More Evidence Social Scientists Are Philosophical Dullards

Is it any surprise that the evolutionary theory of humanity
corrupts clear thinking?

As reported earlier (13 April 2022), the social sciences are in trouble. Physicists and biologists wonder whether the word “science” is even appropriate for fields like psychology, sociology, and anthropology.

All sciences rely on two values: truth and integrity. The first lies within the disciplines of ontology and epistemology, the two main branches of philosophy (“love of wisdom”). The second lies within moral philosophy, the third branch of philosophy. But if truth and integrity arose from ape brains, and ultimately from slime, abandon all hope of sound reasoning. Some social scientists exhibit that hopelessness. Here are recent examples.

Muscle-building linked to weapon carrying and physical fighting (Medical Xpress, 16 May 2022).

Scientists are supposed to be trained in a modicum of logic, including the well-known trap that “association is not causation.” This article summarizes a paper from sociologists at the University of Toronto published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence (ever heard of that rag before?). They make the following association mistake: boys who train with weights are at risk of violent behaviors.

Analyzing over 4,000 U.S. boys in high schools, from the 2019 National High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey, researchers found that moderate to high engagement in muscle-building exercise is associated with physical fighting and carrying weapons, such as a gun, knife, or club.

Aside from the observational fact that muscle exercise goes with males like fertilizer to plants, this paper commits numerous fallacies. Breathes there a man that would not like better muscle tone? Not all can achieve it, due to genetics, heavy schedules, disabilities or other priorities, but strength improvement is part of a man’s nature, and weightlifting is a necessary way to go about it. Indeed, health advice all over the internet stresses the benefits of weightlifting exercise for both men and women. Since males have more muscle mass, they are naturally drawn to muscle-building exercise like ducks to water.

These researchers should have understood that the class of those engaging in muscle-building exercise includes all boys and men, at least in the desire to capitalize on their genetic inheritance. And since males for all of human history, due to their larger average size and strength, have been the primary fighters and protectors of a society, why should it be surprising that they are drawn to weapons? Does it follow that every boy or man who lifts weights and knows how to use a gun is a felon waiting to be triggered? Whatever happened to responsibility?

Even so, the correlations found in the surveys were not all that strong. The vast majority of males engaging in muscle building did not carry weapons or fight in the prior year. How many wimpy or fat males carry guns? Why didn’t they research that? How many legitimate gun-carrying young men work out with weights because it’s part of their career path in law enforcement or the military? Were the sample size and population distributions properly carried out to prevent bias? Human intentions are notoriously difficult to measure because we have free wills. Survey participants can easily deceive themselves or the investigators; it’s not like measuring flow rate or ballistic trajectory in physics.

Aha, now we find the reasons for this illogical paper: political correctness and leftist views about gender.

Gender socialization and interpersonal behaviors further develop during adolescence, while risk-taking behaviors among adolescents are relatively high. The study’s findings highlight the importance of establishing interventions and educational initiatives in schools to discuss gender equity and addresses violence for adolescent boys.

What is meant by “violence” anyway? Many responsible decent men will fight to stop a fight, or rush into danger to save a life. Men and women will lift weights, exercise and learn martial arts for self-protection, hoping never to have to use their training. These researchers should be grateful that there are plenty of men willing to strengthen themselves and make themselves ready to serve, protect and defend their fellow citizens. Don’t emasculate them with the “gender equity” fad.

Sure, gang violence and gun crime are serious and growing problems among young men, especially recently. But it is not caused by muscle-building exercise. Why didn’t the researchers associate violence with fatherless homes, increase in drug traffic, or the sharp decline in moral teaching in schools? Why didn’t they associate it with increased sense of futility after years of indoctrination into evolution? This paper gets an F in logic and moral philosophy.

Fallacies in this paper: half truth, misuse of statistics, extrapolation, non-sequitur, glittering generalities, association fallacy, either-or fallacy, loaded words, reductionism. Learn about these in our Baloney Detector and teach them to your sociology prof.

Men work out on time borrowed from women: study (Phys.org, 6 May 2022).

Whenever you see the word “study” in a science news article, prepare to be hoodwinked. This “study” is one more leftist PC rant masquerading as social “science.” In another blame-the-man tantrum, the PC authors cried “unfair” that men get more “elastic time” to exercise but don’t return the favor to women. It’s published in a journal so it must be true.

Men appear to “borrow” free time from their female partners to keep up their exercise but women don’t get the same time in return, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU) published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

But wait. Women don’t exist, according to the same PC crowd. Lia Thomas, a biological male, won all the prizes in the women’s swimming team, remember? (4 April 2022). So why can’t the men identify as women to claim the same unfairness against trans men? And why don’t the women who feel unfairly treated identify as men and solve their petty hissy fit? Cue sound of logical implosion.

More mass shootings are happening at grocery stores; 13% of shooters motivated by racial hatred, criminologists find (The Conversation, 15 May 2022).

The tears are not dry from the latest mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, but leftist criminologists are already screaming “racism” and “white supremacy,” following Democrat President Joe Biden’s over-the-top assertion that “white supremacy” is the most dangerous threat to “democracy” in all of American history, more than Antifa, BLM rioters and communists. With tragic unconcern for the weeping victims, the MSM (mainstream media) are echoing the mayor’s rush to judgment that the perpetrator was driven by “white supremacy” which, according to PC mythology, is the common stigma of conservative Christians and Trump supporters (see fear-mongering in the Baloney Detector).

This article claims, with dubious methodology, that 13% of mass shootings in retail stores are driven by racism, just “slightly above the average for all mass shooting events.” But that implies that at least 87% are not due to racism. And in the Buffalo case, it’s not even clear that the shooter knew what racism is. Tucker Carlson on his May 16 evening Fox News program analyzed the shooter’s “manifesto” and described it as a mess of contradictory ideas and rambling, incoherent outbursts indicative of mental illness. Indeed, the shooter had a prior record of mental illness and a propensity for violence; last year, he had expressed a plan to shoot up his school.

The perpetrator had obviously displayed enough presence of mind to plan out his crime in detail, but to whatever degree he possessed some sanity, it’s not clear that his racism was politically motivated. John West of the Discovery Institute today pointed to a more likely culprit for his racism: Darwinian “science” (Evolution News, 16 May 2022). Sadly, as West shows, it was not the only case of mass murder driven by evolutionary teachings.

Readers of MSM or sociological “science” are not likely to hear that kind of causation. What, did racism evolve? Then it’s not bad, is it? To paraphrase Forrest Gump (“stupid is as stupid does”), evolution is as evolution does. The shooter was just a non-cooperator in a vast amoral game run by selfish genes. The moment a sociologist claims a mass shooting is wrong is the moment he or she plagiarizes Moses. Logical coherence of one’s propositions is required in philosophy, but not in “social science.”

Humans may have evolved to show signs of stress to evoke support from others (University of Portsmouth, 13 May 2022).

Yes, they may have. Then again, they may not have. Logic, remember? Where is your evidence to turn “may have” into a fact, you social “scientists” and “researchers”? The photo of a woman making a weird face at the top of the press release does not constitute evidence.

ASL sign for “stupid”

Showing signs of stress could make us more likeable and prompt others to act more positively towards us, according to a new study [prepare to be hoodwinked] by scientists at Nottingham Trent University and the University of Portsmouth….

Dr Jamie Whitehouse, research fellow at NTU’s School of Social Sciences and research lead, said: “We wanted to find out what advantages there might be in signalling stress to others, to help explain why stress behaviours have evolved in humans.

“If producing these behaviours leads to positive social interactions from others who want to help, rather than negative social interactions from those who want to compete with you, then these behaviours are likely to be selected in the evolutionary process. We are a highly cooperative species compared to many other animals, and this could be why behaviours which communicate weakness were able to evolve.”

Since natural selection reduces to the Stuff Happens Law, let us translate this proposition into plain English: “these behaviors are likely to just happen in ‘that empirically unattested sub-variant of chance he [Darwin] chose to term natural selection'” (see Neil Thomas, Evolution News, 7 April 2022)…. “this could be why behaviors which communicate weakness were able to happen by chance.” It could be why, but it could also not be why. That’s how the Stuff Happens Law works. Flip a coin.

Is climate change affecting parent choices? (Flinders University, 6 May 2022).

Tagged with the word “sociology,” this article commits a doozy of a non-sequitur known as false cause or blaming the victim. Consider:

New research is asking whether Australian women consider the world a safe and promising place for children and the next generation to flourish.

The national study [prepare to be hoodwinked] is seeking input from mothers and potential mothers about how the impacts of climate change, including Australia’s recent bushfires and major floods, is shaping their feelings and potential decisions about child-bearing and motherhood.

But who has been arousing all this fear of climate change? The MSM and Big Science! This is like telling your child that a volcano might erupt under his bed, and associating his behavior of running out of the room screaming with volcanology. Undoubtedly these women would relax and have children if they used critical thinking about climate change like we do (see 2 May 2022 and 15 Mar 2022).

The world doesn’t need social scientists. It needs preachers of the Word of God, the Creator, who knows man’s mind and social needs better than any so-called “scientist” or “researcher” ever could. It’s time for a lesson from Jesus, the Son of God.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

To the extent a sociologist, psychologist or anthropologist builds his or her ideas on the rock, they might have something worthwhile to say. If one is building ideas on the sand of evolution, prepare to be hoodwinked.