May 20, 2017

"'The conceptual penis as a social construct' is a Sokal-style hoax on gender studies."

"This paper should never have been published."
Titled, “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct,” our paper “argues” that “The penis vis-à-vis maleness is an incoherent construct. We argue that the conceptual penis is better understood not as an anatomical organ but as a gender-performative, highly fluid social construct.” As if to prove philosopher David Hume’s claim that there is a deep gap between what is and what ought to be, our should-never-have-been-published paper was published in the open-access (meaning that articles are freely accessible and not behind a paywall), peer-reviewed journal Cogent Social Sciences. (In case the PDF is removed, we’ve archived it.)

Assuming the pen names “Jamie Lindsay” and “Peter Boyle,” and writing for the fictitious “Southeast Independent Social Research Group,” we wrote an absurd paper loosely composed in the style of post-structuralist discursive gender theory. The paper was ridiculous by intention, essentially arguing that penises shouldn’t be thought of as male genital organs but as damaging social constructions. We made no attempt to find out what “post-structuralist discursive gender theory” actually means. We assumed that if we were merely clear in our moral implications that maleness is intrinsically bad and that the penis is somehow at the root of it, we could get the paper published in a respectable journal.

This already damning characterization of our hoax understates our paper’s lack of fitness for academic publication by orders of magnitude. We didn’t try to make the paper coherent; instead, we stuffed it full of jargon (like “discursive” and “isomorphism”), nonsense (like arguing that hypermasculine men are both inside and outside of certain discourses at the same time), red-flag phrases (like “pre-post-patriarchal society”), lewd references to slang terms for the penis, insulting phrasing regarding men (including referring to some men who choose not to have children as being “unable to coerce a mate”), and allusions to rape (we stated that “manspreading,” a complaint levied against men for sitting with their legs spread wide, is “akin to raping the empty space around him”). After completing the paper, we read it carefully to ensure it didn’t say anything meaningful, and as neither one of us could determine what it is actually about, we deemed it a success....
I like the way the journal that took the piece called itself Cogent Social Science. Actually, I feel that an emphasis on the "cogent" is patriarchal.

Read the whole thing, because there's some question about the academic stature of the journal. It has a pay-to-publish policy. Here's the coverage of the story in The Chronicle of Higher Education, "Hoax Article in Social-Science Journal Gets a Rise Out of Some Scholars."
Peter Boghossian, an assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University, in Oregon, and James A. Lindsay, an independent scholar.... say they sought to emulate [the Sokal hoax]... [and] to attack the process by which the article was published — “the complex problem of pay-to-publish journals with lax standards that cash in on the ultra-competitive publish-or-perish academic environment.”...

At the Daily Nous, a website that covers news of philosophy, Justin Weinberg describes the article as an “attempted” hoax and says that it was rejected by another, more-reputable journal. At Bleeding Heart Libertarians, James Taylor calls Cogent Social Sciences a “pay-to-publish vanity journal” whose low standards make it difficult to sustain the hoax as proving anything about gender studies as a field or academic publishing as an industry....

One of the more thoughtful critiques came from Ketan Joshi, a communication consultant and writer in Australia on renewable energy, climate change, and other topics. On his blog he writes that the hoaxers pose as rationalists but actually harness their anti-gender-studies paranoia to the engine of irrationality. And unlike the “constructive, clear-headed charity” exemplified by Alan Sokal when he revealed his hoax, Mr. Boghossian and Mr. Lindsay “inject a strong current of mean-spiritedness into their hoax, far removed from any effort to shine a light on unethical practices in publishing.”

104 comments:

David Begley said...

I liked how the authors tied their paper to the climate change scam.

tcrosse said...

Pre-post-erous.

BillyTalley said...

Are hoaxes other than mean spirited?

Meade said...

Reminds me of, and I paraphrase, Now look, you built an erection and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay it forward for the next kid who comes along.

JPS said...

David Begley,

Oh yes. As soon as I saw Climate Change among the article's Keywords I knew these authors were brilliant.

"Climate change is driven by nothing more than it is by certain damaging themes in hypermasculinity that can be best understood via the dominant rapacious approach to climate ecology identifiable with the conceptual penis."

Funny, I thought it was driven by CO2 buildup and by attendant water vapor feedbacks - at least, if I buy into the theory of which 97% of scientists* are convinced. But this - this is some deep thought. If you're a referee, you don't dare exclaim, "That's completely ridiculous"; you nod thoughtfully and write, This is a really novel analysis.

*: Please nobody object: I know.

Otto said...

"engine of irrationality" That engine was started many moons ago by Rousseau. Now that engine is running full throttle on Nihilism combustibles. I think Ann's first car ( in the 60s) had a Nihilism engine.

J. Farmer said...

I saw this on Razib Khan's Twitter timeline. A few thoughts....

1) It was nowhere near as well crafted as Sokal's original Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity

2) Yes, the social sciences is bereft with this sort of weak argumentation and squishy language

3) The hard sciences are only slightly better off than the social sciences. See "replication crisis."

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Although I am no fan of "of gender studies, social science and the “academic left”, this was a reasonably fair assessment of what this 'hoax' really demonstrates - the truly crappy state of pay-to-play academic publishing. Good example of the pitfalls of an unregulated market.

Sam L. said...

The beauty part is that it got published. Illustrating the ignorance and/or idiocy of the publishers.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Sam L. said...
The beauty part is that it got published. Illustrating the ignorance and/or idiocy of the publishers.


Or venality.

David Begley said...

Notice now the attack on the authors by claiming that the journal that published the hoax is not legitimate. Pay to publish! The fact is that it would have been accepted by the most "prestigious" journals in the field.

fivewheels said...

I like that the excuse given is: "It wasn't one of the top peer-reviewed journals, so it doesn't count." So the next time you come at me with an appeal to authority from studies published in peer-reviewed journals, I should take it how seriously?

These hoaxes are childish but fun. When I was in college in the '80s, I had two awful parody poems published in the student literary magazine. Because English lit majors can't tell the difference between ridiculous trash you scribbled during a boring lecture ("bleeding liver ... iron! Onions; tears.") and "the best student poetry of the year."

Tank said...

BillyTalley said...

Are hoaxes other than mean spirited?


Sometimes.

robother said...

I think these guys are guilty of hoaxus interruptus: to take the thing to completion, they should've offered a course in gender studies, and made students pay to download the article as the required text for the course.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

David Begley said...
The fact is that it would have been accepted by the most "prestigious" journals in the field.


Proof? It was rejected by at least one other journal.

Michael K said...

The hard sciences are only slightly better off than the social sciences. See "replication crisis."

Interesting discussion on West Hunter blog.

It is on how Physics majors are starting to shift to Biology. More practical and less esoteric.

As for physics, in talking to students at MIT, I notice that many of the very brightest ones, who would have gone into physics twenty years ago, are now going into biology. I think part of the reason for this shift is that there are discoveries to be made in biology that are within the range of an intelligent human being. This may not be true in other areas.

Lance said...

From the Cogent OA FAQ...

Are your publications peer reviewed?
Each Cogent OA title offers the highest standards of peer review, overseen by expert editors and editorial boards. We’re proud of the friendly and constructive approach we take with all our potential authors. Our editorial teams evaluate submissions on the grounds of relevance, sound methodology, and clarity, rather than the predicted level of future importance.
Our peer-review process is single blind.


Just because they offer peer review doesn't mean it actually happens. How do they select peers? Do they pay them? Does anyone other than their "editorial teams" read the submissions? Do the "editorial teams" even read the submissions?

J. Farmer said...

@Michael K:

As for physics, in talking to students at MIT, I notice that many of the very brightest ones, who would have gone into physics twenty years ago, are now going into biology. I think part of the reason for this shift is that there are discoveries to be made in biology that are within the range of an intelligent human being. This may not be true in other areas.

That is a very interesting take and one I had not read before. It does actually make sense. The main thrust of modern physics, trying to reconcile general relativity and quantum field theory, involves a lot of really complicated mathematics that the majority of humanity simply cannot wrap it's mind around. I know I can't, and I am a decently educated, fairly bright guy.

Ann Althouse said...

"Although I am no fan of "of gender studies, social science and the “academic left”, this was a reasonably fair assessment of what this 'hoax' really demonstrates - the truly crappy state of pay-to-play academic publishing. Good example of the pitfalls of an unregulated market."

Since you took the trouble to make a link, I assume you don't realize that my post links to it (and quotes it).

David Begley said...

ARM

One and done? Not likely. The journals all need free content and there is a limited supply.

harrogate said...

Of course the fact that they paid to have this published means the hoax finally lands on themselves, and on everyone who thinks they're "brilliant."


Of course in journals like HYPATIA, there is no pay-to-play. It's just double-blind peer-review.

Achilles said...

Bureaucracies are parasites that attempt to grow to the limits of the host. Most of the "articles" in social and gender sciences are being written by people piling up student loan debt or professors sucking on the tit.

The next market collapse is almost certainly going to be caused by student loan debt default.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Ann Althouse said...
Since you took the trouble to make a link, I assume you don't realize that my post links to it (and quotes it).


I always read past the 'jump', not like some of those other slackers here. I will give an attribution in future rather than simply second your link.

Jim at said...

Inga got published.
Congrats!

YoungHegelian said...

I once joked with my theology professor brother about writing a paper called "His Rod & Staff, They Comfort Me --- Phallocentric Discourses in the Psalms". The joke was on me, however, when my brother found a paper that was very much on that subject, if not with the same witty title.

Ken B said...

Those banging the pay to publish are missing the point. Why do such things exist? To support these bogus disciplines and provide publications for tenure applications. This counts in the field as peer reviewed academic publication. That these journals exist is revealing of the field.

And the hoax does not claim to prove the field is full of bogus word salad and little else. The papers in that field have done so over a long period of time.
Check out realpeerreview on twitter for hundreds of examples.

fivewheels said...

Elites wish to see profundity where there is none, to differentiate their elevated senses from those of the hoi polloi. It's the same as the pineapple in the museum. But the emperor has no clothes, and occasionally people like to point that out.

Ken B said...

Lance beclowns himself. The authors quote from two separate reviewers' comments, and Lance says maybe it wasn't peer reviewed so ignore it!

harrogate said...

Ken B thereby proving he knows little about academic publishing or about how journals work.

In other words, he's totally qualified to explain higher education on blogs.

John henry said...

Otto,

You are not that Otto, are you? You seem to know engines is why I ask.

Is an engine of irrationality similar to a Wanker engine? Or is that a different kind of cycle? I gather that neither is an Otto cycle.

John Henry

buwaya said...

The most politically effective thing the administration can do is limit federal guarantees of student loans to vocational studies, technology and the hard sciences.

Hopefully with the condition of passing a subsequent subject matter exam.

There will be an immediate revolution in academia.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Ken B said...
Those banging the pay to publish are missing the point. Why do such things exist?


The same reason diploma mills exist, to fulfill a market demand. The government has an interest in creating an education market that maintains some reasonable standards and makes it difficult for diploma mills to flourish. The market in academic journals in contrast is 'self-regulating', with predictable results.

rhhardin said...

There are lots of phallus rituals, social construction, which are certainly there to reflect back on the literal penis.

It's not an absurd enough idea for a parody.

Michael K said...

That is a very interesting take and one I had not read before.

Computational biology is a huge subject and getting very important in genetics and molecular biology.

I struggle to keep up with genetics. I went to a day long program on genetic medicine a couple of weeks ago.

I keep buying the latest edition of the big genetics textbook and before I get half way through, another edition comes out.

I'm not surprised Physics students are getting involved.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

buwaya said...
The most politically effective thing the administration can do is limit federal guarantees of student loans to vocational studies, technology and the hard sciences.


The early success of Apple's Macintosh computers was built to a large degree around desktop publishing, which was dependent to a very large degree on the calligraphy course taught at Reed college. Without this early market success the whole company would have gone under. I bought one of these computers specifically to produce better quality printed documents.

All the electrical engineers in the world were not producing a computer like the first Macintosh computers.

Anonymous said...

"Inga got published.
Congrats!"

Ridiculous by design. What good is a man without his penis? I've had a long life admiring the organ on the right sort of man.

buwaya said...

Sokal, in the end, did no good at all.
His hoax was irrelevant to the only people that mattered, those inside the bubble he was criticising.
That subculture does not read anything outside the subculture.

Its akin to Womens Studies departments reading RS McCains study of Womens Studies departments. Not gonna happen.

Michael K said...

All the electrical engineers in the world were not producing a computer like the first Macintosh computers.

I see you know nothing about the story of Xerox PARC,

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael K said...
I see you know nothing about the story of Xerox PARC,


No, what you see is that you know nothing of value about anything.

Michael K said...

" what you see is that you know nothing of value about anything."

I see you are reduced to ad hominem.

Michael K said...

ARM, do you even know where Jobs first saw the GUI ?

I could recommend some books but I doubt you would read them.

tcrosse said...

Ridiculous by design. What good is a man without his penis?

Ask Caitlyn Jenner.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael K said...
ARM, do you even know where Jobs first saw the GUI ?


You are such a dummy it is sad. As I noted, typography was critical to the early success of the Mac. Job's appreciation of typography as well as the postscript language both have their origins in Reed college's course on calligraphy. My point stands, electrical engineers were not producing a Mac, they produced the IBM computer and monospaced font printers.

There was more to the first Macs than the GUI interface, desktop publishing is what made the brand.

Bad Lieutenant said...

What good is a man without his penis?


Let's play MadLibs...

Michael K said...

"desktop publishing is what made the brand."

Unjustified self regard is not attractive,

Do you know anything about "postscript?" How about "Ethernet?"

Anything about "laser printers?"

I assume not. You seem to be an expert only in calligraphy which my daughter used to be good at when she was an early teen.

Anonymous said...

YH:
Something similar happened to me about 15 years ago, which was close to 30 years after reading Plato's Timaeus. Plato fans will recall that it's a very difficult dialogue about cosmology and includes the characters (concepts?) World Soul, Demiurge (creator of the universe, including the Greek gods), and Receptacle (apparently some kind of container of the whole universe).

Please don't write to correct me if I'm wrong - I may well be, and that's not the point!

Anyway, a philosophy PhD friend told me that Plato seems to assign some kind of unconscious urges to the World Soul, and contemporary Philosophy professors were constantly arguing about what these were. I said "Obviously, the World Soul has an unconscious urge to kill the Demiurge and marry the Receptacle, hah hah!" She told me that some tenured philosophy professor had argued exactly that, which made me say "NOOOOOOOOO! It was only a stupid joke!"

harrogate said...

Michael K. writes one sentence paragraphs.

It seems to make him feel authoritative and important and witty.


He commits ad hominem every other comment even as he whines about others doing it .

I'd point out examples but he probably wouldn't read them.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael K said...
Unjustified self regard is not attractive


Genuinely the funniest guy posting here.

Anonymous said...

I think the most important result of this hoax and the Sokal hoax should be that the referees who recommended the papers be accepted are (a) named, and (b) fired from any academic position they hold, as obviously incompetent to teach their subjects. Has that happened? Will it?

rhhardin said...

I thought the IBM 7090 was the coolest computer ever.

Anonymous said...

I'm open to argument as to whether the editors who (presumably) skimmed the papers to see what they were about, picked the appropriate referees, and then read the referees' reports should also be named (assuming they haven't been) or fired.

Birkel said...

Why should the normal lines apply on a decidedly non-political issue? Why does the Collectivist Left take the field to defend... What? What is there to defend?

Buwaya, sadly, has the measure. More is the pity.

rhhardin said...

Of course it's women that make a penis an organ of impressiveness. It means men and women don't have the same jobs.

But without women it's no good at anything useful. It can't hold your coffee cup.

Directed peeing is nice.

Having tails would be great in conversations. Something to doodle with.

Watch out, she's mad. Warning signs.

traditionalguy said...

At least Phallus seminars stand for something that inspires new life.

rhhardin said...

As to refereeing academic post-modern stuff, it's jargon but it's not empty jargon. Anything can be put with anything and produce a non-empty result, as in ordinary language cliches.

What goes up is a girl's best friend.

He who hesitates gets the worm.

tcrosse said...

The Engineers at Xerox PARC invented the mouse and the Graphical User Interface, which appered in the Xerox Alto computer in 1973. In 1979 Steve Jobs licensed these concepts to deveolop the Lisa and then the Macintosh. The first WYSIWYG document preparation systems Bravo and Gypsy were written for the Alto.

rhhardin said...

I use /bin/ed for editing. WYSIWYG is the pits.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

tcrosse said...
The Engineers at Xerox PARC invented the mouse and the Graphical User Interface, which appered in the Xerox Alto computer in 1973.


Not exactly.

Fernandinande said...

rhhardin said...
I thought the IBM 7090 was the coolest computer ever.


The Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer is the coolest.

rhhardin said...

The 7094 had four more index registers but multiple tag mode let you use the 7090's or-ing of index registers. Tricky coding was the thing then.

tcrosse said...

ARM, I stand corrected.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

tcrosse said...
ARM, I stand corrected.


Not trying to be an asshole, just learnt this myself. I was interested in where Alan Kay came from.

Michael K said...

It seems to make him feel authoritative and important and witty.

What make you feel that way? Nasty little snarks ?

I come here for breaks while converting my book to Word for a Kindle version. Any advice on that ?

I don't mind having discussions with lefties as ling as they deviate a bit from the DNC script.

Michael K said...

tcrosse said...
The Engineers at Xerox PARC invented the mouse and the Graphical User Interface, which appered in the Xerox Alto computer in 1973.

Not exactly.


Interesting but now we go back to electrical engineers doing it.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

I woke up this morning with a bad hangover
And my penis was deconstructed again.
This happens all the time.
It's conceptual

tcrosse said...

Not trying to be an asshole, just learnt this myself. I was interested in where Alan Kay came from.

The history I had read elided that part. No offense taken.

madAsHell said...

Can you lance a peter Boyle?

Bob Boyd said...

Boil your peter lance first.

tcrosse said...

Interesting but now we go back to electrical engineers doing it.

Somebody had to implement those concepts in hardware and software.

tcrosse said...

Can you lance a peter Boyle?

You can prick your finger, but don't finger your prick.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

This is a good description of where a first rate program in arts education can lead. Education in the arts should have remained primarily focused on the practical aspects of the discipline, but this was not 'intellectual' enough for the modern university. The same problem is even seen in many electrical and mechanical engineering programs, where the students often emerge with essentially no practical skills in their discipline.

It is a disease of misplaced snobbishness, overrating the 'intellectual' at the expense of the practical.

Marc in Eugene said...

(Sorry for the truly off topic comment, but seeing that Buwaya is here... did you read the excerpt from Alex Tizon in The Atlantic, My Family's Slave? I wondered if utusan and katulong have the same sort of connotations as 'slave' does in English?)

M Jordan said...

The most amazing part of this story is Michael Mann-gland has already incorporated this "study" into his latest model which turned the hockey stick into a flagpole which he and the rest of his climate buddies saluted.

John henry said...

By pure coincidence as I was in church this morning I was thinking about nuts and bolts. I actually had a screw in my pocket which is what got me going.

We speak of screws, bolts and studs as being "male" and nuts as being "female". Also electrical plugs and outlets and other bits and bobs of hardware.

We also use "screw" in all its permutations as a a euphemism for sex. A "stud" in addition to being a headless threaded rod is also a sexy guy.

So how do we know that the screw identifies as male? Or the nut as female? Could there be a female bolt or a male nut?

Assuming that bolts are automatically male because they were assigned a gender at birth, in the forge, seems transphobic at the very least. This assumption probably endangers all transgenders whether human, hardware or electrical. I suspect that I can probably even come up with a way to tie it to receding glaciers and melting of the ice cap.

The pastor is always happy to see me lost in contemplation during the sermon. Sometimes I am even jotting down notes. He might be disappointed if he knew what I was thinking about.

This article about penis's gives me the idea that maybe I should write this up and submit it to some peer reviewed journal.

Question for the Althousians: Should I focus on climate change and go for a science journal? Or would a sociology journal be better?

How do I describe myself in my bio: Independent freelance philosopher? Changeover wizard? Community organizer (My household being the community I organize)

I'm worried that this may have been done already. Does anyone have a university account that can do a literature search for me?

Suggestions welcome.

John Henry

Bay Area Guy said...

Our science is getting schlonged

urbane legend said...

Char Char Binks said...
It's conceptual

That depends on where your penis has been.

Michael K said...

The same problem is even seen in many electrical and mechanical engineering programs, where the students often emerge with essentially no practical skills in their discipline.

I think the problem is worse in law schools. The more prestigious the law school, the worse the problem.

Computer Science is also having trouble with practical applications.

The German engineering schools used to, and may still require an apprenticeship for a year.

I think these demonstrations have been Gender Studies labs.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Got stopped at "penis" and "deep gap." Somebody is pushing our leg here.

Lucien said...

@John:

The reason nuts are designated female is that a tool & die maker saw one without threads and said: "I'd like to tap that!"

Fernandinande said...

One of the hoax authors (Lindsay) writes

Ophobophobia and the Religion of the Regressive Left

buwaya said...

Hi Marc,

Yes I did read Tizon's article. Very well done.

Katulong is literally "helper". Ka-tulong he (or she, the languages are genderless) who helps. It's quite generic, used for all sorts of purposes, from "servant" to "assistant" to "apprentice". It is often used to refer generally to house servants, nannies, etc.

Utusan is more dialectical. Literally in context - "he who takes orders" (utos). It can also be a plural of "orders" - Not often encountered in Taglog regions proper, though I may be mistaken, as there are plenty of dialects. In other contexts it could mean even a criminal henchman, or a business partner under obligation.

There is a specific word for slave, "alipin", but that hasn't been a legal category since the 16th century as the Spanish (ofgicially) banned slavery.

The mothers and servants families seem to have been from Tarlac province, and they speak different languages there, such as Pampango or Pampangueno from the next province to the south, or Pangsinan from the next one north, but who knows, there are many immigrant settlers in Tarlac. Tarlac is actually a relatively recently settled place (19th century), with many large scale haciendas unlike the usual small holdings of most of the rest. Not coincidentally it (and Pampanga) are ancient hotbed of rural unrest. The root of the communist HUKs was in Pampanga-Tarlac.

Anyway, there was always a current of landowner-tenant exploitation, so unpaid labor is not out of the question. But in this case the article states that she was actually a poor relation. That is a much more typical source of free labor, she having been taken as a customary sort of ward, working for her keep. The only strange thing is that they spent 20 years in Manila, and she never married, or left.

n.n said...

The same problem is even seen in many electrical and mechanical engineering programs

The problems stems from reversing cause and effect. This is a particular problem for teachers with other priorities (e.g. research) and ulterior motives. The focus is on products and solutions rather than concepts and reasoning, which bypasses development of the individual's faculties. The same effect can be observed through premature integration of assistive technologies (e.g. computers). It's a barely adequate model for teaching technicians, insufficient to develop engineers, and a miserable approach to realize innovative thinkers.

n.n said...

Religion of the Regressive Left

Still progressive (i.e. monotonic change). Principles matter.

LYNNDH said...

As Little Anthony Weiner said "See my Social Construct".

tcrosse said...

Sometimes a penis is just a penis.

themightypuck said...

I feel like Conceptual Penis should be a Laurie Anderson song from the 80s

Marc in Eugene said...

Thanks for the context, Buwaya. 'Why didn't she (or he) just leave?' is a question that can be asked of people in many sorts of relationships, isn't it.

roesch/voltaire said...

As a teacher in the College of Engineering who has seen over the years a wide assortment of undergraduate and graduate innovation in engineering and biomechanical designs often presented in contests,, others as poster presentations at the end of the year, I do wonder just what you are talking about.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Everything after The Wizard of Oz is pale bullshit imitation short-dick stuff.

Al Pacino's whose career is summed up early, and better, in one character's introduction, save The Godfathers and Devil's Advocate.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Amy Whinehouse doc on Amazon prime opens with a virtuoso "Moon River."

I like it.

Guildofcannonballs said...

My favorite note of all time is via the French Horn on the famous "Moon River" Frank did.

Never cared for Andy Williams myself.

Guildofcannonballs said...

https://youtu.be/hX8s-yKyWSs

Here ya go, Frank-wise.

eddie willers said...

My favorite note of all time is the clarinet opening Rhapsody In Blue.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Looks like up in this fuck my simple country boy..."


I can't do nothing to Gram lyrics.

Bruce Hayden said...

"I liked how the authors tied their paper to the climate change scam."

It is almost obligatory. I was on the Govt Relations Council (GRC) (as the IP Committee Chair) of a well known engineering society several years ago. We all gave reports about what our committees did and were doing, and proposals for position statements that had to go through the GRC before going to the board of directors for (hopeful) adoption. It seemed like pretty much every other member of the GRC would include some hook to AGW or AGCC in their position statement proposals. It made sense with, for example, an Energy Committee (after all, they need research money), but not with most of the others. I routinely protested, making an ass out of myself, but inevitably got me way, since the proposed position statement justification to the board would have to include my opposition to the AGW/AGCC hook on political grounds, and we wouldn't have uninimity. Everyone was probably relieved when I rotated out of the IP Committee chair and a good friend out of the GR VP slot after a couple of years, and they could get back to virtue signaling with their AGW/AGCC hooks to pretty much anything imaginable.

Kevin said...

You have to stop to consider, of those pushing the AGW meme most fervently, there are a huge number whose only experience with a penis is conceptual.

Michael McNeil said...

Computational biology is a huge subject and getting very important in genetics and molecular biology.
I struggle to keep up with genetics. I went to a day long program on genetic medicine a couple of weeks ago.
I keep buying the latest edition of the big genetics textbook and before I get half way through, another edition comes out.
I'm not surprised Physics students are getting involved.


Reminds me of a quote by Nobel-prize winning physicist Enrico Fermi during the 1950's: “If I could remember all those names [referring to the then (pre-quark) growing population of subatomic particles], I would have been a botanist.”

harrogate said...

Why not publish the book with a real publisher?

tim in vermont said...

We argue that the conceptual penis is better understood not as an anatomical organ but as a gender-performative, highly fluid social construct.” As if to prove philosopher David Hume’s claim that there is a deep gap between what is and what ought to be

Well if that don't describe most penises, I don't know what does.

tim in vermont said...

The early success of Apple's Macintosh computers was built to a large degree around desktop publishing, which was dependent to a very large degree on the calligraphy course taught at Reed college. Without this early market success the whole company would have gone under. . - ARM

Yes, and computers never would have been invented by those soul-less engineering types! What a world! What a world!

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Virtually Unknown said...
Yes, and computers never would have been invented by those soul-less engineering types!


Fortunately only a very stupid person could think that anyone said this. What is it with the right and straw men?

TWW said...

Fast forward several years. Liberal graduate student plagiarizes journal article not realizing it is a hoax but believing it to be quite plausible and likely not read.

Gabriel said...

I'm not sure a lot of regulars here publish in scientific journals. Every journal I've heard of, or published in, requires that that the authors pay something for publication, to partly defray the costs of the journal. What you pay depends on the journal, the format you submit in, and how the journal is published.

Consequently you include the costs of publication when you write you grant applications.

So the "pay-to-publish" criticism I'm seeing here is without basis. That's not what is wrong with the journal we've been talking about here, because pretty much every journal does that.

Of course a crooked journal might publish anything, regardless of peer review and that.

firstHat said...

After a rather intense discussion in a graduate seminar where the phrase "Jesus's penis" had been raised (and lowered) more than a few times and where somehow I seemed to come out on top of the debate(all puns not, but perhaps, intended), I was looking out the window, casually remarking on the weather when I suddenly realized a classmate was looking at me with wide eyes saying "yes, that seems so obvious." I realized at that moment we had descended into babel. I also began to plan my escape from academia into web development. Smart girl! Should have done it sooner.