Hjernevask (Brainwash) Science Documentary

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Hjernevask (Brainwash) is a Norwegian science documentary on the subject of nature vs. nurture which aired in 2010. When it aired it created a lot of controversy in Norway over the politicization of social sciences. It has recently been translated and released with English subtitles for free online by the producer.

Norway: Brainwashed Science on TV Creates Storm

The heat is generated by Harald Eia, a TV-comedian turned science reporter, who is exposing social scientists and gender researchers in a not very flattering manner in a TV series called «Brainwashed». The uproar started already last summer, more than half a year before the series was ready. Some social scientists who had been interviewed by Eia, went out in the press to say they felt they had been fooled, tricked to expose themselves by «dubious» tactics.

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What Eia had done, was to first interview the Norwegian social scientists on issues like sexual orientation, gender roles, violence, education and race, which are heavily politicized in the Norwegian science community. Then he translated the interviews into English and took them to well-known British and American scientists like Robert Plomin, Steven Pinker, Anne Campbell, Simon Baron-Cohen, Richard Lippa, David Buss, and others, and got their comments. To say that the American and British scientists were surprised by what they heard, is an understatement.

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The episodes are all available free, subtitled in English. The vimeo password is "hjernevask".

Ep 1 – ”The Gender Equality Paradox”
Ep 2 – ”The Parental Effect”
Ep 3 – ”Gay/straight”
Ep 4 – ”Violence”
Ep 5 – ”Sex”
Ep 6 – ”Race”
Ep 7 – ”Nature or Nurture”

http://genusnytt.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/se-hjernevask-avsloja-genusmyterna/

I highly recommend it to everyone. For those who have seen it, what are your thoughts? Did it change your views at all?

sunprince United States. April 08 2012 06:00. Posts 2173

Considering that Norway is a feminist stronghold, I'm not surprised that social science there (particularly gender studies) is dominated by ideology rather than science.

saynomore Norway. April 08 2012 06:05. Posts 149

I dont understand why you bring this up now though. It is a bit old imo and have been discussed to death already.

On April 08 2012 06:00 sunprince wrote:
Considering that Norway is a feminist stronghold, I'm not surprised that social science there (particularly gender studies) is dominated by ideology rather than science.

I would not in any way say it is a feminist stronghold. But you can think what you will.

I dont like you

albis United States. April 08 2012 06:06. Posts 482

i tried the watch the first one. got bored 20min into it. seamed fairly common knowledge. maybe the other ones will be better

every punch is thrown with bad intentions with the speed of a devil

divito Canada. April 08 2012 06:12. Posts 1148

Watching part of the first one, and the initial thing that strikes me is that he is trying to equate a company's workforce with gender equality. Just because genders are considered equal and capable of doing such work doesn't logically follow that they will.

We'll see how the rest of this episode goes, and the others.

Last edit: 2012-04-08 06:13:01

Skype: divito7

jxx Brazil. April 08 2012 06:14. Posts 138

On April 08 2012 06:06 albis wrote:
i tried the watch the first one. got bored 20min into it. seamed fairly common knowledge. maybe the other ones will be better

You should really watch the whole thing because in the first 20 minutes of video he shows what is believed to be common knowledge and from that he tries to find scientific answers with empiric studies the proves them but he just shows that, according to what the scientists he meets say, there is a biological reasoning to the differences in male and female interest. I suggest you power through the boredom and watch it whole. It's definitely worth it.

I just saw the first one and it was pretty good. Will definitely check the other ones!

nymfaw Norway. April 08 2012 06:15. Posts 340

On April 08 2012 06:05 saynomore wrote:
I dont understand why you bring this up now though. It is a bit old imo and have been discussed to death already.

I would not in any way say it is a feminist stronghold. But you can think what you will.

How is it not a feminist stronghold?

Last edit: 2012-04-08 06:19:16

Everything will be ok in the end. if it's not ok, its not the end.

JustPassingBy April 08 2012 06:16. Posts 6319

I never understood why some people want everything to be equal on average.
At least I do not blame society for manipulating me into having "boyish" interestes (like gaming) or share some character traits that people with the same migrational background like me seem to have.

Zaqwe April 08 2012 06:18. Posts 385

On April 08 2012 06:05 saynomore wrote:
I dont understand why you bring this up now though. It is a bit old imo and have been discussed to death already.

I would not in any way say it is a feminist stronghold. But you can think what you will.

The English subtitling is recent and I couldn't find any discussion of it on Teamliquid when I searched. I think most of the world outside Norway still hasn't heard of it.

On April 08 2012 06:06 albis wrote:
i tried the watch the first one. got bored 20min into it. seamed fairly common knowledge. maybe the other ones will be better

Sounds like you didn't stick around until he got to the part where he debunks the premises set up in the first part of the episode. You should try watching a whole episode to see how he works through each issue.

sunprince United States. April 08 2012 06:21. Posts 2173

On April 08 2012 06:05 saynomore wrote:

I would not in any way say it is a feminist stronghold. But you can think what you will.

Reality begs to differ.

Hell, you require all companies to have at least 40% female board members, and shut down businesses which don't comply.

Of course, this runs counter to the feminist narrative of oppression and victimization, so they'll still insist that Norway is a horribly misogynistic patriarchy.

sunprince United States. April 08 2012 06:28. Posts 2173

On April 08 2012 06:16 JustPassingBy wrote:
I never understood why some people want everything to be equal on average.
At least I do not blame society for manipulating me into having "boyish" interestes (like gaming) or share some character traits that people with the same migrational background like me seem to have.

People who don't want responsibility for their actions. One of the central tenets of feminist ideology is that you can't blame women for anything whatsoever.

If women chose not to make as much money than men (e.g. working less, choosing easier/safer professions, etc.), then you would have to accept the wage gap or glass ceiling as legitimate. Same goes for other things like why there are more men in engineering. Feminists insist that society is to blame because it allows them to demand things like affirmative action for women, quotas for female politicians, etc. Not that this would be wrong if the idea of society's responsibility was based on empirical science, but feminists abandoned science long ago.

Ironically, the notion that women don't have the ability to make their own decisions but are instead purely the product of social conditioning is one of the most regressive, misogynistic notions I can possibly concieve of. It completely denies women their agency and feeds into the traditional script that men are the actors, while women are merely acted upon. Of course, feminist inconsistency and sexism against both men and women isn't exactly news.

Last edit: 2012-04-08 06:34:45

marttorn Norway. April 08 2012 06:32. Posts 5028

Haha, yeah, that was pretty funny back then. Harald Eia is a national hero. To me, at least.

So far as we can determine, peanut butter has no effect on the rotation of the earth.

Roe Canada. April 08 2012 06:40. Posts 5194

On April 08 2012 06:28 sunprince wrote:

How many of these people do you think there are?

ReturnStroke United States. April 08 2012 06:44. Posts 798

This is far from an isolated case of ideology/personal gain/etc taking priority over actual science. Although it seems to be popping up in social science even more. It's too bad, but at least people are speaking up about it :/

nymfaw Norway. April 08 2012 06:51. Posts 340

Feminist movement in Norway is really dumb. While they fight for equal salary levels, women are still not required to participate in military service and can, if they volunteer, despite failing required tests get a payed military education just because they can fill the quota. And on top of that they require special treatment such as not undressing completely nude when ordered to. (no pun intended here, actually happened newspaper link newspaperlink 2)

If they want things to be equal, everything should be equal right? Sorry for being semi-OT, just a thing I find really annoying.

Last edit: 2012-04-08 06:56:14

Everything will be ok in the end. if it's not ok, its not the end.

Pantythief Denmark. April 08 2012 06:57. Posts 657

I hope you're not serious.

Last edit: 2012-04-08 07:00:34

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sunprince United States. April 08 2012 06:58. Posts 2173

On April 08 2012 06:40 Roe wrote:
How many of these people do you think there are?

Without conducting any sort of study on the matter, any answer I give would be speculative at best. I'm also inferring negative implications about people's ideologies, so people wouldn't readily admit to them either, making a study somewhat difficult. I also doubt that most people realize that their ideologies are convenient to their causes (feminists aren't alone in this, as many ideologies have self-interested beliefs due to human cognitive biases).

According to a Time/CNN study in 2009, 24% of American women identify as feminist (presumably there's a somewhat smaller percentage of men as well, not withstanding some radical feminist assertions that men cannot be feminist). My personal knowledge/experiences with feminists and the gender blogosphere suggest that only a minority of feminists consciously take the extreme view that all gender differences are social rather than biological. However, these extremists tend to be those who are institutionally entrenched (writers, professors, politicians, and other leaders), and the nature of feminism as a "big tent" movement ensures that other feminists support them ideologically as well as socially/politically. Consequently, I'd argue that the majority of feminists at least implicitly support the views I outlined, the way that the majority of Republicans support lower taxes even though only a few have comprehensive knowledge/ideology of the subject.

sunprince United States. April 08 2012 07:03. Posts 2173

On April 08 2012 06:44 ReturnStroke wrote:
This is far from an isolated case of ideology/personal gain/etc taking priority over actual science. Although it seems to be popping up in social science even more. It's too bad, but at least people are speaking up about it :/

I agree, there are many hypocritical ideologies which attempt to take over science. However, none are as powerful and socially accepted as much as feminism, barring the exception of religion in some places.

On April 08 2012 06:51 nymfaw wrote:
If they want things to be equal, everything should be equal right? Sorry for being semi-OT, just a thing I find really annoying.

Feminist ideology holds that we all live in an unjust patriarchy that oppresses women, and all men benefit from a unidirectional set of privileges solely due to being male. As a result, feminists will tell you that making things equal for men is definitely not a priority since women have it so much worse, and any advantages that women appear to have are more than outweight by the tons of advantages that men have.

On April 08 2012 06:57 Pantythief wrote:

I hope you're not serious.

I'm dead serious. If you disagree, feel free to voice a logical criticism rather than cowardly implying that I'm wrong.

Last edit: 2012-04-08 07:08:05

Pantythief Denmark. April 08 2012 07:11. Posts 657

On April 08 2012 07:03 sunprince wrote: