Oh I remember the other thing I was going to say - TAM is quite possibly the worst place in the world to do that Million Dollar Challenge thing because the ratio of male:female guests is so ridiculously skewed. (At NECSS the line for the women's bathroom was about four people. The line for the men's room went all the way down the hall. It made me sad.)

Where? I thought just-so was specific to squishy sciences like biology/anthropology.

I was aiming for sarcasm there.

You can kill people in a polite manner.

Which... makes it no less a prickish thing to do.

What is a "just-so story" in this context?

I ran to go a-googlin' when you said that, Jessica. Someone brought up string theory as just-so. Ima have more coffee before I try and set my brain to how it could be construed as just-so.

In the context of evo psych, Amy?

Yeah, Allyson. I'm not a science person, and it's not a term I've heard before.

You think he's actually a prick or you're just upgrading him because he's a murderer and killing people is prickish in your book?

Killing people isn't in yours?

I don't think going around killing other killers is a prickish thing to do. (It may be morally hazy, but prickish? Hm.) If he were just killing random people on the street, sure, then he's kind of an asshole, though. But, mostly, when ita asked about prickish characters like House, I was thinking personality-wise. And Dexter isn't a prick.

Wikipedia actually has a very good explanation:

[link]

Critics assert that many hypotheses put forward to explain the adaptive nature of human behavioural traits are "Just-so stories"; neat adaptive explanations for the evolution of given traits that do not rest on any evidence beyond their own internal logic. They allege that evolutionary psychology can predict many, or even all, behaviours for a given situation, including contradictory ones. Therefore many human behaviours will always fit some hypotheses. Noam Chomsky noted: "You find that people cooperate, you say, ‘Yeah, that contributes to their genes' perpetuating.’ You find that they fight, you say, ‘Sure, that’s obvious, because it means that their genes perpetuate and not somebody else's. In fact, just about anything you find, you can make up some story for it."

I think House is more of a prick than Dexter, myself. Firstly, I think House is making a choice, and he enjoys what he's doing, and he enjoys doing it to everyone. Dexter's ill, and he's channelling what he does, and in theory is only doing it to bad people. He has some modicum of control, and gets that what he's doing is less than optimal.

But I've probably watched more Dexter than House, but neither recently.

What is a "just-so story" in this context?

Isn't it just "how the penis got it's head" instead of "how the elephant got it's trunk"?

Or, what Jessica said.