3 ms·

Harvesting is a surge-activity that has to be completed in a very narrow timespan for maximal yield. Also, harvesting primarily requires stamina, not strength.

Harvesting is a surge-activity that has to be completed in a very narrow timespan for maximal yield. Also, harvesting primarily requires stamina, not strength. Tilling, on the other hand, is less time sensitive, and can better be the job of a smaller group spreading their effort over a longer period of time. Also, the research doesn't claims any relation between the weight of the plow and the mindset beyond for the passing of a threshold where men gain a physical advantage.

zeteo 14y ago
>the research doesn't claims any relation between the weight of the plow and the mindset beyond for the passing of a threshold So let's see, the research is about the relationship between two variables, both of them naturally continuous: weight of farming tools and degree of discrimination against women. The correlation doesn't quite hold for some sections of the graph, so what do you know: let's just separate the first variable into two arbitrary buckets, "light" and "heavy". Voila, case proved! Except if we happened to place the division at a "heavier" point, leaving only the Nordic countries in the "heavy" bucket, we'd obtain the exact inverse correlation.
- mseebach 14y ago
  Hoeing to ploughing is a discontinuous function. Either you scratch the ground with your hoe or you plough it. There is no middle ground where your hoe gradually gets heavier and turn into a plough.
  - zeteo 14y ago
    Again, weight of farm tools is a naturally continuous variable. There are heavy hoes, light plows and lots of ground in between [1] [2]. Transforming weight into a binary variable with an arbitrary separation point is not sound statistical practice. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattock [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ard_(plough) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ard_(plough)
    - hackinthebochs 14y ago
      >Transforming weight into a binary variable with an arbitrary separation point is not sound statistical practice But the separation is not arbitrary. "Light enough to wield by women" is the important statistic here, so the value in question is binary by nature. Weight in isolation simply isn't what is being considered here.
      - s_baby 14y ago
        The effectiveness of a tool as a function of its weight is not necessarily linear either.

zeteo 14y ago

>the research doesn't claims any relation between the weight of the plow and the mindset beyond for the passing of a threshold So let's see, the research is about the relationship between two variables, both of them naturally continuous: weight of farming tools and degree of discrimination against women. The correlation doesn't quite hold for some sections of the graph, so what do you know: let's just separate the first variable into two arbitrary buckets, "light" and "heavy". Voila, case proved! Except if we happened to place the division at a "heavier" point, leaving only the Nordic countries in the "heavy" bucket, we'd obtain the exact inverse correlation.

mseebach 14y ago
Hoeing to ploughing is a discontinuous function. Either you scratch the ground with your hoe or you plough it. There is no middle ground where your hoe gradually gets heavier and turn into a plough.
- zeteo 14y ago
  Again, weight of farm tools is a naturally continuous variable. There are heavy hoes, light plows and lots of ground in between [1] [2]. Transforming weight into a binary variable with an arbitrary separation point is not sound statistical practice. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattock [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ard_(plough) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ard_(plough)
  - hackinthebochs 14y ago
    >Transforming weight into a binary variable with an arbitrary separation point is not sound statistical practice But the separation is not arbitrary. "Light enough to wield by women" is the important statistic here, so the value in question is binary by nature. Weight in isolation simply isn't what is being considered here.
    - s_baby 14y ago
      The effectiveness of a tool as a function of its weight is not necessarily linear either.