Garth Zietsman
Garth Zietsman is a professional statistician who initially focused on psychological and social research at the Human Sciences Research Council, followed by banking and economics, and then medical research. Some of his research has appeared in academic journals. He has wide interests, with an emphasis on the social (including economics and politics) and life (mostly evolution, health and fitness) sciences, and philosophy. He has been involved with groups advocating liberty since 1990 and is currently consulting to the Freedom Foundation. He has written for a wide range of newspapers and journals.
Articles By This Author
The soul and the world of work
Work is an important part of life. It will account for a big slice of your time on earth. It is our means of survival and a stepping stone to our aspirations. It is an important source of social respect and status – both in terms of not being a burden or free-loader and for achieving relative status.
Wisdom and ideology
Humanity has evolved to the point, cognitively, socially and historically, where we have the self-awareness to be able to get beyond living through instinct, in
Corruption – its causes and consequences
The world regards corruption as a bad thing in itself and a sign of rot in general, but it evolves in society after society for
Thoughts on punishment
Punishment is important. Humans have evolved a tendency to punish free loaders, and other norm violators, because those norms are important for survival. Animals also
The miscommunication of the sexes
Louis Terman, creator of the Stanford-Binet IQ test, looked at sexual differences in responses to an extremely broad array of items including inkblots, interests, personality
Why is racism bad?
Racism is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism toward a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group. Forms
Education revisited
The Department of Education touts latest matric ‘pass’ rate of 88.2% as a victory and a continuation of progress. The Mzansi Report claims that the
Are some cultures better than others?
Although people do talk about taste as though we can order it from good to bad, it is hard to produce good reasons for those
The import of personal appearance
The 2025 Miss Universe contest just happened in Thailand. The world’s premier bodybuilding contest occurred a month before. This time of the year also sees
Making sense of abortion policy
Abortion is one of those issues that quickly separate people into warring camps with no common ground. I have to say that I and my