The Great Idiot of Social Science Goes Too Far

Satoshi Kanazawa, author of a very contentious blog in Psychology Today recently wrote (and quickly deleted) a very racist post. However, you can't really delete anything on the internet. It's right here. Some things you should know about Satoshi Kanazawa: there is currently a campaign for his dismissal from the University of London as a professor of economics, when you search his name in google, google suggests 'Satoshi Kanazawa Idiot' (his nickname in the title of this blog post, given to him by evolutionary biologist P.Z. Meyers, has stuck), he thinks Ann Coulter, if she were president, would have handled 9/11 and its aftermath better than anybody else he could think of, he has an interest in prostitutes.

What is so discouraging about this man's existence is that he does everything he does in the name of science. He claims that he knows everything and that he can predict events before they happen, not because he is a genius or because he's special in any way, but because he's an evolutionary psychologist. An evolutionary psychologist. To me, that's just a fancy title for an anthropologist who can charge you by the hour to talk to him. This man is dangerous.

He's dangerous because he's willing to generalize people in unthinkable ways. Furthermore Kanazawa is guilty of something that has been a growing trend with the increasing popularity in reality TV and the internet: he creates inflammatory material with the specific intent of getting a reaction and gaining sympathy or popularity or whatever satisfaction racists get from being racist. I was made aware of this piece by CNN's LZ Granderson so it was obviously very widely syndicated. Content is constantly sacrificed for clicks. That is most profitable, presumably. Kanazawa is a professor of economics after all.

Psychology Today had been overwhelmed with responses, and many of their writers took offense to Kanazawa lowering the publication's credibility, he was denounced by Daniel R. Hawes and Nathan A. Heflick with the consensus conclusion being: Kanazawa's research was not objective at all, making it quite racist.

Psychology Today issued this statement last week:

“Last week, a blog post about race and appearance by Satoshi Kanazawa was published–and promptly removed–from this site. We deeply apologize for the pain and offense that this post caused. Psychology Today’s mission is to inform the public, not to provide a platform for inflammatory and offensive material. Psychology Today does not tolerate racism or prejudice of any sort. The post was not approved by Psychology Today, but we take full responsibility for its publication on our site. We have taken measures to ensure that such an incident does not occur again. Again, we are deeply sorry for the hurt that this post caused.”

Sequels Galore

Let's admit it: there will be a Hangover 3. Why? Because Part II will spend a couple weeks at the top of the box office and another installment would do the same in the future. Plus, there are still bachelors remaining in the script. How convenient.
11 of the top 20 all-time grossing films in the US have been sequels or installments in a series of films. Why another Pirates of the Carribbean movie? Goodness, I completely forgot about Fast5. There are some standard questions that are always asked about these movies: Is it as good as the first one? If it's based on a book, is it as good as the book? Are the special effects the only thing impressive? Are the special effects/computer animation terrible? Dialogue, anybody?

It is safe to say that it is easier to win an Oscar than it is to get 100 million people to see the film. And, in many cases (not all), the more money you spend in Hollywood the more money you make. Plus, Americans have an enormous appetite for cheese. Who is this silent majority? Why is critical and general opinion about blockbuster movies so wishy washy and so many people still see them?

Can it be chalked up to marketing? Or have our standards fallen this far?

Coverage of the Coverage of The Royal Wedding

Since when do we care about the domestic affairs of the Brits? It seems like we haven't cared this much since before the revolution. I think the news outlets are covering this so closely because The King's Speech won best picture. If Americans liked this sort of stuff we would have established a monarchy.

After several overestimations of the cost of this wedding, an economist interviewed by The Wall Street Journal says "at the most, it may shave off 0.1 [percentage points] off second quarter GDP growth." What a modest way to put it. That's only around a billion dollars. Meanwhile, British citizens are fighting for some rights and privileges that would seem basic to most American citizens. The monarch has banned the use of royal wedding footage for any comedic purposes whatsoever. They can do that (make things illegal).

One flaw of Americans even with high levels of media literacy is that they do not seek foreign news outlets and perspective when it comes to foreign news. Average UK citizens speak of the royal family very tongue-in-cheek. In recent history, some of them have not proven to be good role models in certain areas (divorce, drug use, dressing up in a Hitler costume, etc.). We all knew Wolf Blizter loved pageantry but come on, I think he was drooling. I was relieved to finally see someone in the media make light of the whole situation, even if it was after the fact, even if it was Jon Stewart (aka Ol' Reliable) on last night's Daily Show. I would have posted that, but it is obscene - even in relation to this VBS.TV documentary on the event.

The Madden NFL 2012 Cover Dilemma

Later today, on the ESPN2 show SportsNation, the hosts will announce which player is to be on the cover of this years Madden video game. That player is going to be Michael Vick. He has been running away with the tournament-style fan voting that started last month. PETA asked EA, the producers of the game, to remove Vick as a candidate. EA refused. Their director of player relations, Sandy Sandoval, said in an interview with ESPN, "It's a video game, a football game. We're not trying to make any political statements." Sandoval added that EA is sensitive to the issues raised.

If one thinks that Michael Vick should not be allowed to be on the cover of the Madden video game, then they must also think he should be banned from the National Football League as a player, on grounds that he is not fit to be employed by or be a representative of the league at any level because of his criminal history. However, any free male citizen of the United States is allowed to join a professional football team.

There is an overwhelming opinion in our society that rehabilitation through the prison system is an impossibility. There is also the general feeling that if someone is on your television then they are actually in your living room with you. The problem - at this point - with the anti-Vick position, is that the other option is remarkable in only one way: he's a white running back. Vick was the runner-up for the MVP award last year (voted by 50 of the best sports-journalists and broadcasters for the Associated Press) and received 1.5 million pro-bowl votes, Hillis had the 11th most rushing yards in the NFL, 3rd in his division.

Now, what do these players really represent?

Your Beer Doesn't Think You're Man Enough

I had wanted to use the new-ish ‘lifeguard training’ Miller Light ad but it’s restricted on youtube and I don’t know if I would be able to share it, so this will have to do.

It seems that the advertisements of major American beer companies negate the fact that women consume a large enough portion of their product that they should at least be marketed towards. Using the “Man Up” slogan, Miller Light describes itself as a personification of manhood, an especially manly beer. Only, here’s where that description loses credibility: a woman is in the position of guiding the lost man to a better choice of beer, this while the man submissively and subversively communicates feelings of attraction toward her. She hints that she would be more attracted to him if he drank Miller Light and abandoned certain disingenuous and ridiculous, stereotypically feminine subculture fashion statements; he would then be more manly. This woman is the authority on taste and respectability. Now does she think highly enough of Miller Light to drink it herself? Or does she simply have the human decency to suggest it to this dog who was going to drink something pretty closely resembling piss (if it is worse than Miller Light)?

If one of these companies championed itself as a favorite of women everywhere, it should expect to see results in its sales. However, the progression towards that message is going to be a very slow process. Anyways, it’s not like there’s a stigma against women drinking these beers. Is there? Miller Light should hire the ghost of George Washington Hill in the PR department.

Look, That Big Muscular Man Who Plays Games For A Living Is Crying

In a new documentary for ESPN, Tom Brady discusses how very few people - OK, nobody - believed he would one day be a record setter, a two-time NFL MVP and a three-time Super Bowl champion, or, in other words, arguably the best quarterback of all time. What brings him to tears is the notion that 198 other players, and 6 other quarterbacks, were perceived to be better than him, because they were drafted ahead of him out of college. He thought he wouldn’t ever get the chance to prove himself. Luckily, he took advantage of every opportunity he had and became one of the most popular icons in our society today.

THAT’S WHY IT’S SO OUTRAGEOUS THAT HE WOULD DARE CRY ON TELEVISION!

“Coming up on Sportscenter: what in the world does Tom Brady have to cry about?”

Doesn’t he know the sports media is aroused by tears? Doesn’t he understand that he is a model of masculinity? This doesn’t fit that image, Tom.

What bothers me is that this story was introduced pretty much without context. This is the clip where you’re gonna see Tom Brady cry, never, this is a triumphant story of a famous underdog told from a new and creative perspective. And the thing is, this interview is one the most charming, empathic and human portrayals you can find for an athlete of his and stature who, frankly, has a lot of haters.

Only, if you watch the whole piece and not just the part where he cries, you’ll realize Tom Brady loves the haters. They inspire him.

Probably cause they made him cry that one time.

Funny thing is, this isn’t even the biggest, most scrutinized crying-in-sports story in the last six weeks. After a tough regular season loss to the Bulls, Erik Spoelstra (coach of the Miami Heat) threw his team under the bus and flat-out told the media, unprovoked, that some of his players were crying in the locker room. He later called the story “Cry-gate” in the swirl of media intrigue and ridicule.

There are several differences between this and the Tom Brady circumstance. Brady was talking about draft day, one of the most important days of any athlete's career - his did not go well.

And, Tom Brady never did this:

Old Spice: Homoerotic? Or just erotic?

A friend of mine recently described this series of commercials as extremely homoerotic. I spent some time thinking about that. I came to the conclusion that, when [in advertisements] there is a man (or men) without the presence of a woman (or women), there is an excessive tendency to think of that advertisement as homoerotic. However, when a woman appears in an advertisement solo or with other women just as attractive as she is, they are considered sex objects of an undeniably heterosexual disposition - resembling what executives think of as the common-man's fantasy; that is the intent of the production, and sex is the result.

The interesting thing about the old spice commercials - even though it is described as a men's product - many of the ads address women directly. First, they assume that there is a man in the world that this viewer-woman thinks of as "hers," then they show that the man in the commercial is far superior to their man, why? He uses old spice. Why does a commercial that gets most of its play on ESPN between advertisements for remedies to hair loss and erectile dysfunction address women? This is an extremely psychological device. Although the commercials address women - not just at the beginning, but again and again and again - just as many men (if not more based on the ad's placement into certain programming on certain channels) watch it. Does this then force men in the audience to think like a woman? And to acknowledge that everything that this muscle-bound well spoken black man represents is attractive in the classical sense?

The answer is yes.

Does this make many men, and many television executives uncomfortable?

That answer is also yes.

I think what my friend and Old Spice failed to realize when talking about eroticism is that: sometimes there is a person, place, or thing that is attractive from overlapping perspectives. The intent of the imagery matters not. It is how that imagery is interpreted by each individual.

Some of those individuals go and buy Old Spice.