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Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

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221–230 of 248 posts

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#221

I don't even understand why this is controversial. I've explained this to a number of women before and none of them have felt hurt. On the contrary, in fact, it makes them feel better. Humans always fixate on extremes. Men and women. It's a problem in our society. We always want to see the very best and we're not interested in others who are still way above average. There are thousands of women doing great science, e…

Same here. Most women I've talked to about this seem to accept it just fine. However, try explain this to a proclaimed feminist or activist (say, the "not a fan" lady). Any comment on statistical distribution that is completely meaningless at the individual level is taken as a direct, personal insult. No counter argument will be presented, just name calling or anecdotal horseshit. When I was in college I was required to take a gender studies course, and some notions taught there were simply absurd, like on average there's no difference between men and women's physical strength. What? What's next, there are no biological differences between genitals? I mean, physical strength isn't even a factor we normally judge people on. And regarding intellectual differences, I was personally taught by the first female Fields medalist and respect her immensely — she might just be smarter than all men. But that does not shake the statistical argument one bit. (Oh, feminists will say: "look, this dude is pulling out that I-worked-with-a-woman-once defense again.")

It is simply sad that our totally defensible theories are almost completely silenced these days for fear of hurting our academic or professional prospects, and they seem more triumphant by the day simply because we're silenced. I don't even feel safe posting from my usual account. Guess I should be thankful that people aren't burned at stakes anymore.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paper then goes on to discuss, in detail, how differences in selectivity drive differences in variability, so the passage you quoted does not mean that the author is imagining A and B to be equally selective. The author is just asserting that both of his arbitrary sexes might be selective in an absolute sense. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, especially since you've opted not to quote or address the…

> This paper is arguing that in addition to sexual selection's first order directional effect, there's an overlaid second order effect on variability, and the argument makes sense. Male reproductive success is already highly variable, because male gametes are cheap. Some males end up being disproportionately successful, e.g., Genghis Khan. From a gene's point of view, being hosted in Khan was winning the jackpot. The…

[deleted]

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is helpful, thank you. > If B2 ever got to reproduce, it would have B2 offspring, while B12 would produce B11 or B12. Okay, this is clear regarding the paper’s assumption of heritability of variability. Assuming that variability is a completely static characteristic innate to a population and perfectly heritable seems to me such a simplistic assumption as render most of the conclusions ineffective or correct onl…

Actually, I change my statement upon rereading the paper: If offspring is "distributed the same way as the parent subpopulation", then B12 would only produce B12. In other words, if subpopulation B11 is chosen by A, then B11 would produce B11, this reducing the variability, not increasing it.

The paper only recognizes two subpopulations with their respective probability distributions. I only introduced B11 and B12 to be able to talk about different outcomes within the B1 subpopulations. Otherwise you could just choose any arbitrary grouping (e.g. mixing B11 and B12) and get completely different results depending on how you do it.

Maybe it's less ambiguous if we talk about machines which spit out a randomly sized ball when you press a lever. After collecting a certain number of balls from the machines, you determine what proportion of the largest p% is from each machine and replace all balls by selecting from the machines according to their proportion.

If you have a machine M1 producing very large balls and very small ones in equal quantities, as well as M2 producing medium-sized balls, then the prediction is that the proportion of balls coming from M1 will increase if p In that model, although you can clearly group the very large balls as B11, there is no machine M11 only producing those balls. Both very large and very small balls will, if they are in the top p%, require you to press the lever on M1. The size of the balls only influences which machine will be chosen, not what kind of balls will be coming out of that machine.

In genetic terms, B1 and B2 carry different alleles of the same gene and have different genotypes, while B11 and B12 are different phenotypes possible for B1. If B11 were to produce only B11, that would be inheritance of phenotype, i.e. Lamarckian evolution, which is also interesting, but less relevant for real-world genetics.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#224
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men are much more likely to have a very low IQ and this is uncontroversial. Are they socialized this way or is increased variability only in one direction.

No, that is extraordinarily controversial.

Are you saying that the IQ distribution is not measured sufficiently well and there is controverse among statisticians whether men are really more likely to have scored below e.g. 70; or are you saying that there is controverse about the causes?

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#225

This is a one-sided story pushing a "Us vs Them" narrative. I can see nothing productive coming out of this.

ofcourse not, it's not talking about anything you want to hear. If it was an article about something you cared about though, or that would offer some advancement of your pet cause, i'm quite sure you'd be out there with your placards and the silly chants

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Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#226
post #174

I don't even understand why this is controversial. I've explained this to a number of women before and none of them have felt hurt. On the contrary, in fact, it makes them feel better. Humans always fixate on extremes. Men and women. It's a problem in our society. We always want to see the very best and we're not interested in others who are still way above average. There are thousands of women doing great science, e…

I used to think this, but I don't any more. One argument that swayed me came from Izabella Laba [1], a math professor at UBC and former IMO competitor. The point that stood out to me is that women tend to be socialized away from extremes, for example it is generally more acceptable (to parents, guardians, and affiliated people choosing for children) for gifted boys to skip many grades than for gifted girls to do the…

I just don't believe in this "social conditioning" thing. I've seen absolutely no evidence for it in my life. My sister grew up with three older brothers and we became a programmer, an electrician, and a mechanic. Right from birth she was surrounded by computers, electronics, engines and gears. She is not interested and will not be interested no matter how hard someone like you tries to make her interested. She is instead an artist and a wonderful one. She just did what she wanted to do.

I've had intimate relationships with more than twenty women in my life. I've had friendships and professional relationships with many times more. I'd hazard to guess that my experience with women is way above average for this forum. I've not met a single one who told me they really wanted to be a scientist/engineer/programmer etc but found that society didn't let them. In fact, I find the contrary to be true: the ones that have chosen those fields were offered more encouragement than I ever was.

Just let people do what they want to do.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#227
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've identified the mechanism by which sexual selection operates. It's clearly a powerful force. This paper is arguing that in addition to sexual selection's first order directional effect, there's an overlaid second order effect on variability, and the argument makes sense. Male reproductive success is already highly variable, because male gametes are cheap. Some males end up being disproportionately successful, e…

> ... since a female mammal cannot have 200 offspring in her lifetime ... Ah, but now she could. With enough money to pay for enough surrogates (or eventually, machines) and childcare. So maybe, going forward, there'll be more variability in human female reproductive success. Interesting.

And if there was any kind of genetic motivation for doing that (and almost everything is partly heritable) we'd see more of those genes next generation, so likely some of her kids would go down that route too and there we go...

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#228
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming the discussion would be even slightly rational. It would consist of Jenny McCarthy and a bunch of homeopaths telling parents that this is proof that the Illuminati want their kids to have autism so they will worship Satan, or something about equally inane. I don't see much in the way of rational discussion of anything outside small specialized forums like this. Everything is dominated by loud anti-int…

However irrational the discussion, it'll be worse if a real conspiracy to suppress the truth is exposed. Besides, part of the reason the Jenny McCarthys of the world get traction at all is that trust in scientists among the public has declined, and this decline stems directly from "science" telling the public things that are demonstrably untrue.

McCarthy gets traction because she trusts too much in a massive fraud, to the point where she is a profiting partner in the fraud, not because "science" lied to her.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#229
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this, but I don't any more. One argument that swayed me came from Izabella Laba [1], a math professor at UBC and former IMO competitor. The point that stood out to me is that women tend to be socialized away from extremes, for example it is generally more acceptable (to parents, guardians, and affiliated people choosing for children) for gifted boys to skip many grades than for gifted girls to do the…

I just don't believe in this "social conditioning" thing. I've seen absolutely no evidence for it in my life. My sister grew up with three older brothers and we became a programmer, an electrician, and a mechanic. Right from birth she was surrounded by computers, electronics, engines and gears. She is not interested and will not be interested no matter how hard someone like you tries to make her interested. She is in…

Your extremely unusual anecdote is not good data.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#230
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that is extraordinarily controversial.

Are you saying that the IQ distribution is not measured sufficiently well and there is controverse among statisticians whether men are really more likely to have scored below e.g. 70; or are you saying that there is controverse about the causes?

I'm saying that the claim made above is extraordinarily controversial.
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