Philosophy

Can You Rape A Dog?

Well, not you. Hopefully, few of my readers would be capable of doing that.

I mean, can a person, any person, rape a dog?

What I really mean is, is the word “rape” really applicable here? It just looks strange to me. Obviously, of course, it’s possible to forcibly penetrate a dog (well, not for me–I wouldn’t be able to get, or keep it up for such an act), but the word “rape” has connotations that don’t, or at least shouldn’t, apply. To me, the word rape means non-consensual penetration (of either gender), but can there be any other kind of penetration of an (non-human) animal? It seems like a category error to me.

How does a dog issue consent? I don’t have any personal experience, but I’m given to understand that this is not an uncommon activity on farms, and that the animals don’t always necessarily fight back or complain (and generally aren’t even injured), but that’s not the same thing as granting permission.

Now clearly, this was a brutal crime, but it seems to me that the crime is animal cruelty, not rape. The fact that the instrument of torture and injury was the young man’s male member doesn’t change that.

Science And Society

Imagine My Shock

…to discover that women can fake org@sms. I found this part interesting:

When women genuinely achieved an org@sm, areas of the brain involved in fear and emotion were deactivated. Those areas stayed alert however when women were faking it.

The researchers also found that the cortex, which is linked with consciousness, is active during a fake org@sm but not during the real thing.

Sounds like fun research for all involved. You have to wonder, though, if some of the response is influenced by the experimenters. I’d think that it would be kind of hard for people to do what comes naturally when they know they’re being observed. Sort of a variation on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

[Update on Monday evening]

At the risk of alienating a large (perhaps, even likely, intelligent) portion of my readership, I nonetheless feel compelled to ask, is this why blondes have more fun?

Media Criticism

Dogs And Cats Living Together

Susan Estrich is defending Fox News.

I’m hard-pressed to think of anybody who will tell you privately that in the midst of debates about such issues as Social Security and the deficits, it’s a good idea for the party leader to be turning himself into the issue by engaging in class and religious warfare.

This is precisely what congressional leaders and Dean agreed that Dean would not do when he became the chair of the party. He was supposed to leave the message to them. Having not done so, and having been criticized for it by two possible presidential candidates

Space

Not Impressed

John Derbyshire doesn’t think much of (what I’m guessing is) Keith Cowing’s emails:

I had some exchanges with one fellow who took strong exception to my Space Shuttle piece. “It must really suck being you,” he asserted. Now, this is pretty lame on a first occurrence; but in our subsequent exchanges he just couldn’t think of any way to improve on it. “Like I said, it must really suck being you,” he’d close. It dawned on me at last that the guy thinks this is the most crushing, most devastating put-down that has yet been devised from the English language. I weep for these people.

Which reminds me that I still plan to critique the piece myself.

Science And Society

Brain Size Follow Up

I think that a lot of people misunderstood me in this post, judging by the comments.

I’m not claiming that brain size correlates perfectly with intelligence, and that size is the only factor of interest. Obviously, there’s no reason to think that a non-human brain twice the size of a human brain would be expected to be smarter. My point was that for humans, with normal brain configuration, it’s a reasonable assumption that a bigger brain is generally going to be smarter than a smaller one. There’s just room for more brain stuff that constitutes smarts (and I don’t think that transport speeds have much relevance, relative to numbers of neurons).

With regard to Gould, yes, I did read The Mismeasure of Man, and I also read between the lines. He was a dedicated Marxist, and the very notion that there could be a correlation between “race” (and yes, I know that this is an imprecise concept, and a social rather than biological construct) and intelligence would have been anathema to him, which was why it was so important to him to debunk it. I have no particular beliefs about whether or not whites are on average smarter than blacks, or vice versa, but I think that it’s absurd to claim that it’s impossible for there to be any gross correlation between intelligence and melanin content. Anything that’s heritable will have variability in human populations, and anyone who doesn’t think that IQ, however measured or defined, doesn’t have a heritable component is indulging themselves in the blank slate fallacy.

Of course, the whole issue, while it may be of scientific interest, shouldn’t be so societally controversial. So what if whites are dumber, on average, than blacks, or vice versa? We don’t deal with average people–we do, or at least should, deal with individuals. It doesn’t matter what group I come from if I have a high IQ, and am one of the people raising the average for that group. Such research cannot rationally be used to justify any particular social policy, at least any that’s congruent with the Fourteenth Amendment.

General

Obvious Things

…you never thought about before. From (who else?) Lileks:

Saturday I got out the spade and the claw and dug up the worst spots. Dirt into bags, bags down the steps. Dirt is heavy; no wonder the earth weighs so much. Poor Atlas.

Political Commentary

“We Fully Intended To Fail”

That’s what Andrew Sullivan says.

Let’s assume, just for the sake of the argument, that that’s the case. Why would we do that? What is the benefit, to the nation, or to the Bush administration, for failure in Iraq? Note, he didn’t say that the administration thought we didn’t need more troops, or that they did but that there were other reasons not to send them. No, the intent was to fail. Fully.

Is he now in Dick Durbin’s camp? Are we now just like Pol Pot…evil?

He’s been second in my blogroll for, literally, years. (Yes, yes, there’s a certain amount of inertia there, but still).

Is there any reason to take anything he writes seriously now? It will be fascinating to see if he responds to this, and apologizes (as Durbin should, but probably won’t). If he’ll say that he wasn’t thinking when he typed those words, and wants to clarify them, I’ll accept that. But if he meant it, I see no reason to even bother reading him any more. Or (more certainly) keep him at his current rank in my blogroll.

He’s jumped the Euphrates.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!