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It's kind of frightening that people are leaving university with a developed hostility toward the notion of sexual dimorphism in humans.

by vzip 11y ago

sarciszewski 11y ago
To split hairs a bit: Gender identity is a social construct while biological sex is not. I think the author meant sex, not gender, and GP meant gender, not sex. It's easy to conflate the two in conversation, but keeping a semantic barrier between them will help maintain civil discourse without the risk of devolving the discussion into a flame war.
- goda90 11y ago
  The thing is, gender identity is very much affected by sex too. Many outward behaviors that are often classified as masculine or feminine have roots in different hormone levels in the sexes. That's why I dislike that many attack gender roles and other social gender norms indiscriminately. Some of them have a basis in nature and it's healthy for the vast majority of people to embrace them. At the same time there shouldn't be any room for attacking those who don't follow the norms either. And of course some norms are just harmful. It's not so easy to just throw them all out.
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    > The thing is, gender identity is very much affected by sex too. Affected by? Yes. The same thing? No. > That's why I dislike that many attack gender roles and other social gender norms indiscriminately. Huh. That sounds like something I'd expect to read about firsthand on Tumblr moreso than something that reasonable people would do. > At the same time there shouldn't be any room for attacking those who don't follow the norms either. And of course some norms are just harmful. It's not so easy to just throw them all out. I think that's fair.
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  I hate to break it to you. But behavior and gender is determined by genetics. Therefore gender identity is not just a social construct but a biological one as well. Take for example the correlation between feminine behavior and two X chromosomes (XX). There is high correlation between these two factors. Additionally examine the correlation between masculine behavior and XY. Again another high correlation implying the possibility of a causal connection between gender and genes. Though correlation doesn't imply causation it lends more credibility to the hypothesis. What if we were to raise a child, born a boy, as a girl? If gender were truly a social construct there would be no issue. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    > I hate to break it to you. But behavior and gender is determined by genetics. Therefore gender identity is not just a social construct but a biological one as well. I must admit my knowledge of the scientific literature around the relationship between biological sex and gender identity is limited. Have they found a genetic/epigenetic/hormonal marker that correlates with 95%+ of transgendered people yet?
    - crimsonalucard 11y ago
      No they have not found such a marker. They have not found a definitive biological causal mechanism that causes transgendered traits. They have found correlations between certain biological mechanisms and transgendered traits. However these findings lead to only about a 70% correlation at most. Please note that the 70% correlation cannot be ignored. It indicates high likelihood of a causal connection. It is unwise to dismiss this correlation even if it is below a 95% criteria. My intuition tells me that 70% is only a statistic for a single causative biological agent out of several. Once all biological markers are discovered and correlated together, I believe that the number will be 99%. Please also note that the correlation between the XX chromosomes and the female gender is above 95%, same with the XY chromosomes and the male gender. These correlations meet your criteria. There is no scientific study that proves this but you will note through common sense that males and females tend to act within their gender role over 95% of the time.
golemotron 11y ago
Steven Pinker's'The Blank Slate' explains it well. Western culture has a bias toward nurture explanations rather than nature explanations because admitting nature affects people's perceptions of their abilities and our sense of agency as a culture. If all differences are culture we can fix them. That's why it becomes political.
- astazangasta 11y ago
  Pinker is full of shit on this subject. I remember his intro to psych lecture including an example of a how gendered thinking is hard-wired involving small boys playing with guns. Obviously an example of socialization; evolution did not teach anything to anyone about guns. There is a huge amount of sloppy thinking in this subject.
  - shasta 11y ago
    Could you expound upon your definitely-not-sloppy thoughts on why boys obviously couldn't be predisposed to playing with weapons?
    - astazangasta 11y ago
      They could be; its just difficult to conclude that based on observing that they play with weapons, since obviously they must be taught what weapons are, and along with that who (men, women) should use them. Pinker makes little effort to account for such problems and often makes the "widely observed == genetic" fallacy.
    - neffy 11y ago
      Distaff side here. I loved playing with guns when I was a kid. My parents though thought they weren't suitable for girls, so they were quickly banned. So I made my own bow and arrow set, needless to say, that didn't last long in the suburbs. Then I finally got smart, and they never found about the slingshot. And I was enlightened.
  - Retric 11y ago
    People have been using bows for 500+ generations and ranged weapons for even longer. That's plenty of time for a preference for ranged combat to show up (ed: become frequent). The Atoal is believed to be ~30,000 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower And spears are ~400,000 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amentum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amentum is rather hard to date, but it's simpler than an Atoal.
araneae 11y ago
You're implying that people learn this at university. My experience was the opposite; I took an animal behaviour course at university that presented much of this information. Sexual dimorphism is a fairly major topic in animal behaviour. For instance, I learned that in every society where it was tested, men are more violent than women. But interestingly, the society itself was important as well; for instance, American society is overall more violent than Icelandic culture, and accordingly American women commit more violent crimes than Icelandic men. So there are differences in between the sexes, but the culture is a very important input if we look at how extreme the trait is.
- kalzium 11y ago
  Didn't the British exile lots of prisoners to North America in the early settlements? Maybe there's also a genetic connection? ;) Just joking. I think overall happiness of people is also really important. The more unhappy people are the more violent they get. People in Skandinavia are generally quite happy folks: Easy access to education, internet, food, health care, low poverty etc...
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
The hostility isn't to sexual dimorphism per se. If only because of hormones and reproduction, there is clearly sexual dimorphism. Anybody can see that. The hostility is to the tendency to attribute differences between men and women to sheer biology without a careful consideration of other factors.

It's kind of frightening that people are leaving university with a developed hostility toward the notion of sexual dimorphism in humans.

by vzip 11y ago

It's kind of frightening that people are leaving university with a developed hostility toward the notion of sexual dimorphism in humans.

sarciszewski 11y ago

To split hairs a bit: Gender identity is a social construct while biological sex is not. I think the author meant sex, not gender, and GP meant gender, not sex. It's easy to conflate the two in conversation, but keeping a semantic barrier between them will help maintain civil discourse without the risk of devolving the discussion into a flame war.

goda90 11y ago
The thing is, gender identity is very much affected by sex too. Many outward behaviors that are often classified as masculine or feminine have roots in different hormone levels in the sexes. That's why I dislike that many attack gender roles and other social gender norms indiscriminately. Some of them have a basis in nature and it's healthy for the vast majority of people to embrace them. At the same time there shouldn't be any room for attacking those who don't follow the norms either. And of course some norms are just harmful. It's not so easy to just throw them all out.
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  > The thing is, gender identity is very much affected by sex too. Affected by? Yes. The same thing? No. > That's why I dislike that many attack gender roles and other social gender norms indiscriminately. Huh. That sounds like something I'd expect to read about firsthand on Tumblr moreso than something that reasonable people would do. > At the same time there shouldn't be any room for attacking those who don't follow the norms either. And of course some norms are just harmful. It's not so easy to just throw them all out. I think that's fair.
crimsonalucard 11y ago
I hate to break it to you. But behavior and gender is determined by genetics. Therefore gender identity is not just a social construct but a biological one as well. Take for example the correlation between feminine behavior and two X chromosomes (XX). There is high correlation between these two factors. Additionally examine the correlation between masculine behavior and XY. Again another high correlation implying the possibility of a causal connection between gender and genes. Though correlation doesn't imply causation it lends more credibility to the hypothesis. What if we were to raise a child, born a boy, as a girl? If gender were truly a social construct there would be no issue. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  > I hate to break it to you. But behavior and gender is determined by genetics. Therefore gender identity is not just a social construct but a biological one as well. I must admit my knowledge of the scientific literature around the relationship between biological sex and gender identity is limited. Have they found a genetic/epigenetic/hormonal marker that correlates with 95%+ of transgendered people yet?
  - crimsonalucard 11y ago
    No they have not found such a marker. They have not found a definitive biological causal mechanism that causes transgendered traits. They have found correlations between certain biological mechanisms and transgendered traits. However these findings lead to only about a 70% correlation at most. Please note that the 70% correlation cannot be ignored. It indicates high likelihood of a causal connection. It is unwise to dismiss this correlation even if it is below a 95% criteria. My intuition tells me that 70% is only a statistic for a single causative biological agent out of several. Once all biological markers are discovered and correlated together, I believe that the number will be 99%. Please also note that the correlation between the XX chromosomes and the female gender is above 95%, same with the XY chromosomes and the male gender. These correlations meet your criteria. There is no scientific study that proves this but you will note through common sense that males and females tend to act within their gender role over 95% of the time.

golemotron 11y ago

Steven Pinker's'The Blank Slate' explains it well. Western culture has a bias toward nurture explanations rather than nature explanations because admitting nature affects people's perceptions of their abilities and our sense of agency as a culture. If all differences are culture we can fix them. That's why it becomes political.

astazangasta 11y ago
Pinker is full of shit on this subject. I remember his intro to psych lecture including an example of a how gendered thinking is hard-wired involving small boys playing with guns. Obviously an example of socialization; evolution did not teach anything to anyone about guns. There is a huge amount of sloppy thinking in this subject.
- shasta 11y ago
  Could you expound upon your definitely-not-sloppy thoughts on why boys obviously couldn't be predisposed to playing with weapons?
  - astazangasta 11y ago
    They could be; its just difficult to conclude that based on observing that they play with weapons, since obviously they must be taught what weapons are, and along with that who (men, women) should use them. Pinker makes little effort to account for such problems and often makes the "widely observed == genetic" fallacy.
  - neffy 11y ago
    Distaff side here. I loved playing with guns when I was a kid. My parents though thought they weren't suitable for girls, so they were quickly banned. So I made my own bow and arrow set, needless to say, that didn't last long in the suburbs. Then I finally got smart, and they never found about the slingshot. And I was enlightened.
- Retric 11y ago
  People have been using bows for 500+ generations and ranged weapons for even longer. That's plenty of time for a preference for ranged combat to show up (ed: become frequent). The Atoal is believed to be ~30,000 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower And spears are ~400,000 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amentum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amentum is rather hard to date, but it's simpler than an Atoal.

araneae 11y ago

You're implying that people learn this at university. My experience was the opposite; I took an animal behaviour course at university that presented much of this information. Sexual dimorphism is a fairly major topic in animal behaviour. For instance, I learned that in every society where it was tested, men are more violent than women. But interestingly, the society itself was important as well; for instance, American society is overall more violent than Icelandic culture, and accordingly American women commit more violent crimes than Icelandic men. So there are differences in between the sexes, but the culture is a very important input if we look at how extreme the trait is.

kalzium 11y ago
Didn't the British exile lots of prisoners to North America in the early settlements? Maybe there's also a genetic connection? ;) Just joking. I think overall happiness of people is also really important. The more unhappy people are the more violent they get. People in Skandinavia are generally quite happy folks: Easy access to education, internet, food, health care, low poverty etc...

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

The hostility isn't to sexual dimorphism per se. If only because of hormones and reproduction, there is clearly sexual dimorphism. Anybody can see that. The hostility is to the tendency to attribute differences between men and women to sheer biology without a careful consideration of other factors.