Chakolate wrote:
> From Psychology Today, at
> http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=3Dpto-20070622-=
> 000002&print=3D1
>=20
> or=20
>=20
> http://tinyurl.com/3bsx6q
>=20
> Interesting article that attempts to explain some of the truths that=20
> society finds not politically correct. They present their theories as =
> fact, but otherwise it's fascinating reading.
>=20
> Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature
>=20
> By:Alan S. Miller Ph.D., Satoshi Kanazawa Ph.D.
>=20
> <snippets>
> 1. Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them)
> 2. Humans are naturally polygamous
> 3. Most women benefit from polygyny, while most men benefit from monoga=
my
> 4. Most suicide bombers are Muslim
> 5. Having sons reduces the likelihood of divorce
> 6. Beautiful people have more daughters
> 7. What Bill Gates and Paul McCartney have in common with criminals
> 8. The midlife crisis is a myth=97sort of
> 9. It's natural for politicians to risk everything for an affair (but=20
> only if they're male)
> 10. Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist
> <end snippets>
>=20
> Very, very interesting stuff. Especially the stuff about the suicide=20
> bombers.
Heh. I just read this - it was a link in the sig file of the guy=20
who just called me a Freakin' Maroon.
My take was that it was a mixture of good science and=20
psychobabble - stemming mainly from implicit assumptions in quite=20
a few places that the existence of a positive correlation=20
signifies causation.
It's a problem that plagues evolutionary psychology, because,=20
well, most of what they have to go on is correlational data.=20
People in the field come up with fascinating speculations and=20
theories about the origins of behaviors and social phenomena, but=20
the better scientists among them are careful to label these as=20
speculative, rather than presenting them as fact. (I know - it's=20
Psychology Today, and one of my problems with that magazine is=20
that it contains too much pop-psychology. Scientific American=20
Mind does a much better job of digesting research without going=20
well beyond the data.)
Kanazawa found himself in the middle of an academic controversy=20
not too long ago for publishing an article that alleged that=20
Africa's social, economic and health problems are because the=20
intelligence of "Africans" is lower than that of other races.
After Jensen in the 1960s and Herrnstein and Murray in the 1990s,=20
I thought the methodological problems with making this kind of=20
allegation were pretty well laid out, and I was surprised to see=20
someone diving into that can of worms again.
FurPaw
--=20
It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they=20
need and the Army has to hold a bake sale to buy a tank.
To reply, unleash the dog.
|
