An example of junk science re: objectification.

[hifiguy]

34. I "throw out insults"

by questioning your knowledge of Darwinian natrual selection in one sentence at the end of a multi-paragraph post? That's the best you've got? How sad to be you.

Those of us trying to share our awe for this sublime illumination of human behavior are intimidated and embarrassed by these wacky attacks, which make it almost impossible to eradicate a perceived patronizing tone from a patient explaining that, actually, humans are animals; you can’t have nurture without nature; evolutionary biology demonstrates that racism is not justified; girls and boys really do come into the world with overlapping but distinguishable interests and cognitive tradeoffs which have been traced to sex hormones in the womb and not to the blue or pink towel.

Hop on Google.video and watch the kindly old environmentalist E.O. Wilson discuss his Pulitzer Prize-winning book On Human Nature Does he seem like a guy with a secret agenda to justify rape? Are Wilson, Pinker, Dawkins, Wright et al. funded by a secret cabal of right wing conspirators? Or is it the other way around? Maybe it’s not evolutionary psychology, but its critique, that is driven by ideology.

* * *

I keep a favorite cartoon on my Powerpoint presentation about evolutionary psychology that I give to college students. It has two panels. In panel one, a scientist is standing over a microscope and saying to his student, "Here are the facts. What conclusions can we draw from them?" In the second panel, a Creationist minister is holding the bible and saying to his student, "Here is the conclusion. What facts can we find to support it?"

When you lead with your ideals, sound conclusions will not result. They never do, simply because you decide a position is wrong or right before you learn what it says, and why it says it. When cultural constructivists accuse evolutionary psychologists of secret political objectives, they’re experiencing narcissism.

Joe Quirk, at http://hplusmagazine.com/2009/11/23/darwinian-psychologist-straw-mans-ass-kicked/ (emphasis added)