Words (Yes, All of Them): I Do Not Think They Mean What You Think They Mean

Remember Satoshi Kanazawa? If not, I will tell you all you need to know about him to understand his scientastical views: he's an evolutionary psychologist. He also seems to have a pathological need to gain attention by saying things that even he would know make no sense, if sense-making were a consideration for him. He does this in his blog at that fount of finely-reasoned intellectual discourse, Psychology Today, a blog which, he claims, constitutes "A Look at the Hard Truths About Human Nature". I guess he means "hard" as in hardee-har-har.

He and his stuck-out-tongue previously appeared here at Shakesville just over a year ago, in Liss' post lol your understanding of feminism. Today, we pause to lol Kanazawa's understanding of genetics. Really, he should just stay away from biology altogether. It's clearly too hard for him. Maybe that's what he means when he claims to be taking a "hard look at human nature". He's looking; he's finding it very, very hard; but as long as he can reach his ass, he can by gum come up with some conclusions which meet with his own satisfaction.

Today's conclusion: Barack Obama is so a Muslim! Or halfway to it, at least, because he totes inherited Muslimosity from his Muslim daddy! It's in his genes, which have been scientifically proven to rotate toward Mecca and prostrate themselves five times daily! Where's the proof, you ask? Hah! Is Michael Jackson still black? I mean, besides being dead, and all? Was he still black when he died? Yes? Well, then, Obama is Muslim. It's so scientificalifragilisticexpialidocious! That no one can deny.

Not that there's anything wrong with being Muslim, Kanazawa obligatorily concludes. Let it not be said that he harbors prejudice of any sort. But that our president is lying in the face of his own genes (not that genes have a face, of course — or if they do, Kanazawa doesn't mention it, but he certainly does seem to know things about genes that no one else does), that Obama tells a different story about who he is and what he believes than his very own genes have told to Satoshi Kanazawa — that is not the behavior of an honorable* man.

*I use the word honorable in its new, modern sense of "describing something that voracious attention-seekers unconcerned with decency, logic or scientific fact, but who like to invoke such things to seem grown-up, claim for themselves and deny to any who don't support them."

Via