In a comment on Janet Stemwedel's blog entry concerning sexism on Slashdot, the increasingly ubiquitous PZ Myers wrote:
biology actually is a real science, unlike that code bashing the desk jockies (sic) do
I note that, without such code bashing, Myers would not have his bully pulpit from which to disparage other people's professions and beliefs.
I'll note further that real scientists do research. Try "Myers PZ" on PubMed some time: nothing since '98, one paper since '93. (He did stop sneering long enough to get a dinky little paper out of computer methodology, back in '91.)
It makes me weep for my profession to think that this arrogant jerk is fast becoming one of its more public faces. It's particularly galling to have him spout about what is or is not science, when he doesn't do any.
Comments
This biology paper.
Nice. Anyone else reading this, do click through and see just which paper we're talking about.
From Janet Stemwedel, via email because a gremlin interfered when she tried to comment here (sorry J, I've no idea what went wrong!):
---
I agree the comment was deliberately provocative.
Still, I have to agree that there's a sense in which coding is relevantly different from trying to work out the facts of a complicated phenomenon out there in the real world. Not that coding skills can't be helpful there -- I wrote many a program to drive my pumps, to collect data from my ion-specific electrodes, to run my simulations, etc. But, my sense has always been that coding is more like engagement with a purely formal system.
Not that that would have much of anything to do with questions of gender imbalances -- but when a guy who's in CS says something dumb by trying to generalize from common wisdom about "any science department", the folks in science departments grappling with hard stuff in, say, biological systems just might say something snarky back.
Gotta love human nature!
---
Post a comment
RSS Feed
Links:
spousal unit
me
copy
Bloglines account
Simpy account
Connotea account
OpenWetWare userpage
blogroll:
Archives:
July 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
How...interesting. Because, as a "desk jockey" who does code bashing, I have a (minimal[1]) co-author credit on a Nature paper as recently as 2001, which is more recent than PZ's latest by your reckoning.
A biology paper. This biology paper.
[1] My name got buried in the "supplemental information" section, but a lot of other code-bashers were involved and listed as authors in the print edition.