Excerpt Of The Funniest Passage In Scientific Writing That I Have Ever Read
It's from a book chapter, "The Interface Theory of Perception: Natural Selection Drives True Perception To Swift Extinction," by cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman. It's in the book Object Categorization: Computer and Human Vision Perspectives, edited by Sven Dickinson, Michael Tarr, Ales Leonardis and Bernt Schiele. (Cambridge University Press.)
A bit from Hoffman's chapter:
Introduction
The jewel beetle Julodimorpha bakewelli is category challenged. For the male of the species, spotting instances of the category desirable female is a pursuit of enduring interest and, to this end, he scours his environment for telltale signs of a female's shiny, dimpled, yellow-brown elytra (wing cases). Unfortunately for him, many males of the species Homo sapiens, who sojourn in his habitats within the Dongara area of Western Australia, are attracted by instances of the category full beer bottle but not by instances of the category empty beer bottle, and are therefore prone to toss their emptied "stubbies" unceremoniously from their cars. As it happens, stubbies are shiny, dimpled, and just the right shade of brown to trigger, in the poor beetle, a category error. Male beetles find stubbies irresistible. Forsaking all normal females, they swarm the stubbies, genitalia everted, and doggedly try to copulate despite repeated glassy rebuffs. Compounding misfortune, ants of the species Iridomyrmex discors capitalize on the beetles' category errors; the ants sequester themselves near stubbies, wait for befuddled beetles, and consume them, genitalia first, as they persist in their amorous advances.Categories have consequences. Conflating beetle and bottle led male J. bakewelli into mating mistakes that nudged their species to the brink of extinction. Their perceptual categories worked well in their niche: Males have low parental investment and thus their fitness is boosted if their category desirable mate is more liberal than that of females (as predicted by the theory of sexual selection, e.g.,). But when stubbies invaded their niche, a liberal category transformed stubbies into Sirens, 370 milliliter amazons with matchless allure.
The things we go through to get laid never end, instead they just evolve into another negative experience.
Bob in Texas at May 15, 2015 5:28 AM
Beetle: Eat me!
Ant: Don't mind if I do.
I R A Darth Aggie at May 15, 2015 6:34 AM
The text can be found here: http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/interface.pdf
I've skimmed the first few pages and it looks to be an interesting read. I shall delve deeper once I'm properly caffeinated. Thanks Amy!
the other rob at May 15, 2015 6:36 AM
Beetle Beer Goggles end up messy
Joe J at May 15, 2015 8:29 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/05/excerpt-from-th.html#comment-6015404">comment from Joe JHah!
Amy Alkon
at May 15, 2015 8:45 AM
Beetle bottle battle - film at 11:00!
BlogDog at May 15, 2015 12:25 PM
The chapter was originally entitled, "Men Become Absolute Idiots When It Comes To Chasing Poontang," but it was changed by the editors to a more academic title.
Kim du Toit at May 15, 2015 4:19 PM
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