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photos by Lara Shipley

One Order of Science, Hold the Science

December 18th, 2003 · No Comments

Will has a humorous and brutal takedown of an embarassingly bad Jenny Roback Morse piece on the “natural, organic” purposes of sexuality. Unlike many conservatives, Morse actually refers to evolutionary psychology while invoking “nature.” Like most, however, she doesn’t seem to have a clue about the science itself. Oh, and I’ll add to Will’s list of false claims she couldn’t be bothered to spend 30 seconds checking on Google: She misquotes Shakespeare. The line from Othello is “making the beast with two backs,” not “making the two-backed beast.”

Also worth noting, by the way, are the various laugh-out-loud transparent false dichotomies that we get here. For instance:

A sexual partner is not a person to whom I am irrevocably connected by bonds of love. Rather, the sexual partner has become an object that satisfies me more or less well.

Yup. Either sex is part of a ’till-death-do-us-part commitment to your One True Soul Mate, or just masturbation with someone else in the room. No middle ground there. Isn’t it nice to get a scientific perspective.

Anyway, I’ll second Will on this. Your degree’s in economics, Jennifer. How about you stick to that and stop embarassing yourself publicly?

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