The insidious haze of bias

Via ithiliana: an academic who runs a blog discussing ways to combat biased thinking argues that women don't seem to like this blog, clearly it must be because they're inherently wired not to understand/be interested in the topic, with the conversation quickly shifting to the way women are biologically predisposed to being less intelligent and scientifically rigorous. (Edited as per request, note that this still isn't an entirely accurate description of his argument)

ithiliana goes into the crazy bad wrongness of it quite well, as does mswyrr here (see the OP make an idiot of himself in the comments!) and has a really nice and interesting argument here, including some great quotes.

But it got me thinking about two insidious ideas I see a lot of places, which have a lot of appeal even for people who should know better (like this guy)

( The first is that things like racism/sexism etc are just social justice issues, things you should care about because they're morally right, but that they have nothing to do with anything else. )

( The second idea is that any prejudice, however horrible and blown out of proportion, must have some basis in fact )

A much better day

Today has been awesome. In summary:

Watched disk 2 of Dr Who Season 3. Swooned over David Tennant. Was amused by Harry Potter references. Shipped Ten/Martha with a side of Ten/Shakespeare just because it's amusing.

Drove to Hillaries, not expecting to see anyone due to lack of RSVPs. See mandragora2003 and Mr mandragora2003(*)! Have very pleasant (if expensive) lunch, mm all you can eat salmon and chocolate pudding :) Drive home. Do not die! Or kill anyone!

Use GIMP to edit animate hat icon as per advice. (Not sure it's an improvement, but it was certainly fun to make)

Rewatch Veronica Mars Season One disk one, am reminded how totally awesome the show was before it got crap.

Watch latest "Northanger Abbey" on ABC, it is awesome. They upped the satire and sex just enough for a modern audience, she really felt like a real mills-and-boon reading teenager.

And now, sleep.

(*)Any suggestions on a better non identifying term accepted (not Dr mandragora2003 though, that would just be confusing)