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June 08, 2004

Comments

I read about this on my friendsfriends list a while ago. John Money deserves to be locked up for child abuse.

But he won't.

But he won't.

Why not?

With all due respect to Mr. Cella and his impassioned writing, this had nothing to do with "Rationalism," however he wants to define it. It has to do with a politically-left misreading of evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics, popular over the last 40-60 years, which insists that humans have no innate traits and that all human behaviors and psychological characteristics are a result of culture, and therefore plastic. A rationalist view of human nature tends to argue againts what Money did here.

Pinker's The Blank Slate is the recommended reading for plowing through this kind of misreading of human innateness.

Nice Post Edward but Sebastian is right Money will not be punished, except for the court of public opinion.

He won't be punished because he convinced the parents to consent. He won't be punished because he was pushing a theory which even today is taken seriously in many social circles. He wouldn't be punished even under Ashcroft, much less in Canada.

Tough, isn't it? Children are basically legal chattel, so it's the will of the parents that decides. So you want to punish the parents, except they were just doing what they thought was best (didn't I just write another comment about the line between forced compassion and cruelty?), suckered in by a bankrupt pseudoscience. The best we as a society can get is an Abject Lesson(tm). Also, please don't circumcise unless you're required to by your community. I mean honestly.

Also, I echo Phil. Paul's too quick to bring up his usual bugbears. The belief that gender is societally created is distinctly unRational, built around the usual paranoia, power-madness, and self righteousness.

I also second the Blank Slate recommendation. And How the Mind Works, also by Pinker.

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