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September 27, 2011 at 12:44 pm 
PZ Myers 
It’s rather like a case of acne; we’ve got it, people are pointing it out, and we’re trying out denial as a solution. It doesn’t work. I think Victoria Bekiempis is quite right in pointing out that New Atheism is a boys’ club.
But other female atheists are blunt in their assessment of why the face of atheism doesn’t necessarily reflect the gender makeup of its adherents. Annie Laurie Gaylor, who founded the Freedom From Religion Foundation with her mother, Anne Nicol Gaylor, in 1978, sums it up succinctly: “One word – sexism.” Gaylor’s husband, Dan Barker, who helms the organisation along with her, is usually the one invited to speaking engagements, despite her longer tenure as the organisation’s leader and her numerous books on atheism. Doubt author Hecht, too, identifies basic chauvinism in the persistent lower profile of female atheists, stating that in her own experience, the work of female atheists tends to be individualised, rather than contextualised as part of a watershed scholarly movement. “Nobody talked about [Doubt] as a ‘phenomenon’,” she notes. “They just talked about the book.” Finally, when well-known atheists also happen to be just as well known for their misogynist statements – like Hitchens, as well as fellow skeptic Stephen Fry, who once theorised that women “don’t really like sex” – it just adds to atheism’s existing public-relations problem.
Representation matters, and when various media reports combined to create the “New Atheist” meme without mentioning the contributions of the women involved in the movement, the result was that the meme itself became masculinised. And because contemporary atheism has become so synonymous with this initially identified group, women atheists may well continue to be overlooked by the mainstream (or will, as some female skeptics have, reject inclusion on principle). It’s a state of affairs very much in line with the history of women in other fields in which battling continued institutional neglect – as opposed to intrinsic hostility – is an ongoing theme.
I know what happens next. Hackles rise, men get all defensive, and get huffy and angry while simultaneously denying that they have a pimple and how rude of those nasty feminists (said with a sneer) to point it out. But the facts are all there. Women have been activists and leaders in this movement for a long, long time — I blame Susan Jacoby and her book Freethinkers as the catalyst that first really inspired me — and yet, somehow, they always get forgotten when it’s time to give credit or build a list of invited speakers for a conference or when the media, largely ignorant of atheism, tries to name a few atheists. I’ve seen it happen over and over. It’s a very real phenomenon that Bekiempis is describing, and what’s also real is how some people will get very angry if anyone mentions it.
I think that last line is mostly correct, though. It’s not an intrinsic hostility to women (although we’ve encountered a few people who are nasty haters — but they are a fringe minority and definitely not part of the leadership), but a pattern of blindness. The good news is that this is a problem we can easily correct: we have no shortage of talented women in atheism right now, most of the atheists I’ve talked to readily acknowledge atheist women’s existence with a little nudging, and every conference organizer is receptive to the idea of greater inclusion.
It isn’t just atheism, either. I’ve noticed the same phenomenon in my classes: I often put optional, extra-credit questions on my exams, and one I used many times is the simple, “Name a female scientist”…and students are often stumped by it. The most common answer I get is “Marie Curie”; the second most common is no answer at all. And this is in a department where half the faculty are women! There are other famous female scientists besides Marie Curie, and they ought to be at least aware of the local talent.
The solution is relatively easy: more of that consciousness raising. The women are here, the guys just have to notice…and that doesn’t mean noticing that there are breasts around, but that there are good minds without Y chromosomes, and that we can be equals without diminishing the male contribution.
Our one obstacle? The small number of indignant people who will be in denial, and take recognition of a common problem as an insult. Get over it. Appreciating women as partners actually doesn’t hurt, and the only insult here is the bizarrely obtuse attitude of some men and women.
Posted in 
…and this is a 
Michael Hawkins
Fine idea.
You first.
chigau:
A better idea is for Hawkins to stay at his blog and to stop blogwhoring here.
and another thing
Michael Hawkins
If by “people” you mean pinch-faced, tight-orificed, pearl-clutching swooners, well, we’ve already given up on them.
If by “people” you mean the other 99% of the population, then there is still hope.
Yes, Micheal please explain to all of us benighted pharyngulites what effective rhetoric is. You and your superior mansplaining abilities will surely reach us eventually. Hey – you ever wonder why none of the people on this blog are giving you the time of day… Oh forget about it, I’m sure that its totally irrelevant to the issue.
I think it is very difficult to reach someone who lacks the facilities to breath through their nose, and/or sustain an internal monologue. I don’t think anyone here would tell you that the anti-Watson cultists are the “target demographic”. I do think that smacking those assholes down and illustrating their deficiencies can make for entertaining and sometimes informative reading though. Moreover, fence sitters can read the firestorm, locate thoughts that they themselves have considered, and read the response, all without being confronted themselves. This sort of dynamic has been instrumental in facilitating my consideration of my own sexism, and bad behavior towards women.
A second point is that this is a community of people who talk to each other and interlopers, not a movement. Part of the reason we post the way we do is that we relish the flavor of each others’ comments and enjoy contributing our own. If you think a particular poster or posters are not handling themselves well, you can provide your own counterpoint by acting differently. We all have our own styles, and what makes one poster react angrily might draw a more measured response from another poster. Obviously you can feel free to employ your own favorite rhetorical strategies if you actually care about an issue. Don’t think you can come in here and establish new standards of behavior, though. Its extremely presumptuous, and its not going to get you the response you want.
This was kinda like the pebble rolling down the hill that started the rockslide in my mind too. And much like a fallen mountainside can’t un-erode itself, I can never really view women the same way again.
Micheal, I feel that this rhetoric is too harsh. You are not going to reach anyone on this blog by calling them a liar. You need to ask yourself, do you want to disparage the pharyngulites, or do you want to help them. I am sincerely concerned for your efficacy here, and I hope that your future posts will be more satisfactory.
seconded.
fuck off already, Hawkins, you’re boring.
Hurin
@ 11
Yes, I feel I must agree.
.
.
.
(my statement accompanied by snorting, giggling and ROTFLMAO)
irony cannot be conveyed in text-only
@4,
Absolutely. Someone raised that point and I agreed that if the idea is to hold up the sort of people who have been targeting Watson, then go for it. That will be effective. But if we’re talking about one on one conversations with the average person, then insults won’t open people up. That ultimately hurts women and I wish people would stop.
@9,
Good. I have been agreeing this entire time that using harsh rhetoric to hold up people like that as examples is effective to third parties. You experience supports that. But don’t you agree that very few, if any, of those people that were held up are likely to change their minds?
I’m still waiting on something, though, from everyone who supports using harsh rhetoric towards people who they do not see as assholes: Do you think PZ should change his test question from asking students to name a female scientist to saying “If you can’t name a female scientist besides Marie Curie, go fuck yourself, you sexist piece of shit. -20 points.”
Michael Hawkins, you really are struggling to try for a point. :)
Wrap your head around the bleeding obvious:
*When PZ wears his Professorial hat, he’s standing on his at his lectern, teaching — he represents his institution.
*When PZ wears his Blogger’s hat, he’s standing on his soap-box, opining, venting and teaching — he represents himself.
(Your ostensible inability to distinguish between job and hobby could be due to deliberate obtuseness, I grant; I do find that unlikely, though)
BTW, Michael, do you remember writing this?
(No wonder you churn out comments on PZ’s blog, rather than your own blog!)
Fuck you, Michael. You’ve already proven yourself to be an asshole with the golf range incident, and if I want to hear from an asshole, all I have to do is fart.
Why would we support using harsh rhetoric against people we don’t consider assholes? How is that internally consistent with anything we’ve said? I’ve literally read your post ten times now trying to figure out what you’re driving at.
You keep on saying this, and I keep waiting for any evidence that it is true.
a) Who cares? If was can simply marginalise those people out of existence, then good.
b) What is the effective alternative? Show evidence that active misogynists and women oppressors are swayed by any tone of argument or debate.
Is that meant to resemble an intelligent request?
Do you think that people who say fuck in response to idiotic commenters on Pharyngula always say fuck and treat everyone like the idiotic commenters on Pharyngula?
Presumably, as an intelligent professional communicator, PZ understands context and is able to select the correct tool for the job.
You are the only person arguing for a one-size-fits-all approach.
@16 Morales,
I’m glad you used a smiley face. I do that when I wish to communicate poorly, too.
Okay, let’s throw in another stipulation. PZ has been promised he won’t get in any trouble whatsoever. In fact, let’s say UMM condones absolutely anything he puts on a test. So he has free range. Should he be more harsh? Will that raise awareness and open the minds of his students?
And even if I take out that stipulation, think about it. Why do you think his university would not allow him to speak/write to students like that? He would undermine his ability to teach effectively – especially on raising awareness of female scientists.
@19 Bernard,
You missed my point. What I’m saying is that when those people are held up as examples, being presented to third parties, the goal is to change the mind of the third parties. Good, that can be effective. But we know the people being held up as examples are not going to change their minds based upon what has been said. Even if there was a chance they would – and, in most people, of course there is – they aren’t going to do it because someone called them assholes. So why does anyone think calling others assholes will be effective. If someone says, “What’s the problem with Egate?”, saying “Go fuck yourself with [enter poorly constructed animal meme]” is not going to tell that person anything.
But I’ve agreed about 8 times now that the horde is effective when it comes to third parties. I never said otherwise, though I could have been more clear. What I’m talking about are the interactions we all have with more reasonable people and/or people who haven’t really thought about these issues much.
Submitted early. @19 Bernard again,
Have you even read the thread? I have said that harsh tones work when they match the goal. I have said they can work with third parties. I have also said that with one-on-one interactions with the average person, being an asshole is ineffective. People will shut down. That is not a single approach whatsoever. It’s a strawman you’re either creating or parroting.
It’s amazing. Virtually every single objection to what I’m saying has actually had zero to do with what I’ve actually said. And when I parse things out and reiterate points I’ve made again and again, there is really broad agreement. Yes, let’s use a multitude of approaches. Yes, let’s absolutely pay attention to context. Because as I’ve been saying over and over, rhetoric must match goals.
One on one conversations with ‘the average person’ (GAAAHH) aren’t the point. As has been said approximately six zillion times (I am sorry, I am not a mathematician) by about ninety-three different people who by now must all have some serious bruising to the frontal bone, the harsh tones here are a feature of the damned blog.
I also strongly suspect, based on the assumed fact that you don’t consider yourself an asshole that ‘the average person’ may or may not be an asshole in the eyes of different people, at different times. In this context that subjectivity is probably strongly influenced by how much fucking ennui has been accumulated in a person’s soul over the course of reading nine hundred thousand gajillion comments from the Michael Hawkinses of the world.
To use one of your own examples – if clueless 20-year-old student dude is the first student in the class to express amazement over what appears obvious to a good chunk of the rest of the group then I would be far more accomodating than if he was the sixth clueless student dude to ask the same question, apparently having been checking his googlemail or napping during previous classes. At that point I might attempt to restate the point in.. firmer language, or I might simply start screaming, burst into flames and rip his head from his shoulders in a gloriously graphic display of what might hapen when you walk up to a group of overburdened and cantankerous camels and try to add just one more stick.
Michael Hawkins:
Funny, I do it when I want to indicate my facial expression as I write.
(But it’s duly noted you at times self-admittedly wish to communicate poorly)
Why? You proposed a specific course of action; why would not the consideration be to specify the goal, and then to specify (and justify) some metric from which to evaluate said course of action ceteris paribus, rather than assuming a whole bunch of changes from the status quo?
Yeah, but that’s but another of your universally-quantified generalisations ad culo (aka ‘naked assertions’).
(You haven’t shut down, have ya? ;) )
Duh.
It’s your straw-dummy, and a pretty piss-poor one, at that.
Heh.
(Your naked assertion paraphilic fetish is showing)
MH:
Your ceaseless blathering makes my head hurt. I wish you’d stop. You know who tends to be really good at knowing what ultimately hurts women, Michael? Women. A whole lot of them have been telling you that you’re wrong and you happen to be incredibly self-absorbed and ignorant. I’m one of them. You act as though there are no women on Pharyngula and of course, no woman would say you’re a narcissistic fuckwit! :eyeroll:
trianglethief, that was a fabulous post. Post more, please.
@22 triangle,
At what point do you think I’ve been talking about how people should speak about this issue here? I haven’t said to stop chiding people in these threads. No one comes here for a productive education anyway. I’m talking about actual interactions – the sort where 90% of the people here wouldn’t dare speak how they write here.
@Morales
See? You can use rhetorical tools effectively. Intentionally interpreting my words in a way they were not intended is a classic tactic.
Stop dancing. Would it be effective for PZ to tell his students to go fuck themselves because they can’t name any female scientists? Would it be more effective than his current course of action? In fact, don’t answer. You damn well know the answer is “no”. You just don’t want to admit it.
No, it isn’t. This is based upon what thousands of years of study of rhetoric has determined to be effective. Go read a book about it before you respond again.
For what it’s worth, Michael, I get your point. I don’t know that it’s that hard to understand. What I see you saying is that it’s all in the delivery. I get much farther and usually get my way depending on how I present my thoughts or requests to someone. That’s all I think you’re saying but everyone forgive me since I skimmed a bit. I don’t see it having anything to do with the blog comments or whatnot specifically so I’m not sure why people are getting up in arms. Or this might just be the irony of your point.
I’m not here for a fight; I’m just commenting that I get his point and I’m not quite sure why people are getting so angry. This became nothing about the subject (again, irony?) and all about what Michael pointed out and what, as I see it at least, is a valid point. If someone called me an asshole or any number of names (and I have been called that plenty on conservative blogs), that’s where my listening would end and that doesn’t seem very effective. That’s not to say people can’t do or say what they’d like; I just see his suggested method as being a bit more likely to engage in dialog rather than shut everything down at square one.
:shrug:
Oh for the love of FUCK. Fine, Michael, I won’t call my poor ol’ grannie an asshole if she says something sexist. Are you happy now?
Thank you, Annie.
On that note, I’m going to stop reading and responding here. (That’s fair notice – anyone can feel free to get the last word, but if the point is to tell me something, it will be a waste of time since I will not come back to this space.)
Michael
No, and there are multiple reasons why this is stupid. For one thing, people who post on this site often want the approval of other people who post at this site. I’ve actually seen people change directions and acknowledge wrongheadedness after being confronted about something. I’ve even been confronted before and decided that I was being stupid. Harshness in confrontation can convey a level of urgency, or indicate a level of offense that isn’t as accessible to an even tone. When someone goes out of their way to blast you, it can give you pause if you actually respect them or want civil discourse with them.
Some people come to this site with no intention of mutual respect, and I don’t have any reason to consider whether I can change those minds. I don’t have any reason to think that the minds of people who already hate us (or just want to preach, play stupid games, etc.) are going to be accessible to me. In this case your point is completely moot.
Going back to the initial case, if the people on this site think someone is worth trying to reach, they often don’t immediately escalate to really harsh rhetoric. That often comes when they don’t seem to be engaging or listening to other posters. Its disingenuous to carry on this discussion as though everyone who inadvertently offends is going to be mercilessly shouted down.
The further you carry this, the more I think you are arguing with a straw man.
Its not amazing. Its a straightforward consequence of the fact that you started off with generic tone trolling, and have gradually morphed your position over the course of like 9000 words so that it seems to agree with a lot of the criticisms you have gotten. At this point your position is so bloated and tortuous that no one can keep track of it. And if it was something other than our fucking tone that we were having a 300 comment post war about someone might give enough of a shit to try.
If everything you have to say is something obvious like “lets use a multitude of approaches” than just do us all a favor and shut up. If you still have some kind of point maybe you can restate it.
Annie,
So we should not get angry with lying dishonest misogynists like Hawkins ?
Well all I can say is fuck your sense of values. If you do not get angry at such people you are part of the problem.
If I knew that you were going away as soon as you got support from one person, I would have paid lip service to your “ideas” long ago.
Just remember that the “sticking to it” is the most important part of any flounce. (Why I still hope that they’ll manage that one, I don’t know. Just hopelessly optimistic I guess)
It is just a pity that the one person who seems to agree with Hawkins also seems to be minus everything picnic wise.
re Annie
I vote for sockpuppet.
There’s something about the timing.
Well, this is the problem with treating women as
pieces of meatan abstract intellectual exercise in conversational techniques instead of individual people, innit? Some people have held more honest and productive discussions with my tits, frankly.Also, thanks! :D
—–
Okay, Michael. So tell me — at what point are you going to grasp the reality that everyone here fully understands what you’re saying and thinks that the point you are making is useless to the point of absurdity?
To recap: You came in here to tell everyone that PZ’s approach in a blog post on his blog that is going to be read by people who read his blog ON HIS BLOG (EMPHASIS) would not, and should not, be the same as his approach to the same issue in — let us cast about and choose a scenario entirely at random here — a classroom context. Lo and behold, in THE VERY SAME POST he actually mentions a way in which he opens the discussion with his students! Namely, a quick and dirty thought experiment in the form of a challenge to name some female scientists. You have, several times now, asked if he would word the question in a pre-emptively confrontational manner. The answer is not just ‘no, he wouldn’t’ it is ‘no, he didn’t, no one would, and why, by all that is unholy and pestilent, would you imagine they might?’
Notice also that a number of people have said here in comments that they had a hard time thinking of many female scientists. And yet, while you have busily swaggered in to school all us mere mortal plebs on complicated subjects like ‘context’ and ‘rhetoric’, and tailoring our approach to fit the audience, none of those people have been told to go fuck themselves. It’s almost as if you are very, very stupid.
Oh, and he’s flounced. Why am I late to all the parties >:(
I see MH still hasn’t presenteed one iota of evidnece that his inane idea works. Just his inane opinion that it does. Which is why the tone troll is getting nowhere. His opinion is worthless. He isn’t the authority.
Yes Annie is likely a sockpuppet.
Just say something about the driving range, trianglethief. That should bring him running.
If you want to stick a tenner in the “he’ll be back”-side of the flounce-pool – I’ll give you odds of say….
1:1
(I may be optimistic, but my mama didn’t raise no fool)
PZ, would you have given the extra credit if I’d written my own name? (And pretending I was in your class.) I hope so! : D Big dreams, big dreams!
(I mean, it’s been a few years now, so I actually am beyond a doubt a scientist, but I would have loved to write this during my undergrad!)
And that, unfortunately, shows the success of MH’s gaslighting technique. After all this time spent subtly shifting his assertions and redefining what he actually said or didn’t say, he’s managed to slip back behind the shield of respectability. Why should any of us be angry with him, after all? It’s not like he’s been condescending and arrogant for the last three days straight while declaring himself victor in his own blog posts. That while blaming PZ, other bloggers, and us commentors for causing the shitstorm and hurting women with our outspokenness. And make no mistake, there’s a reason why victims of oppression get pressured to be polite and calm and well-behaved… to demonstrate by conforming that they’re not a threat.
Heck, I’m seriously considering adding more swearing to my language just in solidarity. Here at least, people are still human regardless of the language they choose; and that’s a point worth defending.
Chigau
Yeah, the style of that prose is suspiciously familiar as well.
And then there is the fact that I’ve never seen Annie before and the best reason she can find for de-lurking is to agree 100% with Michael the asshole.
Bah. I guess if she starts posting more regularly to whore his blog out and admonish us for our poor treatment of him, then we will know what’s up.
I wish I could believe that.
Exactly. It’s no surprise that oppressors always want docility from their victims.
Have any of the tone-trolls ever heard the expression: “Well-behaved women seldom make history”?
Pteryxx
It is Blasphemy Day ;)
myeck waters: Oh, don’t knock it – the driving range is where he does some of his best thinking. (ps. DRIVING RANGE AHAHAHAHAHA)
Gnumann: I will put in a tenner and also pledge to bring nibbles to the next round.
Fuck you michael, you’ll be back.
Not for me he hasn’t, Pteryxx. This is the guy who ripped off a small struggling business, and decided he didn’t like their tone when they took exception to his douchebaggery. And now he’s lecturing us on OUR tone?
Isn’t it telling that it’s always absolute shitheads like Michael who tell people like us to ‘watch our tone’?
I have more respect for the dump I took this morning.
@717, Michael Hawkins:
Potentially including some of those who at the outset were largely in agreement. Of course, this leaves open the question of how the impact of that fractional turn-off will compare to the impact of encouraging more women to more readily and openly challenge sexism when they perceive it.
I’m jumping in after having read the first 800 comments, so if somebody else has already brought this up I apologise for chopping your liver, but regarding just one of Michael Hawkins’ preposterosities:
Using this quote as if Cicero thus obviously advocated politely rational rhetoric is so hilariously ignorant about how Cicero actually used rhetoric in practice to garner an audience and persuade them to his will! Nobody who was actually familiar with Cicero’s most famous successes as an orator could possibly imagine that he was recommending civil argumentation.
The trial which first brought Cicero fame in 70BCE succeeded because of his monumentally thorough character assassination of the defendant. History’s acceptance that Gaius Verres was an unscrupulously vile and brutally corrupt scoundrel rests almost entirely on Cicero’s rhetoric in this case. His second most famous court oration, defending Milo against a charge of murder (52BCE), is stuffed with invective against the victim which paints Clodius as so malevolently villainous a political enemy that Milo was justified in having him killed in self-defence (Milo was convicted in the end, but Clodius’ reputation was forever blackened).
The political orations of Cicero’s which were the most famous and popular with the Roman public during his own lifeime were his denunciation of the conspiracy of Catiline (63BCE) and his Philippics, a series of 14 separate vituperations against the grandiose ambitions of Mark Antony (44BCE). Cicero was the polar opposite of polite or moderate in his insults against either man during these orations, but again because both Catiline and Antony ended up engaging in civil war against the Roman Senate (and both lost), history has largely accepted Cicero’s judgement of both men.
Are you seeing a pattern yet? In the cases where Cicero won the most public recognition for the power of his oratory, he persuaded even the historians over the centuries by the energy with which he brutally denounced the opposition’s character and arguments. In all four cases, too, he was not trying to make the supporters of the subjects of those speeches (Verres, Clodius, Catiline, Antony) agree with him – he was working to persuade the larger audience that those people needed to be stopped, and at that he thoroughly succeeded.
The way I see it there are four categories of errors (Type A, Type B, Data based and Metholodogy based)
Type A, B are well known and over lap on a 4 pt axis with the others
Data based is an error due to having incorrect information.
Methodology based is an error due to having an inconsistent or erroneous process for arriving at opinions/evidence etc.
Data based errors are easy to correct. When there is someone who I believe is making a data based error I can politely correct them and engage in a dialogue.
Methodology based errors are difficult to correct. At this point the only thing I see I can do is to point out the errors and mock them for the benefit of others who may take the conclusions they go to from methodology errors and thus form data errors.
I don’t think I can convince you to not be an asshole, I just think it’s useful to other people to point out that you’re an asshole and illustrate the reasons for others who may better learn.
@ 47 Tigtog,
THANK YOU for pointing out how ignorant Michael is of the history of rhetoric, especially in trying to use Cicero as an example of conciliatory rhetoric (I literally snorted water up my nose at that). At the least, Cicero’s actual practice of rhetoric did not begin nor end with ‘De Oratore’ and Michael is vastly mistaken if he thinks Cicero practiced what he preached to students. Further, Michael’s misunderstanding, perhaps deliberate, of how people construct ethos based on changing audiences makes his views on what constitutes “effective rhetoric” simplistic at best (my guess is he’s taken an intro course in ancient rhetoric and now thinks he knows everything he needs to know to lecture ppl endlessly on the internet). So Michael, if you are still reading (and let’s face it, flouncers LOOOOOOOOVE drama so you likely are)–read some Chaim Perelmen and some Kenneth Burke (you know, something about rhetorical theory from THIS CENTURY). Maybe come to the understanding, which most people here already have, that rhetoric is DISCURSIVE and SPECIFIC–audiences aren’t universal. PZ wisely changes his rhetoric based on the task and the audience. That’s exactly how effective rhetoric operates.
~Allie
To get back to the original post:
It’s interesting that when I think of famous atheists, I first think of Madalyn O’Hare, Annie Laurie Gaylor, and Dan Barker. (Actually, that’s partly cheating — the only reason I know about the last two is that I’m personally acquainted with them, and not through their atheism.)
I’ll admit I’ve heard of Richard Dawkins, but mostly from people who are complaining that he’s an arrogant jerk, and who may or may not also mention that he’s an atheist. I have no idea what he believes or does, besides (apparently) piss people off.
AMM:
There’s this thing which could help you, it’s called a search engine. Ya know, something like google. Taking the enormous trouble to type Richard Dawkins in a search engine would yield many a link, with the first one most likely being RDnet, Richard’s own site.
A link to Dawkins web site is under the atheist category on the right side near the top of all pages under PZ’s profile.
Note: you may want to buy a new calendar…
Caine, Fleur du Mal says:
3 October 2011 at 9:43 pm
I’m sure I could use it — if I actually wanted to know. (What I’ve heard so far has not convinced me that my life is so much poorer for not knowing.)
My point (small as it was) was that even though I’ve never bothered to spend much time researching Teh Atheism, of the prominent atheists I’ve heard of, roughly half are women.
It’s very funny. I was flipping Cicero at them in 2008. They’ll never learn.
[meta]
AMM:
Well you obviously wanted us to know you had no idea, and we’re very helpful, as you can see.
But now you’ve clarified that you don’t care to know, which makes me wonder why you thought we needed to know about your lack of knowledge in the first instance.
(I doubt anyone missed your major point, which though admittedly small, was actually relevant — thus, it was your other point that was addressed)
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