Circumcise the Shechemites!
The U.N. is actually recommending that adult males in Africa be circumcised, and New York City is considering the same.
This is astonishing, not only because it is wacky science, but because it is the quintessential 3,000 years-old example of wacky science.
Basically, the U.N. did the work to show that men who were circumcised as children are only half as likely to get AIDS (in Africa). Circumcision and low incidence of AIDS are correlated. But as all good students know, correlation does not equal causation. It only makes sense that there is an external third factor which accounts for a significant part of the correlation.
Any mother willing to slice her baby’s anatomy for the sake of righteousness is probably going to raise him with some hang-ups about sex. On the other hand, circumcision probably gives no significant protection to a man who was raised with no sexual hang-ups, who is so attached to his virile escapades that he is willing to undergo a painful and disfiguring operation in order to continue chasing his desires unhindered by AIDS. The U.N. has no evidence or experimental data to support the conclusion that circumcising sexually promiscuous adult males will help. It is incomprehensible that they would be exhorting a whole continent to experiment on such flimsy premises.
But the most bewildering part is that nobody seems to notice that this story was told once before, 3,000 years ago. There are some differences, but the similarities are eerie. In the story, the Shechemites are overcome with desire and are convinced that circumcision will give them membership to the tribe; both allowing them to escape punishment for succumbing to the temptation, and giving free rein to continue in that desire. They fail to realize that circumcision is a side-effect of membership in the tribe rather than cause. When all of their adult males have mutilated themselves and are lying in pain, they are slaughtered – presumably to make way for people who are a bit smarter about the distinction between correlation and causation.