On That Northwestern "Human Sexuality" Class Was The Best Course I Ever Took
goodgood, I am researcher and worked on a project that studied the relationship between sexual abuse and mental disorders later in life. I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that the studies discussed in the class had probably hypothesized that sexual abuse is bad for you. They probably didn't WANT to find what they found. They didn't find this to be true, and that is the way science works. You set up a hypothesis, you try to disprove it. If it's not disproved, you can't manipulate the data to make that finding go away. We found the same thing with our data, and we have agonized over the finding. We don't want to put it out there and have some NAMBLA member saying, "LET'S ALL RAPE CHILDREN! IT'S NOT HARMFUL." We know on a case by case basis that is not true, and there are more ways for the negative consequences of sexual abuse to manifest themselves later in life than just clinical diagnosis.
Regarding the evolutionary study of rape: almost any study that tries to explain how behavior as part of evolution must be taken with a grain of salt. It's not because behaviors can't have a basis in evolution, but because we can't disprove these hypotheses in humans. My problem with those kinds of studies, however, have nothing to do with the rape aspect. I think it's a valid question to ask why humans perpetuate this awful act on other humans. It's a valid question because you might be able to use the answer to stop it.
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On After Wisconsin, Government Won't Negotiate Anything with Any Unions
You have just managed to use my LEAST favorite argument of this whole debate. To paraphrase: "The rest of us don't have it that good, why should you?"
First of all, if you don't like your own working conditions, you might want to get off your ass and start a union. Afraid you'll get fired for trying to organize a union? It happens. Maybe you should start thinking about why that happens and why your bosses are so afraid of unions.
Second, everyone in the private sector expects to be compensated for their work. Why are public employees any different? Oh, their salaries are paid by the public, you say? Guess what, if you're working for Wal-Mart, the public pays your salary too. It's just that the CEO gets to keep way more of that money. No one seems to take issue with that. And if you privatize things that public employees do for pretty modest pay, all else being equal, you might be shocked to learn that the private business will probably want to eventually make a profit, and they do that by cutting corners, screwing employees, and charging more money (see, for example, Halliburton).
Also, public employees have been accepting pay cuts for years on the promise that they will get to keep their benefits packages.
Maybe you should wake up and give these people their due providing their services at a reasonable rate and start asking who the real enemies are in this little scenario (hint: they're the ones making REAL money).