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Links for 2005-09-14

3 replies on “Links for 2005-09-14”

Re Shelley’s comments on OSW:
(3) There are iniquities that need to be rectified, (4) I think this argument is illogical, insular, self-defeating and insulting.
I don’t understand any of those charges, and I’ve really got a problem with ‘insulting’ – taking criticisms as insults is a great way to avoid learning something new.
As far as I can see, Shelley’s argument was precisely that There are iniquities that need to be rectified – and that the speaker list for OSW reproduced those inequities. And this isn’t because the OSW organisers are evil sexists, but simply because those inequities tend to reproduce themselves if people don’t make a positive effort to derail them. It doesn’t have to be much of an effort – you just need to say, for example, “does the gender balance of the list we’ve got really reflect the gender balance of people working in the field?” – but the effort does have to be made.

re brains evolving: it’s an interesting complement to the recent discovery that a lot of what previously had been considered “Junk” DNA is actually quite active when cells are in the environment of the brain and the nervous system.
we have as a species only a very weak grasp of how our lowlevel machinery works.

Having read through the post and comments at Shelley’s site I’m now slightly nervous of the blogmeet I’ve got organised.
Thankfully I don’t mention anything to do with social software, networking or any other big words. No no, it’s just a, um, gathering in a pub for people who blog…
I hope there are enough women coming… and I’m sure we’re short on Asians, definitely short on squirrels…

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