It is a fair question I suppose. I watched the incident at the time and I felt Taleb was being a misogynist yes. However I am not prepared to go trawling throug

It is a fair question I suppose. I watched the incident at the time and I felt Taleb was being a misogynist yes. However I am not prepared to go trawling through the bile again to find specific quotes. I acknowledge that there is a chance I am remembering it incorrectly. Lots of people who joined in his appalling baiting were certainly openly misogynist in their language, and maybe I am accusing him of being guilty-by-association. However perhaps joint-enterprise is a fair stick to beat him with, he certainly and very deliberately tries to get his fan club to wade in on social media. Maybe people who do this bear some responsibility for what their followers inevitably say? The further complication is that Dame Professor Mary Beard is an outspoken feminist, and this has caused her to receive more than her fair share of misogynist abuse both on social and mainstream media (incidentally her book Women and Power is very readable and I see now in paper-back). Therefore it could be that I was showing my prejudice in assuming that a man attacking Mary Beard was automatically misogynist. Then I think to myself that a man who has no credentials at all in that field attacking a renowned person in that field (from one of the worlds great institutions) in such a vile way must have some special reason to do so. I guess the final thing is that he did indeed accuse her of having "used feminist cover" (Damn I said I wasn't going to look up quotes). What he seemed to be saying is that she was trying to be exempt from criticism because she was a feminist. I would actually say that that was very misogynist thing to say. It reminds me of the people who try and perpetuate racial slurs an say things like, 'you can't even criticise them for (insert racist trope) for fear of being called racist'. What is worse, is I came out thinking that he was wrong, and badly wrong at that, but was trying to bully his view to the forefront. But as you can see from reading what I wrote, I am not a scholar of the humanities at all. It is still my personal opinion that he is a misogynist bully, and his ego is so big that it compromises his objectivity. > Did Pagliucci simply not quote what you're referring to? Before I finally posted I read the article you linked, I think you have missed this bit "It isn’t because of the not-so-subtle sexist undertone (not just of Taleb’s, but of many of his Twitter-based supporters)" So indeed Pagliucci does mention it. BTW, I predicted the financial crisis of 2008 too. I say that as it seems to be Taleb's main claim to fame. I was wrong about what the trigger would be, but what I identified as a potential cause certainly helped it spread (mind you I could have changed that around when I wrote my book). But then so did my dad, and a plumber I remember talking to at the time. I heard mainstream radio shows about it. In fact it only seemed to be people who were in the financial game who couldn't see it. So what? We could just have easily been wrong.