My housemate who is now vigorously denying her poshness (via peachstones)

hahaha bet this was charlotte

These bad ass derby photos are shattering stereotypes about female athletes 

A healthy body is a strong body. That’s the message behind Cory Layman’s “Body by Derby” project, an inspiring collection of images of roller derby players. The project is proving that women of all shapes and sizes can be strong and powerful — no matter their body fat percentage.

Here’s a quick handy reference list or anyone who isn’t sure:

Homosexuality does exist in almost all social species.

"Alpha males" are not a real phenomenon and in fact the most aggressive males tend to be the least reproductively successful.

"Survival of the fittest" simply means that the success of a species hinges on how well it "fits" its environment. It does not mean that stronger or smarter individuals are supposed to succeed. Those things can even be a detriment in nature by wasting too many resources.

"Race" is not a biological concept. Someone who looks different from you has the same human genes, just a different grab-bag of dominant traits.

Evolution is not a march towards higher complexity, more intelligence or even more adaptability. It’s just a fluctuation of characteristics dictated by environmental pressures and mutation. A slime mold isn’t “less evolved” than a hawk, just adapted for success under different parameters.

People didn’t evolve “from apes.” It’s more complicated than that. We are a category of ape, sharing a common ancestor with the other apes.

No human on Earth is “closer” to an evolutionary ancestor than any other. We all descended from the same one.

Neanderthals were also a “sibling” species of ours. We didn’t evolve from them.

Epigenetics does not have anything at all to do with genetic memories. It is a thing that affects characteristics like health risks, and this speculation floating around about how phobias could be related to some ancestral trauma is complete and utter nonsense.

It’s only a matter of time before such a claim is used as another pseudoscientific tool in the arsenal of people claiming that bloodlines have anything to do with the validity of one’s worship of European pantheons. “My ancestors were Swedish, and because of epigenetics I have genetic memories passed down from those ancestors, so therefore my connection with the gods is better than yours!”

saying the “male brain” works one way and the “female brain” works another way is ludicrous. for so many reasons, even beyond the obvious of imposing that tired old either/or mentality with regards to maleness and femaleness

occasionally you will read about how a study suggests that “men are naturally better at spacial reasoning” or “women are naturally better at cooperation”, but for one thing, given how early the brain wires itself and how easy it is to influence the wiring (like, disturbingly easy), and given the tremendous social expectations we face from pretty much the moment we leave the freaking womb, it’s impossible to study gender differences in a vacuum. 

like, do your findings prove that “women are better at reading faces”, or do they prove that, when you are part of a group that has been socialized since birth to be “nice”, to take care of other people, and to above all avoid making folks angry, you damn well have to learn how to read the room, and read it fast.

Also: every study I know of that looked at “rational” decision making with uncertainty has found that even people w/ relevant expertise made narrative-based rather than probability based decisions when the two are in conflict. (The conjunction fallacy & work around that is the example that comes to mind). ie we all have storyteller brains.

Also: you know those nice neat little brain areas that light up in fMRI studies? Yeah, those are the difference between test & control condition activity. If you just look at activity, and try to figure out what lights up when you do stuff? The answer is almost always all of it, the whole brain is active. The only really hemisphere-specific left-brain vs right-brain activity is sensory - stimuli on the right side of your body activate parts of the left hemisphere & vice versa. 

I don’t have much to add to this brilliant thread other than my opinion that, besides being unfounded, evolutionary theories of human behaviour offer next to nothing for our understanding of the social world. 

Even if universal psychological processes or systematic biological differences between groups were found (through a significant number of consistently-replicated scientific studies conducted across time, culture, social group, etc) the effects of cultural norms and historical events on such basic cognitive functioning as object versus field perception, numerical representations, processes of attibution and cognitive bias, etc have been consistently evidenced. Culture provides us the cognitive tools with which to perceive and interact with the world, and these in turn can alter our neurological structures (its amazing how evo psychs will ignore something so interesting and *sciencey* as neuroplasticity). 

So the basic, innate neurological differences evolutionary psychologists love to talk about (but often fail to demonstrate) are mostly irrelevant as soon as the brain comes in contact with culture. Which happens about a second after birth. 

Warning for auto-play in links

[Raeen Roes/ Angel Haze] - Hip hop, rap

[Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!] - Punk rock

[Gerard Way] - Pop punk

[The Shondes] - Alternative 

[Kokumo] - Classical

[Schmekel] - Punk/alternative

[Good Asian Drivers] - Alternative

[Butch County] - Hard rock

[Heidi Barton Stink] - Rap

[La Roux] - Pop/electronic

[Ruby Rose] - Electronic/pop

[JD Samson] - Electronic/alternative

[Kieran Strange] - Alternative/pop punk

[Rae Spoon] - Indie rock/ folk punk

[Jayne County] - Indie 

[Steam Powered Giraffe] - Alternative

[Antony and the Johnsons] - Art pop/classical

[Geo Wyeth] - Classical/art

[Evan Greer] - Folk punk

[The Cliks] - Indie

[Rosanonymous] - Indie/punk

[Rocco Katastrophe] - Hip hop

My housemate who is now vigorously denying her poshness (via peachstones)