[newnewnew]

There is some interesting research on personality differences between the sexes[1]. Also, there is solid biological reasons for believing a species like ours with modest amounts of sexual dimorphism will have substantial behavioral differences between sexes. I have severe doubts about the perfect equality hypothesis, which seems to be the default assumption of liberals. Roughly, women are evolved to care and men are evolved to kill.

Of course, we are talking about distributions of traits and there are outliers in both sexes[2], and everyone ought to be judged individually on their own characteristics. But we need to recognize that the average woman and the average man are substantially different, and we should expect their behavior to diverge.

[1] http://bsb-lab.org/site/wp-content/uploads/DelGiudice_etal_2...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristiane_Santos

[jamesaguilar]

I can think of two major objections to this. First, this does absolutely nothing to control for the social context in which the subjects were raised. That is, it is impossible to draw any conclusions from this study about what the breakdown would look like of men and women were raised in an equal society, where there are just as many knightesses rescuing dons in distress as vice versa, and all the other similar inequities had been cleaned away.

Second, the perfect equality hypothesis does not describe my beliefs. I guess it my describe some non-scientifically-minded liberals' beliefs, maybe even most, but that does not matter very much. What I believe is that perfectly equal opportunity ought to be available to both sexes, and that women should control their own reproductive choices. I believe that we should work to minimize any effects that would tend to accentuate the differences between the sexes. And I believe this independent of the magnitude of those differences. Fundamentally, it does not matter to me if a paper did demonstrate differences, even in a perfectly equal society. It would still be optimal under my value function to no further accentuate them.

But, to wrap it up, I think it's really far fetched to suggest that conservative social policy towards women is the way it is because it's good for women. I mean, just look at what and who women vote for. (Then again, perhaps this is a bad argument because poor people vote for conservatives all the time.)

[oblique63]

> Fundamentally, it does not matter to me if a paper did demonstrate differences, even in a perfectly equal society. It would still be optimal under my value function to no further accentuate them.

Isn't the use of "optimal" here a contradiction, if in fact, we don't nurture certain innate differentiating factors in people to their full potential? For example, lets say we find evidence that developing perfect pitch is indeed something you have to be born with, and that you have a son/daughter born with it. Would you not want a bit more musical exposure for them than usual? Not 'pushing' them necessarily, but certainly emphasizing the difference enough to maybe intrigue them about the possibility of developing their full potential in that area?

We already know that people are born with certain 'limitations' (for the lack of a better word) in terms of IQ, so the idea of dealing with biological differences is nothing new in the realm of cognitive science, and sex/gender is but one of many variables that could affect personality/cognitive performance in an array of areas. So really, it would almost seem like denying this probability is the more conservative viewpoint, no?

Either way, this whole area is much too complicated to be simplifying it in such terms, and neuroscience is still much too young to help guide us thoroughly, but dismissing it outright seems like a mistake to me. After all, culture[1] is an emergent property of our individual personalities coming together, which are themselves emergent properties of our brains/genetics...

[1] As an interesting side-note, there have apparently been some attempts at converging neurology with anthropology recently, so hopefully this will help more research come along about any links between biological and cultural differences: https://brainsciencepodcast.squarespace.com/bsp/2013/neuroan...

[jamesaguilar]

> Isn't the use of "optimal" here a contradiction

No, because I specified that it was under a given value function (mine). You seem to be assuming that I'm optimizing economic production or something like that, which is where differentiating factors tend to come in. That is of course not what I think is most important.

Simple counter example: let's say there were some means of doubling half the population's output, assuming we only had to keep them miserable by telling them they are worth less for the duration of their childhood. I would not make that trade. Whether there are differentiating factors doesn't factor into the question for me.

> Either way, this whole area is much too complicated to be simplifying it in such terms

That will never fail to be the case in almost any complex subject you want to talk about, but it doesn't mean you can't say useful things. For example, "I value that women be as free to choose their way as I, and not be systematically diverted to choices that are convenient to males via their representation in the media, via social policies, etc. I value this more highly than whatever minor benefits I believe are likely to stem out of the socially regressive way of doing things."

[oblique63]

> No, because I specified that it was under a given value function (mine)

Ok, but what's the benefit of defending a position on the basis of it being a personal belief? The greater context here is on how certain viewpoints shape society, so naturally I assumed that to be your point of reference. Opinions are all well and good, but when discussing effects on a population larger than oneself, it's generally more practical to deal with issues empirically, which means acknowledging additional context and not regressing to arbitrary value functions. What is the ideal value function here? If you have a notion of one, it'd be easier to understand your point of view if you were to explain that clearly first before giving us the end result of your logical conclusions. Then the discussion could turn into a rational productive one about whether or not that value function is actually a logical one.

> let's say there were some means of doubling half the population's output, assuming we only had to keep them miserable by telling them they are worth less for the duration of their childhood. I would not make that trade.

I wouldn't either, but I don't find this to be a realistic example. Adjusting for IQ for example, would ideally increase people's confidence, motivation, and happiness, because they would experience the same ratio of difficulty:reward throughout their lives as everyone else, not the highly unjust and disproportionate one (with way too much difficulty over reward) that they face now. The example I gave of perfect pitch is also a realistic situation, and I see no reason for not exposing your child to more areas he/she might be good at. If you have a value function that differs on these outcomes, please extrapolate on that, because I feel it would clear things up a bit.

> That will never fail to be the case in almost any complex subject you want to talk about

True, but I was talking with specific regards to the development of neurology when I stated that. Sorry, should've probably been more clear on that.

> "I value that women be as free to choose their way as I, and not be systematically diverted to choices that are convenient to males via their representation in the media, via social policies, etc. I value this more highly than whatever minor benefits I believe are likely to stem out of the socially regressive way of doing things."

See, I value this too, and I value it equally when you substitute "women" with "men" as well[1]. I just don't believe that what you're labeling as "socially regressive" is in fact, socially regressive; there is a fine distinction between oppression and well-informed difference optimization. Unfortunately, this has been given a bad reputation historically (e.g. 'separate but equal' nonsense), but the real problem seems to be a greater misunderstanding of what "equality" as a concept should even look like, because generally, differences are much too nuanced to totally nullify or account for, to really provide a truly equal environment.

[1] An important designation to make when dealing with human equality. Here's an interesting 'case study' that exemplafies this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eqYEVYZgdo