It’s a tale as old as academia itself. One undergraduate sexually assaults another at a party; a professor assaults a graduate student. The survivor feels compelled to report the assault, in the hopes of deterring their aggressor from victimizing anyone else. But the reporting process is retraumatizing. …

The Annual Meeting and Centennial Celebration of the American Society of Mammalogists is about to begin, and it will feature a workshop called “#SciComm: Developing strategies for effective & trustworthy communication.” …

In December of last year, an employee of the Geological Society of America presented an offensive poster at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The response from both societies was swift and unequivocal: see GSA’s two statements here and the AGU’s statement here. Two months before that, the…

The American Society of Mammalogists has supported an admitted sexual assailant for years, and society leadership clearly does not have what it takes to address this issue. In 2016, a news article contained Miguel Pinto’s written admission that he has sexually assaulted multiple women. Soon after the article was published…

The Society for Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) is currently holding its annual meeting, a famous gathering for all kinds of narcissists and creeps. SVP’s Code of Conduct is one paragraph long and does not mention any mechanisms for reporting misconduct. SVP’s sexual harassment policy says that harassment should be reported to…

My previous blog post examined two phenomena I’ve observed among science writers. First is science writers’ breathless coverage of their sources: entertainment journalists regularly criticize movies and of movie stars, political journalists take a critical look at proposed laws and often understand the legislative process better than the politicians themselves…

Academics, especially at the graduate level, are going through a mental health crisis. There are some pretty obvious ways to address this issue: PIs could refuse to take on new students until their institutions adequately fund mental health services, they could push their institutions to require strict disciplinary measures for…

There is no better profession for a narcissist than that of “science communicator.” Our politicians take advantage of the public’s ignorance of science. They don’t do nearly enough to address pressing issues ranging from climate change to antibiotic resistance. This makes work of science communicators terrifyingly urgent. But instead of…

The Herpetologists’ League, a scientific society that meets as a part of the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, recently decided to give a fancy award to a disgusting creep named Dick Vogt. …