re: #72 LudwigVanQuixote

He also is trying to make it look like they get $1000 all told. What he actually said, if you break it down, is that they get $1000 on top of their travel and room and board expenses. While it’s true that honorariums are frequent, many universities have policies against their employees receiving them precisely because they may engender a conflict of interest. And receiving an honorarium from a neutral organizer of a conference— say, the organizer of a biology conference where Dawkins’ advocates and Goulds’ were duking it out— is entirely different from receiving an honorarium at an unscientific conference funded by big oil and the Rev. Moon.

And the payment for papers is even more directly unethical. I mean, that’s just kind of ridiculous to even attempt to defend.