Proud Homophobe on BP Spill Team

[poolerboy]

There's nothing "false" about it! He's entitled to use the English language, and he never claimed to be speaking in technical biological term. He's perfectly entitled to give his own definition of a term and use it that way; that has nothing to do with being scientific.

Where in his essay did he give his own definition of the term?

 

[NotThatCreative]

If by natural you [poolerboy and JonesHere] think he necessarily means it's a choice, then you might be right. That could be what he meant as that's a valid way to use the word. I thought of it as 'natural' in the 'nature vs nurture' sense. If he meant the latter, he was not scientifically inaccurate since we don't know in regard to the cause of homosexuality how much (if any) is nature and how much (if any) is nurture. If he meant the former, he was. I'm not sure there's enough context there to determine which he meant. . . Upon rereading it and looking for said context, I could bet against both interpretations. I think that word just confuses everything. He uses the word desires a lot too, which implies not a choice. But the word unnatural here I think does imply a choice. I'm just going to go with the essay is poorly written and Katz hasn't really a clue what he's talking about.

Either way, I remain convinced that he'd be fine for the job he was initially assigned. I also recognize, however, that while he's probably a good physicist he isn't irreplaceable (as was shown when he got the boot) and therefore a person who doesn't hate people for something they can't control (gays in this case, but Huffington Post did well by analogizing him to someone who would claim to be 'racist and proud of it') might be better for the job.

I will cede that it is irrational to expect a portion of the population to go without intimate contact their whole lives.

 

[MercuryJones]

If by natural you [poolerboy and JonesHere] think he necessarily means it's a choice, then you might be right.

I don't, necessarily. I maintain that choice or not, it's natural. It exists in nature. There may be some other tortured definition that would exclude naturally incurring events from what is natural, but I'm disinclined to indulge it.

I don't see him having used a conventional scientific understanding of what is natural, but instead using his own sense of desired behavior as natural. Since he is in physics rather than biology it might be excusable, but for me personally it's a small red flag.

As I said earlier, if he's the right person for the job I can live with it. I'm not in a position to know if he is, and I'm content to trust those responsible for it, at least pending contrary information.

In the end I think of you and Kuhli as fundamentally decent and fair people, and flatter myself that I may be as well. So this little disagreement seems not worth a lot more energy.

 

[NotThatCreative]

In the end I think of you and Kuhli as fundamentally decent and fair people, and flatter myself that I may be as well. So this little disagreement seems not worth a lot more energy.

I must say, it's slightly disconcerting to see your avatar and those words next to each other.

 

[Kulindahr]

I'm saying words have definitions, and I'm saying his choice of words betrayed a personal bias overriding what he, as a scientist, should have understood the definition of natural to be.

But I also didn't say he should be jailed, unemployed or not eligible for this job because of it.

Yes, words have definitions, and those differ by the language you're speaking. He wasn't speaking the language "biology", where words have demonstrably different meanings than in common English (just read some papers about evolution to see that).

You're now presuming that any scientist in any field should know the scientific jargon of all science in all fields. That's as ridiculous as biologists or chemists thinking they can make expert pronouncements in morals because they have Ph.D.s in their own fields.

 

[Kulindahr]

Where in his essay did he give his own definition of the term?

Explicitly, he didn't. But in his statements about sexual matters he set out his definition of "natural" in terms of form and function -- kinda like the Roman Catholic Church. Now that's odd, because to a physicist I would expect the term "natural" to mean "that which is observed" -- but he's hardly the first scientist to be inconsistent outside his own realm of scholarship.

 

[Kulindahr]

I don't, necessarily. I maintain that choice or not, it's natural. It exists in nature. There may be some other tortured definition that would exclude naturally incurring events from what is natural, but I'm disinclined to indulge it.

I don't see him having used a conventional scientific understanding of what is natural, but instead using his own sense of desired behavior as natural. Since he is in physics rather than biology it might be excusable, but for me personally it's a small red flag.

So you're defining what's scientific as that which uses accepted definitions (content), while I'm defining it as that which uses rational procedures (process).

As I just posted, his use of the word natural is, well, a bit unnatural for a scientist. But given his definition, he's right.

Now we can wonder whether his definition was adopted to serve his position, or for some other reason....

 

[SuperPsyze]

I was fine with him doing the job. Basically, I wanted him to fix this damn oil problem, and I'd get on with my life and hope I never have to meet him in person.

What rubbed me the wrong way, though, was the rhetoric that categorized him as "one of the brightest minds of America". If anyone on the team was a known racists or anti-semite, I'm sure labeling that person as one of the brightest minds would cause a ton of stir.

Just get that oil out of the water, and forget the fancy titles/news coverage.

 

[MercuryJones]

Yes, words have definitions, and those differ by the language you're speaking. He wasn't speaking the language "biology", where words have demonstrably different meanings than in common English...

I don't consider this to be separate language for physicists and biologists. I do think anyone standing on or enjoying his authority as a scientist is ethically obliged to be responsible in the use of words like natural.

But we disagree on this.

 

[LonelyInVenice]

What it boils down to, to me, is that when you've got an emergency and you need to find the best possible person or group to handle the emergency, you don't carry a checklist of all the different things that might piss off the masses. You find the person best qualified to do the job. Politics aside. Prejudices aside. Race, color, religion and sexual persuasion aside. You just want the best person to fix the problem.

Has anyone shown that this guy hasn't got the necessary expertise? No.

 

[poolerboy]

Explicitly, he didn't. But in his statements about sexual matters he set out his definition of "natural" in terms of form and function -- kinda like the Roman Catholic Church. Now that's odd, because to a physicist I would expect the term "natural" to mean "that which is observed" -- but he's hardly the first scientist to be inconsistent outside his own realm of scholarship.

I would have bought into your extraordinary parsing of the word had he called homosexual intercourse unnatural to imply that it is at variance with what is to be expected biologically -- which is reproduction (its ultimate evolutionary purpose). He used the word unnatural, however, explicitly to refer to the desires. If he meant to say that it is unnatural by merely deviating from the norm, then one is left to wonder if he would have used the same word to describe, say, redheads. Somehow I doubt this, but you're free to believe otherwise.