Gad Saad’s Homage to the Late Harvard Biologist EO Wilson

I've followed the works of E.O. Wilson for many years, starting with his book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975), which I read as a teenager. His recent death is both a great loss and an opportunity to remember his substantial contributions to evolutionary biology.

Gad Saad offers this excellent homage to E.O. Wilson's work. One thing that stood out to me is Saad's coinage of the term "human reticence effect." Here is Saad's explanation of this critically important term (and phenomenon):

The human reticence effect: It's perfectly okay to apply evolutionary principles to explain one million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine species, but if you apply to study one species called humans, well then, you are Himmler and you're a nazi. And so E.O. Wilson, in daring to apply incredibly rigorous and profound evolutionary principles to explain incredible animal behavior, including some very puzzling animal behavior, once he used that framework to apply it to human behavior, then he was a persona non grata which, of course, is exactly what you see 45 years later with evolutionary psychologists. If you apply a principle to study the evolution of mating behavior of the salamander then bruh, you're a great scientist. If you apply the exact same mechanism the same methodology, the same epistemology, to study the evolution of human mating in humans, well then, come on bro that's just faux science. It's "nazi science" it's "pseudoscience." I have written about why people have these emotional and cognitive obstacles to accept the application of evolutionary principles to the study of human behavior in much of my scientific work.

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The “Race” Endgame

Sam Harris appeared on stage with Scott Galloway to discuss many topics, including "race." I am using these scare quotes because I do not recognize "race" to be a reality-based category, but only an extremely toxic temptation for both well-meaning people and power-seekers. I'm convinced that from Day One, recognition of "race" was always a bad idea and it continues to be a bad idea that needlessly tears people apart, often causing physical violence and sometimes causing death. The concept of race has the scientific validity and reliability of astrology--both concepts are gross miscategorizations, attempts to silo complex human beings (and all human beings are complex) on the basis of immutable irrelevant characteristics. The less credence we grant this concept, the better, in my view. Here's what Sam Harris had to say about his view of the best endgame for the concept of "race."

The goal has to be to get to a society where we care less and less about the superficial differences between people. It seems to me patently obvious that there can't be a matter of caring more and more about these differences. [There are] people who were actually living in a post-racial society in the sense that they weren't they did not care about the color of anyone's skin or anyone's sexual preference or gender identity. There were many people living truly ethical lives having broken out of this this truly toxic past with respect to those forms of bigotry. They're getting pushed back. They're being told by this corner of the culture “No no no! It's too soon to say that. It’s always going to be too soon to say that you're post-racial or blind with respect to these differences among people. These differences have to be ramified. They have to be acknowledged. You as a white person have no standing with which to say anything about race.” That's madness. It's absolute madness.

The goal for us ethically and intellectually has to be to arrive at a time where we don't care about these things no more than we care about hair color. Just imagine if we were coming from a time where people had been discriminated against based on hair color. That would be totally perverse.

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Liberal Media Suppresses the Story of Transgender Swimmer Lia Thomas

I double checked Greenwald's claim and it is stunning true. You won't find a single word about Lia Thomas by the NYT, NPR or WP. That's today's favored way to win an policy argument: Make sure that opposing/inconvient facts don't show up. I think of this as the Tonya Harding strategy for winning an argument and it is disgraceful that major media outlets proudly practice it.

Truly, one of the best ways to lie is to tell only selective truths suppressing other highly relevant information. This method works well in a world where many people are afraid to stray from their long-trusted "confirmatory" news sources. Intercept reporter Ryan Grimm reported on a brand new extensive survey showing that people consider facts like these to be highly relevant to how they feel about this issue of transgender athletes. According to the survey, respondents are overwhelmingly opposed to people with male bodies smashing female athletic records. NYT, NPR and WP are working overtime to suppress this particular story because it runs counter-narrative.

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Beating the War Drums – Iran Edition

Sorry, New Yorker. I'm not buying that Iran is a threat to the U.S. This article has the fingerprints of the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex all over it. The U.S. is always lost and adrift unless it concocts existential-threat enemies.

I remember well. Before 9/11, we were pounding rhetoric about the "military threat" of China. Then we made a 180 degree turn and galloped off to a 20-year blank-check country-wide adventure in Afghanistan even though the 9/11 mayhem appears to have been financed by Saudi Arabia. Then it was time to shed blood in Iraq based on lies. Then it was urgent that we attend to other "domestic threats" in the Middle East, including Libya (based on lies) and missile strikes on Syria (based on lies).

Now, just in time to distract ourselves from our massive domestic dysfunction (and Biden's cratering poll numbers), it's time to remind Americans that Iran poses an imminent threat. It's amazing how this crap so often comes from left-leaning media (remember NYT's Judith Miller and Thomas Friedman re Iraq?). It's time for all of us to say FU to the military and slash it's budget by half, but that won't happen. The Dems just approved a 5% increase of the military budget. When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

This endless charade would almost be humorous if it weren't killing and maiming so many people, including U.S. soldiers who are being used like pawns by US politicians who are trying to look "strong."

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The Death of Romance?

What's going on with romance?

Earlier this year (2021), the Pew Research Center asked a representative sample of adults “What about your life do you currently find meaningful, fulfilling or satisfying? What keeps you going and why?”

Psychology Today summarizes the responses related to romance:

In 2017, 20 percent of adults in the U.S. mentioned a spouse, romantic partner, marriage, dating, or romantic love as a source of meaning, fulfillment, or satisfaction. By 2021, only 9 percent did so. Of the 16 sources of meaning and fulfillment that participants mentioned, none showed a sharper drop over time. (The decrease was the same for the category of material well-being.) . . .

The 9 percent who found fulfillment in romantic partners in the U.S., though, was the highest percentage of all the places studied, . . . In France, Greece, and Spain, only 3 percent mentioned a spouse, romantic partner, marriage, dating, or romantic love as a source of meaning, fulfillment, or satisfaction. In Japan and Singapore, only 2 percent did. And in South Korea and Taiwan, a mere 1 percent mentioned any sort of romantic theme.

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