Posts by Agustín Fuentes

Our brains are powerful lie detectors, let’s use them. Knowledge matters now, maybe more than ever. We all have the capacity to see through lies, and protect ourselves from misinformation, but those capacities must be honed, exercised and fortified on a daily basis. The Internet abounds with fake news and misrepresentations. Here are some suggestions…

Humans are not “bad to the bone” Humans can be amazingly violent and cruel. A quick look at the daily headlines, and the world of politics, makes that abundantly clear. But we are more often caring and compassionate. It’s easy to overlook this latter aspect in our contemporary world. Every now and then we should stop…

Implicit bias makes a just society difficult to achieve The Harvard implicit bias test demonstrates that most Americans, regardless of their age, gender, educational background, economic level, and religion, are biased against Black Americans and in favor of White Americans (see here and here). This means that the way people subconsciously perceive reality is biased against millions of Americans. It…

Do we know the evolutionary limitations on gender equality in sports? A recent article entitled “Sex Differences in Sports Interest and Motivation: An Evolutionary Perspective” argues that men and women have evolved different motivations for sports. The authors suggest that these evolved differences have 2 important implications.  1) Boys and girls are naturally drawn to different kinds…

If there is no joy, should there be sex? There are two types of ads for sexual dysfunction. For males (here, here and here) the images are of horses running, a man driving a truck pulling a trailer, or men with women in bathtubs, playing sports, having drinks, walking on the beach or boating on the ocean, sails at…

For better and worse religiousness is integral to the human experience Humans take religion seriously. -Today, an Islamic offshoot fundamentalist group calling themselves the Islamic State is battling with scores of nations in the border regions between Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. -A leading presidential candidate in the USA demands we ban Muslims from entering the…

Compassion plays a key role in human evolution. With the recent spate of school shootings, terrorist beheadings, and presidential candidates arguing for increased xenophobia and a naturalness for sexual violence, the world does not feel like a very compassionate place. But it is. Or better put, we are. The emergence and frequency of terrorism, warfare, and belligerence…

Myths of gender and race are not made on the screen, but are reinforced there Four months ago I wrote a blog post about the movie industry’s massive bias against women and used data from the Media, Diversity, & Social Change (MDSC) initiative at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, particularly the work from projects headed up by Dr. Stacy…