Sure, "Harry Potter" would be a weak password, but the AC above used, "I'm going to take my dog, Spot, to the park today." Even though it's grammatically correct (limiting the entropy), no dictionary attack will crack that in a reasonable amount of time. Rename the dog, throw in a typo, or screw with the punctuation and that's a quite strong passphrase.

I love scientific debate, but I loathe politics. This letter is politics. I don't see how you can look at that letter and call it "engaging in argument" with a straight face. The book is politics thinly disguised as scientific debate. Dobb's review is scientific debate (and a little politics), but the followup "me too!" letter is pure politics. Why did they even bother with it at all? Are they going to go tilt at the Time Cube guy next?

Regarding GTFO academia, I'll probably leave because I think the many downsides outweigh the many good aspects. But recognizing the suboptimal aspects of our structures and first bellyaching, then working to fix them is how we end up making things better. Taking what you're served is for chumps, as is the "America: take it or leave it" position you're advocating.

My "stance on global warming", whatever that means, isn't based on any political platform, so I doubt it'd particularly interest you.

The illiterate chimes in! The entire letter is here at a whopping three paragraphs, one of which was quoted in its entirety. Dobb's review is much better. The letter, as a collective "me too!", is emotional masturbation and science by petition.

Your post is very meta; I like it.

Well, we don't know if there is consensus among the entire community of geneticists with regard to this particular issue. The equivalent of a petition with 139 signatures doesn't make scientific consensus. This is a consensus of 139 scientists, not scientific consensus.

Because clearly it isn't, if their research is used in this book to support the opposing argument. If the book author has misinterpreted their results, but they don't bother to actually address his mistakes, then their letter amounts to no more than a big, "nuh-uh!"

Public debate needs to be held to a higher standard than it currently is. Would you expect to win a debate by having your entire team sign a letter saying no more than, "The other team is wrong"?

Why do you care if I think their letter is stupid? Why are you so upset that I'm arguing against their approach on a backwater site like this?

I'm practicing what I preach by specifically pointing out how their argument fails to be as convincing as it could be. That you're so emotionally invested in this that you only see me as getting offended doesn't change my argument.

I've bolded the important part above. Pointing out where, or how, others have it wrong is exactly what I'm advocating. Pointing out that others have it wrong, without any supporting evidence as in the letter we are discussing, does nothing to advance science.

I know that this is a troll, and I usually don't respond to stuff like this, but this is a good example of the thinking that permeates much of academia. The idea crudely presented in the post above is that if I'm not deeply offended by the book and 100% behind some goofy letter to the editor or petition or other feel-good measure, then I must be a racist Republican, incapable of thinking and fueled by propaganda. It's the exact same mindset that Bush's, "You're either with us, or against us," comes from. Logic and reason are meaningless, I'm either on the team or I'm a dehumanized enemy.

It's why I unconsciously started my initial comment by stating my personal disagreement with the book (which is genuine), even though that fact is tangential to my entire argument. If I weigh in on some news here at the University without first explicitly stating that I'm not a [racist|sexist|whateverist], the focus of any dissenting comment shifts from what I actually say to assumptions about my politics because I'm not parroting the right talking points.

A scientist, who realizes that science is based on reason and not emotion.

This response is covered in Science (though submitted to the NYTimes as a book review) and signed by scientists who are making an "argument" from authority and by consensus. The letter starts, "As scientists..." and then makes an unsupported argument that their work was misused. It concludes by assuming that their "full agreement", by itself and without any actual arguments, carries any weight at all.

By what criteria is that a correct response in any way besides as a feel-good statement? What exactly does being offended do to advance science and human knowledge?

While I don't agree with this guy's conclusions myself, this type of hyper-PC bullshit storm is why being in academia is so obnoxious. Science should be determined by the evidence available and the best interpretation of it at the time, not by people's feelings or politics.

Secondly, someone citing your work doesn't mean you agree with their conclusions (or especially their politics). The correct response, if you care enough, is to follow up by pointing out where their interpretation falls short. The incorrect response is to write some whiny letter crying about how seemingly racist conclusions were drawn from your publications and it deeply offends you.

I mean, come on: "We are in full agreement that there is no support from the field of population genetics for Wade’s conjectures." What a pathetic retort. But I bet they feel better now, and that's all that really matters.

It's one reason why I can't rally behind Phil Zimmerman, as much as I like PGP and appreciate much of what he's done. His insistence on keeping security software secretive and closed source, while seeming to understand the concept of trust, is baffling.

If you're making figures for publication, make sure they're readable when printed in black and white. It's shocking how often that's overlooked.

I've never worn glasses and I noticed that, too. If I completely relax my eyes, they seem to focus at infinity (distant mountains seem clear). Focusing at anything closer (up to six inches or so) takes increasingly more effort, but it's only noticeable or difficult if I'm exhausted. I assume that it's normal and that most people don't keep pushing themselves that far into exhaustion...

That it's an undesirable situation is the point. The availability of H1B workers is a construct of US laws and the point of US laws should be to benefit the citizens of the US and the country itself. Hiring foreign workers (and not making them citizens and integrating them into the US) and leaving US workers unemployed and incapable of performing necessary jobs, as well as leaving US-based job functions dependent on foreign citizens, is an undesirable situation for the US and its citizens.

Anything that remedies the situation by training US citizens for US jobs is good for citizens and the country alike. A good clue to this is the fact that very few (if any) other countries have systems in place to displace their own citizens' jobs and deliberately sell out their country's knowledge and skill to foreign interests. Hell... if the whole situation didn't primarily benefit the extremely wealthy, shutting it down in the name of national security would be an easy sell.

Without the public key you can't verify the revocation signature, but I see your point. The revocation signature is only of interest to someone who already has a copy of the public key and the presence of an (assumed to be verified by the keyserver) revocation signature is enough to dissuade people from attempting to obtain and use a revoked public key. Retaining both parts allows for others to verify the revocation and limit the damage caused by a malicious keyserver, so there are arguments in favor of a completely open and transparent system (that only adds and never deletes information).

Maybe it currently just comes down to implementation. The revocation signature contains the ID of the key that generated it, but the keyservers are only set up to search for, and return, entire public keys with signatures attached.

PGP Corp's keyserver uses expiration dates and email verification to let abandoned keys slip away. It's not a bad system, really, although it open its own unique possibilities of abuse.

Revoking a keypair shouldn't (and doesn't in most cases) remove a key from the database. If revoking the key removed it from the database, you'd effectively hide the fact that a key was revoked and allow its continued use. You want all of your contacts (current and potential) to know that the particular key has been revoked and is no longer valid.

That's a decent technical solution, but it would require transparent accounting and trusting the phone company. Unless there was some public listing of the average use, it also doesn't allow planning on the users' part. Glass caps are a pretty shitty implementation overall.