Joe Rogan - Chris Ryan Responds to Bret Weinstein's Criticisms of Sex at Dawn

You know, um, I told you in the email that I felt bad when your book came up on the show and I didn't know how to defend it. I didn't know what to do because I didn't I was in that weird moment where I was recommending it because I like it because I think it's a great book. And he was saying that just debunked. Well, I think he said funny or picked data. Yeah, right. Which is always weird. Well, the thing is, any sort of popular non-fiction book is you have to choose what data you're going to include, right? I mean, there's an infinite amount of data. And so, of course, you form an argument and then you present data that supports your argument. Did you ever consider arguing against yourself? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, the book is, you know, the book is written as an argument against the standard narrative. So, you know, we had to present this. What is the standard narrative? Who believes this? You know, who thinks that people evolved as monogamous? And so we quote quite heavily from those people. But, you know, the thing is, and I really appreciate your email and, you know, we don't need to talk about this at any length. But it's not your job to defend the book. And it's not even my job, really, to defend the book. I think once a book is out, it's out. Right. The book is there. But isn't it? It's not just the book. It's that when someone goes hard on a book, it's they're doing it about you as well. It's like it's your expression of your work. But see, that's the thing. I don't accept that association. And so if somebody wants to critique the book, that's totally cool. And like, look, are there things that we may have misunderstood? Of course. Are there things we left out? Of course there are. You know, mistakes, of course, you know, that's right. There are human. You made right. There are hundreds of citations in that book. Now, if somebody says, as people have, like, you know, Chris Ryan, you know, deliberately misrepresented the science or doesn't understand the first thing about evolution or, you know, whatever it is, I just don't engage because that's emotional. It's like what we were saying earlier about comments online. I think people react to sex at dawn very emotionally. Right. And so if they're reacting emotionally, there's no point in me engaging with them because they're expressing some something that's going on in their lives that I don't know anything about. And I don't they're suffering in some way. I'm not talking about Brett Weinstein or anybody specifically. But there's an emotional reason to have that kind of reaction. Whereas if somebody says, look, on page, you know, 72, you said that bonobos are the only ape that does this and actually Gibbons do it as well. OK, we can talk about that. You know, that's that's factual. Right. So when people say, oh, it's cherry picked. Well, which cherries? What are you talking about? Right. What specific thing and what's wrong with it? Right. Right. Instead of saying it's cherry picking his vast general critic critique of the book. Right. And if it gets about me, like, oh, that's because he wants to get laid or he was one of the arguments. Give me a break. Was that it would be a good book to write, I think. I don't remember if he said or if his wife said it that it would be a good book. And I really love those two. They're great. They're cool. I just think when it comes to monogamy and sexuality, people have a notion in their head. And that notion almost always aligns with how they're living their life or how they wish they were living their lives. Yeah, maybe. And again, we're not talking about specific people here. I've never met them. I know they're a great couple. They're wonderful people. But I mean, there's there's something about the subject of your book. I think I told you this before without naming any names. My friend brought your book home and his wife threw it away. Yeah, you and I talked about that on the very first podcast, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've run into this a lot. Right. You can imagine cocktail parties with me can get awkward very quickly. Oh, for sure. You know, because people ask, oh, wait, you're the guy who wrote that. Yeah. You know, and then often you'll see some people are very eager to hear about it and talk about it. And other people are just steams coming out of their ears. Right. I think, you know, a lot of people are in relationships that they're trying to make fit into what they believe is the right way to have a relationship. And often it just doesn't it doesn't work. Right. And so there's a lot of shame and regret and resentment and all kinds of negative energy around that. And so any discussion where you're saying, well, maybe that's not actually the way it's meant to work. For some people, that's an incredibly liberating message. For other people, it's extremely threatening. Right. And I understand that. And, you know, so I've become very emotionally sort of separate from the book. It's out there. It stands or not based on its merits. I don't when people get all riled up, I've learned to just be like, yeah, you know what, that's fine. That's between you and the book. That's a very healthy approach. Good for you. It's just to me, it seems like people that get most upset about it don't get most upset about it for rational reason. They get upset about it because it challenges the way they live their life.