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==Twitter obesity controversy==
==Twitter obesity controversy==
On June 02, 2013, Miller posted a tweet on Twitter stating, "Dear obese PhD applicants: if you didn't have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won't have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth."<ref name=Policymic>{{cite news|last=Ellingboe|first=Kristen|title=NYU Professor: Obese PhD Students Lack the "Willpower" to Do a Dissertation|url=http://www.policymic.com/articles/46163/geoffrey-miller-nyu-psychology-professor-says-no-fatties-allowed-in-ph-d-programs|newspaper=Policymic}}</ref> Miller subsequently removed the tweet and issued two apologies ("My sincere apoplogies to all for that idiotic, impulsive, and badly judged tweet. It does not reflect my true views, values, or standards"), but not before the post was picked up by major news sources.<ref name=HuffPost>{{cite news|last=Bennett-Smith|first=Meredith|title=Geoffrey Miller, Visiting NYU Professor, Slammed For Fat-Shaming Obese PhD Applicants|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/geoffrey-miller-fat-shaming-nyu-phd_n_3385641.html|newspaper=The Huffington Post|date=04 June 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=King|first=Barbara J.|title=The Fat-Shaming Professor: A Twitter-Fueled Firestorm|url=http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/06/06/188891906/the-fat-shaming-professor-a-twitter-fueled-firestorm|newspaper=National Public Radio|date=06 June 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Associated Press|title=UNM Prof: 'Obese' Grad Applicants Lack 'Willpower'|url=http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/unm-prof-obese-grad-applicants-lack-willpower-19322132#.UbVkIqW5RUQ|accessdate=04 June 2013|newspaper=ABC News}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Walsh|first=Michael|title=NYU visiting professor insults the obese Ph.D.s with ‘impulsive’ tweet |url=http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nyu-prof-obese-insult-tweet-debacle-article-1.1362772|accessdate=04 June 2013|newspaper=New York Daily News}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Cusma|first=Kathryn|title=Visiting NYU lecturer makes waves with offensive Tweet about fat people|url=http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/fatty_flub_at_nyu_PnXagN0VawSFZftuDCACDN|newspaper=New York Post|date=04 June 2013}}</ref> Feminist blogs including [[Jezebel_(website)|Jezebel]], [[XOJane#xoJane.com|XOJane]], and Disrupting Dinner Parties criticized his public, discriminatory statement against obese individuals,<ref name=Jezebel>{{cite web|last=Beck|first=Laura|title=NYU Prof to Obese PhD Applicants: Thanks, But No Fatties Allowed|url=http://jezebel.com/nyu-prof-to-obese-phd-applicants-thanks-but-no-fattie-510982879|publisher=Jezebel|accessdate=10 June 2013}}</ref><ref name=XOJane>{{cite web|first=Marianne|title=How Not to Twitter: Dr. Geoffrey Miller's 140 Fat-Hating Characters of Infamy|url=http://www.xojane.com/issues/professor-geoffrey-miller|publisher=xoJane}}</ref><ref name=DDP>{{cite web|title=What we're reading 6/9/13|url=http://disruptingdinnerparties.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/what-were-reading-6913/#more-4472|publisher=Disrupting Dinner Parties|accessdate=10 June 2013}}</ref> and the post received additional criticism from [[Chris Chambers]], a psychologist at Cardiff University,<ref>{{cite web|last=Chambers|first=Chris|title=Public statements made by Geoffrey Miller|url=https://twitter.com/chrisdc77/status/341341325309906945/photo/1|publisher=Twitter|accessdate=10 June 2013}}</ref> and [[Linda Bacon]], a professor of Nutrition at the [[University of California, Davis|University of California Davis]].<ref name=Fat-shaming>{{cite web|last=Ingeno|first=Lauren|title=Fat-Shaming in Academe|url=http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/04/outrage-over-professors-twitter-post-obese-students|publisher=Inside Higher Ed}}</ref>
On June 02, 2013, Miller posted a tweet on Twitter stating, "Dear obese PhD applicants: if you didn't have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won't have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth."<ref name=Policymic>{{cite news|last=Trotter|first=J. K.}</ref> Miller subsequently removed the tweet and issued two apologies ("My sincere apoplogies to all for that idiotic, impulsive, and badly judged tweet. It does not reflect my true views, values, or standards"), but not before the post was picked up by major news sources.<ref name=HuffPost>{{cite news|last=Bennett-Smith|first=Meredith|title=Geoffrey Miller, Visiting NYU Professor, Slammed For Fat-Shaming Obese PhD Applicants|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/geoffrey-miller-fat-shaming-nyu-phd_n_3385641.html|newspaper=The Huffington Post|date=04 June 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=King|first=Barbara J.|title=The Fat-Shaming Professor: A Twitter-Fueled Firestorm|url=http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/06/06/188891906/the-fat-shaming-professor-a-twitter-fueled-firestorm|newspaper=National Public Radio|date=06 June 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Associated Press|title=UNM Prof: 'Obese' Grad Applicants Lack 'Willpower'|url=http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/unm-prof-obese-grad-applicants-lack-willpower-19322132#.UbVkIqW5RUQ|accessdate=04 June 2013|newspaper=ABC News}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Walsh|first=Michael|title=NYU visiting professor insults the obese Ph.D.s with ‘impulsive’ tweet |url=http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nyu-prof-obese-insult-tweet-debacle-article-1.1362772|accessdate=04 June 2013|newspaper=New York Daily News}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Cusma|first=Kathryn|title=Visiting NYU lecturer makes waves with offensive Tweet about fat people|url=http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/fatty_flub_at_nyu_PnXagN0VawSFZftuDCACDN|newspaper=New York Post|date=04 June 2013}}</ref> Feminist blogs including [[Jezebel_(website)|Jezebel]], [[XOJane#xoJane.com|XOJane]], and Disrupting Dinner Parties criticized his public, discriminatory statement against obese individuals,<ref name=Jezebel>{{cite web|last=Beck|first=Laura|title=NYU Prof to Obese PhD Applicants: Thanks, But No Fatties Allowed|url=http://jezebel.com/nyu-prof-to-obese-phd-applicants-thanks-but-no-fattie-510982879|publisher=Jezebel|accessdate=10 June 2013}}</ref><ref name=XOJane>{{cite web|first=Marianne|title=How Not to Twitter: Dr. Geoffrey Miller's 140 Fat-Hating Characters of Infamy|url=http://www.xojane.com/issues/professor-geoffrey-miller|publisher=xoJane}}</ref><ref name=DDP>{{cite web|title=What we're reading 6/9/13|url=http://disruptingdinnerparties.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/what-were-reading-6913/#more-4472|publisher=Disrupting Dinner Parties|accessdate=10 June 2013}}</ref> and the post received additional criticism from [[Chris Chambers]], a psychologist at Cardiff University,<ref>{{cite web|last=Chambers|first=Chris|title=Public statements made by Geoffrey Miller|url=https://twitter.com/chrisdc77/status/341341325309906945/photo/1|publisher=Twitter|accessdate=10 June 2013}}</ref> and [[Linda Bacon]], a professor of Nutrition at the [[University of California, Davis|University of California Davis]].<ref name=Fat-shaming>{{cite web|last=Ingeno|first=Lauren|title=Fat-Shaming in Academe|url=http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/04/outrage-over-professors-twitter-post-obese-students|publisher=Inside Higher Ed}}</ref>
[[Pascal Wallisch]], research scientist at the Center for Neural Science at [[New York University]], criticizes the tweet on additional grounds, saying that in addition to being offensive, the tweet is factually incorrect.<ref name=No relation between body weight and PhD completion>{{cite web|last=Wallisch|first=Pascal|title=No relation between body weight and PhD completion|url=http://pensees.pascallisch.net/?p=1462}}</ref>
[[Pascal Wallisch]], research scientist at the Center for Neural Science at [[New York University]], criticizes the tweet on additional grounds, saying that in addition to being offensive, the tweet is factually incorrect.<ref name=No relation between body weight and PhD completion>{{cite web|last=Wallisch|first=Pascal|title=No relation between body weight and PhD completion|url=http://pensees.pascallisch.net/?p=1462}}</ref>


Miller says that the tweet was part of a research project.<ref name=Policymic /> The [[institutional review board|institutional review boards]] of UNM, Miller's home university, and NYU, where he is a visiting professor, released statements saying that Miller's tweet was "self-promotional" and cannot be considered research.<ref name=IRB_not_research>{{cite news|last=Kingkade|first=Tyler|title=Geoffrey Miller Claims Mocking Obese People On Twitter Was Research; University Disagrees|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/02/geoffrey-miller-twitter-obese-research_n_3531376.html?ir=College|accessdate=3 July 2013|newspaper=The Huffington Post|date=2 July 2013}}</ref> The Department of Psychology at UNM is initiating a disciplinary inquiry process.<ref>{{cite news|last=Wentworth|first=Karen|title=UNM Institutional Review Board Makes Determination on Miller|url=http://news.unm.edu/2013/07/unm-institutional-review-board-makes-determination-on-miller/}}</ref>
Miller says that the tweet was part of a research project.<ref>''The Huffington Post'': [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/geoffrey-miller-fat-shaming-nyu-phd_n_3385641.html Geoffrey Miller, Visiting NYU Professor, Slammed For Fat-Shaming Obese PhD Applicants]. June 4, 2013.</ref> The [[institutional review board|institutional review boards]] of UNM, Miller's home university, and NYU, where he is a visiting professor, released statements saying that Miller's tweet was "self-promotional" and cannot be considered research.<ref name=IRB_not_research>{{cite news|last=Kingkade|first=Tyler|title=Geoffrey Miller Claims Mocking Obese People On Twitter Was Research; University Disagrees|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/02/geoffrey-miller-twitter-obese-research_n_3531376.html?ir=College|accessdate=3 July 2013|newspaper=The Huffington Post|date=2 July 2013}}</ref> The Department of Psychology at UNM is initiating a disciplinary inquiry process.<ref>{{cite news|last=Wentworth|first=Karen|title=UNM Institutional Review Board Makes Determination on Miller|url=http://news.unm.edu/2013/07/unm-institutional-review-board-makes-determination-on-miller/}}</ref>


==Notes==
==Notes==

Revision as of 22:24, 3 August 2013

Geoffrey F. Miller (born 1965, Cincinnati, Ohio), Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of New Mexico, is an American evolutionary psychologist.

Education

In 1987, Miller graduated from Columbia University, where he earned a BA in biology and psychology. He received his PhD in cognitive psychology from Stanford University in 1993 under the guidance of Roger N. Shepard.

Career

Miller held positions as a postdoctoral researcher in the evolutionary and adaptive systems group in the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences at the University of Sussex, UK (1992–94); Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, University of Nottingham (1995); Research Scientist at the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich, Germany (1995–96); and Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution, University College London (1996–2000). He has worked at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, since 2001, where he is now Associate Professor. In 2009, he was Visiting Scientist, Genetic Epidemiology Group, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Australia.

Academic research

Human mental evolution

The starting point for Miller's work was Darwin's theoretical observation that evolution is driven not just by natural selection, but by the process called sexual selection.[citation needed] In support of his views on sexual selection, he has written The Mating Mind: How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature. His research states that human mate preferences, courtship behavior, behavior genetics, psychometrics, and life history patterns support the survival value of traits related to sexual selection, such as art, morality, language, and creativity. He states that the adaptive design features of these traits suggest that they evolved through mutual mate-choice by both sexes to advertise intelligence, creativity, moral character, and heritable fitness[1]

Evolutionary psychology of consumerism

Miller's most recent work has used Darwinism to gain an understanding of how marketing has exploited our inherited instincts to display social status for reproductive advantage.[2] Miller argues that in the modern marketing-dominated culture, "coolness" at the conscious level, and the consumption choices it drives, is an aberration of the genetic legacy of two million years of living in small groups, where social status has been a critical force in reproduction. Miller's thesis is that marketing persuades people—particularly the young—that the most effective way to display that status is through consumption choices, rather than conveying such traits as intelligence and personality through more natural means of communication, such as simple conversation.[3]

Miller argues that marketers still tend to use simplistic models of human nature that are uninformed by advances in evolutionary psychology and behavioural ecology. As a result, marketers "still believe that premium products are bought to display wealth, status, and taste, and they miss the deeper mental traits that people are actually wired to display—traits such as kindness, intelligence, and creativity". This, he claims, limits the success of marketing.[4]

Clinical research

Miller's clinical interests are the application of fitness indicator theory to understand the symptoms, demographics, and behavior genetics of schizophrenia and mood disorders. His other interests include the origins of human preferences, aesthetics, utility functions, human strategic behavior, game theory, experiment-based economics, the ovulatory effects on female mate preferences, and the intellectual legacies of Darwin, Nietzsche, and Veblen.

In 2007, Miller (with Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan) published an article in Evolution and Human Behavior, concluding that lap dancers made more money during ovulation.[5] For this paper, Miller won the 2008 Ig Nobel Award.[6]

Twitter obesity controversy

On June 02, 2013, Miller posted a tweet on Twitter stating, "Dear obese PhD applicants: if you didn't have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won't have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth."[7] Miller subsequently removed the tweet and issued two apologies ("My sincere apoplogies to all for that idiotic, impulsive, and badly judged tweet. It does not reflect my true views, values, or standards"), but not before the post was picked up by major news sources.[8][9][10][11][12] Feminist blogs including Jezebel, XOJane, and Disrupting Dinner Parties criticized his public, discriminatory statement against obese individuals,[13][14][15] and the post received additional criticism from Chris Chambers, a psychologist at Cardiff University,[16] and Linda Bacon, a professor of Nutrition at the University of California Davis.[17] Pascal Wallisch, research scientist at the Center for Neural Science at New York University, criticizes the tweet on additional grounds, saying that in addition to being offensive, the tweet is factually incorrect.Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).

Miller says that the tweet was part of a research project.[18] The institutional review boards of UNM, Miller's home university, and NYU, where he is a visiting professor, released statements saying that Miller's tweet was "self-promotional" and cannot be considered research.[19] The Department of Psychology at UNM is initiating a disciplinary inquiry process.[20]

Notes

  1. ^ Miller G (2000) The mating mind: how sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature, London, Heineman, ISBN 0-434-00741-2 (also Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-49516-1)
  2. ^ Miller G, Spent: sex, evolution and the secrets of consumerism, Random House, London, to be released 14 May 2009 (ISBN 978-0-670-02062-1)
  3. ^ Transcript of interview with Geoffrey Miller, All in the mind, ABC Radio National, 14 February 2009
  4. ^ Dylan Evans, book review, The Guardian, 8 August 2009, accessed 23 August 2009
  5. ^ Miller, G., Tubur, J. M., & Jordan, B. D. (2007). Ovulatory cycle effects on tip earnings by lap dancers: Economic evidence for human estrus? Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 375-381.
  6. ^ "Winners of the Ig Nobel Prize".
  7. ^ {{cite news|last=Trotter|first=J. K.}
  8. ^ Bennett-Smith, Meredith (04 June 2013). "Geoffrey Miller, Visiting NYU Professor, Slammed For Fat-Shaming Obese PhD Applicants". The Huffington Post. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ King, Barbara J. (06 June 2013). "The Fat-Shaming Professor: A Twitter-Fueled Firestorm". National Public Radio. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ Associated Press. "UNM Prof: 'Obese' Grad Applicants Lack 'Willpower'". ABC News. Retrieved 04 June 2013. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  11. ^ Walsh, Michael. "NYU visiting professor insults the obese Ph.D.s with 'impulsive' tweet". New York Daily News. Retrieved 04 June 2013. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  12. ^ Cusma, Kathryn (04 June 2013). "Visiting NYU lecturer makes waves with offensive Tweet about fat people". New York Post. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ Beck, Laura. "NYU Prof to Obese PhD Applicants: Thanks, But No Fatties Allowed". Jezebel. Retrieved 10 June 2013.
  14. ^ "How Not to Twitter: Dr. Geoffrey Miller's 140 Fat-Hating Characters of Infamy". xoJane. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  15. ^ "What we're reading 6/9/13". Disrupting Dinner Parties. Retrieved 10 June 2013.
  16. ^ Chambers, Chris. "Public statements made by Geoffrey Miller". Twitter. Retrieved 10 June 2013.
  17. ^ Ingeno, Lauren. "Fat-Shaming in Academe". Inside Higher Ed.
  18. ^ The Huffington Post: Geoffrey Miller, Visiting NYU Professor, Slammed For Fat-Shaming Obese PhD Applicants. June 4, 2013.
  19. ^ Kingkade, Tyler (2 July 2013). "Geoffrey Miller Claims Mocking Obese People On Twitter Was Research; University Disagrees". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
  20. ^ Wentworth, Karen. "UNM Institutional Review Board Makes Determination on Miller".

References

  • Geher G, Miller G (eds) Mating intelligence: sex, relationships, and the mind's reproductive system, New York, Erbaum, 2008

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