Monkeybot

Welcome to science, "postmodern" or no. There is always a margin of error; there are always revisions being made to theories. Even Newton's theory of gravity has undergone major revisions. And gravity is a pretty constant, quantifiable phenomenon, unlike human behaviour.

If you take a look at the field of evolutionary biology and/or anthropology, you'll find that new data is coming in all the time. I'm taking an anthro course right now, and my instructor continually marvels at how much he's had to revise his lectures in only the past few years, simply because of the influx of new data.

With regards to gender differences, there are a lot more variables than with gravity. What's education like? What is the level of technology? What birth control methods exist, and how effective are they?

Not only that, as just about everyone else has mentioned, gender differences often amount to general trends, not absolute statements. Saying that more men do better at X than women does NOT mean that any given man will do better than any given woman at X.

Jagged

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
--Einstein

Titanpoint

They also have the same number of limbs, eyes, mouths, nostrils and ears.

It does not mean that they have the same abilities using them.

Jesse

Titanpoint:
A wonderful statement of postmodern beliefs about science. "We know so little. How can you be so certain?" "We've been doing lots of experiments on the differences between the sexes but somehow in forty years failed to come up with any conclusions"

Still hoping for a response to my earlier post, but in the meantime I have another question: what's your opinion on IQ differences between different races? Do you think it is "postmodern" to say that we still cannot be sure whether there is a genetic component to these differences, and that even if there is we cannot be sure how large it is? Do you think most scientists would express great certainty in the answers to these questions, and if not, have they been infected by the pomo bug too?

Titanpoint

Actually, if you care to look back, it was other posters who were making liberal use of smilies, sideswipe comments, and personal attacks and after a while I responded in kind. Since my comments were not directed at anyone other than a second-rate TV show, it seems remarkable that this thread is all about me personally from other posters who confuse what they think they know with that they think they can prove.

And, if you further check, not one of them produced a scrap of evidence either. But plenty of personal attacks. Maybe its the season.

I did post a link to quite a few references to innate sexual differences but, in all fairness, you clearly didn't bother looking at them. If you had looked you would have found references to many scientific studies which show clear differences between the sexes that cannot possibly be anything other than biological in nature.

Actually I can jeer about Women's Studies courses as they are in my opinion the greatest threat to academic freedom since the McCarthy era. Also I can jeer at postmodernism, relativism and George W. Bush without asking your permission.

Now if you wish to question my beliefs go ahead, but if you're questioning my right to believe them and express them, then please go away.

Its your choice.

Titanpoint

Certainly Jesse.

I have no idea whether there are measureable differences between IQ scores between races, or if they are significant.

I haven't studied that particular piece of scientific research.

Now if anybody would like to pay me money, then I will answer all of your questions to the best of my ability.

But frankly I find it remarkable that the burden of proof lays entirely on me, whilst the burden of proving nothing at all belongs to others.

Since there is no standard of proof made for any assertion it seems to me to be pointless to try to "prove" anything, other than the general result that if you criticize someone's cherished TV shows then you'll get it in the neck from the moderator and every troll on the board.

I didn't like Star Trek:Voyager.

Now get over it.:boohoo:

Titanpoint

I found one too:

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." --Albert Einstein

Now every time I see that quote, I shall think of you.

Jesse

Titanpoint:
I did post a link to quite a few references to innate sexual differences but, in all fairness, you clearly didn't bother looking at them. If you had looked you would have found references to many scientific studies which show clear differences between the sexes that cannot possibly be anything other than biological in nature.

Show of hands: is there anyone on this thread who disagrees that group differences between the sexes have a significant genetic component? I know I sure don't, and I suspect that few or none of Titanpoint's other opponents do either, which is why I earlier accused him of arguing against a strawman "blank slate/radical feminist" position that exists only in his own mind. As for the more specific issues which people actually are disagreeing with him about, like the question of how "continuous" the differences are (ie, if you measure a particular trait for both men and women, will the data points form something close to mutually exclusive clusters or will they show significant overlap), he has consistently failed to back up his claims with any actual references:

Still no answer on that.

As for the question about racial differences in IQ:

Titanpoint:
I have no idea whether there are measureable differences between IQ scores between races, or if they are significant.

There are, and they have been known for a long time, although they have diminished over time and many scientists suspect that they are purely environmental in nature. If you're interested in this debate you can look on the internet for pages on the controversy over the book "The Bell Curve", which argued that the differences were in fact genetic.

Titanpoint:
I haven't studied that particular piece of scientific research.

You shouldn't have to. If you are making the general claim that it is always wrong to say that we can have a significant amount of uncertainty about the relative contribution of environment and genetics in dealing with group differences that have been studied for years, then that should apply to racial IQ differences as well. If you admit that it is possible that such uncertainty could still exist after all that time, then you can't say it is automatically "postmodern" to say something like "We've been doing lots of experiments on the differences between the sexes but somehow in forty years failed to come up with any conclusions" I happen to agree that there is far less uncertainty about sex differences than about race differences, but then I wouldn't automatically accuse people of "postmodernism" for expressing uncertainty about this conclusion, I'd just think they weren't sufficiently familiar with the evidence.

Titanpoint:
But frankly I find it remarkable that the burden of proof lays entirely on me, whilst the burden of proving nothing at all belongs to others.

No, of course there is no burden of proof for you on the issue of racial differences since I was the one who brought it up, I was just using it as a counter to your accusation that anyone who expresses uncertainty about sex differences is being "postmodern." On the other hand, the burden of proof is on you to support statements that you actually made, like the one about the non-continuous nature of sex differences. I'll even support my own claim that you are wrong with a citation, although it's just from an online article I found and it doesn't go into as much detail as I'd like:

from Scientific American: Sex Differences in the Brain

Titanpoint:
Since there is no standard of proof made for any assertion it seems to me to be pointless to try to "prove" anything, other than the general result that if you criticize someone's cherished TV shows then you'll get it in the neck from the moderator and every troll on the board.

"Cherished TV show?" I was never a fan of Voyager, and I hardly ever watched it. But I do like debating scientific issues (I'm the moderator of Science & Skepticism, by the way, not of this board).

Bookman

Several parties in this thread have made this personal, and I believe that we've exhausted the useful ground we can cover on the idea that ST:Voy represents some sort of emasculating, post-modern, feminist ideal.

I would love to see a companion thread started in Science and Skepticism on the topic of sex differences, however, I'm granting Titanpoint and Jesse the last words on the topic here and closing this thread.

Jesse, I'd love to participate in a new thread should you choose to start one. If you do, I'll provide a link to that thread here.

Bookman
Moderator