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I really refuse to accept that women are just "wired for faith", it sounds too similar to the Victorian notion that somehow women are naturally wired for irrati
by Udo 14y ago
I really refuse to accept that women are just "wired for faith", it sounds too similar to the Victorian notion that somehow women are naturally wired for irrationality. There has to be a social reason why this spreads among women, there is a gap somewhere in science education that leaves women more vulnerable to this.
And I actually watched it spread. The transmission seems to be helped by exploiting trusted relationships among network nodes, so to speak. But that still doesn't explain why someone is susceptible to the attack in the first place.
I'm also skeptical about the purity idea, because it's an arbitrary (and wrong) definition of purity to begin with and there is really no reason why women should be hard-wired to fall for these things. This is traditionally the moment where completely made-up cavemen analogies are introduced, but those are exactly as unscientific as C/AM itself.
- bitwize 14y agoWomen are more prone to fall for BS because we enculturate them to believe that emotions and warm fuzzy feelings are a more reliable guide than science and logic. Third-wave feminism is partly to blame; the notion that science and logic are "patriarchal" and that not oppressing women entails a warm and fuzzy "feminine" replacement for disciplined thought is the third wave's doing. Thinking logically, critically, and skeptically is an ungendered activity. Women are as capable of and welcome to it as men are; we should be encouraging the females of our kind to apply reason and evidence to their judgements! Sadly, we're the culture that produced Oprah and turned her into a media mogul powerful enough to make the foundations of the earth tremble.
- Udo 14y agoThis is purely an image problem for science education, then. Because there is absolutely nothing warm and fuzzy about the "natural state" or whatever romanticized notion we're entertaining about nature. Applied science, and more importantly, the ability to apply science, enables people to build, cure, protect, predict, ensure, improve, discover, and many other things that are intrinsically more warm and fuzzy than, say, naturally dying of a curable disease.
- illuminate 14y agoYes, Oprah and Dr Oz etc. are all failures of science education, they have far too much control over public understanding of health.
- tptacek 14y agoscience and logic. Third-wave feminism is partly to blame; the notion that AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA can just, like, the word "woman" land on an HN thread without it becoming an embarrassment?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- rdtsc 14y agoBoth religious and C/AM people usually have an approachable simple, clear way of presenting their (irrational) thesis to an average person. Just like salesmen, they appeal to trust, basic needs, use the right words like (clean, pure, natural) for their approach and the right words for the opposite approach (chemical, poisonous, toxic). For homeopathy, stupid little slogans for disease models work "fight fire with fire", "fight like with like" and so on. Makes sense right... > The transmission seems to be helped by exploiting trusted relationships among network nodes, I understand your reaction against GP's opinion that he noticed more women in his circles are susceptible to this. I don't know what to tell you, I have the same observation. I would characterize not as "women are wired for irrationality" but maybe women are wired better for communication and for building trusting relationships. Again, maybe I am making shit up here, this is just my silly observation. But I have noticed that women (in my circle) more so once they establish their trust in respect to other women they we more willing to accept advice such as "so and so told me homeopathy work and I trust". Also to hammer more on the dangerous topic. I think there is self-fulfilling circular dependency between the idea that women are wired to be irrational and girl acting that way because the society already has that belief.
- Udo 14y ago> I understand your reaction against GP's opinion that he noticed more women in his circles are susceptible to this. Yeah, I am the GP though. I cede that I'm always very skeptical about this "X are just wired for Y" stuff. Historically, this has always been used to discriminate against groups of people, and also historically these assertions have so far always turned out false. This is why I'm assuming a cultural background to this problem, not a physiological one. Just because something happens a lot doesn't mean the reasons are not cultural. > I think there is self-fulfilling circular dependency between the idea that women are wired to be irrational and girl acting that way because the society already has that belief. I agree absolutely.