. I was simply saying that his comment was absurd, as though Vox slunk away and went back to commisserating with sycophants rather than being able to continue. It was a cheap shot for the amusement of John's own sycophants.

I write this stuff here as a test of my own viewpoints and exercising my own reasoning more than to convince anyone here (happy if it happens, but I'm not concerned if it doesn't... it's still not a waste of my time).

It usually pays to do so, in my experience. Keeps one from getting tunnel vision, inherently endemic to hanging out with people who agree with you.

Oh, and by the way Nick, you need to think about the fact that individual examples aggregate to statistics. If there is a statistically significant number of "individual examples" then it most certainly does have an affect on the validity of general statements.

And in the reverse, general statements *do* reflect on individuals. If I say half of all men have below average intelligence, then you can safely conclude (as you most probably will) that this doesn't insist that *you* are below average in intelligence. If, on the other hand, I were to assert that the mean of the bell curve of male intelligence is lower than the 10th percentile point on the female intelligence bell curve, then I *would* be saying that it is highly unlikely that you are smarter than me. Which would be another way of saying I didn't believe you are very smart compared to me, and that if you were, you would be a statistical outlier, of no significance in any discussion.

now, I wouldn't say that. Intelligence measures overlap between the genders. As for aptitude tests there are no doubt many reasons why guys score better than girls, similar to why minorites score less well. There's research that demonstrates aptitude test scores are not good indicators of probably success in first-year college, part of the reason many schools don't give them as much weight in admissions as they once did. And the math gender gap was shrinking last I heard.

Um, Nick?

You said "I'm willing to lay huge odds you aren't considering data selection bias, simply by knowing how such groups usually get formed."

Not quoting the very next line I wrote in the post you were addressing, which considered this point:
Of course, they had already selected to take the program, so they weren't necessarily representative of the population at large.

I can only conclude that you aren't paying attention. Or that you consider taking a quote out of its context to be a really valuable form of debate.

The girls in question were regular public elementary school students in a small town in central Iowa.

Keeps one from getting tunnel vision, inherently endemic to hanging out with people who agree with you.

Generally a good thing to try to avoid. :)

Good night, then. My husband went to sleep hours ago... time for me to catch up.

Discipline, guys. Stick to a simple truth and hammer away at it. Don't get sidetracked and baited and decoyed.

Vox said "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics", but this is untrue, because a close technical knowledge of physics (beyond that which is available to any intelligent person) is not a requirement for writing science fiction. This fact is so obvious that anyone who can say such a thing with a straight face has clearly shown themselves to be incompetent to judge science fiction at all.

The words that follow that quote (beginning "so they either write romance novels in space...") are a jeering, slighting reflection on women's writing in general, one that implies gross misogyny. They are also an attack on any style of science fiction that does not fit with whatever group of texts the fellow designates as "hard science fiction".

These expressions reflect in the first case ignorance and in the second prejudice. That's the point.

Therefore, excursions into comparative gender difference in any field are irrelevant. The question of who has degrees or publications in what fields, and what this means, is irrelevant. Don't let Nick blindside you with capitalised nonsense about what the debate is about. He's merely shifting ground.

I never heard anyone accusing her of being a parrot.

What manner of enclosed soap bubble do you live in?

The entire attacks based on her were not based on her competence by reference to any past failures (sorry, policies don't generally cut it -- that is why someone gets selected for a position in the first place) or improper actions or suggestions/comments on her part.

No, she was a (pardon) Black Sambo -- an "Uncle Tom" (their term). She could not possibly actually see things as she spoke, no, she was an "ignorant puppet".

The woman has a bleeding DOCTORATE in Poli-Sci. She graduated cum laude and PBK.
She's been on the board of directors of Chevron (she's got a supertanker named after her), she was the provost (chief budget and academic officer) for Stanford University for six years.

Sorry, she deserves one HELL of a lot more respect that these gutless slimings:

"Brown Sugar"

"DOCTOR Rice as the ignorant 'Prissy' from GWtW"

"Dr. Rice as MiniMe"

"Dr. Rice is a 'House Nigga'"? In need of "racial re-education"?

"DOCTOR Rice as a Parrot, with nice fat 'black' lips and a coo"

That's not all, just the worst of it. Here is a link going more extensively into the matter.

Had any such references been made to, say, 'Barak Obama', you can bet your life savings that the person(s) in charge would have:
a) lost their jobs in very short order
b) never have heard of the end of it.
c) It would have been trotted out for weeks on end as proof of how "racist" or "sexist" the "Right" is (and I don't consider myself a member of the Right).

"No, she's on the Dark Side -- we can do anything we want, no matter how despiccably racist or sexist it is."

It's flat out disgusting. NOW and the NAACP have both shown their true colors by standing aside and ignoring this crap. Neither one deserves the slightest respect from any member of humanity. The organizations should be disbanded.

They are pond scum.

I may add that if I had submitted a paper saying "No X are Y" in either my mathematics or English classes,

I'm sorry, I was under the impression that this was casual discussion, not an academic course. Can I be told what my degree will be in when I am done? I have faith it will be a B.S. degree, regardless.
:-9

It's damned near impossible to make generic statements about humans with any "true" accuracy (say, oh, "95%") when dealing with complex concepts like human relationships.

I couldn't agree more. We're on the same page.

Why do you insist on making such statements?

I didn't say I had a problem with making them (or with you making them). I said I was aware of the fact that they will be inaccurate with regards to any specific people. I acked this because the people here seem to think one exception invalidates the entire notion.

I didn't grant the statements had no validity simply because there are a decent handful of exceptions to them. They are, at best, rules of thumb... Kind of like walking up to someone in Minnesota and expecting to hear that unusual speaking accent they have. It's not a guarantee it'll be there, but it's commonly the case enough to make exceptions stand out in garish relief.

Of *course* there are plenty of girls who think a moebius strip is cool.

Again. I never suggested to the contrary. I simply say that it's a lot fewer females than males. Cause un-specified... Oh, also, you'll get a lot more "cool!" responses in any reasonably large group of boys old enough to grasp the real oddness of its behaviors/qualities.

Not quoting the very next line I wrote in the post you were addressing, which considered this point:
Of course, they had already selected to take the program, so they weren't necessarily representative of the population at large.

No, I stopped reading it at that point because, with such an obvious inherent bias, it's worthless as a refutation. It doesn't make your point, nor does it even weaken mine.

That 10-odd percent of female hard-science Bachs, Masters, and Docs have to come from somewhere.

So, you are correct, I did not read that line, sorry. I don't see why you bother to tell the story, however.

Vox said "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics",....

Dave,[sigh]
because a close technical knowledge of physics (beyond that which is available to any intelligent person) is not a requirement for writing science fiction.

First off, pure tech knowledge, no, but that is not the sense he wrote it in. He does not mean you need to be able to write a doctoral thesis on hilbert space -- but you do have to at least have enough familiarity to know the term and to be able to grasp if you are using it correctly if you choose to insert it into a discussion. You have to have enough grasp of science to spot blatant errors in the background tech you insert, and to explain any "enhancements" that you choose to add to things sufficiently that you are at least making reasonable extentions of known science.

This generally requires sufficient interest in tech subjects which is well beyond that which some 60-70% of women EVER attain in their lives -- and I think I'm being generous. Guys -- even ones with limited grasp of tech, often can "smell" when the tech BS gets too thick. They start laughing and poking fun at things instead of taking it seriously. Again, the difference between the somewhat soft SF of Star Trek and the utter Sci-Fi dreck of Lost In Space.

Here's a simple example of Sci-Fi vs. SF -- the popular movie, "Pitch Black", the FX have a planet with "stacked rings" -- i.e., there was one ring "above" the other along the planetary axis.

What is wrong with this? If you can't answer it, you can't possibly write anything that has any business being classed as "SF".

More glaringly -- In the movie, Chain Reaction, It opens with a scene in which a Physics prof is lecturing an auditorium about getting Fusion energy from the fusion of hydrogen with oxygen to make water.

What's wrong with that? If the answer isn't "My, GOD, DuHHHHH!" then you have no business expressing an opinion on this matter, sorry.

Both the above movies are Sci-Fi. They both did "well" and "ok" at the box office. Most women, and a fair number of guys, don't see things that any bright high-school physics student could catch.

You want a definition of SF:
The science, real or invented, is good enough that a High School Physics geek can't poke holes in it.
Hard SF: Someone with a Bachelors in Physics or Math could not punch a hole in it (a specialty scientist if the central tech is a specialty like microbiology)

"holes" == "glaring errors which can either be explained, avoided, or worked around, but the writers didn't know or care enough"

Holes do occur. The manner in which the transporters are suggested to work in Star Trek is highly unlikely -- but that was unobvious at the time it was first developed, and even now requires a goodly knowledge of physics to see why (Think "Bandwidth"). They are sort of stuck with it now, however, so it is grandfathered in. SF does not have to match tech knowledge of the future, only that available when it was written.

The words that follow that quote (beginning "so they either write romance novels in space...") are a jeering, slighting reflection on women's writing in general, one that implies gross misogyny.

Yes, it's not a droolingly complacent worship of even what is acked by almost all as the lowest grade of female-oriented writing -- so he MUST hate women.

Space opera is space opera. I enjoy EE Smith's Lensman, and it would be fun to see a good job done with it on TV, but it's still space opera. For the most part, is no longer respectable to write, for the simple reason that there are plenty of examples of better works out there to learn from.

Writing for women is certainly not the same as writing for men... but romance is the LCD of writing, just as soap operas are the bottom of the TV acting and writing ladders. One need not be a misogynist to note this, despite the fact that both are aimed at women primarily.

Certainly there are equivalently lame categories of writing for men -- the cheap detective novel and the bikini-filled, leering, double-entendre-fest on TV are the most likely examples.

Nick B said:
Go ahead, go speak to any gaggle of young girls, say, 11 years old. Start talking to them about math, and see how many of them give some variance of "Ewwwww" when the subject is broached... which they then heterodyne onto each other, as a result of peer pressure (which young girls are more subject to the force of). Math isn't cool for a young girl. If there is a responsive girl there, she will be the outcast and probably read fantasy novels (NOT SF!). Probably, she'll go into a bio science rather than a hard science and become a major Tolkien or Piers Anthony fan.

Show them a moebius strip and they will be bored.

A similar group of boys you are far more likely to find one or more -- the overall response towards the math is still going to be much more receptive than "EEwwww!"

Show them a moebius strip and they will go: "COOL!"... and some of them will probably want to know more about them.

Spend much time with kids?

I do (being a teacher). And -- well, you've got it wrong.

Girls and boys love moebius strips. There are things which more boys on average like more than girls on average, but they don't include moebius strips, and what's more, they aren't the kinds of things which define anybody's fate. And no single kid is a measure of central tendency, either.

So making pronouncements about the basic abilities and destinies of people based on either of those things -- average tendencies, or the simple misstatement you introduced here -- is silly. Unless your goal is not to illuminate human development issues but to offend people.

I'm not offended -- frankly, I'm seizing the opportunity to show off that I know more about child development than you do.

the fact that individual examples aggregate to statistics

I don't need to be told this, I am more than aware of it. We aren't going to find this here, for sure.

Not only is the data set biased (one would HOPE to find more degrees, including hard degrees, even spousally, in this forum) but the numbers in question could be counted on one's digits. Enough for one of those idiot "f"(?) tests from first-Stat courses, perhaps, but hardly enough to really take seriously.

Oh, right, your belief that the Left is the main repository of sexism and bigotry in the country. Sadly, sexism is no one political spectrum's sole possession.

No, it's not anyone's sole possession. But if even the slightest hint of it dare ever rear its head on the right (and it inevitably does, humans trip up), it gets chopped off with great violence by the left.

The same cannot be said for the left. When it raises its head there, it is allowed to fester.

The only -- repeat only -- educated white adult less than 50 years old whom I have heard use the "n" word pejoratively in the last 15 years is a personally-described "yellow Dog Democrat". I always presumed he an abberration until Condi and Powell came on the scene. The recent treatment of Bill Cosby is not counter-indicative, either.

The inevitable response is one of "if you aren't wholly supportive of us, you must be an oreo -- a stepinfetchit -- an uncle Tom".

I suggest you look for it. You'll see it if you have honest eyes. The entire position of the Left is based on a racist presumption that blacks, alone among humans, can't climb out of the gutter without endless tremendous outside help.

Spend much time with kids?

I do (being a teacher). And -- well, you've got it wrong.

Girls and boys love moebius strips. There are things which more boys on average like more than girls on average, but they don't include moebius strips, and what's more, they aren't the kinds of things which define anybody's fate. And no single kid is a measure of central tendency, either.

Ah, so, you figure refuting a casually thrown out example of something simply used to illustrate a point refutes that point -- even if you were granted the first refutation, which I'm not willing to do...? Bas reasoning all around.

So making pronouncements about the basic abilities and destinies of people based on either of those things -- average tendencies, or the simple misstatement you introduced here -- is silly. Unless your goal is not to illuminate human development issues but to offend people.

Ah, so, your assertion is that girls do just as well as boys in math and sciences by the time they reach high school? That SAT scores don't show boys well above girls at this point, that college majors don't go heavily away from the sciences in general and massively away from "hard" sciences in particular...?

You assert ANY of those things, which WOULD be a refutation of what Vox, I, or Larry Summers have called attention to?

No, you just stuck to generic denials of them, casually naysaying the questions/assertions made.

I begin to see why schools are turning out academically deficient students these days...

I'm not offended -- frankly, I'm seizing the opportunity to show off that I know more about child development than you do.

Yep, sure. If you teach in a government school, you have a way too decent chance of being incompetent.

I'm not going to presume that (although your comments above certainly lend credence to it), just claiming to be a teacher does not need to mean much of anything. There are far too many teachers who have no business teaching spelling to 6 year olds much less math.

You conveniently did not indicate what grade levels you have experience teaching...

My experience of kids ties to talking to a lot of them and talking about them with a number of teachers I know (in several different cities and schools) who actually are known to be good to me. I do listen carefully to what I hear from the teachers whose opinions I value say about what they encounter.

You can also grasp a lot from what the culture says about them and about what appeals to them -- how things are sold and what is sold.

There is a major reason why anyone interested in science and math becomes a nerd or a geek or the female equivalents... and the fact that there are a heck of a lot more males of that variety than females... or didn't you notice that when looking around your classes...?

This may have changed in recent times, but I doubt it. With the modern emphasis on irrelevant things ("diversity and multiculturalism") combined with "FCATS"(whatever your state calls them) I suspect the pressure on kids to conform to the norm (unless you conveniently belong to one of the privileged "multicultures") is even worse than it ever was.

I DO know the current rules on discipline in the classroom, and they are insane.

>Nt f y thnk Vx ssrtd "tht thr r vry fw wmn wrtng hrd scnc fctn" Tht's nt wht h sd. f y dn't ndrstnd tht, y'r wstng r tm.

nvr sd ths ws th ntrty f hs pnt, bt t crtnly ws prt f t. nd Hrry, tht dsn't ffnd m, n th lst. rthr njy wstng yr tm.

>H md cs fr th ssrtn "Wmn d nt wrt hrd scnc fctn tdy bcs s fw cn hck th physcs" ?

knw t prbbly brngs y mmsrbl jy t rmv sttmnt frm ts grtr cntxt nd jdg th thr n th bss f tht sngl sttmnt. Vx hs sd qt lt n th sbjct, vr tm. f crs, y'd knw tht, f y'd tkn th tm t d smdgn f rsrch. nd h's md fr mr cnvncng cs fr hs thss thn y--r nyn ls, fr tht mttr--hv gnst t.

>h, srry. Smhw cnfltd y tw. Prbbly ws thnkng "sck pppt."

Cnsdrng th shrd trck nd rctnry mndst f th mjrty f cmmnts n ths blg, t's hlrs tht y'd ccs Nck f bng sck pppt. prfct xmpl f th pt cllng th kttl blck.

"This is not the sense he wrote it in."

You haven't the least idea in what "sense" he wrote it, unless you're his sockpuppet. I quoted the words he used, and their meaning is abundantly plain. Your attempt to force some other meaning on them, rather than admit that they are indefensible, is bootless. What follows in your last post (God, would that it were!) is obvious ground-shifting and obfuscation. My understanding of physics, or yours, or anyone else's, is simply irrelevant.

The words beginning "No, it's not a droolingly," etc, are an example of a rhetorical trick without substance by which you falsely impute extreme views to your opponent and then attack them, rather than refuting the actual premise. This, too, is transparently dishonest.

This generally requires sufficient interest in tech subjects which is well beyond that which some 60-70% of women EVER attain in their lives -- and I think I'm being generous. Guys -- even ones with limited grasp of tech, often can "smell" when the tech BS gets too thick.

I gotta laugh my socks off here - 60-70% of human beings have trouble getting the tech knowledge to make informed choices when buying a PC let alone to build their own.

And the male tech instinct? Which gene on the Y-chromosome governs that? Could you explain the mechanism by which it functions? Could you point me to the relevant scientific research paper which proves this?

Or in other words - your anecdotal experience does not coincide with mine, Obi Wan.

They start laughing and poking fun at things instead of taking it seriously.

Ah, I see the problem - I don't ever take SF that seriously. By definition fiction is a form of entertainment in which someone tells a story - it's fantasy, not reality. I don't assume historical fiction is factual either.

You want a definition of SF: The science, real or invented, is good enough that a High School Physics geek can't poke holes in it.

Oddly enough I've seen writers 'called' on being wrong when they went with being cutting edge on the science - and the critic went to school over a decade ago.

Hard SF: Someone with a Bachelors in Physics or Math could not punch a hole in it (a specialty scientist if the central tech is a specialty like microbiology)

Cross Hal Clement off your HardSF listing then - because he acknowledged that Mission of Gravity had an error in it.

'Getting caught in a mistake doesn't bother Clement much. His fans had fun finding it, he says, "and I did write the story to be entertaining."'

And wait a second - you're telling me that it's okay for a HardSF writer to make a complete balls-up of anything that isn't maths and physics or the central tech?

But then poking and punching holes doesn't exactly fit with the definition of holes being glaring errors the writer didn't bother hand-waving.

>Holes do occur. The manner in which the transporters are suggested to work in Star Trek is highly unlikely -- but that was unobvious at the time it was first developed, and even now requires a goodly knowledge of physics to see why (Think "Bandwidth").

I think the words you're looking for are - virtually impossible, and totally impractical. And not unobvious at the time but even more impossible back then. Plus - very little knowledge of physics required to poke holes in.

And bandwidth barely even features as a problem since they're sending matter. If they were only transmitting information about the matter then you'd have the problem of how to vaporise the guy standing on the transporter pad - unless you wanted to make copies of people - but Star Trek transporters convert you into a matter stream.

Star Trek is one big hole - with some technobabble and hand-waving. And there is a lot of SF that hand-waves and babbles better.

The transporter has absolutely nothing to do with people thinking it was scientifically possible and everything to do with cost cutting. It was much cheaper than having shuttles would have been.

> They are sort of stuck with it now, however, so it is grandfathered in. SF does not have to match tech knowledge of the future, only that available when it was written.

Yup, lot of non-science they're stuck with and've added during the lifetime of the franchise. Because their focus isn't getting the science right but telling a story.

People whose primary goal is learning about applications of advanced scientific principles generally shouldn't be looking at SF-TV programmes for an education.

Or fiction in general.

Or, to state bluntly the insinuation that is untrue: the generation of women whose daughters are currently in school have not accomplished anything worthy of historical regard.

How is that untrue? I assume it depends how you define "worthy of historical regard". I would say that the number of people "worthy of historical regard" in any given generation appears to be around 20 or 30, at most. Everyone else gets lost in the dustbin. I'm simply repeating Camille Paglia's question, where are the great women artists, inventors and political figures that the feminists promised would appear as soon as their oppression was lifted?

If you make a list of the 30 most noteworthy American inventors, entrepeneurs, political leaders and artists of the previous generation, from 1960 to 1990, who would you list? Would that list be primarily men or women?

As for Scott Lynch, you certainly appear to be a disingenuous little minx. What you somehow neglected to mention was that your 30 seconds of research proves that while Jiggy Desai does have a BS (not a BA) in Astrophysics, her PhD is in English with a minor in Feminist Studies. And here's the hard science course list that she's teaching.

WoSt 1002 Politics of Sex
WoSt 3102 Feminist Thought & Theory
WoSt 3409 Asian American Women's Cultural Studies
WoSt 4103 International Feminist Theories
WoSt 4900 Senior Seminar: Asian American Women's Literature
WoSt 8190 Migratory Subjectivities and Cultures in Globalization
WoSt 8190 Postcolonial and Feminist Theories
WoSt 8490 Gender, Sexuality, & the Nation

The other woman you mentioned has a PhD in Philosophy and teaches:

WoSt 3202 Biology of Women
WoSt 8109 Feminist Theories & Methods II

Yeah, real scientists, those two. Feeble, Scott, very feeble.

Vox's reason, that women are predispositioned against the hard sciences, presumably due to genetic differences between men and women (Vox, correct me if I am wrong).

Yes, you are wrong. I don't know why they are predispositioned against them, I only observe that they appear to be. I'm aware that innate ability is not equivalent to disposition; my math SATS were very high and yet I had to take Calculus twice in order to pass it. Was it too hard for my little brain? No, I failed because I only went to the class three times, and skipped two tests as well as the final. I just hated it.

Books sold isn't the same as books published. Certainly the many writers at big publishing houses like Pocket Books whose projects were cancelled know that. I've sold seven and will have published four once the next one appears. It's not the worst thing to get paid for not working, but since few authors write solely for the money, it's still not fun.

That being said, even in the heat of battle I couldn't give John a hard time about that because I think the day of the gatekeepers is passing. I quite like military SF and I look forward to checking out his book.

Carlos said:

No disemvowelments?

Going through Vox Day/Nick B.'s comments here is like reading erotica written by someone who -- well, in the immortal words of Xander Harris, "You've never had any tiny bit of sex, have you?" It's really, really obvious that VD is not acquainted with actual women. I don't just mean sexual relations. I mean he's had little or no social interaction of any sort.

That's not the only gap in his knowledge. In spite of his fetishization of the hard sciences, VD doesn't have a scientific turn of mind. There are plenty of scientists, male and female, participating in this discussion. VD doesn't talk like them, and he doesn't reason like them. His "opinions" about women, gender relations, the hard sciences, and SF are a jumble of low-resolution cliches. It's like he's reinvented the Girl Cooties Theory of Genre Literature on his own, only he thinks it's true.

It's pretty clear that VD fears and dislikes women, and that his gender theories are a back-formation. It seems perfectly appropriate that he's a fan of that patently misogynistic suspected female impersonator, Ann Coulter.

Nick B.:

There are women with PhDs who write hard SF.

Feel free to enlighten me. Name some. Don't name "Elizabeth Bear". Jodi attempted to suggest that one over on Vox's website, it got shredded within minutes. She's "hard SF" like "The Day After Tomorrow" is an SF movie (In case you need to be told, it's crap. Entertaining crap with cool FX, but scientifically, *crap*)

Amusing that I, a relative newcomer on the SF scene, am somehow becoming a poster child for women in SF in this discussion. Actually, if you'll see above, I said "I can't hack the physics." No Ph.D. here. I did, however, have the assistance of several computer scientists, two biologists, an astrophysicist, a geologist, a physicist, an MD, and a variety of other real honest to Betsy working scientists and/or technical professionals in working out the science in that series.

Wandering over to the comment thread in question, it appears that none of the people commenting have actually read the material under discussion, but are contenting themselves with mocking the cover blurb, the Amazon excerpt, and my presumed political agenda and/or lack of historical/current events knowledge, using language that also makes it pretty plain they're unacquainted with the text.

So, that dog won't hunt, Nick. (You're welcome to take exception to my literary and/or intellectual merit, but do try not to make yourself look like an ass doing it.)

tangentially, I should also mention that I'm not the one who called it "hard SF." (See above.) My publisher calls the books near-future SF thrillers; other people call it chickpunk, military science fiction, or neo-Cyberpunk. (or "crap." *g*) I just write books. Marketing categories are *so* not my job.

And since there's nothing in the world more boring than a writer talking about her book, that's my last word on the subject.

Nick B: Don't name "Elizabeth Bear". Jodi attempted to suggest that one over on Vox's website, it got shredded within minutes. She's "hard SF" like "The Day After Tomorrow" is an SF movie

Okay. Peter Watts and David Brin both consider her hard SF. We know their credentials to judge what is and isn't hard SF. What are yours?

"while accurate in one sense, completely misleading in another. The last time Vox Day appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (my hometown newspaper) was about four years ago, back at the end of 2000. It appeared there regularly for about two years, and hasn't been back since.

Furthermore, it was not a column on politics, or science, or even books. Nope. It was on video games, specifically reviewing titles for PlayStation, XBox, and the like. That seems to be what Vox Day wrote about back when he actually appeared in newspapers, as far as I can tell (and which the almighty LexisNexis confirms for me).

Misleading how? The whole point was answering the insinuation that Daddy arranged for me to get a little online column. He didn't, and if you'd looked at my archive, you'd have seen that I first began writing a tech/game column for WND. I wrote an op/ed column after September 11th that was well-received and the editors asked me to continue writing op/ed. So I have. But I'm not the least bit ashamed of my computer game roots and would love to continue reviewing them now if I still had the time to do it properly.

Games and their publishing tie-ins are pretty important to publishers these days, so I don't know why you'd wish to imply there's anything gauche about them. Twelve years ago, I was one of the first, now most major newspapers regularly run game reviews.

Hi, fellow named poster child! ;-)

I'd add to this debate, but I've only got a masters in AI and a doctorate in epistemology/history of scientific thought. Cambridge gave it to me because I had particularly good hair on the day of my viva. The thesis had lots of that nasty logic stuff in it so I had to flutter my eyelashes really, really hard to get them to award it to me.

And I don't write hard SF by anyone's admission, including my own. If I decide to write hard SF, I'll do so, and I'll hack the physics just fine, thanks, though I might have to find a big strong man to check it for me.

At the moment, however, I'm more interested in writing the girly philosophical stuff, preferably in a pink cover with a little bow on it.

So as I'm not qualified to say anything, I'll shut up and get back to some actual work.

I didn't grant the statements had no validity simply because there are a decent handful of exceptions to them. They are, at best, rules of thumb... Kind of like walking up to someone in Minnesota and expecting to hear that unusual speaking accent they have. It's not a guarantee it'll be there, but it's commonly the case enough to make exceptions stand out in garish relief.

Granted what may sounds unusual is a beholder's ear phenomona, buy I rarely run into someone with a 'Fargo'-like accent here in St. Paul. Strangely enough, most have speech patterns much like those of Garrison Keillor. Who knew?

Signed,

Another Data Point Heard From

I don't particularly think videogames are gauche. Played far too many of them to think that. No, my objection was a twofold editorial nitpick:

1) Your use of present perfect tense ("has appeared") would imply that your column appeared in the AJC and is still appearing today (or at least much more recently than four years ago). Perhaps unintentional, but a less ambiguous phrasing would've been straight-out past tense: "appeared."

2) I'd say most people who've heard of you today, particularly the ones witnessing & participating in the flamefest, would think of you as a political columnist. Fine. But by not describing your previous print columns as on videogames, you give the implication their topics were the same, roughly, as what you write about now: politics. They weren't, but you seem to want to suggest they were. And while your archives may tell all, people often don't follow the links. Best just to be up front about things.

So like I said: accurate in one sense, misleading in another. That is all. Resume your self-amusement.

Pursuant to the larger and more interesting question of gender-based brain differences, this via Niall Harrison, over in a comment thread on livejournal:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,,1398875,00.html

Mr Harrison further comments that he'd prefer "systemizing" and "empathetic" to "male" and "female," which I think is a handy--and less loaded--description.

Wow. I come back after 24 hours or so and Vox has managed to look... even dumber than before.

"A few have the ability and the education, but they are a statistically insignificant outlier and don't factor into the discussion."

Translation: "Here's evidence that unequivocally disproves my hypothesis. I'll hide it behind this curtain and wave my hands around some, and no one will pay any attention to it." How's that working out for you, Vox? Nick B. has made a hash of arguing in your stead; you might take a moment to reseat your fingers in the proper positions.

"Again, I ask the very simple question that no one has yet seen fit to answer. How many female writers of hard SF exist? How many hard SF novels were published in 2004 by women?"

Again, the number of books published says nothing about the number of women who are capable of writing them. You continue to change the starting point of your argument because your original position (to say nothing of the others you've adopted since) is entirely indefensible.

"We can come up with counter-examples until the cows come home and he will happily agree with us that those examples exist without seeing the need to discard his prejudices, or to temper the reflection of those prejudices in his writing."

Well said, Anne. Thus I return to the *slightly* more productive occupation of sifting through committee reports....

I think that we can all agree that:

(1) Dr. Gregory Benford is a scientist.

(2) Dr. Gregory Benford writes Hard Science Fiction.

(3) In the classic novel "Timescape" Benford has a woman scientist wander about in the background, fairly well dimissed from consideration by the male characters. That woman turns out to have a Nobel Prize in Physics.

(4) Benford has written, subsequently, that the character is based on an actual person, as accurately as possible, who won the Prize for discovering the "magic numbers" of atomic nuclei. He makes the point that only fools believe that women can't hack the Physics.

If in fact you don't agree with me on this, please take it up with Benford. He is, by the way, most surely NOT a Leftist. He is clearly on the Conservative-Libertarian spectrum, and I would vote for him in a heartbeat if he ever ran for office.

Not to be all idly cherrypicking from a competition in the Bad Rhetoric Olympics or anything, but:

"The only physics I ever took was Ex-Lax"

I don't get it. Isn't that biochemistry?

(Also, I take physics every time I fall down the stairs, because I am gravity's bitch.)

(Really, I don't get it. What's the joke?)

veejane: the word "physic" is being used in its more archaic sense to mean "medicine," more specifically the type of medicine of which Ex-Lax is the most famous.

There are many interesting FACTS, in context, in:

Women in Physics

AN ARCHIVE PRESENTING AND DOCUMENTING IMPORTANT AND ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHYSICS MADE BEFORE 1976 BY 20th CENTURY WOMEN.

Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology/Institute for Women and Technology

Association for Women in Science

4,000 years of women in science! Did you know that? Women are, and always have been, scientists. This site lists over 125 names from our scientific and technical past. They are all women!

I would be interested to know what these organizations have to say about Women and Hard Science Fiction, as it relates to Women in Science.

I vote against disemvowelment at this time. Although this thread falls short of pure debate, because not all participants agree to the rules of logic and rhetoric such as Aristotle put forth to eliminate fallacy in debate, this is still an important discussion. I feel that people should be able to read all sides of this discussion, and draw their own conclusions.

Kat Allen wrote:
"Star Trek is one big hole - with some technobabble and hand-waving. And there is a lot of SF that hand-waves and babbles better."

Let me tell my Star Trek story.

I wrote one of the ST:TNG episodes ("Clues", 4th season).

One of the story elements was that the Enterprise came across a big empty (except for a mysterious star and planet) hole in a interstellar dust cloud.

Having written that in my first draft, I showed it to an astronomer friend and asked, "Pete, I'm not sure what I've described is actually possible. Is there some way I can fudge this up to make it seem a little more believable?"

Much to my surprise, Pete told me that there WAS such a phenomenon, a t-Tauri system, where the shockwave from an exploding star could blow an "empty" hole in a surrounding dust cloud.

So I incorporated that info into the submitted script, and ended up actually having a little bit of hard science in my ST:TNG episode.

But it was an ACCIDENT! I didn't mean to! I swear!

I was just trying to tell a good story.

The only way Star Trek can be described as "passable SF" if if you describe "SF" as...

...space opera.

Sounds to me like Vox and Nick have been reading too much Dave Sim. Not just the content — the rhetorical style’s similar, too.

P.S. Less entertaining, though.

I'm just getting over a cold, so maybe I'm feeling less like playing whack-a-troll than usual, but once The Next Voice You Hear (unless of course it's the dog giving orders) pops out with And Mrs. Robinson is one homely woman judging by her picture on her web site in his first post, isn't it pretty clear what he's here for?

Also, dude, spellcheck, please.

"Isn't it pretty clear what he's here for?"

Not the hunting.

This seems like typical troll work, having this bozo and his sock puppets from right wing crankland occupying SF professional award debates is silly

Sock Puppets of Mordor.

If you like Sauron, you'll love Saruman.

Note that there are no women in the Fellowship as such, accompanying the Ringbearer. I think that's because they can't hack the Ring Theory.

What a lot of heat (though little light) over a marketing category.

so many points...at random:

Gregory Benford sometimes writes "hard SF".

Of the 2000+ "SF and Related" books published last year, I would be surprised if more than 20 were what I would call "Hard SF". Most male SF writers don't write hard sf, either.

Hard sf doesn't = physics. Or stories about scientists, either.

A question was raised over the weekend about the percentage of books put under contract which are never published. That number may be higher than any of us would like, but it is nearly always because the writer who signed the contract failed to deliver the manuscript. The number of completed books which are contracted but not published by the originally contracting publisher is so small as to make each instance a colorful industry legend. Most of those books have been subsequently published by another house.

The number of completed books which are contracted but not published by the originally contracting publisher is so small as to make each instance a colorful industry legend.

Rests chin on hands. Oh, please, tell us a story! (If to do so is not libellous.)

Vox's statement contains two separate assertions: (1) few women write hard sf, and (2) women can't hack the physics required for hard sf. He's repetitively demanding that readers disprove assertion (1) by providing a list of female writers of hard sf, when in fact the majority of readers here are objectiong to assertion (2).

Sneaky.

Bit o' trivia for the day:

The incorrect usage of the word _data_ (as a singular instead of plural) is far more commonly employed by non-scientists than by trained, published scientists.

Correct: "the data clearly demonstrate...."
"don't the data matter?"

Incorrect: "the data clearly suggests...."
"doesn't the data matter??"

>>Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics>>

I was attracted here by some of the writers who've made a response.

I have not been involved in SFWA "nominations" for several years, but if I am contacted by other writers I know, or I feel strongly about a certain piece of work or writer, I do read everything that is nominated before, or if, I vote. That said, Nielsen-Hayden's comment that the Nebula Award is going downhill is to the point. I'm glad I went when I did, because I would feel much less positive about it now.

As he said, it's no great shakes to be on a Nebula jury, and I guess this guy's comments prove it.

>>women go into useless majors which primarily exist to make college professors who teach those useless majors...>>

For a "useless major," I've done well for myself financially, and I teach when, how and where I want to. I've also created a lot of artwork and writing, and I can say I've done a few things that have changed things for people across the United States -- I hope for the better. I don't usually tell people this, but for a number of years, as long as anyone in the SF field has known me, I've been an independent woman. By that, I mean I can choose to do anything I wish, and I have total responsibility for myself, as well as for my family and now-child (before, children). I have always taken the responsibility that most people traditionally assign to the "male" role, and with this responsibility, the way I view it, I also have total freedom.

There is some validity to the comments that young women from previous generations were directed away from the sciences in school, and also validity to the comments that current students of both genders are gravitating to the sciences and math. That fact that someone from my generation took a full-pop, four-year art scholarship to a prestigious private university in preference to a harder, more lengthy and costly apprenticeship in the sciences doesn't speak to "gender weakness," but rather to financial and social realities that are in play today for both genders.

"Physics" isn't the important thing in "hard SF," by the way, it's rhetoric. The rhetoric of the imagination. People are "arguing" with an individual who seems to be indicating that Stan Robinson is a homely woman -- an IDEAL Nebula jury member, in my opinion.

Anyway, I just wanted to say this is very funny. It cannot possibly matter that someone thinks that women can't write a type of fiction that few people read, a sub-genre of a sub-genre in a category of fiction that one would hope changes as readers and the landscape changes. How many years has it been since any substantial numbers of readers have purchased and read this type of fiction?

Any writer motivated to write a fictional piece solely to explore an aspect of physics would be a rare and unique writer of any gender. How such a vast misunderstanding of the nature of fiction or the rhetoric of the future could be taken seriously, or, I guess -- repeated as other than loony rantings -- is truly beyond me, after so many years of historical evolution in the field.

People are, or ought to be, in the business of selling books, and telling stories. The last time I checked, Stephen Hawking had outsold every SF novelist (per title -- I honestly don't know if huge bodies of work like Heinlein's or Asimov's, or permanently supported titles like L. Ron Hubbard's would truly count) many times over. But his work is not fiction. Putting the writing of one of the last century's great thinkers aside, when, why and where did this confusion truly come from? As if there is some landscape-changing influence in the world from some piece of current fiction? There could very well be, but how and why is the end-all and be-all . . . physics? Physics is an important lens by which aspects of the world are analyzed and perceived. Other scientists in other disciplines would be a tad disturbed to learn that it seems to be the only branch of science worthy of feminine dunderheadedness, and masculine depth of perception.

There are reasons I don't write SF any more, and none of them are what's listed. Most especially, not because I "don't get the physics." Yes, there is some evidence of gender bias in the field -- but nothing anybody who could write would worry about. I don't write it any more as it's understood (especially as it's understood by the people complaining how Niven had Ringworld going backwards and had to change it in successive editions -- there's some fresh news for ya!) because our world has so far passed that by.

I suspect, but don't know, that readers have tended in recent years to be disinterested in this type of writing, ideation and story, for that same reason. What's to say about a guy like this? Of course he's on the Nebula jury. What could be more perfect?

Beth: The number of completed books which are contracted but not published by the originally contracting publisher is so small as to make each instance a colorful industry legend.

Been there, done that. (Is Singularity Sky a colorful industry legend? :)

Okay, he's done women. I for one am getting a little bored.

Can we get him to elucidate on Jews, or black people? (There was a mention of C. Rice.)

Here, boy. Roll over for us. Then jump through the hoop . . .

Beth Meacham:

Thank you! Friendly amendment accepted:
"Gregory Benford sometimes writes 'hard SF.'"

If I may quote someone who was unambiguously a scientist, and who also sometimes wrote 'hard SF':

"Are women, then, intellectually inferior to men and inherently incapable of piloting a spaceship? Considering that women have, from early childhood on, been assiduously trained to avoid displaying high intelligence and to bend submissively to captious male desires (as the surest way of 'getting a man) it is not surprising that most men think women are intellectually inferior and that most women accept that judgment. But not all women do. Despite everything that custom and pressure can do, there are a number of women who are as intelligent as any man, admit and maintain that fact, and prove it by making their way through a hostile male world to achieve positions of responsibility and success."

[Isaac Asimov, "No Space for Women?", March 1971 Ladies' Home Journal; in "Today and Tomorrow and...", Doubleday, 1973; Dell, 1975, p.195]

Leah: You are exceptionally lucky to live in Canada. The authorities just came and confiscated my breasts once my correction of that math post hit their radar. Damn.

I don't know why they are predispositioned against them, I only observe that they appear to be. I'm aware that innate ability is not equivalent to disposition; my math SATS were very high and yet I had to take Calculus twice in order to pass it. Was it too hard for my little brain? No, I failed because I only went to the class three times, and skipped two tests as well as the final. I just hated it.

I'm sorry, but I can't believe this. You're obviously incapable of advanced maths, and any excuse will do when it comes to skirting 'round the issue. Your math skill is as mythical as those hard SF writing women. The fact that you skipped out means that you recognized your inability to do the work. You didn't show because there was some incompatibility in your genetic makeup preventing your understanding of the coursework.

Gee, that method of "reasoning" sounds familiar. Sort of like something else I've read recently.... Wait. It's the "Vox Method of Determining the Truth!" Pick some demeaning point of view and stick to it, while weaseling around the obvious lack of a connection of the supposed cause and purported effect!

I think the Sockpuppets of Mordor sounds like a great band name.

>>The mental pollution of feminism extends well beyond the question of great thinkers. Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics, so they either write romance novels in space about strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent but lonely women who finally fall in love with rugged men who love them just as they are, or stick to fantasy where they can make things up without getting hammered by critics holding triple Ph.D.s in molecular engineering, astrophysics and Chaucer.>>

I am so too lazy to check this out! How OLD is this guy? I'm seeing "very bad hair" -- what does that mean?

Back to basics. Even this guy had to have a mother.

Now, since when does the possession of advanced degrees in diverse, demanding fields qualify their holders for "criticizing" someone's book-length fiction? Gosh, that's what we used to ask for back in the old Book Review days, and now I understand they're asking for 5-10 years of service on a Federal program advisory board as well.

I'm sure Larry Niven lost at least, oh, say . . . three or four readers by that Ringworld mistake.

The mental pollution of feminism. God. It's this guy why I don't want to write SF any more. This guy and people who can't write. It's not that I feel shamed or bad, just that -- I'm a human being, and I like to read stories written by other human beings, and I like to write stories that other human beings will read, also. My understanding of the work of all the writers I admire is like that. They were people, writing human stories for other people. They may have been bold stories. They may have imagined something as real as, but other than, the world that is. But they were nothing, and never, so stupid as this.

And for Norman or Vox or whatever is name is: often I would write about really weird sex and all kinds of mutations and harm to others because of who they are, and how the world made them. What's like, up with, like this mutant hairy girl who falls in love with a vastly-hurt clown boy and they raise a little deformed furry baby together? Is that "the mental pollution of feminism" or some such? Or CrippleInTheChair ends up as Spam-in-a-can flyaing the stars? The unbelievable a-intellectual crap-o-gance femininorama.

Or, like, these bears, see, these bears that kind of start living in the freeway medians and like, some people have a connection to them, and they understand that the fabric of the world is changing because, like, these bears are having campouts and their version of weenie roasts with berries in hubcap trays sitting in the freeway medians behind some bushes. Like, only those masculo-Hein-line-and-file physics guys like that UltraMacho Greg Benford, they write those Hard SF Klassics like that. Ooops! That was Terry! A well-known ladies name (forgive me, Terry, for I have sinned).

Does this ass know what we do to make a living? Ai! Yes, that Good Old Feminist Anger.

In other amusements, this guy appears to think that Electrolite is "one of the SFWA forums."

Yes we are! Also, we're the National Geographic,, the Dairy Goat Journal, and (after enough martinis) the Sewanee Review.

Well that just shows how little I know. I didn't realize it took consuming enough martinis to become The Sewanee Review Given what I've seen of the society of that community, I thought any spirituous liquors would do.

the Dairy Goat Journal,

What are your recommendations for mastitis?

Irritative or infectious? Former: Bag Balm. (I have discovered that this is also wonderful for dry, cracking hands, the only reason it's even available in my decidedly urban neighborhood.) Latter: see your vet. Don't monkey around.

See? We ARE The Dairy Goat Journal!

As for Scott Lynch, you certainly appear to be a disingenuous little minx.

Hey, I looked up "disingenuous" in the dictionary just now and "truthfully calling Vox Day on an easily-researched point of fact that you'd have to be a complete dipshit to miss" isn't offered as a definition...

Yeah, real scientists, those two. Feeble, Scott, very feeble.

No, truthful, Vox, very truthful. Your exact words, easily disproven, were "not a single scientist in the bunch." I suppose, of course, that the fact these women merely earned degrees in hard science disciplines isn't enough to fit the Vox Day Conveniently Adjustable Definition of a scientist. But then, you can special-plead your way out of anything if your streak of intellectual cowardice is wide enough. Yours is an eight-lane highway.

"h, n, nt t ll. jst wntd t s f t ws tr tht my trs wld shrvl p f vrhtd tht brn thng f mn by thnkng hrd."

N, ts th lck f s tht shrvls t.

Shll spk f snglrty nw? Ths s grt SF tpc mtchng wll wth fmnsm. My ltst nvl ncrprts th tw mgnfcntly. t shld b t ths fll, ptly ttld "Th Gnss Cnndrm".

I've only skimmed the comments here, but haven't seen what seems to me to be the most obvious question:
How many male hard SF writers can hack theoretical physics?

No less an institution than MIT awarded only 110 Physics degrees last year, out of a total of 3300 degrees awarded. That's about 3% of degrees, at an institution that already rejects 90% of applicants and is therefore presumably not overwhelmed with stupid people.

Clearly "ability to hack theoretical physics" is fairly rare. Why am I not convinced that most, or even many, male SF writers have this elusive skill?

FWIW, I read quantum mechanics papers for fun and will happily play the mental muscle-flexing game with anyone. I don't write hard SF because it doesn't interest me.

"Clrly "blty t hck thrtcl physcs" s frly rr. Why m nt cnvncd tht mst, r vn mny, ml SF wrtrs hv ths lsv skll?"

Ys, y r crrct. hv PHD n physcs, nd lgh t mny f th s clld SF wrtrs, whch shll g nnmd. Th prblm s tht th pblc ds nt ndrstnd qntm mchncs, nd wll fll fr ny fctn.

Ths s why sch gnrnt SF wrtrs rch pplrty. Th pblc ds nt knw wht thy r mssng. Brllnt wrtrs s m my nvr rch th pplrty f th nnsns fctnl fctn tht psss fr scnc fctn.

Has VD/Nick B. made a single argument in this thread that can stand up to scrutiny? I can't find one.

As far as I can tell, the most significant consequence of this discussion has been to tip off the SF community, years earlier than might otherwise have been the case, that Vox Day/Theodore Beale is a third-rate intellect (especially when it comes to science), a tad unbalanced, and a generally unpleasant fellow. He had some play value, mostly as a novelty, but I wouldn't put him on programming.

The second most significant consequence of this discussion was that it provided the occasion for Sharyn November to say "I think we all need to drop this and move on," and for John Scalzi to reply, "But... there's still more candy inside him!"

Gd nght Grcy.

Brilliant writers as me may never reach the popularity of the nonsense fictional fiction that passes for science fiction.

Mmmm, narcissism, flavored with a twist of irony.

Trs, y gnrnt sl :

>Hs VD/Nck B. md sngl rgmnt n ths thrd tht cn stnd p t scrtny? cn't fnd n.

Pndng yr wthrd pps nd dclrng vctry ds nt vctry mk, dr. ckspshlly whn y, by yr wn dmssn, "cn't fnd n."

Mr Bl kps hndng yr hds t y, nd y rfs t tk thm bck. Thsly, y r hdlss scrd-mngrs, bst by pffry, wth ll f th mntl ntrtn f n str Pp. Y r lkwrm, nd spw y t f my mth.

N wndr s mch rcnt Scnc Fctn scks.

Gln Wrts

"Mmmm, nrcsssm, flvrd wth twst f rny."

Y dr cll m nrcssst, sn't tht Strss' fld. Hw physcs gnrms cn b pblshd s bynd m. Hw dr y. Nt nly tht, hv y sn hs pctr? Dmn!

You dare call me a narcissist, isn't that Stross' field. How a physics ignoramus can be published is beyond me. How dare you. Not only that, have you seen his picture? Damn!

Narcissism is a "brilliant writer" who punctuates a question with a period, throws in a comma splice, and strings together not-even-related factoids in an attempt to create a rebuttal.

I like how the sockpuppets are multiplying -- I wonder if that's where the other sock goes when you're drying laundry?

Mea culpa. If I could edit "factoid" would become "insinuation" or possibly "insult." I forget that general usage and personal lexicon do not coincide; my best chum and I use "factoid" as meaning "not nearly factual."

Gln wrts

"Nrcsssm s "brllnt wrtr" wh pnctts qstn wth prd, thrws n cmm splc, nd strngs tgthr nt-vn-rltd fctds n n ttmpt t crt rbttl."

hv gd dtr, cn ffrd hm. dn't wrry bt th lttl thngs s m bv tht. My thss n Physcs ws n snglrty. Wht hv y dn wth yr lf? Wr y th cptn f th dbt tm?

"I have a good editor, I can afford him"

Ah, you have to pay for it. Noted!

GT3: My thesis in Physics was on singularity. What have you done with your life?

Narcissism is also "preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance... believes that he or she is special and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people... has a sense of entitlement... shows arrogant haughty behaviors or attitudes..." DSM IV-TR.

Sounding more accurate all the time.

I'll save you the trouble of picking apart my credentials -- I'm nothing special, just another one of those smart women with a degree and lots of geeky books. I don't write hard SF, either. Though I might, if I ever find the time. I anticipate that it will be challenging and frustrating and fun. I love the opportunity to do a lot of research.

Were you the captain of the debate team?

Aw! Such flattery! Of course, that's just your way of drawing out info that you could alternately condescend about and point finger/laugh at, so I'll go with a firm 'maybe.'

"'ll sv y th trbl f pckng prt my crdntls -- 'm nthng spcl, jst nthr n f ths smrt wmn wth dgr nd lts f gky bks. "

lrdy knw tht. D y hv chldrn?

Having followed the link back to Mr. Bane's website, I find myself appalled and not at all amused.

(Read the second entry down.)

Unrelated, but important enough for me to break my lurkism one more time:

While corporal punishment is widespread, using any object but the flat of your hand is good grounds for a call to CPS, and the possible confiscation of your offspring.

And of course, as Mr. Bane actually has *right*, never, NEVER, shake a baby.

stella--eek, I'd thought Bane's comment was tongue-in-cheek. Perhaps it's all a long over-the-top impersonation, but I find myself wanting to scrub my brain after skimming the first couple of entries, so I am disinclined to give them the close reading that such a determination would require.

I already knew that. Do you have children?

I don't think you did know I was a woman. Neither should you assume that means any of your stereotypes apply to me. Predictable little sock puppet, you. Do you have little glass beads as eyes, or those stick-on ones with the rattling pupils?

I could go another round, but really, I'm probably the only one it's amusing, and this isn't my blog. So have fun believing your own fantasies of my supposed inadequacies -- it's been fun pushing buttons with you.

By the way, it's interesting that my net de plume sparked no comment from you. Given to assumptions as you've been.

Gz Ls, nw shll hv t fmgt th plc gn, nd r t th rk f ptchl.

Stll, whn yr pnts bnch lk tht, d thy rqr spcl stmng, r ds th rglr wsh gt ths wrnkls t? m t mch f gntlmn t mntn ny rthy bspttrmnt y my hv sffrd. Ths prs, wld jst sggst y thrw wy.

t t, Kt?

Gt ff my lwn!!

G shrnk yr vlt smwhr ls. Th nly vprs m ntrstd n r th fms rsng frm snftr f Rmy Mrtn.

" dn't thnk y dd knw ws wmn. "

Y r wrng gln t ws bvs t m. Nt t brg, bt hv vry hgh Q, nd ths thngs r lmntry t m. ctlly, ws xprssng ntrst n yr ffctn. Bty s n th mnd ftr ll.

Gln lk th nm.

m rlly srry y fl tht wy bt m, bt gns sms t hv tht ffct. m sr y hv ncntrd th sm. nd dn't l t m y r brllnt.

Wh s ths gnrnt knckl drggng Bn nywy, s thr nywy w cn kp ppl lk hm frm brdng.

"G shrnk yr vlt smwhr ls. Th nly vprs m ntrstd n r th fms rsng frm snftr f Rmy Mrtn."

Bn vlv pls, vry pr ltrry dvc.

For those who have the stomach for it, following the link to Mr. Bane's site is very informative.

First he describes how he punishes his little daughter for making too much noise in the bathtub. He moves on from there to give a detailed description of how to abuse and beat your children in such a way the authorities can't charge you. A step by step how to manual of child abuse.

The comments section was a romp through mental illness. More tips and stories on how to beat your children skillfully, including a little tale from Mrs. Vox Day about taking your children to visit people who don't use wooden spoons to beat their kids.

Child abuse is never cute and never funny. It is always, always sick and twisted.

And I'm sure I'll be next to be treated to Mr. Bane's feeble attempt at wit. So be it. It's easy to win a battle with an unarmed man.

A reference I'm sure will fly right over his head.

Jm hs n L (-Hls nln) ml ccnt.

Yr hnr, th dfns rsts.

...nd >frthrmr, f Drwn hdn't mnt fr y t bt thm, h wldn't hv md thm s sy t ctch.

Jm Thnk y

" rfrnc 'm sr wll fly rght vr hs hd."

cn ssr y tht ths p cnnt grsp th nnc f yr cmmntry.

Wll hv t g, srry lds, bt hv t b p rly n th mrnng t tstfy s n xprt wtnss n trl tmmrw. Ksss

Nick B said:

Of *course* there are plenty of girls who think a moebius strip is cool.

Again. I never suggested to the contrary. I simply say that it's a lot fewer females than males. Cause un-specified... Oh, also, you'll get a lot more "cool!" responses in any reasonably large group of boys old enough to grasp the real oddness of its behaviors/qualities.

But what he said originally was:
Go ahead, go speak to any gaggle of young girls, say, 11 years old. Start talking to them about math, and see how many of them give some variance of "Ewwwww" when the subject is broached... which they then heterodyne onto each other, as a result of peer pressure (which young girls are more subject to the force of). Math isn't cool for a young girl. If there is a responsive girl there, she will be the outcast and probably read fantasy novels (NOT SF!). Probably, she'll go into a bio science rather than a hard science and become a major Tolkien or Piers Anthony fan.

Show them a moebius strip and they will be bored.
A similar group of boys you are far more likely to find one or more -- the overall response towards the math is still going to be much more receptive than "EEwwww!"

Show them a moebius strip and they will go: "COOL!"... and some of them will probably want to know more about them.

Sorry, but I'm going to bulldog about that moebius strip. Why? It's personal. Because one of my earliest memories as a little girl is my grandmother (a doctor) demonstrating the moebius strip to me. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and I replicated the various tricks you could do with it, and when my mother showed me the Klein bottle I read the whole (grown-up) chapter on topology.

Which is, of course, how it works with boys or girls. The moebius strip is such a spurious example for Nick's point, and such a good one for mine, because it is so very cool that almost any child will respond to it.

Yeah, I was a girl, all right -- I made Christmas tree garlands of interlocked moebius strips.

I see you got the Vox. (Like the Pox, but with no known antibiotic cure.) He can't resist tracking down who's saying things about him, but I notice that he doesn't dare to beard s.z. in her lair, nowdays, for one. No force of logic or empirical evidence can penetrate the skull of Bonehead!Man or his minions.

--Oh, and they're *not* sock puppets, not in the usual Mary Roche sense. You're dealing with a hive mind here, like the Borg with VD as their Queen. If you want to see *scary* read through the comments at that "Pogroms R Us" post, and note his defenders. Particularly the women. (To think that I once laughed off the notion of "colonized minds"--!) Or paraliterate Bandar-log who were hanging around an English mission too long and picked up the trappings of Church ritual, perhaps.

I'm still amazed that this wasn't already widely known in the SF profession, given that the Beale dual-identity was linked quite a bit in June, and the Vox Collective have been witnessing a very unsavory sort of Christianity rather loudly to the blogosphere for some time now.

Frankly, I think the only way to clear your decks of them is to beam them to a Klingon ship. One way or another, the problem would be dealt with...

rn't y frd f bng shnnd by yr prs fr tht Str Trk rfrnc?

He also asked :

"I’d never understood how the medieval kings found it so easy to get the common people to hate the Jews in their midst."

Basically, the only trade open to medieval jews was moneylending. At the time of the Magna Carta there were three standard rates of interest, being 22%, 44% and 66% p.a. Maybe this had something to do with it?

I'll blog a more detailed history of medieval antisemitism for y'all later this week.

Stu

nfrtntly y gys r bnch f sxlly rprssd ndvdls lkng t tk t t n th fmly mn. Y dlts, y hv bn tkn n by yr wn rprsd mnds. Y wldn't knw th trth f t slppd y n th fc, whch t hs slppd y svrl tms. Dmn hv nvr sn sch dcy n my lf. nd Strss y wr nd lwys wll b lsr. Gt hr ct bd nd dwn wpn n yr nxt pctr.

Hr sm rl SF wrtng fr y lsrs. thnk ths gy ws wrtng bt yll?

`Whn s wrd,' Hmpty Dmpty sd, n rthr scrnfl tn, `t mns jst wht chs t t mn -- nthr mr nr lss.'

`Th qstn s,' sd lc, `whthr y cn mk wrds mn s mny dffrnt thngs.'

`Th qstn s,' sd Hmpty Dmpty, `whch s t b mstr -- tht's ll.'

Gdnght Grcy!

>Hs VD/Nck B. md sngl rgmnt n ths thrd tht cn stnd p t scrtny?

ht t brk t t y, Ms. Hydn, bt VD & NckB. r tw dstnct ppl, nt n prsn pstng ndr psdnyms--cntrry t yr hllcngnc nsntns.

fnd t msng tht th "sck pppt" mnkr hs rrd ts yrny hd rptdly, n ths blg. t sms rgnlty sn't strng st f mny f th pstrs.

hv qstn, fr ths t whm t ppls: f ppl wh hppn t gr wth Vx r sck pppts, thn hw shld prprly ddrss ll ths mrchng rm-n-rm gnst hm, n ths thrd?

thnk "Rggdly-ndvdlstc" s t. Prhps lmmngs wll sffc, n ts std.

Ws

Ths ppl r dts, bmsd by crcmstnc.

t s sd, rlly sd.

It seems originality isn't a strong suit of many of the posters.

I don't care about being original; I only care about being right. If you tried to tell people that 2+2=5, you would get a lot of unoriginal responses.

Being original is easy. Being original and correct is not. You're still taking the easy path.

Um, Bane, most of my peers here *make* Star Trek references on occasion. At least one of the bloggrolled have *written* Star Trek novels. Do you not know of the dangers of assumption? I think I'm probably a little more familiar with this group than you are. (Frex, I'm sure someone here will have the link to that old Dr. Seuss-ST:TNG fic/filk thing that did the rounds in Usenet back in the day, or at least remember it.)

You're giving newbies a bad name. Or living down to the stereotype, whichever.

(There needs to be a FAQ, which states the relevant facts in re the Nielsen Haydens' professional and religious associations, and other important points like the cryptic threads on ML etc, not just to consolidate it all for newcomers, but so that, in time, there will be an opportunity for someone to shout, "READ THE FAQ!!!" and the ancestral ghosts of internet tradition will be appeased.)

>Bng rgnl s sy. Bng rgnl nd crrct s nt. Y'r stll tkng th sy pth.

N, 'm mrly spkng s smn wh hs grt fmlrty wth VD's clmns nd blg. Thrfr, 'm n mch bttr pstn t gg th mnng f hs wrds thn y r. t hs bn mpld--r trght sttd--tht h's kk, sxst, nd vn Jw-htr, n ths thrd; yt sch lblng s nt vldtd by thrgh xmntn f hs wrk. S ths ttcks--mny f whch r >d hmnm--r stpd n rnk gnrnc.

Wht fscnts m mst s tht n n crs wht h ctlly mnt. Prcptn s ll. Trth s fr th brds. Sch mndst hrdly s n pstn t crtcz hm.

>"Hs VD/Nck B. md sngl rgmnt n ths thrd tht cn stnd p t scrtny? cn't fnd n."

Thn y'r thr bng dsngns r wllflly blnd.

1. ssrtd tht ws sng prfctly rsnbl p/d hyprbl n th sttmnt whch ffndd ppl hr nd th nxt dy prvdd tw xmpls f prcsly th sm hyprblc rhtrc frm tw clmnsts hdlnng th Nw Yrk Tms.

Tr r fls?

2. xplnd tht th fct tht th rgnl sttmnt ws rhtrcl n shld hv bn bvs by th fct tht m fmlr wth th wrks f Nncy Krss, lzbth Br (whs wrk dn't cnsdr hrd SF thr), nd thrs prvsly mntnd.

Tr r fls?

3. nlk mny ppl hr, hv nt bhvd "lk n sshl" n ths st. hv nt ld, hv nt bn dsngns nd hv ptntly ffrd th sm xplntn vr nd vr gn. f y blv tht sng slng dfntns nd vrhtd rhtrc s nhrntly "bd wrtng", thn tht s prbbly why m pplr p/d wrtr nd y r nt. nn Cltr ds t, rc ltrmn ds t, Frnk Rch ds t, Mrn Dwd ds t, vn Grg Wll ds t.

Tr r fls?

Fnlly, qstn. s n t rgrd vry ndvdl wth dffrnt blfs s n nhrnt sshl? s psychlgclly dmgd? f s, 'm crs t knw whch dffrng blfs r prmssbl nd whch r nt? fnd th ccstns f sck-ppptry t b prtclrly rnc gvn tht thr s mr dvrsty f pnn btwn Nck B nd m thn thr pprs t b n th mss f ppl pstng hr.

> nt fr Blltrys: dn't "brd" lttl mss Fclcs bcs sh nvr ctlly wrts nythng t whch tk xcptn. Sh jst mks fn f ppl, ftn n n msng mnnr. Wht m sppsd t sy, " m nt wngnt?" f ws s bsssvly ltrl s sm f th ppl hr, mght. Snc, by hr bvs dfntn, clrly m, wht s thr t rg bt?

As far as I can tell...

I was on the edge of my seat...

Vox Day/Theodore Beale is a third-rate intellect, a tad unbalanced

Teresa, I'm still trying to figure out whether you are dressed as a witch, or a hippie cowboy... and you're attempting to say that someone else, anyone else, is of questionable intellect and a tad unbalanced?

I haven't come over here, simply because I think it has been a geek-fest. It is like coming over to the kids playing chess, and saying you can beat them at their own game. And although you clearly can - why? Oh dear God... why? I mean, when that's all they have going for them, let them have their game, and their nosebleeds.

Um, Bane, most of my peers here *make* Star Trek references on occasion.

Ooh, can I be in!

You know, until photographic evidence is available, I find the 'bella' part highly questionable, but you do 'try' hard, so I’ll give you that.

No force of logic or empirical evidence can penetrate the skull of Bonehead!Man or his minions.

You don't like ruggedly strong men who don't give into emotional manipulation, do you? They didn't treat you well in school or ask you to the prom, did they? Men are arseholes, aren't they? Come on, confide in me 'bella'trys... I want to be part of your support network, forget Bella Online and the snack foods. Come on, I'm here for you.

I'm still amazed that this wasn't already widely known in the SF profession

They don't have to know if you don't tell them, and one day you'll find a guy who will date you for you, he will also date you because his favourite side hobby is bashing his head in with a brick.

a very unsavory sort of Christianity

Would it be more favourable to you if on the seventh day, God had of said 'let there be a gunboat on the Mekong Delta'? Yeah, I think so. You know what? If you have $700 million, I think I can get you a hook-up...

>"t's prtty clr tht VD frs nd dslks wmn"

Rght, 'll b sr t tll Spc Bnny tht s sn s lt hr t f th stcks n whch Mrn Dwd nfrms m kp hr. By yr lgc, t's prtty clr tht y fr nd dslk mn wth th bckbn t dsmss thrty yrs f dgmtc fmnst rthdxy.

Wht s thr t fr? By ths pnt t shld b mr thn bndntly clr tht 'm nt th lst bt cncrnd bt psttng fml dtrs, dspt th wrnngs prvdd prvsly hr. Hmmm, cm t thnk f t, bth f my fctn dtrs r wmn.

N wndr my bts r shkng....

By th Sntd Tntcls f Cthlh's Chn, fl, vryn. t's th crzd dng. f y vl yr snty, fl!

Nt, dmmt, tld y t tckl hm f y sw hm hdng ths wy.

Hey, this was turning into a shit-fight, so where do you turn when one of those are going down?

DOWN UNDER. And then I come and tell em, ta get stuffed.

Lucy: I too am inclined to be bulldoggish about the Moebius strip explanation, since my early childhood experiences seem to run very similarly. I first came across an illustration of a Moebius strip in Godel, Escher, and Bach (at the tender age of four or five, when I was reading everything I could get my hands on, including Dad's college texts). I used to make them, and like Escher, draw them. I don't know anybody who didn't think they were cool when I showed them how it worked.

Life is too short to put up with ass-hats, so I'm out of here. Teresa, you might want to chuck the welcome mat out in the trash and fumigate the porch -- the buzzing suggests something died here and the stink is attracting flies.

On insults:

Gregory Tompkins III: No, its [sic] the lack of use that shrivels it [the uterus].

What leaves me shaking my head in disbelief is that this person believes this stunningly stale response (to a joke of mine, yet), implying--I confess I'm a little uncertain whether he's attacking my femininity via my implied unattractiveness to men and therefore my inability to have sex (from someone whose grasp of female anatomy was strong, I'd have expected "vagina" in that case, but one must allow for possible ignorance), or implying female worth comes from childbearing--has the ability to hurt me. And the insults thrown by this person and others lately display that same level of creativity, originality, and flat-out lameness. Really, is that the best y'all can do? Sheesh.

I notice that, despite what has come before, the gloves are off now and the trolls are making blatantly misogynistic remarks as opposed to the ones they previously disguised as "just facts, like them or not."

In addition to this, it appears that VD and many of his group believe they are blameless of ad hominem attacks, given the frequency with which they accuse the regulars here and ignore the same behavior from those on "their side." To which I merely reply: Uh huh. If you expect people to simply swallow insults (be those ad hominem or attacks on whole classes of people) without responding in kind, perhaps a few courses in some of those soft sciences would be useful.

On the cleverness of names:

The failure of anyone, or any group, to comment on the cleverness of a pseudonym does not mean they did not note the pun. (Case in point: No one commented on "TexAnne," "Nemo Ignotus," or "PicusFiche," either. Shall we assume those of you who didn't comment did not get the puns?) I thought "Gluon" was amusing, both for the physics reference and the "glue on" pun, but didn't see the need to comment on it. Likewise, I knew that "Vox Day" was a play on the Greek "theo" translating to the Latin "deus," but since the Latin word pronounced "day" is "de," not "dei" (which is pronounced "day-ee"), thereby breaking the pun with "vox dei," I thought its cleverness limited and not worth commenting on. (Given that "Vox Dei" was undoubtedly already taken as a blog title, some artistic license must be allowed, but asking me to admire the cleverness of a broken pun is a bit much.)

PiscusFiche, sorry for the misspelling. I don't have my new lenses yet, and proofing small type is hard for me.

Tracina: The failure of anyone, or any group, to comment on the cleverness of a pseudonym does not mean they did not note the pun.

I merely found it interesting that someone claiming to possess the knowledge/higher education Gregory does and who is convinced of his own brilliance, and who seems set on flattering the pants off me, failed to pick up that and use it. That was specific to the conversation with GBIII/real Gregg and not a broad comment. I don't doubt there are many who read here who understood.

As for accusations of sockpuppetry, for a while I suspected it -- and still see nothing to prove conclusively it wasn't in play, especially as Gregory/Gregg can't make up his mind which name he wants to use. But I'm leaning away from that theory after seeing more posts and spending a little more time on websites I don't intend to visit again. I may have let the ooze of condescension snap my resolve to not participate in trollery this time, but I think it's time to vanish into lurkerdom again.

Gluon:That was specific to the conversation with GBIII/real Gregg and not a broad comment.

I understand. I merely included it as an example; it was bound to come up, after all.

As for sockpuppetry: I may, after examination of the evidence, conclude that actual posing of one person as another may not have happened, but I still see instances where one person's lips are moving while another person is speaking. Using another term for that would reduce confusion, I suppose.

Nemo: The idea that might be due to societal discouragement of women form getting into the hard sciences (I consider this weak, because two old-boy enclaves of the past, law and medicine, have, since we as a society began allowing women to enter those fields en masse, gotten ratios of male to female that are much less skewed than those in the hard sciences.)

I kicked this idea around for a day or two, and one thing that strikes me about the difference between law and medicine on one hand and physics on the other is that in both law and medicine, one has the option of eventually having a private practice, if desired. While one still has to get through all the crap at the beginning, there's the encouraging knowledge that it won't last forever, and that things are likely to improve when one is one's own boss and therefore less directly affected by and vulnerable to someone else's prejudices.

Tracina notes: "...in both law and medicine, one has the option of eventually having a private practice, if desired. While one still has to get through all the crap at the beginning, there's the encouraging knowledge that it won't last forever, and that things are likely to improve when one is one's own boss and therefore less directly affected by and vulnerable to someone else's prejudices."

Law and medicine, to which we may add architecture and engineering, are also often family businesses, and sons often followed their fathers into the family firm. Now, this has been expanded; couples practice together, and sons and daughters follow their parents. However, even where science has a place in private industry, it tends not to be in family firms, where the student can hope to have a job when they've finished training.

Hans Albrecht Bethe (2 July 1906-7 March 2005)

Rest in peace, Hans. You could hack the Physics.

Doesn't anyone get disemvowelled any more? Or are we to think that accusing people of "[p]ounding your withered paps" is acceptably courteous language?

And what trailer park downstream from a radioactive chemical plant produces these losers, anyway?

Hexaflexagons are even cooler than Moebius strips. My father made them for us; I really need to get some adding machine tape and make some for the kids.

According to the stats put out by the National Science Foundation for 2001 (http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/nsf03310/pdf/sect3.pdf):

Of doctoral scientists working in mathematical and physical sciences, ~15% were female. In bio/ag sciences,women were ~29%. So, yes, women are underrepresented in the sciences (since they make up ~50% of the population).

But: Of doctoral scientists working in mathematical and physical sciences, less than 2% were black/African-American -- a minority group that makes up (I think) ~15% of the US population. So they, too, are grossly underrepresented.

What proportion of published hard SF is written by black authors? I've no idea. I ask our genial host: is it less than 15%? If the answer is 'yes' -- is anyone gonna be stupid enough to suggest that the reason fewer black authors write hard SF is because they are intellectually incapable of "hacking the physics"?

FranW, I bet they will. I wish they'd go back under the bridge until the Billy Goats Gruff get here.

Tracina: No worries. (Also my nick makes even more punnery fun if you know that the other nick I go by is PixelFish, but that one started getting ratherly commonly used by other folks, so I migrated to Piscus. Actually, I'm not totally sure if it should be piscus, pisces, or piscis. I've seen all three.)

The candy's all gone.

But before I go too, I paraphrase the immortal words of Joel Swadesh: Don't tell me you're a genius, let me figure it out.

The following is from myself and the Board:

The views expressed by Theodore Beale are his and only his and do not in any way represent the views of SFWA, its Board of Directors, or the Nebula coordinator who selected the jury. None of us were aware of Mr. Beale's views at the time he volunteered for the jury over a year ago, nor did we become aware of them until these past few days, after the 2004 jury had finished its deliberations.

Mr. Beale is not a member of the 2005 Novel jury.

Sincerely
Catherine Asaro
President, SFWA

Latin for "fish" is "piscis". "Pisces" is the plural. As far as I can tell (and I could be wrong) "piscus" doesn't actually exist -- in Latin, at least.

The following is just from me, as a scientist. My background and that of other women in physics seems to be a subject of some discussion here. For those who are interested:

My doctorate is from the Chemical Physics program at Harvard, with a specialization in theoretical atomic and molecular physics.

The Chemical Physics degree is an interdisciplinary program that requires the doctoral candidate to show proficiency in both physics and chemistry. In my case, because I was seeking a theoretical degree, I also had to show proficiency in mathematics.

I also have a masters in physics from Harvard and a B.S. in chemistry with highest honors from UCLA, with an honors thesis in the area of theoretical chemical physics.

My Ph.D. advisor was Alex Dalgarno, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and founder of the Institute for Theoretical Atomic and Molecular Physics (ITAMP).

My doctoral committee also consisted of Nobel Prize winner Dudley Herschbach, and Roy Gordon, former Chair of the Harvard Chemistry Department.

My other two mentors were Eric Heller, former director of ITAMP, and Kate Kirby, the present the Director of the Institute for Theoretical Atomic and Molecular Physics, which is associated with the CfA and the Harvard Physics Department.

Kate, by the way, is a woman.

I did my postdoctoral research at the University of Toronto. After a year and a half, I was offered a position as a physics professor at Kenyon College, where I remained until I decided to become a full time writer.

The science in my book Primary Inversion derives from a paper I wrote, "Complex Speeds and Special Relativity" published in the American Journal of Physics.

http://www.amherst.edu/~ajp/toc/apr-96.html

My book The Quantum Rose is an allegory to the coupled channel quantum scattering theory that formed the basis for my doctoral work. In a science-in-science-fiction essay in the back of the book, I describe the math and physics, and how I used it in the story.

Anyway, that's offers a bit of an example of a female scientist.

Catherine Asaro, Ph.D.

Gluon wrote:
"I merely found it interesting that someone claiming to possess the knowledge/higher education Gregory does and who is convinced of his own brilliance, and who seems set on flattering the pants off me, failed to pick up that and use it." (emphasis added)

Gluon, at first I thought he was pulling our legs with his "I'm-SO-brilliant" schtick, but then decided he really WAS serious. That's... creepy.

And my reaction to his comments towards you wasn't that he was "flattering" you, but that he was trolling you for personal information. ("Do you have children?")

That's not just creepy, it's skin-crawling online-stalker type creepy.

If I were holding a real-world party, and he showed up and started acting like that, I'd ask him to leave. If he wouldn't, I'd call the police.

Thank you, Dr. Asaro.

Gee, I'm not sure, but I think Dr. Asaro can hack the physics. What do y'all think?

Thank you for that, Catherine Asaro. A singularly civilized yet absolute demolition of the position of this thread's main asshat.

Big fan, by the way. In fact, I'll shut up now lest I embarrass myself by gushing.

Thank you, Catherine Asaro, Ph.D.!

And speaking of grotesque misogyny, my wife was attacked by her unpublishable Chairman because one of my wife's several refereed publications of the year involved Complex Accelerations (and complex momentum, in Special Relativity, General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Brane Theory). The Chairman (with only an Ed.D. which we are sure he didn't write himself) attacked my wife in writing, thereby preventing her from getting a 3-year contract, and instead merely getting her 4th successive 1-year contract as a full-time Physics professor. The reason given for the attack on that paper? "It isn't a Physics paper at all, but more like some fiction by Asimov."

I mention this because of our new data point of people on the web who believe that women can't hack the physics, and your paper (I'll go to the hardcopy library ASAP):

"Complex Speeds and Special Relativity" published in the American Journal of Physics.

http://www.amherst.edu/~ajp/toc/apr-96.html

Being accused of writing like Asimov is almost a compliment, of course, outside of the backstabbing context. My wife made a written rebuttal which included the fact that Isaac Asimov was actually a scientist and science professor, had published the work of another coauthor of that paper (me), and in his multivolume autobiography, had described the prejudice against him in academe because he also wrote Science Fiction.

Thank you again, Patrick and Teresa, for making this thread such an illuminating experiment in abnormal psychology. The control group of women scientists, women science fiction writers, and enlightened males gave me much hope.

Thank you, David. :)

Dunno where I grabbed the "piscus" misspelling then. I guess that means my pun is broken too. *ponders* Should I get my gmail account updated with a proper spelling?

PiscusFiche: don't bother fixing it. Everybody can tell what it refers to, and it just looks like you've deliberately made it refer to another thing, something obscure. If anybody asks, look solemn and say "it's like the S. in Harry S. Truman."

And my reaction to his comments towards you wasn't that he was "flattering" you, but that he was trolling you for personal information. ("Do you have children?")

That was exactly what I thought.

That's not just creepy, it's skin-crawling online-stalker type creepy.

Which is why I gave him nothing and did not leave an url with my comments, just the gmail address I use for spambait.

If I were holding a real-world party, and he showed up and started acting like that, I'd ask him to leave. If he wouldn't, I'd call the police.

Absolutely. My initial post was a kneejerk reaction - the following posts were meant to see what was up, whether he might be VD in disguise - I don't think so, and when the heebiejeebies set in, I stuck around long enough to see if he was kidding, then bailed. I can only ignore the spidey-sense for so long. Thank goodness it wasn't face to face.

Dd scr y? ddn't thnk fmnsts gt scrd? nd thght y wr nt cmng bck nywy. Dn't flttr yrslf n my ccnt. nd n n't Vx Dy, tht s my rl nm jst drp th ""

cn't blv y'll ddn't fgr t t by my scnd pst. Dd y nt s my cmmnts n snglrty nd fmnsm. Dmn!

I still wanna know where that trailer park is.

Mr Harrison further comments that he'd prefer "systemizing" and "empathetic" to "male" and "female,"

But, but, but, wait. I do both. I do both really well -- not my opinion; I could provide testimony.

Or perhaps I should ask for a definition of systemizing...

MKK

Xrbl

lv n frt wrth txs, nd m ppr mddl clss lvng n lrg tw stry hs. wrk n th ngnrng fld nd trvl ll vr th S. Y gys r dts f y cldn't fgr t hw y gt yr ht hndd t y btwn m nd Bn, h 'm srry, Bn nd . Y gys thnk y r rlly smrt nd nvr fgrd t wh ws, whl ws gvng y plnty f lds. Yp, ws fnnn' y.

Scnd pst f mn:

"Shll spk f snglrty nw? Ths s grt SF tpc mtchng wll wth fmnsm. My ltst nvl ncrprts th tw mgnfcntly. t shld b t ths fll, ptly ttld "Th Gnss Cnndrm"."

Thrd pst f mn:

"Brllnt wrtrs s m my nvr rch th pplrty f th nnsns fctnl fctn tht psss fr scnc fctn."

Thnk bt t! Jz!

You spent a lot of time in the "short bus," didn't you?

lx,

Ths s my lst pst hr, cm hr fr rsn. Y gys cld lrn mch by hngng wth ppl y dsgr wth, nd lrn t b frnds wth thm. Bt tht s nt yr M, nstd y r stffy bl stt typs wh thnk vryn wh dsn't hld yr pnn s gnrnt. cld cr lss wht y blv, n th thr hnd, tht s hw y gg thr ppls ntllgnc. Thr r plnty f th lft spctrm n Vx's st wh dsgr wth bt lv. n f my fvrts s n wh dwns th ncknm -ht-th-shrb, Dmcrt wh hts GWB. m frdrlst wh dd nt vt fr hm. Drp yr str typs fllws.

I live in fort worth texas, and am upper middle class living in a large two story house.

Is this supposed to surprise me? The radioactive poisoned trailer park was your putative point of origin, y mrn, not your current location. If you didn't grow up there you must be adopted.

You guys are idiots if you couldn't figure out how you got your hat handed to you between me and Bane, oh I'm sorry, Bane and I.

No, actually "me and Bane" was more correct grammar, y dt, though "Bane and me" would be more conventional. Of course, that has to do with prepositions governing cases, and is too complex for yr dt svnt engineering brain. But it's only syntax and morphology; it's the semantics of the sentence that are truly absurd.

I have to admit I've learned something from this thread. I've learned that sock puppets can be either adopted names (the classic form) or actual human volunteers -- though the penultimate word of that phrase may be an exaggeration in your case.

And I'll spell something out for you, since you seem a little shorthanded, logically-wise speaking: we didn't figure out who you are because not one of us gives a flying fling at a rolling donut who you are. Dts r mch lk; yr tp s sffcnt.

Xopher, are you disembowelling yourself?

m gng t hv t rng, hhhhhhhh.

"nd 'll spll smthng t fr y, snc y sm lttl shrthndd, lgclly-ws spkng: w ddn't fgr t wh y r bcs nt n f s gvs flyng flng t rllng dnt wh y r. Dts r mch lk; yr tp s sffcnt."

N N, t s lk ths. N n gvs wngd cpltn wht y sy. Cm n b clr n wht y sy. Wht s th rllng dnt cmmnt nywy? Mn mk sns!

qn xcrmnt wld hv bn gd. rdnts rr-nd wld hv bn K. lt m spll t t fr y, tht wld b hrs-sht nd rts-ss rspctvly. hhhh.

Whts wth th shrthnd nywy. y crt rprtr?

I can't decide whether I miss the disemvowellings or not. On one hand, I get to read all the incendiary comments which I might otherwise be forced to give up on due to eye strain. On the other, I can actually read the comments and then I end up wanting to respond to them instead of packing as I am supposed to be doing.

I am the person who coordinates the Nebula Awards Report and selects the juries. This is the process: I ask for volunteers for the juries (for the next year) toward the end of the year. I ask online, in the SFWA Online Update, and in SFWA print publications. Shortly thereafter I get email (and occasionally snailmail) from people -- often they tell me which jury (or juries -- there are four now) they wish to serve on. There are up to seven slots on each jury and I match people up as well as I can -- mostly first come, first served.

I look for two things. I want to know if they are SFWA members, since the Nebula Rules require jury members to be SFWA members, and I try to include at least one or two experienced jury members from previous years so they don't have to completely reinvent the jury wheel. That's it.

Once I have my lists I submit them to the SFWA President for approval.

We ask the jury members to read widely and look for worthy works that might otherwise
be overlooked. Period.

I do not vet anyone's politics. I do not do background checks. I do not ask their neighbors if they kick dogs and kids. I do not ask their position on gun control or abortion. I do not ask if they support the war in Iraq or gay marriage. I do not ask about race, gender, sexual preference, religion, national origin, or mental illness.

I am not responsible for the beliefs, politics, or actions of jury members. Neither is SFWA.

Brook West, SFWA Nebula Awards Report Editor

I do not vet anyone's politics. I do not do background checks. I do not ask their neighbors if they kick dogs and kids. I do not ask their position on gun control or abortion. I do not ask if they support the war in Iraq or gay marriage. I do not ask about race, gender, sexual preference, religion, national origin, or mental illness.

No, but if they think one section of the human race is categorically inferior to another, this calls into question their ability to dispassionately and fairly judge without, indeed, pre-judgement.

I would not for example trust an avowed white supremacist to be able to "look for worthy works that might otherwise be overlooked," because s/he would automatically disqualify books written by black or Asian or indigenous writers. (Particularly if s/he had published essays sneering at multiculturalism and dismissing all minority authors' works as trash.) No more would I trust a documented anti-Semite not to discriminate, either, except in so far as these bigots were unaware of the ethnicity of the authors.

Likewise, someone who has repeatedly and openly and in print stated a disdain for the intellectual abilities of women, is only going to be able to judge fairly if ignorant of the author's gender - which, in keeping with the improved but no means perfect (or stable) shifts in attitude, is much less often kept secret these days; you don't have the same pressure to do as Moore or Tiptree or Norton did back in the day, when it was an article of faith that no male would read SF written by a woman.

So this is either a bit naive, or a bit disingenuous, of a disclaimer.

And I'm supposed to know his views how?

Like I said, I do not do background checks. At the time all I knew of Mr. Beale was that he was a SFWA member. I don't read minds, either.

Xopher, are you disembowelling yourself?

No! I'm disemvowelling the nasty bits, though. I'm going to stop now, even though there's more candy in him...a "brilliant writer" who can't spell 'renege' (you'd think he'd know the name of his own habit), though I notice he DID get my pun on his name. Curious.

With all due respect to Brook West, it seems to me there's probably a sensible middle ground between performing the loathed and feared "background checks" and simply making up juries out of whoever happens to volunteer. Such as, for instance, informing yourself of who your members are. As it turns out, Google is very good at discovering that mild-mannered fantasy writers live secondary, pseudonymous lives as pundits with colorful opinions about the mental capacities of female writers.

"We're not responsible because we just take whoever volunteers" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of SFWA as a sensibly-managed operation. Nor is taking a little time to discover and consider the particular qualifications of volunteers a First Step Down The Slippery Slope Of Stalinist Thought Control. It may be that what all this comes down to is that SFWA is now an organization of 1400 people, only a small number of whom are more than extremely part-time writers. It's a common problem of scale: the kinds of sensible, nuanced judgements that are possible when managing an organization of 200 become far more difficult when running a group seven times that size. However, I myself am no longer a member, so my opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it.

Moreover, my thanks to both Brook West and Catherine Asaro for posting. My snarky opinions about SFWA's long-term quirks don't reflect any personal quarrel with either of them. SFWA had these kinds of problems well before either of them were good enough to volunteer for their turns in the barrel.

Brook West asked: And I'm supposed to know his views how?

When my employer hired me, they asked if I could deal fairly with a diverse group of people and similar questions. Then they listened to the answers.

They asked because I am required to follow EO laws when I hire people. I did not consider the questions about my ability to treat people fairly to be "vetting my political beliefs" so much as "can you follow the rules, regulations, and laws."

My job is to hire people who must deal with a diverse population and treat them politely and equally, so I am very familiar with this process. It's really not hard. Any good hiring manual will give you suggestions.

I believe that's a new record for number of comments disemvowelled in one go.

Exercise of arbitrary authority, yum.

p.s.: Xopher gets a gold star for "y dt."

[frames his gold star, vowing to do more of the same in appropriate circumstances]

Teresa Nielsen Hayden:

Xopher gets another gold star for "y dt." That happens to be a Calculus pun, which I'd rather not explain. But he did produce a very rare three-letter ROTFL, although one sort of needs the context to get the great joke. As was the case for 4e Ackerman's 1-letter SF short-short. Thank you again, Teresa, for great self-control and clarity, supra.

[Adds the second gold star to the frame with a bemused expression] Thanks, Jonathan. I guess making an unintentional pun makes up for the one I missed in my response to Jon Hansen asking me if I was disembowelling myself. I ought to have said that I didn't have the guts for that.

I recall reading/hearing that when the Nebulas were set up, some SFWA members were pleased to have an award which wouldn't be subject to the logrolling which infested the Hugoes.

Were there actually such SFWA members?

Dan, it's hard to imagine a statement which couldn't have been made by some SFWAn somewhere.

BTW: "not subject to the logrolling which infested the Hugoes" = "my own work might stand a better chance."

Funny thing is, the Hugos are the cleanest major award in American SF. The Nebs are dreadful.

> d nt vt nyn's pltcs. d nt d bckgrnd chcks. d nt sk thr nghbrs f thy kck dgs nd kds. d nt sk thr pstn n gn cntrl r brtn. d nt sk f thy spprt th wr n rq r gy mrrg. d nt sk bt rc, gndr, sxl prfrnc, rlgn, ntnl rgn, r mntl llnss.

Gd fr y, Brk. Myb y'r nt bsssd wth grpthnk? cmmnd y fr tht.

>N, bt f thy thnk n sctn f th hmn rc s ctgrclly nfrr t nthr, ths clls nt qstn thr blty t dspssntly nd frly jdg wtht, ndd, pr-jdgmnt.

f crs, ths s mschrctrztn f Vx's vws, s thghtfl xmntn f hs clmns nd blg rchvs wll rvl. Bt s sttd fw dys g, prcptn s fr mr mprtnt thn rlty, t mny f th cmmntrs n ths blg.

Grgg, I used to have a big three-story house in Arlington, Virginia. I made my first $100K/year in 1977. Then I became disabled and everything changed. Even with disability insurance and Social Security, I have only a small condo that I couldn't afford to buy now. I couldn't afford to live anywhere in this area now if I lost the condo for some reason.

So current situations are not necessarily predictors of future situations.

"Grgg, I used to have a big three-story house in Arlington, Virginia. I made my first $100K/year in 1977. Then I became disabled and everything changed. Even with disability insurance and Social Security, I have only a small condo that I couldn't afford to buy now."

Marilee it is Gregg, they screwed with my messages, and I agree with you. Thank you for sharing this with me. I will pray for you and I wish you the best. Those who know me, know that I am headed for a real bad situation. Disabilty and disease suck, but they are real. However, I don't know how you could have read that with all the vowles taken out, you must be guenius in reconstruction.

Wes: Good for you, Brook. Maybe you're not obsessed with groupthink? I commend you for that.

Apparently Wes missed all those posts upthread where any number of people who took issue with VD's dmbss views still supported his right to be on the Nebula jury. It makes his case against "all you guys here" a little less black and white, so I can see why he'd choose to skip that.

PiscusFiche: Dunno where I grabbed the "piscus" misspelling then. I guess that means my pun is broken too.

I don't consider the pun broken because of the spelling. Puns don't--can't, by their nature--require perfect pronunciation and/or spelling. "Day" is a broken pun because, going on pronunciation, it translates to a different word, with a different meaning, than what the creator intended.

Gregg, people here who indulge themselves with excessive rudeness and bad language lose their vowels. If they behave, their posts get to keep them. This is why Xopher was typing certain words without them--they'd be subject to disemvowelling if Teresa got to them.
By behave, Teresa, who moderates these discussions, does not mean "agree with us blindly"; what is expected is respect for others, arguments with serious backing behind them, and an ability to discuss above the levels of a set of schoolyard bullies. There are conservatives here; they are, however, real conservatives with an old-fashioned respect for courtesy and honorable conduct, and their arguments are based on something more than "I said so and if you won't admit it you're monkeypeople!" You'll notice that VD tended to kep his vowels; this is because, however inept his arguments were, they were at least expressed in civil language.
By and large, these threads are not about winning arguments; they are about sharing information and discussing differing viewpoints on everything from cilantro to classic Bad SF Movies, for everyone's enlightenment and entertainment. If you do win an argument here, it's because you've convinced those who disagreed with you, or were neutral on an issue, not because you showed up and berated people until they quit responding to you. We don't keep score here either; as long as the discussion is interesting and shows some level of consideration for the people taking part, most of us think it's a success.

You may be under the impression that you and Bane showed the Evul Libruls something; most of what I saw from you all was the sort of insults and tantrums my high-school debate teacher didn't tolerate. I saw no arguments that convinced me of the rightness of your cause, and no displays of rhetoric above that which Aristophanes beat to death with contempt in The Clouds.

I don't condemn the choice of Mr. Beale as a member of the Nebula juries; since I don't much care about the Nebula awards, I don't really care who got on the juries, and I do believe that if he had opinions that might have been detrimental to someone's cause, there were probably enough members on his jury to balance him out. However, none of his faithful supporters who've come over here have "won" anything; they haven't changed minds, and if any of them have opinions that deserve to be taken seriously, they failed to manage convince anyone here they were anything but juvenile bloviators. Rush is a poor role model for you; he stacks the deck against the Evul Libruls he pretends to take on and then declares a victory. If you want to be treated like a grown man whose opinions should be respected, act like one, and your first move is to behave as if you respect others. We are not crash test dummies for you to beat up on, and then strut over your triumph. Your vowels are the least you can lose here.

Brook West: I do not vet anyone's politics. I do not do background checks. I do not ask their neighbors if they kick dogs and kids. I do not ask their position on gun control or abortion. I do not ask if they support the war in Iraq or gay marriage. I do not ask about race, gender, sexual preference, religion, national origin, or mental illness.

I am not responsible for the beliefs, politics, or actions of jury members. Neither is SFWA.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not criticizing you or your work with SFWA. I wouldn't attempt to take on what you do, I don't even know the full scope of your work, and it would be presumptuous of me to imply that I or someone else could do it better. Let me also preface this by saying that I'd like to try to move this discussion from the specific situation with Mr. Beale to one of more general scope.

That being said, I think the majority of posters here agree that someone's personal politics, beliefs, and prejudices are their own business more than that of SFWA. While Mr. Beale emphatically would not be welcome to dinner at my house, I think he has a right to be a member of SFWA; this attitude is shared by many people in this thread. What some have questioned, however, is whether Mr. Beale's prejudices render him unable to fulfill his obligations as a Nebula jury member (can you give appropriate consideration to all contenders when you have already decided that some class of them is inferior?), and whether some mechanism exists to safeguard against such a thing.

I'm particularly interested in the answer to that last part. While, as fidelio notes above, there are generally enough people on the jury with different tastes and views to balance everyone's prejudices, I wonder what in the selection process prevents an unbalanced, deeply prejudiced jury. Is there anything besides chance? Or is this a situation where the chips fall where they may, and each year potential nominees just take their chances?

Fildelio

"Gregg, people here who indulge themselves with excessive rudeness and bad language lose their vowels."

That is just BS. While apreciate the explanation, I don't believe it. I was being an ass on purpose, but Vox was not, so why was he screwed with. If you wanna know what a real ass I am you can always visist my blog. hehehehe http://dirtdobber.blogspot.com/index.html

"You may be under the impression that you and Bane showed the Evul Libruls something; most of what I saw from you all was the sort of insults and tantrums my high-school debate teacher didn't tolerate."

The only argument I saw from this side was sock puppets. Bane made some excellent indirect arguments, and I did as well. I am sorry you were not sharp enough to understand.

Gregg, astonishingly enough, being an ass is seen as here as a condition to be regretted, not one to be admired or emulated. You are free to be an ass in your own sppace, or, indeed, in any space where they'll put up with it. However, the Nielsen Hayden virtual living room was declared off-limits by the hostess some time ago, and she has the technology to make it stick.

I believe that's a new record for number of comments disemvowelled in one go.

I think you might have missed one. Or a whole group of them, maybe.

>pprntly Ws mssd ll ths psts pthrd whr ny nmbr f ppl wh tk ss wth VD's dmbss vws stll spprtd hs rght t b n th Nbl jry. t mks hs cs gnst "ll y gys hr" lttl lss blck nd wht, s cn s why h'd chs t skp tht.

Trcn, y r glrsly wrng. skppd t bcs t ws rrlvnt t my pnt. Mst f th cmmntrs n ths thrd frmltd thr pnn f Vx nd hs vws wthn th cnfns f kn-jrk rctn, nt stdd xmntn f hs clmn r blg. Tht sm stll spprtd hs rght t st n th Nbl jry s cmmndbl, bt nt grmn. My fcs ws n th rctnry ntr f mst f th cmmnts. n tht, thr ws grt smlrty.

nd lst b msntrprtd, nvr sggstd tht ll cmmnts n ths thrd shrd n th hrd mntlty--nly mst. thght ws qt clr n ths, nd qlfd my rlr wrds t tht ffct.

One of the reasons that I counsel against ad hominem attack is that the person attacked has available, as defense, exactly the sort of thing that Wes has written (i.e. "not a studied examination of his column or blog").

That is, if you attack me for the content of my speech, my words themselves are the primary evidence. If you attack me because of your assumptions about my character, I can bring in testimonials from third parties about what a great guy I am.

Unlike Michael Jackson, who is innocent until proven guilty, I cannot parade Liz Taylor and other celebrities in my defense. The issue, to make a legal analogy, is between physical evidence and the testimony of eyewitnesses. The trier of fact can be mightily confused by a parade of witnesses, especially as those witnesses may be "sock puppets" or not even percipient witnesses.

How often is a serial killer arrested, and neighbors say "he seemed like such a NICE man?"

The self-confessed BTK psychopath seems to have been a fine husband and church leader. He will have many testimonials at his multiple murder trials. It just happens that he liked to bind, torture, and kill innocent women.

I've registered my logical arguments against the specific words of VD as posted on this blog. To do so did not require me to perform "a studied examination of his column or blog." Nonetheless, I did read some of his blog. That was a mixed bag, with some things I agreed with, and many things with which I disagreed.

But I still do not know the man. Nor am I inclined to get to know him.

I agree with Tracina that the deeper question has not been answered, namely: "each year potential [Nebula] nominees just take their chances?"

I've never been a Nebula Finalist, but I'd like to be, some day. I have been a semifinalist, in one case with more written recommendations for my short story than for any other story that year. I can never know if I failed to make the Final Ballot due to relative weakness in the fiction, to inadequate logrolling and marketing, to the Nebula Jury having put an under-recommended story on the Ballot, or what. I came kind of close, and didn't get the gold pin. Not even the silver pin. But someday I hope to make the ballot, and someday I hope to win a Nebula. Hence my selfish desire that the process be "fair."

I've heard that a majority of Americans polled report that they support tax policies that harm them, in the hopes that someday they'll get rich, and the same policies will at last trickle down to them.

There are Active Members of SFWA with whom I deeply disagree on politics. Yet I will fight for their rights to be in SFWA and speak their minds. The issues become more -- ummm --- nebulous when the member is an officer, even a one-time-only Nebula Jury member. Ad hominem attacks, however good they may feel at the time (cf. "nastygrams") do not, in my opinion, advance the merits of positions on the deeper issues.

I also agree with fidelio's paraphrasing of Teresa's reasonable strictures for "respect for others, arguments with serious backing behind them, and an ability to discuss above the levels of a set of schoolyard bullies."

Robert Byrd gave a remarkable speech recently on what has happened in the U.S. Senate now that it has lapsed from civility and respect. This dispute in this blog may seem a tempest in a teapot, but the inherent conflict between civilization and anarchy is visible in teapots and the Capitol alike. My inner teenager has a soft spot for some anarchy. On the whole, I prefer life under Rule by Law. On this blog, Patrick and Teresa are the Law.

Grgg, most of us here are smart enough to read disemvowelling.

"Grgg, most of us here are smart enough to read disemvowelling."

Liar!

>'v rgstrd my lgcl rgmnts gnst th spcfc wrds f VD s pstd n ths blg. T d s dd nt rqr m t prfrm " stdd xmntn f hs clmn r blg." Nnthlss, dd rd sm f hs blg. Tht ws mxd bg, wth sm thngs grd wth, nd mny thngs wth whch dsgrd.

Mr. Vs Pst, rspct--nd vn gr wth--sm f wht y'v sd. Bt, s y r wll wr, mch f th crtcsm md t Vx n ths thrd wnt fr bynd "lgcl rgmnts gnst th spcfc wrds f VD." t ws mpld, r t-rght sttd, tht h's kk, nt, sxst, mrn, n dt, nd vn Jw-htr. Mkng sch nsbstnttd, rctnry cmmnts bt smn s lbls, r nrly s. thnk t bhvs nyn hrbrng sch n pnn t g nd d lttl rsrch, chck t th fcts, nd thn rndr jdgmnt. Yr wrds n th qt bv frm fr mr rsnbl rspns thn tht f mny, hr.

By th wy, my cmmnts wr nt drctd t y, >pr s--nly twrd whm thy ppld.

Wes, I did (check out his articles in some depth). I found plenty of objectionable stuff regarding women.

If I get time tomorrow I'll post some links for people's edification, and then perhaps we can have a discussion about how kneejerk we were being about his opinion of women. No promises, though -- I have a 60 hr work week coming up and may decide to do something enjoyable instead.

-l.

I usually only lurk around here. Because of that, I feel guilty about this excessively long post, but I think there is important info that needs to be stated here that just hasn't been covered. I ask for leniency from the court.

Three connected points:

1) There is no point in arguing with Gregg, VD, Bane, and their cronies. They will continue to switch the terms of argument until they can declare victory. Not exactly a hallmark of the rational mind. Neither is wit on the level of "A-Holes Online." I'd suspect this group were all about twelve years old if there wasn't evidence to the contrary.

2) As an amateur student of criminology, and as someone interested in victims' rights issues, I am glad that Bane was stupid enough to put the info on child "discipline" online, in a public venue. I think there are a number of people in law enforcement, in Child Protective Services, and in government who would be very interested to learn about these techniques--and use them to strengthen laws against child abusers.

3) One of the hallmarks of the violent predatory criminal (a class that is overwhelmingly male--wonder if VD cares to ponder the question of why so few women become violent criminals? Is it because they "can't hack it?") is an inadequate personality. In case anyone's unfamiliar with the legal definition of inadequate, it usually refers to people who are either legitimately pathetic losers (Ed Gein springs to mind) or whether or not they don't consider their own achievements outside of crime to be worthwhile (Ted Bundy is a good example of this type).

Violent predators of all types (not just lust murderers, rapists, or child molestors) have in common a tendency to pray on victims that are smaller or weaker, that they feel they can control, usually children, women, or the elderly.

The watchwords are usually "control, domination, and manipulation" (especially for horribly aberrant criminals like the BTK). They often appear "normal" (referring briefly to JVP's post) because, unfortunately, they ARE--apart from whatever it is that makes them want to kill in the first place (if they were obviously drooling nuts, or dressed up like Darth Vader, they wouldn't be so hard to catch).

Inadequate types are not always or even often violent criminals. However, one thing that pops up over and over again is that bigots (of any kind) tend to be inadequate types. (Which is the reason I've been going off on this tangent.) A notorious example would be the assasin Joseph Paul Franklin. An excessive urge to criticize other groups for one's own problems? Um, not exactly the hallmark of a well-adjusted personality. (See [i]The Anatomy Of Motive[/i], Douglas and Olshaker, for a popularized discussion of some of these issues. Also see [i]Obsession[/i], by the same authors.)

Constant ranting about "the war on boyhood" and radical feminism lead me to believe that most of VD's crowd are inadequate types. Why? It's not because of the level of personal invective (although that's also telling), or even the buzzwords. Hell, with companies happy to sell "Boys Suck" t-shirts, there may be something there--and I note that at least one of the designers of these shirts is a man, not a woman.

No, it's the way the invective's used, particularly against women. Telling someone that her uterus is shriveling from lack of use is way beyond bounds and displays a disturbing level of misogyny that goes beyond what I would consider "normal" for this kind of conservative guy. And *everything* about Bane's blog strikes me as being well beyond normal and into aberrant.

I am not an expert, and I am not in law enforcment, but I would strongly advise not attempting to communicate with these people, and to not provide them with personally-identifiable information. None of them may be dangerous--but given the type of stuff they spew out, it's very conceivable that one or more of their readers could be. (Why else do you think I haven't given a name or a functional e-mail address, something I would usually do?)

Incidentally, I would have ignored this guy entirely, but oh well. I knew VD wasn't worth paying attention to the moment I saw him talk about a degree in "Chaucer" (who is, to the best of my knowledge, an author and not a degree program *mild sarcasm*) in connection with women's ability to write hard SF. No matter how hard you strain to make a connection (and I can just picture VD making one mentally, and congratulating himself on his excessive cleverness), such as "well, a truly well-educated person would need to read Chaucer," there just isn't one in this argument.

Strictly amateur hour crap.

>f gt tm tmrrw 'll pst sm lnks fr ppl's dfctn, nd thn prhps w cn hv dscssn bt hw knjrk w wr bng bt hs pnn f wmn.

Cnsdrng tht mst f th cmmntrs, hr, hd nvr hrd f VD bfr ths crrnt flp, 'm nt sr wht thr trm fts, Ms. Mxn.

>Thy wll cntn t swtch th trms f rgmnt ntl thy cn dclr vctry. Nt xctly hllmrk f th rtnl mnd. Nthr s wt n th lvl f "-Hls nln."

Spkng nly fr myslf, hvn't chngd th trms f th rgmnt, t ll. ncdntlly, d y xtnd ths sm crtcsm t ths n ths thrd wh nt nly dsgrd wth VD, bt flt th nd fr >d hmnm ttcks? r s ths prtclr crtq n y'v svd nly fr hs spprtrs? Jst crs.

> m gld tht Bn ws stpd ngh t pt th nf n chld "dscpln" nln, n pblc vn. thnk thr r nmbr f ppl n lw nfrcmnt, n Chld Prtctv Srvcs, nd n gvrnmnt wh wld b vry ntrstd t lrn bt ths tchnqs--nd s thm t strngthn lws gnst chld bsrs.

Bn s mr thn cpbl f dfndng hmslf, bt y mght wnt t cnsdr tht th mjrty f hs blg pstngs r md wth tng frmly plntd n chk.

>Cnstnt rntng bt "th wr n byhd" nd rdcl fmnsm ld m t blv tht mst f VD's crwd r ndqt typs.

f crs, cllng ths blnkt, strtypcl sttmnt wld b gnrs.

>bt wld strngly dvs nt ttmptng t cmmnct wth ths ppl, nd t nt prvd thm wth prsnlly-dntfbl nfrmtn.

Hw mnd-nmbngly rgnl. Smn wh hlds pltclly ncrrct pnn tht y dn't shr s prbbly dngrs crmnl.

By th wy, dn't rcll ny f VD's spprtrs xprssng th slghtst ntrst n yr prsnl nfrmtn--r nyn ls's, fr tht mttr. Ctn whl sng th ntrnt s lwys ws dcsn; bt f y'r ths dstrght, prhps y shld g bck t hdng ndr yr dsk.

"By the way, I don't recall any of VD's supporters expressing the slightest interest in your personal information--or anyone else's, for that matter."

How conveniently forgetful.

Most of the commenters in this thread formulated their opinion of Vox and his views within the confines of a knee-jerk reaction, not a studied examination of his column or blog.

You mean they formed an opinion of an individual based on a small amount of data and a stereotype of a group? How dreadful!

You seem to be arguing that, in evaluating the worth or value of an individual, we should consider the personal history, capabilities, and character of that person, without drawing on preconceptions or assumptions.

But that can't be what you really mean, or you wouldn't be defending the stereotyping of women (or, as you insist on doing, of liberals). So I must have misunderstood.

>Hw cnvnntly frgtfl.

Mr. rthrs, cn y ct n xmpl? spps t's pssbl tht vrlkd n sch cmmnt. f s, 'll rtrct wht sd. thrws, y'r jst blwng smk.

>Y sm t b rgng tht, n vltng th wrth r vl f n ndvdl, w shld cnsdr th prsnl hstry, cpblts, nd chrctr f tht prsn, wtht drwng n prcncptns r ssmptns.

N, 'm sggstng tht f prsn s gng t rndr jdgmnt bt smn ls's wrds, thy prbbly shld hv gd hndl n wht th ndvdl ctlly stnds fr, frst. s sd bfr, mst f th cmmntrs, hr, hd n d wh VD ws, bfr ths crrnt dsgrmnt.

ncdntlly, hs blg hs lrg rdrshp. dn't knw f n rdr wh thnks tht h blvs wmn r nfrr t mn. Nr d hs rglr cmmntrs hld tht pnn f wmn.

>Bt tht cn't b wht y rlly mn, r y wldn't b dfndng th strtypng f wmn

'm nt dfndng th strtypng f wmn. VD md t qt clr tht hs wrds wr nt mnt t b tkn s blnkt sttmnt, pplyng t ll wmn. s fr myslf, ls ws crystl clr n tht my rmrks dd nt pply t ll cmmntrs n ths thrd--nly mst.

Most of the commenters in this thread formulated their opinion of Vox and his views within the confines of a knee-jerk reaction, not a studied examination of his column or blog.

I wonder, Wes, if you hold yourself to this same rigorous standard. Here's a big quote from your very first post in this thread:

I find myself amazed at the herd mentality of most commenters in this thread...

I find it ironic that the Left--which I'm sure is represented by a solid portion of this thread's commenters...

How much research did you do into the supposed "herd mentality" of the commenters before making this post? How much research did you do before decided that a "solid portion" of the commenters were on the Left? Did you read other threads? How many? Which ones? Did you follow commenters' links to their own blogs? How many? Which ones?

>Hw mch rsrch dd y d nt th sppsd "hrd mntlty" f th cmmntrs bfr mkng ths pst?

rd vry sngl cmmnt n ths lng thrd, bfr pstng my frst cmmnt. Thrn, fnd tht th vst, vrwhlmng mjrty f th thghts xprssd wr f lk mnd--.., tht VD ws wrng, tht h prbbly ws msgynst, nd lmst crtnly n dt. Th cmmnts trndd twrd dsgrmnt wth hs vws, whch s fn; prsnl ttcks nd nsntns, whch s mr prblmtc; nd prclmtns md frm dsr t blttl hs prvctv vwpnt, rthr thn t ndrstnd hs mnng. Bng smn fmlr wth VD's wrtngs, t ws pprnt t m tht th cntnt f mny cmmnts rs frm rnk gnrnc. Th "hrd mntlty" sttmnt drvd frm ll th bv.

Cntxt s mprtnt. cn tk yr wrds--r ny ls's--nd mk thm mn prtty mch nythng tht wnt thm t--xcsd frm thr grtr cntxt. Rmvng n prgrph frm n clmn nd xtrpltng tht th thr s sxst s rrspnsbl--prtclrly whn n hs n prr knwldg f th thr's vws n th gvn sbjct.

>Hw mch rsrch dd y d bfr dcdd tht "sld prtn" f th cmmntrs wr n th Lft?

Ntc tht nvr sggstd tht vryn hr s lftst. hv n wy f knwng th prcs prcntg f Lft vs. Rght, hr.

mntnd th Lft bcs th lvl f dscrs ws xctly wht 'v xprncd frm lftsts, n nmrs ccsns-->d hmnm slrs, prcptn lvtd vr rlty, dsntrst n trth, tc. rlz ths s nt chrctrstc f ll Lft-lnng ppl, bt ths brnd f bhvr gnrlly mnts frm th Lft sd f th sc/pltcl spctrm, n my xprnc. 'v sn t tm nd gn.

Mrvr, th whl dscssn ws bsd n ttckng n ld lftst cnrd: tht thr s n dffrnc btwn mn nd wmn. VD's clmn chllngs ths ntn. S whn nrly vryn cm t gnst hm nd bgn hrlng nslts nd cllng nms, t ws lgcl ssmptn tht th Lft ws wll rprsntd n th cmmnts.

There is a difference between men and women. Vive la difference! However, that does not mean that men are BETTER than women, nor that women are better than men. If this is true in general, then it is also true for physicists, or hard science fiction writers.

Similarly, there is a difference between the Left and the Right -- although that difference changes over time, is interpreted differently by various leaders and demagogues, and is different in various cultures. For historical reasons, the Libertarian position in Europe is associated with the Left, and the Libertarian position in America is associated with the Right. I do not know much about the Libertarian Christian position.

In my opinion, it is frustrating and perhaps useless to argue that men are better than women, or that women are better than men; or that Science Fiction is better than Fantasy, or that Fantasy is better than Science Fiction; or that the Right is better than the Left, or that the Left is better than the Right.

Careful reading of Benjamin Franklin shows how effective he was as a writer, diplomat, and dinner-table companion in never outright saying "you are wrong!" but always managing to find the part of the other's speech to which he agrees, and then, with genuine humility, adding some other thought of his own.

Were he alive to day, he might have the highest-rated blog of anyone.

In Christian Fantasy -- "Screwtape Letters" for instance -- we learn the methodology and office politics of The Father of Lies. I would hope that a Christian Libertarian would be careful to avoid the snares of that fallen angel who takes such advantage of the Sin of Pride.

Wes wrote, at 5:16:
"Mr. Arthurs, can you cite an example? I suppose it's possible that I overlooked one such comment. If so, I'll retract what I said. Otherwise, you're just blowing smoke."

Wes also wrote, at 8:35:
"I read every single comment in this long thread, before posting my first comment."

So, after making that first comment, you've only read randomly-chosen comments? Because I've already quoted one of Vox's supporters trolling for personal information from one of the women here, and stated how "creepy" it was.

And I already know what your response will be. And I know what my response will be, because I've already written and posted that, too.

Apparently Wes missed all those posts upthread where any number of people who took issue with VD's dmbss views still supported his right to be on the Nebula jury. It makes his case against "all you guys here" a little less black and white, so I can see why he'd choose to skip that.

Wes: Tracina, you are gloriously wrong. I skipped it because it was irrelevant to my point. Most of the commenters in this thread formulated their opinion of Vox and his views within the confines of a knee-jerk reaction, not a studied examination of his column or blog. That some still supported his right to sit on the Nebula jury is commendable, but not germane.

Oh, Wes, how gloriously wrong you are! Brook's post applied to Nebula jury selection, making those comments entirely relevant.

I formulated my opinions of Vox and his views from his own words when he showed up here, not from the short clips at the top of this thread. Are you seriously arguing that the man cannot present his case himself, and represent his own views accurately in any forum other than his own blog? I have at least given the man the respect of assuming he's capable of saying what he means in his own words--something some of his supporters are curiously reluctant to allow, given how many times "What Vox means is..." comes up in one form or another.

And why do you persist in thinking that if we would just hop over to Vox's blog and read what he has to say there, we would change our minds about him? I found nothing there to induce me to do so. Your reasoning seems to be: "If you read Vox's blog, you wouldn't think he's [sexist, bigoted, etc.], so if you think he is, then you must not have read his blog." There's plenty on his blog that reeks of sexism and bigotry; that you don't see it that way only means that different people can look at the same evidence and draw different conclusions.

As for: Most of the commenters in this thread formulated their opinion of Vox and his views within the confines of a knee-jerk reaction, not a studied examination of his column or blog. And you would know this how? Tell me, did you research everyone participating in this thread at the level you insist we have to research Vox to really understand what he's saying before you formed your opinion of them, or did you, like most people, assume that their own words here could accurately represent their views? You keep skipping around the answer to that question. Perhaps you recognize how the answer affects your argument.

I don't know of one reader who thinks that he believes women are inferior to men. Nor do his regular commenters hold that opinion of women.

How interesting. So, you don't think statements like, "The vast majority of women wouldn't even know where to look to find that information, much less be able to apply it," "The more beautiful she is, the more mercenary she is," and comments that explicitly attack women as women (as from Bane and Gregg, which I won't quote since they've been disemvowelled for sheer offensiveness), as well as the more subtle tactic of ignoring the very existance of certain women or classes of women (even when they're addressing you), and tossing around phrases like "mental pollution of feminism"--you don't think these things show an inherent disrespect of women? Goodness.

I read every single comment in this long thread, before posting my first comment.

A whole thread, huh? Garsh.

If you had done any research about this online community, you would have found that people do not have a herd mentality. All it would have taken was for you to read a couple of other threads here.

But of course you didn't. Rigorous standards are things you demand from others. You can't be expected to meet them yourself.

Practice what you preach, Wes.

I mentioned the Left because the level of discourse was exactly what I've experienced from leftists, on numerous occasions--ad hominem slurs, perception elevated over reality, a disinterest in truth, etc.

The statements on Vox's blog are exactly the kind of discourse I've experienced from misogynists, on numerous occasions. By the standards you hold yourself to, I'm entitled to call him a misogynist.

If he isn't one, Scalzi is right--he's a bad writer.

Well, I think that's the last piece of candy in old Wes.

Just need a quick comment to search for something I think I left here a long time ago. Nielsenhayden.com's "view all by" is great, but it's been too long since I commented on Electrolite...

>Thr s dffrnc btwn mn nd wmn. Vv l dffrnc! Hwvr, tht ds nt mn tht mn r BTTR thn wmn, nr tht wmn r bttr thn mn.

gr. nvr sttd tht mn r bttr thn wmn, r vc vrs. thnk thy r dffrnt, bt qlly vlbl. Nr d thnk tht VD ws sggstng tht wmn r nfrr t mn. f thght tht ws wht h mnt, wldn't'v md cmmnts n spprt f hm.

>Bcs 'v lrdy qtd n f Vx's spprtrs trllng fr prsnl nfrmtn frm n f th wmn hr, nd sttd hw "crpy" t ws.

f y mn Grgg's cmmnts, 'm prtty crtn h ws nt srs. vst hs blg rglrly, nd h hs vstd mn n nmbr f ccsns. 'v cnvrsd wth hm n thr blgs, s wll. n shrt, 'v bn fmlr wth hm fr qt whl. Wht y dm "crpy," frm hm, cnsdr jk. Tht's why prmptly frgt bt hs cmmnt, bcs ddn't fnd t wrth th ttntn & cncrn y'v gvn t.

Hr's drct qt frm Grgg: > ws bng n ss n prps, bt Vx ws nt, s why ws h scrwd wth. f y wnn knw wht rl ss m y cn lwys vsst my blg. ftr ths, h gv hs wbst ddrss.

Snds lk mnc, ll rght.

>h, Ws, hw glrsly wrng y r! Brk's pst ppld t Nbl jry slctn, mkng ths cmmnts ntrly rlvnt.

cnt, rspndd t Mr. Wst's cmmnts drctly. Mrvr, Trcn's cmmnt t m ws md n rspns t smthng sd t Mr. Wst. jnd th dscssn lng bfr Mr. Wst pstd hs cmmnts. T qt myslf: > skppd t bcs t ws rrlvnt t my pnt. Ths my nt st wll, bt m th fnl rbtr f wht s rlvnt t th pnt tht 'm mkng. Y r nt.

his final speaking
echoes in the hollow room
everyone is gone

> frmltd my pnns f Vx nd hs vws frm hs wn wrds whn h shwd p hr, nt frm th shrt clps t th tp f ths thrd.

'm gld t hr tht. f crs, y d rlz tht ths n lttl tdbt drws dstnctn btwn yrslf nd mny f ths thrd's thr cmmntrs?

>r y srsly rgng tht th mn cnnt prsnt hs cs hmslf, nd rprsnt hs wn vws ccrtly n ny frm thr thn hs wn blg?

bsltly nt. thnk h's md hs cs qt wll--hr nd lswhr. t's jst frstrtng xprnc, bhldng th lvtn f prcptn vr rlty. s 'v sttd svrl tms, nw, mst f th cmmntrs, hr, r fr mr n lv wth thr wn llsns thn thy r ntrstd n crrctly ndrstndng VD's vws. Tht ws my pnt.

>gvn hw mny tms "Wht Vx mns s..." cms p n n frm r nthr.

Ths dsn't mn tht VD's spprtrs thght h nsffcntly xplnd hmslf. t ws n ttmpt (nd fld n, t tht) t spprt nd frthr xpnd pn hs vws t ths wh pt ndrstndng t th bttm f th prrty lst--nd nvctv t th tp.

>nd why d y prsst n thnkng tht f w wld jst hp vr t Vx's blg nd rd wht h hs t sy thr, w wld chng r mnds bt hm?

h, 'm nt tht nv. Bt t's lgcl ssmptn tht th mr y knw bt smn's pnns, th mr lkly y r t ndrstnd thm. Prtty smpl stff, rlly. dmt tht ppl stll wll dsgr--thr t f gnn dffrncs f pnn, r htrd f vrythng pltclly ncrrct. Bt t lst, thn, thy'd hv ngh nfrmtn t g bynd nm-cllng.

>tht y dn't s t tht wy nly mns tht dffrnt ppl cn lk t th sm vdnc nd drw dffrnt cnclsns.

hv n fndmntl dsgrmnt wth ths.

>nd y wld knw ths hw?

cnt, bsds th ns y'v qtd, hv y rd ny f my thr cmmnts? 'v lrdy nswrd ths qstn, skd n slghtly dffrnt frm. t ws bvs tht mst rspnss wr kn-jrk--n tht thy msrprsntd wht knw VD's vws t b, thy wr flld wth prsnl slrs, nd mny wr ttrd by ppl wh dmttdly knw nthng--r nxt t nthng--bt hm. Wht mr vdnc d y nd?

>Tll m, dd y rsrch vryn prtcptng n ths thrd t th lvl y nsst w hv t rsrch Vx t rlly ndrstnd wht h's syng bfr y frmd yr pnn f thm, r dd y, lk mst ppl, ssm tht thr wn wrds hr cld ccrtly rprsnt thr vws?

N, ddn't rsrch vry prsn wh cmmntd n ths thrd. Cnsdrng yr dsdn fr th sggstn tht n prsn's vws shld b rsrchd bfr th md-slngng, fnd t msng tht y thnk shld dlv nt th blgs nd wrtngs f vryn, hr. Tht sd, thr ws n ddtnl rsn tht ffrd, rlr, fr rsrchng VD's wrtngs: Cntxt. Hs cmmnts wr twstd t mn wht th cmmntrs wntd thm t sy, nt ccptd fr thr ctl mnng. vn ftr VD ttmptd clrfctn f hs wrds, t ws rjctd n fvr f fctn. Tll m, ws lftng wrds t f thr cntxtl mnng, whn crtn ndvdls clld hm (nd qt): "dpsht,"n "ss," "wmn-htng crp spwng dcy nd wrshpng t th ltr f nn Cltr," r "crp wrd bgt?" cld g n, f ws s nclnd.

Thr's n nd fr m t xmn smn's blg r wrtngs, whn thy r nggng n >d hmnm ttcks nd msrprsnttns, nd xhbtng brzn gnrnc f th thr n qstn's wrldvw.

>s wll s th mr sbtl tctc f gnrng th vry xstnc f crtn wmn r clsss f wmn (vn whn thy'r ddrssng y)

Prtty vg, cnt. s fr yr thr xmpls, thy dn't prv gnrl dsrspct fr wmn. Nr ds dsgst wth th crrnt fmnst mvmnt rvl htrd f wmn. n fct, th nly thng y'v prvn s tht y cn lft smn's wrds t f thr grtr cntxt, nd mk thm mn xctly wht y wnt thm t mn. Thnks, y'r mkng my pnt fr m.

>f y hd dn ny rsrch bt ths nln cmmnty, y wld hv fnd tht ppl d nt hv hrd mntlty. ll t wld hv tkn ws fr y t rd cpl f thr thrds hr.

nvr mnt t sggst tht th gd flks f ths blg hv hrd mntlty, >n gnrl. ws spkng spcfclly bt th cmmntrs n ths thrd, n ths prtclr tpc. cnnt spk t th dvrsty f thght--r lck thrf--n thr sbjcts. f my wrds wr tkn s gnrl cndmntn f vryn hr, n ll rs, thn plgz. Gvng tht mprssn ws nt my ntntn.

>Th sttmnts n Vx's blg r xctly th knd f dscrs 'v xprncd frm msgynsts, n nmrs ccsns. By th stndrds y hld yrslf t, 'm nttld t cll hm msgynst.

Hm, nd t ddn't vn rqr sngl xmpl t bck tht p, h?

>hs fnl spkng
chs n th hllw rm
vryn s gn

Hh, nt bd, Xphr. Bt f vryn s gn, wh wrt & pstd yr pm?

Hr's mn:

ths crrnt dscrs
lk tlkng t brck wll
>d nfntm

'v bvsly wrn t my wlcm, hr, s 'll b gng. Tk cr, vryn. jst sk tht mny f y nt b s qck t jmp t cnclsns, nxt tm.

t's bn ntrstng.

Wes wrote, in reply to my last post:
"If you mean Gregg's comments, I'm pretty certain he was not serious. I visit his blog regularly, and he has visited mine on a number of occasions. I've conversed with him on other blogs, as well. In short, I've been familiar with him for quite a while. What you deem "creepy," from him, I consider a joke. That's why I promptly forgot about his comment, because I didn't find it worth the attention & concern you've given it."

I sure called that one right. Just what I expected Wes to say. Acknowledge that there was personal information being sought from at least one woman here, and then say that it didn't count.

Here's that other post of mine I said I'd reply with:

[posted 03.06.05]
Step 1: Say, "Prove it!"

Step 2: Say, "THAT doesn't prove it!"

Step 3: Return to Step 1.

(Oh, and Wes is "pretty certain" that Gregg was joking in his comments to Gluon. Wow, that's reassuring. Especially since Gluon said he gave her "heebie-jeebies", and another woman, in e-mail, agreed Gregg was "seriously creepy". I think I'll let my opinion stand.)

Enough. There's no real discussion possible with people who accuse you, unendingly, of playing with loaded dice, while at the same time insisting on playing with their own loaded dice.

Will the last person out of the topic please remember to turn off the bullshit?

Wes: Aconite, I responded to Mr. West's comments directly. Moreover, Tracina's comment to me was made in response to something I said to Mr. West. I joined the discussion long before Mr. West posted his comments. To quote myself: I skipped it because it was irrelevant to my point. This may not sit well, but I am the final arbiter of what is relevant to the point that I'm making. You are not.

First, are you so sure it's Mr. West?

Second, here is the sequence of posts:
----------------------
Brook West:

I am the person who coordinates the Nebula Awards Report and selects the juries. This is the process: I ask for volunteers for the juries (for the next year) toward the end of the year. I ask online, in the SFWA Online Update, and in SFWA print publications. Shortly thereafter I get email (and occasionally snailmail) from people -- often they tell me which jury (or juries -- there are four now) they wish to serve on. There are up to seven slots on each jury and I match people up as well as I can -- mostly first come, first served.

I look for two things. I want to know if they are SFWA members, since the Nebula Rules require jury members to be SFWA members, and I try to include at least one or two experienced jury members from previous years so they don't have to completely reinvent the jury wheel. That's it.

Once I have my lists I submit them to the SFWA President for approval.

We ask the jury members to read widely and look for worthy works that might otherwise
be overlooked. Period.

I do not vet anyone's politics. I do not do background checks. I do not ask their neighbors if they kick dogs and kids. I do not ask their position on gun control or abortion. I do not ask if they support the war in Iraq or gay marriage. I do not ask about race, gender, sexual preference, religion, national origin, or mental illness.

I am not responsible for the beliefs, politics, or actions of jury members. Neither is SFWA.

Brook West, SFWA Nebula Awards Report Editor

Wes:

Good for you, Brook. Maybe you're not obsessed with groupthink? I commend you for that.

Tracina:

Apparently Wes missed all those posts upthread where any number of people who took issue with VD's dmbss views still supported his right to be on the Nebula jury. It makes his case against "all you guys here" a little less black and white, so I can see why he'd choose to skip that.

Wes:

Tracina, you are gloriously wrong. I skipped it because it was irrelevant to my point. Most of the commenters in this thread formulated their opinion of Vox and his views within the confines of a knee-jerk reaction, not a studied examination of his column or blog. That some still supported his right to sit on the Nebula jury is commendable, but not germane. My focus was on the reactionary nature of most of the comments. In that, there was a great similarity.

If you still maintain that previous comments about Nebula jury selection are irrelevant, then you entirely missed the context of Brook's comments when you originally responded.

Frankly, given that your style of debate is to run in circles and ignore lines of reasoning that would take the debate into fresh territory, I don't see much point in continuing the conversation regarding any of your other rebuttals.

Xopher: Thanks. Can't see how I managed to leave him standing, unless it was the overwhelming boredom that struck me when I read his comments.

Wes has been less obviously deranged, but he's even more boring than Bane. I have a great dislike of loud, aggressive bores with an obvious sense of entitlement. They tell jokes badly, and never volunteer to bring a casserole.

A further observation: I spent a lot of time on Usenet. One of the things I learned was that when someone shows up who (1.) claims not to be the person under discussion, just someone who's very very familiar with their work; and (2.) feels obliged to doggedly respond to each and every thing said about the p.u.d., unto the last weary trailing-off comment; then (3.) the probability that that participant is in fact the p.u.d. approaches 1.

I did think "pounding your withered paps" was unacceptably rude...and this discussion appears to be more or less dead (i.e. no candy left in the PUDs).

Perhaps he's exhausted his inventive talent.

I have a great dislike of loud, aggressive bores with an obvious sense of entitlement. They tell jokes badly, and never volunteer to bring a casserole.

You have described me almost perfectly, except I always volunteer to bring a casserole. :)

That's funny; I found you neither loud nor aggressive nor a bore. Can't vouch for your casseroles, of course, but I'll take them on faith.

And you appear to have told jokes rather well, if my quick readback (blessed, blessed 'view all by'!) is anything to go by.

I thank you, thank you very much (imagine that being being said in a really so-so elvis impersonation.)

I've become overwhelmed by the magnitude of this comment thread, so forgive me if this has been said and I overlooked it: Do all the male hard-SF writers have physics PhDs? (Answer:no.) Writing hard-SF and "hacking the math" sufficiently (and being interested enough in physics as a career path) to have a PhD in physics have nothing to do with each other.

Math is hard. So is logic, apparently.

In re the Nebula juries, you want to dilute the potential pool of loons? Volunteer. Brook will correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression is that there has not been such an overwhelming number of people aching to be on the juries that there's been reason to suss out much beyond their willingness. Moreover, there have been jury members who are not permitted to nominate works through the normal channels (i.e., one must be an active member to nominate, but one may be an associate or affiliate member and serve on a jury), which suggests that I'm right about the dearth of volunteers. So step right up. Give Brook an opportunity to be choosy.

That doesn't solve the larger issues about the Nebs, of course, but hey, it's something.