Dr Adam Rutherford Profile picture
Apr 25, 2022 9 tweets 3 min read Read on X
seeing as it's #WorldPenguinDay, I thought I might share some penguin facts from my 2018 work, the Book of Humans.

First up: Necrophilia.
Sex with dead penguins has been known about in Adélies since
the earliest days of Antarctic exploration, as documented by the scientist aboard Scott’s last and fatal venture south. The
penguin’s behaviour was deemed ‘astonishing depravity’. Dirty fucker
The ship scientist George Levick wrote of the young male penguins as ‘hooligan bands of half a dozen or more and [that] hang about the outskirts of the knolls, whose inhabitants they annoy by their constant acts of depravity’.
It was deemed far too unsavoury for delicate Edwardian sensibilities; instead it was redacted from the larger report released to the public, and written in Greek, made available only to a select group of stout-minded British gentlemen scientists.
Next: 'Transactional sex'

Female Adélie penguins, who need stones to build their nests, have sex with an unattached male, in exchange for a pebble. I gots to get my ass street...
Finally: masturbation

Male Adelie penguins in the Antarctic frequently gyrate and rub themselves, and spontaneously spill their seed on the ground in the absence of females.
#WorldPenguinDay Wanker
So there you go. There's a whole chapter on necrophilia, and another on masturbation. And they are still not as bad as sea otters.

It's my least popular book, but I love it. Absolute filth.

#WorldPenguinDay #NotAsBadAsOtters
Marine iguanas are also prone to a bit of self stimulation, but with good reason. Old Iguana motto: Be prepar...
One more, just for fun: fellatio in bears. With optional humming. 4 minute warning.

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More from @AdamRutherford

Oct 17
Round 2: here’s more on the scientific racist story from yesterday’s thread. This time, it’s focussed on the access and utility of Biobank data to fuel their ideologically driven agenda.

theguardian.com/world/2024/oct…
And the connected reports on the weird figureheads of the pronatalism cult, that @hopenothate and @harryshukman got stuck into.
These people are scientifically illiterate, ostentatiously strange, but motivated and publicity slakeless.

investigations.hopenothate.org.uk/inside-pronata…
It is worth noting that though the focus is on Kirkegaard, the Collinses, Edward Dutton and a few others, there are plenty more of these grifters floating around in this faecosystem. A couple of them are or were bona fide academics, though in largely unrelated fields.
Read 4 tweets
Oct 16
Ok, here we go: Much of my work concerns the history and return of scientific racism. I’ve written extensively about attempts to resurrect the shuffling corpse of
race science and eugenics for many years. Bigotry dressed up as biology. 1/n
Today, the Guardian, alongside @hopenothate , today publish an in depth undercover investigation into the efforts of a network of far right race and IQ obsessives, who have been trying to influence discourse about race science.
theguardian.com/world/2024/oct…
@hopenothate I’ve been tracking these ideas and clowns for years, and have helped with this incredible investigation.
I was naïve in writing them off as basement dwelling racist weirdos, as what the investigation shows is that they got organised, with funding and strategy.
Read 28 tweets
May 6
A short thread on grammar, as the fewer/less crowd are outnabout. I used to really care until I started working regularly on @BBCRadio4, where I discovered that the most frequent complaints were from male grammar pedants.
They typically moaned about decimate, fewer/less, octopus and bacterium/bacteria. The thing about grammar pedants is that they’re not pedantic enough, and their corrections were often erroneous - stuff that is easy to Google - and born of doctrinaire oneupmanship.
And so I revised my position to be a descriptivist. Not everyone was taught the ‘correct’ form of grammar, which obviously, is entirely made up. The only thing that matters is effectiveness of communication. @OliverKamm is my Obi Wan on this matter.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 18
I’ve had some fun with the race wienies today - it’s almost as if I could write a book on how to argue with a racist. Anyway, here’s some of the highlights:
1) the credentialists. How can it be that I have a job in one of the best genetics departments on Earth, and the BBC?? 😘

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2) ‘you’re a disingenuous retard’
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3) ‘I understand population genetics cos I have eyes’. Wish I’d known it was that easy before spending all that time learning it
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Read 9 tweets
Dec 15, 2023
I read a lot of books, and here are my non-fiction books of the year, just in time for presents, in no particular order.
1: Toxic by Sarah Ditum. Britney, Paris, Lindsay, Janet, Amy. These early-noughties mononym women who stood charged with being women at the juncture between the old media and the new. Will make you sad, angry and baffled. Image
2: Ultra-Processed People by @DoctorChrisVT revelations about an industrial complex that underlies so much of the health problems humankind faces, because our lives are flooded by food that is not food. Image
Read 14 tweets
Aug 4, 2023
I went to see Oppenheimer. It is hard to imagine a film that I disliked more intensely. Apart from Tenet.

Positives: acting is fabulous, cinematography beautiful, music a bit overbearing but massive.
Negatives <deep breath>
* learn to write dialogue. People don’t speak like that. Every sentence is designed to elicit a zinger or exposition point in response.
* the editing is frenetic. Intercutting from different locations, colour/black and white, mad angles that make no sense.
The whole film is a montage.
Read 10 tweets

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