Edward Clint, a graduate student studying evolutionary psychology at UCLA has a masterful response to a talk given by Watson at the annual Skepticon conference. Watson titled her talk “How girls evolved to shop and other ways to insult women with ‘science’”. It was filled with typical snark aimed at what she perceives as a misogynist academic discipline. Here’s video of the conference:
Clint’s summary criticism:
However, Watson seems to have only the most superficial understanding of evolutionary psychology and it isn’t clear that she’s read even one paper in the field. There are many reasons to think this. She cited no sources during her 48-minute talk beyond what is mentioned in newspapers and other media or publicly available abstracts. While she derided media distortion in one part of the talk, she implicitly trusted media reports for the bulk of it, and rather uncritically. It is true that Watson is not an academic and therefore has no ready access to scientific papers (the public generally has to pay publishers to view them, but I have made many papers discussed here available, see part VI). Watson made numerous mistakes in content, misrepresented very basic aspects of researchers work, got citations wrong, and demonstrated ignorance of contrary data. Some of these errors are listed in part IV and discussed in part II. Lastly, we know that Watson is not versed in the literature because she admits this herself. At the end of her talk, an audience member asks Watson if there is any “good evolutionary psychology”. Watson throws up her hands while saying “prooobably? I’m guessing yes, but it’s so boring.. because you can only make it interesting if you make up everything. [...] if there is good evolutionary psychology, it’s not in the media[...]” (see index 47:30)
In short, Marcotte doesn’t understand the most basic assumptions that underlie the field, which have been made very explicit in many places. Instead, what’s happening here is that she’s relying on her intuitions about what a field called “evolutionary psychology” is trying to do, which is why she thinks it’s about showing that behavior is genetic as opposed to learned. As something of an aside, note that she thinks that psychologists “prove” things, an incorrect impression many of us are able to suppress in our first year undergraduate students in introductory psychology classes. There is a sense in which her ignorance of the way science works, generally, works against her narrower claims because of the credibility that it costs her.
From here I’ll just relay Clint’s points which are laid out in a concise and heavily cited article which, besides smacking Watson on the bottom, also offers a proper review of the discipline of evolutionary psychology. I’ll point out up front that Clint views Satoshi Kanazawa as a hack. I mention that only because I know that readers here enjoy his work:
Watson repeatedly cites outliers, people and publications not involved with evolutionary psychology, and disreputable instances of each (as well as a few reputable sources). The first work she mentions in her talk is important because it sets the tone and is, presumably, important to her thesis that evolutionary psychology is pseudoscientific and sexist. She cites a Telegraph article referring to a study done by one Dr. David Holmes about the psychology of shopping. However, this is an unpublished, non-peer-reviewed study conducted by a non-evolutionary psychologist paid for by a business to help them sell things better. This has no relevance to Watson’s thesis, unless it’s also true that Colgate’s “9 out of 10 dentists recommend you give us your toothpaste money” studies prove that dental science is bunk.
Or, it’s like arguing that since Jusin Bieber sucks at music that Mozart must have sucked at music too.
Some of Watson’s criticisms would un-make many sciences were we to take them seriously. For example she says (13:27) “they never tell us what genes” as if this is a grand indictment of evolutionary psychology. There are scientists making in-roads in this area, but tracing the path from genes to structures to behavior is difficult-to-impossible, except in the case of disease and disorder. Further, we certainly don’t hold any other sciences to that standard, even the ones for which genes and adaptation are critical. Does anyone know precisely which genes make a cheetah fast, and exactly how they accomplish that? The peacock’s feathers, the fish’s gills? Shall we toss out all the evolutionary biology for which we do not have genetic bases identified? I should think not.
…
At 15:41 Watson derisively explained her view of the method of evolutionary psychology as picking a behavior, assuming it is evolved, and then find “anything” in the past that might be relevant to it. Setting aside the inaccuracy of her summary, she seemed to be balking that such an hypothesis is just totally made up. Yes, Ms. Watson, it is. That is how science works. It is not known what the answers are before starting, so a researcher makes as good a guess as they can and then tests it.
…
Watson wants us to believe this great dark power is working, inhibiting social justice, hurting real people and the advancement of science, and that it is entertaining to talk about. She says (for example) that it is working to justify rape. To make rape OK. …But hey, no big deal, right? Not big enough to research properly or to stop making jokes about for two minutes. This flip attitude lacks empathy, and I find it ethically repugnant. If even close to true, her claim isn’t funny. It deserves real skeptical inquiry and serious investigation and she gave it none of this.
Both Clint and Kurzban points out that both Watson and Marcotte focus on a paper by V.S. Ramachandran titled “Why do gentlement prefer blondes?” which was published in the journal Medical Hypotheses which focuses on publishing out-there theories. Both skeptical chicks use Ramachandran’s paper as evidence of the inherent misogyny in the discipline even though Ramachandran himself claimed the paper was a hoax and despite the fact that the journal it was published in is not peer-reviewed and not considered a leading outpost for evolutionary psychology. Watson and Marcotte, like many feminists, cherry pick from the fringes of the discipline thinking that they’ve debunked the whole thing.
I haven’t come across a rebuttal from Watson or any of her usual defenders (PZ Myers) which tells me that they are ill-equipped to offer a true and rigorous critique of evolutionary psychology.
My understanding of Evo-Psych (or do I mean Socio-biology) is surely no better than Skepchick but one thing I can say, which must indicate something: Skepchick has changed her hair colour again. I think this is significant – now all she needs to do is fix those (‘facial’ encouraging) spectacles. Why do people pay good money to listen to her spouting what they can read in up-market dailies?
Calling yourself skepchick is a hostage to fortune as I have long-since (and before this) considered here profoundly gullible.
Which one of these terms does not belong here?
–evolutionary biology
–evolutionary genetics
–vertebrate biology
–contemporary psychology
–anthropology
–evolutionary psychology
At the very least, evolutionary psychology is a misnomer. The term misleads us to believe that we can study the mental functions and behavior of H.erectus, Cro-Magnon, Australopithecus, or Sahelanthropus tchadensis. The study of genetic mapping or fossils are not “psychology” as we define the term, so why the misnomer?
Agree that Watson is a snarky hack. She presents herself as a comedic celebrity.
Well I managed to listen to 12 minutes of that, which is 11 more than I needed to know what this Watson character is all about. Yikes. First, she is a terrible presenter. The constant laughing and smirking at her own remarks is adolescent and unprofessional. Forgetting the content, her presentation skills are dreadful.
The content is even worse. Skepchic? No, just Snarkchic. To be truly skeptical, you have to know what you’re talking about. Watson clearly doesn’t, so she shows no true skepticism at all, just a snide dismissive contempt as she floats in her giant cloud of self-righteousness assumptions. Skeptical? I doubt she’s ever seriously questioned a single one of her assumptions in her entire life.
If you want to see a true skeptic in action, I highly recommend Skeptical Engagements, an essay collection by Frederick Crews in which he dismantles both Freud and literary deconstruction (Derrida and those boys). When you’re done with Crews those idols lay shattered on the floor, forever irreparable. But then, Crews knows what he’s talking about inside and out. Watson just likes to piss on a wall and call it art.
I gather she’s Jewish? She certainly fits the mold of the hard-left, manly Jewish woman who lives to make trouble. Watson is also clearly a Christian hater as well, so that fits in. But mostly, she’s just someone with a third-rate mind that thinks they are oh-so-clever because they live in a bubble and parrot exactly what the bubble tells them to say. In a word: yuk.
After getting a good look at her, I’m skeptical a man made a move on her in an elevator.
Clint’s essay could apply to any talking head in the media who writes or pontificates on subjects for the masses. They know little or nothing of the subject yet pass themselves off as experts.
Rebeccunt Twatson was never “approached” by a man in an elevator. The whole thing was made up so she could get attention for herself and as a way to start pushing feminist bullshit into the skeptical and scientific communities.
Feminists and other liberal theologians are nervous about the scientific studies of evolution, genetics and behavior because they, rightly, believe it will end up discrediting their bullshit ideologies. Since they can’t suppress scientific progress and they lack the intellectual capacity to actually offer any sort of meaningful critique of science, they will simply use the main weapons at the disposal of any good liberal high priest: snark, shame, social bullying and “truth” by consensus.
Also, it’s good to finally see some of these wimpy science nerd faggots grow some balls and stand up to those cunts. They’re tiny balls at this point (just starting to sprout hairs) but in time they will grow large enough to choke the mouth of even the most shrill feminist.
Watson seems to mistake wit for intelligence.
“This is my favorite conference of the year.” (Because scientists don’t show up and aren’t listening.)
I think we’ve found a way to get her to read more science. “Come up with sexier titles, you guys.”
What’s disturbing is how she dismisses the actual results discovered in the studies she does quote just to lead in to her rant about blaming the victim – blah blah blah. Men offered casual sex are more likely to accept than women. According to her, it just means that the guys are dumb for believing women would actually offer them sex.
Watson has stumbled on to the fact that science is a whore for the media and used to support their own theories so they can sell more stuff and tried to use this to slander the entire branch of science. I actually watched 32 minutes of this tripe and got no more scientific insight than I do from a 5 minute Jay Leno monologue.
Quote from Clint: Lastly, Watson notes a Stanford social psychology study which shows that “stereotype threat” can be a powerful force in demotivating people. I couldn’t agree more. I have often argued for 50% female representation at secularist and skeptical events for this exact reason, even knowing that it is likely that fewer than 50% of available speakers at any one time are female. I am not sure what this point has to do with evolutionary psychology, however. I’m familiar with no research or researcher who maintains that stereotypes aren’t capable of being very harmful to society.
He is a charlatan! That statement there demonstrates that he cares not one whit about science.
To further demonstrate that Clint is actually in the same anti-science camp as the woman he is attacking, please tell me what the scientific theory of climate change is and the tests that have been done to falsify it.
“Stereotype Threat” is a weird deal. Isn’t the problem with “Stereotype threat” is that you aren’t really concentrating on what you are doing and are thinking of something else? Why don’t we call it “inability to focus on important things right in front of you like Yoda says”? Why do we feel it necessary to blame others?
“Run along back to the kitchen dear, men are talking. Sandwiches don’t make themselves.”
If you’re feeling really brutal, comment on her lack of a husband or children.
Stop being a beta and trying to engage these stupid girls logically. Just re-frame, mock them and laugh at them and move on to the next subject.
which do you actually think will get them to shut up quicker? telling them to get in the kitchen (oooh, i must be a beta because i don’t give a shit whether they get in the kitchen and have kids or not) or using logic to combat their twisted arguments? notice how Watson hasn’t responded to Clint’s piece? yet she responds any and every way to “misogyny” in the comments sections at various blogs. so your way has proven itself to not be effective.
“Stereotype threat” sounds like cultural Marxist nonsense, but there’s some truth to it. Obviously it doesn’t have a huge effect on innate genetic and biological traits, but it does exist.
An example would be that few white kids even bother to try to be sprinters or running backs.
Interesting, the men in the comments above seem to feel the need to call the 2 women speakers bad names. Not very ‘scientific’, are we? Somebody above speculates that one of the women is Jewish. Who cares? Real professional and ‘scientific’, guys. Reminds me of the Dalrock blog; only boys get to comment, not girls.
blog comments will be blog comments. but stay focused on Watson. she’s the one who gets paid to travel around and attack the discipline. she’s the bigger fish and she also claims to be an authority on the subject she’s discussing. nobody here is claiming to be an authority on any of these matters nor, again, are we getting paid for any of it.
This could make for a good debate between GLPiggy and Heartiste.
Heartiste says fight snark with snark, i.e. go full Alinsky. GLPiggy says science is on our side and is more effective in winning debates.
I’m going to side with Heartiste on this one. Looking at the long game, a Latinized, machista U.S. that no longer has enough white betas to stitch together the safety nest will marginalize Jezebel types into freakish irrelevancy, science or no science. Remember the Ines Sainz brouhaha – Latin women were more than happy to throw white feminists under the bus: “yeah, gringas, we’re sexier AND less uptight than you!”
Since Watson et al. are going down anyway, might as well taunt them with all the sandwich orders they can handle, no?
i think there is room for both. heartiste’s style will rally those within the group whereas my style (or Clint’s style in this case) will convince those outside the group. all movements require both tactics.
different styles have different effects. if the goal is, loosely stated, to get Watson to shut up and go away, the heartiste probably won’t have that much of an effect. it seems to only give them fuel and more evidence to support their claim and to attract followers who are only superficially interested in the topics being discussed. a logical dismantling might actually change their mind or at least make them hesitant to make bullshit arguments in the future. they may not say that they were proved wrong, but in the future they’ll behave as if they know they were proved wrong.
What boggles my mind is that even after a devastating expose and takedown of this girl’s unscientific attitudes, she’ll still continue to be invited to these conferences. The conference organizers should be ashamed at inviting an obviously unqualified speaker whose speech was actively detrimental to those who heard it and heads should roll.
Ideally, both logic and merciless mockery would be deployed against these blockheaded, shrike cunts. Logic alone won’t cut it. They’ll just slink away and come back another day to lie lie lie like their useless assertions weren’t already debunked by greater minds. Now, when you combine the science with the shiv… that’s when magic happens!
Since when has ignorance ever stopped a man or a woman from opening his or her mouth? I ought to know, I bullshit every day. This is a good example though, of classic scientific illiteracy.
I seriously can’t believe that science has come full circle. It pulled the blinders off religion but now is being stonewalled from doing the same to gender “science.”
You have to wonder if any of the dumbfuck retards that sit in on this chick’s blather even know what the scientific method is.
1. Pose a fantastic hypothesis.
2. Try and prove it.
3. If all fingers point in the same direction, assume the hypothesis is valid.
(3a. All science is subject to audits if contradictory evidence arises.)
How about this hypothesis: women cannot for the life of them understand this logic, nor do they have the inquisitiveness to disprove my theory.
These feminist ‘scientists’ will get a healthy wakeup call when they are forced to question whether their silly posturing *actually* invites my knuckles into the limpjaws of their male enablers.
Rebecca did bring up some valid points. Evolutionary psychology definitely is open to criticism, but she is not the best person to do it. Her immature, unprofessional style is a problem. I do get the impression she would misrepresent and misquote people. She’d be fine as a waitress or a barista at Starbucks, but she isn’t cut out for this field.
Sailor on stereotype threat: he quoted an anonymous psychologist who reviewed a metanalysis on 55 studies, including the unpublished ones, on stereotype threat.
Publication bias is found in all science niches. Editors choose to publish studies with positive outcomes over those with negative outcomes. Us readers don’t care to actually read studies of negative outcomes.
Sailor believes that in the realm of test taking, incentives trump expectations.
i think there is room for both. heartiste’s style will rally those within the group whereas my style (or Clint’s style in this case) will convince those outside the group. all movements require both tactics.
This. You need both because you need to appeal to various personality types. Plus there is a different sort of entertainment value to each!
The dismissive insult is useful as well to breaking down mental barriers because it speaks to deep truths, those “we all know it but won’t admit it” things. Every time you crack someone over the head with offensive CrimeThink, there’s a little bat’s squeak of reality deep down in their deluded Progressive Cesspool mind (that’s the bat that may in time eat the hamster, if you will). You have to crack that Shell of Delusion, and logic, while necessary, is not sufficient. The furious insult is required, because every time a Progressive goes into The Sputtering Rage of Self Righteousness, the bat squeaks a little louder.
Grit said:
You have to wonder if any of the dumbfuck retards that sit in on this chick’s blather even know what the scientific method is.
1. Pose a fantastic hypothesis.
2. Try and prove it.
3. If all fingers point in the same direction, assume the hypothesis is valid.
(3a. All science is subject to audits if contradictory evidence arises.)
Actually Grit, you have it wrong. You cannot really prove a hypothesis, you can only disprove it.
Step 2 consists in coming up with tests that would falsify your hypothesis and then going out and doing the tests and the measurements. If they all fail to falsify the hypothesis it is that much stronger.
Confirming evidence is no where as good as disconfirming evidence and lots of tests that try to overturn your hypothesis.
Kurzban writes about Marcotte: “This intersects with the second point, which is the political angle. After incorrectly characterizing the field, she asserts that evolutionary psychologists “really don’t like feminists.” Elsewhere, she has asserted that the practice of the field “tends to center around reinforcing retrograde gender roles.””
This about sums up what I see as the difference between equalists’ view of the Manosphere, versus what we see. They simply see us as an attempt to restore Relationships 1.0, which is not at all what I think most of us want. No matter how much of a stranglehold they get on the popular culture, the law, and the educational system, they’re forever stuck in their view of themselves as the new alternative fighting against the mainstream. But they ARE the conventional thinking and the downside of their thinking is what’s causing the most pressing cultural problems. I’ve heard that in the art world one of the standard ways to dismiss something you don’t care for is to call it reactionary. But game is the bread and butter of the manosphere and can anybody seriously say game/PUA is an attempt to restore the old social order? It’s reactionary, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t relationships 3.0.
Actually, PZ Myers has a post up defending Watson (claimed to be the first in a series) – it’s titled “Alpha EP”. Other sites in the ‘sceptic’ scene have also been discussing this. The few sceptics who defended Clint were accused of being “MRA”‘s.
@chuck which do you actually think will get them to shut up quicker? telling them to get in the kitchen (oooh, i must be a beta because i don’t give a shit whether they get in the kitchen and have kids or not) or using logic to combat their twisted arguments? notice how Watson hasn’t responded to Clint’s piece? yet she responds any and every way to “misogyny” in the comments sections at various blogs. so your way has proven itself to not be effective.
Didn’t mean any personal offense, just what you’re advocating is a beta tactic. People aren’t convinced by logic. I don’t see why you think her lack of a response to Clint is evidence that it worked. She’s more powerful than Clint (whoever that is) so as long as he plays the role of a supplicating nerd “look you’re actually wrong because science”, she can safely ignore him or snark it off- “psh psuedoscience you prob believe legitimate rape doesn’t get women pregnant”.
Heartiste’s style will rally those within the group whereas my style (or Clint’s style in this case) will convince those outside the group.
You have it backwards.
@romancandle Somebody’s been reading Heartiste for about a week.
Sackett et. al. got the goods on Steele & Aronson and pinned them to the mat:
C. M. Steele and J. Aronson (1995) showed that making race salient when taking a difficult test affected the performance of high-ability African American students, a phenomenon they termed stereotype threat. The authors document that this research is widely misinterpreted in both popular and scholarly publications as showing that eliminating stereotype threat eliminates the African American-White difference in test performance. In fact, scores were statistically adjusted for differences in students’ prior SAT performance, and thus, Steele and Aronson’s findings actually showed that absent stereotype threat, the two groups differ to the degree that would be expected based on differences in prior SAT scores. The authors caution against interpreting the Steele and Aronson experiment as evidence that stereotype threat is the primary cause of African American-White differences in test performance.
Stereotype threat works only under very contrived conditions, for example, take a group of black students who are writing the SAT and split them into two groups. With one group, control, you allow them to take the test without any researcher commentary but with the second group the researcher informs the group that this test is specifically going to be used to test the hypothesis that black students perform extremely poorly on the SAT. Now compare the performance of both groups and those students who were had all of the pressure to disprove the stereotype placed on their shoulders buckled under the pressure and performed worse than the black students who didn’t have burden of disproving the stereotype placed on them during the exam. The presence of stereotype threat doesn’t change the outcome for the black control group doing worse on the SAT than white students.
@anonymous Roissy reader since 2008 word.
Then you’re in the remedial class. Go back and read his posts about rookie mistakes, because telling a woman to go back into the kitchen (in the context of an intellectual debate) is the very definition of overcompensation and trying too hard.
@TangoMan Stereotype threat works only under very contrived conditions
I generally agree, and that’s why I qualified my statement by saying it doesn’t have a huge effect on innate differences. But I don’t think it’s something we can totally dismiss.
Keep this in mind: if we start dismissing behaviors that have scientific validity, even if it’s minimal, we’re not much better than the shrill blank-slaters we ruthlessly and justifiably mock. Just sayin.
I generally agree, and that’s why I qualified my statement by saying it doesn’t have a huge effect on innate differences. But I don’t think it’s something we can totally dismiss.
Of course it doesn’t have a huge effect because it doesn’t have ANY effect on innate differences.
Keep this in mind: if we start dismissing behaviors that have scientific validity, even if it’s minimal, we’re not much better than the shrill blank-slaters we ruthlessly and justifiably mock. Just sayin.
We’re dealing with research here which isn’t adequately understood by science journalists, by textbook writers, and by other researchers. Take a look at Sacket’s article:
Popular Media
We conducted an electronic search for all references to stereotype threat and to Claude Steele. Many discussed stereotype threat generally; we located 16 articles that
explicitly described Steele and Aronson’s (1995) findings with regard to the relative performance of African American and White students. We characterized 14 of the 16 (87.5%) as incorrect, as they incorrectly asserted—in a variety of slightly different ways—that subgroup differences disappeared in the nonstereotype-threat condition.
Scientific Journals
We found 11 articles and chapters that explicitly described Steele and Aronson’s (1995) findings. We characterized 10 of the 11 (90.9%) as incorrect, as they incorrectly asserted that subgroup differences disappeared in the nonstereotype threat condition.
Psychology Textbooks
We obtained a sample of 27 introductory psychology textbooks published since 1999 that had been sent to our department for course adoption consideration. We found stereotype threat. Nine of the texts limited their discussion to within-group effects (e.g., stating correctly that African American students had higher test performance in the nothreat condition than in the threat condition). Nine texts made between-groups (e.g., African American–White) comparisons. Five of the 9 mischaracterized the findings by stating that the two groups performed equally in the nothreat condition. Thus, 56% of texts that discussed African American–White comparisons did so incorrectly.
In the back and forth between Steele & Sackett, Sackett gets the last word:
They agree that it is a misinterpretation of the Steele and Aronson (1995) results to conclude that eliminating stereotype threat eliminates the African American–White test-score gap. They agree that we have identified multiple mischaracterizations of their work in media reports, journal articles, and textbooks, which wrongly interpret their work as finding that eliminating stereotype threat did indeed eliminate the score gap. They agree that these mischaracterizations are regrettable.
However, Steele and Aronson (2004) assert that there is no need to worry about mischaracterizations of their findings in the absence of evidence that these mischaracterizations have led to widespread misunderstanding of the role stereotype threat plays in explaining the African American–White testscore gap. We disagree. Although evidence of such misunderstanding would certainly be grave cause for concern, we believe it is sufficiently worrisome when one of the seminal studies on stereotype threat is commonly wrongly interpreted—by the popular media, textbook publishers, and academics alike—to mean that the African American–White testscore gap disappears when stereotype threat
is eliminated. . . .
Steele and Aronson (2004) also assert that no attentive reader of the literature on the race gap would conclude that stereotype threat is its sole cause. However, our concern is with broader audiences than the serious scholar working on issues of race. We are concerned about students who are being initially exposed to issues of psychological testing and the race gap in their introductory psychology courses. We are concerned about managers responsible for personnel selection systems in their organizations. We are concerned about psychologists who do not follow testing issues closely and whose only exposure to stereotype stereotype
threat may be through an American Psychological Association Monitor on Psychology
column making the interpretive error that is the focus of our article. We are concerned about the large audience watching Frontline and hearing that the score gap is eliminated in the no-threat condition
So to your point about dismissing behaviors which have scientific validity, my counter argument is that after being on the front lines of this blogosphere debate for over a decade now, I’ve not yet run into one, not one, instance of someone rolling out stereotype threat in a way which demonstrated that they understood the particulars.
Sackett nails Steele on excusing the misinterpretations of ST. Hey, it’s no big deal. Yeah, it is a big deal because, to address your point again, if we want to talk about it intelligently then this presumes that people not roll out their fallacious misunderstanding of the issue.
Stereotype Threat is rolled out because people think it is a powerful argument which will decide the debate in their favor. No one that I’ve debated has rolled out Stereotype Threat as Steele & Aronson detailed it and planned to use it as the “killer app” so to speak. Stereotype Threat when it is misunderstood becomes a powerful tool in an argument, but when Stereotype Threat is properly understood then the real world applications diminish significantly.
Women react primarily to status. What needs to be done is for the right people to claw their way up into high status positions. In our society this is mostly TV, movies, and music. And then mock those who lack the newly crowned “correct opinions.” Of course the Left are the gatekeepers to these positions now. But it wasn’t always this way and doesn’t have to be. it will take decades of work though to break through.
As a follow up, what would do wonders would be for an Angelina Jolie to brag about how her husband doesn’t supplicate, isn’t beta, and that she wouldn’t respect any man who was. Instead we’ve got The View playing the role of Victorian grand dames ala Jane Austen (a beautiful metaphor from Whiskey) controlling the opinions that are allowed in polite society.
“Yet not long ago, she was pretty cute, at least if this picture has any semblance of reality to it.”
She was slightly above average looking for her age then and she still is now, which isn’t saying much when you consider what “average” means after 40 years of unchecked dysgenic American breeding followed by an obesity crisis. Bangable in that pic? Sure. Most height-weight proportionate women in their mid-20s without hideous looking faces are.
I guess the worst assumption made about Evo-psych is that it believes that the human brain evolved 2 million years ago and then stopped evolving. Can anyone quote a single Evolutionary Psychologist who believes this? It’s funny how evolution denialists (EP or otherwise) display a blatant disregard for the claims and understanding of the science.
Yes, the brain evolved its basic form millions of years ago AND you still have some of those functions in your current brain. That does not mean it didn’t evolve. It means that evolutionarily advatageous traits were added onto this basic structure.The original parts remain. Evolution doesn’t just throw out the old model for a completely new model like an Iphone. It’s more like a building with new additions, partitions and features. Adding fancy new electrical appliances without redoing the original wiring can cause undesirable results – sort of like Feminism.
My understanding of Evo-Psych (or do I mean Socio-biology) is surely no better than Skepchick but one thing I can say, which must indicate something: Skepchick has changed her hair colour again. I think this is significant – now all she needs to do is fix those (‘facial’ encouraging) spectacles. Why do people pay good money to listen to her spouting what they can read in up-market dailies?
Calling yourself skepchick is a hostage to fortune as I have long-since (and before this) considered here profoundly gullible.
Which one of these terms does not belong here?
–evolutionary biology
–evolutionary genetics
–vertebrate biology
–contemporary psychology
–anthropology
–evolutionary psychology
At the very least, evolutionary psychology is a misnomer. The term misleads us to believe that we can study the mental functions and behavior of H.erectus, Cro-Magnon, Australopithecus, or Sahelanthropus tchadensis. The study of genetic mapping or fossils are not “psychology” as we define the term, so why the misnomer?
Agree that Watson is a snarky hack. She presents herself as a comedic celebrity.
Well I managed to listen to 12 minutes of that, which is 11 more than I needed to know what this Watson character is all about. Yikes. First, she is a terrible presenter. The constant laughing and smirking at her own remarks is adolescent and unprofessional. Forgetting the content, her presentation skills are dreadful.
The content is even worse. Skepchic? No, just Snarkchic. To be truly skeptical, you have to know what you’re talking about. Watson clearly doesn’t, so she shows no true skepticism at all, just a snide dismissive contempt as she floats in her giant cloud of self-righteousness assumptions. Skeptical? I doubt she’s ever seriously questioned a single one of her assumptions in her entire life.
If you want to see a true skeptic in action, I highly recommend Skeptical Engagements, an essay collection by Frederick Crews in which he dismantles both Freud and literary deconstruction (Derrida and those boys). When you’re done with Crews those idols lay shattered on the floor, forever irreparable. But then, Crews knows what he’s talking about inside and out. Watson just likes to piss on a wall and call it art.
I gather she’s Jewish? She certainly fits the mold of the hard-left, manly Jewish woman who lives to make trouble. Watson is also clearly a Christian hater as well, so that fits in. But mostly, she’s just someone with a third-rate mind that thinks they are oh-so-clever because they live in a bubble and parrot exactly what the bubble tells them to say. In a word: yuk.
After getting a good look at her, I’m skeptical a man made a move on her in an elevator.
Clint’s essay could apply to any talking head in the media who writes or pontificates on subjects for the masses. They know little or nothing of the subject yet pass themselves off as experts.
She is thick. There is a vid on YouTube where she claims Galileo was executed by the Catholic church.
Please ignore her.
Rebeccunt Twatson was never “approached” by a man in an elevator. The whole thing was made up so she could get attention for herself and as a way to start pushing feminist bullshit into the skeptical and scientific communities.
Feminists and other liberal theologians are nervous about the scientific studies of evolution, genetics and behavior because they, rightly, believe it will end up discrediting their bullshit ideologies. Since they can’t suppress scientific progress and they lack the intellectual capacity to actually offer any sort of meaningful critique of science, they will simply use the main weapons at the disposal of any good liberal high priest: snark, shame, social bullying and “truth” by consensus.
Also, it’s good to finally see some of these wimpy science nerd faggots grow some balls and stand up to those cunts. They’re tiny balls at this point (just starting to sprout hairs) but in time they will grow large enough to choke the mouth of even the most shrill feminist.
Damn, that’s a pretty devastating take down.
Watson seems to mistake wit for intelligence.
“This is my favorite conference of the year.” (Because scientists don’t show up and aren’t listening.)
I think we’ve found a way to get her to read more science. “Come up with sexier titles, you guys.”
What’s disturbing is how she dismisses the actual results discovered in the studies she does quote just to lead in to her rant about blaming the victim – blah blah blah. Men offered casual sex are more likely to accept than women. According to her, it just means that the guys are dumb for believing women would actually offer them sex.
Watson has stumbled on to the fact that science is a whore for the media and used to support their own theories so they can sell more stuff and tried to use this to slander the entire branch of science. I actually watched 32 minutes of this tripe and got no more scientific insight than I do from a 5 minute Jay Leno monologue.
Quote from Clint:
Lastly, Watson notes a Stanford social psychology study which shows that “stereotype threat” can be a powerful force in demotivating people. I couldn’t agree more. I have often argued for 50% female representation at secularist and skeptical events for this exact reason, even knowing that it is likely that fewer than 50% of available speakers at any one time are female. I am not sure what this point has to do with evolutionary psychology, however. I’m familiar with no research or researcher who maintains that stereotypes aren’t capable of being very harmful to society.
He is a charlatan! That statement there demonstrates that he cares not one whit about science.
To further demonstrate that Clint is actually in the same anti-science camp as the woman he is attacking, please tell me what the scientific theory of climate change is and the tests that have been done to falsify it.
“Stereotype Threat” is a weird deal. Isn’t the problem with “Stereotype threat” is that you aren’t really concentrating on what you are doing and are thinking of something else? Why don’t we call it “inability to focus on important things right in front of you like Yoda says”? Why do we feel it necessary to blame others?
Better takedown of Rebeca Watson:
“Run along back to the kitchen dear, men are talking. Sandwiches don’t make themselves.”
If you’re feeling really brutal, comment on her lack of a husband or children.
Stop being a beta and trying to engage these stupid girls logically. Just re-frame, mock them and laugh at them and move on to the next subject.
anonymous:
which do you actually think will get them to shut up quicker? telling them to get in the kitchen (oooh, i must be a beta because i don’t give a shit whether they get in the kitchen and have kids or not) or using logic to combat their twisted arguments? notice how Watson hasn’t responded to Clint’s piece? yet she responds any and every way to “misogyny” in the comments sections at various blogs. so your way has proven itself to not be effective.
@anonymous
Somebody’s been reading Heartiste for about a week.
“Stereotype threat” sounds like cultural Marxist nonsense, but there’s some truth to it. Obviously it doesn’t have a huge effect on innate genetic and biological traits, but it does exist.
An example would be that few white kids even bother to try to be sprinters or running backs.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
when will someone tell Ryu that posting notes form his GED class doesn’t make him a “scientist.”
Man Of Color Stone With A Boner it is time for you to step up and join our Soldiers. Serious brah.
Interesting, the men in the comments above seem to feel the need to call the 2 women speakers bad names. Not very ‘scientific’, are we? Somebody above speculates that one of the women is Jewish. Who cares? Real professional and ‘scientific’, guys. Reminds me of the Dalrock blog; only boys get to comment, not girls.
Shut yo flapping gums skinny white female
Tina,
blog comments will be blog comments. but stay focused on Watson. she’s the one who gets paid to travel around and attack the discipline. she’s the bigger fish and she also claims to be an authority on the subject she’s discussing. nobody here is claiming to be an authority on any of these matters nor, again, are we getting paid for any of it.
This could make for a good debate between GLPiggy and Heartiste.
Heartiste says fight snark with snark, i.e. go full Alinsky. GLPiggy says science is on our side and is more effective in winning debates.
I’m going to side with Heartiste on this one. Looking at the long game, a Latinized, machista U.S. that no longer has enough white betas to stitch together the safety nest will marginalize Jezebel types into freakish irrelevancy, science or no science. Remember the Ines Sainz brouhaha – Latin women were more than happy to throw white feminists under the bus: “yeah, gringas, we’re sexier AND less uptight than you!”
Since Watson et al. are going down anyway, might as well taunt them with all the sandwich orders they can handle, no?
This could make for a good debate between GLPiggy and Heartiste.
Its a difference of temperaments and objectives. Heartiste’s method is to discredit by ridicule. Chuck’s is to deconstruc by logic.
i think there is room for both. heartiste’s style will rally those within the group whereas my style (or Clint’s style in this case) will convince those outside the group. all movements require both tactics.
different styles have different effects. if the goal is, loosely stated, to get Watson to shut up and go away, the heartiste probably won’t have that much of an effect. it seems to only give them fuel and more evidence to support their claim and to attract followers who are only superficially interested in the topics being discussed. a logical dismantling might actually change their mind or at least make them hesitant to make bullshit arguments in the future. they may not say that they were proved wrong, but in the future they’ll behave as if they know they were proved wrong.
Since we have the advantage of science actually being on our side, it would be pretty stupid not to use it.
What boggles my mind is that even after a devastating expose and takedown of this girl’s unscientific attitudes, she’ll still continue to be invited to these conferences. The conference organizers should be ashamed at inviting an obviously unqualified speaker whose speech was actively detrimental to those who heard it and heads should roll.
manjaw’s gonna stupidly manjaw.
Ideally, both logic and merciless mockery would be deployed against these blockheaded, shrike cunts. Logic alone won’t cut it. They’ll just slink away and come back another day to lie lie lie like their useless assertions weren’t already debunked by greater minds. Now, when you combine the science with the shiv… that’s when magic happens!
Btw, I believe stereotype threat has been debunked by recent studies. Search Sailer’s site. He’s got the goods somewhere in his archives.
Since when has ignorance ever stopped a man or a woman from opening his or her mouth? I ought to know, I bullshit every day. This is a good example though, of classic scientific illiteracy.
I seriously can’t believe that science has come full circle. It pulled the blinders off religion but now is being stonewalled from doing the same to gender “science.”
You have to wonder if any of the dumbfuck retards that sit in on this chick’s blather even know what the scientific method is.
1. Pose a fantastic hypothesis.
2. Try and prove it.
3. If all fingers point in the same direction, assume the hypothesis is valid.
(3a. All science is subject to audits if contradictory evidence arises.)
How about this hypothesis: women cannot for the life of them understand this logic, nor do they have the inquisitiveness to disprove my theory.
These feminist ‘scientists’ will get a healthy wakeup call when they are forced to question whether their silly posturing *actually* invites my knuckles into the limpjaws of their male enablers.
Rebecca did bring up some valid points. Evolutionary psychology definitely is open to criticism, but she is not the best person to do it. Her immature, unprofessional style is a problem. I do get the impression she would misrepresent and misquote people. She’d be fine as a waitress or a barista at Starbucks, but she isn’t cut out for this field.
I see what you did ther Lara… sliding that shiv … deadly
Sailor on stereotype threat: he quoted an anonymous psychologist who reviewed a metanalysis on 55 studies, including the unpublished ones, on stereotype threat.
Publication bias is found in all science niches. Editors choose to publish studies with positive outcomes over those with negative outcomes. Us readers don’t care to actually read studies of negative outcomes.
Sailor believes that in the realm of test taking, incentives trump expectations.
i think there is room for both. heartiste’s style will rally those within the group whereas my style (or Clint’s style in this case) will convince those outside the group. all movements require both tactics.
This. You need both because you need to appeal to various personality types. Plus there is a different sort of entertainment value to each!
The dismissive insult is useful as well to breaking down mental barriers because it speaks to deep truths, those “we all know it but won’t admit it” things. Every time you crack someone over the head with offensive CrimeThink, there’s a little bat’s squeak of reality deep down in their deluded Progressive Cesspool mind (that’s the bat that may in time eat the hamster, if you will). You have to crack that Shell of Delusion, and logic, while necessary, is not sufficient. The furious insult is required, because every time a Progressive goes into The Sputtering Rage of Self Righteousness, the bat squeaks a little louder.
Grit said:
You have to wonder if any of the dumbfuck retards that sit in on this chick’s blather even know what the scientific method is.
1. Pose a fantastic hypothesis.
2. Try and prove it.
3. If all fingers point in the same direction, assume the hypothesis is valid.
(3a. All science is subject to audits if contradictory evidence arises.)
Actually Grit, you have it wrong. You cannot really prove a hypothesis, you can only disprove it.
Step 2 consists in coming up with tests that would falsify your hypothesis and then going out and doing the tests and the measurements. If they all fail to falsify the hypothesis it is that much stronger.
Confirming evidence is no where as good as disconfirming evidence and lots of tests that try to overturn your hypothesis.
Kurzban writes about Marcotte: “This intersects with the second point, which is the political angle. After incorrectly characterizing the field, she asserts that evolutionary psychologists “really don’t like feminists.” Elsewhere, she has asserted that the practice of the field “tends to center around reinforcing retrograde gender roles.””
This about sums up what I see as the difference between equalists’ view of the Manosphere, versus what we see. They simply see us as an attempt to restore Relationships 1.0, which is not at all what I think most of us want. No matter how much of a stranglehold they get on the popular culture, the law, and the educational system, they’re forever stuck in their view of themselves as the new alternative fighting against the mainstream. But they ARE the conventional thinking and the downside of their thinking is what’s causing the most pressing cultural problems. I’ve heard that in the art world one of the standard ways to dismiss something you don’t care for is to call it reactionary. But game is the bread and butter of the manosphere and can anybody seriously say game/PUA is an attempt to restore the old social order? It’s reactionary, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t relationships 3.0.
Off topic:
Chuck – have you heard of “Tough Mudder”? Great topic for a post on modern masculinity.
Actually, PZ Myers has a post up defending Watson (claimed to be the first in a series) – it’s titled “Alpha EP”. Other sites in the ‘sceptic’ scene have also been discussing this. The few sceptics who defended Clint were accused of being “MRA”‘s.
Dumb bitch dumb haircut even Promoting Justice couldn’t take it.
Reblogged this on elevatorgate and commented:
Becky’s snark aimed at what she perceives as a misogynist academic discipline
1:42 anon here again
@chuck
which do you actually think will get them to shut up quicker? telling them to get in the kitchen (oooh, i must be a beta because i don’t give a shit whether they get in the kitchen and have kids or not) or using logic to combat their twisted arguments? notice how Watson hasn’t responded to Clint’s piece? yet she responds any and every way to “misogyny” in the comments sections at various blogs. so your way has proven itself to not be effective.
Didn’t mean any personal offense, just what you’re advocating is a beta tactic. People aren’t convinced by logic. I don’t see why you think her lack of a response to Clint is evidence that it worked. She’s more powerful than Clint (whoever that is) so as long as he plays the role of a supplicating nerd “look you’re actually wrong because science”, she can safely ignore him or snark it off- “psh psuedoscience you prob believe legitimate rape doesn’t get women pregnant”.
Heartiste’s style will rally those within the group whereas my style (or Clint’s style in this case) will convince those outside the group.
You have it backwards.
@romancandle
Somebody’s been reading Heartiste for about a week.
Roissy reader since 2008 word.
Sackett et. al. got the goods on Steele & Aronson and pinned them to the mat:
Stereotype threat works only under very contrived conditions, for example, take a group of black students who are writing the SAT and split them into two groups. With one group, control, you allow them to take the test without any researcher commentary but with the second group the researcher informs the group that this test is specifically going to be used to test the hypothesis that black students perform extremely poorly on the SAT. Now compare the performance of both groups and those students who were had all of the pressure to disprove the stereotype placed on their shoulders buckled under the pressure and performed worse than the black students who didn’t have burden of disproving the stereotype placed on them during the exam. The presence of stereotype threat doesn’t change the outcome for the black control group doing worse on the SAT than white students.
@anonymous
Roissy reader since 2008 word.
Then you’re in the remedial class. Go back and read his posts about rookie mistakes, because telling a woman to go back into the kitchen (in the context of an intellectual debate) is the very definition of overcompensation and trying too hard.
@TangoMan
Stereotype threat works only under very contrived conditions
I generally agree, and that’s why I qualified my statement by saying it doesn’t have a huge effect on innate differences. But I don’t think it’s something we can totally dismiss.
Keep this in mind: if we start dismissing behaviors that have scientific validity, even if it’s minimal, we’re not much better than the shrill blank-slaters we ruthlessly and justifiably mock. Just sayin.
I generally agree, and that’s why I qualified my statement by saying it doesn’t have a huge effect on innate differences. But I don’t think it’s something we can totally dismiss.
Of course it doesn’t have a huge effect because it doesn’t have ANY effect on innate differences.
Keep this in mind: if we start dismissing behaviors that have scientific validity, even if it’s minimal, we’re not much better than the shrill blank-slaters we ruthlessly and justifiably mock. Just sayin.
We’re dealing with research here which isn’t adequately understood by science journalists, by textbook writers, and by other researchers. Take a look at Sacket’s article:
Popular Media
Scientific Journals
Psychology Textbooks
In the back and forth between Steele & Sackett, Sackett gets the last word:
So to your point about dismissing behaviors which have scientific validity, my counter argument is that after being on the front lines of this blogosphere debate for over a decade now, I’ve not yet run into one, not one, instance of someone rolling out stereotype threat in a way which demonstrated that they understood the particulars.
Sackett nails Steele on excusing the misinterpretations of ST. Hey, it’s no big deal. Yeah, it is a big deal because, to address your point again, if we want to talk about it intelligently then this presumes that people not roll out their fallacious misunderstanding of the issue.
Stereotype Threat is rolled out because people think it is a powerful argument which will decide the debate in their favor. No one that I’ve debated has rolled out Stereotype Threat as Steele & Aronson detailed it and planned to use it as the “killer app” so to speak. Stereotype Threat when it is misunderstood becomes a powerful tool in an argument, but when Stereotype Threat is properly understood then the real world applications diminish significantly.
Tactics to use in arguing against leftists.
http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/?p=354
I don’t get it. Was her talk supposed to be serious or comedic?
Women react primarily to status. What needs to be done is for the right people to claw their way up into high status positions. In our society this is mostly TV, movies, and music. And then mock those who lack the newly crowned “correct opinions.” Of course the Left are the gatekeepers to these positions now. But it wasn’t always this way and doesn’t have to be. it will take decades of work though to break through.
As a follow up, what would do wonders would be for an Angelina Jolie to brag about how her husband doesn’t supplicate, isn’t beta, and that she wouldn’t respect any man who was. Instead we’ve got The View playing the role of Victorian grand dames ala Jane Austen (a beautiful metaphor from Whiskey) controlling the opinions that are allowed in polite society.
God damn that is one hideous cunt.
God damn that is one hideous cunt.
Yet not long ago, she was pretty cute, at least if this picture has any semblance of reality to it.
http://events.skepchick.org/files/2011/03/RebeccaWatsonMed.jpg
Shows you how Endless Rage Syndrome turns a woman fugly. It’s like mental meth.
“Yet not long ago, she was pretty cute, at least if this picture has any semblance of reality to it.”
She was slightly above average looking for her age then and she still is now, which isn’t saying much when you consider what “average” means after 40 years of unchecked dysgenic American breeding followed by an obesity crisis. Bangable in that pic? Sure. Most height-weight proportionate women in their mid-20s without hideous looking faces are.
I guess the worst assumption made about Evo-psych is that it believes that the human brain evolved 2 million years ago and then stopped evolving. Can anyone quote a single Evolutionary Psychologist who believes this? It’s funny how evolution denialists (EP or otherwise) display a blatant disregard for the claims and understanding of the science.
Yes, the brain evolved its basic form millions of years ago AND you still have some of those functions in your current brain. That does not mean it didn’t evolve. It means that evolutionarily advatageous traits were added onto this basic structure.The original parts remain. Evolution doesn’t just throw out the old model for a completely new model like an Iphone. It’s more like a building with new additions, partitions and features. Adding fancy new electrical appliances without redoing the original wiring can cause undesirable results – sort of like Feminism.
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