Do not read this

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All readers are warned: if, in spite of my clear statement that what is behind the cut is offensive and contains a thoroughly unpopular attitude, you still go and read it, do not dare, afterward, write angry or offended comments or e-mails. They will be not only deleted, but replaced with appropriate comments on the absurdity of such attitudes. I

Comments

Re: Still not

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I do not have the slightest intention of taking on you on integrals, mass spectrometry, or whatever else it is that you know and I don't.

I never tackle this subject in a joking mood, because of the ferocity I know I risk rousing. I have been the object of more than one witch-hunt on the twin issues of abortion and homosexuality, and any time I publish on either of these matters I do so, literally, with clenched teeth. You evidently have no idea of the hatred I have roused in several areas of fandom, mainly if not exclusively because of these matters.

Sexual morality is natural to man, and not unknown even among homosexuals. If they could shake off the natural idea that sexual partnership should be monogamous and for life, they would be much happier. My experience, direct and indirect, is that much of the misery to be observed in homosexual circles is made by jealousy; and one hardly has to make a great deal of effort to realize that jealousy can only be instinctive - as it certainly is - if the assumption you have lain in my bed, now you ought to preserve yourself for me alone is so natural, instinctive and deeply rooted in the human animal, that all the blows of experience and socialization cannot drive it away. In other words, the human animal, like certain others - swans, leopards - is naturally meant to mate monogamously and for life. Any alteration on this theme causes misery, and a misery so natural and so obvious to us that we do not even stop to analyze it.

Whatever the reason why a scientist publishes, his/her work is to be analyzed first and foremost according to scientific criteria. If it turns out to be a fraud, then the reason for the fraud must be found, and if it is political, that matters. If the work stands up, then it could not matter less for what reason it has been done. The world is all too full of great works of the mind produced for trival or negative reasons.

Unfortunately, human studies - the category in which I gather all those studies which are neither science nor art, such as history, psychology, and so on - do not allow a methodology so clear and unambiguous as the experimental or mathematical methods of science do. The Italian scientist who refused to look through Galileo's telescope is a joke in science; in human studies, he might practically stand for a whole way o fapproaching difficult or unwelcome material. Even so, each piece of work ought to be valued on its strengths, and only secondarily on the views and ambitions of its authors.