Archive for June, 2005

Postmodern Critical Thinking

Published
by
Shaun Cronin
3 years, 6 months ago
in Politics and Sociology
. 4 Comments

My previous musings on the history of evolutionary thinking on the female orgasm showed that science is influenced by the culture and society in which it develops. Both patriarchal and more recently feminist ideas have influenced study in this regard. I’ll reiterate that this does not mean that gravity is a product of society and culture. No matter where you hail from, an apple falling on your head will still have the same cause and effect. However we do have to acknowledge that postmodernistic views of knowledge need to be considered in evaluating scientific studies (facts or raw data I still hold are value free).

This leads us to the question of how do we untangle the validity of a theory from the facts and world views that have created it? Is there a way to evaluate claims (such as astronomy over astrology) without descending into a circular relativism?

The first step is to acquire a critical thinking tool kit. Critical thinking is the act of not accepting information at face value without examination of the information in both content and context. A good example of critical thinking is the late Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit from his excellent book The Demon Haunted World. The Baloney Detection is aimed at separating science from pseudo science (and the demarcation between the two is another great philosophy of science question) and provides some excellent strategies for critical thinking. However critical thinking in this manner sometimes tends towards viewing the process as being an embodiment of the Cartesian rational self. However the effective critical thinker will allow that that are two components to the “critical self.” One rational (analytical and objective) and the other personal or emotive.

The personal or emotive component of critical thinking is often overlooked. This is being open minded (but not as open for your mind to fall out) which then allows awareness of contextual sensitivity. This is now just understanding how cultural, historical, political and socio-economic influences have shaped ideas and people but how the very same factors have shaped one’s own ideas. This is the background that dictates how we will respond to arguments. It is not just enough to be aware of the bias and assumptions of someone else; you need to also be able to recognize your own.

The rational and personal components of critical thinking are complimentary. Rationality and objectivity is dependent on not imposing your view and assumptions on an author/text. Also you need to be secure enough to reconsider your own views in light of compelling counter-arguments. I’ll offer a personal example here. Many moons ago when internet discussion was often via mailing lists, on a certain skeptical list an argument over postmodernism erupted. I was anti-postmodernist for lack of a better term and engaged discussion with a university professor (as I later discovered) who started to gently ask questions regarding what I understood to be postmodernism. After a few weeks of dialogue, I understood postmodernism, was not worried about it and even learned to like aspects of it. It was easy to sit there and engage in stereotypes of what constitutes postmodernism. But, given a patient instructor, it wasn’t that hard to revaluate my position and admit that I was wrong.

It is by allowing some postmodernism concepts into the definition of critical thinking that we gain a valuable tool against the anything goes and all ideas an equally valid excesses of postmodernism. No matter what one believes, if a logical, rational argument can’t be formulated then the ideas won’t withstand the scrutiny of critical thinking.

In the politicization of science the concept of critical thinking is an essential skill. It is not enough to be able to coolly evaluate data and determine the validity of a scientific claim. Politics is becoming a very important influence in science (global warming is an excellent example). Armed with the idea that critical thinking is not just questioning the bias and assumptions other but our own this does not lead us into a relativist morass of never being able to question anything. It simply forces to confront oneself and ensure that the thinking cap is on before engaging into intellectual discourse.

But as my general theme is about the politicization of science you may be wondering when I am going to get around discussing actual issues (alas not much more on orgasms). Well, I crave your indulgence for one more philosophizing post as background. And that is the Herculean (though realistically Quixotic) task of talking about what science is, how it works and how to tell good science from bad.

Handing them to Laurie on a platter

Published
by
Phil
3 years, 6 months ago
in Politics
. 54 Comments

It all comes down to leadership, and Kim Beazley does not have it, Latham had the makings of it and blew it, Crean was a blind man in the dark when it came to leadership. And given the Labor party’s recent strong two party preferred polling, and its dominance at state level, it’s clear that they remain a winning party in search of a leader.

Let’s face it, we know a leader when we see it, even today any statement by Paul Keating creates a frisson of excitement amongst the true believers, it was the same with Pierre Trudeau, Canadian PM for sixteen years, any rhetorical pirouette was met with glee by his supporters and a torrent of abuse by his detractors. It’s now the same with John Howard. He’s a leader.

Yep, policy and ideas do matter, but it’s the appearance of leadership that matters most, every leader has to give the impression that he’ll cut your nuts off if you cross him. You leave nice for kissing babies and cutting ribbons, and nasty for those closest to you.

Kim Beazley failed that test today. Laurie Ferguson should have had his nuts handed to him on a platter. Leadership starts within your party, not at a press conference attempting to look tough while explaining why you didn’t pull the trigger.

IR Links

Published
by
Mark
3 years, 6 months ago
in Politics
. 0 Comments

Redrag bloggers Rob Corr and Manas have some important stuff to say on the IR agenda. Of great interest, in particular, is a series of papers by prominent academics seeking to evaluate the changes.

The Age of Tim

Published
by
Mark
3 years, 6 months ago
in Miscellaneous
. 42 Comments

Just a quick post to advise readers that Tim Dunlop is doing a week of guest posts at The Age’s Media Blog. Onya, Tim. And in other blog news, happy 3rd birthday to John Quiggin (the blog, that is). And Ms Fits picks up on an LP idea and recruits guest bloggers to fill her chair while she’s away - except she’s on holidays rather than slaving over a hot thesis. Sob.

Holy Moral Complexity, Batman!

Published
by
Kate
3 years, 6 months ago
in Culture
. 48 Comments

Hi, my name’s Kate. Some of you may know me from comments such as “lay off the feminists already” and “why the hell are people so scared of homosexuals anyway?”. I’m a twenty-something ex-blogger who has just moved from Sydney (I miss you, Sydney, and especially Newtown) to Perth. I am struggling to make a sort-of-career as a freelance writer and Editor. Currently I’m editing a couple of technology magazines, so if anyone has any questions about consumer electronics, I’m your gal. And no, I won’t be giving out the address of my old blog. Suffice to say it was an embarrassment in which I waxed lyrical about such important matters as haircuts, Buffy and what I had for dinner. Edifying stuff, no?

After reading through the posts here by my fellow co-bloggers I am more convinced then ever I’m not really qualified to wade into such murky matters as Values In Schools and International Politics and I just don’t understand economics. I tend to speak from a position of personal experience, and relate everything back to my own life, like a classic narcissist — it’s all about me me me me.

But I do think any sort of discourse, be it academic, economic, political or feminist, is only relevant when you understand it in the context of the real lives of human beings. After all, the personal is political, and I think speaking about any part of human life in the abstract is rather pointless. So, when I write, I always write about how things affect me or the people I know. Truthfully, I don’t operate confidently beyond this, and when I write I privilege my own viewpoint. Conversely, when I read the writing of others, I assume they too privilege their own experiences. This is a roundabout way of saying that I’m not going to be posting on Foucault or Hayek or the FTA or matters in Iraq from a socio-political perspective, or if I do, my views are guaranteed to have non-expert status and should come with a big “WARNING: COMPLETELY UNQUALIFIED OPINION” stamp.

…

Anyway, enough introduction. The real topic of this post is the film Batman Begins. I schlepped out into the cold and wet Perth weather a few nights ago, and headed down to my local multi-google-blockbusta!millennia-plex for a pleasant evening admiring Christian Bates’ bulked-up physique.

Fortunately, Batman Begins is a surprisingly good film, offering more than just a man prancing around in a silly suit. It has a darkness about it that I found immensely appealing, and the inherent ridiculousness of the whole man dressing up as a bat and wreaking vengeance on evildoers thing is cleverly mitigated by director Christopher Nolan, best known for his puzzle-box of a thriller, Memento. The batsuit itself is a matte black that seems to absorb light, it is pared back and elegant, part ninja costume and part futuristic body armour. The wings are a super-cloth that goes as hard as steel when an electric current is passed through it, the Batmobile is a hummer-like tank with a jet engine and much more realistic than any shiny-sleek car of Batmen past.

Christian Bale plays Bruce Wayne as an angry, almost suicidal superhero, with clear nods to the tortured hero of Frank Miller’s seminal graphic novel, Dark Knight. The film also takes numerous conventions of the action movie genre, such as the “wise Eastern philiospher/guru/warrior” and neatly subverts them, with Liam Neeson’s turn in the role evolving into something much darker, for example.

The real key to my admiration for this movie is the complex moral line it takes. Bruce Wayne begins the movie obsessed with the idea of vengeance; his parents were killed in a robbery gone wrong, and he blames himself. He decides, in turn, to kill the murderer, but his vengeance is thwarted, which leads him headlong into the underworld, ending up in a prison in some Eastern country somewhere being beaten up by thugs. Death seems the only place left until he is rescued by Liam Neeson’s character, Henri Ducard. Ducard inducts Wayne into the mysterious League of Shadows, which offers Wayne the moral certitude he’s been seeking. When people do wrong, the League will be there to take vengeance, to “cleanse” the world of evil-doers and criminals. However, Wayne soon begins to question what vengeance really means. Is vengeance better than justice? How does justice function in the midst of poverty and corruption? Is crime a personal, moral failing, or is it society itself that breeds criminals and the conditions in which crime thrives?

The film also tackles the tricky subject of whether Batman himself is, in some ways, culpable. At one point, the uncorruptable policeman with a heart of gold character, played with grizzled aplomb by the ever-excellent Gary Oldman, says to Batman, “well, there’s the problem of escalation”: by taking justice to the level of masked-men with Kevlar bodysuits and souped-up tanks, Batman has inadvertently upped the ante for the baddies. Will the wrong-doers soon don masks and super-futuristic weapons? As the film ends with the introduction of the Joker, the answer is clear. Build a better mousetrap and all that.

It would be a mistake to read too much into what is basically Hollywood entertainment, but I would argue that the best superhero narratives are those that tackle, on a much grander scale, the moral issues facing ordinary people and societies both. Batman’s decisions echo our own, only Batman’s decision can be clearly seen to matter, out there in the (fantasy) world. If I decide to vote one way, or buy a certain product, or read a certain book espousing certain political ideas, or give money to a certain charity, my decisions are no less moral than that of a justice-seeking Batman; however, the results of my decisions are practically invisible, unlike the choices of the superhero.

For me, what made Batman Begins so enjoyable was seeing difficult ideas about justice, good and evil, explored on the screen, and made to matter. And, importantly, rather than taking the easy way out and absolving Batman of his moral responsibilities and simplifying complex social matters to a huge degree, the creators of this film have imbued their hero with a moral understanding that is all too rare in these grand, heroic narratives take anything done by George Lucas, for example.

Chicomms

Published
by
Kim
3 years, 6 months ago
in Politics
. 6 Comments

In light of the mounting evidence, including what appears from Lateline tonight to be definite proof of the Chinese government spying and harrassing Australian citizens and people resident in Australia, the Australian Government needs to explain what it is doing about this. Now. And without even mentioning Free Trade Agreements in the same statement.

Is offshore detention the new policy?

Published
by
Phil
3 years, 6 months ago
in Politics
. 21 Comments

Well it looks like we all know the PM’s intention on how to get out of promises made to soften the asylum rules. Offshore detention. The irony of doing this to anyone when this kind of thing led to the colonisation of Australia is obviously lost on the PM.

Tonight’s interview on the 7:30 Report with Kerry O’Brien was an eye opener. Not just for the technical aspects of Howard’s policy that were discussed, but in seeing the man seriously grilled on the humanitarian - or lack thereof - consequences of his hardline position on asylum seekers and refugees up close. He’s learned nothing and already has his workaround planned.

KERRY O’BRIEN: Will this policy change apply to Afghani families with children in Nauru who are, after all - who have been in detention longer than others?

JOHN HOWARD: It doesn’t affect people in offshore areas.

KERRY O’BRIEN: So the sympathy you are now displaying for children and their parents in detention in Australia doesn’t extend to Afghani refugees in detention in Nauru under our direction?

JOHN HOWARD: I mean if you mean by that are we planning to bring them to Australia to put them in residential accommodation? No. But the conditions of detention in Nauru are somewhat different from what they are in Australia.

KERRY O’BRIEN: So that’s OK?

JOHN HOWARD: Kerry, nothing is OK in that sarcastic sense, and you know it’s not. But we had a difficult problem to deal with, and we have tried to strike a balance between sensitivity and the national interest and the national interest is certainly served by this country continuing to have a firm mandatory detention policy, and whatever people may say about Nauru, we would never have stopped the flood of boats coming to this country if we had not amongst other things had offshore processing. Offshore processing, along with turning the boats back to the north of Australia, mandatory detention and the excision of islands from the migration zone, all of those things taken together stopped the large number of boats coming to this country and effectively provided that protection for our borders. So I continue to very strongly defend the offshore processing of unauthorised arrivals to Australia.

So, tie this in with the continuation and expansion of offshore detention centers like Nauru, and Christmas Island, where the government has spent upwards of $336 million, and we now have a clearer picture of what the future system of detention may look like. Otherwise, why spend the money?

Gravatars temporarily disabled

Published
by
Robert
3 years, 6 months ago
in Miscellaneous
. 4 Comments

Comrades, I’ve temporarily disabled Gravatars because they were causing pages to load very slowly. I will investigate alternative Gravatar plugins which use a local cache of icons to speed up the process, and turn them back on as soon as possible.

Bank History and ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’

Published
by
Liam
3 years, 6 months ago
in Politics
. 17 Comments
Who’d have thought that bank history would be so interesting?

L. Sharon Davidson’s and Stephen Salsbury’s new book on the history of the Bank of New South Wales/Westpac, Australia’s First Bank is my current reading material, for thesis purposes, oddly enough. Even better, it’s accessible to readers entirely ignorant, as I am, of economics, finance, banking and commerce. Davidson and Salsbury, take a great big bow and go on to your encore of teaching the world to write without jargon.

Are you interested in social change pushed by technological change? Are you interested in the change of culture caused by feminised workforces? Are you interested in utter failures caused by hubris in the early 1980s? Are you interested in the history of early computer technology? Consider bank history.

Consider getting into the subject, if only for such wonderfully simple arguments as this, put forward by Westpac’s CEO, David Morgan, in the preface:

 Australia's First Bank: Fifty Years from The Wales to Westpac. Image care of UNIREPS

With the move to a less regulated market economy, a lot of power has passed from the public sector to the private sector. Corporate social responsibility is the responsibility that goes with that power. …People have always expected banks to be good citizens and banks have always known this. They have expected them to engage with the community, to display national spirit and show qualities of decency, integrity and generosity in their dealings with their customers. Whether they are privately or publicly owned, banks are expected to act in the public interest. When they have acted in ways perceived as hostile to the public interest, regulation (and even nationalisation) has been threatened or imposed.1

There it is, clear for everyone. Banks behave only because the State enforces the standards. Market forces alone provide no community engagement, national spirit, decency, integrity, or generosity.

1Morgan, David, in Davidson, Sharon L and Stephen Salsbury, Australia’s First Bank, Fifty Years from The Wales To Westpac, UNSW Press and Westpac, Sydney, 2005. Preface, p11-12.

Neo conservatism with a human face

Published
by
Phil
3 years, 6 months ago
in Politics
. 25 Comments

It’s only taken a few days but it’s interesting to note the casting of John Howard and today’s Liberal Party as the new paragons of enlightened Liberalism.

Today’s Editorial in the Australian got the ball rolling with its contention that the Liberal Party is now the party of ideas.

Along with the ideas drought within the federal Labor Party and the Government’s looming control of the Senate, this is why it is so welcome that, as reported in The Australian today, Mr Howard has declared the dawn of a new age of ideas within the Liberal Party. If nothing else, the success of Mr Georgiou and his group shows how far you can get, within a government as securely entrenched as this one, if you have sound principles and the intellectual ideas to back them up.

Ian McPhee also got into the action with a party line rendition of Howard’s new strength and its implications.

Formerly, Howard did not take seriously liberals such as Marise Payne. But the efforts of Petro Georgiou, Judi Moylan, Bruce Baird and Russell Broadbent have changed that. However reluctantly, Howard now understands that he must negotiate with colleagues on matters upon which they hold strong opinions.

And Dennis Shanahan threw in his two cents worth on this new age of Aquarius.

By directly confronting the danger of dissent, Howard is turning it to a strength as he seeks to commandeer from Labor its traditional image as the progressive side of politics and the one that historically has the stronger ideas.

So does Howard’s compromise with Petro Georgiou really mean we are entering a new age of enlightenment, a renaissance of ideas, idealism and progressivism? Are we to believe that John Howard is the new messiah of genuine liberalism? Is this just the same old horse-trading and deal making we have always see in politics? Or is it just neo-conservatism with a human face.

G-spots

Published
by
saint
3 years, 6 months ago
in Culture and Religion
. 27 Comments

Hello,

I’m a saint in a straitjacket who blogs about nothing in particular in an obscure corner of cyberspace called DogfightAtBankstown. Obviously that means I’m a Christian who lives in Adelaide and types with their nose. I’m pretty ordinary, neither erudite nor expert in anything, and I rarely have anything profound or witty to say.

I was surprised and flattered when Mark invited me to guest post. But how could I give up a chance for fifteen minutes of blog fame and a demonstration of how fast I can make blog stats plummet with a single post?

Then, when I saw who else he invited and the first set of posts, I got stage fright.

Foucault? He writes in words with more than two syllables. He’s got double vowels in his name.

*gulp*

But this morning I thought, hang it, it’s Sunday. Let’s get mercenary and seize the day. Make it MY day. After all I’m no saint. Straitjacket remember.

Oops what do I see? C.L agreeing with Kim about condescending putative foundations. Testing times alright: I’m already reaching for the dictionary. And discover pusillanimous is on the opposite page to putative in the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary 2nd edition. Page 924 to be precise.

Pusillanimous that’s me.

So gather up the courage, return and see everyone is getting into the act today. But I’m swallowing hard, and like a good little lemming I’m going to jump in anyway. Well just poke my toe in a bit and test the water in the jacuzzi.

Um. What have be got. What can I say. Orgasms!!!! Yes God invented those thank you very much.

Hey it’s SUNDAY (11.55pm CST to be precise). It should be time for a real G-spot. And some rollicking godblogging.

A disclosure: this is a bit of a bleg (told you I was mercenary).

I’ve been asked by an overseas blogger to write something about Aussie god blogs but I’ve been thinking about changing the brief a bit. (Further disclosure: I find a lot of ‘god blogs’ boring). And I need some help. So maybe you can give me some thoughts on what I can write about. Or just give me any thoughts whatsoever. On anything remotely connected to Aussie god blogging however you want to define god blogs or god. Maybe on topics like this…

  • Aussie god blogs: what would Jesus do with them?
  • Has Archbishop Rowan Williams been reading some of our Aussie political blogs
  • Questions you have always wanted to ask a god blogger but were afraid to ask
  • The most ridiculous answers for those questions which you were unpusillanimous to ask
  • Gideons’ Bible abuse: are you guilty? (blame FXH)
  • Religion journalist Stephen Crittenden once said that Aussies are happy to talk about religion but afraid to talk about Jesus Christ. Discuss.
  • Why I am godless. By God. And here’s the URL to prove it.
  • Your favourite godspotting moment on an Aussie blog. Any god. Any blog. (Already an icon: Tim Dunlop’s wonderfully written and moving discontinuous religious narrative. Wanted: URLs for David Tiley’s hidden gems about the Anglicanism of his youth, tucked away in comments threads. Glorious: Ken Parish’s prickly honesty in one of the more intriguing comments threads at Troppo Armadillo.)
  • The overwhelming majority of Aussie bloggers are lapsed Catholics. Analyse this. Analyse them.
  • I disclosed my religion as Jedi in the last Aussie census and I can get past step 26 (PDF)

Shameless pusillanimousness. I’m going to hide behind James Farrell who once wrote

This may be an outrageous intrusion on your spiritual privacy, but you have been known to be candid once or twice before, and I’m dying of curiosity, so I’ll chance it.

I’m chancing it too. Not just because this piece I promised to write is seriously overdue and I am so not a writer, much less a creative one at that. And I have a really, really busy week ahead. And I reckon some of you would have some fun things to say.

But because I too, am dying of curiosity.

BB Kate Conservative Yoof?

Published
by
Kim
3 years, 6 months ago
in Culture and Politics
. 45 Comments

The sharpest observer of Auspopculture, Ausculture Jess, has blogged the sad news (for Lefty Tim at least) that BB Hotness Kate is a bit of a Howard supporter. (Although, like Ausculture Jess, believing that you need to have politically compatible relationships, I’d still take her to a k.d. lang concert in an attempt to convert her to the side of niceness).

But, what has me wondering is whether the conservative op/edders will change their tune on BB now after condemning it as corrupting our children, the work of Satan, etc? Nelson was obviously no good as a yoof Howard posterboy because he was a self-confessed Liar (on the other hand… if he’d said, “I was badly advised”) but will (not the sharpest knife in the drawer) Miranda Devine be able to resist proclaiming the existence of a generation of BB Hotness Kate Conservative Howardian Yoof? It would make about as much sense as her other forays into pop culture.

Nicaragua, The OAS And Models Of Intervention

Published
by
Brian
3 years, 6 months ago
in Politics
. 15 Comments

According to the CIA World Factbook Nicaragua has 5,465,000 people, a GDP of US$12.34 billion and a per capita GDP of $2,500. This rates it below Honduras and Bolivia, albeit ahead of Haiti which at $1,500 is the poorest in the hemisphere. 50% of the people in Nicaragua live in poverty with a Gini index of 55.1.

Surviving, if that is the word, the Sandanistas in the 1970s and hurricane Mitch in 1998 it must be a country of great strategic worth to the United States. In 2003 Toni Solo told us about the lengths to which the Americans would go in order to nail Nicaragua’s foot to the floor in the CAFTA extortion racket, sorry free trade agreement.

Now, it seems, the fun may begin again.

The president of Nicaragua is one Enrique Bolaños. Solo describes him and his Foreign Minister Norman Caldera as:

representative specimens of the Nicaraguan oligarchy. Vain, greedy, mediocre white machistas, they have never apologized to the Nicaraguan people for collaborating with the murderous US terror war against Nicaragua through the 1980s. Lacking in humility, personally immature, they still project blame for the current ills of Nicaragua into the past, back fifteen or twenty years onto the Sandinista revolution.

Bola√±os was head of the anti-Sandinista Nicaraguan business organization COSEP during the Sandanista uprising and was at that time ‘run’ by John Maisto, now the US representative to the OAS, who “cleans up after” Condy Rice and Roger Noriega, Condy’s point man in Latin America.

In the first days in June all these characters were foregathered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for the 35th meeting of the Organisation of American States (OAS).

Condy and Roger accused Venezuela of organising the popular uprising in Bolivia. Their brilliant idea was to “convince Latin American leaders to expand OAS powers of intervention by creating new mechanisms to monitor democracy in individual countries and intervene where necessary.”

This mad scheme was rejected by “an embarrassingly large majority” of states, with Brazil’s Foreign Minister saying that “democracy cannot be imposed.”

By contrast a resolution proposing a Social Charter for the Americas put up by Venezuela was passed. Ouch!

What is the crisis in Nicaragua? Well, poor Pres Bola√±os. His National assembly passed some legislation stripping some executive powers from the Presidency. Whether this related to the misuse of electoral funds for which he narrowly escaped legal proceedings in 2004 I’m not sure. But in Florida he appealed to Rice as chair of the OAS to defend democracy in Nicaragua from the threat of the elected National Assembly, it seems.

The problem is that this is not just a domestic tiff. It seems that the interests of some multi-national corporations and the IMF are at stake. As Solo puts it:

the [Bolaños] government is working on behalf of the IMF and the United States to defeat national resistance to corporate economic and environmental pillage and to imperialist political subjugation.

Rice, Noriega and Maisto can’t afford to fail. Their main hope is that:

the scheduled visit of OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza to Managua will help develop a model of diplomatic intervention sufficient to stem the anti-imperialist tide washing over Latin America. For them Nicaragua is a symbolic prize they cannot afford to lose. Unfortunately, the available human material to keep Nicaragua in its current imperialist straitjacket is as poor as that available [to them] in Venezuela and Bolivia. Worn out, useless lumpen-oligarchy dunderheads posture without a clue as to how to address their country’s social, economic and environmental problems.

Meanwhile Solo believes they are plotting a carve-out in Bolivia and perhaps Venezuela. That is autonomy or secession for resource-rich provinces like Santa Cruz in Bolivia and Zulia in Venezuela.

It sounds as though just about anything could happen.

I think it would be handy to be an army man if you want to be a leftist president in South America.

An Intercourse on Orgasm

Published
by
Shaun Cronin
3 years, 6 months ago
in Culture, Politics and Sociology
. 53 Comments

During the recent Oz blogosphere sociobiology stoush over whether a study provided evidence that Ashkenazi Jews showed selection for intelligence, another study claiming a genetic basis for the female orgasm slipped through the Oz blogosphere without much comment.

The study, based on 4037 replies by identical and non-identical twins to a questionnaire, showed that 14% of women claimed to always experience orgasm during intercourse, 32% said that they failed to achieve orgasm a quarter of the time and 16% not at all. 34% of the variation is claimed to be genetic.

Of course the evolutionary reasons for the female orgasm needs an explanation. Various adaptive theories are offered but this is a problem. A trait having a genetic basis does not mean that is adaptive. While it is a candidate for natural selection the trait has not necessarily been selected for. The trait itself could be the by-product of selection elsewhere. In this case, it has been suggested that the female orgasm is an embryological by-product of selection for the male orgasm (the penis and clitoris develop from the same cluster of cells in an embryo). And while I’ll touch on the developmental and adaptive aspects of the female orgasm what is more interesting is observing how gender politics and world-views can affect the interpretation of scientific research.

Men have been mystified for years in the pursuit of and reasons for the female orgasm. From a scientific standpoint, research into the biology of women’s sexuality has been influenced by an andocentric (male dominated) view of sex. For example, Desmond Morris in the Naked Ape argued that the female orgasm was designed to keep women exhausted, lying their on their backs so that the sperm had time to swim upstream so to speak. I’ll leave the obvious issues with Morris’ scenario to the gentle reader.

Another adaptive idea is the “up suck” theory. The idea here is that the female orgasm evolved to help retain semen. Other adaptive explanations included the orgasm leads to pair —bonding, helps women pick out men with most resources and best genes and other ideas based on popular conceptions on how the sexes should behave and animal behavourial studies.

On the other hand, the female orgasm may not be an adaptation at all. Donald Synmons in 1979 suggested that the female orgasm is an artefact of development. The penis and clitoris develop from the same nerve and tissue pathways in the embryo. As a result of this parallel development, females get the pleasure of orgasm though it is not a trait specifically selected for. The developmental view of the female orgasm has been popularised recently by Elisabeth Lloyd in her book The Case For The Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution. Lloyd examines 20 adaptive theories on the female orgasm. Her take is that the theories are all unsatisfactory and she agrees with Synmons that the female orgasm is a developmental by-product.

Lloyd charges that the adaptive theories are based around male expectations about female sexuality, monogamy, the family unit and how women respond to sex. Also the female orgasm must be related to fertility or reproduction. However there is no link to fertility/reproduction and orgasm (Lloyd does agree that the clitoris is an evolutionary adaptation). Of course there is the contentious idea that if a trait has evolved then it must have been selected for some adaptative reason.

The territory we are entering is how world view and culture affects scientific research. The raw data on the frequency of orgasms (methodology aside) is not the problem. It is the framework in which the data is interpreted. Some of the adaptive explanations for the female orgasm are andocentric and reflect a view of human sex in which the female is passive, monogamous and the goal is reproduction. It is not as much as an agenda (to control woman via sexuality for example) but implicit cultural assumptions regarding women’s’ sexuality that are never examined.

From a feminist perspective Lloyd’s ideas are appealing but she (as well as Synmons and Stephen Jay Gould who also promoted the developmental view) have received criticism from feminists regarding for their ideas. The trouble here is that if the female orgasm is seen is a “by-product” of evolution then it is not important. If this is the case then the female orgasmic experience is simply a poor derivative of the male orgasm. This leads to sexism.

This is a gross misreading of the by-product idea. If the by-product explanation is correct it means nothing regarding the validity/importance of the female orgasm nor justifies a sexist approach favouring one. The cultural context is important. Lloyd does argue that the by-product view negates the idea that failure to orgasm is a sexual dysfunction. It is a liberating view of female sexuality that is not sexist at all.

There is also an argument that the female orgasm could disappear if it is not being actively selected. The counterargument is that given the strong selection pressures for the male orgasm, female orgasm will still be selected for in the developmental scenario.

My point is not whether the adaptative or development by-product scenarios are correct. It is about how cultural assumptions (and agendas) frame the theories in which the data is plugged into. And while there is a respectable body of philosophical argument relating to this topic I’ll leave that for others to bring up in the comments if they desire. My purpose is, while I have the keys to Mark’s blog, is to explore the politicisation of science, what it means and my ideas on how to separate agendas from facts and theories as well as to be wary of your own assumptions.

All Hail al-Hilali

Published
by
wbb
3 years, 6 months ago
in Politics
. 111 Comments

Plenty of people have impugned the motives of Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali. They mocked his pronouncements. They questioned his methods. They scoffed at his sincerity. They doubted him as an Australian.

It is always correct to ignore the miscreant. To disdain the petulant. To treat with silent contempt the jingoist rabble.

Preferring to be incorrect I like to rub their noses in it. Counter-productive, you charge? I know. It only makes them redouble their efforts to be offensive in return. It forces them to more tightly turn on their core psychological issue of xenophobia.

But there’s the beauty in my madness. Do you know how Black Holes are formed? Surely you at least know where fairies come from?

“There are always a lot of young ones,” explained Wendy, who was now quite an authority, “because you see when a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.” Peter Pan

Black Holes are created each time a xenophobe spins so tightly around his axis of evil that suddenly he disappears in a puff of smoke, only to be reborn, at the same moment, but at rather some distance, as a shiny new Black Hole.

On May 24 the Australian ambassador delivered a fax from Phillip Ruddock asking al-Hilali to return to Baghdad. The government needed al-Hilali to continue the negotiations with the kidnappers.

Sheik al-Hilali did so and the rest is history.

No big deal. Bloke gets taken, government pulls out all stops, friendly cleric does the foot-work, bloke gets out with his head still attached to his neck. Government denies all knowledge because officially we don’t negotiate.

Happens all the time and jolly good show.

The fax said that although the Government did not want the mufti to be seen giving public undertakings on its behalf, it nevertheless needed him to pass on information that stated: “The Government is open to suggestions that might help his release . . . However, before doing so, some proof of life is needed.” Sheikh Hilali became the subject of harsh criticism when he returned to Iraq because it was unclear why he had returned. It was suggested he had outstayed his welcome and was hindering the mission. The Age

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Mr Wood had access to a doctor during his ordeal, or one of his captors had medical knowledge. And it is now believed the Australian Muslim cleric who travelled to Iraq to help negotiate Mr Wood’s release — Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali — did manage to get more drugs to him through an intermediary. The Australian

Mr Warner said many times in the past six weeks the Australian team thought it was close to getting Mr Wood free, sometimes through Muslim cleric Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali and sometimes through its own efforts.
Mr Warner praised the role of Sheikh Hilali. “He showed extraordinary courage,” he said. “He was wandering around what we call the Red Zone . . . making contacts, talking to people in an extremely dangerous environment.
“He was trying to make contact with people who are at least part of the insurgency, if not just a bunch of murderous thugs. He did an extraordinary job.”