Bat fellatio causes a scandal in academia
newscientist.com
newscientist.com
Another one for Ireland is recent introduction of some new blasphemy laws.
The Irish government is also attempting to censor the net there, lucky for most Irish people they're mostly incompetent.
edit: hey downmodder, if you missed the joke that's cool. Parent lives in China, emigrated from Ireland.
I have to imagine that this incident will harm the female colleague's reputation, which, if the story is accurate, it should.
You'd think medical scientists would be a bit more mature about sex.
He was cleared of the "sexual harassment" charge but the investigation also concluded that "showing the paper was a joke with a sexual innuendo" (at least how I read that article). Depending on the relationship of the people involved, and what the innuendo really amounted to, it's hard to say. That at least seems unnecessary.
Using bat reproduction papers to hit on co-workers? a) Weak; b) Yes, one of them needs to be more mature about sex.
Sexual harassment is harassment - behaviour intended to intimidate, disturb, offend, threaten someone - that uses sexuality as a vector. It's extraordinarily naive to assume sexual harassment isn't taking place if the aggressor's goal is not to elicit submission to sex itself.
Anyone have more insight?
* Judging just from the story, it does indeed sound like the showing of the article was a bit of a joke, to carry a shock value to the recipient.
* However, the punishment should fit the crime. In this case the university grossly went overboard into a possibly career wrecking punishment. Maybe a private meeting with the professor and a semi-public chastising in the form of a message from the dean would have been more logical.
* Which makes you think: Why do the universities behave in this manner (this incident is by no means unique). Answer is they want to send a "clear message that sexual (or other kinds of) harassment is not tolerated". Problem is, due to recent surge of political correctness, this has been a blanket term to mean anything that may offend your audience. You say Socrates was not black in your lecture? You've offended the Afrocentric crowd (see Mary Lefkowitz's experiences at http://www.wellesley.edu/CS/Mary/contents.html). You suggest men and women may have innate cognitive differences, you, of course, offend everyone (see Steven Pinker). I could go on but the margin is too small to hold the full list.
This is sad for two reasons: i) The lesser reason is that, well, increasing levels of PC is stifling for all society. ii) But the main worry point is that these things happened in academia, the bastion of free thinking. For one thing, I think the threshold of academics to handle PC-sensitive topics should be higher than the general public. That's why they're academics.
The woman in question makes allegations that it was ongoing much longer than this single bat-fellatio-paper incident, and that that was just the last straw. The investigators however appear to clear him of any wrongdoing with regard to anything prior to the bat-paper allegations ("Report 2"). His reply seems pretty earnest, but obviously it's hard to say much with just some letters back and forth as evidence.
There is almost certainly a researcher somewhere who does comparative anatomical measurements of land and sea mammals. If you bring the visual aids for the study to your friendly neighborhood chemist on the excuse that it is science and she's a scientist so "Haha", I have zero sympathy.
Yes. The article refers to "an ongoing discussion on human uniqueness"; I've personally been part of discussions where people have made (entirely incorrect) assertions along the lines of "animals don't engage in reproductively ineffective sexual activity".
I have no difficulty at all in accepting that a paper about bat fellatio was required in order to contradict a belief that fellatio is a human-only behaviour.
Context is everything. Even if what he says is true, what's acceptable as a one-off joke takes an entirely different meaning when it's just the latest in a series of affronts. If you haven't read it already, the other side of the story paints a pretty different picture to the article: http://felidware.com/DylanEvans/c1.jpg http://felidware.com/DylanEvans/c2.jpg
Sounds to me like the guy is socially inept, and unable to tell when he's making her uncomfortable.
1. He asked her to comment on a scientific paper involving sexual behavior in animals.
2. He told her about a book he was reading on Casanova — specifically that he admired Casanova's adaptability to different situations and skill at gambling (Note: This is the emphasis she herself gives; I'm not downplaying any sexual component)
3. He said he would like to do a course on "sinful" behavior such as gambling, in which he might dress like the devil on some occasion
4. He asked her out to dinner, saying she could bring her husband and he would bring his girlfriend. He showed up without his girlfriend, but did bring another companion in her place. At the end of the night he gave her a hug and kissed her cheek "in the presence of [her] husband"
5. He likes to come into her office in the morning and chat, often about technical fields outside of his degree
6. He initially complimented her along the lines of "You look good in that outfit," she told him she didn't appreciate that sort of talk, and since then he has been more distant and kept his conversation with her strictly to scholarly matters
The picture she paints of him is very much that of a friendly guy who likes to talk to his peers about the things he's thinking about. Particularly the incident where she was scandalized that he hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek in front of her husband combined with how upset she was that he'd thought about dressing as the devil makes me think this is a culture clash between somebody extremely conservative and somebody much less so.
You'd be surprised at all the things being researched.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2005/mar/08/highereducat...
(Or apparently "The Third Chimpanzee", some reviewers claim that is a superset of the book).
I've had at least two people point me to information about animal homosexuality in an attempt to get me to change my opinion on certain gay rights topics. I'm pretty sure there was no innuendo.
(It was a pointless exercise, since my objections to the gay rights movement have nothing to do with traditionalist or naturalist arguments.)
That's like calling the white slave land owners "victims" when they were against the abolishment of slavery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes
Also, I don't recall saying I was against gay rights. For the record, I favor giving gays the same set of rights that straight people should be given (as opposed to the set of rights straight people are actually given). But this is widely interpreted by lazy people as meaning I'm against gay rights.
If, as some people claim, marriage is a sacred institution, why is the state involved at all? Who would be OK with having to go to the courthouse to get a baptism license?
For people who object, choosing to attend a church that doesn't perform gay marriages will be no different from choosing a church that wouldn't perform anything else. Churches aren't regulated. (note: this is almost a "let the market decide" argument)
I do not, however, support the rights of fellating bats to have civil unions, because bats are creepy.
If Dylan Evans produced this paper with the sole purpose of harassing (of which he has been cleared) or offending the woman then they should go after him for wasting university time/money on pointless research.
If it is a legitimate paper and it was appropriate for him to show it to the woman, but she was offended by descriptions of bat fellatio then you've got to wonder what she's doing in the dept. of medicine? I'm sure there are far more offensive things out there and I would hate to have a researcher unwilling to look at those topics just because they're offensive to their sensibilities.
If it is a legitimate paper but it was not appropriate for him to show it to her (i.e. she expressed no interest in it and it's not part of her job) then you've got to question his motives. Was it just a "passing the dirty joke email around the office" type scenario, or was it "hey look at this interesting results I found" type scenario.
Regardless, he will now probably have to move universities as most institutions don't like their dirty laundry being aired in public (assuming it was he who made all of this public)
SNL had some fun with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBVuAGFcGKY (moderately not safe for work, but no nudity).
It's interesting to have a law that says, not "X is bad behavior," but "X is behavior that you can only get away with if other people like it." It would be like having a law that banned porn of ugly people.