The nice thing about biology, though, as opposed to religion, is that it has built-in mechanisms for correction of falsehoods. The truths of biology are fallible, correctable--in the end, they are at least falsifiable. The truths of religion? They're whatever whomever is interpreting whatever book says they are...
(Not that biology hasn't been wrongly used as justification for all sorts of wrongs, etc., as the 'ultimate excuse'--but to call it 'ultimate' is to misuse biology, or any science, I think, because science has a built-in fallibilism.)
For as long as sociobiologists and evolutionary biologists come up with "just so" stories, other biologists will continue to debunk them. I love fisking this shit, and actually have a small collection of older eugenics literature, just to pull out and remind people of those days when the Nazis looked to America for scientific justification.
It's one of those really nice, "So this is what media should be" sorts of articles that says, "Here's the news pieces" and "here's the background/context/history/social bullshit" surrounding those newsbits. I love The Guardian for running articles like this that interrogate facts and figures instead of giving us the company-prepared press releases verbatim.
Blind reporting isn't doing anybody any good. We get cocktail conversation, not intelligent interrogation.
A propos of nothing, Kameron - is there anywhere where one could get an "I hit like a girl" posters? We seriously need one for our dojo, where our sensei, despite otherwise being a great guy, consistently says "You hit like a girl!" when someone gives a wimpy strike.
One of these days, one of us "girls" is going to take his head clean off after he says that.
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8 comments so far. What are your thoughts?
Thanks for this link Kameron. What a great article.
Posted by Winter
Indeed... that's a great article. Thank you.
Posted by Shaun
The nice thing about biology, though, as opposed to religion, is that it has built-in mechanisms for correction of falsehoods. The truths of biology are fallible, correctable--in the end, they are at least falsifiable. The truths of religion? They're whatever whomever is interpreting whatever book says they are...
(Not that biology hasn't been wrongly used as justification for all sorts of wrongs, etc., as the 'ultimate excuse'--but to call it 'ultimate' is to misuse biology, or any science, I think, because science has a built-in fallibilism.)
Posted by jpjeffrey
For as long as sociobiologists and evolutionary biologists come up with "just so" stories, other biologists will continue to debunk them. I love fisking this shit, and actually have a small collection of older eugenics literature, just to pull out and remind people of those days when the Nazis looked to America for scientific justification.
NancyP
It's one of those really nice, "So this is what media should be" sorts of articles that says, "Here's the news pieces" and "here's the background/context/history/social bullshit" surrounding those newsbits. I love The Guardian for running articles like this that interrogate facts and figures instead of giving us the company-prepared press releases verbatim.
Blind reporting isn't doing anybody any good. We get cocktail conversation, not intelligent interrogation.
Posted by Kameron Hurley
A propos of nothing, Kameron - is there anywhere where one could get an "I hit like a girl" posters? We seriously need one for our dojo, where our sensei, despite otherwise being a great guy, consistently says "You hit like a girl!" when someone gives a wimpy strike.
One of these days, one of us "girls" is going to take his head clean off after he says that.
Posted by Tapetum
The Guardian is so good for these kinds of "cutting through all the media nonsense" type articles. I rely on it for regular doses of sanity.
Posted by Winter
Tapetum - Oh, would that I had a poster of that image!
Alas, no, but by all means steal it and have somebody make a poster of it.
That would rock.
Posted by Kameron Hurley
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