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(I am republishing a lot of 'legacy content' from our PLOS Neuroanthropology weblog, which has been taken down, along with many of the other founding PLOS Blogs. Some of these, I am putting up because I teach with them. If you have any requests, don't hesitate to email me at: greg.downey @ mq (dot) edu (dot) au. I suspect many of the links in this piece will be broken, but I will endeavour to try to slowly rebuild this content. I originally published this on 10 January 2012. I have also included at the end some of the most substantial comments from the comment thread.)
A while back, Bora Zivkovic directed me (well, …all his Facebook followers) to the word, 'sapiosexuality': the tendency to become 'attracted to or aroused by intelligence and its use'(thanks, Bora!).
Ironically, although the term may be a bit of a joke, the idea that intelligence is a species-specific aphrodisiac has more than a shred of evolutionary plausibility. Moreover, 'sapiosexuality' is a crucial point of reference in the contemporary discussion of human sexual selection, especially to break the stranglehold that Victorian social mores and sexist assumptions have on popular understandings of human sexual evolution.
I was reminded of the term 'sapiosexuality' after teaching my annual introductory course on human evolution. Student evaluations are in, and over and over again, student comments lead me to think that, in order to change popular understandings of evolution, we need not simply better data, but also better stories. Especially when tired, old tropes are repeatedly trotted out again in a popular discussion of how 'evolution' has shaped 'human nature,' even when the data is showing the opposite, we should wonder if evidence alone can ever overturn rusted on bad interpretations.
Jason Antrosio makes a similar point about the need for new metaphors in his post, The Tangled Bank: Old metaphors for new evolutionary understandings. I believe Jason is right. Pernicious evolutionary narratives cannot be displaced by facts alone: to replace a story, you need a competing story. Specifically, in this series of columns, I'll discuss a contender that might displace the man-the-promiscuous-horny-hunter/woman-the-choosy-chaste-gatherer chestnut (if for no other reason, to try to head off too many more Ed Rybicki short 'comedy' pieces like 'Womanspace').
I believe that a story we might title, 'the long, slow sexual revolution,' does a better job of foregrounding the most important salient facts about human sexual selection and evolution. The opportunity I'm taking to discuss this alternative narrative is a documentary series that you can watch most of online where I got to try out this framing, and it seemed to work (as it also worked in my evolution class).
The video, with a caution before you watch
Australian network SBS aired 'Sex: An Unnatural History' over the course of six weeks. I offered commentary in episodes one (below), five and six. (I can't find episode 6 online.) The head researcher for the series read some of my earlier posts criticizing some forms of evolutionary psychology (the old posts are compiled here), and brought me on board, primarily to talk about evolutionary psychology and sexuality from a neuroanthropological perspective.
However, before you watch Episode One, 'Revolution,' a warning: the video is NSFW unless you work at a lad magazine, in a topless donut shop or in a similarly liberal environment. Australian television, especially SBS at 10pm on Friday night, is a LOT less tame than US TV (although nothing to rival Italy, I'm told). Be ready for an eyefull of frontal nudity, simulated sexual intercourse, and even archival videos of 'love ins' of shaggy people from the 1960s — of course, that might be precisely the reason some of you showed up here (if so, talk about your low percentage surfing…).
At about 20:02 my voiceover makes its first appearance, accompanying footage of animals mating, straight and gay couples in flagrante, and some great shots of our farm, including a cameo by one of our horses who, ironically, is a gelding as well as a camera hog.
The series editors actually gave me the sort of 'last word' for the opening episode on sexual 'revolution', and I got to meet Julia Zemiro, Australian celebrity, actress, comedian, and Eurovision presenter, so I'm pretty happy about how it turned out. And don't worry: at no time do I appear naked! Here's the vid, and below the fold is the discussion…
The new story, in a nutshell
This post will stretch over at least three installments, so the punchline has to come early or you all might turn on me; besides, you might have something better to do. When asked about the 'sexual revolution,' and whether 'the pill changed everything,' at the end of episode one for the SBS series, I tried to shift the frame: the 'big news' in human sexuality as a species isn't a revolution in a long-unchanged sexual rut that started with oral contraception (never mind that it's parochial to assume that Euro-American middle-class trends define 'human evolution' or 'human sexuality' as a whole).
The 60s and 70s, including the 'Sexual Revolution,' feminism, divorce, and more and more diverse family structures, should instead be seen as a recent round of a longer-running, ongoing pattern of sexual change, a trajectory very different from those taken by our nearest great ape cousins: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. They've had their own trajectories of sexual change over the same time, but we're mostly concerned about our own.
Becoming human over the last five million years has included sexual changes almost as monumental as transformations to other aspects of our bodies, cognitive abilities, tool use, and social life. This sexual change has made use of some of the same resources and adaptive tendencies, and been instrumental in facilitating these other changes. Overall, the pattern of human sexual evolution has moved toward:
- fluctuating and variable male-female equality and roles (with much less marked increase in dimorphism than gorillas or chimpanzees if we look across all traits and just don't pick our favourites—I'll come back to this in part 2 of the series);
- exaptation and redeployment of sex for non-reproductive or semi-reproductive purposes (like cementing cooperation);
- satisfying the broad demands of reproduction in our species, not just conception, but also parenting, provisioning and socialization;
- adaptation of sexuality to balance the other needs of our species, such as foraging behaviour, hierarchy and social solidarity;
- greater awareness of our own sexuality and corresponding top-down cognitive influences on sexual expression; and
- in summary, a flexible, even contradictory sexuality, which, although it confounds the simple description of human sexual 'nature', is actually an adaptive strategy given an animal that is going to have to adapt quickly and respond sensitively to shifting contexts (such as a large-bodied, hyper-invasive, wide-ranging mammalian omnivore).
The idea of the 'long, slow sexual revolution,' I think, provides a simple and balanced umbrella for pulling together contradictory elements of our sexuality, gender relations, and reproductive strategies. Everyone knows that the more recent 'Sexual Revolution' didn't erase pre-existing sexual mores and patterns, but rather mixed with them, producing a conflicted, sometimes-unpredictable pattern of sexual expression. Starting with a 'sexual revolution' rather than the Men-are-from-Mars-Women-are-from-Venus story means less erroneous leaping to stereotypes to undo when we teach or communicate about human evolution.
This idea that we have an inherently contradictory sexuality, the sixth point, is important because a one-sided narrative (say, for example, an argument that humans are 'naturally' bonobo-like, polyamorous and peaceful) shouldn't be simply pitted against a pre-existing, opposing one-sided account, like the Mars-Venus contrast. I'll come back to this point in part three of this series, but my fear of the over-corrective is the reason that I'm a touch uncomfortable with Ryan and Jethá's (2010) book, Sex at Dawn. Although many of their innovative ideas are well worth considering, if for no other reasons to cleverly counter-balance other pervasive accounts of human sexuality in evolution, the book does run the danger of a competing partiality, however important the corrective may be.
The statistical prevalence of institutions like male dominance, female-centred family structure, and widespread idealization of monogamy (even alongside equally-widespread patterns of extra-pair mating and other forms of sexuality) is incontrovertible. Our discussion of sexual evolution has to be consistent with observable facts, both now and in our phylogenetic past, and we can't be cherry-picking data to fit a feminist Darwinist or bonobo-ist polyamorous account any more than to fit an anti-feminist one.
Different proclivities in a species need not be harmonized by natural and sexual selection, nor need sexual selection be one-directional; the presence of unresolved conflicts in instincts or behavioural tendencies can produce a more flexible and responsive behavioural repertoire and a two-way form of social selection is likely in a highly intelligent primate. (Of course, unresolved tendency can also produce confusion and ambivalence, but that's for part three). For example, a tendency toward male domination underwritten by sexual dimorphism and high levels of male aggression can be pitted against tendencies towards greater egalitarian sexual relations grounded in female sibling solidarity, female mate choice, and foraging versatility. Together, opposing tendencies can produce a behavioural repertoire that tips in quite different directions given the right conditions.
The caveat emptor: Although I've been spending a lot of my time in the last few years teaching and writing about evolution, it's not my area of research, so all of this is based in my reading of the literature, much of which I do for teaching. Soon, I'll be back to posting on my own research area as there's much new stuff to report there, especially with the start of the rugby project.
What does the new narrative accomplish?
The narrative is hardly 'revolutionary' itself, but I think it accomplishes some important functions. Although I had lectured along these lines, calling this particular view the 'long, slow sexual revolution' for the SBS interview crystallized for me this counter to the presentist assumption that oral contraceptives 'changed everything' about human sexuality a few decades ago (the SBS researcher really liked this change and probably recruited me because of it). More importantly, as I thought about it, the 'long, slow revolution' framing also undermined the idea that sex—alone among human traits—was frozen and unmoved throughout evolution, as so much else of what makes us human underwent radical change and innovation.
First, some of the discussion around the documentary assumed that oral contraception unleashed 'natural' sexuality from being tied to reproduction; that desire and reproduction, prior to that point, were yoked together inseparably as heterosexist partners assuring the survival of our species. The 'pill-causes-sexual-revolution' argument underestimates, in my opinion, the degree to which sexual expression in humans (and in most sexual species) has long been much broader than just to get gametes together successfully. Sexual behaviours like mounting and receptive postures are routinely used to mark dominance, affiliation, and submission in many, if not most mammals (and sometimes even for dominance in reptiles and insects), and things get even more complex in humans, especially with concealed female fertility.
Among humans, we have known about and sought to manage fertility, sometimes with marked success, for millennia. The pill improved that control and the efficacy of techniques, certainly, but hardly represented an entirely unprecedented 'revolution.' So the idea that reproduction was a chain tying down sexual expressivity probably over-estimates the degree to which risk of pregnancy affected human sexuality (says this Catholic boy from a small family). Moreover, the 'sexual revolution' hardly meant that individuals' desires were all suddenly acceptable and expressible.
Second, some of the discussion of the 'sexual revolution' of the 1960s and 1970s revealed a startlingly superficial awareness of variation in human sexuality across broader historical, archaeological and evolutionary scales, and of the complexity of sexual relations in different classes and social groups. Yes, the Sixties were a revolution compared to the force-fed sexual ideology of the post-WWII era, but the bourgeois marketer-manufactured idea of the perfect family of the 1950s was itself innovative, a willful distortion of actual patterns of reproduction, cohabitation and family structure in the period. And most families failed to live up to the 'ideal' in a host of ways—social, economic and reproductive—in the 1950s, long before they got all 'revolutionary.'
Along these lines, the long, slow sexual revolution specifically undermines the amnesia and class-centrism inherent in the way some self-proclaimed 'conservative' political programs insist that they just fight for what is 'normal' or 'natural,' for example, against feminism or sexual rights movements. James Peron points out in the Huffinginton Post in 'Creationism and the Marriage Debate,'that a kind of 'faith-based' history denies marriage was anything other than Ozzie and Harriet, in blatant contradiction even to the relationships described in the 'sacred' texts for these movements (yes, I'm talking about the Bible):
The moment someone tells me "marriage has always been" something or another, I know they are ignorant of the actual history of marriage. It has never "always" been anything. It has taken different forms, with different social rules attached. Those forms and rules changed as the function of marriage changed.
Third, the long, slow revolution narrative fights the tendency to argue that, in relation to sex, 'human nature' is what you get when you remove every human trait, as Daniel Lende and I have argued in a forthcoming book chapter. Anyone who argued that you get to the 'nature' of human cognitive ability in a thought experiment in which you strip off everything that's distinctly human, like language, social complexity, and self-awareness, would be mocked mercilessly as a fool. And yet people can routinely assert that, when it comes to sex, we're just follicley-challenged monkeys. (Greg Laden's 2008 column on the subject specifically demolishes the idea that other primates offer some clear model for 'natural' sexuality. If you haven't read it, the piece is still well worth the time.)
Finally, related to this last point, the 'long, slow sexual revolution' narrative more clearly locates sex with other dimensions of human existence in the account of our evolution, as both survival problem and resource. Sex isn't just a trait, or a challenge, or a tool—it's all of these at once. And the same dynamics that shape our other traits also affect our sexuality, including some very peculiar human dynamics, such as increasingly byzantine neural architecture and the ability to suppress even the most basic instinctual or reflex behaviour, deflect primary drives, and affect our own development into sexual beings.
The reason I push the 'sexual revolution' line is that I think this account makes intuitive sense to a broad audience, and that, as the layers of depth and complexity are added to the narrative, the foundation is essentially sound. Unlike other simple ways of talking about evolution (like the 'selfish gene' model, or the 'we're just bonobos in clothing' story, in my opinion), you don't wind up with people getting really, really off track by following logically on the implications of your beachhead narrative.
Some people might say that we don't need a simple story to tell about the evolution of human sexuality, that we should 'complexify' and 'problematize' other accounts instead, refusing to be pinned down to something overly basic. I think that the 'complexifying-problematizing' rhetorical strategy is too distracting and diluted to oppose pernicious popular evolutionary fables. And the old, sexist narratives aren't going anywhere without a struggle.
Old stories don't die easy
One problem with old sex stereotypes in evolutionary narratives is that they are so damned clear and memorable. They're hard to keep down because they appeal to our cultural common sense, so we have to seek to replace them with equally plausible, persuasive, and—to be honest—glib ways of describing alternative positions.
In the battle to persuade, good ideas also need sharp marketing: quick, clear ways to communicate the nub of an argument (as I've argued about 'branding' anthropology and Jason Antrosio is pointing out in his discussion of new metaphors). Those of us who seek to dislodge sexist narratives from evolutionary theory need both data and the same kind of forceful rhetorical tropes that old school sexist evolution accounts had; you know the type, the Men-are-from-Mars, Women-are-from-Venus version of human sexuality.
'Dear Jesse, do you mind serving as an example?'
Case in point is a recent post on the Scientific American weblog, Bering in Mind, "Dear Jesse, I like very young girls." In the post, self-proclaimed evolutionary psychologist Jesse Bering acts as an agony aunt, answering readers' letters with evolution-based advice. Specifically, Bering writes to a self-declared 'deep-thinking hebephile,' an adult man attracted to pubescent-aged girls, that these predilections are not particularly rare and that society's negative reaction is a case of it catching 'an especially alarming sight of itself in the mirror.' His answer, however startling, is a pretty logical extension of the typical, May-December evolutionary psychology account of human mate preference, that doods dig young chiks because it's a 'successful' reproductive strategy.
Although Bering expresses some reservations, his reaction overall suggests that a hebephilic orientation would have been 'biologically adaptive in the ancestral past.' Moreover, Bering thinks that society might be over-reacting by forbidding adult-adolescent consensual relationships because some evidence might be interpreted to say that these relationships actually are all that detrimental to young people. (See Anna North's argument with this last assertion at Jezebel.)
The reaction to Bering has been pretty deservedly scathing, as I'm leaving out some of the worst details. Isis the Scientist in An Open Letter to Jesse Bering takes Bering to task for his disregard for power, manipulation of children and feminism (Bering specifically suggests elsewhere he is sympathetic to 'anti-feminism'). White Coat Underground argues that Scientific American effectively condones what Bering is writing. Stephanie Zvan at Almost Diamonds writes a response to the letter that is grounded in psychological and therapeutic practice, rather than in 'evolutionary theory.'
Finally, Janet D. Stemwedel, at the science and ethics blog Doing Good Science, countered Bering specifically on the distinction between scientific explanation and moral justification: Science and ethics shouldn't be muddled (or, advice for Jesse Bering). And, if you haven't had enough, Chris Clarke provides a brilliant parody, Dear Jesse: I Want To Eat My Stepchildren. Is This Normal? and Jeremy Yoder a bit of a review of his own gripes with Bering.
…nevermind, we've got plenty of examples…
I'm not going to specifically delve into the Bering-hebephile controversy, or his less-commented-upon responses to other letters, equally grounded in the standard May-December mate preference model, which include an assertion that a 29-year-old woman is a 'young, reproductively viable female with diminishing mate value in the throes of intense intrasexual competition with potential rivals for a desirable mate.' (Kate Clancy has pointed out on Twitter how problematic his answers are; or see her response to Bering here).
The reason I won't discuss Berring extensively is that, if I were to wait two more weeks to publish this post (and at the rate I'm going, I might), almost inevitably, another controversy—major or minor—would emerge from someone claiming that a particular strain of 'evolutionary psychology' justified trafficking in hackneyed gender stereotypes or penning an apologia for patriarchal sexual mores.
If I had written this post earlier (say, in November), I could just as easily have used the example of Ed Rybicki's risible 'comedy' piece 'Womanspace.' If you've missed it, see Jacquelyn Gill's comprehensive rundown of this sorry episode in science publishing at The Contemplative Mammoth. In fact, Rybicki's story would have been an even better jumping off point than Bering's column because Rybicki's version of the sexist narrative was so, as Scicurious beautifully put it, tired and 'smelling of old farts and cigar smoke.' In other words, the Bering controversy just isn't that interesting because it's pretty predictable given the narrative problem dogging evolutionary accounts of human sexuality(Patrick Clarkin says as much in his blog, too).
Defending evolutionary psychology from the fables
When a piece like Bering's, Rybicki's, or Satoshi Kanazawa's argument that black women are unattractive (pulled down by available here) is published and outrage ensues, also predictably, some other self identified 'evolutionary psychologist' comes along to disown the offense, pointing out that the offender is making the whole endeavor of evolutionary psychology look pretty bad, and probably isn't really an evolutionary psychologist. The serious evolutionary psychologist will insist that the problem is neither evolutionary theory, nor psychology, but this particular individual's interpretation of evolutionary psychology (for example, in this report of the refutation of Kanazawa at the Times Higher Education supplement and the letter (download pdf)). And I agree.
The problem of evolutionary psychology in the public sphere isn't generally the research, or serious researchers and theorists (although I'm ambivalent about Bering and a couple of others who seem to revel in anti-feminism). The problem is the over-arching narrative available for anyone to pick upand wave around, selectively cherry-picking a little bit of data, an anecdote, or a cultural common sense point before going out for a little jag. I think serious evolutionary psychologists are a bit too cavalier about this narrative, knowing full well that it no longer represents the state of understanding in the field of evolutionary theory. They have a responsibility to counter the sexist, retrograde account of human sexuality if they don't like being tarred by the brushes that come out to knock down amateur ' evolutionary psychology.'
The problem is that this terrible narrative inevitably tends to drag down any discussion of the evolution of sexuality into misogyny, gender stereotypes, and apologia for inequality, providing a thin pretense for an up-swelling of reactionary attitudes in non-scientists. As a man, I'm even offended by the portrayal of masculinity, the smug confidence that if I don't recognize I'm a pig (who wants to sleep with adolescents or can't figure out the most basic domestic tasks, in the case of Bering or Rybicki), I'm just denying my true masculine nature.
If I, like other cultural anthropologists, have to hose down overly radical cultural constructivists and take flack for some of their weirder pronouncements, then evolutionary psychologists have to do more to counter-act sexist rhetorical tropes.
The amateurs often use principles that haven't been dominant in evolutionary theory since the 1960s; even basic textbooks in human evolution have caught up. But amateurs can and do traffic in the old stories because the foundational Mars-Venus narrative hasn't been sufficiently put to rest, stake through the heart style. The particularly delicious irony is that the story even gets faithfully repeated when it appears at odds with or utterly unconnected to the more specific results of the research, as often is the case in science reporting (and I've discussed in some of my earlier posts on evolutionary psychology and sexuality). In other words, we need a strong narrative antidote to clichéd accounts of human evolution to short-circuit a popular communication problem.
Evolutionary psychology and feminism
The big problem for evolutionary psychology, which is not a feature of evolutionary thought more generally, is anti-feminism. As Laurette Liesen (2011:749) points out, evolutionary psychologyoften has been especially resistant to feminist intellectual critique and methodological corrective, whereas evolutionary biology has successfully integrated many key insights from feminist biologists (see also Liesen 1998, 2007). Cassidy (2007) has argued that feminism and evolutionary psychology have been pitted against each other since the 1970s, when evolutionary psychologists opposed the 'women's liberation' movement, some of them (such as David Buss) specifically arguing that one could not be both a feminist and an evolutionary psychologist.
The relationship between evolutionary psychology and feminism probably hit its nadir with the publication of Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer's (2000) book, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion. The book argued that rape was primarily a reproductive strategy, predating the emergence of our species, whereas feminists argued that rape was about power, an expression of patriarchy and an act of violence. In fact, Vandermassen (2010) argues that the evolutionary and feminist perspectives are compatible, but this stream of thinking in evolutionary psychology tended to drive feminist thinkers from evolutionary psychology even though their perspectives could really enrich the endeavour.
For example, primatologist Sarah Hrdy, in a long and distinguished career, has demonstrated how shifting the research and theoretical focus to strategies of females and infants provides a much more complex perspective on the diverse demands of reproduction and the selective pressures introduced by complex social lives (see esp. Hrdy 2009). In her book, Mother Nature (1999), for instance, Hrdy argues that the 'maternal instinct' is not an inevitable behaviour pattern; female primates assess the health and viability of infants, and can neglect those judged to be unlikely prospects. In addition, if possible, mothers may farm out infant care to 'alloparents,' often sisters, grandmothers, or the infant's siblings. By recognizing that women are active in sexual reproduction in a range of ways, that mothers, too, make strategic decisions about mating and child rearing, we better understand complex primate social life.
At this stage, with work like Hrdy's well known, it's simply incontrovertible that feminist critique has made evolutionary theory better since the time of Darwin. It's not just feminist biologists who have helped, obviously, but you'd have to be pretty recalcitrant to insist that work like Hrdy's is not hugely important to our understandings of primate reproduction and sexual selection.
Feminism, of course, is a broad area of thought with blurred boundaries (as is 'evolutionary psychology,' in fact), in some areas philosophy or political project, in others practical, methodological and theoretical. One cannot write a simple definition of 'feminism.' Evolutionary psychologists tend to get hung up on the political project of feminism and believe that the foundation for their disagreement with feminist biologists is that the evolutionary psychologists are doing 'science' and their critics are practicing politics.
In some cases, the evolutionary psychologists are right: the critique is political. But that's often because the psychologists themselves strayed over the line from 'science' into social, cultural or political interpretation. Either that, or they have a tin ear for how their arguments are going to be heard. That is, evolutionary psychologists often don't get why they're arguing with other intellectuals, or at least they act like that they don't get it.
For example, when Buss and Malamuth (1996) sought to bring together feminism and evolutionary psychology over a decade ago, they were so concerned with the 'naturalistic fallacy'—the conflation of scientific and ethical thinking, or 'what is' with 'what ought to be'—that they spent most of their energy and ink trying to argue against political forms of feminism, failing to bring on board the insights of methodological and theoretical feminism in science. The effort by Buss and colleagues may have been genuine, but they were more concerned with their interlocutors' failings than their own (at least, that's how I read it). Likewise, evolutionary psychologist Robert Kurban's response to those who criticize his field is four bits of advice, all of which are 'learn more about evolutionary psychology.'
Even in more recent academic venues, evolutionary psychologists argue that their communication problem lies mostly in the reception; Kurzban (2010), for example, suggests that critics don't engage their ideas 'on scientific grounds,' stymieing the entire production of knowledge:
Debate and discussion are, of course, all to the good. Conflict helps distill truth, as champions make their cases for their favored proposition, allowing their views to be judged by observers.
The challenge faced by evolutionary psychology, however, is that the critics do not participate in this dialectic. Interlocutors engaging with evolutionary psychologists frequently don't engage with evolutionary psychology, preferring instead to fabricate evolutionary psychologists' views, and then attack the imagined positions (see Kurzban, 2002).
Why is this the case? At this point it is unclear.
Kurzban's critique is valid, of course, as many of the critics do miss the mark or offer political criticism instead of scientific rejoinder. But what he sees as the inaccurate aim of the critics is often a response people claiming to be 'evolutionary psychologists' themselves first wandering out of the protected game reserve of 'science' and into the wilds of politics, social criticism, or, even more dangerous, sexual advice columns.
As most any anthropologist or researcher in the social studies of science would hasten to say, it's hard enough to do science without a political perspective sneaking in under the cloak of objectivity and value neutrality, let alone keeping 'scientific' when you're writing sexual advice (which Kurzban is definitely notdoing). Especially in a field like evolutionary psychology, where, Kurzban points out, serious questions are being addressed with broad implications, the tightrope between what 'is' and what 'ought to be' is a challenge. You can't avoid the tightrope simply by pretending you're not walking it.
If Kurzban or other evolutionary psychologists are really mystified, or 'unclear' as Kurzban suggests, about why critics 'are not just skeptical, they are angry' (Kurzban quoting Daly and Wilson 2007: 396), or truly in the dark why their interlocutors appear 'to be motivated by something other than a humble search for the truth' (Kurzban quoting Daly and Wilson 2007: 390), I can help. Alas, if evolutionary psychologists feel 'unfairly accused' and 'unjustly condemned' (Kurzban 2002), I think I might be able to explain it: they've got a chronic, recurring narrative problem.
Not all publicity is good publicity
When critics attack evolutionary psychology, they typically don't have to 'fabricate evolutionary psychologists' views.' Instead, critics take popular or just out-dated versions of evolutionary psychologists' arguments like those put forward by Bering, Rybicki or whatever scandaloteur du jour gets wide media play. If Kurzban really doesn't understand the dim view taken of evolutionary psychology by feminists and others, he probably doesn't realize how much damage this sort of publicity does to his field, both with other intellectuals and with the reading public. The misogynist pop evolutionary psychology also attracts those looking to justify their own retrograde attitudes (anyone who doesn't know what I mean, just look in the comments on any blog post discussing research on sex differences in evolutionary psychology, perhaps even this one).
Perhaps because he doesn't realize the damage being done, Kurzban's excellent blog (Evolutionary Psychology, found here) tends to focus more on the 'we're misrepresented' part of the 'scientific dialectic,' rather than on clarifying errors within the field or fighting misrepresentation of evolutionary theory by those who claim to represent it (a rare exception is his post about Kanazawa's column on black women, but even there, Kurzban gets around to how unjust it is to treat evolutionary psychologists badly because of Kanazawa). Kurzban is pretty quick to point out when critiques of evolutionary psychology have failed to keep pace with changes in evolutionary theory (for example, on his weblog here and here), but a bit less swift to point out when erstwhile public proponents of evolutionary psychology are a decade or more behind, as well.
I have no doubt that Kurzban and other evolutionary psychologists feel misunderstood, even aggrieved. But if having a pitcher of water poured on another person's head at a meeting in 1978 (as happened to E. O. Wilson) is enough to produce a sense that you and your field's persecuted, you should be able to spare a bit of empathy for other oppressed groups. And if being told you're not a 'science' offends or hurts, as Kurzban implies, then certainly he can spare some fellow-feeling for the feminist scientists so often on the receiving end of that particular rhetorical truncheon. I would hope that, if a bunch of smart evolutionary psychologists really put their minds to it, they could well understand why feminist intellectuals should feel persecuted by evolutionary psychologists if the psychologists are still retelling tales of aquatic insult at a conference more than thirty years old.
I agree with Kurzban on many issues, but if he and other evolutionary psychologists want to make some headway on their public reception problems, I doubt they're going to make much progress by just complaining that they are misunderstood. In addition to opening themselves to legitimate critique by feminist evolutionary psychologists (which I think most do), they've also got to help with cleaning up the public narrative. It's probably not efficient or a good use of their time for serious evolutionary psychologists to have to deal with each poseur, one at a time, writing blog posts again and again saying, 'He claims to be one of us, but he's just another misogynist. Go ahead with the online beatdown…' Instead, they could attack the misleading and partial narrative, helping to replace it with a better one.
Ironically, as Richard Wright (1994; cited in Smith and Konick 2011: 597) has pointed out, some of the 'evolutionary' perspectives on men's innate attitudes are remarkably similar to the most rare and radical anti-male brand of feminism — 'Human males are by nature oppressive, possessive, flesh-obsessed pigs' is how Wright put it — a delicious case of extremes doubling back to meet each other. It's just that the supposed evolutionary theorists often don't think there's anything we can or should do about piggish behaviour. (Or, as Bering implies, society should probably just lighten up about men behaving badly because a few hundred generations ago, the behaviour would have been pretty normal and adaptive.)
It's possible, however, as Kate Clancy points out, that some evolutionary psychologists may simply enjoy the role of 'science provocateur.' They might relish provoking public reaction or ginning up outrage by finding new ways to assert that feminists or other progressives are just soft-headed, self-deluding, politically-correct ninnies fighting human nature, like well-meaning nitwits raging against gravity for being oppressive.
If they're just in the debate to have a bit of a lark, then my advice is pretty much moot (and if this is you, please don't bother commenting as I won't respond – I've got too much to write). But I think that there's a possibility of strengthening the discussion of evolutionary psychology by expanding it significantly to include more paleoanthropologists, neurologists, anthropologists, primatologists, ethologists, historians, and, yes, anthropologists of all stripes.
One could find unhelpful strains of all these disciplines, of course, such as overly politicized scholars of various sorts who might be opposed on principle to the effort or scholars who only see things through their own disciplinary lenses and refuse to acknowledge the potential validity of any other approach. But a serious consideration of the relation between human evolution and sexual psychology would need to be pretty open and willing to listen to diverse perspectives, one would think. And a good starting point would be a change in the orienting narrative.
Where we're going with this post, credits and predecessors
The 'long, slow sexual revolution' account of human sexuality is hardly original, as I've tried to make clear. It's simply my way of trying to communicate in some coherent, simple package, diverse ideas that I've learned from people like evolutionary psychologists Robert Trivers and David Buss, sociobiologist E. O. Wilson, biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling, and anthropologists Don Symons, Meredith Small, Agustín Fuentes, Jonathan Marks, and Sarah B. Hrdy, among many others.
More immediately, this particular column has been influenced and inspired by fellow online writers Patrick Clarkin (check out his excellent series on human pair-bonding which starts here), John Hawks, Greg Laden (see especially his piece on female orgasm), Kate Clancy (I'll talk about her post on 'mate magnet madness' more in the second part of this series), Eric Michael Johnson (see his great discussion of recent genetics research on polygyny) and Jeremy Yoder (amazing long read relating his own homosexuality to his interest in evolutionary theory and the possibility of a 'gay gene' persisting in a population).
What I hope to add in this series of post, however, that may not appear in some of the others discussions of the evolutionary psychology scandal-of-the-month, is an analysis of the story that underpins this interpretation and a proposal for an alternative story we can tell about human sexuality and evolution that is intellectually inclusive.
The next post will review the primary conceptual foundations of the kind of narrative that predictably produces material like Ed Rybicki's story and Jesse Bering's advice. I don't think it's just sexism that produces sexist evolutionary psychology, but an inordinate focus on a small number of key issues: anisogamy, sexual dimorphism, universalism, and 'mate preference,' predominant among them. My goal is not to argue that these factors are not important, or even to say that they might not produce something like the sorts of tendencies that the Mars-Venus account of human sexuality suggests, but rather to suggest that they might not be quite as clear cut or unchangeable as sometimes assumed.
The third post will offer my approach to teaching the 'long, slow sexual evolution,' maybe even my slides if I can pull it together, in a way that includes both long-standing concepts in discussions of human sexual selection (all the ones that I discuss in post two), as well as other material that I think works well with students and popular audiences. In particular, one way that we can teach human evolution and sexuality is to highlight how the 'revolution' produces contradictory elements in our sexuality, and that this instability is actually an adaptive resource, allowing human sexual behaviour to shift quite dramatically given different social and contextual pressures.
Additional reading
If you haven't had it by this point, here's some additional columns, including many discussed in the post.
- Jason Antrosio, Living Anthropologically, The Tangled Bank: Old metaphors for new evolutionary understandings).
- Kate Clancy, Context and Variation, Mate magnet madness: when the range of possible explanations exceeds your own hypothesis
- Patrick Clarkin, Patrick F. Clarkin, PhD, Part 1. Humans are (Blank) -ogamous
- John Hawks, John Hawks Weblog, The real "junk" DNA
- Eric Michael Johnson, The Primate Diaries, The Case of the Missing Polygamists
- Greg Laden, Greg Laden's Blog, Coming to terms with the female orgasm
- Emily Willingham, The Biology Files, Women know something you don't.
- Jeremy Yoder, guest post at Scientific American, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Natural Selection and Evolution, with a Key to Many Complicating Factors
- Ed Yong, Not Exactly Rocket Science, Control Altered by Deletion – is lost DNA behind our bigger brains and spineless penises?
Buss, D., & Schmitt, D. (1993). Sexual Strategies Theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100 (2), 204-232 DOI: 10.1037/0033-295X.100.2.204
Cassidy, A. (2007). The (sexual) politics of evolution: Popular controversy in the late 20th-century United Kingdom. History of Psychology, 10 (2), 199-226 DOI: 10.1037/1093-4510.10.2.199
Daly, M., and Wilson, M. (2007). Is the "Cinderella effect" controversial? A case study of evolution-minded research and critiques thereof. In Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology, C. Crawford and D. Krebs, eds. Pp. 383-400. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. (pdf available here)
Eagly, A., & Wood, W. (2011). Feminism and the Evolution of Sex Differences and Similarities Sex Roles, 64 (9-10), 758-767 DOI: 10.1007/s11199-011-9949-9
Hrdy, S. (1999). Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection. New York: Pantheon Books.
_____. (2009). Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kurzban, R. (2010). Grand challenges of evolutionary psychology Frontiers in Psychology, 1 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00003
Liesen, L. (1998). Book reviews Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 7 (3), 105-113 DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1520-6505(1998)7:33.0.CO;2-M
Liesen, L. (2007). Women, behavior, and evolution Politics and the Life Sciences, 26 (1), 51-70 DOI: 10.2990/21_1_51
Liesen, L. (2010). Feminists, Fear Not Evolutionary Theory, but Remain Very Cautious of Evolutionary Psychology Sex Roles, 64 (9-10), 748-750 DOI: 10.1007/s11199-010-9857-4
Ryan, C. & Jethá, C. (2010) Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships. Harper Perennial: New York.
Smith, C., & Konik, J. (2011). Feminism and Evolutionary Psychology: Allies, Adversaries, or Both? An Introduction to a Special Issue Sex Roles, 64 (9-10), 595-602 DOI: 10.1007/s11199-011-9985-5
Thornhill, R., & Palmer, C. T. (2000). A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion.Cambridge: MIT.
Vandermassen, G. (2010). Evolution and Rape: A Feminist Darwinian Perspective Sex Roles, 64 (9-10), 732-747 DOI: 10.1007/s11199-010-9895-y
Wright, R. (1994, November 28). Feminists, meet Mr. Darwin. The New Republic 34-38.
Selected comments
Well done Greg! Excellent overview and I am looking forward to the next segment!
Let me just add my emphatic support to your strong points and fine prose via a super brief summary of the chapter on busting the myth of sex/gender differences in my upcoming book. This is the take home message based on an extensive survey of anthropological, biological and psychologicla literature on sex and gender differences:
"There are important biological differences between the sexes and there are also important similarities, however there is a greater range of overlap in male and female bodies than most people realize. Behaviorally males and females also overlap extensively. Humans, regardless of sex, seek to form pair bonds of both social and sexual sorts, but pair bonds and marriage are not the same thing. Males and females, given the opportunity, will engage in sexual behavior across the lifespan in more or less the same rates and manners. These strong similarities in male and female bodies and behavior do not mean that gender differences are not real and important. Gender is a powerful cultural construct and the perception and expectation of gender differences impacts individuals and society. Males tend to control economic and political resources and women are heavily involved with the child rearing because they give birth and lactate, but males and females have the same behavioral ability to care for offspring. There is no biological or evolutionary mandate that only females care for young and only males care for economics and politics. These patterns of gender difference and the strength of the cultural assumptions about sex fool us into thinking that men and women are so different by nature."
This comment reminds me of something from the book Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs:
"Apples and oranges aren't the different, really. I mean, they're both fruit. Their weight is extremely similar. They both contain acidic elements. They're both roughly spherical. They serve the same social purpose. With the possible exception of a tangerine, I can't think of anything more similar to an orange then an apple. If I was having lunch with a man who was eating an apple and- while I was looking away- he replaced that apple with an orange, I doubt I'd even notice. So how is this a metaphor for difference?…"
It is very true that men and women are very similar to one another and one could posit a number of way in which the ways we struggle in our daily lives is similar to Chimps, ground squirrels, and pigeons (I am not, by analogy, claiming that men and women are as different as apples and oranges) . We can certainly learn things by looking at the similarities between things, but also the differences. You note differences above based on the "cultural construct of gender". And it is true that culture has a strong influence on people, but people's genetic pre-dispositions do also. Both culture and gene's are not immutable forces as you note… but why is it wrong if some researchers want to focus on understanding the non-immutable genetic predispositions that might lead one to be misogynistic rather than the cultural one's that have the same effect. I assure you, real change will not be possible without understanding both elements of the equation–indeed men and women have very different psychologies based on a different selective history and different ontogenetic developments. Pretending the former does not exist or is unimportant in order to make changes in the ladder will fail. So are men and women different by nature? If you mean that they must always and in every case and environment be different than… duh no. If you mean that men and women have different behavioral proclivities based on differential success of certain strategies which are contingent on the environment providing certain regularities then… duh yes.
Great interview, Greg. I think "sex is like hands" should become an internet meme. I don't know if I can forgive you for "koala bears" though — sheesh, call yourself a new Australian?!
Wonderful, Greg! I'm looking forward to the next installments in the series.
This was a fantastic read, and I'm also looking forward to the next installments. I'm bookmarking this one.
A really wonderful post Greg. I particularly appreciated your understanding that changing the discussion about the evolution of human sexuality will require a dual-pronged approach that involves both evidence and storytelling. So many of the evolutionary stories that are stuck in people's heads were ones developed prior to 1970 and have had forty years to weave their way into popular consciousness through comics, books, and movies. There is a lot of cultural reinforcement behind these flawed narratives that evidence alone will not displace. I'll be looking forward to the next part in this series and appreciate all of the time you put into this analysis.
I'm rather surprised at myself that I at least skimmed over this entire post since I fall directly into the category you described of interested intellectual women who have tossed the entire topic into a garbage can because it never seems to be comprised of anything but a herd of hooting middle-aged male degenerates trying to convince me that rape is just good fun while their ravening 20-something acolytes cheer.
Not to say that you've convinced me to avoid the topic, either. But it's a very nice, very exhaustive rundown of the issues and should be helpful for those people who haven't gotten entirely sickened by it yet. 😛
Excellent piece. I enjoyed your nuanced approach to these oft-oversimplified issues. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony…)
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Interesting post. On the whole it seems very reasonable and balanced, but I do have one (rather pedantic!) issue to bring up: your description of Jesse Bering as a "self-proclaimed evolutionary pyschologist". This does seem to imply that there is some sort of official qualification process for being an evolutionary psychologist, and that those who don't have it are merely self-proclaimed. Jesse is an academic psychologist – with a PhD in developmental psychology – who happens to believe strongly that evolutionary theory can help us understand the human mind. Doesn't that make him as much an evolutionary psychologist as anyone?
In the context of your discussion of hebephily, you might also want to make clear that Jesse is openly gay – so it is not a case of his unconscious desires motivating his arguments!
(Disclosure: Jesse was my PhD supervisor.)
Other than those quibbles, I enjoyed the post and I do think these issues need to be discussed calmly and rationally, as you do here.
Thanks for your reply, Greg … you know, I kind of realised as soon I hit "Post Comment" that you weren't being derogatory but had meant that he was acknowledging the label for himself, and then realised I had wasted my time writing the comment. So often the way 🙁
Good luck with your article deadlines, and I look forward to Part 2!
I loved this when you posted it last year. I'm sure you've plenty else occupying your time, but what are the prospects for seeing parts 2 and 3 any time soon?


text:
Shop Owens & Co.'s brand-new keiki section
Love Child
Toy crazes. You. Never really got along.
1996: Tickle Me Elmo failed to tickle your fancy.
1998: Furby, a wide-eyed owl monstrosity, gave you nightmares fur years.
2009: Tiny squeaking hamster robots? Just bad Zhu Zhu.
This year, you've finally got something to go crazy for. Behold, Owens & Co.'s brand-new keiki section, a bright, colorful display filled with unique children's toys, accessories and must-haves from local and mainland designers.
Pop in and peruse thoughtfully chosen items, like a vividly-illustrated Around the World with Mouk sticker book, a Paper Doll Parade notecard set, handmade floral oilcloth pencil cases by Lucy Blair and adorable, locally-made Punky Pals bunny dolls.
Take a closer look at some of the shop's fun finds below – any of which would make a great baby shower or Christmas gift.
As if you need an excuse to go play in the corner.
Owens & Co., 1152 Nuuanu Ave., (808) 531-4300.
Your keiki can build an entire city of buildings and buses – or a single tower over four feet tall.
CityBLOCKS Stacking Blocks, $21.95.
These playful, printed burp cloths look and feel amazing, even with spit up all over them.
Aria Burping Beauties, $16 each.
Any child would cherish a companion that is soft, stylishly suited and irresistably huggable.
Punky Pals Beach Bunnies, $40 each.
The intricate, candy-colored illustrations in this children's book are as sweet as the story itself.
Ganesha's Sweet Tooth, $16.95.
Help your aspiring chef whip up delicious treats in fun oven- and microwave-safe baking cups.
Bake It in a Cup kit, $18.95.
Inspire a love of animals in your little one with these hand-appliqued onesies and tees.
Aria SweeTees, $24.95.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
President signs Sandy disaster decree for Pa.
The federal government has declared a major disaster in Pennsylvania from last year's Superstorm Sandy.
President Barack Obama signed the disaster declaration Thursday.The Federal Emergency Management Agency says more disaster relief could be approved in the future if ongoing damage assessments show it's needed.
The declaration makes aid available for state and local efforts to recover from the effects of sandy between Oct. 26 and Nov. 8 of last year.
Federal funding will be available for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities. It applies to affected areas in Bedford, Bucks, Cameron, Dauphin, Forest, Franklin, Fulton, Huntingdon, Juniata, Monroe, Northampton, Pike, Potter, Somerset, Sullivan, and Wyoming counties.
The storm caused record outages in Pennsylvania. At its peak, 1.2 million customers in the state were without power.
WHYY is your source for fact-based, in-depth journalism and information. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on financial support from readers like you. Please give today.


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5,000 NYC pay phones will take you back to 1993
NEW YORK (AP) — Want to journey to a grittier time in New York City's not-too-distant past, when the murder rate was sky-high, Times Square was a crossroads of crime and porn, Starbucks had yet to arrive, and hardly anyone owned a cellphone?
A project designed to promote an art exhibit has turned 5,000 Manhattan pay phones into time machines that take callers back to 1993, a pivotal year in the city's art, culture and politics.
Pick up a receiver on the rarely used phones that still dot the New York streetscape, punch 1-855-FOR-1993 and you will hear a notable resident recounting what life was like on that block 20 years ago.
"We liked, creatively, the idea of using a sort of slightly broken, disused system as the canvas of this project," said Scott Chinn of Droga5, the ad agency behind the campaign for an exhibit titled "NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star."
An eclectic mix of artists, writers, food and fashion stars, and others has been recruited to reminisce, including chef Mario Batali, actor Chazz Palminteri, porn performer Robin Byrd and former Yankees pitcher Jim Abbott, who threw a no-hitter in 1993.
The narrators describe a New York that was dirtier, bloodier, raunchier and less gentrified than today — but also an easier place for a talented young person to gain a foothold.
Batali says in his sound bite that opening a restaurant was easier in 1993 when he debuted his first restaurant, Po.
"You didn't have to have a rich daddy or an investor or put together a team or anything like that," he says. "It's sad to watch the cost of business push the real individualist entrepreneurs out of the game."
Bike shop owner Dave Ortiz remembers when the city's Meatpacking District, now home to trendy restaurants, nightclubs and pricey boutiques, was the wild, wild West.
"The rats were huge," he says. "They were as big as cats, so you had to walk in the middle of the street. It's amazing what they turned it into. It's cool but it's lost its, like, authenticity."
Rudy Giuliani was elected New York City mayor in 1993 and promised to crack down on crime and make the city more livable. The number of homicides in the city — 1,960 in 1993 — had already dropped from a high of 2,245 in 1990 but has plunged steeply since then. (There were 414 in all of last year.)
The city's AIDS crisis peaked in 1993 at 12,744 diagnoses. Terrorists staged the first attack on the World Trade Center. The look of the city has changed dramatically as national retailers have replaced independent merchants. New York City's first Starbucks opened in 1994.
"There was a presence of a kind of downtown underground scene which you really don't experience in New York anymore," recalled Gary Carrion-Murayari, curator of the exhibit at the New Museum featuring 161 works, many intended to shock with sexual imagery.
Lutz Bacher's "My Penis," for example, repeats a video snippet from the 1991 Florida rape trial of William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, in which Smith testifies about the organ in question.
In Pepón Osorio's "The Scene of the Crime (Whose Crime?)," a blood-soaked sheet covers what appears to be a corpse. Four nude mannequins join hands and stare into space in Charles Ray's "Family Romance." Political issues are tackled head-on in works like Sue Williams' "Are you Pro-Porn or Anti-Porn?"
The exhibit and accompanying pay phone campaign run through May 26.
Pay phones in the Times Square area feature X-rated talk-show host Byrd describing the neighborhood before Disney musicals and theme-park stores made it safe for tourists.
"The area wasn't really as dangerous as people thought it was in those days," Byrd says. "Because most of the bums that you thought were bums on the street were really undercover cops."
She adds: "It was a great time. It's too bad it's changed because now it's very pasteurized, homogenized, and it looks like Vegas."


text:
Obama pushes transportation money at closed bridge
WILMINGTON, Del. -- President Barack Obama announced a new program Thursday to attract more private money to help pay to build new roads and bridges as he criticized Congress for refusing to approve a more lasting source of funding.
The new program is designed to encourage collaboration between state and local governments and private-sector investors, expand the market for public-private partnerships and make greater use of federal credit programs.
Obama argued that the U.S. is losing its competitive edge to other countries that spend freely on infrastructure upgrades.
"First-class infrastructure attracts investment and it creates first-class jobs," Obama said at the Port of Wilmington, where the recently closed I-495 bridge provided the backdrop. The bridge was closed indefinitely last month after four support columns were found to be tilting, forcing 90,000 daily drivers to find another way through downtown Wilmington.
Obama's trip is part of a broader effort to press Congress to keep money flowing into the Highway Trust Fund, the source of federal aid to states for surface transportation projects. The fund is expected to begin running out of money next month unless lawmakers act.
The Republican-controlled House passed a temporary transportation funding bill this week to keep aid flowing through next May, after the midterm elections. A similar bill is pending in the Senate, though the chamber's Democratic leaders are expected to vote next week on the House-passed measure. Obama supports the temporary patch but pressed for more stable funding.
He said even smaller transportation projects can take years to design, plan and build.
"A few months of funding doesn't cut it," said Obama, who has devoted most of his public appearances this week to pressing Congress to approve his four-year, $302 billion transportation proposal or come up with an alternative long-term measure.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the Democratic-controlled Senate is the roadblock to transportation funding, and he urged Obama to work to break the Senate gridlock.
"Instead, he is giving a petulantly irrelevant speech," Steel said.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx welcomed the progress on Capitol Hill but said a short-term solution "is still insufficient to solve our crisis." Lawmakers have kept the fund teetering on the edge of bankruptcy since 2008 through a series of temporary patches because they can't agree on a politically acceptable, long-term funding solution. Action is needed before Congress breaks for August.
Before arriving at the port, Obama stopped at the Charcoal Pit for a cheeseburger lunch with Tanei Benjamin, the single mother of a 6-year-old daughter who wrote him a letter last year about her personal situation. The White House said that after reading Benjamin's letter Obama wrote "This is the person we are working for" on the bottom and sent the letter to his senior staff.
Obama has been meeting in public venues with the authors of some of the 10 letters he reads every night, part of a concerted White House push to get him out of Washington and interacting with everyday people.
Afterward, Obama flew to New York City for two separate political events for the Democratic Party and the House Majority PAC, which tries to help Democrats win House seats. The first event was a fundraiser at a private home at the Trump Place apartments on Manhattan's Upper West Side and was attended by about 30 supporters who paid up to $32,400 each.
House Majority PAC said Obama was appearing at the second event as a special guest, but would not directly solicit donations. The super PAC said it had invited a select group of its supporters to hear the president speak. Both events were closed to media coverage.
Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap


text:
Message Board
Morag McKendrick Pippin Message Board
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Pippin has written!
Author Pippin's Book Reviews
Blood Moon Over Bengal
Leisure, Oct 2004 ISBN: 0843954523 In 1932 near Calcutta, Elizabeth Mainwaring lands her plane in a forbidden zone. Half-breed major Nigel Covington-Singh lectures her until he learns she is the daughter of his Commander. Still he warns her to be careful as the British are not very popular in Bengal. Elizabeth finds herself very attracted to Nigel. He reciprocates, but knows that any relationship between them is dangerous for both of them. ...


text:
The Bengals got a win today, but it came with a terrible cost.
A league source confirms to PFT that Bengals cornerback Leon Hall suffered a torn Achilles and will be lost for the season.
Hall went down in the first quarter while covering Calvin Johnson, and did not return. He also suffered the same injury to the other leg in 2011.
That throws a major kink in the Bengals' defensive plans, as he was their top cover player, and had the ability to cover in the slot or outside.


text:
The iPad will give up market share while overall tablet shipments continue to surge, according to Citi Research.
The iPad will lose market share to rivals, even as Apple launches the iPad 5 and an update to the iPad Mini in the second half of the year, according to comments today from Citi Research.
In a note to investors on Wednesday titled "iPhone Impresses but Questions Persist," Citi analyst Glen Yeung said the iPad is "losing ground fast."
Reported iPad shipments were down year-to-year "in stark contrast to overall industry tablet growth," which is up sharply, Yeung said.
Apple reported 14.6 million iPads were sold during the company's third quarter, down from last year, when Apple sold 17 million iPads.
And prospects for the upcoming quarter are not particularly positive. "In light of Apple's flattish revenue guidance...we note that [year-to-year] iPad units will decline -7%," Yeung wrote.
The analyst also offered up this scenario for the quarter ending in December: even if Apple were to grow shipments in that quarter by 75 percent, "this implies 6% growth y/y in [calendar year 2013], well below industry growth of 58.7% (according to IDC)."
Citi reiterated that it expects an iPad 5 and new iPad Mini in the coming months. "We continue to expect iPad5 and a low-cost iPad Mini to be launched in 2H13 [second half 2013]," Yeung added.
Citi Research made no mention of an iPad Mini Retina. This is consistent with past comments by Citi claiming that Mini Retina will be delayed.


text:
Hurricane Sandy power outages will be focus of forum
Officials from the state's utilities will discuss their response last fall to Hurricane Sandy, during a special forum Thursday before the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.
Middle Smithfield Township Supervisor Annette Atkinson said she hopes the PUC will address potential power outages she says persist since the October 2012 storm knocked out power to more than 90,000 customers in the Poconos. Some remained without power for a week.
The special forum will examine utilities' pre-planning measures as the storm approached the East Coast, their communications with customers and efforts to restore service during and after the storm. PUC Commissioners will be present for the forum, to be conducted by the PUC's Bureau of Technical Utility Services.
Some trees or limbs dislodged during the storm are still leaning against power lines along township roads in at least 14 sites, Atkinson said. There may be additional problems in the township's private communities, she added.
Residents who reported "big trees" leaning against wires have been told by utilities they will only respond if a line breaks, Atkinson said.
"We're concerned it's just going to knock out what has been weakened," Atkinson said. "Deal with it before it becomes a problem."
Hurricane Sandy is the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, affecting 24 states. At the height of the hurricane, more than 8.3 million customers were without power. At the peak of the storm, 1.2 million Pennsylvanians were without power. More than 1.8 million Pennsylvanians lost power at one time or another, with 90 percent of customers having their power restored by Nov. 3, 2012.
Thursday's hearing will be held from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at the Commonwealth Keystone Building in Harrisburg. The commission invited Pike County Power & Light; UGI Utilities Inc.; PPL Electric Utilities Corp.; Metropolitan Edison Co.; West Penn Power Co.; and PECO Energy Co. to participate.
"Our agency takes very seriously its duty to ensure safe and reliable electricity service throughout the state and we are always striving to improve our storm response," said Commission Chairman Robert F. Powelson. "We are continuing our examination of the response to Superstorm Sandy and will take any steps necessary to ensure the response to the next storm is even better."
PUC officials were among those who attended a public forum Nov. 29 at Fernwood Hotel and Conference Center focusing on the utlities' local storm response.
One resident who attended was Joe Meehan of Bushkill. He said he lost $350 worth of food when his power went out for a week and had to stay in a hotel when the temperature in his house dropped to 44 degrees.
"What our residents needed most of all was information, and that was the one thing I couldn't give them," Atkinson said at the forum.
Township officials repeatedly called Met-Ed, but never got a response, she said.
That forum led to suggestions from residents for improvement that state Sen. Lisa Baker, R-20, who organized the event, hopes the PUC and utilities will heed.
At the meeting next week the utilities will address:
- Preparation, pre-planning and pre-staging of personnel, materials and equipment.
- Outreach to contractors and other utilities.
- Customer communications and outreach.
- Best practices that were implemented following the storms of 2011.
- Lessons learned.
"Our community input session provided the PUC with what I think is an essential community perspective," Baker said. "There were many best-practice suggestions."
A transcript of the Nov. 29 forum has been posted on Baker's website, senatorbaker.com, she said.


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Raise your hand if you're feeling harassed and threatened.
Me, too. The media, especially the electronic media, can be a force for nasty, brutish accusations sometimes, and you could not be faulted if—after a morning on Twitter or Facebook, you opted to lock your doors, buy a gun, and hide the kids in the pantry.
The idea that the Internet opens us to unique new forms of bullying and harassment is neither new nor shocking, and the courts have wrestled with the question of when publishing someone's information becomes harassment. The power of online media to both target someone and to incite harassment is surely without precedent. But the idea that any and all information or opinion disseminated by the new media equals bullying is quite different.
This argument has moved to the front burner in recent weeks partly because several major campaign donors have begun to complain that President Obama is targeting and harassing Mitt Romney's donors and raising the specter of an "Enemies List," presidential "terrorism," and reprisals that have come about as a result of news stories about them. The not-so-hidden agenda, when donors claim that they are being outed, boycotted, and targeted by the media, is simple: It's part of a long campaign to avoid ever having to disclose information about themselves in the first place. For years, claims that the Internet facilitates the targeting and bullying of proponents of political speech have been raised in the courts in an effort to ensure that elections can not only be bought and sold, but that this can and should be done in perfect secrecy.
As Richard Hasen pointed out last week, these claims that big donors are being "harassed" and "intimidated" by media scrutiny comes at precisely the same moment that a handful of conservative thinkers started accusing Obama (apparently by way of his thuggish henchman otherwise known as legal scholar and writer Jeffrey Rosen) of "harassing" and "intimidating" the Supreme Court itself. Evidently the president's suggestion last April that the court not overturn healthcare reform, coupled with Professor Rosen's observation that there would be consequences were the court to do so, now rises to the level of intimidation and threats, perhaps even fomenting popular revolt. Presumably the news of the Supreme Court's sagging poll numbers in the New York Times similarly represents a veiled threat aimed at the court by a liberal paper.
In other words, what was once known as "journalism" is now a sparking open fuse of danger. As Hasen explained, "The right is now trying to elide the distinction between holding people and organizations accountable for the actions they take and the concept of harassment and intimidation."
It's hard to know what to make of all this. For one thing, when individuals make genuinely threatening claims about the courts—including Newt Gingrich's comments about subpoenaing judges who come to unpopular conclusions or shutting down an entire federal appeals court—few on the political right accused him of harassment or intimidation. It's strange to imagine that John Roberts would be more threatened by the observations of a George Washington University law professor than by claims that the next president plans to curtail the jurisdiction of Article III courts.*
Putting aside the blame and accusations on either side, the more important question is whether the justices themselves really do feel victimized, harassed, and threatened by newspaper reports of their conduct, special scrutiny of their extracurricular activities, and the reporting of it in the national media. Because it appears that when enough justices believe that they themselves are being assailed and personally threatened by the press, the impact can come to affect legal doctrine. RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor at Brigham Young University Law School, has done a great deal of thinking about the gap between the court's idealized view of the press as a vital corrective on government and the reality of their treatment of the media.* In an upcoming law review article, she argues that the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, in their role as articulators of legal doctrine in judicial opinions, hold overwhelmingly positive views of the press. But those same justices hold overwhelmingly negative views of how the press covers them. She tells me that the court's own decisions suggest that the argument that strong criticism represents a threat to judicial integrity does not stand. "The court's opinions in the last 50 years have extolled the virtues of a free press and repeatedly highlighted the ways in which unfettered reporting and robust media commentary facilitate democratic values. If we line up the statements that the court itself has made—celebrating this uninhibited, wide-open, and robust reporting about matters of public interest—it is inconceivable that the justices could view mere commentary about important court cases, even if deeply critical, as being 'intimidation.'"
That said, there can be a disjunction between that idealized notion of the fourth estate and the justices' personal experience of criticism. As I have argued before, particularly for some of the newer justices, the belief that they are—both as part of their confirmation process and thereafter as they sit on the bench—subject to unreasonable public targeting and campaigns to discredit them, can have serious implications that impact all of us.
When, in May 2010, the Supreme Court announced that, as the result of a security assessment, the public would no longer be permitted to enter the court building through its iconic bronze doors, it was a tangible sign that the justices believed they were not as safe as they used to be. In a dissent from that decision, Justice Stephen Breyer reminded his colleagues: "To many members of the public, this court's main entrance and front steps are not only a means to, but also a metaphor for, access to the court itself."
Yet in one opinion after another we have seen various justices expressing real wariness over information disseminated on the Internet. In 2010, the justices issued an unprecedented unsigned opinion turning off the TV cameras poised to broadcast the California gay marriage hearings. Their objections to the cameras were tethered to arguments that anti-gay-rights witnesses would be harassed and suffer retaliation if their testimony were broadcast. These witnesses were expert witnesses whose names and views are readily available online. But the court opted to protect them out of a concern that gay rights supporters would punish them.
That same year, Thomas wrote worriedly in a case over whether Washington state residents who signed a different anti-gay rights ballot petition could keep their names secret because they faced the possibility of bullying and reprisals. Thomas wrote in a dissent that "the state of technology today creates at least some probability that signers of every referendum will be subjected to threats, harassment, or reprisals if their personal information is disclosed. [T]he advent of the Internet' enables rapid dissemination of the information needed' to threaten or harass every referendum signer." Justice Samuel Alito, although he sided with the majority, expressed similar anxieties at oral argument and offered a concurrence to that effect. Justice Stephen Breyer has similarly worried about the ways the Internet increases the possibility that words may become violence. Much of this same logic about publicity and harassment logic undergirded Thomas' objections to the disclosure requirements he announced in Citizens United.
All of which begins to suggest that Justice Antonin Scalia may be in the court's minority when he argues—as he did in the Washington state ballot case—that "requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaigns anonymously … and even exercises the direct democracy of initiative and referendum hidden from public scrutiny and protected from the accountability of criticism." Scalia concluded these thoughts with the observation that "this does not resemble the Home of the Brave."
The nine current justices are sufficiently isolated from the rough and tumble of political life that some must experience criticism, journalistic scrutiny, and Internet threats in ways that most politicians learn to slough off. If I am right that several of the justices really might be experiencing the current public conversation about the court and its decisions as threatening, and even potentially violent, it almost doesn't matter what the writer or speaker intended. The end result may simply be less speech for all of us.
Corrections, June 11, 2012: This article originally misidentified Jeff Rosen as a Georgetown professor. He teaches at George Washington University (return to the corrected sentence) and misspelled the first name of BYU law professor RonNell Andersen Jones (return to the corrected sentence).


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Monkey Pose Bodysuit Organic Cotton
Regular price $39.00
Our organic cotton bodysuits are made with the highest quality organic cotton creating the softest material for babies. Each yoga pose is hand appliquéd with love in the USA.
- Made of 100% Organic Cotton
- Certified to meet or exceed the GOTS specification
- Dyed with AZO-free/heavy metal-free eco-friendly dyes
- Nickel free snaps to prevent allergic reaction
Available in both long sleeve and short sleeve.
Personalization is a great way to make an item uniquely yours, or to make any gift extra-special. Personalize your purchase with a monogram or embroidered name for $7. Just add the personalization instructions in your order notes.
Most items can accommodate a monogram of up to 10 characters on one line. Our design team pre-selects location, thread colors, and styles that they feel best compliments the product.


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This script is a work by Webmaster Seth Leedy, but was inspired by and evolved from the scripts by [email protected]
I noticed that I was mentioned in the Security Now show(epi: 457, 558). Yipee!
Download any or all Steve Gibson's GRC Security Now podcasts via a bash script.
The script can look at the episodes already downloaded and download the next one.
You can specify the episode(s). Download 1 or a range.
Another function is to search for text within ALL the episodes and copy the episode text to another directory for further reading.
Run it with "-h" for all the other options.
The code is now on GitHub ! Feel free to help develop it or fork it.
You can submit issues within GitHub or via email to me. Comments below are not actively monitored…
Command line examples:
- Will download the latest episode and it will be the TEXT transcriptions.
- ./GRC-Downloader.sh -eptxt -latest
- Will download the latest episode and it will be the PDF transcriptions.
- ./GRC-Downloader.sh -eppdf -latest
- This will download the TEXT and .PDF.
- ./GRC-Downloader.sh -eppdf -eptxt -latest
- The arguments -ahq and -alq is for downloading AUDIO .MP3 files.
- -AHQ = High Quality. -ALQ = Low Quality.
- The arguments -vhq and -vlq is for downloading VIDEO .MP4 files.
- -VHQ = High Quality. -VLQ = Low Quality.
- ./GRC-Downloader.sh -alq -vlq -eptxt -latest
- ./GRC-Downloader.sh -vlq -eptxt -ep 10
- You can also download all video, in HD, and text- at once. At 10 downloads a time. *Not all episodes are in HD. The start of the show was not in video, let alone, HD.
- ./GRC-Downloader.sh -vhd -eptxt -ep 1:latest -pd 10
- Will download every single text copy of the episodes and search for your text (TNO here) and put the results in a special directory for you to open at your leisure.
- ./GRC-Downloader.sh -dandstxt TNO
- Will search only the text episodes already downloaded in the current directory and the cache used in the above -dandstxt option. It will not go online to search.
- ./GRC-Downloader.sh -stxt TNO
- Create a RSS feed file from the shows!
- ./GRC-Downloader.sh -create-rss-audio
- See an example RSS feed file of audio here
Count of script executions: [count_grc_runs]
13,855 total views, 1 views today


text: The medical use of marijuana has been a hotly debated and highly politicized topic in recent years. In many circles, it is touted for naturally alleviating symptoms of a variety of medical conditions including, but not limited to, arthritis and chronic pain. In other circles, it is frowned upon as a gateway drug that is … Continue reading


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The 2010 Mercury Milan Hybrid will join the Mariner as the second hybrid offering from Ford's brand for people who love Jill Wagner. The next-generation hybrid system, similar to the one found in the Mariner, will couple Ford's 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine with an electric motor backed by a new smaller, lighter nickel-metal hydride battery. The new hybrid should be capable of running on pure electric mode at speeds up to 47 MPH, meaning the car can operate in most city and neighborhood conditions without using the gas engine for direct power. This means one full tank of gas could theoretically propel the Milan 700 miles in city driving. There's no official number on the mileage of the Milan Hybrid, but we've been told to expect around five miles per gallon better than the Camry Hybrid's highway performance (34 mpg), which would put it between 38 and 40 mpg, an impressive number for sure. Additionally, the Milan will get Ford's futuristic Smartgauge LCD instrument panel. Full details in the press release below.
Check out more on the Mercury Milan from CarandDriver.com
2010 Mercury Milan Hybrid For the 2010 model year, the Mercury Milan adds an all-new hybrid model. The Fusion and Mercury Milan Hybrids join the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner Hybrids, doubling both the size and volume of Ford's hybrid lineup. "Offering consumers more fuel-efficient vehicle choices, including improving and increasing our hybrid vehicle offerings, is part of Ford's broad plan to deliver technology solutions for affordable fuel economy for millions," said Derrick Kuzak, Ford's group vice president for Global Product Development. "With the new Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids, we are now able to offer even better range of travel on battery power at a greater speed, thanks to a more efficient, seamless transition between the battery-powered motor and gasoline-driven engine," he said. "These new hybrids will exceed expectations on all fronts – fuel efficiency, comfort, convenience and drivability." The Ford Hybrid team has developed a powertrain system that combines the best attributes of the gasoline engine and electric battery-driven motors to deliver the optimal experience for the customer in terms of driving performance and fuel economy. Additionally, the propulsion system for the Mercury Milan and Ford Fusion hybrids transitions between gas and electric power and back more efficiently and seamlessly. The overall system upgrade allows the Mercury Milan and Ford Fusion hybrids to operate longer at higher speeds in electric mode. The hybrid vehicles can operate up to 47 mph in pure electric mode, approximately twice as fast as some competitors. Plus, the city driving range on a single tank of gas is expected to be more than 700 miles. The next-generation hybrid system features: • New 2.5-liter 4-cylinder engine (155 horsepower/136 lb.-ft. of torque) running the proven Atkinson cycle mated to an electronically-controlled continuously variable transmission or e-CVT. • Intake Variable Cam Timing (iVCT), which allows the vehicle to more seamlessly transition from gas to electric mode and vice-versa. The spark and cam timing are varied according to the engine load to optimize efficiency and emissions. • Enhanced electronic throttle control reduces airflow on shutdowns, reducing fueling needs on restarts. • Wide-band lambda sensor analyzes the air-fuel ratio and adjusts the lean/rich mixture accordingly to keep the system in balance and to minimize emissions. • A new smaller, lighter nickel-metal hydride battery has been optimized to produce 20 percent more power. Improved chemistry allows the battery to be run at a higher temperature and it is cooled using cabin air. • An added variable voltage converter boosts the voltage to the traction battery to operate the motor and generator more efficiently. • A new high-efficiency converter provides 14 percent increased output to accommodate a wider array of vehicle features. • Smarter climate control system monitors cabin temperature and only runs the gas engine as needed to heat the cabin; it also includes an electric air conditioning compressor to further minimize engine use. • The regenerative brake system captures the energy normally lost through friction in braking and stores it. Nearly 94 percent energy recovery is achieved by first delivering full regenerative braking followed by friction brakes during city driving. • A simulator brake actuation system dictates brake actuation and delivers improved brake pedal feel compared to the previous generation braking system. "Because our hybrid can run at a much higher speed in electric mode, you can do so much more in city-driving situations," said Gil Portalatin, Hybrid Applications Manager. "Under the right conditions, you can drive in your neighborhood or mall parking lots without using a drop of gasoline." The Milan Hybrid also offers drivers a way to be more connected to the hybrid driving experience thanks to Ford's SmartGauge with EcoGuide, a unique instrument cluster execution that helps coach them on how to optimize performance of their hybrid. SmartGauge with EcoGuide features two, high-resolution, full-color liquid crystal display (LCD) screens on either side of the analog speedometer that can be configured to show different levels of information, including fuel and battery power levels, average and instant miles-per-gallon. Growing leaves and vines track and reward the driver's efficiency. EcoGuide uses a multi-layered approach to coach the driver to maximum fuel efficiency. A tutorial mode built into the display that helps the driver learn about the instrument cluster and the hybrid in a whimsical way that does not overpower. For instance, drivers can choose one of four data screens to choose the information level displayed during their drives. They are: • Inform: Fuel level and battery charge status • Enlighten: Adds electric vehicle mode indicator and tachometer • Engage: Adds engine output power and battery output power • Empower: Adds power to wheels, engine pull-up threshold and accessory power consumption All levels can show instant fuel economy, fuel economy history, odometer, engine coolant temperature, what gear the car is in and trip data (trip fuel economy, time-elapsed fuel economy and miles to empty). The engine coolant temperature indicator turns green when engine conditions are warm enough to allow engine pull-down. Several other elements help differentiate the Milan Hybrid from its gas-powered sibling, including unique hybrid "road and leaf" badging on both sides and the rear of the vehicle; unique 16-inch, eight-spoke wheels; eco-friendly seat fabric made from post-industrial 100 percent recycled materials; and a standard 110-volt power outlet.
[Source: Ford]


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Levine, Hasbro exec who helped create GI Joe, dies
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island – Donald Levine, the Hasbro toy company executive credited as the father of G.I. Joe for developing the world's first action figure, has died. He was 86.
He died of cancer early Thursday at Home & Hospice Care of Rhode Island, his wife, Nan, said. They were just about to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.
Levine shepherded the toy through design and development as Hasbro's head of research and development. He and his team came up with an 11.5-inch articulated figure with 21 moving parts, and since the company's employees included many military veterans, it was decided to outfit the toy in the uniforms of the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force, with such accessories as guns, helmets and vehicles.
Levine, who served in the Army in Korea, said he got the idea for the moveable figure as a way to honor veterans.
G.I. Joe hit the shelves in time for the 1964 Christmas shopping season and soon became a big seller at $4 apiece.
It remained popular until the late 1960s, as opposition to the Vietnam War intensified and parents shied away from military-related toys. Hasbro countered in 1970 by introducing "Adventure Team" G.I. Joes that played down the military connection. Into the '70s, G.I. Joes featured "lifelike hair" and "kung-fu grip" and were outfitted with scuba gear to save the oceans and explorer's clothing for discovering mummies.
Over the decades, G.I. Joe has spawned comic books, cartoons, two movies starring Channing Tatum, and a G.I. Joe Collector's Club and its annual convention — GIJoeCon — held in Dallas in April.
Levine's funeral will be held Sunday morning at Temple Beth-El in Providence. He is survived by his wife, three children and four grandchildren.


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Nathan Fillion talks bruising reality of playing ABC's 'The Rookie'
The former 'Castle' star returns to ABC this fall with the new rookie cop drama
LOS ANGELES — Nathan Fillion signed on to be ABC's "The Rookie" before the story was even on the page.
"I accepted this job before the script was written," Fillion said Tuesday during a panel for the new show at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills. "That was a first for me, but all the right ingredients were there. It's everything we need for a successful show."
Fillion is a familiar face on ABC, having played the ever-popular and charismatic "Castle" for eight seasons, before it was canceled abruptly in 2016. Still, Fillion said he trusted "Castle" creator Alexi Hawley to usher in his return to television with "The Rookie," on which he plays a divorced 40-year-old man who enlists with the Los Angeles Police Department as a rookie cop.
On the show, Fillion's character, John Nolan, joins the line of duty alongside fellow rookies far younger than he is, setting up a conflict with superiors his age and newbies who dismiss him.
For Fillion, the show tests him just as it tests his character. At 47, he said the stunts have left him battered, bruised and appreciating the work of his stuntmen.
"I'm at the point at my life, if I can have a stunt guy run down the street for me, these knees will appreciate it," Fillion said, noting the hefty cop uniform is not easy to maneuver in. "But I like that it's tough for John. That's not far away from my truth."
The show is a drama first and won't have the quippy voice of "Castle" because it is more "grounded," Hawley said. But he did note it will feed off Fillion's personality, which can pull humor from everyday situations.
With superiors cracking down on him because they see him as a liability and younger rookies seeing his as irrelevant, Hawley said one of John's main struggles is trying to find his place in the police force.
"He lives in this sort of in between place," he said.
For Fillion, jumping on "The Rookie" was a no-brainer because he is approaching 25 years in the acting business and appreciates when the opportunities arise and people still tune in.
"I feel fortunate that I still feel relevant, at least a little bit, right?" he jokingly asked, turning to his co-stars onstage for support.
— Reporter Hunter Ingram can be reached at 910-343-2327 or firstname.lastname@example.com. He is a member of the Television Critics Association.


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In a retrospective analysis of safety data, injection of methotrexate was not superior to oral therapy in the long-term treatment of patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis.
In a retrospective analysis of safety data, injection of methotrexate (MTX) was not superior to oral therapy in the long-term treatment of patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). The findings suggest that with similar efficacy and tolerability, the more comfortable oral approach may be more suitable for treating patients with pediatric arthritis.
Researchers used data collected by the German Methotrexate Registry since 2005 to identify patients with JIA who were treated with MTX for at least 6 months and who did not receive additional biologic therapies. Study groups received oral MTX or MTX injections in comparable doses.
A clinical response (efficacy) based on the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) pediatric 30 score after 6 months of MTX therapy was found in 72% of patients who received oral therapy and 73% of those who used injections. At least one adverse event was reported in 22% of patients in the oral cohort, compared with 27% in the injection-therapy group. Significantly more patients who received MTX injections discontinued treatment because of adverse events than those who received oral treatment (11% vs 5%).
The researchers concluded that with similar efficacy and tolerability of MTX in the delivery methods, the often unpopular MTX injection probably may be spared without clinical consequences, and they recommended further controlled studies to determine the best application route for treatment with MTX in patients with JIA. The findings were published in Arthritis Care & Research, an ACR journal.


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From 9to5Toys.com:
Affiliate partner MacUpdate today offers their new $49.99 Dec 2011 Bundle headlined by TechTool Pro, TotalFinder, Postbox 3 and FontPack Pro Master Collection and seven more quality apps for $49.99. TechTool Pro, which retails for double the entire bundle price, includes a bootable DVD disk for disk repair and diagnostics.
8 of the 11 100% Mac OS X 10.7 compatible apps are available as demos, which can be downloaded in a single dmg from here. (TechTool Pro 6, FontPack Pro Master Collection, and Neverwinter Nights 2 do not have demos)
As a bonus, the all-new IconBox 2.5 goes to the first 15,000 buyers. $49.99 at MacUpdate
Full rundown below:
MacUpdate December 2011 Bundle: TechTool Pro 6, TotalFinder, and 9 more at 94% off; save $691
Traverse City, Michigan – MacUpdate kicked off its December 2011 software bundle Monday, featuring another unmatched collection of 11 popular Mac apps, including TechTool Pro 6, for just $49.99. The limited-time bundle represents a savings of 94%, or almost $700, and includes:
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9. iClip 5 ($18.99) – The premier multi-clipboard & scrapbook tool that enables you to keep a history of almost anything you copy, instead of only the last item. iClip also makes it easy to organize your clips into sets to store various things like web addresses, frequently used logos, code snippets, and more.
10. FoldersSynchronizer ($40.00) – If you own more than one Mac and want to keep files consistent on all of them or you want a powerful tool for scheduling and creating backups, FolderSynchronizer is the best utility for the job.
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Pricing and Availability
The MacUpdate December 2011 Bundle is available for $49.99 (USD) exclusively from MUPromo.com through December 21, 2011. For an additional $9.99 (worldwide shipping included), buyers can purchase the bundle on DVD.
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