GirlFakesWhat?


I’ve mentioned before the dishonest distortions of evolutionary biology that the slimy scumbags at AVoiceForMen promote, but I didn’t know how deep the lies go, because I really can’t stomach reading or viewing their garbage. Cristina Rad exposes that phony, GirlWritesWhat, and unearths a few surprises. I knew she had made some baseless accusations against FtB and Skepchick, but if I’d taken my anti-nausea medication and listened to her further, I would have heard some astonishingly bad evolutionary rationalizations for men to own, abuse, and control women. Fortunately, Cristina got mad enough to listen to the whole thing, and has extracted and debunked the idiocy.

These people are just like creationists, making up bullshit about the science to promote toxic nonsense. How can anyone with any knowledge of evolution bear to be associated with them?

Comments

  1. jiuguizi says

    Made it to the three minute mark. I would be proud of myself if I didn’t feel the uncontrollable urge to shower.

  2. says

    Also, anthropology and history. They basically lie constantly about any field they can plausibly do so with. As always, little things like “NATURE SAYS…” flies on the internet, with some assholes.

  3. McC2lhu saw what you did there. says

    *Taps temple and says ‘These RomansYouTubers are crazy*

    (Not Christina, obviously…the OTHER ones)

  4. Millicent says

    That transactional model is so creepy. Women sell their sexuality to men, in exchange for the men’s labor? The fuck?

  5. Beatrice says

    I think Cristina only missed mentioning one thing in debunking the “women sell their sexuality to men” (in case I’m mistaken, I apologize).

    GirlFakesWhat says that to sell something you first have to own it and then agree to the exchange of goods, so it’s not just that women couldn’t agree to the bargain, they had nothing to sell since they belonged to their fathers.

  6. silomowbray says

    Millicent @4:
    I know, right? Around the 14:25 mark when Girl Writes What quotes some bonehead who thinks he knows how microeconomics work, my head nearly exploded. The amount of unsubstantiated hand-waving BULLSHIT involved would implode and begin nuclear fusion if left alone.

    I’m thinking Girl Writes What should re-brand as Girl Writes WTF. At least it’s more honest.

  7. Thomathy, Holy Trinity of Conflation: Atheist-Secularist-Darwinist says

    […]they had nothing to sell since they belonged to their fathers.

    But (and this will be the extraordinarily creepy response I imagine you’d get) daddy knows what his girl’s got.

  8. Thomathy, Holy Trinity of Conflation: Atheist-Secularist-Darwinist says

    Damned blockquote fail.

    […]they had nothing to sell since they belonged to their fathers.

    But (and this will be the extraordinarily creepy response I imagine you’d get) daddy knows what his girl’s got.

  9. dogeared, spotted and foxed says

    jarjar

    umm, but I thought the DMCAs did come from skepchick.

    Nearly 20 minutes of junk science rebuttal and that’s all you got out it? Seems a bit narrow in focus.

  10. jose says

    *sighs* the evopsych is so bad -and strong- in this one.

    Is Frans de Waal the only person on the planet still being reasonable about the application of evolutionary psychology? Surely he must have respectable coworkers?

  11. Thomathy, Holy Trinity of Conflation: Atheist-Secularist-Darwinist says

    I agree, Beatrice. And yet it’s exactly where their story leads. That anyone can come up with anything so outlandish and not even follow it through to the, I’d think, obvious consequences is disturbing. Almost as disturbing as the stories, and their consequences, themselves.

  12. F says

    umm, but I thought the DMCAs did come from skepchick.

    Oh, so they weren’t necessarily automated? We’re now back to, “So fucking what?”

    People keep acting like that was some attempt to silence opinion. To believe that, you’d have to be pretty fucking high.

  13. jarjar says

    @dogeared

    Nearly 20 minutes of junk science rebuttal and that’s all you got out it? Seems a bit narrow in focus.

    Thats another thing. If you look at her videos shes just summarizing scientific papers. She always links to them in the description. She doesn’t ever comment on FTBs/skepchick outside of that video.

    Christina got in a big argument with her on the youtube comments for that video. I think shes mad.

    Based on her anecdotes, GWW seems to be biased towards men because she has experienced a lot of women abusing men and not a lot of men abusing women.

  14. says

    Shut up, jarjar. You link to that obsessed lunatic Chris posting as “elevatorgate” (comment deleted, by the way; do not reference that asshole ever again), and now you’re trying to defend the ‘science’ in the GWW video? Go away. You’re as stupid as the creationists.

  15. carlie says

    GirlFakesWhat says that to sell something you first have to own it and then agree to the exchange of goods, so it’s not just that women couldn’t agree to the bargain, they had nothing to sell since they belonged to their fathers.

    I don’t follow. Is she saying that prostitution doesn’t happen because women don’t own their sexuality? And if so, does she understand how most of the sex trade works at all? Has she ever heard the word “pimp”?

  16. says

    She doesn’t ever comment on FTBs/skepchick outside of that video.

    But why did she comment about FTB in that video in the first place given that apparently FTB did not comment on GWW prior to GWW’s video video?

    Christina got in a big argument with her on the youtube comments for that video. I think shes mad.

    Why wouldn’t she be given the unsupported accusations?

    Based on her anecdotes, GWW seems to be biased towards men because she has experienced a lot of women abusing men and not a lot of men abusing women.

    So GWW fell victim to the availability heuristic? Why am I not surprised.

  17. glodson says

    @19

    Maybe she sees prostitution as more of a rental agreement with the pimp being the broker in the transaction.

    A broker that will cut his rental property for failure to make quota…

  18. Beatrice says

    carlie,

    That paragraph of mine is a bit of a jumble. She says that women enter into an economic agreement with men where women provide their sexuality and men their surplus labor (because women lack labor and men lack ability to bear children).

    She says that for that exchange person has to own what they are exchanging and has to agree to the selling.

    Since she’s talking about an agreement that has existed long back into the history, it’s obvious how wrong she is.

    1. Women were for a long time (and sometimes still are) considered property of their fathers or other male family members. So, they weren’t owning what they were supposed to sell.

    2. let’s be honest, women weren’t exactly asked if they agreed to marry a man or not, most of the time. Not much choice there

  19. markbrown says

    GWW has indirectly made me believe in woo…

    … as I’ve just had the strongest premonition that Criss’s video is going to inundated with clueless comments from MRAs totally failing to understand what feminism is.

  20. Stevarious says

    Okay, I don’t really do the whole YouTube thing, but am I supposed to know who GirlSaysWhat is? I made it about 7 minutes into the video and I gotta say, she strikes me as someone who is simply flailing around trying to get noticed.

    Internet fame!

    She’s basically the UberChillGirl. She posted a video a few weeks ago saying that she didn’t find anything objectionable about domestic violence, as long as it’s the man beating the woman and no one gets killed. Obviously it was very popular with the Male supeRiority Movement.

  21. says

    I need to get out my pressure washer and blast the BS off me after watching GirlWritesWhat. Cristina has a much more durable mind than I have.

  22. says

    Millicent:

    That transactional model is so creepy. Women sell their sexuality to men, in exchange for the men’s labor? The fuck?

    That whole mentality permeates our patriarchal society, though. The libertarians, ev-psych mongers, and MRAs are just taking it to its extreme conclusion.

    Ing:

    The idea that men work and women breed is fucking historically absurd. Extrapolating an imagined ideal that lasted what some 40 60 years to all of history and humanity.

    And 40-60 years only in certain countries and among certain demographics, at that.

  23. Beatrice says

    Ing,

    IdotWritesWhat said that it has recently been suggested by anthropologists that Neanderthals died out because they had egalitarian division of labor. Modern humans had a more patriarchal division, so Neanderthals didn’t stand a chance with their silly egalitarianism.

    Yeah, I couldn’t believe I was hearing this either.

  24. Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says

    she strikes me as someone who is simply flailing around trying to get noticed.

    the very definition of a Chill Girl ™, the female version of a Whiny Ass Bigot Troll.

  25. Beatrice says

    It’s not like she provided sources. She could have pulled it out of her ass.

    Although, my guess is she read the story in the papers (non-scientific kind). I think we are all familiar with… interesting ways they can interpret scientific and historical discoveries.

  26. says

    There’s a good chance that June Cleaver would have been selling necessary goods the other wives needed to the other wives, too. Tupperware parties: They were a thing.

    I’d say “It’s really only rich women who had the possibility to sit around”, and it’s technically true, but generally speaking, to the extent that one can say the rich work, rich women usually worked as well.

  27. says

    Ing,

    Oddly in MY evopsyche class it was stated that in substinance hunter gathering a majority of calories come from female labour.

    And I’ve had anthro professors say the same thing.

    IT’S A CONSPIRACY!

    Stevarious:

    She posted a video a few weeks ago saying that she didn’t find anything objectionable about domestic violence, as long as it’s the man beating the woman and no one gets killed.

    *bites tongue!*

    I’m not sure I wanted to know that, but thanks.

  28. frankboyd says

    Come on, why waste your time? Don’t you have any more multiple-rapists to cheer on and defend?

    Yes, that was a reference to you singing the praises of Clinton recently. “Unleash the Bill” indeed – there are many women who could tell you what that means.

    But for people like you women’s rights are only ever to be defended when there is no threat and no risk attached.

    I rather liked that, I have to say. Proof positive. A clear demonstration of what your commitment to women’s rights and emancipation is worth. The same thing that you are worth. Nothing.

  29. GodotIsWaiting4U says

    >shortage of reproductive ability

    It takes two to fuck. You won’t have a baby without it. Two halves to make that whole.

    And no, women can in fact provide labor. They can provide as much as a man. If you try to invoke physical strength arguments or whatever, the woman CAN catch up there. Might take more effort, but it’s totally doable.

  30. says

    I sense Frankboyd is a returning troll?

    I have no problem saying Bill Clinton is a rapist, now that I am aware of what you are talking about. A rapist and a terrible person.

    Not really going to change that he gave a great speech, but he’s still a terrible person.

  31. says

    She posted a video a few weeks ago saying that she didn’t find anything objectionable about domestic violence, as long as it’s the man beating the woman and no one gets killed. Obviously it was very popular with the Male supeRiority Movement.

    Someone linked to the post about it at Manboobz recently. I’m still chuckling at:

    Reddit’s new FeMRA subreddit, a forum ostensibly devoted to what “women can do to advance men’s rights as women.”

    It would of course be ludicrous even without it, but the “…as women” tacked on at the end is funny to me. I actually managed to read it the first time as being about advancing men’s rights while the men are acting as or pretending to be women. And what else would women be doing it as? Pandas? Squash racquets?

    (Yes, I get that they might be trying to emphasize that women should advance the cause while remaining within their assigned gender roles, but that just makes it even more ridiculous, since it appears that what women should do is accept, e.g., men’s rights to hit them and men’s ownership of children. Because nothing says rights movement like demands to abuse and own people.)

  32. Stevarious says

    Someone linked to the post about it at Manboobz recently.

    Appreciate the correction – it was a Reddit post, not a video, and it was also that “Women should be terrorized by their men; it’s the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.” that she did not find ethically questionable, not just domestic violence.

    I should have looked it up before repeating it, it was even more awful than I remembered.

  33. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    And what in the hell does that have to do with ZOMGitsCriss and GWW?

    nothing.

    It’s them grasping at straws to find some gotcha.

    try again frankie

  34. Fred Salvador - The Public Sucks; Fuck Hope says

    The most depressing thing about this whole pathetic saga is finding out there are women who actually believe the servile, parasitic model of womanhood is a good thing.

    I personally find GWW/Rob’s “historical” “definition” of the marriage “contract” to be completely unsatisfactory. I work to pay the bills, ALL of the bills, and in return for doing all of the work and paying all of the bills I get, what… sprogs? A lifelong attachment to some woman who wouldn’t be seen dead in my company if she’d had any say in the matter?

    Oh but wait, I get to “own” my wife’s sexuality! Which means I get to debase myself by sexually violating an unwilling partner who cannot object or refuse me because she is financially reliant upon me and is therefore compelled to acquiesce to my demands for sex in case I decide to stop feeding her.

    In what universe is any of this a good idea? Our species needs to get back in the fucking trees for another few hundred thousand years. We can come down again once we’ve learned to stop being so fucking horrible to one another.

  35. says

    Reading excerpts from the diaries of Samuel Hearne, an explorer for the Hudson Bay Company in the 1700s, I discovered that no one undertook an expedition without an Indian guide and Indian women to do all the work of setting up and striking camp, butchering and cooking game, turning animal hides into clothing, and carrying all gear. Any woman who failed to work hard enough to satisfy her masters was beaten. “Opening up the continent” was done on the backs of women. If a chief refused to provide women, an expedition could not start.

  36. footface says

    But don’t men have a surplus of reproductive ability? A (reproductively successful) man can way out-produce a (reproductively successful) woman.

  37. hexidecima says

    I’ve always found excuses based on biology (however pathetically presented) for why some men are idiots to be rather amusing, especially when used by men. Honestly, do you really want me to think that you are indeed as dumb as that makes you sound, utterly unable to use your brain? And that makes women seem just as stupid.

    Happily, I know such drivel is untrue. Not all men and women are so silly.

  38. Thomathy, Holy Trinity of Conflation: Atheist-Secularist-Darwinist says

    But don’t men have a surplus of reproductive ability?

    No. They have a surplus of cheap gametes. They may have more chances at spreading them around. That’s not ability, it’s capability. In terms of the billions of gametes to some dozens of gametes.

  39. Amphiox says

    But don’t men have a surplus of reproductive ability? A (reproductively successful) man can way out-produce a (reproductively successful) woman.

    But if you add up all the reproductively successful women this hypothetical reproductively successful man would need to actually become reproductively successful, it’s exactly even.

  40. ChasCPeterson says

    Oddly in MY evopsyche class it was stated that in substinance hunter gathering a majority of calories come from female labour.

    And I’ve had anthro professors say the same thing.

    It’s not a conspiracy; it’s uncontroversial. These are results of actual measurements (some, btw, by Greg Laden). Of course, calories ≠ nutrition, and I’d bet money that most of the protein comes from hunting. But it’s irrelevant.

    GWW did not pull the neanderthal hypothesis out of her ass; she probably read it in the New York Times science section. The hypothesis has nothing to do with “evopsyche”; it’s straightforward old-fashioned physical anthropology.
    And the whole point is that Neandethals (may have) put all their eggs in the hunting basket, did little gathering, so basically they suffered from not having the typical H. s. sapiens ‘women’s labor’.

    I encourage people to find out a few facts before they start mocking science just because it sounds like it might be ‘evo-psych’.

  41. footface says

    I’m not a part of any organized atheist movement. I don’t know any of you in real life (or even virtually), and I don’t go to conventions. I’m just a long-time atheist who reads atheist blogs (some of them obsessively).

    I am completely baffled by the hatred unleashed against FTB and Skepchick (and now A+). I just don’t understand what happened or why. Yes, I know that Rebecca Watson said that it’s not respectful or kind to approach women in ways that make them feel uncomfortable. But from that so-obvious-it-shouldn’t-have-to-be-said comment, we get all this bullshit. All the paranoid fantasies and the threats and the insults and the bile and the insane accusations.

    And for what? All because some people said, “Wouldn’t it be better if our ‘movement’ were more inclusive and if everyone felt safe and respected?”

    It makes me wish we could damn people. Or at least excommunicate them.

  42. Fred Salvador - The Public Sucks; Fuck Hope says

    But don’t men have a surplus of reproductive ability? A (reproductively successful) man can way out-produce a (reproductively successful) woman.

    This is a good point, however you’re labouring under the assumption that these idiots are using the term “reproduction” in it’s correct context.

    This is no fault of yours. Many reasonable folk encounter such problems while attempting to engage with ideas whose very existence is contingent upon mendacity.

    Basically, whenever ManRightsMans say “reproduction” or any related terms in relation to to women, they actually mean “vagina”. “Women have an excess of vagina, and therefore should not be allowed to earn their own money or own property”. “The man exchanges his excess labour for the woman’s excess vagina”.

    See how it makes sense now? But is still horrifying? Welcome to the world of ManRightsMans!

  43. ChasCPeterson says

    But if you add up all the reproductively successful women this hypothetical reproductively successful man would need to actually become reproductively successful, it’s exactly even.

    Huh? What’s “exaclty even”?
    In the vast majority of animal societies, there is much higher variance in reproductive success among males than amomng females. That is because some males are wildly successful while others are completely unsuccessful, whereas pretty much all females do about the same.

  44. Beatrice says

    ChasCPeterson,

    GWW didn’t give her sources and framed the argument so that it sounded completely ridiculous. I was just waiting for her to proclaim that working women are destroying humanity.

    The article you linked is interesting.

  45. says

    Okay, I see what I missed. Ing had been talking about sex as a transaction (which how I interpreted the ‘calories’ comment), when Beatrice said:

    GirlWritesWhat said that it has recently been suggested by anthropologists that Neanderthals died out because they had egalitarian division of labor. Modern humans had a more patriarchal division, so Neanderthals didn’t stand a chance with their silly egalitarianism.

    But 1) The article you linked to doesn’t imply egalitarian labor (men fought and killed the animals while women and children blocked escape routes, herded prey in a certain direction, etc), just a meat heavy diet and lower intelligence.

    And 2) Division of labor doesn’t necessarily equal patriarichal division or patriarichal control. And, quite frankly, all those calories that women were bringing home were obviously important, since a varied diet has served us well.

    So, yeah. Not really arguing with you, just frustrated at GWW’s stupid conclusions.

  46. huntstoddard says

    Oh hell, that’s nothing. If you want evo-psych spun into truly ludicrous systems of “knowledge,” check out PUA sites like Roissy’s.

  47. hypatiasdaughter says

    Try to make it to the end of the video. Cristina (luv that girl like I’m her mother!) gets in a “gotcha” near the end that can only make you laugh.

  48. says

    Oh, where the fuck did my comment go?

    Chas:
    Part of the confusion is because I missed what Beatrice had said after Ing was talking about sex as a transaction. So I viewed the “calories” statement in the light that something other than babby makin’ was important in early human societies.

    GirlWritesWhat said that it has recently been suggested by anthropologists that Neanderthals died out because they had egalitarian division of labor. Modern humans had a more patriarchal division, so Neanderthals didn’t stand a chance with their silly egalitarianism.

    After reading the article you linked to:
    1) It wasn’t as if Neanderthals didn’t have a division of labor; they clearly did. The problem was with a meat heavy diet and lower intelligence.

    2) Having divided labor doesn’t necessarily mean patriarichal division or patriarical society. Those calories that women brought home were clearly important– where they respected as such?

    So, yeah. Not arguing with you, just frustrated with GWW’s conclusions.

  49. Beatrice says

    This is what GWW said:

    In fact, it’s recently been suggested by anthropologists that the Neanderthals died out because they employed egalitarian division of labor in a world that didn’t lend itself to maintaining a growing populations through equal distribution of labor and equal distribution of risk to life and limb. Once the hapless egalitarian Neanderthals met up with modern humans who had a more gendered division of labor based onprioritising women’s safety it was pretty much all over for them. And that’s basically what happened to all societies baseds on arangements other than some form of patriarchy.

    That’s not really what the article says. It skips parts, it draws conclusions that don’t really belong (last sentence, seriously?).

  50. hypatiasdaughter says

    Just asking, but do any of these people ever put out “evo-psych” theories that theft is both natural and has some social good? Or is all their energy always devoted to supporting patriarchy and misogyny?

    Theft is natural because we have to expend energy to collect resources. Theft is taking the resources another persons has collected, which requires a much smaller expenditure of energy and benefits the survival of the thief.
    Theft has some social good because only the smartest and fittest individuals will succeed in being thieves; sustained by their theft, they can breed more successfully and have more surviving offspring. A form of social natural selection

    So, going to a convention and stealing men’s wallets and laptops isn’t wrong. It’s as evolutionarily natural and socially beneficial as forcing yourself on a women – I mean if you’re really into “evo-psych”.
    Which then makes me ask why we have all these laws against theft? If the thief is the stronger and smarter person, interfering in the natural order by introducing codes and punishments against theft just seems so……so unrational.

  51. Nick Gotts (formerly KG) says

    And the whole point is that Neandethals (may have) put all their eggs in the hunting basket, did little gathering, so basically they suffered from not having the typical H. s. sapiens ‘women’s labor’. – ChasCPeterson

    True, but in any case, the hypothesis seems to be pretty dubious. The NYT article says Neanderthal sites don’t yield any stones for grinding plant foods, but there’s a lot of plant food that doesn’t need grinding (fruit, seeds, many herbs etc.), and Neanderthals had more robust jaws than AMH, hence presumably could chew harder material. Indeed, there’s plenty of evidence that Neanderthals did eat plants and small animals where these were available, and this includes stones used for processing plant material: this article argues that eco-geographic variation in dietary range in both types of human is more important than the difference between the two.

    At any rate, the hypothesis has fuck-all to do with patriarchy, for which a division of labour by gender is not a sufficient condition; if it was, we could deduce the universality of patriarchy in all hominid (and for that matter mammalian) species from the fact that only females can breast-feed. Rather, patriarchy leads to whatever is perceived as women’s work being devalued (see e.g. the low salaries paid to medics in the former USSR, where the majority were women).

  52. Rasmus says

    There’s also a free full text of the 2006 paper.

    You can’t deny that this could have a lot of bearing on our society’s prospect for survival, in the event that we collectively happen to trip and stumble through a one-way time machine that spits us out tens of thousands of years into the past. I’ll take it into account along with my contingency plan for how to approach stranded aliens.

  53. vaiyt says

    Natural is does not imply moral ought. I don’t give a fuck what our hunter-gatherer ancestors thought was correct. I’m not a caveman.

    If I wanted to have an abstract entity determine the value of our fellow human beings, I’d stay a Catholic. Now there’s an audience for their silly stories, just swap “It’s natural” with “God said”.

    Mythological thinking all the way down.

  54. tigerlily55 says

    I wonder why GWW decided to remove the sign on her fridge encouraging people to join ncfm.org? It is displayed prominently until about the 12:11 mark. Is she no longer proud of her affiliation or what?

  55. says

    I will shit my pants for joy

    Is this a thing? “Scared shitless,” “Beside myself with Joy,” “So happy I could cry,” I’ve heard. “So happy I crapped my pants” is a new one on me.

    Maybe it’s like taking a drop of wine out of your glass to reduce your enjoyment. “I’d be too happy if I didn’t crap my pants.”

  56. marinerachel says

    She and S. E. Cupp must enjoy one another’s company. Being the token female voice against feminism must be quite similar to being the token atheist voice against atheism. They condone bigotry towards people with whom they have something in common which makes the privilege class like them! Hooray for validation at any cost!

  57. speed0spank says

    Assholes like GWW and the people who support her/she supports are honestly the reason I decided to give Atheism+ a chance. I joined it and am enjoying reading through the 101’s so far, without bickering or trolls all around. Before I reached my breaking point I thought A+ was sort of goofy and maybe wouldn’t catch on…I was never angry that it existed or anything like that.

    I can only hope that *some* good comes from these terrible hateful morons, and more people like me will decide to join and give A+ a chance

  58. Lachlan says

    I’ve learned recently that the argumentative tactics I’m used to encountering in creationists (and other irrationalists), which I’d normally have attributed to their fanaticism or their lack of intelligence, are just the tactics that all people use when they’re committed to some philosophical position, whatever that may be.

    I guess I’m pretty late to the party on that one, but it was still a very useful lesson to me, if for no other reason than improving my own powers of introspection. It has also significantly changed my perspective on atheists and the atheist community.

  59. Lachlan says

    Absolutely nothing, just my perspective I guess. I was motivated by the part of the video where Christina mentioned propaganda. It seems to me that basically everybody engages in propagandizing to some degree, when arguing their position.

    Total honesty and disclosure, and a willingness to admit our mistakes (and therefore change our positions) are such rare qualities, even among ‘rational’, ‘intelligent’ people.

  60. echidna says

    It’s ok to have a position. The tricky bit is to acknowledge the opposing arguments. Doing this makes an argument strong.

  61. Lyn M: Necrodunker of death, nothing but net says

    “Women should be terrorized by their men; it’s the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.”

    I see. And who is it who is terrorizing her? (I know, does assume her behavior is better than that of chimps, but work with me here.)

  62. darwinharmless says

    Christina sure lives up to her name. The ending of her video is SO worth waiting for, with the asshat saying that women gain social power by claiming victimhood, followed by GirlWritesWTF whining “I’m a victim. I’m a victim. This is so terrible. I’m a victim”. Way to structure, Christina. Made the pain of listening to the stupid well worth it.

  63. Lyn M: Necrodunker of death, nothing but net says

    Rasmus #67

    You can’t deny that this could have a lot of bearing on our society’s prospect for survival, in the event that we collectively happen to trip and stumble through a one-way time machine that spits us out tens of thousands of years into the past. I’ll take it into account along with my contingency plan for how to approach stranded aliens.

    AND ZOMBIES!! For the sake of FSM, don’t forget the zombie plans!

  64. Lyn M: Necrodunker of death, nothing but net says

    It’s natural as an argument.

    OK, let’s say it is natural.

    So is being short or long sighted.
    So are intestinal parasites.
    So is shitting in the woods.
    So is being naked.
    So is raw meat.
    So is walking everywhere.

    And unnatural?
    Well, putting videos on the internet for one.*

    These people are not being good examples for their arguments based on their actions.

    *And champagne, but that may just be me.

  65. susaim says

    The whole “economic” argument was creepy as hell, but what really annoyed me was, weirdly enough, the initial premise. Last time I checked, women weren’t parthenogenic, or sessile. So while we can’t make babies all by our lonesome, we can (gasp!) manage our own labour.

  66. echidna says

    I was surprised how much I want never to meet GWW in person. A real visceral reaction. I think it’s the smirky confidence with which she spouts complete rubbish attacking Skepchicks.

  67. ChasCPeterson says

    hey, your problems are either with GWW or with the authors, reviewers, and editors of the article in question and/or with Nicholas Wade, author of the NY Times piece linked.
    Not with me.

    Really, my only point was that it’s not hard to g**gle ‘neanderthal equality’ and learn something about what you intend to opine about before you opine about it.

  68. sprocket says

    Creepy… and go Christina!! GWW reminds me of the characters Cloris Leachman plays in Mel Brooks movies.

  69. says

    As well as quite possibly not being less intelligent than us, and not having a big game dependent diet, the Neanderthals are also not extinct. Evidently they found our tradable sexuality irresistible.

  70. Muz says

    Remember when Anita Sarkeezian got all that shit for supposedly trolling and playing the victim to make money on her kickstarter (which translates to merely having a project and pointing out the crap she got for doing so)?

    Well I’m inclined to think here’s a much better example. I wonder if those fellas want to apply the standard equally, prove to us all it’s not about what team you’re on, that kind of thing?

  71. Stevarious says

    Amusing that GWW is in a kitchen for her videos. I wonder if she is barefoot too.

    She really has put a lot of work into being what she believes men want her to be.

  72. says

    jose, #14

    *sighs* the evopsych is so bad -and strong- in this one.

    Is Frans de Waal the only person on the planet still being reasonable about the application of evolutionary psychology? Surely he must have respectable coworkers?

    That will, of course, in part depend on how broadly or narrowly you define evolutionary psychology – whether you are talking about the specific line of thought centered around Cosmides/Tooby and a few others, or about any and all research that tries to tackle the evolutionary basis of cognitive capacities. Since you include Frans de Waal, you seem to have a fairly wide definition in mind, in which case the answers are “No, not by a long shot”, and “yes, plenty”.

    There is plenty of comparative research on the biological basis for culture, as in the imitative abilities, cooperative impulses, attention to the actions of others. See for example work by Andrew Whiten on empirically assessing the extent and limits of cultural transmission in chimpanzees, or by Tomasello’s group in Leipzig on tracing the emergence of human prosociality by running parallel batteries of experiments on human children and chimpanzees. There’s a lot of exciting work arguing for shifting the focus towards how species actively shape their own environments and thus the selective pressures under which subsequent generations evolve (under the heading of “niche construction”), which is particularly relevant for humans due to the large role of the social environment and how that is shaped by culture. And many more.

    If you want to talk about “narrow Evolutionary Psychology”/”High Church Evolutionary Psychology”/”the Santa Barbara school of Evolutionary Psychology” (all of those designations have appeared in biology papers, so don’t blame me if you don’t like them), yeah, that field is riddled with poorly motivated assumptions some of which are outright contradicted by what we know from other areas of biology. And while it continues to be the brand that is most often celebrateed in mainstream media, I doubt that it has, or maybe even that it ever had, a majority following among scientists studying psychology from an evolutionary perspective.

    Here’s an outreach article by DS Wilson (with whom I disagree on other points, but I think he nailed it here): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/evolutionary-psychology-a_b_220545.html
    Here’s a recent PLoS Biology paper arguing that the “Santa Barbara school’s” assumptions are in conflict with established biological facts: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001109
    And here is the Philosophical Transactions paper from which I borrowed “High Church EP”: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/367/1599/2234.abstract (part of a theme issue with a lot of other relevant papers)

  73. Nick Gotts (formerly KG) says

    See for example work by Andrew Whiten on empirically assessing the extent and limits of cultural transmission in chimpanzees – jmst

    By a curious coincidence, I was at a series of talks by Whiten and colleagues yesterday – part of the British Science Festival, which has been taking place over the past week, Aberdeen University being one of the venues. Fascinating stuff, including cross-cultural comparisons of chimpanzees, experimental interventions to create tool-using traditions among captive groups, and comparisons between chimpanzees and children on spatial problem-solving and attention-sharing. He and others have a book out Culture Evolves, which I’ll likely buy.

  74. says

    I heard a talk by him sometime last month. The professor who introduced Whiten said something to the effect of (don’t quote my words, though) “He is one of the big figures in evolutionary psychology, but not in the bad sense”. (And, no, we’re not talking about a humanities department.)

    I don’t want to discourage you from buying the book, but if money is an issue, it appears to mostly parallel the April 12, 2011 theme issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, the content of which is freely available online (all R Soc content is, I believe, afte a 1-year embargo).

    http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/366/1567.toc