Inside The Skeptical Science Secret Tree House Bunker*

Christoph Dollis,
Thanks for entering my dialog with Charlie Z.
So it seems that you are making a case that Cook (of the Skeptical[-less] Science site) does not need to make any argument or substantiation about his basis for an accusation of creepiness.

I think in general “creepy” is overdone, which is one of the reasons I haven’t used that word. I agree with this video a friend sent me, although now we’re getting a little far afield since that is more in the context of dating.
But there’s the rub. You mention appearance in the context of dating or perhaps to a friend or heck, maybe to a co-worker you’re on good terms with (although you’re taking a risk here). Not to someone you’re severely criticising in public.

From your comment I get the impression of Cook as a [sic] authoritative figure ….

Nah, I think he’s a buffoon. Doesn’t change the fact that Willis’s open letter was ill-advised as he implemented it. He should have taken initial criticisms on board and improved the letter itself, and not only the several typos. Failing that, Anthony should have distanced himself from it, rather than attacked Skeptical Science for criticising it.

Because you and / or others independently of Cook have? Are you really maintaining that?

But while I think the accusation “creep” is way overused, and usually just means a guy a woman doesn’t happen to find attractive flirting with her, it is nonetheless a verbal description of some emotion or other. I don’t know how much of a reasoned argument you expect to prove, as in Euclid, that it meets the standard. I am definitely maintaining that the vast, vast majority of female WUWT commenters who have spoken up about it so far didn’t like it, and that I and several of the men essentially groaned, spotting through pattern recognition that this wasn’t cool in today’s day and age.
I’ve tried to remove it from a male/female thing and pointed out that it wouldn’t work to criticise a guy about his scientific biases, and then comment that he has big biceps. Now could I show you exactly how that is wrong? No, but I would say it’s very much out of place.

Did you mean to give that impression that it is appropriate for him to merely accuse then to leave it to other intellects to make his case for him?

I think it’s appropriate to use Twitter to give your opinion on things, yes. You can attack John Cook for not expounding if you like. No skin off my nose.
However, there are all sorts of things one can attack Skeptical Science on; its off-the-cuff opinion about a letter that many of WUWT’s own commenters found distinctly odd, sneering, condescending, and in some cases sexist, was not one of those things, in my opinion.
More than the alleged sexism angle, what irked me was starting it so sweet as pie nice then shifting to biting attacks. Made the first part seem condescending and uncharitable to what was ostensibly an open letter welcoming an editor to her post. Adding the bit about striking good looks hardly improved that impression.
P.S. Am I obligated to go into a litany of reasons why I gave my impression of Cook as a “buffoon”? Perhaps on some level I should; I just don’t have time or inclination to. People can discount my opinion because I haven’t backed it up at length. People can do likewise about John Cook’s tweet. See how that works?
P.P.S. Speaking of time and inclination, I have a lot to do today so I don’t know if or when I’ll be back. Depends how things go. So take that into account when decided at what length to reply, since I don’t have time for a long conversation now.

Anyway, if I came across as overly sarcastic with, “See how that works?” I apologise. You’ve been nothing but a gentleman, John. I mean it by way of illustration.
I don’t believe every tweet has to be 100% backed up; I think it’s OK to offer flat-out opinions. (I.e., I watched Silver Linings Playbook the other day. It sucked!) Readers themselves can tell the difference between an impression and an argument. That’s my point.

[snip – you need to rewrite that, and resubmit, because you are misunderstanding what I said and what it was directed at – Anthony]

[snip – nope, try again perhaps our comments passed in the Ether – Anthony]

Disappointing that I would be placed into pre-moderation for making a good-faith comment that you acknowledge is, at most, a misunderstanding.
A comment that boils down to saying Cook may not be projecting so much as recognising an actual problematic post on this site, even though I’ll agree with you and acknowledge he ignores larger problems on his own site.

Some people saw nothing wrong with it, and some people are doing voluminous hand wringing over the PC correctness aspect of it.

Ironically, I’m not especially PC. My main criticism of it was that it seemed falsely sweet and unnecessarily condescending and sneering. Basically, overly-hasty and -emotional.

Point is, there are people who agree with/disagree with every single opinion piece ever written here. If Willis wants to change it/clarify it, he’s certainly welcome to. I would have worded it differently and probably would have suggested some edits had I seen it before publication. That said, I think the hand-wringing about it is excessive. It was written in the language of his age and experience. Some people might not like it, but he was being honest with his praise as well as his scorn. Many people younger than Willis most certainly have a different view.

Fair enough.
I do think you were too quick to attack Skeptical Science and would have been better served by writing what you just wrote a little earlier. However that, for the record, while that’s my opinion on this I want you to know that in general I’m a huge fan of WattsUpWithThat and further, feel that you’ve done humanity and science an enormous service by offering this forum for discussion as well as your personal insights.

REPLY: Thanks, making mistakes and making a fool of yourself is all part of learning. I’ve done both, as have some of our guest authors. I’m happy to concede there was a mistake in the wording of Willis essay, because he didn’t correctly predict how it might be interpreted or misinterpreted. The difference between SkS and WUWT is that we at WUWT allow the criticism and consider it, where SkS just disappears things like entire folders and then goes silent about it. – Anthony

Christoph Dollis on August 8, 2013 at 11:22 am
And
Christoph Dollis on August 8, 2013 at 12:07 pm
And
Charlie Z on August 8, 2013 at 1:18 pm

– – – – – – –
Christoph Dollis & Charlie Z,
On and on we go . . . thanks.
So let’s discount 100% Cook’s ‘creepy’ sniper tweet as is. OK?
You both are critical of Willis’ approach to the subject of feminine-ism and masculine-ism interactivity in the climate science related dialog that Willis started by his open letter post and subsequent comments.
Apologize you advocate over and over and . . . Did you make your detailed case specifically and directly to Willis at the open letter post? If so did you get a response? And if so why aren’t you satisfied with his reasoning? And if you never addressed him in detail specifically and directly then why not?
In the open letter dialog, instead of seeing a certain vibrant sense of ‘joie de vivre’ in pursuing what the French refer to so eloquently in their expression ‘vive la différence’, we see an argument for damping spirited feminine-ism and masculine-ism focused interaction in intellectual discussion. I am disappointed.
John

You both are critical of Willis’ approach to the subject of feminine-ism and masculine-ism interactivity in the climate science related dialog that Willis started by his open letter post and subsequent comments.

Somewhat. That was a secondary point I made. Mostly I commented that the letter was hasty and overemotional. I.e., unprofessional — and that adding the part about her appearance highlighted that and was out of place in a letter criticising someone in the realm of science.

Apologize you advocate over and over and

You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts, John. I didn’t once say apologise (although that is an option he could consider). I am sure that I said and implied he should correct the letter. I.e., remove the over-emotion and, yes, remove or clarify the part about her appearance that, coupled with everything else, has rubbed people the wrong way.
Failing that, I said I thought that Anthony should have distanced himself from it, and he just did somewhat.

Did you make your detailed case specifically and directly to Willis at the open letter post? If so did you get a response?

I brought up my thoughts there. Anthony wrote two additional posts and I brought up them here too.

And if so why aren’t you satisfied with his reasoning? And if you never addressed him in detail specifically and directly then why not?

Satisfied with his reasoning?
No, not at all really. Consider the typos in initial open letter, including an unfinished sentence. I think my impression that it was hasty, over-emotional, and ill-thought-out was spot on, actually. Nothing I’ve seen since then has disavowed me of that notion. But no, I’ve never said or thought that Willis hates women or anything like that.

In the open letter dialog, instead of seeing a certain vibrant sense of ‘joie de vivre’ in pursuing what the French refer to so eloquently in their expression ‘vive la différence’,

I’m pretty sure I and others have expressed difference.

we see an argument for damping spirited feminine-ism and masculine-ism focused interaction in intellectual discussion.

We would be talking about the other issues Willis raised in the letter had he not inserted these unneeded distractions by the tone of and selection of extraneous material for his letter. I’ve said above, and somehow you’ve ignored, my main issue with it: It isn’t so much the feminism angle. [I am most certainly not a feminist (proof) (more proof).] I disliked the tone of a letter that starts off coming across like a really sincere welcome to your post, then segues into a particularly condescending attack.
Just the same as complimenting someone’s appearance might work, but not so much while you’re criticising their professional behaviour.
Anyway, I don’t have anything else to add to this right now. I am writing this comment to correct your inadvertent mischaracterisation of my position.
I’m satisfied that people have expressed their opinions on this, including Anthony and Willis, as well as Willis’s defenders and critics in this matter. I’ll add more if something occurs to me or someone says something I feel warrants a response, but I have said what I meant to say.
I’m glad I did. It perhaps contributed to one of the two results I had hoped it would.
P.S. I will reiterate though something I’ve said before. I find the idea that men writ large won’t tell a pretty, smart woman she’s wrong in science preposterous. At a night club or out at a church picnic, OK. In the field of science, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

To flip the genders, if someone wrote a diatribe about Barack Obama and then added that he’s a good-looking man, well ….
Anyway, enough of this dead horse! Have a good night, all.

You did not, you instead advocated apology.

This is not true. Further, I pointed out this is not true in my last comment. Also:

It looks like you did not accomplish an engagement with Willis in detail specifically and directly about your issues with his approach on feminine and masculine interaction

This is also not true. I pointed out how and why I considered bringing up her looks while criticising her was inappropriate and ill-advised. I even used analogies (on the other thread as well, not just this one) and flipped the gender roles around (on the other thread as well, not just this one).

you stated Anthony somewhat distanced himself from Willis’ post

He did.

due to having issues with Willis’ approach to feminine and masculine interaction

I did not say that.

my mistake that I said you made repetitive aplogy requests. The combination of Charlie Z and you contained multiple apology requests. Sorry.

Then why did you say, again, in this very comment, “you instead advocated apology”?
With due respect, you need to get your facts in order.

“I wish that this blog could accept editorial responsibility and apologize for the ugly tone of that post rather than simply trying to up the ante of confrontation with Skeptical Science.”
—Charlie Z

A couple points.
I was talking about the blog accepting editorial responsibility, not insisting that Willis do so. As for Willis’s part, I just wished he’d significantly improved the letter, but did not expect him to.
Since I accept that Willis is sincere on some level, although his stated plan of intentionally drawing focus to his own behaviour as a jerk seems to me highly flawed and not beneficial to WUWT.
Be that as it may, I didn’t really expect Willis to apologise considering how he’s standing by his guns. Therefore I wasn’t asking him to. I was hoping Anthony would accept editorial responsibility on a “let cooler heads prevail” basis (his head, not Willis’s). That’s mainly what my “Hear, hear,” was in reference to.
Do I think it would be ideal if Anthony apologised for the tone? Sure. But it isn’t, to my mind, that important. That he’s acknowledged he would have recommended changes to the letter had he seen it in advance and that he would have worded it differently is at least some distance between him and the letter.
I think that’s an improvement. Being tied to a letter whose short-term aim, as stated by the author, is to attract attention to himself as a jerk in pursuit of an alleged larger plan doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

This was witty!