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How Can There Still Be a Sex Difference, Even When There Is No Sex Difference?

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Re: How Can There Still Be a Sex Difference, Even When There Is No Sex Difference?

#261

Post by mikeash »

ScootyPuff3000 wrote: post #258
mikeash wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do they do that? Even the notorious punching bag of Affirmative Action is intended to make up for prior bias, not force equal outcomes regardless of all merit. (Whether it actually does that is another question, but "try to enforce" is all about intent.)

Let's start with this NYTimes report about allegations of bias on teacher's qualification tests, because of the disparity in results: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/nyregion/questions-of-bias...

You probably assume that the test is unbiased unless proven otherwise, and that any discrepancy is therefore likely to be actual differences in the underlying populations. The court is merely assuming the opposite: that discrepancies in the test results are a result of bias in the test itself unless proven otherwise.

They aren't trying to force equal outcomes, they're trying to make sure that if a test produces worse results for minorities then it had better be because of actual differences in the population and not subtle bias in the test.

Re: How Can There Still Be a Sex Difference, Even When There Is No Sex Difference?

#262

Post by [deleted] »

RodericDay wrote: post #88

Whomever wants a critical look at this kind of "psychology result", I really recommend checking out Cordelia Fine (Oxford, Cambridge, UCL educated) and "Delusions of Gender". She is a fun listen/read and explains really well the flaws in the science/reporting/interpretation of "gender science", from the statistical to the neurological. http://blip.tv/slowtv/delusions-of-gender-p1-cordelia-fine-4... https://en.wikiped…

[deleted]

Re: How Can There Still Be a Sex Difference, Even When There Is No Sex Difference?

#263

Post by convivialdingo »

mikeash wrote: post #158
jerf wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just "academics". It's anyone who can take an idea and successfully run with it, without stopping to notice all the signs that are yelling at them "Stop! This isn't working as you expected!" Academia merely happens to have a large concentration of such people, for structural reasons. (The "ivory tower" is a real effect, and it is both a good thing because it permits concentration and focus, and a bad thing,…

Academics have approximately zero power. This is the craziest conspiracy theory I've seen in a while, because it's just so obviously wrong. Oh yes, college professors need to be kept in check because otherwise they'll go out and kill all the Jews. WTF?

"Academics have approximately zero power."

Sure, academic don't rove about with black helicopters and guns, but academia has the ear of industry, politics and government for good reason. Applied academics has the ability to predict outcomes, grow economies, win wars and generate massive revenues.

But it also has the ability to go horribly wrong. It's undeniable that Nazi eugenicists modeled their ideology after the American eugenics movement, encouraged by American academics and NGOs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics#Origins_in_the_w...

Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come. Even a bad idea.

Re: How Can There Still Be a Sex Difference, Even When There Is No Sex Difference?

#264

Post by logfromblammo »

dlss wrote: post #222
logfromblammo wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not how statistics works. This is how you reverse a conditional probability (Bayes's Rule): P(B|A) = P(A|B) * P(B) / P(A) If A is "female" and ~A is "male", and B is "good engineer", then what we know , including ancestor post's assumption, is this: P(A|B) = 0.4 (the population of known-good engineers is 40% female) P(A) = 0.5 (the population as a whole is 50% female) We can further assume, arbitrarily, that…

This also isn't how statistics works. > We can further assume, arbitrarily, that P(B) = 0.02 (one in every fifty people make good engineers). So the likelihood that a person is a good engineer given that they are female is P(B|A). > P(B|A) = 0.4 * 0.02 / 0.5 = 0.016 > P(B|~A) = 0.6 * 0.02 / 0.5 = 0.024 > What we learn from this is that sex is not a good screening criterion for finding good engineers. You realize an a…

Your post looks like a non-sequitur to me. But for the sake of math...

For an arbitrary variance multiplier of 10 (std. dev. sqrt(10)), there are no non-imaginary solutions for a high-pass threshold where you can achieve a 60:40 split between two populations that have the same median.

You can get about a 58:42 split, putting your threshold a bit below the common median. But to achieve a 60:40 split, you need one population to have 25 times the variance, or for the populations to have different medians. Above that, you have two possible real solutions for the threshold value.

You can try it yourself, and hopefully my math is correct for this one:

  60/40 * erfc( x / sqrt(2))/2 = erfc( sqrt( variance_ratio ) * x / sqrt(2))/2
Since the threshold value equates to a different standard deviation for each population, you can say with some certainty that given the knowledge of which population a person is in, there is a different probability that person is above the threshold value, which works out to be 60% and 40%, respectively. But that's just begging the question, since those are the same numbers you used to work out the threshold value, and you still had to assume values for the medians and variances of both populations.

Re: How Can There Still Be a Sex Difference, Even When There Is No Sex Difference?

#265

Post by mikeash »

convivialdingo wrote: post #263
mikeash wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academics have approximately zero power. This is the craziest conspiracy theory I've seen in a while, because it's just so obviously wrong. Oh yes, college professors need to be kept in check because otherwise they'll go out and kill all the Jews. WTF?

"Academics have approximately zero power." Sure, academic don't rove about with black helicopters and guns, but academia has the ear of industry, politics and government for good reason. Applied academics has the ability to predict outcomes, grow economies, win wars and generate massive revenues. But it also has the ability to go horribly wrong. It's undeniable that Nazi eugenicists modeled their ideology after the A…

Some academics have the ear of powerful people. Some don't. Like in any other field.

Academia tends to be where far-out ideas come from, just because it's an environment that encourages it. Some of those ideas will be discovered by people in power and used to shape policy. Other will not. To blame academia for this or point to this process as evidence that academics are powerful seems an awful lot like being afraid of language because language can be used to convince people to do bad things.

Re: How Can There Still Be a Sex Difference, Even When There Is No Sex Difference?

#267

Post by hellbanner »

thret wrote: post #191
amyjess wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gender is the sex of the brain.

I always assumed it was defined by procreation - when we assign gender to individuals of a species - the females lay eggs/give birth, and the males fertilize them.

This breaks down in hermaphrodite creatures and creatures who change sex.

Re: How Can There Still Be a Sex Difference, Even When There Is No Sex Difference?

#268

Post by hellbanner »

amyjess wrote: post #164
hellbanner wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So can you explain what gender is, then? I've always viewed gender & sex as being an issue of parts or lack of parts a human is born with, and gender is their sexual personality or preferences. Do you believe there are specific (limited in quantity) genders?

Gender is the sex of the brain.

Why are these labels important to those who use them -- why bother with a "gender" noun and instead use a description of what your sexuality functions as?

Re: How Can There Still Be a Sex Difference, Even When There Is No Sex Difference?

#269

Post by MichaelCrawford »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #59
MichaelCrawford wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once found a "casual encounters" ad on craigslist, in which a woman sought men to attend a certain type of party, which type I do not remember. I looked it up at Urban Dictionary, the objective of that kind of party is to impregnate as many women as possible. I contemplated attending but then concluded that I want to know who my children are, and that they would want to know who their father is. Even under the best…

I suspect this is not unusual. I was asked to be a sperm donor at a party by a lesbian couple I'd never met before. They were completely serious, but the catch was no contact with the child. The problem with arguments from reproductive psychology is that we know very little about reproductive psychology in history. So modern ideas about female partner choice shaping genetics aren't necessarily a given. It's not unlik…

There are other traits than IQ which promote the success of the species.

Even if unintelligent, physical strength and endurance enable one to hunt, to flee from predators.

Sharp eyesight and sensitive hearing.

Those of African heritage commonly have Sickle Cell Anemia. While it is a crippling illness it gives one resistance to malaria; in much of Africa that enables one to live longer than those with healthy blood cells.

Re: How Can There Still Be a Sex Difference, Even When There Is No Sex Difference?

#270

Post by JoeAltmaier »

MichaelCrawford wrote: post #269
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this is not unusual. I was asked to be a sperm donor at a party by a lesbian couple I'd never met before. They were completely serious, but the catch was no contact with the child. The problem with arguments from reproductive psychology is that we know very little about reproductive psychology in history. So modern ideas about female partner choice shaping genetics aren't necessarily a given. It's not unlik…

There are other traits than IQ which promote the success of the species. Even if unintelligent, physical strength and endurance enable one to hunt, to flee from predators. Sharp eyesight and sensitive hearing. Those of African heritage commonly have Sickle Cell Anemia. While it is a crippling illness it gives one resistance to malaria; in much of Africa that enables one to live longer than those with healthy blood ce…

...or red hair, or blue eyes, which spread simply because they were so darn cute. They're only like 12,000 years old!
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