Alan Sandercock's List: science

• But because evolution's absolute priority is reproduction, it performs an end run around intelligence and common sense — intelligent people continue to have children on a very overcrowded planet by temporarily becoming stupid, and this is not my idea, it's an idea that has been put forth by many people including feminists. One name for this syndrome is "pregnancy brain," a temporary decline in reasoning and memory ability that accompanies pregnancy. But this evolution-mandated drop in intelligence is by no means limited to women. In my opinion and that of many others, we see its most extreme form in men, whose ability to reason plummets to near-zero around the topic of reproduction.

• Geekophobia

     

  Now for my all-time pet peeve, the imaginary dichotomy between geeky, nerdy, pocket-protector-wearing, socially inept mostly-males on the one hand, and poised, highly social, well-groomed, earth-mother mostly-females on the other. There is no issue more influential in keeping women down than the imaginary divide between knowing how to think and knowing how to dance. Geekophobia exemplifies the worst kind of sexism — the kind women volunteer for.
• Another, more general thing to know about mathematics is that, if you don't learn it, people will successfully lie to you for your entire life.
• No educated person expects to be able to make an informed decision about anything remotely biological without understanding its evolutionary implications.

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