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It's unfortunate the author felt the need to emphasize sentences like "On average[...]" and "Of course, there are many men who don't [...]" so frequently. This

It's unfortunate the author felt the need to emphasize sentences like "On average[...]" and "Of course, there are many men who don't [...]" so frequently. This is yet another reminder that my generational peers (I'm 32) seem immature with gender issues. Our collective immaturity is a hindrance in discovering truths related to these generationally sensitive issues, just as the Boomer's anti-drug dogma stunted cannabinoid research by decades.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
Personally I get it, given that it's not uncommon to find social conservatives who push a sort of gender essentialism very strongly: men are like this, women are like this, period, and if you're different, you're broken. I think the sensitivity to scientific conclusions that sound like they're in the same ballpark is understandable, even if, yes, it shouldn't lead to people just ignoring data that doesn't agree with their beliefs.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  >Personally I get it, given that it's not uncommon to find social conservatives who push a sort of gender essentialism very strongly: men are like this, women are like this, period, and if you're different, you're broken. I think it's far more common to find people with positions closer to the scientific consensus who get falsely maligned as icky social conservative barbarians than it is to actually find these alleged social conservative barbarians in the wild. See, for example, the entire James Damore fiasco (which happened in spite of Damore's repeated insistence that he was talking about averages and trends etc.) EDIT: Not to mention several examples in this very thread.
- _underfl0w_ 5y ago
  One might begin to wonder if there's more than mere correlation between those who adopt socially conservative beliefs and those who seem unable to paint their environment in anything other than such broad strokes...
api 5y ago
A major reason things like sex or (even worse) racial differences can't be rationally discussed is that human beings are so horrible at statistics. Averages do not apply to the entire population unless the variance is literally zero. You could stamp that on a mallet and beat people with it for hours, and yet if you state an average people will continue to apply it to the entire population. "Women are on average more peripheral" instantly becomes "women are more peripheral period" and by extension "men are not peripheral period." Even very intelligent and educated people do this. Our collective insanity about statistics manifests in lots of other context too, like people being afraid of terrorists and mass shooters while they'll still ride around in cars or being phobic of vaccines while continuing to eat horrible artery-clogging fried food. If humanity were to fail as a species and someone in the afterlife asked me why, the fact that we are seemingly incapable of understanding statistics is something I'd cite as a major contributing factor. A second problem with open discussions of differences is that human beings seem hungry for reasons to denigrate other human beings. Any difference becomes a reason for some group of people to say they are "better" than another group of people. Last but not least is the fact that while just about everyone believes there are differences across virtually every axis, people are skeptical about the details. This skepticism isn't unreasonable. Psychometrics is an area of science with one of the worst replication records. Forgive me for becoming skeptical when really strong and specific claims from a science with a terrible replication record are used to try to push arguments that denigrate large groups of people or apologize for injustices against them.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  "Everyone is equal" is about equal rights and affording people basic dignity, not "everyone is equally good at everything". I don't think you'll find anyone who earnestly believes that all people are equally intelligent, or equally strong, or equally funny, or whatever.
  - cbozeman 5y ago
    > I don't think you'll find anyone who earnestly believes that all people are equally intelligent, or equally strong, or equally funny, or whatever. What you'll have are people who argue that if people who aren't as intelligent, or as strong, or as funny just had access to the same set of circumstances as Intelligent Person X, Strong Person Y, and Funny Person Z, the "underperforming" - for lack of a better adjective - people would be just as good. That's simply not true and we know enough about the brain, about DNA and heritability, and about environment to know it's not true. But there's a section of people who don't want to admit that, because it'll shatter their worldview completely and they'll have to re-evaluate a lot of things... but really what it'll do is force them to think for themselves instead of just being told how they need to feel, and that's from where the real discomfort comes, because when you're forced to think for yourself - truly think for yourself, not cite some study... not cite some expert, but actually think and reason with only your own capabilities, you may find that 1) it's hard and 2) you come to some thoughts that clash with your feelings.
google234123 5y ago
It should be noted that the pro-drug people also seem to get very offended at research that disagrees with them too.

TulliusCicero 5y ago

Personally I get it, given that it's not uncommon to find social conservatives who push a sort of gender essentialism very strongly: men are like this, women are like this, period, and if you're different, you're broken. I think the sensitivity to scientific conclusions that sound like they're in the same ballpark is understandable, even if, yes, it shouldn't lead to people just ignoring data that doesn't agree with their beliefs.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
HideousKojima 5y ago
>Personally I get it, given that it's not uncommon to find social conservatives who push a sort of gender essentialism very strongly: men are like this, women are like this, period, and if you're different, you're broken. I think it's far more common to find people with positions closer to the scientific consensus who get falsely maligned as icky social conservative barbarians than it is to actually find these alleged social conservative barbarians in the wild. See, for example, the entire James Damore fiasco (which happened in spite of Damore's repeated insistence that he was talking about averages and trends etc.) EDIT: Not to mention several examples in this very thread.
_underfl0w_ 5y ago
One might begin to wonder if there's more than mere correlation between those who adopt socially conservative beliefs and those who seem unable to paint their environment in anything other than such broad strokes...

api 5y ago

A major reason things like sex or (even worse) racial differences can't be rationally discussed is that human beings are so horrible at statistics. Averages do not apply to the entire population unless the variance is literally zero. You could stamp that on a mallet and beat people with it for hours, and yet if you state an average people will continue to apply it to the entire population. "Women are on average more peripheral" instantly becomes "women are more peripheral period" and by extension "men are not peripheral period." Even very intelligent and educated people do this. Our collective insanity about statistics manifests in lots of other context too, like people being afraid of terrorists and mass shooters while they'll still ride around in cars or being phobic of vaccines while continuing to eat horrible artery-clogging fried food. If humanity were to fail as a species and someone in the afterlife asked me why, the fact that we are seemingly incapable of understanding statistics is something I'd cite as a major contributing factor. A second problem with open discussions of differences is that human beings seem hungry for reasons to denigrate other human beings. Any difference becomes a reason for some group of people to say they are "better" than another group of people. Last but not least is the fact that while just about everyone believes there are differences across virtually every axis, people are skeptical about the details. This skepticism isn't unreasonable. Psychometrics is an area of science with one of the worst replication records. Forgive me for becoming skeptical when really strong and specific claims from a science with a terrible replication record are used to try to push arguments that denigrate large groups of people or apologize for injustices against them.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
"Everyone is equal" is about equal rights and affording people basic dignity, not "everyone is equally good at everything". I don't think you'll find anyone who earnestly believes that all people are equally intelligent, or equally strong, or equally funny, or whatever.
- cbozeman 5y ago
  > I don't think you'll find anyone who earnestly believes that all people are equally intelligent, or equally strong, or equally funny, or whatever. What you'll have are people who argue that if people who aren't as intelligent, or as strong, or as funny just had access to the same set of circumstances as Intelligent Person X, Strong Person Y, and Funny Person Z, the "underperforming" - for lack of a better adjective - people would be just as good. That's simply not true and we know enough about the brain, about DNA and heritability, and about environment to know it's not true. But there's a section of people who don't want to admit that, because it'll shatter their worldview completely and they'll have to re-evaluate a lot of things... but really what it'll do is force them to think for themselves instead of just being told how they need to feel, and that's from where the real discomfort comes, because when you're forced to think for yourself - truly think for yourself, not cite some study... not cite some expert, but actually think and reason with only your own capabilities, you may find that 1) it's hard and 2) you come to some thoughts that clash with your feelings.

google234123 5y ago

It should be noted that the pro-drug people also seem to get very offended at research that disagrees with them too.