Successful attack on truth in academia

Mike Adams ran a column today how the Women's Studies program at Humboldt

State University in northern California trashed the faculty member who dared to teach the statistics of domestic violence.

Read it and cringe.

http://townhall.com/columnists/MikeAdams/2009/09/23/intellectual_rapists

Poland okays compulsory castration for sex offenders

And here's another hot controversy to keep you thinking: What do you think about compulsory castration for sex offenders? Don't forget to read both the press reports and the voluntary Internet comments. Again...very different.

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE58O4LE20090925

and the responses:
http://digg.com/world_news/Poland_okays_forcible_castration_for_pedophiles_5

Teen succumbs after

What the press is saying:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1216714/Schoolgirl-14-dies-given-cervical-cancer-jab.html


What the Internet is saying:

http://digg.com/health/Schoolgirl_14_dies_after_being_given_cervical_cancer_jab

Read both parts. It's quite enlightening to see how starkly different are the perspectives of the 'newspaper sellers' and the Internet users who respond to the reports (and reporting).

BTW, rare allergic reactions are not uncommon with many, many helpful drugs. The actual incidence of problems with these particular drugs is actually quite low. Not that that helps this poor child.
Also note that the British drug and the one used here in North America, Gardisil, are different formulations. Ours protects us against more strains of HPV.

Timing of first sex linked to genes?

Well, look at this. Now some research suggests the age of sexual maturation--and even age of sexual awakening--may have a genetic link. This is something to watch in future.

http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=14446726

Interesting gay research

I found this article in the often staid and highbrow Scientific American Magazine. It serves as a bit of a primer on gay male roles and talks about the 2D:4D finger length ratio research.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gay-male-sex-roles

New show with plastinated bodies

I went twice to see the Body Project and was fascinated...but dismayed that the pubococcygeal muscle had been removed on ALL the bodies. What was with that? Also, there was a paltry amount of information on human sexuality to be gained from the exhibit.
Seems I wasn't the only one to notice. A new exhibit is underway, this one including (depending on the "sensibilities" of the city in which it is shown) several copulating plastinated cadavers.

http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USTRE58A4Z220090911

Another good university sexuality course hits the skids

Having taught university-level sexuality courses, I too have felt underwhelmed by the support from the hosting departments, despite enthusiastic reception from the students. Another such prof throws in the towel.

From Yale Daily News:

'Porn in the Morn' is no more

By Shahla Naimi

Staff Reporter

Published Thursday, September 17, 2009

For those forward-thinking students who, having turned in schedules for the fall term, are looking ahead to spring courses, “Porn in the Morn” is no longer on the menu.

That’s because the class, officially dubbed “Biology of Gender and Human Sexuality” lost its science credit and will not be offered this academic year. The course underwent routine review by the Yale College Science Council in April; that body decided the course no longer met the requirements of a science distributional requirement.

Eva Galvan/Staff Reporter

Professor Bill Summers elected to cancel his “Porn in the Morn” class.

William Summers, the radiology professor who conceived of the course and has taught “Porn in the Morn” since 2005, disagreed with that decision.

“I didn’t agree that it wasn’t a science course,” Summers said.

After the Science Council pulled the course’s coveted “Sc” status, Summers pulled the course.

“I thought the decision showed a lack of confidence the Science Council expressed in me,” Summers said. “When you lose the respect of your colleagues by teaching it, you lose your enthusiasm to teach it.”

Summers said he views science more broadly than does the Science Council — which only designates natural sciences, not human sciences, for science distribution credit. Summers believes that the human sciences, such as psychology, should also be given the science distributional designation.

“If you do an epidemiological study of birds, it’s considered a natural science, but if you do it on humans, it’s not considered a natural science,” Summers said. “I thought it was all science but they had a distinction between natural sciences and all other sciences.”

There were other reasons why Summers decided not to teach the course. He wanted to focus on other subjects in his teaching; he is currently teaching six credits. But had the course’s science credit been re-approved, Summers said he probably would have continued to teach it because the course was in high demand among students. Last spring, 357 students took the iconic course — mainly freshman and sophomores. Enrollment peaked in 2005 when 546 took “Porn in the Morn.”

That year, Summers had to split the class in two because space wasn’t available for the full 546-student lecture. Summers would lecture the same material twice a day, two days a week.

The next semester, Summers taught “Porn in the Morn” from the auditorium in the Yale Law School, one of the largest lecture spaces on central campus. It was a setting where some students first learned the concept of the G-spot, or first saw an image of a crowning baby (the projection of which on the auditorium screen caused several students to walk out). Summers was known to invoke aliens on his exams, a trope “to suggest that one look at the issue [of sexual dimorphism] without any preconceived assumptions,” he wrote in an e-mail to the News.

“This is genuinely interesting subject matter that some people have never been exposed to,” said Christina Cicchetti ’11, who took the class last term. “It’s valuable even if it doesn’t make English majors cry.”

That said, Jenny Witthuhn ’12 — who also took the class last spring — said it made more sense to classify the course as a social science credit, rather than as a natural science.

“The class really focused on the social constructions of the topic,” Witthuhn said. “I see the logic of [the change] because it makes more sense to classify it as a social sciences.”

Routine reviews of all courses proposed for the science distributional credit occur every three to five years, said William Segraves, associate dean for science education and the chair of the Science Council. Segraves would not say exactly why the Science Council removed the science designation from Summers’s course.

Students still had the option of taking a course on human sexuality and reproduction this term: Harvey Kliman, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Yale School of Medicine, is teaching a yearlong freshman seminar called “Topics of Reproductive Biology.” The seminar — which carries the “Sc” coding — addresses Yale’s hook-up culture and “the idea that reproduction is the center of all human activity,” Kliman said.

But Kliman’s course is not for the faint of heart: Interested students must have received a score of 5 on the Advanced Placement Biology exam to be considered for the course.

High religiosity=High teen pregnancy rate

This article will come as no surprise to most, but it does mark scientific research into the connection between high adherence to conservative religious doctrines and the consequence of high teen birth rates. Well-written article.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/teenbirthrateshigherinhighlyreligiousstates/print

More on California hypocrite

And here's a news article on FORMER California assemblyman Mike Duvall.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/mike-duvall-denies-an-affair-admits-inappropriate-storytelling-on-sex-comments.html

Family values politician caught being a pig

Southern California politician with a reputation for always upholding staunch "family values" gets caught on mike boasting of kinky sexploits with several female lobbyists. Oops!
Watch the tape here and enjoy the justice of it all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2GKqTeBlAg

Sex positive electric toothbrush

Would your dentist approve?

Vermont joins states with same-sex marriage

As yet another state begins issuing marriage licenses to gays and lesbians, Vermont-based Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream is marking the occasion in typically sweet fashion. They're renaming their "Chubby Hubby" flavor "Hubby Hubby" for the month.

Read more here:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5grllk_nt63q2NPIotyM9xpL4hwkwD9AEICK00