Irving 9th-grader arrested after taking homemade clock to school

[fitz1980]

Originally Posted by Sue

Has there even been an apology?

Not that I know of. From what I've read the school administration and the police department have both only responded with some variation of "we did nothing wrong."

The town's mayor is one of those conspiracy nuts who thinks that any gathering of Muslims is a plot to impose Sheria law and has defended the actions of the administrator and the police department.

[jimmy101_again]

Originally Posted by Lainie

Being "senile" isn't inevitable at any age. People live to their 90s and older without losing their faculties.

Nobody said that was the case. But looking at what Dawkins has said recently, all of which is way outside his domain of expertise, provides a strong case for a significant diminution of cognitive facilities. (Kind of like Pauling and his vitamin C nuttyness.) So "senile" is as "senile" does.

[ganzfeld]

I think Dawkins is reminding us of many valuable lessons, one of which is that being a non-theist doesn't make a person any better or any less likely to be batspit irrational than a theist.

[crocoduck_hunter]

And that being an expert on one subject doesn't make you an expert on everything.

No, I don't think Dawkins's problem is senility, I think it's that his fame went to his head and Twitter allows him to fire off nasty little thoughts without stopping to think them over of have his publicist filter them.

[erwins]

I'm reminded of my first post in this thread:

Originally Posted by erwins

There is so much wrong with this that I can only shake my head.

On the plus side, they're doing a lot of things to make the chances improve for suing the pants off them.

I'm not sure why they are just threatening to sue. I do wonder if his parents are a little bit cooky based on some of the aftermath decisions and info. (Just a sense--not necessarily something I will defend or try to explain).

Also, being arrested, taken to the police station, booked(?), and suspended from school is plenty of harm. Then on top of that, he is now a national symbol and target for some extremely unpleasant rhetoric. Given the social and political effects on him, I don't think it's a totally ridiculous starting point. This event has been life changing for him.

[Richard W]

I studied at Oxford in the early 90s, when Dawkins was already well-known for being a very good writer on evolution. I'd read all his books - he'd published three at the time, up to The Blind Watchmaker. I was a physicist myself, but I knew biologists - none of whom were taught by Dawkins himself (I'm not sure if he was teaching undergraduates even then), but some of whom were taught by his ex-wife, who was also a biology lecturer at Oxford. He didn't have a terribly good reputation even then, for his sexist views, from what I heard.

In those days he wasn't known for being controversial for anything other than "reductionism", which (as a physicist) I had no problem with. My friends who were taught by his former wife were a bit cagey on the subject of Dawkins himself. I guess it would have been easy to dismiss it as tension between him and his former partner, but even at the time I had the sense that the general consensus was that he was a bit "problematic" in some respects. Looking back, clearly there was something to that.

(eta) It's kind of a shame that our modern instant communication tools let his unedited thoughts get out to everybody, though. When he's being more thoughtful, he does still have interesting things to say. He does, or did at least, have some sort of valid point or interesting idea behind these things that come out as twittering arseholery.

[ganzfeld]

Maybe there should be a meme "Leave Atheism or take responsibility for Dawkins's tweets!" On first thought, no, no there shouldn't. That would be stupid. But funny.

[Dasla]

Originally Posted by Richard W

I studied at Oxford in the early 90s, when Dawkins was already well-known for being a very good writer on evolution. I'd read all his books - he'd published three at the time, up to The Blind Watchmaker. I was a physicist myself, but I knew biologists - none of whom were taught by Dawkins himself (I'm not sure if he was teaching undergraduates even then), but some of whom were taught by his ex-wife, who was also a biology lecturer at Oxford. He didn't have a terribly good reputation even then, for his sexist views, from what I heard.

That is...interesting, especially since there often has been subtle ppressure to push women into the soft sciences. I am assuming he had a lot of women in his classes. I am glad most of my professors were a bit more evolved. Even though I still did biology.

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by Dasla

That is...interesting, especially since there often has been subtle pressure to push women into the soft sciences. I am assuming he had a lot of women in his classes.

I'm not sure - like I said, I'm not sure if he was even teaching undergraduates in those days. (This would have been about 1991). But the specific student I remember who had tutorials with Marian Dawkins was female, yes.

I don't remember biology students in my college having a higher proportion of women than the other "hard" sciences, though. As far as I remember there were three biology students in my year (who I knew, anyway) and one out of three was a woman. That was a similar proportion to physics, maths and engineering, which mostly had more students overall, and so more women numerically...

[Dasla]

Originally Posted by Richard W

I don't remember biology students in my college having a higher proportion of women than the other "hard" sciences, though. As far as I remember there were three biology students in my year (who I knew, anyway) and one out of three was a woman. That was a similar proportion to physics, maths and engineering, which mostly had more students overall, and so more women numerically...

Ok, it was different here (around the same time) I didn't really do any chemistry or physics after first year (it was a set program all students did the same subjects) but from memory, male to female were about equal in my undergraduate classes. First year numbered in the hundreds though and latter years, depending on the class, numbered in 20 or 30 or so, depending on the subject. So it is hard to remember the proportions.

[Psihala]

A suburban Dallas school district has sued the state of Texas to prevent the release of details of a federal investigation into the arrest of a student who brought a homemade clock to class that was seen as a possible bomb.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/t...tails-37241820

[Gutter Monkey]

Suing to suppress the report doesn't look suspicion at all ...

I'm also going to assume that they were fully aware that suppressing the report will make them look bad but it was the 'lesser of two evils' so the report must have made them look especially bad.

[Psihala]

The family of a Muslim boy who was arrested after bringing a homemade clock to school has sued Texas school officials, saying they violated the 14-year-old boy's civil rights.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/family-a...-civil-rights/

[Little Pink Pill]

In 2015 Ahmed Mohamed was arrested in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, after his teacher said the clock looked like an explosive device.
Photos of the 14-year-old's arrest sparked a public outcry.
But on Thursday a Texas judge ruled there was no evidence of racial or religious discrimination.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39982239