[jtbayly]

How could that statement balance my opinion of how right he was? If the only problem with it is that he didn't provide any sources or reasons to believe that, it is worth pointing out that you have neither provided sources or reasons to believe the opposite.

[whatshisface]

If you have some unsubstantiated armchair opinions about something, the right thing to do isn't to publish them and wait for someone to correct you, it's to remain silent until you find a reason for you opinion, or change your opinion. Otherwise, we would drown in a sea of well-written articles that say "X is true" and "X is false" with equal frequency, and no matter how many we read we would never learn anything.

[cbhl]

In mathematics, an unsubstantiated armchair opinion is called a "conjecture", and can be subsequently proven or disproven by the same person or another person.

If scientists of yore had "remain silent until you find a reason for your opinion" we'd probably still think the sun revolves around the earth.

[whatshisface]

Mathematicians clearly label their conjectures, but this was phrased as a statement. Surely you are not suggesting that mathematicians go around publishing their guesses with language indistinguishable from their knowledge.

Strictly speaking, as you suggest, it wouldn't be wrong to write, "I thought about it, and although I don't have any reason to believe it, the notion that women don't form groups for the sake of comradeship settled in to my mind, and with a gust of wind, floated from there to this paper." However nobody would ever write that! Passing off guesses as knowledge only works as a career if you try to dress up your guesses as knowledge, for example by phrasing them in a way that makes it sound like they're already commonly known.

[jtbayly]

> Passing off guesses as knowledge only works as a career if you try to dress up your guesses as knowledge...

What he wrote was essentially common knowledge at the time, not a novel theory that needed defending. That’s why elsewhere in this thread it is pointed out that you can’t judge it by today’s standards. We have different common knowledge today that people use as justifications for their opinions without feeling any need to cite a paper. Some of that knowledge is right and some wrong.

For a modern example, you could take a look at a comment that says his conclusions were wrong without citing any evidence.

[whatshisface]

From a social standpoint, uncritically repeating what everybody thinks is acceptable. From a scientific standpoint, it is not.

[jtbayly]

You seem to be making a lot of arguments about science and how things have to happen without citing any papers or evidence.

[pessimizer]

whatshisface wasn't trying to prove the opposite. It was a simple statement about somebody not showing evidence while making pronouncements about how half the human race behaves. You probably wouldn't have a problem with this in most other contexts; if somebody made a sweeping technical claim with no explanation or particular qualification, you'd laugh.

[zozbot234]

It's hard to show evidence either way, because the way you read this will entirely depend on what you take the words "ritual comradeship" to mean. There are some forms of comradeship that are pretty strongly male-coded, and few people would deny that. At the same time, few people would say that women never bond socially with one another.

[whatshisface]

"Hard to show evidence" isn't a hall pass for everyone's unmotivated guesses. Could you imagine how slowly science would progress if every time a question was discovered to be hard, the journals filled with everyone's preconceived notions? If in the deluge of opinion someone tried to publish a shred of relatively inconsequential evidence, nobody would notice it amidst the grand narratives, and the shreds would never have a chance to be assembled in to the real truth.

[jtbayly]

Whatshisface claimed the opposite and cited no evidence, just like the original that he’s criticizing.