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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
 Posted - 08/30/2013 : 13:39:35 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
In what way does her telling PZ, and giving him permission to blog it, diminish PZ's responsibility to report a crime to the police? |
Since when does PZ have any responsibility to report a crime to the police? Does Minnesota have Good Samaritan laws? It seems they do: "A person at the scene of an emergency who knows that another person is exposed to or has suffered grave physical harm" has a duty to report/rescue. In California (where Shermer is) one only has a duty to report the direct observation of a rape of a child under 14 years old. So PZ is off the hook for any legal duty in either his state or Shermer's. Don't know where the Shermer/Doe incident took place, so can't check laws there.| Or are you suggesting that those who have knowledge of a crime are under no moral or legal obligation to report it to the appropriate authorities? |
Have you personally reported George Bush to the appropriate authorities for his war crimes?| You guys are confusing me. There appears to be a growing body of evidence against Shermer. Why would you support not reporting a rape? |
Because as Elyse and a tremendously huge volume of other data show, reporting rape to the police can often result in an utter absence of arrests (much less convictions) and do more trauma to the victim, including serial harassment (by strangers, associates and even people once considered friends), PTSD triggering, loss of employment, etc.
Ethically, if you know about a crime and the victim is capable of making their own decisions, the right thing to do is to support the victim by listening to them and helping however they want to be helped. It is not the right thing to do to decide for the victim what the right thing to do is, or to ignore their stated desires about what actions should be taken. Doesn't matter what the crime is, here, this is the right thing to do whether it's theft of the morning paper or rape at gunpoint.
PZ did what Jane Doe asked him to do, so he did the right thing.
(If the victim is incapacitated or dead, or is an entity such as a corporation or the citizens of the United States, then you have an ethical duty to report because the victim has no voice of its own. And if your report is unlikely to result in official action, you have an ethical duty to whistleblow.) |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2013 : 13:43:10 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Dude
This makes me ill. |
What makes me ill is that the alleged victim's desires seem to have no weight in your calculus of what should have been done. Despite the fact that the accuser says she did report the event at the time, there's lots of reading you can do on this subject.
Don't fall for the Just-World Fallacy, Dude. What Myers did actually minimizes the damage for everyone except him given the facts at hand at the time. Which should be obvious since the only person who has to date been threatened with any sort of legal sanction is PZ Myers.
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In what way does her telling PZ, and giving him permission to blog it, diminish PZ's responsibility to report a crime to the police? Or are you suggesting that those who have knowledge of a crime are under no moral or legal obligation to report it to the appropriate authorities?
You guys are confusing me. There appears to be a growing body of evidence against Shermer. Why would you support not reporting a rape?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2013 : 14:25:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
How dare victims place more importance on protecting themselves from further harm than "justice." |
It's odd, isn't it, that so many people, seeing someone's right to decide about sex violated, seem to want to violate the victim's right to decide about reporting rape.
Is having one right violated a signal that all their rights can be violated? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2013 : 14:27:07 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Dude
This makes me ill. |
What makes me ill is that the alleged victim's desires seem to have no weight in your calculus of what should have been done. Despite the fact that the accuser says she did report the event at the time, there's lots of reading you can do on this subject.
Don't fall for the Just-World Fallacy, Dude. What Myers did actually minimizes the damage for everyone except him given the facts at hand at the time. Which should be obvious since the only person who has to date been threatened with any sort of legal sanction is PZ Myers.
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In what way does her telling PZ, and giving him permission to blog it, diminish PZ's responsibility to report a crime to the police? Or are you suggesting that those who have knowledge of a crime are under no moral or legal obligation to report it to the appropriate authorities?
You guys are confusing me. There appears to be a growing body of evidence against Shermer. Why would you support not reporting a rape?
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Accidental repost? I replied already. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2013 : 14:55:39 [Permalink]
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Avicenna: Faux Rape Accusations and Richard Sanderson and a follow-up.
Someone from the slymepit accused Avicenna of raping someone at TAM 2013. There was a little problem: he has a rock-solid alibi in that his passport proves he hadn't left the EU at the time. Some slymepitters claim the fake rape accusation was to prove a point about how easy they are to manufacture, in defense of Shermer. Except this one may have done actual damage to real, innocent women and children because - due to the accusation - Avi had to take a couple of days of administrative leave from his job of delivering babies, and so untrained midwives had to step in to cover for him (mothers won't stop giving birth because their doctor is unavailable). It seems like the mothers and babies are okay, but only time will tell for sure.
So the slymepitters think that risking real harm to the health of infants and mothers is acceptable collateral damage in order to protect Shermer from what, losing a fraction of his income and not getting laid as often at conventions? Unbelievable. That Avicenna could have had his career terminated by the accusation (while being a rapist is no bar from a career in skeptical advocacy) doesn't even need to be mentioned to see how brutally nasty the slymepit can be. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2013 : 21:48:21 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Avicenna: Faux Rape Accusations and Richard Sanderson and a follow-up.
Someone from the slymepit accused Avicenna of raping someone at TAM 2013. There was a little problem: he has a rock-solid alibi in that his passport proves he hadn't left the EU at the time. Some slymepitters claim the fake rape accusation was to prove a point about how easy they are to manufacture, in defense of Shermer. Except this one may have done actual damage to real, innocent women and children because - due to the accusation - Avi had to take a couple of days of administrative leave from his job of delivering babies, and so untrained midwives had to step in to cover for him (mothers won't stop giving birth because their doctor is unavailable). It seems like the mothers and babies are okay, but only time will tell for sure.
So the slymepitters think that risking real harm to the health of infants and mothers is acceptable collateral damage in order to protect Shermer from what, losing a fraction of his income and not getting laid as often at conventions? Unbelievable. That Avicenna could have had his career terminated by the accusation (while being a rapist is no bar from a career in skeptical advocacy) doesn't even need to be mentioned to see how brutally nasty the slymepit can be.
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The "slymepit" name itself sums it all up. Outrageous! |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2013 : 01:19:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Originally posted by tomk80
The right thing to do is very fucking simple. You report it to the police.
PZ's claim that too much time has passed to go to the authorities is is easily shown to be questionable by a simple google search on statutes of limitations.
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So could you please explain to me how likely reporting this to the police would be to lead to an investigation in the first place, let alone a trial? For what, as far as I can tell, will in the end be a "he said, she said" accusation?
And if she reported it to the police today, would it then be okay for PZ to report on it, according to you?
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A person tells you they have been raped. What do you do. You, personally. And why would you consider the likelihood of a police investigation a prerequisite to reporting it? WTF man.
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If someone tell me he or she has been raped, I will listen to their story, offer support and then encourage them to report it. If they want to, I will offer to support them. If they do not want to, that is the end of it for that road. They are the victims, they will have to go through the investigation and possibly suffer the consequences of it, not me.
And yes, the likelihood of it leading to an investigation is something that you would take into account before putting them through reporting the crime. These are real people who have been hurt, and who will possibly be hurt more if you report what happened. Their concerns and their decisions on this should be paramount.
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Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
| Edited by - tomk80 on 08/31/2013 04:19:07 |
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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1487 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2013 : 04:14:07 [Permalink]
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Dude (the SFN forum user), as flawed as PZ Myers is, my respect for him as increased due to his actions on this issue...er subscription: PZ warned others about a person that has caused harmed and has a pattern of doing so.
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2013 : 09:27:58 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by ThorGoLucky
Dude (the SFN forum user), as flawed as PZ Myers is, my respect for him as increased due to his actions on this issue...er subscription: PZ warned others about a person that has caused harmed and has a pattern of doing so.
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Not me. Even if everything he reported happened, and I'm inclined to think it did, Myers delivered the news with way too much glee. Being right doesn't mean you aren't an asshole.
Why give the info to such a polarizing figure? Surely there are other people out there who would have been willing to "drop the bomb" without relishing doing it so much. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2013 : 11:48:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
...Myers delivered the news with way too much glee. |
I fail to see glee. Why would he be gleeful, anyway? It's a horrible thing. And it's not like Shermer is his mortal enemy. Myers seems to have mentioned Shermer in 12 blogs posts over the two years up to the "Grenade" post, and not all of them are negative. I think you're reading way too much into Myers' state of mind. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2013 : 12:53:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Kil
...Myers delivered the news with way too much glee. |
I fail to see glee. Why would he be gleeful, anyway? It's a horrible thing. And it's not like Shermer is his mortal enemy. Myers seems to have mentioned Shermer in 12 blogs posts over the two years up to the "Grenade" post, and not all of them are negative. I think you're reading way too much into Myers' state of mind.
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The hyperbole he engaged in when "reporting". It's a serious issue, potential jail or career ending consequences for his target. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2013 : 12:55:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Dude
Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Dude
This makes me ill. |
What makes me ill is that the alleged victim's desires seem to have no weight in your calculus of what should have been done. Despite the fact that the accuser says she did report the event at the time, there's lots of reading you can do on this subject.
Don't fall for the Just-World Fallacy, Dude. What Myers did actually minimizes the damage for everyone except him given the facts at hand at the time. Which should be obvious since the only person who has to date been threatened with any sort of legal sanction is PZ Myers.
|
In what way does her telling PZ, and giving him permission to blog it, diminish PZ's responsibility to report a crime to the police? Or are you suggesting that those who have knowledge of a crime are under no moral or legal obligation to report it to the appropriate authorities?
You guys are confusing me. There appears to be a growing body of evidence against Shermer. Why would you support not reporting a rape?
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Accidental repost? I replied already.
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Probably. Was using my phone, refreshing the page probably resubmitted the post. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2013 : 13:22:42 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Dude
In what way does her telling PZ, and giving him permission to blog it, diminish PZ's responsibility to report a crime to the police? |
Since when does PZ have any responsibility to report a crime to the police? Does Minnesota have Good Samaritan laws? It seems they do: "A person at the scene of an emergency who knows that another person is exposed to or has suffered grave physical harm" has a duty to report/rescue. In California (where Shermer is) one only has a duty to report the direct observation of a rape of a child under 14 years old. So PZ is off the hook for any legal duty in either his state or Shermer's. Don't know where the Shermer/Doe incident took place, so can't check laws there.| Or are you suggesting that those who have knowledge of a crime are under no moral or legal obligation to report it to the appropriate authorities? |
Have you personally reported George Bush to the appropriate authorities for his war crimes?| You guys are confusing me. There appears to be a growing body of evidence against Shermer. Why would you support not reporting a rape? |
Because as Elyse and a tremendously huge volume of other data show, reporting rape to the police can often result in an utter absence of arrests (much less convictions) and do more trauma to the victim, including serial harassment (by strangers, associates and even people once considered friends), PTSD triggering, loss of employment, etc.
Ethically, if you know about a crime and the victim is capable of making their own decisions, the right thing to do is to support the victim by listening to them and helping however they want to be helped. It is not the right thing to do to decide for the victim what the right thing to do is, or to ignore their stated desires about what actions should be taken. Doesn't matter what the crime is, here, this is the right thing to do whether it's theft of the morning paper or rape at gunpoint.
PZ did what Jane Doe asked him to do, so he did the right thing.
(If the victim is incapacitated or dead, or is an entity such as a corporation or the citizens of the United States, then you have an ethical duty to report because the victim has no voice of its own. And if your report is unlikely to result in official action, you have an ethical duty to whistleblow.)
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I have to reject your analysis. Rape is a serious crime and a serious problem. It is massively underreported, something insane like 90% never get reported. That host of problems associated with reporting it, employment loss, social stigma, ptsd, and so on...all of those things would be mitigated (along with the personal consequences of the rape itself) if more people understood the magnitude of the problem.
I also don't think that you have fully thought your position through. If you can argue that a rape should not be reported, then you are also saying that no rape should be reported in order to protect the victim from the consequences of reporting it. Every unreported rape enables the rapist to repeat their crime, maybe vs the same victim, maybe vs a new one.
I understand the emotional desire to protect a rape victim from further trauma, but leaving their rapist free comes with another (worse) set of consequences.
All rapes should be reported to police.
(posting via phone, please forgive my kil level spelling!) |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2013 : 14:10:08 [Permalink]
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Dave:
Why would he be gleeful, anyway? It's a horrible thing. |
Yes. Good question, Dave. As much as you agree with the content under the hyperbole of the post, I can't believe that you are blind to how much Myers made it about himself and his supposed dilemma by heaping tasteless and tactless melodrama onto it. Not you. You are too good at spotting that kind of stuff.
Boom. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2013 : 22:24:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
The hyperbole he engaged in when "reporting". It's a serious issue, potential jail or career ending consequences for his target. |
I outright reject either consequence. "Jane Doe" was specifically not pressing charges, and "career ending" is blatant hyperbole since skepticism specifically disavows positions of trust.
Also:| I have to reject your analysis. Rape is a serious crime and a serious problem. It is massively underreported, something insane like 90% never get reported. That host of problems associated with reporting it, employment loss, social stigma, ptsd, and so on...all of those things would be mitigated (along with the personal consequences of the rape itself) if more people understood the magnitude of the problem. |
More victims being traumatized by authorities will not help more people understand the magnitude of the problem. The magnitude is in evidence, more case studies will not make it more clear. What's needed is education and activism, not more women willing to become martyrs for the cause.| I also don't think that you have fully thought your position through. If you can argue that a rape should not be reported, then you are also saying that no rape should be reported in order to protect the victim from the consequences of reporting it. |
WTF? My position is certainly not that no rapes should be reported, and that doesn't even logically follow from not wanting a single rape reported. My position is to support the victims. If the victim wants to report, then help the victim report. If the victim doesn't want to report, then don't report.
And again: this applies to any crime. If you know your neighbor's mail is being stolen, you ask your neighbor what they want to do about it. You don't just call the cops. If you know your friend's ex is failing to pay child support, you ask your friend what they want to do, you don't just email their divorce judge. You support the victim, period.
Your response, once again, ignores the victim in favor of some just-world fantasy where it's the police and courts that reduce crime, instead of education and outreach.| Every unreported rape enables the rapist to repeat their crime, maybe vs the same victim, maybe vs a new one. |
Even reported rapes enable the rapist to repeat their crimes, when the police antagonize a victim into recanting and thus "officially clearing" the rapist from any wrong-doing. Only six percent of rapists are convicted, and unless you're willing to argue that the recidivism rate among them is 0%, nearly 100% of them are enabled to re-offend by being released after "paying their debt to society."| I understand the emotional desire to protect a rape victim from further trauma, but leaving their rapist free comes with another (worse) set of consequences. |
Again, the just-world fallacy. Reporting a rape doesn't come close to guaranteeing a person won't rape again. 75% of reported rapes result in no arrests. 25% of people arrested for rape are not prosecuted. 37% of people prosecuted for rape are not convicted. 21% of people convicted for rape are given probation. 100% of rapists who don't die in prison are eventually freed to rape again, after somewhere between 30 days and 30 years.| All rapes should be reported to police. |
In a perfect world, I would agree. But we live in a messy place; a culture that thinks that having some talent at high-school football is more valuable than a girl's right to not be violated, humiliated and harassed; a culture that still thinks that "she was asking for it" is an affirmative defense; a culture in which women appearing on national news to disparage women who get raped as sluts fails to drop the network's ratings in any significant way.
We live in a culture in which it's deemed more important to get women to report rape after the fact than it is to proactively get men to not rape. Until that changes, arming women with knowledge of high-likelihood rapists and the techniques they use is far more valuable than going to the police. And to do that, we don't need any more horrific anecdotes ending with therapy and distrust. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Unbelievable
