Well, going down the list of signers http://www.vox.com/2015/4/16/8... I notice

GIlbert Ross, M.D.
President (Acting) and Executive Director
American Council on Science and Health

I am not completely for or against ACSH. Elizabeth Whelan, their founder, was an advocate for some issues I agreed with and some issues I disagreed with. I met Whelan a couple of times. I liked her. She was adding information about some controversial debates, and she was particularly useful in taking on some politically correct positions that had a weak science base. As I recall she was defending GM food, and also taking money from Monsanto.

Most admirably, she was taking on the cigarette industry when it was still a "controversy," especially in magazines that were getting a lot of cigarette advertising, notably almost all the major women's magazines.

But Whelan was also trying to round up "unrestricted" grants from industry to write supposedly unbiased or objective reports on major controversies. To her credit, they tried to give all the scientific evidence, although they seem to have run into problems with that.

The one I remember was their report on that fat substitute, Olestra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... This was not a life-or-death issue, but olestra had a few side effects, the most noticeable of which was diarrhea. Procter & Gamble managed to get the FDA to allow them to refer to "diarrhea" by the euphemistic term, "loose stools," which I thought was misleading. At any rate, when I read that report I realized why you can't get an objective report sponsored by a corporation with a financial interest. Whelan couldn't even use straightforward language and arguments to defend olestra, because P&G's lawyers made them follow the FDA-approved wording.

Whelan's big disappointment was that the industry wouldn't support her (the way they do for the more partisan think tanks like the Manhattan Institute), so she gave up that economic model. I don't know where they get their money from now, but I assume they disclose it. In a way it's a shame, because Whelan failed because she was too honest (but not completely candid). Or to put it less flatteringly, you can't be a little bit of a prostitute.

But let's go to the signers at the top.

Henry I. Miller, M.D.
Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy
& Public Policy
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Scott W. Atlas, M.D.
David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Hoover did not deign to include its funding sources in the "About Us" section of its web site, and I'm not going to track it down. But as I recall, when Hoover was first created, the Stanford faculty complained that they were an independent institution using Stanford's name but without academic accountability to Standford, and they were funded by corporations that had a financial stake in some of the areas of their research.

Miller was one of the founding members of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition which was founded by Philip Morris to challenge the evidence of harm from tobacco http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

I remember reading Miller's defenses of GM food. I happen to think that GM food is (probably, mostly) pretty safe. But if Miller believes in the free market, he ought to let consumers know which foods are GM and which aren't, so they can make their own free-market decisions. I don't know if Miller takes any money directly from those corporations. But the organizations he works for, like the Hoover Institution, ACSH, and ASSC, do. So that's where his paycheck ultimately comes from. So in that sense the parent's accusation is true.

Oz has gone completely off the wall, and if I had to choose between Miller and Oz, I'd have to give my verdict to Miller on this one. Miller correctly calls Oz out for his financial conflicts of interest. So it's appropriate to apply the same test to Miller himself. But let them fight it out. This will inform the public debate.

Indeed. My phone's battery life seemed to double when I got a Pebble. I'd not say that's useless at all.

Where did I say "call everyone in"? I believe what I said was:

If you don't have time to interview your top two candidates, you're doing something wrong. Seriously.

Good strawman, though.

And in my case it's 10. Maybe I'm just lucky.

My mistake, I didn't look at who was posting and assumed you were the peron I had responded to previously. I take back what I said about your prior arguments, as those weren't your arguments. The complete and utter bullshit remark stays, though.

So you're saying I'd have been robbed at gunpoint 3 times instead of 2 if I was black? It's quite possible that my assailants were targeting white victims and I'd not have been robbed at all; the hardship would have been replaced with something else, though, for sure; I think we can both agree on that. In other words, your argument is so much complete and utter bullshit based on "what might have been", rather than anything concrete, that I can't bring myself to take you seriously. And your arguments before that have boiled down to "laugh when white people complain because they neve complain about anything real", which I was easily ablt to counter by, well, giving you something real.

You got anything real for me, buddy? If not, bugger off and let the adults have their debate.

Is there a school house rock video explaining in song the differences?

Petitioning the government for a redress of grievances and civil disobedience are two different things albeit similar.

I agree with you. Yet no need for the quotes around social 'scientists.' Psychologists, socialists, etc. employ the same experimental designs and mathematical techniques in experiments as doctors or others performing drug efficacy or medical outcome experiments, for example.

That sounds like an excellent reason to use scare quotes around "scientists". When only 25% of published biomedical results can be reproduced, that field needs to do work to justify the claim to be science as well.

One of the problems is that under the Faircloth Amendment, federal money can't be used to build new public housing, but it can be used to destroy public housing. http://alexisandjesse.tumblr.c...

So as a result we wind up spending $300 a night to put the poor in welfare hotels, when that same money could build ten times as much public housing.

We're not in disagreement, here, and I was certainly not arguing.

Well, yes, one does wonder. How do you propose we find out? I say try it; if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. My experience shows me, though, that men aren't necessarily better at negotiation, we're just better at starting negotiations.

So many times this! Especially the marketing! I can imagine it would be quite difficult to parent one's child in opposition of the marketing of the day. Sure, you can shield them from marketing at home, but they'll get it fro mall angles in public, including from classmates at school.

And that's where we disagree. You see, it's the "older others" who have to change the marketing and parenting. The kids sure as hell can't do it. In the mean time, those of us who are so inclined can certainly do much more than pretend; we can give equal opportunities where we have the authority to do so, and we can urge others to do the same. I'm certainly not pretending I can change the hiring practices of an entire company, but I can damn well be fair in who I personally hire.

Actually... being a sole proprietor and the sole person in charge of hiring for my business, I can change the hiring practices of an entire (albeit very small) company. Since I hire equally, though, I'm not sure why I'd want to.

I agree, she didn't handle it well at all. I say, make it mandatory, rather than banning it or leaving it optional. The issue, as I understand it, is not so much that men are better at it, it's that women don't generally bother with it at all; making it mandatory would solve that. Of course, it would lead to the company either having to pay everyone more or justify not doing so.

As for sexism, it really comes down to intent and understanding. If a man and a woman of equal qualification and experience are offered the same position and the man gets hired at $10k/yr more than the woman, is that sexism? Maybe; there isn't enough information to tell. Were they offered the same starting wage, but the man bargained for more while the woman did not? In that case it was not sexism. Were they offered different starting wages? In that case, it certainly looks like sexism to me, regardless of any bargaining that went on. If both were offered the same starting wage and both bargained for more, the line blurs, as it cold either be sexism or that the man simply asked for more than the woman, or did so more effectively.

It's also exceedingly difficult to prove that sexism was a factor in most cases. Because of this, there has been a huge push to make sexism the default assumption, which does greatly amplify the perception of sexism for those who are looking for it. The corollary to that is that it is also difficult, if not impossible, to prove that one's motives were not sexist, which is why that predilection for the assumption of sexism is a dangerous thing.

I meant for the company. It's a good thing to have loyal employees. Of course, the corollary is that it's also good to be loyal to your employees, which most employers seem to have forgotten.

Maybe this was a good thing for previous generations but in my experience, no. Why should I be loyal to company that will not raise my salary to market value or account for inflation, will lay me off at the drop of a hat, or has no path to further my career within the company (or career change)?

It would be great to be able to have the loyalty the boomers had to their employers but I think with most companies (especially in IT) IT personnel are treated like cattle. Why would I want to be loyal to that type of treatment? Only a deluded naive person would IMHO.

And that doesn't negate your parental responsibility to instill a sense of civility. Sure you might not be successful, that child may experience something that destroys what you've taught them, but if you don't do your job as a parent, its guaranteed that they'll grow into little monsters.

I never said it was easy. It's the hardest job on the planet, there's a reason I'm not doing it.

Of course it's difficult, there are outside stimuli in the system, they get plenty of input from other kids (and teachers) at school and even from the parents of other children who might not raise their kids the way you raise your own, and from people who have no business raising or interacting with children; that steps on a lot of your own work with them. That doesn't negate the fact that they learn how to interact with others by interacting with others.