All posts by Chris

seeing the world from both sides

Academia, Culture, Education, Feminism, Science

This article from the San Jose Mercury News, Seeing the World from Both Sides, is worth a read:

When a Stanford University neurobiologist made a case this week that discrimination, not genetics, keeps women out of science, his comments carried more weight than usual.

Ben A. Barres spent most of his life — and his career as an accomplished scientist — as a woman. Only nine years ago did he complete the process of changing into a man; only recently, he says, did he begin to realize how bias holds women back.

Oddly enough, I just had a conversation about this with Bryan Monroe from work.  One point I’ve heard before that this article doesn’t make: girls in science classes often give up on further science if they don’t excel, while boys are encouraged to continue even if they do poorly.  That seemed telling to me, because it’s less about a specific person discriminating and more about internalized cultural bias.

the real cost of gasoline

Environment, Government, Iraq, Reference, Uncategorized, World

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this study before, but I finally found a source I can cite.  Back in 1998, the International Center for Technology Assessment released a study called “The Real Price of Gasoline.”  It showed that if all the costs of gasoline (including subsidies and externalized costs) were included in the price at the pump, gas would actually cost between $5 and $15 a gallon.  (At the time, gas was $1 a gallon and we weren’t spending $100 billion per year in Iraq and Afghanistan.)  The full report is online (as a PDF), and I strongly recommend it to anyone.

Sex is essential, kids aren’t – Los Angeles Times

Culture, Environment, Feminism, Science, Sexuality

I just read a wonderful opinion piece in the LA Times called Sex is essential, kids aren’t:

When it comes to human behavior, there are actually very few genetic dictates. Our hearts insist on beating, our lungs breathing, our kidneys filtering and so forth, but these internal-organ functions are hardly “behavior” in a meaningful sense. As for more complex activities, evolution whispers within us. It does not shout orders.

Odd that it’s in the op-ed section, but that’s probably because the Times doesn’t have a “Common Sense Intro to Science” section.

now you can use they, and they can use you too

Feminism, Fun, Language

I was just listening to A Way With Words, and I heard something that caught me completely off guard.  I’ve been complaining about gender-neutral singular pronouns for years, hoping that something like ‘ve’ would replace the awkward ‘he or she’ or the patently evil ‘s/he’.  Greg Egan aside, nothing ever took off.  It turns out that the verbivores have already solved this one to my satisfaction with an obvious (but previously maligned) choice: they.

To quote from Sex and the Singular Pronoun:

Gentle reader (and listener), please open your ears and eyes. Listen and look for statements that contain an indefinite pronoun or a singular noun and hear and see what pronoun follows. In almost every case that pronoun will be a form of they. We do that because the device is historically tested. We do that because it is more graceful than “he or she.” And we do that because it avoids making a minority of us the linguistic norm and a majority of us a linguistic afterthought.

That settles it as far as I’m concerned.  I’m going to start using the singular they with impunity, and I’ll let anyone I meet know that they’re welcome to do so as well.  ˇViva la evolución!