amy bishop
razib | February 23, 2010Papers Link Husband of Professor to '93 Threat:
The husband of the neuroscientist accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville told a witness he wanted to harm a Harvard professor who was later mailed a pipe bomb in 1993, according to newly released federal documents.
James Anderson Jr., the husband of Amy Bishop, wanted to "shoot," "stab" or "strangle" the professor, Paul Rosenberg, according to documents released Tuesday by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Dr. Bishop had worked for Dr. Rosenberg in the neurobiology lab of Children's…
terrasig | February 23, 2010As I wrote on Twitter yesterday, I am sending hugs, salutes, and immense respect to Dr. Chris Gunter and her colleagues at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Alabama.
Gunter, a self-described "recovering Nature editor" who serves as Director of Research Affairs at HudsonAlpha, is working with several of her colleagues at the institute to finish teaching an undergraduate neuroscience course that was left without a professor following the UAHuntsville tragedy.
Practical things first: Chris has sent out a call to any educators out there who have syllabi or slides for…
jstemwedel | February 22, 2010From a recent article in the New York Times considering University of Alabama-Huntsville shooter Amy Bishop's scientific stature and finding it lacking, this comment on why so many denizens of the internet think they can understand why she did what she did:
Why did people who knew Dr. Bishop only through reading about her crime make excuses for her?
Joanathan D. Moreno, a professor of medical ethics and the history and sociology of science at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks reactions have to do with a long tradition that goes back to Plato. The idea, he said, is that someone who is…
razib | February 20, 2010From The Boston Globe, Ambition fueled a smoldering rage:
A friendship of sorts was kindled, based largely on a mutual interest in science. Over coffee and lunch, they would discuss Bishop's research and McCann's work in biotechnology.
Bishop never spoke of her husband or growing family.
During one meeting, Bishop listened patiently to McCann for a time before suggesting they switch topics.
"She said, 'That's very nice, Isabel, but can we talk about oxidation?' '' she recalled, with a chuckle. "That one moment in time encapsulated who Amy was. She just couldn't connect with people.''
I would…
razib | February 20, 2010Ruchira Paul points me to a blogger who's been digging through Bishop's recent published works, and there's a lot of fishy stuff in there. You have to read it to believe it. Here's the conclusion:
There is no question that Dr. Bishop is smart. But it also seems very evident that she suffers delusions of genuis. Far from establishing a record of accomplishment warranting the grant of tenure, since joining UAH Dr. Bishop took a long nap on her one true laurel -- her affiliation with Harvard .
Evidence strongly suggests that Dr. Bishop used her husband, her family and by all appearances the…
razib | February 20, 2010Covers all the major angles. Nice that there's a newspaper which can support this sort of reporting (on the other hand). Not surprising that Amy Bishop seems to have some history of delusions of grandeur, she's claiming that both she and her husband have an I.Q. of 180. That's 5.3 standard deviations above the mean. Assuming a normal distribution that's a 1 in 20 million probability. Of course the tails of the distribution are fatter beyond 2 standard deviations than expectation for I.Q., but at these really high levels (above 160) I'm skeptical that most tests are measuring anything real.
razib | February 17, 2010Wow, the Amy Bishop post attracted a lot of comments. I've been hearing/reading a lot about Bishop's brushes with the law over the years over the past few days. One of the issues seems to be that she didn't have a traceable record, and that probably was one reason prosecutors were lenient in 2002 when she was charged with being verbally & physically abusive to another woman at an IHOP. This bit from a mechanic at a car dealership who was held up by Bishop in 1986 struck me:
"I yelled, 'What are you doing' and she screamed at me to put my hands up. So I put my hands up, " recalled…
razib | February 15, 2010It just gets weirder. Ipswich neighbors recall confrontations with Amy Bishop:
Bishop once stopped a local ice cream truck from coming into their neighborhood. According to WBZ-1030 radio, she said it because her own kids were lactose intolerant, and she didn't think it was fair that her kids couldn't have ice cream.
"That's who it was!" Lafoe said. "When we were younger the ice cream truck just stopped coming around. That's strange."
Bishop & her husband both seem to have a history of self-centered anti-social behavior. There seems a precedent of many actions aimed at optimizing their…
terrasig | February 14, 2010Valued commenter wc just left us a link to one of the most insightful articles to date on Dr. Amy Bishop, the University of Alabama in Huntsville biology professor charged in the shooting deaths of three colleagues where two other professors and an administrative assistant were injured.
In today's Decatur Daily, staff writer Eric Fleischauer has an extended interview with UAH psychology professor Eric Seemann. You really should read the whole thing because it provides an inside view of Bishop's personality and relationships. But here is a critical passage:
Despite her excellent research…
terrasig | February 13, 2010First and foremost our condolences go to all our our colleagues at the University of Alabama at Huntsville and others in the Huntsville science community such as Twitter friend, @girlscientist, Dr. Chris Gunter.
As we are learning, yesterday's shooting occurred after UAH Assistant Professor of Biology, Dr. Amy Bishop, learned that she would not be awarded tenure. My sentiment is very much that of my colleague, DrugMonkey. Originally appointed as a faculty member in 2003, she had previously been an Instructor at Harvard University after earning her PhD in Medical Sciences there in 1998.
We…