[angryprofessor]

No offense, but I'm 99% convinced you've never had a girlfriend.

Here is a blog that has links to lots of quantitative evidence.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/

For more anecdotal evidence, ask your female friends why they support Hillary for president. When they give the rational (but mistaken) response "she is against the war," point out her actual position. Ask if this changes their view. If you believe people are rational, you might be surprised at the results.

edit: I don't mean to single out women as irrational. Men are too, though in different ways (a comparable example: lots of anti-war men like McCain). But since we are discussing gender differences, the Hillary example popped into my head.

[curi]

Here is one detail about me, for the fun of bursting irrelevant personal assumptions:

I, and a majority of my friends, are in favor of the war.

Regarding Overcoming Bias, I take it you are referring to the studies about people being very silly, which they have. But those are not relevant to our debate. The issue is not whether people have silly or irrational personalities, but why. And in particular, whether it is best explained as due to ideas, or not.

Edit: To reasonably be so certain I haven't had a girlfriend, you must think I am quite young. What about my writing style makes you think I am young?

[angryprofessor]

>I, and a majority of my friends, are in favor of the war.

I'm not opposed to it either (1). I guess I'm assuming you live on the coast; if you do, it's very surprising if you know multiple people who favored the war.

Regardless, my point is that many women make an emotional decision to support Hillary. They then come up with rational sounding reasons after the fact.

In any case, the point is that we know for certain that chemicals in the brain influence emotion and decision making (e.g., Ritalin). And the silliness/irrationality described on overcoming bias is mostly emotion defeating reason.

Regarding aggression specifically, we know that males are more aggressive both in humans and other mammals. Why do you suspect a non-chemical cause in humans, and a chemical one in other mammals?

>To reasonably be so certain I haven't had a girlfriend, you must think I am quite young. What about my writing style makes you think I am young?

I have no idea what your age is. I've never met a person who has had a seriously relationship and also believes women don't make extremely emotional decisions.

(1) I think freeing Kurdistan was sufficient justification, just as freeing Kuwait was sufficient justification for Iraq 1. At this point, I favor either ending it immediately or doing it right (split the country into small pieces, let them merge together if they want).

[curi]

I agree that many (but not all) women (and men) make bad decisions, act emotionally, make up ad hoc reasons after the fact, etc

Regarding aggression, we know that ideas are capable of causing aggression. I don't think this is in dispute: it is a possible cause. But we don't know that chemicals can do it, in humans. No one has suggested a mechanism by which they could.

I also don't agree that emotions are a separate thing from intelligence, which sometimes bypasses or overcomes it. I think that emotions are labels for (not amazingly good) ways of thinking -- they, like personality generally, are a part of ones ideas. In this case too, I submit that there is no coherent explanation for how they could be anything else.

[angryprofessor]

Ideas could cause aggression, certainly. Lots of things can.

However, we DO know chemicals can in humans. Pot and ecs reduce aggression, while meth increase it. I don't know if particular mechanisms are understood, I'm not a biochemist. But empirical observations do show that chemicals (in some way) affect aggression (and other emotions).

As for ideas, we don't know the mechanism there either. In fact, we understand the mechanisms of thought less than those of emotion. I can predictably make you and other humans I don't know happy or sad with chemicals; I can't do the same with ideas.

[curi]

Empirical observations show that chemicals have some correlation with emotions, which does not imply that either causes the other.

Being able to make people happy with chemicals is consistent with emotions being purely ideas. It just takes a subconscious idea to interpret certain sensations, caused by the chemical, in a positive way. And for this idea to be shared by most people in our culture.

[angryprofessor]

>Empirical observations show that chemicals have some correlation with emotions, which does not imply that either causes the other.

Timing and randomization shows that chemicals are the cause. Double blind experiments must have been done at some point, which would show the effect is causative.

As for drug effects being cultural, I disagree. Amphetamines also cause aggression in rats, for instance:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/p2745782608v6558/