Cat-callers go apeshit

It all started with a video: a woman walking down some New York streets, being the target of a lot of cat-calls. Even if parts of the video are fake (as was accused, but not proven), it definitely made an impression. To many men, the number of cat-calls was surprisingly high; most women say that it feels about right. Even if parts of the movie were staged, it points to an actual issue. So silly me thought that the issue was clear cut: the video shows that there are a lot of men who say things like ‘hey babe’ to a strange women, believing they are doing her a favor, while women think this behavior is bordering on harassment. Condensed into the short movie, the point, I thought, was crystal clear. I thought.

Enter Steven Santagati, who considers himself god’s gift to womankind. In a discussion on CNN, Steven went on to give new meaning to the term mansplainin’: not only did he explain to the two women on CNN what they really want, he also advised them that their best course of action to counter every-day harassment would be to carry a gun, and blow away the cat-callers.

Now, contrasting the original video to the sentiments of a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal, who explains the world as perceived by a single-digit IQ brain, I thought this was a slam-dunk – one of those rare cases where everyone agrees.

Reading the comments on YouTube (a bad idea even on a good day), I found further proof against evolution: if you think humanity has evolved from monkeys, you are dead wrong. We are still apes.

Then again, using a gun to get rid of cat-callers is a surprisingly Darwinian approach to this problem.

Survival of the dumbest

Ah, Creationists. If there ever was proof that mankind descended from monkeys, they could be it. But, as Creationist would point out: How come there are still monkeys???

Recently, during a ‘debate’ (not really), I heard a rather odd argument put forward by a devout believer: Since atheists believe (argh!) in Evolution, that means that we must advocate survival of the strongest, making us a bunch of asocial pathological egotists.

Let’s put aside the fact that instead of ‘believing in’ evolution we are convinced by the facts – someone who thinks that faith generates knowledge will not grasp the difference. Furthermore, we’ll also ignore that even if Evolution teaches that only the strong survive, that does not mean that we advocate applying this principle to society. A Christian believes that god created this earth, and therefore all diseases. Yet she does not believe that you should leave a disease untreated just because god gave it to you. So why should someone who thinks Evolution is at work advocate applying it to everything?

What bugged me most, though, was the idea that Evolution means ‘survival of the strongest’. It’s a common misconception, not limited to fundamental believers.

So I tried to explain that evolution actually postulates that instead of ‘only the strongest’, it ‘favors whoever is best adapted‘.

And then I tripped myself up: I tried to illustrate this with how the dinosaurs became extinct; how only small, weak mammals survived while the great, strong lizards died out.

This didn’t go over well with someone who believes the world is only a couple of millennia old.

It’s somewhat gratifying to know that eventually, these nuts will go the way of the dodo.

Official: Majority of Republicans are stupid.

It’s official: the majority of american Republicans are stupid:

Today, 43% of Republicans and 67% of Democrats say humans have evolved.

While the Democrats aren’t looking too smart either, this means that less than half of all Republicans acknowledge the facts; the rest lives in some scientific la-la-land. Note that this is actually a regression – a few years ago fewer republicans believed in the idiocy of a literal biblical genesis.

In 2009, 54% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats said humans have evolved over time.

I guess this is home ‘schooling’ showing results… Or perhaps we are seeing the very first signs ever of devolution.

As an aside: It’s not that you ‘believe’ in evolution. You either believe in religion, or are convinced by the facts that evolution is real.