Science Paper Says Penis Is A Social Construct That Worsens Climate Change

From the Journal of Cogent Social Science.

The authors begin, "Anatomical penises may exist," but the "conceptual penis is better understood not as an anatomical organ but as a social construct.... There are many women who have penises," they boldly claim. Then, they gratuitously listed some crude synonyms for the penis, such as: "beaver basher," "custard launcher," "pork sword," and "mayo shooting hotdog gun." They explained that "manspreading" -- when a man sits with his legs open -- is "akin to raping the empty space around him."

The authors tied everything in to climate change:

Toxic hypermasculinity derives its significance directly from the conceptual penis and applies itself to supporting neocapitalist materialism, which is a fundamental driver of climate change, especially in the rampant use of carbon-emitting fossil fuel technologies and careless domination of virgin natural environments.

Yes. This is an actual paper. Proof that the social sciences - thoroughly infested with Leftist philosophy - has finally gone off the rails.

OR......

A new team of hoaxers has struck again, this time in the journal Cogent Social Science. Even though the authors have already admitted to their hoax in the magazine Skeptic, the journal apparently is unaware. The paper is, for the time being, still available here. (When they finally do take it down, it will live on in infamy here.)

It is worth stopping to ponder that this didn't raise any red flags with the editors of the journal. Not only did they think this was perfectly intellectual, publishable material, they praised the authors for their work.

The authors said, "After completing the paper, we read it carefully to ensure it didn't say anything meaningful, and as neither one of us could determine what it is actually about, we deemed it a success." Finally, they made this particularly damning observation:

We assumed that if we were merely clear in our moral implications that maleness is intrinsically bad and that the penis is somehow at the root of it, we could get the paper published in a respectable journal.

It worked.

New Civil-Rights Issue Discovered

Being in modern 'social science' must be a little like being an artist: you're always thinking of new ways to channel your Muse, and you have a freedom to array any and all tools at your disposal to do so. You're liberated from the usual constraints of actual science, in other words.

I'm talking about this article detailing a Kellogg School of Management study that claims to show that if black CEOs have a "baby-face", they'll be more successful. What the heck is a "baby-face", you ask? Never fear, our brave social scientist has defined it (i.e. made it up):

...rounder face, larger forehead, smaller nose, larger ears and fuller, pouty lips....

So they made up a collection of traits they call "babyfaceness". Then they asked random people to rate how "babyfaced" people are based on headshots. (The number of black headshots used in this study: a grand total of 10.) From what I can tell they also asked people to predict how much money the headshot subjects make (whatever that's supposed to prove). It gets fuzzier from there and I started to zone out.

Let me just jump to the punch-line and translate this all for you:

1. America is racist and should be criticized. (This goes without saying and one doesn't even need a study)

2. In this particular instance the evidence for America being racist is that there aren't many CEOs who look like scary gangsta rappers - which is totally not fair.

3. America will merit the criticism of being racist unless/until she overcomes her racist, stereotypical, unfair slight aversion to promoting guys who look like scary gangsta rappers to position of CEO of Fortune 500 companies.

4. But actually then, she'll still be racist. It's just that we'll need other sorts of social science studies than this one (and continued research funding for the researchers), in order to continue to prove it.

[Originally posted at Rhymes With Cars And Girls]