3 ms·

There exists no explanation, ever invented, by anyone, which details how a gene could code for complex parts of adult personalities, like femininity. You can m

by curi 19y ago

There exists no explanation, ever invented, by anyone, which details how a gene could code for complex parts of adult personalities, like femininity. You can make things up like how a hormone might umm somehow affect stuff. But that isn't an actual mechanism that goes from start to finish. You don't have to prove that a particular mechanism is in fact the one used by our bodies. You don't need any scientific evidence. Just make one up that actually could work and makes sense. No one has ever done that. End of story. Meanwhile, there do exist possible explanations of how culture could account for the same phenomena (like femininity). They have no rival theories. Thus, all reasonable people should tentatively believe that kind of explanation is correct.

Tichy 19y ago
Sorry, that is complete bullshit. There are tons of papers on why genders exists, in terms of evolution theory. There are tons of studies on the effects of various genes - it is a billion dollar industry! Besides, why should I provide the details, if you started with claims of the sort "the number of genes is too small"? Apparently mechanisms exists, humans are being created from mere genes, with lots and lots of differences. I don't think I need to provide any evidence for that - just go out on the street and look at the people. Nobody looks alike, except for the twins. May I ask you: are you a creationist? I really don't want to waste my time... If the hormone level doesn't convince you, let's take body height: can you imagine that body height could make a difference in temper? Again, I don't know, but if there was a study showing it, I would have no trouble believing it. There are actually studies showing that tall men earn more on average than smaller men. The world is a complicated place...
- curi 19y ago
  I know there are many studies to do with genes, I've read a variety of them. If you believe you know of one which answers my challenge, then feel free to cite it. Am I a creationist? Umm, lol. No. If I was, why would i talk about evolution of both memes and genes? Since you keep bringing up personal issues, maybe we can put them to rest: I am a very (classically) liberal person, a scientifically-oriented atheist, generally a small-l libertarian. Not a science-hating, lunatic, religious conservative. body height might control temper? how? a correlation between height and income doesn't imply height causes income, especially not directly.
  - Tichy 19y ago
    Of course not, but your challenges are a bit off: we are discussing complex systems, that nobody really has a hold of yet. And that includes you and me. I don't know if body height affects temper, I am just giving examples that could e plausible. For example, body height could affect the blood pressure, which would surely affect temper. What is your challenge again, that genes can affect temper? I don't even feel the need to read any papers, really. Body height doesn't convince you, take something else, say some ugly deformation of the body. Might cause depression? Maybe those examples sound ridiculous, but so does the notion that a butterfly on the other end of the world could affect the weather on the other side of the world. Actually I think the butterfly really is an exaggeration, but nevertheless, small changes can have big effects on the outcome in a complex system. So I don't think we even have to argue. Oh yes, and being a woman or a man obviously has a different outcome in temper. You claim that is only cultural, but that doesn't matter: in our current environment (a ka culture), your temper is affected by being a woman or a man. Point proven.
    - curi 19y ago
      Being ugly doesn't cause depression. Though in some cultures ugly people are treated badly, and in some cultures many people have personalities that get depressed when others (wrongly) treat them badly. Now, if you take a culture like that as a given, you can say that ugliness causes depression, and call it a fact. And say you've proven your point. I don't dispute the possibility of making very misleading simplifications of this sort which are true in a sense. But if we want to explain what's going on in our world, it isn't reasonable to take culture as a fixed point. It would be much more fruitful to take our genes as a fixed point, and look at what our culture causes in the context of our genes, and how a different culture would, in that context, cause something else. Doing that, we could come up with some ways our culture should be changed. One way to see what is the true cause, A or B, is to consider what would happen if you changed only one (at the time of its creation). So if we change genes, thousands of years ago, our culture could very well have developed to have the same results, despite the genes being quite different. But if you change imagine our culture developing differently, then having the same genes we have today won't stop it from creating different gender stereotypes.

by curi 19y ago

Tichy 19y ago

Sorry, that is complete bullshit. There are tons of papers on why genders exists, in terms of evolution theory. There are tons of studies on the effects of various genes - it is a billion dollar industry! Besides, why should I provide the details, if you started with claims of the sort "the number of genes is too small"? Apparently mechanisms exists, humans are being created from mere genes, with lots and lots of differences. I don't think I need to provide any evidence for that - just go out on the street and look at the people. Nobody looks alike, except for the twins. May I ask you: are you a creationist? I really don't want to waste my time... If the hormone level doesn't convince you, let's take body height: can you imagine that body height could make a difference in temper? Again, I don't know, but if there was a study showing it, I would have no trouble believing it. There are actually studies showing that tall men earn more on average than smaller men. The world is a complicated place...

curi 19y ago
I know there are many studies to do with genes, I've read a variety of them. If you believe you know of one which answers my challenge, then feel free to cite it. Am I a creationist? Umm, lol. No. If I was, why would i talk about evolution of both memes and genes? Since you keep bringing up personal issues, maybe we can put them to rest: I am a very (classically) liberal person, a scientifically-oriented atheist, generally a small-l libertarian. Not a science-hating, lunatic, religious conservative. body height might control temper? how? a correlation between height and income doesn't imply height causes income, especially not directly.
- Tichy 19y ago
  Of course not, but your challenges are a bit off: we are discussing complex systems, that nobody really has a hold of yet. And that includes you and me. I don't know if body height affects temper, I am just giving examples that could e plausible. For example, body height could affect the blood pressure, which would surely affect temper. What is your challenge again, that genes can affect temper? I don't even feel the need to read any papers, really. Body height doesn't convince you, take something else, say some ugly deformation of the body. Might cause depression? Maybe those examples sound ridiculous, but so does the notion that a butterfly on the other end of the world could affect the weather on the other side of the world. Actually I think the butterfly really is an exaggeration, but nevertheless, small changes can have big effects on the outcome in a complex system. So I don't think we even have to argue. Oh yes, and being a woman or a man obviously has a different outcome in temper. You claim that is only cultural, but that doesn't matter: in our current environment (a ka culture), your temper is affected by being a woman or a man. Point proven.
  - curi 19y ago
    Being ugly doesn't cause depression. Though in some cultures ugly people are treated badly, and in some cultures many people have personalities that get depressed when others (wrongly) treat them badly. Now, if you take a culture like that as a given, you can say that ugliness causes depression, and call it a fact. And say you've proven your point. I don't dispute the possibility of making very misleading simplifications of this sort which are true in a sense. But if we want to explain what's going on in our world, it isn't reasonable to take culture as a fixed point. It would be much more fruitful to take our genes as a fixed point, and look at what our culture causes in the context of our genes, and how a different culture would, in that context, cause something else. Doing that, we could come up with some ways our culture should be changed. One way to see what is the true cause, A or B, is to consider what would happen if you changed only one (at the time of its creation). So if we change genes, thousands of years ago, our culture could very well have developed to have the same results, despite the genes being quite different. But if you change imagine our culture developing differently, then having the same genes we have today won't stop it from creating different gender stereotypes.