wut

"Ok, so it turns out women generally don't like this because it's misogyny and a violation of bodily freedom... HOWEVER, these reactions are also predicted by evo psych theory. Evo psych always wins"

Fondly remembering that Gad Saad has gifted us hilarious examples of evolutionary psychology's "just-so" storytelling

E.g., women don't want a mandatory paternity test shoved on them, because they're duplicitous harlots, and not for any other reasons

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/homo...

wow, *the* lewontin? big fan. didn't realise you were on social media

I know everyone cites themselves, but citing THREE of your own papers at the very start of the paper is fucking shameless behaviour lol

He's proof that nominative determinism is real

A quick look at the editorial board of this journal reveals how this slop got published: it's filled with the Quillette freak crowd, including Cory Clark, Steven Pinker, and (lol) Colin Wright
link.springer.com/journal/1118...

The revival of the social sciences – inoculation against parasitic ideas and suicidal empathy, and the quest for consilience via the evolutionary lens Gad Saad1 Received: 29 September 2025 / Accepted: 24 November 2025 © The Author(s) 2026 Abstract To maximally flourish, the social sciences must be inoculated against parasitic ideas (e.g., postmodernism) and suicidal empathy (e.g., an epistemology of care), both of which arise when the pursuit of truth is confounded with social justice activism. Furthermore, the social sciences currently exist in disorganized if not incoherent silos of knowledge void of an organizing meta-theory. The evolutionary lens provides such a unifying framework whilst engendering the requisite consilience. Keywords Parasitic ideas · Suicidal empathy · Consilience · Evolution · Social sciences Over the past three decades, the social sciences have promulgated ideas that serve as a blitzkrieg on science, logic, reason, common sense, and the most fundamental fabric of reality. This first became evident in my early attempts to incorporate evolutionary psychology within the business school in general and marketing and consumer behavior in particular (Saad, 2007, 2011a, 2013). Most social scientists resisted the idea that the human mind is shaped by the exact same evolutionary forces that have forged every other species on earth. Apparently, evolutionary theory could be used to explain every single species on earth save one: Homo sapiens. This has been coined the human reticence effect (Ranney & Thanukos, 2011). Some social scientists are willing to concede that evolution might explain the evolution of our respiratory, digestive, and urinary systems but to use evolution to explain the human mind, well, that is pure anti-science quackery.

What could cause many social scientists to be so removed from reality? Saad (2020a) argued that human beings are susceptible to have their neuronal circuitry hijacked not only by actual brain worms (Flegr, 2007; Goczol, 2025; Lafferty, 2006) but by ideological brain parasites, which he coined as idea pathogens. In other words, the neuro-parasitological framework (McAuliffe, 2016; Moore, 2002) explains how human minds could be zombified by ideological capture. Examples of parasitic ideas include postmodernism, cultural relativism, social constructivism, biophobia, transgender activism, radical feminism, a rejection of meritocracy via the promulgation of the diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE) cult, and identity politics along with its ethos of eternal victimhood. These ghastly ideas originate from social scientists housed in universities (see also Saad, 2025a) hellbent on creating a utopian world rooted in their progressive idealism. In this make-believe world, objective truth is too constraining. Instead, it is better to adhere to postmodernism, with its liberating dictum that no universal truths exist. Its emancipatory allure frees us all from epistemological constraints. Along those lines, it is excessively “mean” to posit that all people are not created with equal potentiality. Social constructivism rescues us from reality, by purporting that we are all born as blank slates (Pinker, 2002), to potentially be molded into nearly anything via the appropriate schedule of reinforcement. It is also too restrictive to presume that one’s biological sex might be deterministically established by one’s chromosomes and genitalia. T

All these parasitic ideas start off with the hope of achieving a noble objective rooted in social justice (Saad, 2020a). If along the way truth must be sacrificed, activist social scientists construe this as a small incidental price to pay. The epistemology of truth (the scientific method) takes a backseat to the epistemology of care and empathy, a topic that I discuss in my forthcoming book Suicidal Empathy (Saad, 2026). To fully hijack human reasoning requires that both our cognitive and emotional systems be fully parasitized. This is precisely why the neuro-parasitological framework is particularly apt, because it explicitly explains how organisms might engage in suicidal behavior to advance the objectives of the parasite. Wood crickets (Nemobius sylvestris), once parasitized by a hairworm (Paragordius tricuspidatus), commit suicide by jumping into water, as the neuro-parasite requires this to complete its reproductive cycle (Sanchez et al., 2008; Libersat et al., 2018). Parasitized human minds, bathing in the ideological solace of suicidal empathy, are not only killing the social sciences but destroying the fabric of the West (Saad, 2025b). Take the West’s open door immigration policy. Cultural relativism, a parasitic idea, forbids Westerners from casting judgment regarding the practices and beliefs of other cultures lest they be accused of being bigots. Who are we to judge the stoning of women or the taking of child brides? This yields the suicidally empathetic reflex to state that all immigrants are equally likely to assimilate within the West, and to accordingly insist on allowing entrance to millions of people who do not share the deontological principles that serve as the bedrock of Western liberties and freedoms. The outcome is not difficult to predict if you possess the courage of extrapolation.

Gad Saad, the evo psych hack and IDW reject, has published a new evo psych "paper".

It is an extended twitter screed that's indistinguishable from standard Nazi talking points. This is apparently what passes as scholarship in the Springer journal 'Theory and Society'

Fig. 1. Genome assemblies, annotations, and transcriptomes. (A) Species representing the four sugar-consuming groups. [Bird photos (top to bottom): Steven L. Hunter (ML426078561), David J. Southall (ML431374521), Gerald R. Allen (ML633429605), and Charles Davies (ML205719751); photos accessioned into the Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library] (B) Cladogram and diet of the birds included in the study. On the basis of the percentage of dietary nectar and fruit intake, we delineated four groups of core sugar-consuming birds (red font) and core non-sugar controls (blue). Core non-sugar control sets were defined as groups phylogenetically close to sugar-consuming clades and comprising a similar number of species but not taking any nectar in the diet. These were used as direct controls in the downstream analyses. (C) Comparison of genome assembly contiguity. The contig N50 value indicates that 50% of the assembly consists of contigs of at least that size. The nine newly sequenced birds are indicated with a blue circle. (D) Status of 15,133 ancestral bird genes, classified by TOGA as those with an intact reading frame (blue), with gene-inactivating mutations (premature stop codons, frameshifts, splice site disruptions, or deletions of exons or entire genes; orange), or with missing or incomplete coding sequences owing to assembly gaps or fragmentation (gray). (E) Status of 8338 near-universally conserved Aves genes (BUSCO, odb10) in annotations generated in this study (green circles) or NCBI RefSeq annotations. (F) Tissue-specific transcriptomes generated for pairs of sugar-consuming and non-sugar control species. Black arrows specify the direction of DESeq2 analysis (for details, see methods and table S11).

Rainbow lorikeets got published in Science. Big congrats to all rainbow lorikeets and bird lovers in general www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I like that idea. Linking to a Github or Figshare repo to for scripts and data is pretty much standard practice now, so I don't think it hurts to just dump ChimeraX sessions in there too as a fun optional extra

#27 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Great example of how less is more. The sparing use of colours and black outlines pops against the shades of grey, drawing the eye to exactly where it should go.

The billionaires' eugenics project: how Epstein infiltrated Harvard, muzzled the humanities and preached master-race science Edge - Jeffrey Epstein's favourite intellectual salon - was sold to me as a gathering of the world's finest minds, writes Virginia Heffernan. The files reveal it was something far darker: a decades-lo...

"[Edge's] male members were preaching master-race ideology. Citing their work, Brockman predicted in 2005 that the “dangerous idea of the next decade” would be that “groups of people differ genetically in their average talents”."
www.thenerve.news/p/epstein-bi...

EPA reverses long-standing climate change finding, stripping its own ability to regulate emissions The agency announced it is repealing its 2009 conclusion that greenhouse gases warm the Earth and endanger human health and well-being.

There are so many fucked up things with the current administration that it's hard to focus on one but this recent move is basically a death sentence for the planet. I've been involved with more boots on the ground actions over the years than I can count and this really bums me out.

A story of how science should work: an issue with methodology is picked up in this paper, authors agree they made a mistake and retract: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Meanwhile, many papers using Richard Lynn's fraudulent National IQ data are still unretracted www.statnews.com/2024/06/20/r...

More Invisible Cities (my comfort book)

Pinker said that over the years he has regularly offered his linguistic opinions to Dershowitz for use in various cases. “I don’t recall his telling me that the question pertained to the Epstein defense,” Pinker said. “I was not aware of the charges against Epstein at the time. And no, I was not paid for the letter — it’s something that Alan and I do regularly, as colleagues.”

"Alan [Dershowitz] had us give Dteven Pinker $10,000 for a letter"

Steven Pinker in 2019: “I was not aware of the charges against Epstein at the time. And no, I was not paid for the letter" www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pete...

Epstein files: [shows Pinker was paid $10,000 for the letter] www.justice.gov/epstein/file...

Still processing how so many of the worst happenings of the past 15+ years -- the resurgence of Nazism + race pseudoscience, the anti-feminist culture war bullshit, crypto, the Uber-fication of the economy, etc. -- can all be traced back to Epstein and his rapist pals

I totally get what you mean. It's such an absolute betrayal of principles that makes me feel sick.

I wonder how Nabokov would rate Rowling like he did here: wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-re...

Probably not well.

It's also one of the world's most famous scientists sending up the balloon to his fellow powerful men that a young woman with no institutional affiliation or financial clout dared to speak out about their raping habits. *She* is organising a conspiracy; *he* is merely giving a friend the heads-up.

I believe this was after Elevatorgate. Pretty sure that's what put Watson on Dawkins' radar and she's been a foul spectre haunting his dreams ever since

Watson really broke these guys' brains. The threat of being rejected by a woman posed an existential threat to Dawkins and men like him. The threat to the ego was too much. Old boys clubs activated and said "we've gotta do something about this" and the solution was ultimately a return to fascism

Begin forwarded message: > From: Richard Dawkins < > Date: July 4, 2011 5:42:43 PM EDT > To: John Brockman .‘Z > > Subject: Lawrence > John • > 1. I hope you recovered well from your operation. > 2. There is a rather nasty young woman called Rebecca Watson, who seems to be running some kind of a witch-hunt against Lawrence Krauss because of his defence of Jeffrey Epstein. > http://skepchick.org/2011/04/lawrence-krauss-defends-a-sex-offender-embarrasses-scientists- everywhere/ > There are people on her blog talking about organising a walkout when Lawrence speaks at TAM in Las Vegas. I remember that you told me something of the circumstances of Jeffrey's arrest, and that his case is not as black as painted. Might you possibly remind of it. > Thanks (and greetings from Jackson Hole, Wyoming) > Richard

From: John Brockman < INIMI> To: Jeffrey Epstein <jeevacation@gmail.com> Cc: Lesley Groff <MIElla> Subject: Fwd: Lawrence Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2011 22:21:56 +0000 Attachments: Jaron.NYorker.pdf Eastover Farm 203-266-5930 JE, Fyi - see Richard Dawkins's email below alerting me to a campaign against our friend LMK re his friendship with you. (I'll deal with Richard). At the farm this week 203-266-5930. JB p.s. Here's a pdf of a the New Yorker profile of Jaron - just out today.

This email from Dawkins in the latest Epstein documents is a kind of perfect glimpse into the psychology of old boys club: Dawkins whinges about the "nasty young woman", but also has an undercurrent of unease, and seeks reassurance from Brockman that the child sex trafficker wasn't all *that* bad

Now the right-wing metabolic response on Alex Pretti's murder is that he retroactively deserved it because he was on camera behaving *unruly* towards ICE a few days prior. Apparently kicking the tail light of the death-squad vehicle warrants an execution. These ghouls...

No surprise, but seems the right-wing has already metabolised the murder of a man by secret police for excercising his constitutional rights. "Well, he shouldn't have been out there with a gun, i-it's dangerous". They act the based tough guys, but their one ultimate value is subservience to The Boot

Can't help but keep thinking that if this is what ICE feels emboldened to do in broad daylight--straight up murder--what the fuck are they getting away with behind closed doors in the concentration camps they have set up? It's going to take years to uncover the full damage they've inflicted

Rapture, but for guys really into ChatGPT

Man, writing is so hard. You're constantly confronted with your own limits, all the papers you have not read, all the terminology and facts you keep forgetting, etc. No wonder people turn to alcohol or worse (generative AI) when writing.

Still crazy to me that the richest man in the world is a straight up white supremacist and constantly trying to incite a "race war". Seems like we really need to do something about that if we want to survive the next decade

A movie that came out in 2025 that deserves way more love is "Mountainhead". Extremely funny satire of tech billionaires and AI zealots.