Thursday, December 02, 2010

Hey, NPR, your "Inappropriate Language" filter needs work!

Okay, folks, a little puzzle for you. Why did this comment lead to an "inappropriate language" warning from NPR's filters when I tried to submit it?

If it is the authors (and not just you) who claim that they have established that current configurations of human sexual behavior are, in any sense, in opposition to "human nature" because they are cultural accretions then they are talking out of their...um...hats. Culture is part of human nature. Culture is the means by which Homo Sapiens has been able to adapt to and reshape such a multitude of environments. It is equally possible to describe the human brain as accretions of earlier and later developments...and some of those later accretions developed (in part) to process human culture. Should we accept only those parts that most nearly resemble our earliest evolutionary antecedents' as being "truer", somehow? I have no doubt that the book you review is a valuable one and I am considering adding it to my reading list. I will, however, be careful about the conclusions I draw from their evidence.

The answer after the jump:

This version passed muster:

If it is the authors (and not just you) who claim that they have established that current configurations of human sexual behavior are, in any sense, in opposition to "human nature" because they are cultural accretions then they are talking out of their...um...hats. Culture is part of human nature. Culture is the means by which H o m o Sapiens [trying to avoid NPR's filtering software, here] has been able to adapt to and reshape such a multitude of environments. It is equally possible to describe the human brain as accretions of earlier and later developments...and some of those later accretions developed (in part) to process human culture. Should we accept only those parts that most nearly resemble our earliest evolutionary antecedents' as being "truer", somehow? I have no doubt that the book you review is a valuable one and I am considering adding it to my reading list. I will, however, be careful about the conclusions I draw from their evidence.

Come on, guys, you're NPR! You can't do better than a filter that sees "Homo" and concludes "inappropriate"? I'd like to request that somebody on your team read up on context-sensitive grammars.

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