James Esses: "The Fall of Scientific American" (aka Lysenkoism Monthly)

Not news.

But true.

The piece in question, "The Theory that Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather is Wrong," is just what we've come to expect from Lysenkoism Monthly. It's a pastiche of politically correct Newspeak, obvious falsehoods, not-so-obvious falsehoods, and long stretches of semi-scientific babble that even a non-specialist can tell conceal copious lying and cheating. 

   Esses quotes perhaps the most obvious absurdity, the now-orthodox leftist dogma that man and woman have nothing to do with sex, but are, rather, social roles associated with "identification." As I've said for a decade now: that's the most obviously false claim that's been propagated in American politics in my lifetime.

   Another one of many: 

If you follow long-distance races, you might be thinking, wait—males are outperforming females in endurance events! But this is only sometimes the case. Females are more regularly dominating ultraendurance events such as the more than 260-mile Montane Spine foot race through England and Scotland, the 21-mile swim across the English Channel and the 4,300-mile Trans Am cycling race across the U.S. Sometimes female athletes compete in these races while attending to the needs of their children. In 2018 English runner Sophie Power ran the 105-mile Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc race in the Alps while still breastfeeding her three-month-old at rest stations.

Now, I've often heard that women "do better than men" in such races. We all have, I'm sure. That's the kind of thing the establishment wants to be true. Most of us do, in fact. We all like a good underdog story...and women are, athletically, the underdogs. But I found the claim that "Females are more regularly dominating ultraendurance events..." to be suspicious.

   First, of course, it's multiply ambiguous. "Dominating" more regularly than men? More regularly than they used to? More regularly than other sporting events? Because the first is the one crucial to the authors' case...but it is also the most implausible.

   Second: dominating? Really? Not just winning? 

   So I randomly picked the Trans Am cycling race to check. Here are the historical results. You have to look pretty hard to find any women in there at all over the past four years or so. I didn't look back farther than that. There is no "domination" to be found...and little placing in the top 25.

   I'll admit, if you don't think about it much, it would be easy to think that "man, the hunter" means that only men hunted. Now, two seconds of reflection by even non-specialists would bring to mind the obvious correction that undoubtedly men also gathered, and women must have helped hunt at least sometimes. It's perfectly find to make sure people recognize that. But that requires nothing more than a sentence or two. It certainly doesn't require a highly misleading Woketarian puddle of nonsense like that SciAm piece.

   tl;dr: par for the new course.