1. jstemwedel
  2. Silly hypothesis, meet snarky retort.

Silly hypothesis, meet snarky retort.

By jstemwedel on April 8, 2008.

In case those readers trained in analytic philosophy managed to miss it, this comment at A Philosophy Job Market Blog gave me the giggles while striking me as an entirely appropriate response (given the audience) to a lazy reliance on speculative evolutionary psychology to justify the status quo (in this case, the lopsided gender split of folks pursuing philosophy in their studies and as a career). The italicized portion is quoted from the earlier (ev-psych-loving) commenter:

Maybe, just maybe, philosophy is something "inherently more valuable" to men qua hunters

Because chasing down those non-existent unicorns painted to look like zebras in fake barn country required the ability to discern whether one was a brain in the vat before throwing a spear?

Anonymous commenter, I think I love you.

Tags
Passing thoughts
Philosophy

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My default assumption is that when some highly underdetermined speculative analysis just happens to indicate that the status quo of gender or race privilege is, like, totally a consequence of, like, biology and stuff, it ain't likely to be a coincidence.