Xref: utzoo sci.bio:902 soc.men:2628 soc.women:9277 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!bellcore!faline!ulysses!gamma!pyuxp!rruxa!mjm From: mjm@rruxa.UUCP (M Muller) Newsgroups: sci.bio,soc.men,soc.women Subject: Re: Rape: a genetic catastrophe Summary: why adhere to a damaging, fully discredited theory, unless . . .? Message-ID: <376@rruxa.UUCP> Date: 8 Feb 88 14:01:17 GMT References: <517@gtx.com> <5129@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <2201@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <4371@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> Organization: Bell Communications Research Lines: 137 Posted: Mon Feb 8 09:01:17 1988 In article <4371@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>, dmcanzi@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (David Canzi) writes: > In article <373@rruxa.UUCP> mjm@rruxa.UUCP (M Muller) writes: > >Okay, here are my reasons for being opposed to the hypothesis (and I > >feel that I'm being asked to repeat myself). If you get bored, zoom > >ahead to reason number 8. > > ...ZOOM... > > >8. My main reason for arguing against the genetic-basis-of-rape > > position is that it can be used to excuse the existing violence > > against women in western culture... > > > > If, on the other hand, we recognize rape for what I believe > > it is -- a violent act based in social inequities and intended > > to promote or maintain those inequities -- then we have rather > > less sympathy for the rapist... > > And buried in here is the reason why so many people are disturbed by > your arguments. "buried in here"? Not buried at all. Stated simply and plainly -- but as a _conclusion_ to my discussion, not (as you treat it) as my only argument. "so many people"? not according to the email I've received, approximately 70-30 in support of what I've said > Your main reason for arguing against the hypothesis > (hereinafter called GBR for brevity) is that you believe that people > will act a certain way if they believe it, and you don't want them to > act that way. So your arguments are, in effect, motivated by a desire > to control other people's actions by influencing their beliefs. Nope. My main reason is that the hypothesis gives support to something that is repugnant, and that the hypothesis can affect people's attitudes toward women and toward violence against women. I am well aware that I cannot control other people's actions. I can argue against some of the premises on which they base those actions. I do so. _If_ the hypothesis were scientifically tenable, it would be worth discussing. But it is not, as I showed in the first seven points of my article -- which points you chose to omit in your quotation. You apparently preferred to claim that I was making a wholly political statement rather than a politically-relevant conclusion based on scientific considerations. This type of selective quoting distorts the sense of the argument, and is at best misleading. The first seven points considered the hypothesis on its own sorry merits, and found it scientifically incredible. It is so easy to show that human rape does _not_ operate in a way to increase reproductive fitness. I restated arguments that others and I have made in previous postings, and which no one has been able to refute. The "scientific" basis of the hypothesis is laughable. So why do people find it so attractive? And why does it happen that almost all of the people who are so drawn to it turn out to be male? > If you are right about the way people will behave if they believe GBR, > then they will behave the same whether their belief is mistaken or > not. So whether or not GBR is true is beside the point: the important > thing is to make sure that people don't believe it. Wrong again. The important thing is to make sure that the fantasies which underly the GBR hypothesis do not go unchallenged. The important thing is to make sure that a demonstrably fallacious argument is not used to endanger women's lives. People will make their own choices about beliefs. I can attempt to influence those choices. So, obviously, can you, as you attempt to do in your posting. You're trying to support one claim, and I think you would not accuse yourself of trying to "control other people's actions" or of trying to "make sure that people . . . believe . . ." Why are your motivations in stating your views any different from mine? > It sounds like I'm accusing you of dishonesty, but I'm not. I believe > that you are 100% sincere in your belief that there is no genetic basis > for rape, and that one of your grounds for reaching this conclusion was > a consideration of how other people will behave if they believe it. Not "one of [my] _grounds_". I listed the stakes involved in the conclusion. I also listed seven other reasons based on scientific criteria or on observations of the process of scientific reasoning, before I introduced the issue that has you so concened. But you keep on not talking about those. > And it only seems natural that somebody who disagrees with a hypothesis > because a political purpose of his would be frustrated if many people > believed it would see those who advance or entertain that hypothesis as > motivated by an opposite purpose. And lo and behold, this theme runs > through all your postings. People who suggest that intelligence is > heritable *must* be motivated by a desire to oppress blacks, people who > suggest GBR *must* be motivated by a desire to excuse rape, or so you > seem to think. Wrong three times. My point -- a point which is shared by a number of people whom you appear not to have read, including Kamin, Lewontin, Rose, Gould, Rose, Sunday, Tobach, etc., etc. -- is that there is very little supportable base of evidence for these "scientific" positions. If you take the trouble to read the critiques, you will find that some or all of the "analyses" used by proponents of these positions are either (a) methodologically botched, or (b) demonstrably falsified. Because there is little or no untainted evidence, we wonder why so many people -- people who just happen to be benefited by these theories -- find them some compelling. There has to be a motivation _somewhere_ for people to insist on the validity of "scientific" theories for which there is no evidence. Scientists aren't generally supposed to do things like that. What's _your_ explanation? > As I said, I do not believe you are lying. You are all the more > disturbing because you are honest. You seem to form your beliefs about > the world by a process that is largely independent of the > characteristics of that world, and seem to be incapable of telling the > difference between truth and falsehood. As I showed in the portion of my article which you chose _not_ to quote (and as I showed in previous articles, and as others have showed in their articles), it is the rape hypothesis and the IQ hypothesis that continue to live in people's minds "by a process that is largely independent of the characteristics of [the] world." And it is the proponents of these hypotheses who seem, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary (try reading Sunday and Toback, Gould, Kamin . . .) "to be incapable of telling the difference between truth and falsehood." David, why haven't you refuted the scientific points that I made? Why not start with the _basis_ of my argument, and then see what is left of your hypotheses by the time you arrive at my _conclusion_? Why not analyze honestly what I have said in some detail, instead of attacking my conclusions without considering their foundation? I'd be interested to hear what you think of the scientific points on which I based my conclusion. If you can't speak to those points, then you can have little useful to say about a conclusion based on them. Michael Muller Bellcore I wish that my views were Bell Communications Research representative of those ..!bellcore!ctt!mjm of my employer.