Feminism: Richard Dawkins Remains Deliberately Ignorant

[Content Note: Hostility to Reproductive Rights, IVF]
[Repost Note: This is a repost of an article that previously appeared on Shakesville.]

I'm just going to leave these here. (As screenshots because the Twitter embed is acting funky at the moment.)

Thinking in unfamiliar ways is one of the things academics do.
If you don't like that, hesitate before following an academic on Twitter (Link.)

As D Barash pointed out, if a certain edible berry had strong contraceptive effect on our ancestors,
we'd be phobic about it as if poison (Link.)

If our Pleistocene ancestors had easy contraception,
would natural selection have weakened sex lust at the expense of lust to give birth? (Link.)

I could point out that this line of thinking only makes sense if you assume without evidence that early humans treasured a "reproduce all the time, as much as possible" paradigm, rather than -- as many humans have demonstrably done at many times throughout history -- seeking a balance between quantity of birthed children as well as quality of upbringing so that the children are more likely to survive to adulthood and accrue the necessary skills to survive as adults long enough to live their own lives, parent their own children, and build their own societies. And that these "reproduce constantly" humans which supposedly existed are therefore (again, without evidence) our evolutionary ancestors rather than their early human counterparts who reproduced at a lower rate but nurtured their offspring more effectively to ensure a higher survival rate. 

I could also point out that there is no reason to assume without evidence that early humans didn't face the same concerns regarding the balance between adult providers capable of acquiring resources and child consumers incapable of fending for themselves that we still face today and which still drives many of us to adopt reproductive strategies other than "bear all the children", and that early humans didn't therefore devise their own reproductive strategies designed to cope with these challenges in order to ensure their own survival in the moment as opposed to some kind of "long-game" strategic attempt to position themselves as the ancestors of people on Twitter in the year 2013 A.D. 

I could additionally point out that the concept of contraception is not a modern one; as far back as we have historical records to show, humans have been deeply concerned with controlling their reproduction. Abortions are not a new thing; hormonal methods of birth control are not new things; barrier methods of birth control are not new things; rhythm methods of birth control are not new things; reproductive abstinence is not a new thing. I could point out how foolish it is to assume that these methods only came into vogue with the existence of historical records, and that everyone who existed pre-historical recordings simply felt completely differently about the importance of reproductive control than most of their descendents did. (But their attitudes toward porn were obviously handed down to their Twitter descendents.)

I could perhaps point out that assuming our ancestors were stupid -- so stupid that they could not note cause and effect and would instead suspiciously treat a hormonal birth control berry as "poison" -- is a common error among people who have chosen to other our ancestors as fundamentally inferior to themselves, and that this error is commonly rife among (for example) religionists who seek to claim that the Bible must be divinely inspired because how else could a bunch of backwards pre-historical fools notice that people need to keep their blood inside their bodies if they want to survive? And I could point out that Richard Dawkins, as a professional atheist, would almost certainly have encountered this very same appeal to the supposed profound ignorance of our ancestors.

But I will instead point out only this: I am utterly amused at Dawkins' claim that he is an "academic" and that therefore he thinks in "unfamiliar ways" to his inferiors on Twitter.

Richard Dawkins, your way of thinking isn't unfamiliar to me, it's contemptible. I say this because you continue to deliberately choose to remain blissfully ignorant of the things you opine on as though they are nothing more than cutesy little brain-teasers even though you could easily research these topics and despite the fact that you know for certain that your ignorant opinings on birth control and IVF -- which you continue to trollishly repeat for attention and controversy -- adversely affect the lives of the women (and others with uteri) around you, as we daily struggle to maintain a hold on our right to control our own reproduction.

Please do us all a favor and shut the fuck up. If you absolutely must spout evo-psych bullshit, grab a hairbrush and American Idol that shit into your bathroom mirror. You'll get less Twitter drama out of it, but at least you'll still have your favorite audience.