We’ve already heard from the so-called Thinking Housewife on the subject of Sally Ride. Meanwhile, over on The Spearhead, the regulars also have opinions about Ride. Regular commenter Keyster has this to say about Ride’s work in promoting science and technology education for girls:
She was supposed to have inspired a generation of girls to take science and math. While she may have inspired the “Grrl Esteem” movement, very few girls went on to get degrees in math and science as a result of Sally Ride … .
She was frustrated by the fact young girls were very interested in math and science initially, “…but for some reason we lose them around the age of 13.” MMmmm…I wonder why that would be. Because they discovered an interest in boys? Not surprisingly, Sally was able to keep her interest.
That’s right: girls are incapable of thinking about both math and boys. Lesbians are the only women who can sustain an interest in math, because their brains aren’t cluttered with thoughts of Justin Bieber. (Ok, bad example.)
In another comment, Keyster expresses his annoyance at the fact that Ride turned out to be capable of astronautery despite being a woman.
Sally Ride proved that a woman can have “the right stuff”, like Amelia Earheart proved a woman can fly long distances.
OK so now that we know she won’t become hysterical during her period while in outerspace and allow her used tampons to clog the toilet, what do we do with this information? Just because a woman accomplishes something normally associated with men, is this inspiring young girls to spontaneously excel en masse and compete against men in male dominated arenas? Or are women like Sally Ride the exceptions that prove the rule?
You know, “exceptions that prove the rule” aren’t actually a thing. The fact that Ride was a capable astronaut doesn’t actually “prove the rule” that women aren’t capable as astronauts, but instead suggests that this particular rule is not a real rule. You would think that Keyster, as a logical male, would understand this.
Says the man whose primary political position relies entirely on technology that does not exist except in the Deus Ex game franchise,
I, for one, welcome our…
sigh.
Star Trek!
I thought it was someone with a b&w avatar! Danke, danke!
I beg your pardon, but my goal is in the realm of speculation. And that is distinct from sci-fi. My point is that Dr Who is not a reliable source when it comes to understanding why people are the way they are. And yes, many sci-fi writers are scientists, but even they understand that when they write fiction they are not obliged to be scientifically accurate.
I am highly amused by the hostility towards evopsych around here. What gives? Are ya’all a bunch of biblefreaks or somethin??? :-p
Evopsych is a model. And it happens to be one which works astonishingly well. I love it when people try to counter a reductionist explanation for human behavior with “people are complex”/”its so much more complicated than that”. Seems like they forgot all about Occams razor.
MSN, that’s not what Occam’s Razor means. Simplest explanation *that fits the data.* Unfortunately, humans are super-complex, so we need relatively complicated explanations.
I read an evopsych and gender book once. I came away from it thinking “this would make much more sense if everyone was gay, and men and women met up once a year for the Grand Hump in order to propigate the species.”
Nom, while I appreciate your gracious efforts to turn us all into cybermen, and hope things go well for you, I have to second Eri’s comments on where you get the impression that all scientists are emotional stable? It hasn’t been the impression of the people that I have met. They aren’t insane, but they certainly have similar problems to normal people. I’d also question whether anyone who has chosen a career path where they get paid probably 50% of what they would if they have taken another direction is logical.
Nom nom your transhumanist theories or philosophy is no less or more speculative than sci fi.
Dr Who is not the be all and end all of sci fi thinking of humanity. There’s quite a broad range. I brought up the Dr. Simply because I’m watching it. And it happens to jive with a lot of philosophy.
I know that everyone else has already pointed out how hypocritical our friend Om Nom Nom is . . . but damn! I just can’t get over the fact that the dude who thinks that The Terminator presents as ideal vision of the future is criticizing other people for getting ideas from science fiction.
>>>I am highly amused by the hostility towards evopsych around here. What gives? Are ya’all a bunch of biblefreaks or somethin???
Evopsych is to evolutionary biology as phrenology is to neurology.
There’s a logical leap you need to do in between the obviously true statement “human brains were subjected to natural selection and evolutionary pressures” and the ridiculous “therefore all these gender stereotypes that aren’t universal because we have multiple examples of other cultures who don’t follow them AND we even have some of them that were not true in OUR OWN culture as recently as a century ago are the result of this just so story that shows how they evolved from pre-human biological imperatives”, and the distance is a massive chasm that none of the evopsych pseudo-scientists have constructed a bridge over.
HAHAHAHA wow. Did it work well the time that evo psych said black women are “objectively less attractive” based on their rating on a 10 point scale by straight, white scientists? How about the eighty billion times that they’ve said that men were hunters and women were gatherers, despite both archaeology and common sense showing that isn’t true?
Hint: evo psych is a thing because overpriviliged dudes, like yourself, will believe anything no matter how ridiculous if it confirms what you already believe.
@creativewritingstudent
Conversely, a lot of evo psych models are instantly disproved by the revelation that gay people exist and thus sexual attraction is not primarily determined by futurebabies.
I dunno why I am even engaging with you seeing as you are an admitted troll but I figured I’d just stroll on by and leave a few things here
yes because it’s not like science fiction is a form of speculative fiction or anything
Evopsych is a model that “works well” the way homeopathy is a model that “works well”.
I dunno why I am even engaging with you seeing as you are an admitted troll but I figured I’d just stroll on by and leave a few things here
yes because it’s not like science fiction is a form of speculative fiction or anything
occam’s razor is just a general rule of thumb, bro, it means “don’t complicate things unnecessarily”, not “bludgeon all your evidence into a single model because you’re obsessed with platonic simplicity”. sometimes complication is definitely necessary and a multi-level system like human social interaction is very complicated indeed. i would try to explain to you about “levels of explanation”, the merits and pitfalls of reductionist models in science, and emergent systems explanations for human psychology but you are a moron who likes to poke us like an ant hill so i’m not going to even bother. i’m sure you can use the google if you really want to know.
i’m going to go help my parents shovel dirt; you keep shoveling crap on the internet awhile
most evopsych claims are non-falsifiable. it’s not real science.
that tends to happen when you start from the conclusion and work backwards to find premises that fit. but again, we can’t actually tell whether evopsych works because -not testable. not science. just stories.
I wasn’t trying to have a pissing contest with YOU about who’s more of a victim, Ostara. BTW, why do you shop @ Walmart? Unless there are no other nearby stores and/or you have no means of getting to other department stores that aint walmart, you shouldn’t patronize such a vile business.
With regards to being disabled, my point is that someone with a physical disability is not perceived as being a serious THREAT the way someone(male) with a non-physical disability is. You are aware, are you not, that black men are viewed as being more “dangerous” than black women? In this day and age, anyone and everyone who stands out and is perceived in the slightest possible way to be threatening is actively excluded even if they’ve done nothing wrong. Men are more violent than women as a group and there’s plenty of stats that back this up. That is why people feel threatened by men who are abnormal far more so than abnormal women.
Complicated is a relative term. But what thing to keep in mind is that complexity does not imply irreducibility. It’s as if some people want to believe that human behavior can only be understood through intuition and not ratiocination.
Holy shit is the “oppression” that MSN is complaining about that people find him creepy? Because you are a self-admitted misogynist, dude. When people find you creepy and think you’re more likely to harm women, they’re correct.
@MSN
Also, how do you feel about the blatantly false claims that evo-psych has made, that I pointed out above?
Evopsych has always reminded me of the game show Family Feud. The correct answer matters not one iota. What counts for a win is whatever the most people think the answer is.
In evopsych surveys confirming the biases of the person doing the study are always the right result. The media is ever eager to popularize evopsych surveys.
So if a racist white bitch finds black guys “creepy” and thinks he’s more likely to rape her than a white guy, she’s correct. GOT IT.
So…we’re back to talking about nomnom again. Yeah…I think I’ll go back to watching the Dr.
So has anyone mentioned how damn pretentious omnom sounds? I mean he is the perfect example of the people you see all over the internet. Arrogant, holier-than-thou dudes that go on and on about how horrible humans are yet they seem to have all the answers to everything, all while circle jerking to their Matrix fantasies. Grow the fuck up. Transhumanism is certainly an interesting topic, but it all sounds like a bunch of unrealistic, pseudo scientific stuff that is more suited to movies and stuck up fanboy fantasies like omnoms. Grow up dude, you are no better than the rest of the human race you want to replace with machinery.
it’s pretty much is only distinguishing characteristic