A Continuation of Crackpot Evolutionary Psychology Theories

Cockamamie Theories -- A Sociological Study

Hey, I can do that too.  Why should I not get published in one of those laughable evolutionary psychology journals?  I can come up with a crackpot theory with the best of them.  I can reference anecdotal tidbits and call this "evidence."  I can conduct selective research in searching for scientific support.  I can pull from history whatever agrees with my preconceived opinions.  Read very carefully, because in some places, mere select *words* from a particular whole sentence are biased.
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Why have so many inventions, innovations, technology, applications of the laws of the natural world been fueled, been driven, been pursued with such gusto, such fanatical devotion?

•To explain the birth of the universe.
•To explain the origins of humankind.  Every culture and civilization in the history of our species has a creation myth.
•The seeking, the drive, the thirst for knowledge.  This has fueled the quest to seek, to unlock the secrets of the universe, perhaps in vain hopes of unearthing some support that the universe is inherently male.
•To invent and innovate things.  The need to create, to be bestowed with the honor of “Creator.”
•And now, the god particle.  Large supercolliders have been built, essentially for the purpose of creating something out of nothing.
•The search for life on other planets in our solar system or in the Milky Way
•The search for life in the Local Group or anywhere in the universe
•More recently, the search for other universes and yes, the search for possible life in other universes

For one simple reason:  men cannot create life from their bodies.

So, spinning along this trend that has been the dominant controlling factor lording over males' psyches since the inception of hominid species.  They are searching, painstakingly, for some sign that males are the origin of the universe or at least creators in some vein.

Humorists, aphorists, and pundits alike have long commented on the supposed phenomenon of "penis envy."  Then Viagra came along and exposed penis envy for what it really is.  Oh, it exists, all right.  But penis envy is not a feeling women harbor towards men.  Quite the opposite is true -- penis envy is something that men feel towards other men.

So I suppose viagra, levitra, and cialis are marketed to make women's penises stiff for longer periods of time, and indeed, at all?  And I guess all those spam emails that people get, which thankfully are a little less prevalent and irritating now than back when the internet was still called the "information superhighway," that want the recipients to enlarge their penis -- these are aimed at enlarging women's penises?  And I guess whenever men admit to feeling inadequate when compared to, say horses, or to other men that have bigger penises, I guess the insecure men are saying that they feel jealous of the horse's *mind.*

However, if you mean a metaphorical penis, then there might be something to that.  Power, authority, power in politics, formal education, business, running an economy.  Running a government.  Having education.  Having higher education, studying in universities, monasteries.  Men have historically prevented women from entering these and all other fields.  If that is the subject, then sure, women have metaphorical penis envy.  However, actual penis envy is something that men feel towards other men.

Now, perhaps we need to acknowledge the existence of a different social, personal, philosophical sleeper trend that has plagued males since the dawn of time.  This has afflicted males the universe over ever since the very first protobiont worked its way out of the primordial ooze.  This is an insecurity phenomenon that men feel towards women.

All male humans are afflicted with the psychosocial condition named "Uterus Envy."  They can never create a life from their bodies.  They know that women have this power, this extraordinary gift, and that they do not.

Women have of course, always known and appreciated the power of their life-creating bodies.  Many early civilizations around the world had theistic beliefs and customs that were female-centric.

On some subconscious level, men have always known this to be ultimate truth.  This is why all throughout the course of human history, males have done their damnedest to co-opt and bastardize this right that was God-given to women.  This is all betrays their extreme jealousy and insecurity.

They have resorted to even going so far as to fashion a creation myth in which a man gives birth to a woman from one of his ribs.  Then, as if that weren't illogical enough, some males made the declaration that women were made to endure pregnancy and childbirth as a "punishment."  This punishment is supposedly meted out due to some sort of original sin.

This disturbing psychosocial biochemical characteristic is manifested in the ways that violence, legal gymnastics, pseudo-philosophy, skewed, twisted, warped mental acrobatics are used as to why a woman's body is not her own.

Males have forcibly denied females their reproductive rights, including the right not to have a child if one does not want to.  They have also denied, very importantly, the right *to* carry a fetus to term if a woman does want to.

Males have co-opted and bastardized women's reproductive rights since the beginning of time.  They cling to their ideals of superiority out of desperation and panic.

This actually explains why men are driven to invent things, to innovate.  It all speaks of a desperate, frantic, frenzied need to create _something_.  It is a need to be on equal footing with women, who create life on a regular basis.  They are constantly attempting to prove to the world, to other men, to women, and to themselves that they are capable of creation.

Most people have heard the comical offerings that a man that buys a very large car or sponsors the production of very tall buildings is compensating for something.  But perhaps we have been mistaken as to what that "something" is.

This also would explain why scientists, supposedly learned, rational, logical, thinking men, have been so loathe to allow women into scientific and thinking circles all throughout human history.  They have delved so far as to concoct various theories, conjecture, convoluted, cognitive labyrinthine schemes as to why women should not be allowed to study the sciences.  They cling to these precepts as supposed logic supporting their opinions for why women would not make good scientists.  This is much like how when someone is stranded out in the desert or lost in a tropical natural jungle, he would have to rig some digs out of a few found objects, tarp, rope, twine.

This betrays an unease, a fear, a dread that women will yet again surpass men in their collective abilities as a gender.  Men are shaken by the fact that, one, women can already create life from their bodies, and, two, if women are able to enter engineering and technology fields and are allowed to practice, think, create, and innovate at the same rate as men, then this would prove that women have the capability to create in other tenets of the universe, thus doubly demonstrating their superiority over men.  Women are able to create life, and are also able to create things that make life a little bit easier to live.

This fear and unease manifests itself in baffling contradictions:  the Catholic Church has in the past proclaimed that anything having to do with the female reproductive system, including fertility and ovulation, is of paganism, the devil's work, filthy, vile, et cetera et cetera.  Yet at the same time the Church claims that a fetus is precious, innocent, deserving of life, and that aborting said fetus is murder.

Holding a woman hostage to her uterus.  Holding a woman prisoner to her own uterus by bastardizing the power of life and creation that her body holds.  They say that a woman's menstrual period makes her "unclean."  A woman that is menstruating is considered a pariah, is treated like a leper.

But guess what, folks, that is where babies come from.  A healthy, menstruating uterus.  How are they not able to reconcile a fetus's existence with how that fetus came to exist in the first place?

Women in various tribal societies who are menstruating are shunned from the tribe for the duration of their menses.  They are forced to live in filthy secluded huts because they have been announced “unclean,” and therefore are not deserving of being included and acknowledged in the greater community like the fully-functioning normal human being that she is.

Males have gone so far as to maintaining the false assertion that elderly men well past the "prime years" can still produce healthy, viable spermatozoa capable of joining ova to produce a viable, healthy zygote.  This was spurred on by a few stories of old celebrity goats that supposedly fathered children well into their triple-digit annums.  However, this was later medically proven to be false.

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If faced with this ___ males would have to concede with a truth of this universe:  That the power of reproduction and creation are in the hands of females, and it always has been.  The ultimate decision to create life belongs to females.  This truth might make males uneasy, but that does not make it any less a truth.

But there are benefits to this perpetual, incessant inadequacy that males feel.  If nothing else, this jealousy and insecurity drove civilization, technology, and progress forward.  So that they may truthfully moniker themselves creators of at least something.  Taking great pains, blood tears and sweat, to be able to manipulate the natural world in some way so that they may pride themselves with the title of "creator."

"Necessity is the mother of all invention."  But what exactly is this necessity?  Is it for the lone physical object that was invented?  Or is it for the inventor to prove something?

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It is also ludicrous that anyone, male or female, would insist that a fetus's right to life be divorced wholly from a woman's right to her own bodily autonomy.  This is another baffling, nonsensical anomaly that has no place in rational and moral discourse.  The claim that many make that a fetus's right to life is immaterial of a woman's right to her own bodily autonomy is ludicrous.

*It is usually divided into two extreme theaters, each stripping a woman of her humanity and choice in its own sick way.  One, the "conservative" form of misogyny is taking the fact that women are the bearer of life, and cruelly using this against a woman in any way possible.  That is turning a woman into a baby factory, a prisoner of her own uterus.  Forcing a woman's body to be used as a weapon against her.

*The other extreme cancer is possibly worse.  The "liberal" form of misogyny, which denies that women have any reproductive or even productive capabilities at all.  This manifestation, by taking away a woman's ability to become pregnant and bring forth a child.  This has veritably stripped women of any value to the human race at all.

Very important -- do not make the mistake of thinking that anyone that is okay with abortion is automatically on par with women's rights.

The fact is that forced abortions have also been used to control women's bodies.  Oh, how I wish I were making this up.  In sexual slavery practiced around the world in various countries, women are kidnapped from their homes, sold, and forced into prostitution.  In other words, they are forced into being ra--- on a regular basis.  They are also forced to go through abortions so that the brothel does not have to deal with the atrocities it is committing against human rights.

In this case, abortion is used as an aid, as a tool *against* acknowledging a woman as a conscious, whole, complete member of the homo sapiens species.

This so-called “liberalism” incarnates into some inexplicable ideologies.   Women are casually regarded as little more than empty hollow mannequins.  Abortion, here, is just another type of violence against women.

That's right; do not be fooled.  Just because abortion is "allowed" in these locations, it does not mean that the women are living in some sort of magical utopia wherein they are valued as equals to men and esteemed as whole human beings.  Here, abortion is also used as a weapon against a woman's right to bodily autonomy.  It is not the only evil committed against women, I'm not trying to make that claim, but it is one of the many evils used to abuse and subjugate women.

This is possibly even worse than the monotheistic patriarchal religions that force women to not be able to consider abortion even in the case of safety and health.  At least those religions acknowledge the fact that women's bodies bring life into the world.  However, I truly think that these forced abortions are worse.  This is because in these horrific crimes, a woman as a human being is reduced to less than the sum of her body parts.

She is certainly not acknowledged as a whole human being.  That much is clear from the fact that she is kidnapped, sold into slavery, and systematically r--ed by the society, by the economy, by the local government that forces this to happen.  Then, just to knock her down a few pegs more, she is also not even considered a bearer of human beings.  A woman here is regarded as little more than a blow-up doll.
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___is almost worse because it trivializes the ___ that women____.  "come on baby, it's not a crime, it's just a sin!"  Suddenly, saying "No" to a male became tantamount to denying him “rights.”  It became politically incorrect to say "No" to any male.  Reducing a woman to a soulless shell, a hollow meat carcass that does not have any redeeming, life-affirming qualities.

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The most desperate ploy thrown out in the ether recently is the assertion that r-- is justified by evolution.  Here again, we have males grasping for straws, trying somehow to find some way to justify their abject disregard for women's bodies.  This just smacks of yet more desperation.

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Modern-day treatment of pregnant women
Yet you vilify the woman who gets pregnant.

If the fetus is so damn godly and wonderful, then why the hell isn't the woman housing that fetus treated with parallel dignity and respect?  It only follows to logic that the pregnant mother should be lavished with grace, praise, love, reverence.  The pregnant mother should be exalted for her ability to bring forth life into this world.

"Well, there are maybe a handful of social programs that might be able to aid a woman who needs help..."
No, you have turned her into a beggar, a streetwalker.  At the mercy of violent criminals, exploiters, anyone else that would prey on the physically weak.

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Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Mary Shelley to you) foresaw this phenomenon nearly two hundred years ago when she authored the story of Dr. Frankenstein.  She had sensed the unease that permeates males' subconscious psyches.  Males want to be able to create life on their own, without the intervention of any woman.  But the only way they can do it is through gruesome unnatural means.

This is reflected in efforts for human cloning.  These research efforts were begun by males, not by females.

There was another research project in Japan a few years back wherein a group of biologists tried to grow a mammal fetus to term in an incubator of sorts, which was supposed to supply all the nutritional requirements, cushioning of the body, O2, et cetera.  All of the things that a placenta would provide in the case of a normal mammalian pregnancy.

Do not make the mistake of considering this casually and concluding that this is a nod to feminism.  Quite the opposite.  I truly think that the researchers working on this were spurred on by the fact that females hold the power of creation in their bodies.  Males, when they embarked upon this puzzling experiment, were trying desperately to take the power of growing a life away from females.  This way, males would not be so reliant on females for reproduction.

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The notion that evolution dictates that females want males to stick around and help raise the offspring.  And females prefer to be monogamous.  As much as gullible liberal females have tried to refudiate (hehe) this claim, there is probably quite a bit of truth to this.  And I do not think this is a bad thing.

Women have always been more evolved than men.  Females have a long history of having to be the ones to drive and usher the rest of humanity, including males, out of the Stone Age.  The responsibility of evolution has always been one that women have shouldered proudly.

This is true on the micro scale of a single human life. 
•Baby girls learn to talk earlier than baby boys.
•Earlier puberty.  Earlier emotional maturity and responsible behavior patterns.
•Female brain has thicker corpus callosum, which links the right and left hemispheres of the brain.  Buzzing snapping, electrifying back and forth between the hemispheres.  Provides stronger, more sturdy connection  (mapping of brain, putting together missing pieces of a puzzle such as solving a mystery.  Seeing links in concepts that appear superficially unrelated, but upon closer inspection turn out to be connected.)

This is also true on a hyper-iteration macro scale.  A leap forward in biological progress has always depended on a greatly increased investment from the female of the species.
•Early mitochondria provided the gateway for primitive unicellular organisms to morph into more complex unicellular organisms.
--Metabolism of nutrient sources, then being converted into energy sources for the cell.  The ATP production is much more complex than substrate-level which occurred at the cell membrane of primitive unicellulars (bacteria).

•The skeleton Lucy.  Australopithecus afarensis.  She is the missing link that was discovered to have lived so long ago, that connected early primate species to our distant hominid ancestors.

*Females being the ones responsible for well-being and protection of the young.  Laying eggs.
--Leaving them there in lower species.  Turtles, spiders.
--Sitting on them and hatching them.  Birds.  These are considered slightly higher than reptiles since they are warm-blooded.

*The transition from laying eggs and subsequently affecting external gestation.
Internal gestation for offspring in mammals.  Coupled with the mother feeding her young milk from her mammary glands.  This continues to nourish the offspring with much-needed carbohydrates, proteins, even some humoral (molecular) immunity.  This also strengthens the emotional bond between mother and child.
    (poss this http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090519-missing-link-found.html

With every great leap in evolutionary progress, comes an accompanied far greater investment from the female parent.  It is the female that always makes the greatest contribution to the nourishment of the offspring.  Evolution is tilted far more in favor of the contributions of the female.  In gestational requirements, nutritional supply, oxygen, blood supply, and with mammals, food supply from the mother’s body in the early year of the offspring's life is required *after* it has already been born.  This places enormous demand on the female parent.  But that is okay because the payoff is evolution.

*Women on average, are less violent, less sexually promiscuous, and more prone to forming emotional bonds with their offspring.  These are all hallmarks of more evolved species.  Compare the human species to gorillas, baboons, dogs, lions, reptiles, whales, dolphins.  It is established as fact in the scientific community that humans are more evolved than all of those other animal species.

Humans as a whole are superior to those other species in terms of intelligence, emotional bonds forming with pair-bonding, less aggression, less inclination to violence, higher morality, more emotional attachment to offspring, less likely to give in to impulsive behavior, and greater cooperation with other members of the species -- while also being physically weaker.  This comparison of humans-to-other-animalia is mirrored in the comparison female-humans-to-male-humans.

And male evolutionists keep encountering and getting bombarded by this at every turn.  It’s like shuffling a deck of cards, and no matter what happens, the queen always come out on top.  They have no choice but to concede that females drive evolution.  So how do male evolutionary scientists cope?  They must find some way to rationalize male brutality, justify it in their minds.  They must find some way to make sense of it, insist that it did contribute to evolution.  Even though what it really did was wreak terror on humanity.

This is why they try to make excuses.  The d--- getting hard excuse.  Trying to pretend they have any say in the matter.  For example, they ask in vain, what do women want?  However, what they are really asking is, how do I bag a hot chick.  They already know what women want.  With all the nonstop incessant chattering that women do all the time, I mean seriously, we will not stop, the entire freaking population of the developed world knows what women want.

The "teh poor menz" arguments predictably follow along thusly:  well whut abut teh poor menz why cant dey choos wimmen dey want????

That's a bullshyte argument, because you already have what you want.  Human women have already been selected for through a few million years of evolution.  The mammalian species have already selectively bred for females that have a significantly increased investment in producing offspring.  Nature did all the picking for you, so you men don't have to worry your pretty little heads off about it.

So what do teh poor menz get out of the deal?  They get mates who gestate the offspring for nine months, producing an infant that has an enormous brain with enormous brain-to-body mass ratio, proceed to breastfeed after that, and then stick around and raise the child throughout their formative years.  Psychologically, socially, and through physical and sexual maturity.

And mates who normally produce only one infant at a time, thereby allowing all nutritional and oxygen supply to go to that one infant.  At most twins and much more rarely triplets.  Beyond that, none without the help of fertility drugs.  But on the whole, human females do not produce litters.  In terms of evolutionary progress, this is a good thing.  Add the fact that human women internally gestate, and the fact that they generally do not leave or die after hatching the infant, a la turtles or spiders.

So quit complaining.  You already got the best that you can hope for.

So why do males still act as if their queries are unanswered?  It is because they are trying to maintain the pretense that they have a realistic shot with those hot chicks, as if those hot chicks are not going to magnetically gravitate to alpha males exclusively and automatically.  The poor male dears.  They try so hard to maintain the illusion that they are in control of the mating situation in some way. 

Again, this all comes down to uterus envy.  They try to pretend that they are in some way, any way at all, in control of reproduction.  They entertain the illusion that they possess a smidgen of any input whatsoever, a voice in the continuation of the species.

Wishful Thinking Rears Its Ugly Head- The Troubling Trend of Research Bias in Psychology

I have noticed a peculiar bent as of late in the anthropology-related fields.  This is more strong evidence of the trend that people see what they want to see.

I have come upon a curious and very disturbing trend in popular psychology in recent days.  Any crackpot, cockamamie theory can be presented as "science" if the predicators are adamant enough in their marketing of it to the mass populace.

Even though there is plenty of evidence contradicting a theory, effectively rendering it nonexistent, this is evidently not a point of consideration for behavioral biology.  A frequent culprit and violator of common sense is the field of so-called "evolutionary psychology."

Evolutionary psychologists are usually able to find ample so-called evidence for their theories.  The reason they are able to do this is that, after five hundred thousand years of existence of the human species and its ancestry, probability is on the researchers' side.  Statistically speaking, there is bound to be some evidence buried in there somewhere that cements the evpsychs' expectations.

In the vast cosm of the existence of the human species in its entirety, everything has happened.  Every sort of imaginable gruesome crime against humanity -- slavery, violence, murder, r---, infanticide, genocide, all of that and more has happened, including the existence of sick individuals that have tried to justify these acts with some sort of excuse.  The chances are great of some sort of evidence coming up in the researchers' favor, some sort of data and information that supports their hypothesis. 

And this little bit of evidence is enough for them to gain credibility and respect in the scientific community.  In five hundred thousand years of existence of the human species, if there is one hundred years' worth of evidence to support any given hypothesis, this is sufficient to present in a peer-reviewed psychology journal to be approved of by other like-minded individuals that are fond of breaching common decency.

What do I mean when I write, "one hundred years' worth of evidence?"  This can be measured in the form of historical events, recurring human behavior, social and cultural trends.  An event that is submitted as evidence can be graded for the amount of time it occupied.  A war can last ten years.  A famine can last thirty years.  Over a period of one year, there are numerous muggings and violent assualts.  Each of these assaults takes up a little bit of time on its own.  Combined, they total a few months.  Any given human being generally lives less than one hundred years.   Therefore, one hundred years' worth of evidence is often enough to sway their opinion as well as their world view in favor of those researchers of evolutionary psychology.

Even though there is also plenty of evidence that proves the opposite of their theories, they can still manage to dish up sufficient support for whatever already exists in their heads.  Looking at these studies carefully, it seems that proponents of these theories have an already-existing agenda that they, whether purposely or subconsciously, wish to promote.  They therefore gather all evidence from which their already-existing conclusion can be deduced.

They do this while simultaneously ignoring all the evidence that points to the contrary.  They manage to completely ignore mountains of observation, logic, rationality, reasoning, and common sense that demonstrates that the results are actually null.

If the evpsychs are not necessarily fabricating evidence, they are in fact fabricating a conclusion deriving from this evidence.  Unfortunately, in the grand scheme of human existence, said conclusion can appear to have ample support dug up in favor of it.

But the thing is, the exact same thing can be said of those mountains of conflicting data that might very well be good-hearted and logical -- that there is plenty of it, but plenty of evidence exists to the contrary of even that.

**A good example is the two-sides-of-a-coin that are the claim that this country was founded on Christian beliefs, and the claim that this country was not founded on Christian beliefs.

Well, what exactly is meant when someone utters the phrase "founded this country?"  Do you mean the first European settlers that came to the New World in escape from religious persecution of a sort back in western Europe?

They established colonies that each had a central governing body, at least one church, and a judiciary system of sorts.  These were fully-functioning, though sporadic settlements.  These pilgrims came here so that they could practice their sect of Christianity that they were most comfortable with, which they were not allowed to practice in Britain and elsewhere.  And they also pillaged and ransacked the Native Americans.  Their descendents eventually led to the country being founded and developed into what it is today.  Does this count as the founding of this country?

Or do you mean the Founding Fathers, the original drafters of the Declaration of Independence, along with the other fathers of our country, all that good stuff?  The forefathers, who were mostly nondenominational deist, officially began declaring this a sovereign nation about a hundred fifty years after the first pilgrims arrived.  They also wrote the Constitution which more or less recognized the white-dominated settlements all as one unified governed entity.  Does this count as the founding of this country?

As you can see, there is plenty of evidence supporting both arguments.

***tie this in with the fact that I have noticed that reviewers and customers on Amazon.com tend to favor and lean towards their already-existing beliefs.***
I have noticed this with political leanings and sociopolitical opinions.  I have noticed this on message boards of news articles and political commentaries.

This can unfortunately be extended to the scientific and research community.  Now, remember that the hard sciences that sample and analyze the physical world are usually spared from this biased treatment.  This is because hard sciences must succumb to concrete distinct delineators that determine whether or not the experimental procedures follow academic protocol.

However, the more wishy-washy and abstract "sciences" of psychology and behavioral evolution are often prone to taint.  They are often subject to this sort of extreme, if possibly subconscious, personal bias.  This has very disturbing implications.  For example, some of the more gruesome "evolutionary" theories display these biased subconscious trends.

•• The infamous race and intelligence studies.
The notion that different races have different inherent intelligence capabilities.  Some studies have been done recently that controlled for environmental factors that affect performance on IQ tests.

I'll be honest with you, I love these IQ statistics because they make us Asians look good.  Who doesn't like to be scientifically proven to be better?  I am okay with these tests because in recent research undertakings, Asians have consistently come out on top for whatever reason.  And I am Asian.

Keep in mind that my approval does nothing to ensure the validity of this.  All that is assured is that I, like every human on the planet, like it because it agrees with my pre-conceived opinions as well as pride in my family ancestry.  See how deeply self-satisfying "science" goes?

The fact that I, an Asian, like this crap and am not really arguing against it demonstrates that bias colors everything.  (Even though I am South Asian and not East Asian, but goshdarnit we're from the same continent and I will stake my claim on this territory.). Personally I do feel that it is conclusive, but that follow-up needs to be done.

•• However, the mass response from most academics as well as the herd populace has also been unscientific.  Simply considering the possibility that behavior might be rooted in inherent intelligence, has been rendered verboten.  With their cries of, "Intelligence can't be measured, it is not quantifiable," and "Intelligence does not actually exist," "What is intelligence?," "There is no such thing as inherent intelligence," "Intelligence is a social construct," et al.

That feeling of distaste, nay disgust at encountering one of these studies that most likely prompted this mass response -- I get it, believe me, I get it.  Reading one of these reports when they go into unflinching detail about what low IQ implies...  At first one only feels indifference, oh huzzah another social science article.  But very quickly, it is nauseating, it is sickening, one feels ill reading one of these things.  Plus, James Watson is kind of an ahole.  He stole his so-called groundbreaking pioneering DNA research from Rosalind Franklin.  And now apparently in an effort to boost his low self-esteem from having no self-made accomplishments, he is trying to put other people down.

I feel ya.  But the sweeping blanket response from the scientific community has been an emotional one, not a rational one.  The logical approach would have been to say, "These are very serious allegations.  This might appear to be superficially racist, but perhaps we should not dismiss it so reflexively.  There does seem to be some merit in this hypothesis.  After all, look at the state of African Americans in this country even though there have been affirmative action, welfare, government housing subsidies, educational help, et al., all sorts of social programs for decades.  And that is nothing compared to the state of Africa.  Again, I know it is extremely offensive.  But the truth usually is."

•• At least these recent studies were conducted with much more empirical testing standards than the infamous "experiment" done by __ in the late 1800s.  In that one, ___scientist__  was filling deceased human craniums with cottonseed.  He would then measure how much cottonseed was used per brain, and he took the average for each race.  ...And then it turned out he had subconsciously been filling the craniums of deceased whites with more cottonseed than the craniums of deceased blacks.

However I do have questions about this that I would like answered.  How does lack of IQ points translate linearly into a penchant for violence?  Assault, violence against women, mugging.  Plus the long list of legal fiduciary crimes like skimming money from a corporation and calling this "capital gains."  I am not asking rhetorically, facetiously, ironically, etc.  I really do want to know.  What are the current theories in psychology?

Also, why would a drop in IQ points proportionately translate into increased violent urges?  What is the correlation?  Again, I am not asking to be sarcastic, sardonic, ironic, to put anyone in their place, etc.  I am truly curious.  There must be some neurological basis to this.  Some sort of brain chemistry that would offer some insight.

It needs to be noted that IQ does not necessarily correlate with morality.  Just because someone has a high IQ doesn't automatically mean they are a good person who has respect for their fellow human beings.  Having good judgement in matters of how to treat people, politeness, respect for someone's right to bodily autonomy, someone's right to personal space.  High raw intelligence on a person -- ability to solve puzzles and brain teasers, ability to understand science and mathematics -- does not automatically preclude that same person from turning into an evil villain that wants to block the sun from the earth thereby forcing the human race to bend to his/her will.

Now, many people with high IQs *do* have a strong sense of morality.  But are the two things intrinsically tied together as a neurological trait?  These two facets of a person's being, how much do they have to do with each other?  How closely related are a person's innate intelligence and this same person's sense of right and wrong?

My note that high IQ does not automatically correlate with increased morality was not quite based on whole facts.  This was mostly anecdotal; you know, the Nazi "medical" experimenters that were an excuse to torture and maim people, and the atom bomb, and the hydrogen bomb.

Hmm...  Perhaps not so anecdotal, after all.  This is a very interesting population survey that was published in Gene Expression online.  This might be due to the possibility that smart kids are better at risk-assessment:  any possible temporary benefits of casual sex are far outweighed by the possible long-term consequences of casual sex.  This guy here has some good commentary on the article.  In biomedical research, higher testosterone levels are documented to lead to more risky behavior, including increased aggression, increased sexual urges, increased violent urges, lower IQ, less impulse control, less ability for risk assessment, and less capacity for self-control. 

Okay, I went of on a branch for a bit, since I do not consider this part of the titular "wishful thinking."  It was just a fascinating bit of statistics that I thought worth mentioning.

•• The notion that women are less intelligent than men.  [[[___study that compared brain mass in women to brain mass in men___]]]]]
this was carried out in the late 1800s___
This is mostly juvenile hogwash.
they left out a few key facts, though.  ^it is the mass ratio of brain-to-body that determines intelligence, not simply brain mass. 
The ratio of brain mass to body mass does in fact determine intelligence.  blue whales have larger brains than humans.  However, an average blue whale is ___ kg, or __ pounds.  Humans have the largest brain-to-body mass ratio of all animals.  This comparison spans the entire kingdom animalae, from blue whales to gorillas.  In addition, female humans, on average, are smaller in mass than male humans.
^Besides brain mass, there are a host of other factors that determine intelligence.  Good cholesterol for neuron sheaths, sodium electrolyte content, to name just a few.

•• One of the more laughable theories is the one that claimed that in humans, outward signs of female fertility has moved from the butt to the boobs.  I wish I were making this up.  Hopefully, this has already been discredited with a swift guffaw.

•• Different types of intelligence.  I suspect that this list was devised partly to counteract any politically incorrect conclusions that have been drawn from previous intelligence tests.  On this list are things such as empathy, musical intelligence, sports intelligence, and art intelligence.  Erm, ok, well, those things are important of course; it is always good to have extracurricular activities and hobbies.  But to call them forms of straight-up intelligence seems a bit silly.  And things like empathy are very important, no question about that, but these are character traits, not the same thing as intelligence.

Monikering all these different -- and admittedly very important -- abilities in a human being as "intelligence" seems like a saccharine ploy to appeal to irritating parents, to try to reassure them that their kid isn't stupid.  Intelligence is important, but it is not the most important thing that makes a noble human being, and it certainly is not the only.  And musical or athletic ability is not dictionary-defined "intelligence."
I kinda sorta feel it's just bending to the will of PC types as well as powerful PC social lobby groups, like bloggers and stuff.

•• Ranting, raving nutbags that have the gall to call themselves "radical feminists" claim that the family unit is destructive, oppressive, abusive.  And that we should disband the family unit altogether because having any connection to one's heritage and ancestral culture is bad for society or something like that.

Well, to be fair, I don't think this was ever presented as being actual science.  It is unfortunate that proponents of this, um, theory, call themselves feminists.  They make normal, sane feminists look bad.  The fact is that the majority of feminists do want to get married and have families.  They just want that their husbands be involved and invested in the family and children, as well.  Look at the majority of feminists in the public sphere.  Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Bev Perdue, Eleanor Roosevelt, Indira Ghandi, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Nafisa Sadik, Queen Noor of Jordan -- they are all feminists, and they all have families as well.

These are but a few examples.  True, there are women such as Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan who never married nor had children.  But they are still normal, and they aren't sitting there saying that society should do away with nuclear families altogether.  And the vast majority of feminists, believe it or not, have not said that family is evil.  The central dogma of feminism is that of a woman pursuing career vs. family.  Feminists are not saying that either one is worse or better.  As individual human beings they are simply trying to decide which one is more important to themselves in their lives -- a sense of family or a sense of accomplishment.


I'm just trying to do my civic duty in exposing pseudo-science, separating it from true science.  Like James Randi, or like these guys:
http://loveofallwisdom.com/2010/01/cross-cultural-anorexia/

All that bias existing in the social sciences is unfortunately possible because it does not truly take heed to rigorous scientific protocol.  It does not truly pass standards of scientific research, data collecting, experimental design.  Any abstract concept such as psychology is always at the mercy of the opinions, whims, and personal experiences of the people that dabble in the subject.  It is not a distinct cut-and-dry field such as any of the science, math, engineering, technology fields.  It is obviously fluid and open to interpretation, and therefore it can unfortunately be manipulated to suit the personal agendas of its proponents.

It's all just opinion and conjecture anyway.  From the vast epochs of human experience, it is not a difficult task to be able to draw samples that can support just about any hypothesis your pretty little head can think of.  It might take some time, but invariably, it is realistically possible.

No better than other hoaxes that have come before it.  We have more sophisticated instruments nowadays, such as 3-D simulating software that can reconstruct skulls and stuff like that.  This only allows us to fool more people, more effectively, more believably.
P.T. Barnum "A sucker is born every minute."
Piltdown man

**And I'm not the only one that thinks so.  Recall the hoax enacted by the guy who successfully got a bullspit article published in an academic peer-reviewed journal.  He veritably played a social experiment prank on social studies itself.  He was able to demonstrate that in academia, the cloudy areas of philosophy and psychology, sure enough, there is a lot of fog backing up the prodigal airwaves.  Wishful thinking and empty pomp are perpetrated on the gullible academic world all the time, and this eventually trickles down to the unsuspecting public.

I tried half-heartedly to get through his essay, but I didn't understand what the hell it was talking about.  Good god, it was chock full of a bunch of words that were pedagogical, epistemological, epistemically, philosogistic, logogistic.  (I got those words from Wikipedia, so I hope they are accurate as used here.)  All of which the author probably crammed in there on purpose.

Well, in the social scientists' defense, this is not a recent trend.  Social research bias has been going on for as long as there has been social research.

Academic journals that set research guidelines are also aware of this.  Research parameters for recording data__  That is why double-blind methods were established for conducting behavioral research.  Double-blind means that the research subjects, the ones being experimented on, are unaware of what the experiment is testing for, like usual.  But also the researchers themselves who are observing and collecting data are also unaware of what the experiment is testing for.

An example is the double-blind method often used in clinical trials of new medications before hitting the market.  These precautions were enacted to correct for possible selective observation carried out by the researchers themselves.  The researchers who record results might subconsciously notice only the behaviors displayed by the test subjects that jives with the forecasted behaviors that the researchers expected to see -- this is what the double-blind method corrects for.

Unfortunately, double-blind research methods are not always used, due to the usual suspects of time and money constraints.  In many instances, not using double-blind methods is understandable.  The sheer magnitude of available information is overwhelming, and furiously jotting down every single behavior displayed by test subjects is wasteful of resources and of time.

Social darwinism
Eugenics
Sure, they certainly would not describe _themselves_ as social Darwinists, no argument there.  Nobody ever identifies themselves as social Darwinists, just the same as how no one would ever describe themselves as racist, sexist, misogynistic, bigoted, homophobic, hypocritical, closed-minded, prejudiced, stuck-up, conceited, up on one's high horse, up on a soapbox.  People do not like to use negative terminology to describe themselves, even if they do exhibit all the defining behavior.  What's in a name, all that good stuff.

Just like how zodiacs, horoscopes, dowsing, other forms of radiesthesia are all pseudosciences.  Hey, I love reading the horoscopes every day, meself.  It's fun.

Things like visiting a fortune teller at a carnival, practicing mind-reading with card tricks, seeing performance of a stage hypnotist.  Most people agree that with things like this, we don't even need to bother calling them "pseudoscience."  Leave the "science" word out altogether.  Nobody in their right mind thinks of any of this as "science."  Although we do have fun with it anyway.  Just call it what it is -- entertainment.