Saturday, December 22, 2007

Wow, this article is so completely convincing:

BBC NEWS | Health | Humour 'comes from testosterone'

And when I say 'convincing', I should clarify and say that I mean 'entirely, desperately UNconvincing'.

Really. How many articles can possibly be published about gender-related trends that are then linked back to hormones-slash-genes-slash-hard-wiring, all without the slightest shred of evidence as to why 'hormones' are necessarily the culprit for trends in behaviour? Evidently the imperative at work in this article and the research it reports is: "link back to hormones".

And thus we see silly, wannabe-Darwinian claims like this:

He suggested men might respond aggressively because they see the other unicycling man as a threat, attracting female attention away from themselves.

Mmmmm. Of course.

Have these people never heard of 'culture'? 'Enculturation'? Socialisation, etc?

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

In lieu of having any better ideas post-thesis, I am applying for jobs. This saddens me somewhat, as I feel that I possibly should have come up with something better to do with my time by now. Perhaps I will benefit from the increased value that time will seem to have once I have less of it for myself? Ah, but then there's the other possibility that worries me - perhaps, instead, all that will happen is that I will be too tired to do anything altogether?

In other news, I am not really tempted by the idea of posting psuedo blog posts on my Facebook page. I am comfortable with the blog format - which seems somehow of 'higher quality' than the Facebook page. Even though this is plainly a nonsensical statement, a piece of elitist rubbish.

I am also toying with the idea of starting a new blog. Now that I am no longer an undergraduate I can shed this childish history etc etc.