-- In the absence of one, it is ridiculous to suggest that no one should think about it.
I'm not saying that no one should think about it, I'm saying we should have a better filter that immediately separates garbage science from good science. It takes about 10 minutes of reading and a few paragraphs to realize that this is absolute garbage and doesn't need to be voted up.
-- but doing our best to keep in mind that they are not proven theories.
Now that I think about it, what really irks me here is that I know people are actually reading stuff like this (which throws around enough scientific terminology and academic quotes to sound reasonable) and then some of those people go on believing that really is the answer to the hypothesis presented.
That is what has happened to a lot of science these days. There's so much semi-believable trash and conjecture like this tossed out in so many different fields of study that I just wish people would get a better sense of what even has a remotely logical basis for validity. It pains me to know that even one person is reading this trash and coming away thinking that "Gee, science has solved another one!" when in fact it has not.
He is speculating, and some of his speculation is interesting. At this point, I think you are rationalizing your intuitional dislike of the article. It seems more likely that some of his speculation just rubs you the wrong way.
We're a long way from being able to tell why animals developed the traits they did through evolution. We're a really long way from being able to empirically prove it. That doesn't mean speculation isn't fun in the meantime.
At this point, I think you are rationalizing your intuitional dislike of the article.
Maybe you're not understanding me, and maybe this is partially because you're new to the community...
But when I visit HN, I don't want to be presented with the 99.99% of speculative trash that fills the internet. I can go to Digg or Reddit for this sort of junk science that gets us intellectually nowhere. I (and everyone else) want to see that quality .01% that presents legitimate scientific inquiry, regardless of whether we agree with it or not.
I think you don't get it. Speculation is not the same as junk science. Speculation can be insightful, interesting and intelligent or it can be the opposite. Obviously you thought it was trash and just as obviously a larger number of HN'ers thought it was good. You seem to arguing that everyone else should use your criteria for what should be on Hacker News.
Actually I had a look at a few of the guy's other articles and it seems he is a little loose with his facts. I love good speculation and I thought that article had some. But the author often does seem to miss the distinction between fact and opinion. Still you (kirse) should be prepared to back yourself up if you are going to label the article as trash.
Wow, you need to relax. This is hacker news, not research news. Why don't you set up a parallel site? The code is open source. Someone already did that for business articles. You're trying to take your personal preferences -- which, as you can see, other people don't seem to agree with -- and decide that HN should follow them.
Besides, initially you said this was about HN, and now it's about saving the average person on the street from their own stupidity? Because surely, people on HN are aware that this is not a theory. If that's your problem, I think this would be the least of your worries -- half the people out there still think "because the Bible said so" is a logical basis for validity.
Use of the word "sexy" 30 times in something purporting to be scientific; reliance on anecdotes rather than research to make points.
In general it sets off the crackpot alarm for me which means that I take anything else said therein with a grain of salt. One so large, as it were, that it wasn't even worth continuing to read after a certain point.
Hm, I did not notice any anecdotes in the article, unless you count stuff like "some societies post boy warriors to guard the women" - sure he does not give the evidence for that in the article, but there might be more extensive studies of it.
Anyway, I don't want to defend it as science - it's an article on the internet. But the flaws in the reasoning definitely are not obvious to me, as they seem to the first commentator. Would be interested to hear more details.
Edit: OK, I counted the "sexy" occurrences, too. Did not bother me much - it is clearly written in "popular science" tone, not "hard science" tone.
"One objection to all this is the claim that men from cultures in which the women habitually go about topless, do not find breasts sexy. I refute this: we do not say that women’s faces are sexy [...]"
That's where I stopped. There's just no rigor in there.
Fair enough, and thanks for being the first to actually point to a real example.
This point did not bother me much, because it seems unlikely to me that there are actually such cultures (where men don't find breasts sexy). Would be interested to learn more about one such culture. For all I know, there might even be cultures where women don't have breasts? I also just remembered those women that put rings around their neck to elongate them - clearly there are a lot of subtle points to consider...
I also don't take issue if people decide they are not interested in that particular subject. However, I take issue with people claiming evolution theory is nonsense, as the original commentator did.
Use of the word "sexy" 30 times in something purporting to be scientific
Well, he's using the word "sexy" to mean what it means. That is, marked by or tending to arouse sexual desire or interest. I found it rather refreshing that someone was using sexy to mean "sexy", rather than to mean popular, or cool, or useful, or profitable.
How does the article "purport to be scientific"? I read it as interesting speculation. It doesn't claim to be based on rigorous empirical evidence; it just claims to be interesting. And clearly a bunch of HN readers agreed.
I'm not saying that no one should think about it, I'm saying we should have a better filter that immediately separates garbage science from good science. It takes about 10 minutes of reading and a few paragraphs to realize that this is absolute garbage and doesn't need to be voted up.
-- but doing our best to keep in mind that they are not proven theories.
Now that I think about it, what really irks me here is that I know people are actually reading stuff like this (which throws around enough scientific terminology and academic quotes to sound reasonable) and then some of those people go on believing that really is the answer to the hypothesis presented.
That is what has happened to a lot of science these days. There's so much semi-believable trash and conjecture like this tossed out in so many different fields of study that I just wish people would get a better sense of what even has a remotely logical basis for validity. It pains me to know that even one person is reading this trash and coming away thinking that "Gee, science has solved another one!" when in fact it has not.