Yeah, I do. Your non-response to my clear and well defined challenge demonstrates that quite well. Thanks!

I think all the sensible people abandoned this thread long ago. I can probably say whatever stupid stuff I like and no one who cares will ever see it. Wheee!
…

Phil said this in his orginal response to me:

Look at the equation. I also put in “statistical fluctuations” because that’s where opportunity comes in. Of course for some people that factor will be very low. But in any of these cases, if any of those factors goes to 0 then “luck” won’t happen… My point is that hard work is generally a necessary but not sufficient condition of success.

And this is what he said once he realized he messed up:

Sheesh. You seem to be reading an awful lot of things into my post and comment I never said. The equation I gave is only about luck, not about success. Success would have more terms in it in addition to the ones for luck, like where you start from, and so on

Do you see it? Of course you do. Phil tells me in his response that he wasn’t talking about success when he used that exact term originally. Phil tells me in his response that had he been talking about success he would have included privilege, when in his original formulation he includes privilege as “statistical fluctuation”(thereby sweeping it under the rug, indecently).

Will anyone address it? Probably not. I don’t blame you. The fantasy that other’s failure to succeed comes from a failure to work hard(unlike you, of course) can be hard to give up. That the postion cannot be defended rationally by even a professional writer does seem to be giving you all pause. It certainly gave Phil one. That seed of doubt? It’s all I wanted.

Expect for the part where he says: And I still think Joshua is correct.

All Phil did was bloviate and contridict himself(see #60), all while refusing to admit any fault and still being extremely dismissive of the idea of his privilege(If privilege were obvious, it wouldn’t be the same kind of problem, would it?). I guess Phil’s excellent cold reading skills strike again. I mean really, how do you read “I don’t share Joshua’s opinions” into “I still agree with Joshua”? Are you psychic?

I know everyone has moved on to more important things by this point, but I still wanted to thank you for clarifying your position. While I did recognize that grungor’s original accusation ignored your larger post, I still couldn’t believe you thought Joshua’s post at #7 was true. With your expanded responses it seems pretty clear that you don’t actually think that it is (despite your second claim that you do).

I mean, Joshua claims that only the circumstances surrounding a “small percentage” of people’s births could grant them privileges that not everyone shares – when it can be clearly demonstrated that 50% of the population (i.e. women) suffer a number of disadvantages (examples in my post above) just for lacking a Y chromosome.

As well, he clearly fails to recognize degrees of advantage, making claims that just because someone isn’t born into a “fortune” or hasn’t been “spoonfed” that they couldn’t possibly have a head start over other people born of a different colour or gender or in a different place.

You‘re pretty explicit in your responses to grungor (#53 & #56) that you don’t actually share those opinions with Joshua. So again, thanks for clarifying – I was worried to see such a brilliant science communicator share the outdated opinions expressed in post #7.

Furthermore, if you have a hobby interest, turning it into a job can spoil it as a hobby, because you don’t get to do it just for fun, and imperatives apply that can interfere with your enjoyment. For instance, if you enjoy old books, perhaps you dream of becoming a book dealer, but if you do, then books bect!ome less objects of appreciation or love, but just merchandise.

But I’m not sure how this would apply to professional astronomy, how would that be made dull. Maybe if they say that you need to spend a year looking for asteroids near the Earth or discarded space junk from satellites if that really isn’t what you want to do. imagine if your actual job is to watch Space Shuttle crew on spacewalks through a telescope in case they drop something. For hours. Even when you get home you probably won’t want to spend more time doing the same sort of thing for leisure. Or! Or! They put you in charge of the committee for suitably naming extra-solar planets after statesmen in friendly foreign countries. And they’re demanding that you take Colonel Gaddafi out of the catalogue, when two years ago they demanded that you should put him in.