That’s my hypothesis, and I’m sticking to it. My obnoxious, curmudgeonly ways must be an adaptation, selected by evolution over many generations to optimize my mating opportunities by forcing stupid people to flee from my presence.
Hey, that’s as good as the explanation that PMS evolved to drive away infertile mates, don’t you think? I wonder if I can get it published somewhere.
But no! Bethany Brookshire and Rebecca Watson have ruined it all for everyone by exposing the fallacious reasoning behind my argument! See, this is why everyone hates the uppity ladies.
My favorite part is where the guy “reasons” *koff* that women were really angry because PMS and not because they were being mistreated. Ick.
Does it work? There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of stupid people wanting your attention.
Do not clutter my pristine hypothesis with data, please.
I’ve lived my whole life without ever imagining the existence of “shower beers”. I might never have received this brilliant insight from Rebecca without the initial impetus of some dude’s inane speculation about PMS. Thanks, stoned sciency dudebro!
moarscienceplz #4
Don’t try it with a glass of wine, though.
Bring the whole bottle.
I was going to ask is this kind of thinking new to science then I stopped. No evidences-less speculation is not knew. It is most often found in Hollywood movies and crappy sci-fy. and drunken conversations with ignorant fools.
uncle frogy
I despise these idiotic just-so stories. That it was published by a scientist in a scientific journal is especially galling. I particularly like the assumption with regard to “shame huts” that the woman would be angered by it and deliberately try to get pregnant to avoid it. Really? Being pregnant is preferable to being sequestered and perhaps enjoying a little private time away from men? I would think for many women the opposite would be true.
The very premise that it’s “evolutionarily advantageous to be as often pregnant as possible” is bullshit anyway.
Has that guy ever looked into human reproduction? It’s especially dangerous and costly. We ain’t no fucking bunnies.
Even if you see evolution as a “game”, you don’t win by having as many kids as possible, you win by getting the maximum number to adulthood.
[quote]Jane Ussher, a women’s health psychologist at the University of Western Sydney in Australia, says while she agrees PMS can “lead to or exacerbate relationship tension,” she does not see how this might drive away infertile males. “Women are fertile before the premenstrual phase of the cycle,” Ussher explains, “so any function of PMS in terms of repelling males would have no impact on fertility.” [/quote]
Except that it might get rid of the one that failed and leave a few weeks to find a more fertile mate. There’s no point in getting rid of a mate before your body knows they’ve failed, is there?
Disclaimers:
I don’t know if there’s anything to the hypothesis, but I think I can see a flaw in this particular argument against it.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking the question.
[quote]Gillings wants to decrease the stigma surrounding PMS. “At the moment it’s a cliché,” he notes. “It’s demeaning in a way, it’s a standard kind of joke and I don’t think it’s funny.”[/quote]
There isn’t any data that shows that I haven’t been cleaning/tidying/decorating more for a few days on a more or less monthly basis for the last 15 years.
I get cranky about bad science to drive away intellectually deficient partners — Well, that’s the problem, innuit?
Cranky peopleCranks attract cranks…to slightly modify
Do not clutter my pristine hypothesis with data, please.
Do not clutter my facts with your opinions.
There’s no point in getting rid of a guy because you didn’t get pregnant this month anyway.
Seriously, there are so many assumptions built into this and so little actual knowledge about fertility, it hurts
-monthly menstruation most likely wasn’t the norm for our ancestors. It still isn’t in parts of the world. Malnutrition, pregnancy, breastfeeding….
-not getting pregnant can have many reasons. 50% of fertilized eggs don’t implant. It makes no sense to get rid of somebody who might be a supportive partner because you didn’t get pregnant after the first month you fucked.
-seriously, dudes are repelled by somebody being a bit cranky for a few days? Are they like elephant bulls who are only allowed into the herd for fucking because nobody is willing to put up with them for the rest of the time?
wut
Your reading comprehension is taking a back seat to your advocacy. The hypothesis (which btw I agree is pretty stupid) is explicitly about “infertile” partners, not abusive ones. Mistreatment is nowhere mentioned.
And alas, Rebecca Watson (whom I do not hate) doesn’t really know what she’s talking about. Traits are “adapted for”? Who says that?
Sounds to me like the dude slept on the couch the night he came up with this brilliant hypothesis.
“You got your data in my hypothesis!”
“You got your hypothesis in my data!”
ChasCPeterson
Shutting women away in “shame huts” when they’re menstruating is mistreatment, jackass. Fuck off.
ChasCPeterson:
“[Jane Ussher] notes that while PMS is associated with relationship problems, it may be more of a symptom of the problem than a cause. “Women who are unhappy premenstrually usually have something else to be unhappy about,” she explains. They may feel pressure from life responsibilities, on the job or from other issues in the relationship.” Never mind reading comprehension, why don’t you try just reading?
Also, Watson doesn’t know what she’s talking about just because she uses an unusual turn of phrase? Are you serious? You need to tell us why something specific she said is inaccurate if you want us to believe she’s out of her depth – and demonstrating some knowledge of the topic yourself wouldn’t hurt.
In the context of a culture saturated with constant assertions that women are irrational and their stated feelings about men, sex, and relationships can’t be trusted?
Really?
Seems to me that this was as much an issue of bad science reporting as it is of possibly bad science. Relatively few people actually read scientific journals. Certainly the typical person does not. Public misunderstandings of science often stems from the poor manner in which science is reported in the popular press. The state and condition of science reporting in the U.S. is terrrible and is a problem that needs to be addressed. I don’t know if the suggested hypothesis has any merit, and my initial reaction was that it was lame. But I don’t see what is the problem with raising it as a scientific question. But that is where it should have remained: a discussion or potential research question within the scientific community, at least until some quality research had been conducted.
Isn’t Chas banned from commenting on threads like this? If not, can we expand the list of tags where he’s not allowed to comment? How much does this have to happen before his commenting privileges are revoked entirely?
@18
Are you suggesting that there are certain questions that science should not be free to ask and investigate? If so, are you suggesting that this is one of those areas that should be off-limits to scientific inquiry?
You’ve forgotten “completely controlled by their hormones” ;)
As in evidence by the “hypothesis”.
Sally
AFAIK it’s only an explicit ban on anything to do with abortion…
dogfightwithdogma @ 21
Does the phrase “control for confounding factors” mean anything to you? If so, kindly enlighten us as to how you would control for the confounding factors Azkyroth described.
Seven of Mine:
First, completely ignore the cultural assumptions founded on centuries of sexism…
I’m a scientist, and I think there’s something wrong with trying to formulate hypotheses from unfounded assertions and really stupid questions.
so, yeah, as someone who actually respects science, there is indeed something wrong with asking this question.
On the contrary, I very much endorse asking questions, such as “THIS shit again? WHY?”
This area of “science” is one with such an overwhelming history of motivated reasoning and cargo-culty hack science intended to confirm already-held prejudices that it is irresponsible as well as contemptibly stupid not to be suspicious of ass-pull hypotheses that just happen to fit with common prejudices, and subject them to a higher degree of scrutiny than one would more neutral claims. This has nothing to do with closing off anything to HONEST inquiry, you disingenuous little pissant.
Seven of Mine, formerly piegasm @24
I understand confounding factors. I cannot, however, tell you how to control for these in this particular case. But does the fact that I can’t do this mean that those more qualified than I to investigate a question should not investigate, or at the very least raise, the question because of confounding factors? I don’t know if such a research program to control for these confounding factors could be developed. If they can’t then abandon the question. But why should the question not be raised? I am suspicious of suggestions, or apparent suggestions, that a question should not be raised. I am committed to free and open scientific theory. Once a question is raised, critique it, analyze it, scrutinize it. Abandon it if it fails to pass this scrutiny. But don’t ask it to begin with? This is what I was asking when I submitted my questions to Azkyroth.
Azkyroth:
Well said, well said.
that’s just it though. with the level of ignorance one must have to honestly ASK the question to begin with, I’d say they AREN’T more qualified than you.
get it now?
I mean, really, if you are as ignorant as a secondary school student wrt to female human biology, sure, then it’s legit to ask such a question.
but as a practicing scientist, one should have learned a bit more by then.
run along now.
dogfisghtwithdogma
Here’s a question they could ask themselves first: Is PMS actually a thing outside of a very narrow set of people with a severe medical issue? That’s where any sensible research about that topic would start. And only when there’s good evidence that it actually exists and manifests in the forms that are usually assumed, only then are questions about whether it might have a function actually legitimate.
Because until that question is settled, the question is equivalent to “why do women who live together have synchronized menstrual cycles?” (hint: they don’t) and “what are the properties of fertilizer derrived from unicorn poop?”
dogfightwithdogma
The point is that even thinking it’s a coherent question requires being completely ignorant of those cultural assumptions. It’s a question on par with “If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?”
@goaded, #9:
Oh,neither do I. I can totally see myself asking this question to the lab-coated head of psycho/sexual research at a major university. Then the researcher-in-charge cracks me a good one over the backside. I cry out, but the lab is empty.
“Why must you decide to dirty your tongue with such inane drivel? I will not have that in my lab.”
Another crack. I gasp and fall onto all fours. Reaching into some area under the lab coat, revealing a glimpse of deliciously smooth flesh for such a fleeting moment, I am left more in agony than appreciation. Only as my panting calms do I realize what this powerful person fetched: the traditional ball gag I’ve seen her use on so many others, the one that has written across the bright red ball: “Please tease the animal.”
====================
Hold on, I just thought I’d check in. Is this TMI for anyone? Cuz I wasn’t thinking of any other reasonable scenario for uttering the phrase.
fuck me, but I am tired of MCB folks trying to muscle in on my behavior turf.
they know absolutely fuck all about the evolution of behavior, but feel empowered because they get way more grant money than we do.
I was not attempting to be disingenuous. My questions were a sincere inquiry for clarification. I did not want to assume anything. You seem to have responded to my questions as though they were accusations of some type. They were not. It is troubling that after one comment of mine, in which I asked questions rather than made assertions, you find it necessary to resort to name-calling.
I never suggested, nor implied, that the hypothesis in question here should not be subjected to heightened scrutiny.
Giliell:
Indeed. Instead, we see an assumption that PMD is a female thing.
dogfightswithhimself is just trolling for outrage.
he’s playing the scientific freeze peach gotchya card, without realizing he’s in a crowd where a lot of them actually DO science.
obvious stinky cheese bait is obvious.
I smell a very distinct fertilizer odor.
run along now, little troll.
I have never seem a similar question turn out to be such.
On the off chance that Icthyic is wrong, the entire point of my previous post is the validity and even desirability of considering pattern recognition in responding to claims.
…oh dear… :3
I had a coworker who was a Red Green clone. He loved Country music and fixing everything with duct tape. He would start giggling and acting childish when he was in the presence of a cute young woman. I would think, “Here is a guy who thinks that women are more emtional than he is.
A said state of affairs that this has been the case in your experience. But there is a first time for everything. I asked the questions because I have made the mistake in the past of roaring into a discussion here assuming what the writer meant and then making assertions based on those assumptions. And I was rightly taken down for it. I was attempting to avoid doing that again. Thank for you for the clarification.
Ichthyic, you are wrong on all accounts. But then I suppose it unreasonable to expect you to think anything other than you do. I am aware that many of those who post here are practicing scientists. It is in fact one of the reasons I read this blog. It is sad that you appear to be so jaded by past experience that you have to resort to what comes off to this reader as intellectual snobbishness and dismissiveness? It just can’t be possible in your world that I am seeking clarification and understanding. Instead, I have to be a troll bent on attempting to set you and others up and/or seeking to provoke outrage? I think it sad that your perspective in this case is so jaundiced.
dogfightwithdogma!
A friendly suggestion: stop fucking digging.
I don’t think anyone here has ever “resorted” to name-calling.
It’s just part of the atmosphere.
dogfightwithdogma @ 42
It’s been the experience for pretty much every regular commenter at this blog. If we ignored our pattern detection for every newcomer who waltzed in sounding exactly like every other disingenuous freeze peach-ing troll, we’d do very little other than go round and round in circles with disingenuous freeze-peach-ing trolls. Sometimes we get false positives, which you contend is the case with you, but that’s a trade-off we’re generally OK with. Deal.
all evidence based on your presentation indicates otherwise.
so not buying it.
run along.
BULLFUCKING SHIT. that was NOT an honest question, and you fucking well know it.
BULLFUCKING SHIT, Ichthyic, it was an honest question. It appears that your experience has you so jaded that you are incapable of thinking otherwise.
I’ve been following this blog for more than three years now. I just don’t join in the conversations often. You are a crappy evaluator of evidence if you think that what I have said thus far leads you to dismiss my statement that I know many of those posting here are scientists.
Steven of Mine…. @45
Deal. I am not trying to piss anyone off. Because I am not a scientist, but know that many much more educated people than myself are here, I seek clarification. I occasionally am not sure what was intended by some comments. So I want to find out. I am a retired high school educator, so asking questions and seeking understanding is the norm for me.
dogfightwithdogma
You sought clarification and you got it. But instead of dealing with that you’re throwing a tantrum because we didn’t bend over backwards to give you the benefit of the doubt. This thread is not about you.
dogfightwithdogma, as it seems you are going to continue your tantrum, please take a moment out to learn how to quote people correctly. It’s the least you can do.
To quote someone, use: <blockquote>Place Text Here</blockquote> which will result in:
dogfightwithdpgma:
I know that you don’t perceive it this way, but “scientists should be free to ask questions!” is pretty much in the same ballpark as “teach the controversy!” That is, they are mottos that look fair and reasonable on the surface but can be used to hide a disingenuous agenda (please note that I am not accusing you of being disingenuous).
“Teach the controversy” fails because creationism is not a scientific controversy. Essentially creationists are using their own refusal to accept evidence as an argument for teaching their fallacies.
“Scientists should be free to ask questions” fails because some questions are not scientific in the first place (that human beings have inalienable rights), some questions have already been answered repeatedly (that HIV causes AIDS), some questions are clearly out of touch with what we already know about the world (that PMS is an adaptive trait for driving off infertile males), some questions are unethical to test experimentally (see the Tuskegee syphilis experiment — perfectly good experimental design, but completely immoral), and many more.
And remember that this is not just what some scientist thought of one day over coffee — this scientist decided to write it up as a hypothesis, complete with fallacious reasoning and lack of knowledge of the existing research base, and submitted it to a journal. And then the journal editors decided to publish what was essentially a stupid hypothesis with zero experimental evidence. And then the university PR department released a stupid press release. And then several news services around the world decided to print stories based on this stupid hypothesis with zero experimental evidence. Saying “scientists should be free to ask questions” does not address any of what is wrong in this scenario.
On another note.
Since when has ‘infertility’ ever been blamed on the male?
ChasCPeterson:
The abuse was in putting women in “shame huts” for natural bodily functions. SHAAAAME HUTS! You don’t find that to be mistreatment? Would you like it if people put you in an “asshole chamber” every time you opened your mouth?
dogfightwithdpgma:
If you want people to take your question seriously, you should start by not passively aggressively attacking the ethics and objectivity of the people you’re asking. Ask why they think it’s a stupid line of inquiry – if it really is, people will be happy to give you the reasons. In exhaustive, and probably heavily sarcastic, detail. If they can’t give you reasons then you’d be justified in criticizing them. Instead you decided to go right for the attack on people’s scientific objectivity by saying “shouldn’t all things be open to question in science” as if that was ever in doubt.
Chigau:
Good point. It’s only in very recent times there was even any thought that infertility might just be on the male side of things.
Galactic Fork:
Okay, Imma wander off and laugh myself silly.
Iyeska @51
I’m pretty sure that is what I have been doing. I apologize for any quotes that were not properly formatted.
chrislawson @52
Thanks for the reply. It was very helpful.
Seven of Mine …. @50
I think you are misinterpreting me. But I’ll bow out now.
@PZeeehead.
Well, relatively few of them count as data points. Those would be “can haz baby plz” or “how is baby made?” or “PZ! I want to have your babies!” All the othere sadomasochistic, nonprocreative, non-spelling assholes haven’t offered their genetic material so I think you can sleep well, sure that clever people are the only ones not forcing themselves on you procreatively.
And Chas? Yeah, but he’s always been here.. this has after all been an echo chamber, so… surely anyone who’s a regular commentator or had been several years ago doesn’t get bans? (Remembers the old days, the banhammers, the dungeon.. my own stupid comments (ouch, those are also recent!))
=8)-DX:
You might get a tad more patience, but no one is safe from the banhammer, so it’s best to avoid running smack into it.
@Iyéska #60
I think I know what running smack into it looks like – happens several times a week. I was just ruminating on how things felt different back in the “olden days™”. I’m not even sure who’s a mod anymore – it doesn’t seem to be styled (although Crip Dyke took that duty and more a while back I think.. well ze got the keys to the kingdom).
I still remember the dungeon though: although I never reall understood whether the inmates were locked up or had gained a badge of honour.
=8)-DX:
No one here is a mod. There are monitors, a list of which can be found at the end of the commenting rules, and anyone can use the contact a monitor link on the sidebar.
no, you are a dishonest phraser of questions.
Isn’t that kinda what’s happened to him already?
My daughter had a boyfriend who was surprised that Mendelssohn did all that stuff with genetics. Briefly.
I wonder if the dungeon would still be around if it was called the asshole chamber ?
OT:
pHred, I’ve always loved your name. The paperlessness of FtB, of course, leaves me unable to do the confirming experiment, but I have no problem perceiving your delightful acidity without it.
@the john who should round his final digit to three….
FTFY
Shame huts? Shower beers? Science News is a Journal?
I learn SO MUCH from this blog. All I ever had was shower coffee.
I don’t know how much scientific evidence has been gathered, but ‘mood swings’ are one of the symptoms of pregnancy, and can theoretically be worse than PMS. So if we are to believe the hypothesis it logically follows that pregnancy mood swings are also an adaptive trait, and they do the ahem… useful … job of driving away the (assumed, monogamous) father of the foetus.
What’s with the assumption that all societies live in nuclear, heterosexual families anyway?
The most important part of science is formulated the RIGHT question in the RIGHT way. If you start with the wrong question it warps the entire research path, and everything generated from it, from hypothesis to data to conclusion, is useless.
It is a scientist’s job to formulate the right questions in the right way. In fact it is their professional responsibility. And if they fail in that responsibility, they are no less immune to ridicule than a doctor who treats brain cancer as if it were an imbalance of humours.
This case, and indeed most cases of evo-psych, is a classic example of ASKING THE WRONG QUESTION. They assumed a behavioral trait, in this case, PMS, was adaptive, and then went on to ask “what could it be adaptive for?” But before even thinking of asking such a question, they needed to ask another question, namely “is there any evidence that PMS as a trait is either adaptive or heritable at all?” In failing that ask that most fundamental of all questions with regards to ALL questions of evolutionary biology, they produced a hypothesis that was laughable.
And thus we laugh at them.
And in so doing also betray a fundamental failure to understand the basics of evolutionary science, which for a scientist proposing a hypothesis that claims to be evolutionary in nature, is a rather egregious error, for which he or she deserves all the professional condemnation from his or her peers and he or she gets.
And thus we also criticize them.
As for your question itself, yes there ARE indeed questions that science, as practiced by humans, should not be free to ask. You see, in asking this question, you have confused the nature of the question and its role in science. There no TOPICS that science should not be free to ask ABOUT and investigate. But QUESTIONS do not sit out there in the ether as platonic ideals for science to peruse. QUESTIONS are actually CREATED by scientists, and they are a TOOL for investigating TOPICS.
And questions that are stupid and useless tools are the ones that human science is not free to ask.
It might be different if human scientists were infinite in mental capacity and endurance (or infinite in number), and with access to research budgets infinite in amount, and infinite in allotted time. But in real life, PRACTICAL human science is not infinite in any of these resources, and every question asked USES UP these limited and very valuable resources. A stupid and useless question WASTES these limited and valuable resources, for no useful gain, garbage in creating garbage out, (with the output sometimes even causing HARM) which would otherwise be free for asking USEFUL questions that produce VALUABLE results.
Scientists have a professional responsibility to husband the limited resources humanity has at its disposal for inquiry, and asking wrong and stupid questions is a failure to fulfill that responsibility. Thus, the stupid and useless questions are ones which scientists are NOT “free” to ask.
One of the basic strategies of the freeze-peach-ing trolls is to try to waste our time answering their dishonest questions, resulting in derailment of threads and distraction from the actual topic at hand, which they would rather not be discussed. Their antics are a silencing tactic.
Incidentally, while I may be mistaken, but I distinctly remembering seeing the ‘nym dogfightwithdogma on here before, more than once, going back at least several months. He may not be a prolific commenter, but he is not a newcomer. (Assuming it is the same commenter).
wvcorvi@69: Science News is a pop-sci news site (and generally a good one; you might have noticed that it didn’t parrot the press release the way many newspapers did, but actually sought out the opinions of a number of scientists, who were largely skeptical towards the paper — that is, they did actual journalism), but we were referring to the original paper in the peer-reviewed Wiley journal Evolutionary Applications. You ought to can the snark unless you’re sure you’ve got your facts right.
Amphiox@71:
Good comment. I’d just add that the other problem with the “scientists should be free to ask questions” is that it’s almost always used to justify research that has a racist or sexist agenda. When the deep, deep flaws in a paper or article are pointed out (e.g. pretty much anything by Satoshi Kanazawa or Charles Murray), the defenders often trot out the “he should be free to ask questions” line without acknowledging that the question itself is racist/sexist — which in itself does not make it unscientific — but more importantly, is posed in such as way as to generate an answer that will justify the sexist/racist assumption.
One of the most important things to do in any science is to work out what your assumptions are. And then take a good look at them and work out if they are accurate assumptions.
A quick comment:
The study Rebecca was referring to fell short because there is no way a woman can know a male is infertile unless trying repeatedly so PMS can’t have that purpose unless it is occurring predominately in females who can’t get pregnant but wish to be so.
I am also missing the quite obvious statement that PMS could be a result of a periodic and drastic change of several hormone levels and thus be pretty much normal for someone with a genetic background that triggers that periodic hormone expression levels.
Do not taunt Rule 34. O.O
llyris
That and about a bazillion other assumptions.
Like you can also get a new sexual partner within the next 2 weeks, you are free to choose your sexual partner, you are free to change sexual partners etc.
Like so often with bad evolutionary story telling, the people doing it take all their western modern assumptions, biases, western modern phenomena and then assume that they are true, universal, inherited and adaptive.
Let’s all remember how evo psy mansplained to us how women just recently discovered their true, ancient, evolutionarily selected for universal love for the colour pink…
chigau #53
Officially? I can’t think of a single time.
Unofficially, there is the amusing story of Elanor of Aquitaine whose marriage with Louis VII was annulled (among other reasons) for not bearing a male heir to the king. She later married Henry II and had eight children, five of which were sons. This turned king Louis into the joke of all medieval Europe.
Damn it, I read comments on “shower beers” as “shower bees.” I was excited to watch the video, hoping there would be some mention of a faucet head that shot bees or perhaps Apoidea that enjoyed a nice warm bath.
Seven:
ah, sorry. It wasn’t clear that that’s what you meant (nor, evidently, to Sam Peacock @#17).
At any rate, the term “shame hut” is Watson’s and was not used by “the guy”, the reporter, nor any anthropologist. The ideas that menstrual huts are about shame and/or constitute mistreatment are culturally specific prejudices.
Peacock:
No, because she used a precise term of art incorrectly. And yeah, I know a liiiiiitle bit more about biology than Rebecca Watson, though I am under no obligation to demonstrate that to you.
Strange:
Why no, I am not. I was once requested (not ‘banned’ explicitly or otherwise) by the ECO not to comment on “abortion threads”. You can run your blog however you want, but this. isn’t. your. blog. Have a nice day.
Well, with that I’ll leave you all to your point-missing (e.g., particularly egregiously, #76).
‘PMS’ is not even a concept in most parts of the world. At best, it’s a culturally-bound syndrome. Even here in the US, there has been research that suggests women’s moods do NOT correlate with their monthly cycle. You ask a bunch of women to keep detailed mood diaries for many months, then analyze the diaries and look for a pattern. Well, guess what: If you simply ask the women, most will tell you “Oh yes I get cranky/weepy at that time of the month”. But when you analyze the diaries they kept, you don’t see the pattern.
Chas @ 81
Shutting women away for being female is mistreatment under any reasonable definition of the word. I’m sure it was normalized at the time but that doesn’t make it not mistreatment. Don’t pull this bullshit of pretending we can’t look at the past and condemn certain actions because, at the time, it all made some kind of sense. Even if the women in question didn’t perceive it to be mistreatment and the men in question thought they were acting in the women’s best interests (which we have no way of knowing, being neither psychic nor capable of time travel) it’s still a completely unevidenced assumption on the part of the scientist who wrote the article that the (assumed) anger is the result of PMS and/or the men’s failure to get them pregnant and not of the way they were being treated.
My day’s about to be awesome, thanks, but all the days after today would be so much enormously better if you would just STFU on all topics regarding women. Of course, you’re a sexist asshole, so you’ll never do this voluntarily, so all I can do is hope that PZ “requests” that you do so. And enforces his request with the threat of the loss of all of your commenting privileges.
Chas @81:
I get it that you’re under no obligation, but seriously, why not correct the people you feel have misinterpreted the point?
See, Tony, your mistake is in thinking that the point is to help people learn and spread some of the biology knowledge Chas is so proud. The point is to piss in people’s cornflakes and make his ego feel nice and puffed-up.
Proud of, even.