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The trouble with science around sex hormones is that people both in the past and present tend run with a conclusion even when science has proven the conclusion

by belorn 4y ago

The trouble with science around sex hormones is that people both in the past and present tend run with a conclusion even when science has proven the conclusion to be false. Sex hormones in generally do not do what people think it does. People have done studies where they have increase someone's testosterone (within human levels) and observed if there was any changes in aggressive behavior. It was proven repeatably to not cause any change. This caused a bit of surprise among researchers and resulted in a new theory called challenge hypothesis, but popular opinion still believe the old theory that testosterone increase aggression. An even older theory thought estrogen to cause emotional hysteria, and a mountain of research illustrated how wrong that was. To make a car comparison, how much oil is being pumped in a car has a direct relation to how fast it is going. If it has zero oil the speed of the car is likely to go to zero. Oil is required to reach high speeds (or rather high rpm), and oil has a correlation to speed. Oil has a direct effect on most part of the engine. Oil doesn't however cause high speed, and increasing the oil does not make the car go faster.

safety1st 4y ago
The challenge hypothesis still describes a relationship between testosterone and aggression that is exclusive to males; it just turned out to be a little more complex than "more T always equals more aggression." It still proves my point. This is a biological feature exclusive to males which influences their behavior. Biological sex influences behavior.
- belorn 4y ago
  It is not exclusive to males. It work just as effective on females. Since females start out with significant lower (but not zero) levels of testosterone, changes in levels actually have larger impact on females. I don't disagree that biological sex influences behavior. What is important however is that what people think it does is generally not what it actually do. To take estrogen as an example, too much or too little do have a link to mental instability. It is very hard however to defined exactly what estrogen do as a biological influencer. As with testosterone and aggression, estrogen does not cause women to go crazy. When people believe that hormones has that kind of effect the outcome tend to be bad, as well as being anti-science. Testosterone levels in males rises after gaining social status. High testosterone levels in turn increase calorie usages that goes towards behavior which correlated to maintaining and defending existing levels of social status. In some cultures there is a correlation between both gaining social status and maintaining social status with aggression. How should one then describe the biological relation between testosterone and aggression? One could simplify and say that testosterone has a bias in our culture towards aggression and estrogen has a bias towards mental illness, but even that would likely not be helpful in explaining difference in behavior between men and women.

by belorn 4y ago

safety1st 4y ago

The challenge hypothesis still describes a relationship between testosterone and aggression that is exclusive to males; it just turned out to be a little more complex than "more T always equals more aggression." It still proves my point. This is a biological feature exclusive to males which influences their behavior. Biological sex influences behavior.

belorn 4y ago
It is not exclusive to males. It work just as effective on females. Since females start out with significant lower (but not zero) levels of testosterone, changes in levels actually have larger impact on females. I don't disagree that biological sex influences behavior. What is important however is that what people think it does is generally not what it actually do. To take estrogen as an example, too much or too little do have a link to mental instability. It is very hard however to defined exactly what estrogen do as a biological influencer. As with testosterone and aggression, estrogen does not cause women to go crazy. When people believe that hormones has that kind of effect the outcome tend to be bad, as well as being anti-science. Testosterone levels in males rises after gaining social status. High testosterone levels in turn increase calorie usages that goes towards behavior which correlated to maintaining and defending existing levels of social status. In some cultures there is a correlation between both gaining social status and maintaining social status with aggression. How should one then describe the biological relation between testosterone and aggression? One could simplify and say that testosterone has a bias in our culture towards aggression and estrogen has a bias towards mental illness, but even that would likely not be helpful in explaining difference in behavior between men and women.