He recalls: âGrowing up, my mother repeatedly warned me that the world did not abide by my punishingly strict standards of intellectual, ethical, and moral purity, let alone follow my pathological commitment to honesty and probity.â Further, he explains that he finds science liberating because â[i]t offers a framework for auto-correction because scientific knowledge is always provisional.â While this kind of self-aggrandizement might be annoying to someâand there is a lot of it throughout the bookâI think one can look past it if it is backed up by work that lives up to it. is not an academic work, but Saad is an academic. Feldman and Lloyd analyze other core assumptions such as modularity, the view that human behavior is shaped by cognitive âmodulesâ formed by the problem-solving issues faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. In the interview, Searle continues by saying that Foucaultâs writing got much clearer with age. Itâs not quite up there with Cynical Theories (by Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay), The Madness of Crowds (by Douglas Murray), The Coddling of the American Mind (Jonathan Haidt & Greg Lukianoff), or The Rise of Victimhood Culture (Bradley Campbell & Jason Manning), but what it perhaps lacks in originality, it contributes in pizzazz and its promotion of intellectual courage (or âtesticular fortitudeâ as Saad calls it). I'm thankful for the stuff from the first part of this review. Feb 11. Prof. Saad attacks the left with Popper's unfalsiability, only to proceed with telling the story how he refused to discuss "close minded old guard professor" who argued against unfalsiability of evolutionary arguments in his own research.Book is written to discard tons of widely accepted research and top research institutions while making fun of people who don't accept established science. EP is not, as Saad seems to suggest, synonymous with evolutionary theory or implied by it. Prof. Saad's promise is this book will vaccinate you against "infectious ideas", namely political correctness, postmodernism, social constructivism, radical feminism and transgender activism. Further, inclusive fitness is notâas evolutionary psychologists claimâfoundational to evolutionary theory. Again, it does not address all of the critiques from evolutionary biologists outlined previously, but it goes much further than simply arguing that progressives or Marxists reject EP because of their ideology. It should also be noted that all of these three actually acknowledge that the ideas they criticize often stem from valid concerns, another fact that is completely at odds with Saadâs characterization of the Left. To close this already long section on Saad and his arguments (or lack thereof) in favor of EP, it should be pointed out that evolutionary biologists have developed theories of human behavior that directly challenge EPâs explanations. Dr. Saad was inducted into the Whoâs Who of Canadian Business in 2002. Either Saad did not read the full interview, which is intellectual malpractice at best, or he read it and simply chose to give a quotation that, without context seems like it supports Saadâs point. In the opening chapter, Saad describesâin no uncertain termsâhow he adheres to intellectual standards well beyond the majority of people. He recalls: âGrowing up, my mother repeatedly warned me that the world did not abide by my punishingly strict standards of intellectual, ethical, and moral purity, let alone follow my pathological commitment to honesty and probity.â Further, he explains that he finds science liberating because â[i]t offers a framework for auto-correction because scientific knowledge is always provisional.â While this kind of self-aggrandizement might be annoying to someâand there is a lot of it throughout the bookâI think one can look past it if it is backed up by work that lives up to it. It's hard to find few sentences before he proceeds with moral evaluation. Ben Burgisâ book is one. This should not have been hard, given that they were open about it. Why are books about perfectly reasonable and common sense things in such demand these days? “At the time the aforementioned Heterodox Academy report was published, firings of conservatives had doubled, yet left-leaning professor firings had spiked by 950%.”. In some instances, the issues he mentions as part of the broader context are unfairly represented or outright false, in keeping with the pattern described so far. Cancel culture is largely a power grab for people who couldn't accrue it otherwise and the red herring hypersensitivity rotting its way through the zeitgeist is killing free speech, the honesty that precludes learning and growth, and the concept of a bazaar of ideas in a decidedly Orwellian way. Politics has become so hyper-partisan that it all just feels gross. In the final chapters of the book, Saad focuses on addressing issues that are central to EP, such as mating behavior. As I mentioned earlier, Saad takes on some of the classic villains of the IDW. It is self-correcting and all knowledge is, in some sense, provisional. He manages to walk the necessary line between presenting intellectual ideas with necessary academic rigor, while speaking plainly. Saadâs discussion of postmodernismâif it can even be called a discussionâis telling in this regard. As well, he maintains his trademark rapier satire whenever possible. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and then did post-doctoral research at the University of Chicago and in Orissa, India. As we have seen, Saad does an extremely poor job at even defending the theory that is at the heart of much of his arguments in the book, choosing instead to simply give, at best, half-baked, refutations of what some of its critics have stated and simply ignoring the criticism at worst. He was an Associate Editor of Evolutionary Psychology (2012-2015) and of Customer Needs and Solutions (2014- ). It is not difficult to find many left-wing critiques of the very issues Saad rails against, such as Ben Burgisâs, While the World Burns: A Critique of the Contemporary Left, . Though Gad attempts to mask his ideology as a unique approach to âthinking outside the norm,â there is nothing unique about this book. Nothing here should be controversial or new, and yet here we are, trying to resist the gravitational pull of a gigantic planet of unreason and chaos that just keeps on gaining mass. Gad Saad, professor of Marketing at Concordia University Gad Saad likes to say that it takes intellectuals to come up with really stupid ideas, ideas that then spread across society like parasites, draining the host organism and making it behave in strange or even self-endangering ways. Now, thankfully, The Parasitic Mind is not an academic work, but Saad is an academic. How is a company/university/etc punishing a student/employee for creating a toxic environment not conducive to productivity, community & safety terrible? He says: âI am closer to Foucault, in many ways, than I am to [Donald] Davidson, even though Davidson is a close colleague of mine, and Iâve known him for thirty years. As the title suggests, it proposes that we treat the ideas it seeks to criticize as pathogens that can infect the mind and, like real pathogens, propagate from one host to another. That is not to say I agree with all of Burkeâs arguments, and I have, about the ways in which I think it fails. There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Cutting Through Identities: to Alter the Body or to Heal the Mind? Further describing college campuses, he argues that â[i]deological Stalinism is the daily reality on North American college campuses.â Yet, he also calls Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezâs comparison of border detention centers to concentration camps âfoolish if not grotesque.â My goal is not to say what is the appropriate line for analogies and which of the two crosses that line, but it is worth noting that even some Jewish advocacy groups, . Gad (son of Jacob), the founder of the tribe of Gad and seventh son of Jacob Tribe of Gad, a tribe of the ancient Kingdom of Israel; Gad (prophet), King David's seer or prophet; Gad (deity), a pan-Semitic deity worshipped during the Babylonian captivity; Science and medicine. He tells you stories about your enemies, with names. However, I believe it is worth it to devote so much attention to it due to the overall importance of EP for the rest of the bookâand because it neatly showcases a lot of the problems present elsewhere from a purely academic research perspective. In contrast, the exact opposite happens when he discusses contentious topics that he agrees with. There are also many readily available examples of thorough leftist analyses of ideas and arguments from the Right that, taking Saadâs word for granted, one would think are too scary for any leftist to even consider. He's playing on readers behavioral system, associating the enemy with disease, death and famine. The point is simply that Saad does a very poor job of it. This means that it is perfectly legitimate to try to apply evolutionary theory to human behavior and cognition, but it has to be done in a way that is in agreement with our best understanding of evolutionary biology. And this is the ultimate problem with Saadâs work. Have been familiar with and a fan of Dr. Saad for a while, but this magnum opus exceeded even my high expectations. This might be a petty critique, but the fact that Saad gives so little information about Lewontinâs actual views, coupled with the fact that he cannot seem to correctly spell his name, ought to make one question how much of his work Saad even read. Saad simply wants us to agree that postmodern thinkers are charlatans with nothing worthwhile to say and then move on. If you can't stand PC and cancel culture you will enjoy this book. This is the central repository of the various forms of public engagement of evolutionary behavioral scientist Dr. Gad Saad including his YouTube channel (THE SAAD TRUTH), podcast (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad), Psychology Today column (Homo Consumericus), e-shop, blog, events, & ⦠This is even more true if one is looking for a set of arguments that has a non-zero chance of making ideological opponents see things from their point of view, given Saadâs almost non-existent exposition of opposing viewpoints. AOC Made the Capitol Attack Personal. The title and the premise of the book are certainly promising in this regard. Dr. Gad Saad is a professor, evolutionary behavioral scientist, and author who pioneered the use of evolutionary psychology in marketing and consumer behavior. But, secondly, even though they were, their being Marxists is irrelevant to whether their views on evolution, as eminent scientists specialized in the matter, were correct. #BeAHoneyBadger. Only time when multivariate analysis is mentioned, he hand-waves it off. It isnât often that I reread books, but I look forward to going through this one again. And this is the ultimate problem with Saadâs work. This is totally inconsistent with the picture of the totalitarian, leftist university; it is more likely due to administrators who simply shy away from any controversy regardless of ideological leanings. The examples he gives of professors who were reprimanded or fired (or those of conservative figures being banned from social media) are all true, unlike his claims of forbidden knowledge. The Concept of Social Justice: Is Social Justice Just? Searle finishes that section of the interview with an interesting insight. The book is crisp, precise and extremely engaging with occasional burst out laughter opportunities either from the insanity of the anecdotes or the way Dr.Saad puts it. In fact, he often does not even present a caricature of the opposing argument. The examples he gives of professors who were reprimanded or fired (or those of conservative figures being banned from social media) are all true, unlike his claims of forbidden knowledge. The book is both informative and inspiring! If you're like me and you've found yourself increasingly mystified lately about how the tiniest things are labeled "offensive," how groupthink feels like it's at an all-time high, how basic scientific principles are being deemed "problematic," how dictionary definitions change literally overnight, how a culture of needing to feel "safe" and unchallenged at all times has crept into the world, and how people seem to be defined more by what they look ilke than their actions or intentions, (among other insanity), look no further. In the introduction, Prof. Saad defends himself from questions why he doesn't attack Israel and Donald Trump - calling them "whataboutism". Not only that but he is one who, as shown before, often makes grandiose claims about his own intellectual rigor and ethical standardsâstandards which, as the previous section of this review hopefully showed, are rarely met. But, he says, if we lose the ability to pit ideas against others without violence, then we may soon experience a repeat of the society from which he fled: the Lebanese Civil War. Prof. Saad talks in analogies instead in arguments and jumps to conclusions. I do not believe it would quite be fair to say that if one has read one anti-SJW monograph, one has read all of them. The first, and most obvious, is that it is not (more on that later). Dr. Gad Saad is Professor of Marketing, holder of the Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption, and advisory fellow at the Center for Inquiry. While mentioning Trump as the example through the whole book, in "Call to action" chapter he explains how voting for Trump is one of ways people have already approached to solve to the problems in the book. Yet, Saad goes on to present EP as a theory on par with Darwinâs theory of evolution. Postmodernism, radical feminism, cultural relativism, identity politics, and the rest of the academic nonsense were not developed and promulgated by right-wing zealots.â I would contend (and I imagine this would not be a controversial position) that someone with a âpathological commitment to honesty and probityâ and who adheres to âpunishingly strict standards of intellectual, ethical, and moral purity,â should present opposing arguments in the best possible light and then try to refute them strongly but fairly. , to concentration camps can rise to the level of âgrotesque,â surely it is even more grotesque to compare universities to a totalitarian regime in which millions of people died and political opponents were frequently killed. Over the weekend, the Times published an essay by The interview makes it clear that Searle respected Foucault as a thinker and that he even understood Foucaultâs thought as having common ground with his ownâmore so than other analytic philosophers. How do you know if you're being intellectually courageous? "Terrace House," the long-running Japanese reality show that puts six strangers in a house together âwithout a scriptâ, was pulled off the air and taken off Netflix last year, following the suicide of 2020 house member Hana Kimura. Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, a senior writer at FiveThirtyEigh It is to biology what Einsteinâs theory of General Relativity or Quantum Field Theory is to modern physics: the most thoroughly tested scientific insights in their subfield. , but at least it is one of the less explored ideas. Whoever suggests otherwise should be prepared to face a honey badger, or even an army of honey badgers who explain how things really are. This is the kind of intellectual malpractice that not even a high school student could get away with in an introductory philosophy course, let alone someone with âpunishingly strict standards of intellectual, ethical, and moral purity.â. His research and teaching interests include evolutionary psychology, consumer behavior, and psychology of decision making. With this book he's searching for useful fools willing to sacrifice their personal relationships and careers for his battle. He's framing reader. Many evolutionary biologists, in particular, are highly skeptical about EP and the way it applies (and misapplies) evolutionary theory. Olivia Lua, a 24-year-old doe-eyed brunette from Philadelphia, was an instant hit when she joined the LA porn scene in 2016. The problem is that most of the book does not even meet the standards that Saad sets for himself in the beginning. Just this year, Dave Rubinâs, and James Lindsay and Helen Pluckroseâs, were published. But it's sad that Saad wants display his feathers so much.
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