The article link will take you to the rantings of an idiot by the name of Tony Ortega who argues not only that evolutionary psychology is stupid but specifically the people working at my university.
my comment to his featured blog:
Great job Tony, you managed to attack an entire field of science without providing any supportive evidence to back up your claims. That's truly impressive. The fact that you were able to write 850 words and yet do so without even accidentally forming one logical thought is a feat not easily accomplished. I find it absolutely astounding that the big shots at Scientific America have failed find someone as wonderful as you to write for them. I can tell you this Tony that I plan at once to cancel my subscription to their awesome magazine until they stop hiring scientifically trained writers who have silly jobs such as being the Director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture at a major university. Instead I hope they get any joe ortege off the streets who relies on passion and emotion rather then scientific data to tell others what is and is not science.
Also I might add Tony it was a nice touch to begin the blog by citing one very extreme racist researcher that used science to push his own agenda. Relying on this as your only example of the evils of evolutionary psychology. If MacDonald had believed that their was a gene for anti-Semitism, would it be correct to then argue that all geneticists are agenda pushing genocidal maniacs.
Tony then goes on to argue that almost all evolutionary psychologists who study sexuality are male sex crazed perverts. The blatant ignorance of your argument leads me to assume that you have not read any research being produced in the area nor have you attended any conferences otherwise you would have noticed that their are a lot of women who also study this. The fact that you believe that only men would be interested in studying sexuality makes you the sexist not them.
Obviously you know little about reproductive behaviors, steaming no doubt from your own lack of experience, and that is probably why you fail to see the need in studying it. Science focused on trying to understand aspects of the anatomy and morphology of the penis and vagina using evolutionary theory or understanding behavioral adaptations toward sexuality is not dirty and it is definitely not pseudoscience. I would actually attempt to explain this to you in further detail and I would be able to do so through providing empirical work rather then just saying it’s stupid, if I thought it would not be lost on you. Do you understand what I am getting at? If you want to take the time to attack a particular theory you need to provide evidence as to why something is incorrect. This is best accomplished by branching out from using one source (Reischel) and actually reading the studies that are actually being produced in the area. While your doing this I would also recommend looking over what the scientific method entails because you seem a bit confused.
I think it would be better for all parties involved Tony if you would take the time to do some research next time you try to attack something that your only knowledge of comes from one girl named Reischel.
In another disgusting display of sexual profiling, a flamboyantly dressed Nurse Shark was assaulted last week by a couple of oppressive scuba-divers in Jupiter, Florida.
The divers identified the free-swimming creature by its neon-pink dress collar, and proceeded to jump the shark in an inhumane frenzy of shallow water judgment.
This single despicable act may have set gay shark rights back 100 years; not to mention a devastating blow to the already damaged public image of Nurse Sharks worldwide.
I can only hope we will one day accept Ginglyhomostoma cirratum as noble, respectable creatures.
This article breaks down what you can expect HTML 5 to do and not do. The primary changes look to be native support for rich media like audio and video and some logical division of document sections negating the need for extremely common div classes - ie footers.
It also looks like some style stuff like underlining will become the sole responsibility of CSS.
Scott Fujita, a Linebacker with the Super Bowl winning New Orleans Saints has signed as a free agent with the Cleveland Browns. Before leaving however, he donated half his Super Bowl earnings to charity. The gift was divided equally going to both Haiti relief efforts and New Orleans restoration projects.
It's nice to see that there are NFL players who make non-football news without shooting, robbing or raping someone.
Sacha Baron Cohen of Ali-G, Borat and Bruno fame scares the Oscars people so much that they'd prefer he just stay home. Apparently they rejected his bid to host early on and recently cut his presentation skit as well. He was going to be poking fun at James Cameron and Avatar by dressing up as the avatar girl and pretending Cameron was the father of her love child.
Whoever Oscar is, he clearly doesn't have a sense of humor.
If I were them, I'd now be extremely fearful that Cohen was gunning for me. I'd not want to be on that guys shitlist.
Publishers, guided by the attributor.com enforcement company will be starting some level of legal campaign against sites that pirate their media and violate their copyright. Essentially they don't want people taking the contents of entire news articles and putting them on other sites.
They are not seeking past damages. they just want infringing sites to either stop using the material, or pay licensing fees for it.
I'm curious if any of the publishers in the attributor coalition don't offer licensing fees, or if this is just a strong arm advertising campaign for publishers that do.
Either way, remember to be vigilant when writing article summaries to links that you don't accidentally copy it verbatim.
Cool article by Brandon Reinhart of Valve discussing the upcoming engineer update for Team Fortress 2. He goes into detail about a new item - The Repair Node - that was fully developed but ultimately canned due to it's impact on the overall game.
If you are into this kind of thing, this article gives some really cool insight on the game design behind Team Fortress 2 and how they come up with their weapon and map designs.
From the article: "This is usually how we approach our game design: Identify a problem, then discuss the ways it could be solved. Our experience told us that even when the Engineer didn't feel immediate pressure, he still couldn't range out away from his base. If a Spy, Soldier, or Demoman found the base unguarded, it didn't take long to blow up. The further away an Engineer was, the fewer buildings he would be able to save from sapping. We also felt that the Engineer invested a lot of up-front work to establish bases that were very easily destroyed. Thus the repair node was born."
A girl working at a drive through window was handed a leaflet by a customer. The leaflet explained that if you had received it, its because the way you are dressed is tempting men to rape you...even if only in their minds.
It makes me think we should just carry around an arsenal of leaflets for different reasons.
side note: i was also amused that the url was truncated by 1 letter indicating that ungodly dressed women provoke rap. i couldn't agree more.
The FAA has blown a fuse over a child clearing two aircraft for take off. The kids father brought him to work to JFK's air traffic control tower and with an obvious supervision allowed the boy to use the radio to direct the planes to take off.
MS 4-0-3, contact departure, adios," the boy said.
"Adios, amigo," the boy said.
"Adios, amigo," the pilot responded. "Over to departure, Jet Blue 195."
The boys father and his supervisor were forced to take leave pending an investigation.
The FAA is blowing a good thing out of proportion. Its not like it was Jenny Mccarthy's or Sarah Palin's kid...or Sarah Palin for that matter.
Essentially, the Northwest Yeshiva Girls Basketball Team forfeited a game because it was on a holiday (Fast of Esther) where they are not allowed to drink water. The coaches decided this was not a safe way to play (dehydrated i guess). The article mentions that some people admired the girls for honoring their faith. it also mentions some people being upset that the game couldn't be rescheduled. No one mentions that this is just another example of a religion getting in the way of things.
Say what you want about atheists. At least we never have some bullshit excuse for why we can't get something done.
It is still unclear what motivated Tilikum the Killer Whale to grab and thrash trainer Dawn Brancheau like a chew toy, but my personal guess is it had something to do with the fact that the animal is a twelve hundred pound sea predator.
Scientific American doesn't have any more insight than I do, but they did interview Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northwest Fisheries Science Center, who offers some insight on the behavior of Killer Whales in general.
Whether or not Tilikum was being aggressive or playful at the time of Brancheau's death is impossible to know, but I suppose the lesson here is it doesn't really matter.
Leaping even further beyond all competition, Valve has launched the open beta for the new Steam UI update. Anyone with steam can click here and opt-in to the beta.
After monkeying around for a few minutes, it seems that most of the new UI is still missing, however it gives a good idea of what the new Steam will be. It looks like Valve is finally integrating all the bits and bites that has been added to Steam over the years, so now friends and achievements info is more readily available right from the games library. The download tool looks to be a bit handier as well.
With all the goods being offered up for the affordable price of $0, I wonder why anyone would willingly pay for Xbox Live?
Andrew Koenig, almost famous for playing Boner on TV's Growing Pains has gone missing. The "despondent" son of Star Trek's Walter Koenig (Chekov) apparently does not want to be found. Sounds like a job for VH1's Where are they now. In the meantime Kirk Cameron is praying for Boner's safe return.
I just came across this and I absolutely loved it. Mark Twain wrote this letter in 1905 in which he completely pwned these snake oil peddlers. Apparently they marketed with their product with the claim that it would cure many diseases, some of which Mark's family members had recently died of. So you can say Mark is passionate to say the least.
Nov. 20. 1905
J. H. Todd
1212 Webster St.
San Francisco, Cal.
Dear Sir,
Your letter is an insoluble puzzle to me. The handwriting is good and exhibits considerable character, and there are even traces of intelligence in what you say, yet the letter and the accompanying advertisements profess to be the work of the same hand. The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link. It puzzles me to make out how the same hand could have constructed your letter and your advertisements. Puzzles fret me, puzzles annoy me, puzzles exasperate me; and always, for a moment, they arouse in me an unkind state of mind toward the person who has puzzled me. A few moments from now my resentment will have faded and passed and I shall probably even be praying for you; but while there is yet time I hasten to wish that you may take a dose of your own poison by mistake, and enter swiftly into the damnation which you and all other patent medicine assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve.
Neat Scientific American article on the biochemistry of sperm movement. Get your flagella flippin' and read all about it.
The article also mentions a link between marijuana use and infertility, stating that a stimulated endocannabinoid system likely leaves sperm burnt out in a matter of hours.
This would be laughable if it wasn't so sad. A judge has ruled that Colin Hay and his 80's Australian rock band Men At Work plagiarized 'Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree' in parts of its hit song 'Down Under'. The ruling means the current owners of the Kookaburra song stand to get as much as 60 percent of the back royalties.
I know the song they are talking about. I know the riff. Its 3 notes and yes it totally sounds like that stupid kids song. The difference is, that kids song is that riff and that riff alone. 'Down Under' has a lot more going on and could exist without that 3 note riff.
Apparently the company suing is a big greedy music company called Larrikin so its not like the money is going to some poor family of the dead lady that wrote the children's song a billion years ago.
Don't taint such a good song with your corporate bullshit!!!!
A dozen years ago, a British physician named Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a paper in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet that did immeasurable harm to children.
Wakefield, who back in 1998 was working at London’s Royal Free Hospital, claimed in the article that the vaccination of 12 children with measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine had caused a reaction in their bowels that caused autism.
At a press conference shortly after the paper came out, Wakefield urged parents not to give their children the combination vaccine.
The British press went crazy over the report. The word and the fear quickly spread around the world.
Since the controversial paper was published, British parents abandoned the vaccine in droves, leading to a resurgence of measles. Vaccination rates for measles have never recovered, and there are outbreaks of the disease in the U.K. every year.
And across the globe, millions of parents who choose to follow their own doctors' advice and vaccinate their children have had to face the anxiety of an alleged link to a dread disease.
All this despite the fact that no scientists were ever able to replicate Wakefield's findings.
Yesterday, The Lancet, after years of investigations, lawsuits, press complaints and accusations, took the unprecedented step of withdrawing this 12-year-old article as misleading and false...
Although there is no reliable estimate as to how many dogs have had their vocal cords cut, veterinarians and other animal experts say that dogs with no bark can readily be found — but not necessarily heard — in private homes, on the show-dog circuit, and even on the turf of drug dealers, who are said to prefer their attack dogs silent.
The surgery usually leaves the animal with something between a wheeze and a squeak. The procedure, commonly referred to as debarking, has been around for decades, but has fallen out of favor, especially among younger veterinarians and animal-rights advocates.
Critics of the debarking procedure say it is outdated and inhumane, one that destroys an animal’s central means of communication merely for the owner’s convenience. Many veterinarians refuse to do the surgery on ethical grounds. Those who do rarely advertise it.
New Jersey bans devocalization surgery except for medical or therapeutic reasons, as do Britain and other European countries. Similar legislation is pending in Massachusetts, while Ohio restricts the surgery to nonviolent dogs.
But there are still those who perform the operation, and they and other advocates defend the surgery as a useful option for dog owners facing noise complaints and possible eviction.
The article link will take you to the rantings of an idiot by the name of Tony Ortega who argues not only that evolutionary psychology is stupid but specifically the people working at my university. 
In another disgusting display of sexual profiling, a flamboyantly dressed Nurse Shark was assaulted last week by a couple of oppressive scuba-divers in Jupiter, Florida. 
This article breaks down what you can expect HTML 5 to do and not do. The primary changes look to be native support for rich media like audio and video and some logical division of document sections negating the need for extremely common div classes - ie footers. 
Scott Fujita, a Linebacker with the Super Bowl winning New Orleans Saints has signed as a free agent with the Cleveland Browns. Before leaving however, he donated half his Super Bowl earnings to charity. The gift was divided equally going to both Haiti relief efforts and New Orleans restoration projects. 
Sacha Baron Cohen of Ali-G, Borat and Bruno fame scares the Oscars people so much that they'd prefer he just stay home. Apparently they rejected his bid to host early on and recently cut his presentation skit as well. He was going to be poking fun at James Cameron and Avatar by dressing up as the avatar girl and pretending Cameron was the father of her love child.
Publishers, guided by the attributor.com enforcement company will be starting some level of legal campaign against sites that pirate their media and violate their copyright. Essentially they don't want people taking the contents of entire news articles and putting them on other sites. 
Cool article by Brandon Reinhart of Valve discussing the upcoming engineer update for Team Fortress 2. He goes into detail about a new item - The Repair Node - that was fully developed but ultimately canned due to it's impact on the overall game. 
A girl working at a drive through window was handed a leaflet by a customer. The leaflet explained that if you had received it, its because the way you are dressed is tempting men to rape you...even if only in their minds. 
The FAA has blown a fuse over a child clearing two aircraft for take off. The kids father brought him to work to JFK's air traffic control tower and with an obvious supervision allowed the boy to use the radio to direct the planes to take off.
Apparently the duo responsible for the record setting video game Modern Warfare 2 and is predecessors are not getting along so well. 
It is still unclear what motivated Tilikum the Killer Whale to 
Leaping even further beyond all competition, Valve has launched the open beta for the new Steam UI update. Anyone with steam can click 
Andrew Koenig, almost famous for playing Boner on TV's Growing Pains has gone missing. The "despondent" son of Star Trek's Walter Koenig (Chekov) apparently does not want to be found. Sounds like a job for VH1's Where are they now. In the meantime Kirk Cameron is praying for Boner's safe return.
I just came across this and I absolutely loved it. Mark Twain wrote this letter in 1905 in which he completely pwned these snake oil peddlers. Apparently they marketed with their product with the claim that it would cure many diseases, some of which Mark's family members had recently died of. So you can say Mark is passionate to say the least. 
Okay, maybe they dont know where you live, but these bees were taught to recognize faces when rewarded with suger to do so.
Neat Scientific American article on the biochemistry of sperm movement. Get your flagella flippin' and read all about it.
A dozen years ago, a British physician named Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a paper in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet that did immeasurable harm to children.
Although there is no reliable estimate as to how many dogs have had their vocal cords cut, veterinarians and other animal experts say that dogs with no bark can readily be found — but not necessarily heard — in private homes, on the show-dog circuit, and even on the turf of drug dealers, who are said to prefer their attack dogs silent.
