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There are two main reasons I’m aware of. First, a certain kind of person tries to make a deeply sexist argument and reaches for “science” to back it up. The ove

There are two main reasons I’m aware of. First, a certain kind of person tries to make a deeply sexist argument and reaches for “science” to back it up. The overall experience with that kind of thing is profoundly negative, and it has a pretty grim history, so there are strong reactions to it. It’s true that well-intentioned people do ask uncomfortable questions, but especially online they’re dwarfed by trolls and people arguing in bad faith. All told this isn’t an insurmountable problem, and more and better research can help to shine some light on the issue. It’s also not impossible to determine whether or not someone is pushing a predetermined agenda and using a given study (while ignoring others) as a bludgeon. The second, radioactive topic centers around trans people. I’m not going to touch that topic with a 10 foot pole, because online the discussion rarely develops more nuance than mysticism dressed up as science on one side, and bigotry dressed up as “common sense” arguments on the other. All told it makes for a difficult topic to discuss in good faith, absent agendas on or offline, but online it’s pure poison.

thisone 8y ago
Arguments also tend to start (unstatedly) from the baseline that "male is the default and most valuable" which will get backs up.
- fromthestart 8y ago
  >Arguments also tend to start (unstatedly) from the baseline that "male is the default and most valuable" Given that these assertions are unstated, they sound more like a manifestation of insecurity on the part of the listener. Conversely, one could speculate that responses to questions of equality are frequently taken personally and met defensively, with resulting rationalizations, like the one you listed, of improper emotional reasoning. This is only a controversial subject because people feel that there are potential negative implications to them as individuals, even though the rammifications are purely for distributions, which laymen tend not to understand, hence the personal responses.
- pmarreck 8y ago
  "Unstated" things are not evidence. That's the Conspiracy Fallacy. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/74/Conspiracy-Theory https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla... "Look at all these people not talking about how racist they are! Clearly they're all hiding something."
malvosenior 8y ago
> It’s true that well-intentioned people do ask uncomfortable questions, but especially online they’re dwarfed by trolls and people arguing in bad faith. Why is it trolling or arguing "in bad faith" to think that there are inherent differences in gender? The vast majority of people alive today believe this. People who attempt to back up their intuitive knowledge with science seem to be the opposite of trolls. It gets tiresome to have entire swaths of mainstream opinion labeled as "bad faith" (which ironically is bad faith).
- gotocake 8y ago
  You’ve quoted a single sentence out of two paragraphs, and then extrapolated from that fragment something I didn’t actually say. Even putting it in as neutral and fair terms as I could, I should have guessed that anything on this topic would strongly resemble a Rorschach test to some. Please understand that since the thrust of my point was the futility of discussing this online, I’m leaving my response at this.
- mduncs 8y ago
  > People who attempt to back up their intuitive knowledge with science seem to be the opposite of trolls. Consider the difference between seeing if your intuitions reflect science, and trying to justify your intuitions with science. If you go looking for information that matches parts of your internal biases, can you reasonably say you would change your mind if you found information that conflicted your view? What if ten articles out of twenty reflected your view? What if one article out of twenty reflected your view? I think you should reread the portion of their comment about using science as a cudgel to see why it can be bad to consider intuition the guiding principle of research.
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    I think part of healthy debate (and its true value) is that the person with opposing views would also present science and data to back up their argument. Instead what we get is an instant fall back to "trolls, arguing in bad faith...". If you have data or research that backs up your position, you definitely should post it and compare it to any other data that comes from the opposing view. And yes, I would change my mind if I was presented with credible evidence.
mancerayder 8y ago
Granted, but should 'purpose' of a scientific research project or conclusion, you know, matter? If the science is bad, it won't get published or it will get published and destroyed. Why should politics get in the way of our accumulation of data? Get the data first, worry about interpretations after that. The moral question should not block / impede the inquiry of a topic and quest for more data. Perhaps, with the possible exception of some superweapon or bio weapon research? Didn't we learn anything at all from the grim history of religious authorities impeding scientific inquiry because the conclusions were uncomfortable? What exactly is going on in the last 5 or so years that we've decided to spurn Reason?
- gotocake 8y ago
  You seem to have read something in my post that wasn’t there, namely that I was suggesting some kind of restriction on research, rather than what I did say, which was the need for more research. I can only guess how you interpreted my post in such a way.
  - pmarreck 8y ago
    > I can only guess how you interpreted my post in such a way. Hey, man. Insinuation/assumption. This is exactly the sort of remark that quickly toxifies the discussion. Keep it rational.
    - gotocake 8y ago
      That wasn’t my intention, I just meant that I didn’t understand the reasoning, not to infer something sinister.
      - pmarreck 8y ago
        Ah. I've seen wording like that from people trying to insinuate that the person has a racist/sexist worldview that they're either covering up or trying to intellectually rationalize. Or as a subtle dig on their intelligence. :)
- 8y ago
stcredzero 8y ago
It’s true that well-intentioned people do ask uncomfortable questions, but especially online they’re dwarfed by trolls and people arguing in bad faith. Then isn't it incumbent on people to carefully consider what's being said and not knee-jerk react? As far as I can tell, all of the knee-jerk reactions in either direction simply add to the noise and outrage. All told it makes for a difficult topic to discuss in good faith, absent agendas on or offline, but online it’s pure poison. It makes a lot more sense to think of the whole situation as an exercise in the generation of outrage and toxicity in the service of attention and virality. Given that outrage is the easiest way to achieve virality, it doesn't take some sort of underlying conspiracy to explain this. We've created a sociopolitical milieu combined with networks which create these perverse incentives. The same combination amplifies the most toxic and nonsensical voices, and acts to disguise intelligent voices as nonsense. The solution is for intelligent and reasonable voices to fight back against the nonsense. This means 1) calling out the excesses of one's own side and 2) uniting with voices of reason across the aisle. The opponent who values truth and with whom one can reasonably disagree with is much preferable to the sociopath no one can reason with because they are really motivated by power stemming from outrage.
fwip 8y ago
It seems like the research shows that, pre-transition, a trans person's brain resembles that of the "target" sex more closely than their assigned sex. From what I understand, this effect is more pronounced in trans men than trans women.
- pmarreck 8y ago
  You're presupposing sex-based brain differences, which is also taboo.
coldtea 8y ago
>There are two main reasons I’m aware of. First, a certain kind of person tries to make a deeply sexist argument and reaches for “science” to back it up. The overall experience with that kind of thing is profoundly negative, and it has a pretty grim history, so there are strong reactions to it. Whatever certain kind of non-scientific persons do politically should have zero effect on scientific output. If X is a scientific fact, scientists are not OK to say that it doesn't hold, even if people regularly abuse X.
pmarreck 8y ago
> First, a certain kind of person tries to make a deeply sexist argument and reaches for “science” to back it up. Disclaimer: I've debated racists on Twitter, with moderate success. I started by presuming that their correlational data wasn't invalid. Then I showed them this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence while stating that I couldn't waste time talking to any of them unless they were over 6' (for men) or 5'8" (for women) because going too far below that would be beneath my eminent intelligence as a person who towers at 6'3". They magically shut up soon after this. You see, there's a difference between seeing a correlation, and acting on it. Racists want to act on correlations (oppressing nonwhites), but oddly, they wouldn't think the same about oppressing short people, even though that evidence is at least as plain-as-day. This is all besides the fact that correlational data is weak to begin with.

thisone 8y ago

Arguments also tend to start (unstatedly) from the baseline that "male is the default and most valuable" which will get backs up.

fromthestart 8y ago
>Arguments also tend to start (unstatedly) from the baseline that "male is the default and most valuable" Given that these assertions are unstated, they sound more like a manifestation of insecurity on the part of the listener. Conversely, one could speculate that responses to questions of equality are frequently taken personally and met defensively, with resulting rationalizations, like the one you listed, of improper emotional reasoning. This is only a controversial subject because people feel that there are potential negative implications to them as individuals, even though the rammifications are purely for distributions, which laymen tend not to understand, hence the personal responses.
pmarreck 8y ago
"Unstated" things are not evidence. That's the Conspiracy Fallacy. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/74/Conspiracy-Theory https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla... "Look at all these people not talking about how racist they are! Clearly they're all hiding something."

malvosenior 8y ago

> It’s true that well-intentioned people do ask uncomfortable questions, but especially online they’re dwarfed by trolls and people arguing in bad faith. Why is it trolling or arguing "in bad faith" to think that there are inherent differences in gender? The vast majority of people alive today believe this. People who attempt to back up their intuitive knowledge with science seem to be the opposite of trolls. It gets tiresome to have entire swaths of mainstream opinion labeled as "bad faith" (which ironically is bad faith).

gotocake 8y ago
You’ve quoted a single sentence out of two paragraphs, and then extrapolated from that fragment something I didn’t actually say. Even putting it in as neutral and fair terms as I could, I should have guessed that anything on this topic would strongly resemble a Rorschach test to some. Please understand that since the thrust of my point was the futility of discussing this online, I’m leaving my response at this.
mduncs 8y ago
> People who attempt to back up their intuitive knowledge with science seem to be the opposite of trolls. Consider the difference between seeing if your intuitions reflect science, and trying to justify your intuitions with science. If you go looking for information that matches parts of your internal biases, can you reasonably say you would change your mind if you found information that conflicted your view? What if ten articles out of twenty reflected your view? What if one article out of twenty reflected your view? I think you should reread the portion of their comment about using science as a cudgel to see why it can be bad to consider intuition the guiding principle of research.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  I think part of healthy debate (and its true value) is that the person with opposing views would also present science and data to back up their argument. Instead what we get is an instant fall back to "trolls, arguing in bad faith...". If you have data or research that backs up your position, you definitely should post it and compare it to any other data that comes from the opposing view. And yes, I would change my mind if I was presented with credible evidence.

mancerayder 8y ago

Granted, but should 'purpose' of a scientific research project or conclusion, you know, matter? If the science is bad, it won't get published or it will get published and destroyed. Why should politics get in the way of our accumulation of data? Get the data first, worry about interpretations after that. The moral question should not block / impede the inquiry of a topic and quest for more data. Perhaps, with the possible exception of some superweapon or bio weapon research? Didn't we learn anything at all from the grim history of religious authorities impeding scientific inquiry because the conclusions were uncomfortable? What exactly is going on in the last 5 or so years that we've decided to spurn Reason?

gotocake 8y ago
You seem to have read something in my post that wasn’t there, namely that I was suggesting some kind of restriction on research, rather than what I did say, which was the need for more research. I can only guess how you interpreted my post in such a way.
- pmarreck 8y ago
  > I can only guess how you interpreted my post in such a way. Hey, man. Insinuation/assumption. This is exactly the sort of remark that quickly toxifies the discussion. Keep it rational.
  - gotocake 8y ago
    That wasn’t my intention, I just meant that I didn’t understand the reasoning, not to infer something sinister.
    - pmarreck 8y ago
      Ah. I've seen wording like that from people trying to insinuate that the person has a racist/sexist worldview that they're either covering up or trying to intellectually rationalize. Or as a subtle dig on their intelligence. :)
8y ago

stcredzero 8y ago

It’s true that well-intentioned people do ask uncomfortable questions, but especially online they’re dwarfed by trolls and people arguing in bad faith. Then isn't it incumbent on people to carefully consider what's being said and not knee-jerk react? As far as I can tell, all of the knee-jerk reactions in either direction simply add to the noise and outrage. All told it makes for a difficult topic to discuss in good faith, absent agendas on or offline, but online it’s pure poison. It makes a lot more sense to think of the whole situation as an exercise in the generation of outrage and toxicity in the service of attention and virality. Given that outrage is the easiest way to achieve virality, it doesn't take some sort of underlying conspiracy to explain this. We've created a sociopolitical milieu combined with networks which create these perverse incentives. The same combination amplifies the most toxic and nonsensical voices, and acts to disguise intelligent voices as nonsense. The solution is for intelligent and reasonable voices to fight back against the nonsense. This means 1) calling out the excesses of one's own side and 2) uniting with voices of reason across the aisle. The opponent who values truth and with whom one can reasonably disagree with is much preferable to the sociopath no one can reason with because they are really motivated by power stemming from outrage.

fwip 8y ago

It seems like the research shows that, pre-transition, a trans person's brain resembles that of the "target" sex more closely than their assigned sex. From what I understand, this effect is more pronounced in trans men than trans women.

pmarreck 8y ago
You're presupposing sex-based brain differences, which is also taboo.

coldtea 8y ago

>There are two main reasons I’m aware of. First, a certain kind of person tries to make a deeply sexist argument and reaches for “science” to back it up. The overall experience with that kind of thing is profoundly negative, and it has a pretty grim history, so there are strong reactions to it. Whatever certain kind of non-scientific persons do politically should have zero effect on scientific output. If X is a scientific fact, scientists are not OK to say that it doesn't hold, even if people regularly abuse X.

pmarreck 8y ago

> First, a certain kind of person tries to make a deeply sexist argument and reaches for “science” to back it up. Disclaimer: I've debated racists on Twitter, with moderate success. I started by presuming that their correlational data wasn't invalid. Then I showed them this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence while stating that I couldn't waste time talking to any of them unless they were over 6' (for men) or 5'8" (for women) because going too far below that would be beneath my eminent intelligence as a person who towers at 6'3". They magically shut up soon after this. You see, there's a difference between seeing a correlation, and acting on it. Racists want to act on correlations (oppressing nonwhites), but oddly, they wouldn't think the same about oppressing short people, even though that evidence is at least as plain-as-day. This is all besides the fact that correlational data is weak to begin with.