Fleischman was born in São Paulo, Brazil.[4] Her father's family is of German-Jewish descent,[5] and she attended both Catholic church and synagogue.[6] Fleischman grew up in Georgia[4] and was not taught about evolution in the public school system there. She was passionate about evolution from an early age, earning the nickname "monkey girl" from classmates at age 12.[6]
Fleischman was a postdoctoral research associate at the Centre for Women’s Mood Disorders at the University of North Carolina.[4] She collaborated with the Centre’s Director David Rubinow and Susan Girdler on a project that documented changes in women’s behaviours and moods during different stages of their menstrual cycle.[4] She was a lecturer in the department of psychology at the University of Portsmouth from 2011 to 2020.[8] She is a research assistant professor in the department of psychology at the University of New Mexico.[9]
One of her findings covered in the press is that disgust inhibits sexual arousal in women more than fear.[10] In addition to academic publications and lectures, she also gives public lectures and writes articles for laypeople.[11][12][13] In 2018, she was a speaker at Humanists UK’s annual celebration of Darwin Day.[14] In August 2020, she started a blog at Psychology Today called How to Train Your Boyfriend, the same title as a book she is writing.[15]
Fleischman is the podcast host of the Aporia magazine, which is owned by the far-rightHuman Diversity Foundation.[1][16] Fleischman is also a contributor to the Aporia magazine that describes itself as refusing to "cower beneath the god of political correctness".[17]
Fleischman has described herself as an "ex-vegan" but a conscious eater.[20] Between 2013 and 2018, Fleischman controversially promoted bivalveganism[a] as she advocated for the consumption of mussels and oysters within a vegan diet, claiming they are unlikely to suffer as "bivalves have a very simple nervous system which is not aggregated in anything like a brain".[21][22] She has argued that oysters contain nutrients such as B12 and zinc that could be difficult to obtain from a vegan diet.[20][23] Fleischman also consumed eggs but donated to a vegetarian charity to "offset it".[21]
In 2021, Fleischman commented that she had become "pretty disillusioned with the attitudes and approach of the vegan community".[23] She has criticized vegans for believing that all animals matter equally morally.[23] In opposition to veganism, she advocates for sentientism as a utilitarian moral perspective. Under this view, different animal species are graded with the degree of suffering they experience.[23][24] She has suggested that "animals don’t care whether we label ourselves vegetarian. I can help reduce suffering much more by convincing five people to give up chicken and fish than I can by convincing one person to become vegetarian".[24] She has argued that eating beef likely involves less animal suffering than eating chicken, as about 200 chicken need to be killed to produce the same amount of meat as a cow. She also called cultured meat "our best hope of preventing animal suffering in the future".[25]
Eugenics
In 2021, she co-authored the paper Can 'eugenics' be defended?, which argued that the scientific debate around genetic enhancement was polarized and concluded that "just as enhancement isn't a unified category that we can simply judge as morally good or bad, so too with genetic enhancement or eugenics".[26] Fleischman wrote an essay in 2023 titled You're Probably a Eugenicist, arguing that Dor Yeshorim's goal of reducing the rate of Tay-Sachs disease and cystic fibrosis in Jewish families could be described as eugenicist and that "Gay men and lesbian women in the US often use gamete donors from egg and sperm banks to have kids in a process that is transparently eugenic ... Organisations that recruit egg and sperm donors don't just recruit for fertility, they also screen for mental and physical health, height, education and criminal history – because that's what their clients want and expect."[3][27]
Fleischman is a staunch advocate of polygenic embryo screening.[28] According to historian of science Emily Klancher Merchant, Fleishman has claimed that "selecting an embryo according to its predicted educational attainment is no different from selecting one according to its number of chromosomes".[28] Fleischman is quoted as saying "we are all eugenicists".[28]
Natalism
Fleischman has been described as pronatalist, notably saying, "I encourage people who are responsible and smart and conscientious to have children, because they're going to make the future better."[29][30] She attended the 2023 Natal Conference held in Austin, Texas where she argued that people with mental illness are statistically likely to marry other mentally ill people and pass those genes along to their children.[31][32]
Personal life
Fleischman with husband Geoffrey Miller in 2019
Fleischman is a member of Giving What We Can, a community of people who have pledged to donate 10% of their income to the world's most effective charitable organisations.[33] She is a utilitarian.[23][34]
On November 29, 2019, she married fellow American evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller.[35][36] The couple had earlier appeared together in an interview advocating for polyamory.[37] They have two children, one born in 2022[38][39] and the other in 2023.[40]
Selected publications
Confer, Jaime C.; Easton, Judith A.; Fleischman, Diana S.; Goetz, Cari D.; Lewis, David M. G.; Perilloux, Carin; Buss, David M. (2010). "Evolutionary psychology: Controversies, questions, prospects, and limitations". American Psychologist. 65 (2): 110–126. CiteSeerX10.1.1.601.8691. doi:10.1037/a0018413. ISSN1935-990X. PMID20141266.
Fleischman, Diana S. & Fessler, D. M (January 2011). "Progesterone's effects on the psychology of disease avoidance: Support for the compensatory behavioral prophylaxis hypothesis". Hormones and Behavior. 59 (2): 271–275. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2010.11.014. ISSN0018-506X. PMID21134378. S2CID27607102.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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