Re: Bipedalism and theorizing... was Re: Morgan and creationists

Stephen Barnard (steve@megafauna.com)
Sat, 06 Jul 1996 10:26:48 -0800

Richard Foy wrote:
>
> In article <31DE06A7.7679@megafauna.com>,
> Stephen Barnard <steve@megafauna.com> wrote:
> >
> >Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the speculation that women's
> >breasts evolved as a result of sexual selection is improbable and
> >untestable (two characteristics that are not uncommon among speculations
> >in this newsgroup), does that make the speculation ipso facto "sexist"?
> >
> >That's question #1.
>
> NO!

Good.

>
> >
> >Question #2 is: Is it ever permissible, according to the "sexist" litmus
> >test, to speculate that human evolution might be influenced by sexual
> >selection?
>
> I am not sure what you mean by sexist "litmus" test. In my view it is
> permissible to speculate about anything, including things that are
> sexual selection.
>
> However, in my view speculations that are influenced by biases have a
> lower probability of being right than those that are not. Sexism can
> be a very strong bias.
>

Fair enough.

Steve Barnard