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E.g. do you want a real eye opener? In a monogamous society, given that Darwin's observation about increased male variability holds, when partitioning by desir
by doombolt 8y ago
E.g. do you want a real eye opener?
In a monogamous society, given that Darwin's observation about increased male variability holds, when partitioning by desirability, women in the top half will have access to males with desirability greater than their own, while women in the bottom half will only have access to males with desirability worse than their own.
Go figure.
(There's a lot of assumptions here but none of them particularly unrealistic).
- hef19898 8y agoWell, it always strikes me how well educated people with a lot of Knowledge in their domain (assuming that point is valid for the majority on Hacker News) have the tendency to totaly over-simplify other scientific fields. In this case evolution, biology and statistics. So what actually happened to humility, scientific literacy and honest curiosity? Not sure if it was intended, but your second post comes across as Sexist and trying to reason this with bad science.
- doombolt 8y agoIt's not a question of science. It's a question of math. Math is a model which allows you to over-simplify other scientific fields in the first place, and then devise solutions which turn out to be useful even in their over-simplified form. This is the reason for the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in natural sciences. However, here I'm not pushing any direct resemblance between model and any society anywhere. You're doing that, not me.
- hef19898 8y agoBasing your "top half of females" behaviour on un-specified asumptions, failing to even hinting on what is "desirable" and then subjugating this model of society to some sort of statistical model was not my idea. nAgain not sure whether this was intentional or not or if I got your point wrong, after all we do not know each other. But again, that is to much oversimplyfication for my taste. Especially when mathematics are applied without any relevant domain knowledge.
- doombolt 8y agoDon't see why the math should be serving your taste. Nowhere in my message I am applying mathematics to a domain. I'm just stating that such math exists. Applying, or not applying, them to any real society is left as an exercise for a reader.
- Firadeoclus 8y agoWithout application to any domain (which, it seems to me, you actually do by using concrete labels rather than abstract categories), it remains unclear what makes this example "a real eye opener". In what way is it relevant?
- undreren 8y agoThe second post's primary fault is that it assumes that desirability does not vary with the individual. What one person considers "prime mate material" another could consider garbage. Until this is established, the entire point is moot. We know that it is false though. Some people favor partners from a specific ethnic group, for example.
- jazzyjackson 8y agoWell it's a good thing that men and women can judge each other on more than one axis then isn't it? (one's trash is another's treasure etc. by whose ranking is one in the top or bottom half? hope you catch my drift.)
- doombolt 8y agoYes it is a good thing, as far as my opinion is concerned.
- spacehome 8y agoMonogamy was your first unrealistic assumption.
- dropit_sphere 8y agoIt's important to keep in mind that this only applies to relative desirability, though, and the mapping between "rank" and subjective desirability ("I think I did well") is...weird, with oft-cited wrenches in the mix like changing prospects by age (generally better for men and worse for women), women's attraction to status (a commodity both "real" in that it affects things, and "fake" in that it's "just" a social construct, like fiat currency)...I don't intend to take away from your point.