Conquer Club

Two points:

1. The social norm might partly be enforced by dickheads, but it might also be partly accepted by its members who don't hold bad intentions. So, when you attack the social norm, aren't you causing harm to those who want to abide by the social norm?
(It's odd to say that women are free to wear whatever they want, while you're lambasting what some of them want to wear).

2. Your justification for attacking a 'bad' social norm rests mainly upon the argument that social norm X is (predominantly?) due to sexism/bigotry/etc. This goes back to the economic v. cultural question on how much is explained by either factor. If the social norm is mainly due to economic reasons, it serves a valuable purpose--regardless of how barbaric it may seem to us.

E.g. (economic) when the African National Party gained control in South Africa, they imposed labor regulations similar to Western Europe. This seemed great but was ultimately stupid because it completely ignored the limitations of S. Africa economy. Unsurprisingly, unemployment is still around 20%.

E.g. (cultural) witchcraft throughout Africa. It serves a useful role in meting out justice and all sorts of other necessary functions for various groups. Westerners tend to view it as barbaric and want to stamp it out, but when they do so, they cause unnecessary chaos. They're collapsing institutions which bring about order--within particular places that face different constraints and incentives than Western places.

Basically, imposing Western ideals onto other areas has had a long history of (un)intended consequences. It was imperialism at worst, or at best people thinking they were doing good for others.

BigBallinStalin wrote:Two points:

1. The social norm might partly be enforced by dickheads, but it might also be partly accepted by its members who don't hold bad intentions.

It's certainly the case that many of the people in such societies uphold these norms without ever explicitly realizing that they are degrading to women. Nevertheless, women are treated as second-class citizens in many of those cultures, so the intentions are irrelevant, aren't they? (Looking at the stuff below, there might be a good argument for not enforcing our values onto other societies because of unintended consequences -- but that doesn't mean the societies aren't sexist.)

So, when you attack the social norm, aren't you causing harm to those who want to abide by the social norm?
(It's odd to say that women are free to wear whatever they want, while you're lambasting what some of them want to wear).

The point I was making is that you can't know that any of them want to wear the clothing, in some sort of objective sense freed from the cultural norms. They might "want" to wear it because they've been trained to do so since they were children. Your argument is kind of analogous to saying that some slaves might enjoy working in the cotton fields, so we should probably just leave that situation alone.

2. Your justification for attacking a 'bad' social norm rests mainly upon the argument that social norm X is (predominantly?) due to sexism/bigotry/etc. This goes back to the economic v. cultural question on how much is explained by either factor. If the social norm is mainly due to economic reasons, it serves a valuable purpose--regardless of how barbaric it may seem to us.

Well, even if the social norm is valuable for economic purposes, that doesn't make it non-sexist. Again, slaves were good for the economy of the Southern US states, but that doesn't mean that the split is valued by all participants in the society.

E.g. (economic) when the African National Party gained control in South Africa, they imposed labor regulations similar to Western Europe. This seemed great but was ultimately stupid because it completely ignored the limitations of S. Africa economy. Unsurprisingly, unemployment is still around 20%.

Well, I'm not going to try to get into issues in other nations right now -- too complicated and I don't know enough about them. I just know that we've accepted that (at least explicitly) in the U.S., so we should enforce it.

E.g. (cultural) witchcraft throughout Africa. It serves a useful role in meting out justice and all sorts of other necessary functions for various groups. Westerners tend to view it as barbaric and want to stamp it out, but when they do so, they cause unnecessary chaos. They're collapsing institutions which bring about order--within particular places that face different constraints and incentives than Western places.

It seems rather inevitable that in the 'state of nature' that some amount of splitting will occur across gender lines. However, in advanced capitalist societies we've mostly freed ourselves of the inherent limitations that men or women face on doing useful work, so we should live up to that.

Metsfanmax wrote:
My friend responded that I was looking at this the wrong way. His argument was that until we get rid of the social stigmas that convince us that women cannot be scientists, we shouldn't even ask the question about whether women are less intelligent. Not because the question is inherently wrong -- but because it gives ammo to the people who are sexist and would use such information to continue justifying their explicit sexism*.


*I'm still not completely comfortable with his answer. But my lack of comfort is not what matters.

"Not completely comfortable"? I would say you should be enraged. Things have causes. The causes of things are always a valid subject for inquiry, regardless of what might be the future political fallout. To censor not just the answer, but even the question itself, is an assault on intellectualism of Orwellian proportions.

Dukasaur wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:
My friend responded that I was looking at this the wrong way. His argument was that until we get rid of the social stigmas that convince us that women cannot be scientists, we shouldn't even ask the question about whether women are less intelligent. Not because the question is inherently wrong -- but because it gives ammo to the people who are sexist and would use such information to continue justifying their explicit sexism*.


*I'm still not completely comfortable with his answer. But my lack of comfort is not what matters.

"Not completely comfortable"? I would say you should be enraged. Things have causes. The causes of things are always a valid subject for inquiry, regardless of what might be the future political fallout. To censor not just the answer, but even the question itself, is an assault on intellectualism of Orwellian proportions.

I disagree on the principle. Some scientific/intellectual questions are off-limits for moral reasons. We can probably agree that vivisection on humans is a bad thing (and I certainly believe it's a bad thing on non-human animals). It would surely teach us interesting things about the human body, but it doesn't justify the action. Similarly, I don't believe that testing many medical products on animals is justified. Sometimes the pursuit of knowledge is destructive.

Metsfanmax wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:
My friend responded that I was looking at this the wrong way. His argument was that until we get rid of the social stigmas that convince us that women cannot be scientists, we shouldn't even ask the question about whether women are less intelligent. Not because the question is inherently wrong -- but because it gives ammo to the people who are sexist and would use such information to continue justifying their explicit sexism*.


*I'm still not completely comfortable with his answer. But my lack of comfort is not what matters.

"Not completely comfortable"? I would say you should be enraged. Things have causes. The causes of things are always a valid subject for inquiry, regardless of what might be the future political fallout. To censor not just the answer, but even the question itself, is an assault on intellectualism of Orwellian proportions.

I disagree on the principle. Some scientific/intellectual questions are off-limits for moral reasons. We can probably agree that vivisection on humans is a bad thing (and I certainly believe it's a bad thing on non-human animals). It would surely teach us interesting things about the human body, but it doesn't justify the action. Similarly, I don't believe that testing many medical products on animals is justified. Sometimes the pursuit of knowledge is destructive.

Apples and oranges.

I agree that some methods are immoral, but that doesn't mean that any questions are.

If for my research I need to know "what happens when you stab someone in the pancreas?" then I agree that the traditional Soviet method of marching 100 prisoners out of the Gulag and stabbing them in the pancreas just to see what happens is wrong. How will I get my results in a civilized way? Well, I know that surgeons are not perfect, and they make mistakes. I suspect that a certain small but predictable percentage of gall bladder surgeries goes wrong, and the surgeon accidentally stabs the patient in the pancreas. So, I go to hospitals, tell them about my research, ask them to put my cameras in the operating theatres where gall bladder surgeries take place. Voila, after 5,000 surgeries I have 100 that went wrong and the patient got stabbed in the pancreas. Vivisection results without vivisection methods.

There's always a way to investigate a question without hurting anyone. Sometimes it just takes a bit of creativity. But even if there wasn't, it still wouldn't make it immoral to ask the question, it just would mean that you'd be unable to get the answer.

Dukasaur wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:
My friend responded that I was looking at this the wrong way. His argument was that until we get rid of the social stigmas that convince us that women cannot be scientists, we shouldn't even ask the question about whether women are less intelligent. Not because the question is inherently wrong -- but because it gives ammo to the people who are sexist and would use such information to continue justifying their explicit sexism*.


*I'm still not completely comfortable with his answer. But my lack of comfort is not what matters.

"Not completely comfortable"? I would say you should be enraged. Things have causes. The causes of things are always a valid subject for inquiry, regardless of what might be the future political fallout. To censor not just the answer, but even the question itself, is an assault on intellectualism of Orwellian proportions.

I disagree on the principle. Some scientific/intellectual questions are off-limits for moral reasons. We can probably agree that vivisection on humans is a bad thing (and I certainly believe it's a bad thing on non-human animals). It would surely teach us interesting things about the human body, but it doesn't justify the action. Similarly, I don't believe that testing many medical products on animals is justified. Sometimes the pursuit of knowledge is destructive.

Apples and oranges.

I agree that some methods are immoral, but that doesn't mean that any questions are.

Really just depends on your notion of morality. Sure, asking a question itself seems harmless. But let's say I engage in this research and find that women are, on average, less intelligent than men. This leads to increased sexism in society, because men now think that it's scientifically proven that women are stupid. Am I responsible for that event? A consequentialist like myself might conclude that I am.

Metsfanmax wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:
My friend responded that I was looking at this the wrong way. His argument was that until we get rid of the social stigmas that convince us that women cannot be scientists, we shouldn't even ask the question about whether women are less intelligent. Not because the question is inherently wrong -- but because it gives ammo to the people who are sexist and would use such information to continue justifying their explicit sexism*.


*I'm still not completely comfortable with his answer. But my lack of comfort is not what matters.

"Not completely comfortable"? I would say you should be enraged. Things have causes. The causes of things are always a valid subject for inquiry, regardless of what might be the future political fallout. To censor not just the answer, but even the question itself, is an assault on intellectualism of Orwellian proportions.

I disagree on the principle. Some scientific/intellectual questions are off-limits for moral reasons. We can probably agree that vivisection on humans is a bad thing (and I certainly believe it's a bad thing on non-human animals). It would surely teach us interesting things about the human body, but it doesn't justify the action. Similarly, I don't believe that testing many medical products on animals is justified. Sometimes the pursuit of knowledge is destructive.

Apples and oranges.

I agree that some methods are immoral, but that doesn't mean that any questions are.

Really just depends on your notion of morality. Sure, asking a question itself seems harmless. But let's say I engage in this research and find that women are, on average, less intelligent than men. This leads to increased sexism in society, because men now think that it's scientifically proven that women are stupid. Am I responsible for that event? A consequentialist like myself might conclude that I am.

Watch It's A Wonderful Life.
I say that partly in jest, but not entirely.

You can't with any reliability predict all the downstream consequences of your actions. All you are responsible is the immediate and direct consequences. Do you think Rutherford is responsible for the atom bomb? And yet without his work, it never would have happened. Do you think the guy who tamed fire is responsible for burning Joan of Arc at the stake? Or better yet, IF Rutherford (or Fermi, or Becquerel, or Nernst, the specific example is inconsequential) had known that his work would lead to the atom bomb, do you think he should have stopped and become a haberdasher instead? Do you think he would be more influenced by the loss of life at Hiroshima, or by the loss of life averted because a full-scale invasion of Japan became unnecessary? Do you think he would tremble more at the idea that nuclear war might one day destroy life as we know it, or by the fact that ships with nuclear propulsion might one day save life as we know it? We just don't know what will be, or what would have been. Only immediate and direct consequences can be mapped out with any reliability.

Which I suppose brings us to the next point. Do you think it matters? Plenty of people were investigating along Rutherford's lines; he was just the first. If Rutherford had retired from science and become a haberdasher, how long would it have been been before someone else got his results? Two years? Three at most? His choosing to remain ignorant would have impacted only himself.

Which brings us to the next point. The relationship between gender and intelligence is well-researched. Your lack of contribution to that research means nothing. (Not trying to be insulting, just stating the obvious.) You basically had it right the first time. There is no difference between the average intelligence of men and the average intelligence of women. There is, however, a huge difference between their respective standard deviations. Women't intelligence tends to be tightly clustered around the mean, whereas men tend to have wide deviations. Is it sexist to say that? Men could brag that most of the biggest geniuses are men, but women could riposte that all the biggests idiots are men, too, and both would be correct.

The real gain comes not from observing the fact, but from asking, "why?" If you're afraid to ask that question, then you're cutting yourself off at the knees in terms of figuring out how the world works.

Dukasaur wrote:You can't with any reliability predict all the downstream consequences of your actions. All you are responsible is the immediate and direct consequences.

What are the positive consequences of finding out whether women are statistically different in intelligence than men? Can it inform policy in any meaningful way?

Do you think Rutherford is responsible for the atom bomb? And yet without his work, it never would have happened. Do you think the guy who tamed fire is responsible for burning Joan of Arc at the stake? Or better yet, IF Rutherford (or Fermi, or Becquerel, or Nernst, the specific example is inconsequential) had known that his work would lead to the atom bomb, do you think he should have stopped and become a haberdasher instead? Do you think he would be more influenced by the loss of life at Hiroshima, or by the loss of life averted because a full-scale invasion of Japan became unnecessary? Do you think he would tremble more at the idea that nuclear war might one day destroy life as we know it, or by the fact that ships with nuclear propulsion might one day save life as we know it? We just don't know what will be, or what would have been. Only immediate and direct consequences can be mapped out with any reliability.

There is a large gulf between research in the physical sciences and research in the social sciences. Research in the physical sciences will always affect the development of technology, but in ways that are hard to predict. Research in the social sciences has the express intent of affecting social policy and culture, so to claim that we can just ignore the social effects of it is absurd. For what is the value of the research outside of those effects?

Which I suppose brings us to the next point. Do you think it matters? Plenty of people were investigating along Rutherford's lines; he was just the first. If Rutherford had retired from science and become a haberdasher, how long would it have been been before someone else got his results? Two years? Three at most? His choosing to remain ignorant would have impacted only himself.

Rutherford could not have known that at the time. And if we carry your thinking to its logical conclusion, that means Rutherford should receive no credit for his work, because someone would have done it anyway. That's not how we think -- we generally credit researchers for their discoveries, so to ignore some consequences and not others seems arbitrary.

Which brings us to the next point. The relationship between gender and intelligence is well-researched. Your lack of contribution to that research means nothing. (Not trying to be insulting, just stating the obvious.) You basically had it right the first time. There is no difference between the average intelligence of men and the average intelligence of women. There is, however, a huge difference between their respective standard deviations. Women't intelligence tends to be tightly clustered around the mean, whereas men tend to have wide deviations. Is it sexist to say that?

Perhaps. You made a very broad statement about intelligence, when in fact what is measured is an IQ score. Would you argue that black people are less intelligent than white people on average, given the wide disparity in achievement on such tests? I wouldn't. There is important information about the test itself in there, and not necessarily some information about the abstract ability of various people to engage in reasoning. So when you say below that it is a "fact" that men have wider deviations in intelligence than women, I question what it actually is that is a "fact." And that's one of the central problems of the social sciences -- what is or is not a "fact" is often highly dependent on interpretation. If you continuously offer a test that you know gives black people lower scores due to structural differences, and you don't think that reflects an inherent difference in intelligence, then there is a case to be made that you are contributing to racist perspectives. Because, like it or not, people treat IQ as a direct measure of intelligence despite these differences.

The real gain comes not from observing the fact, but from asking, "why?" If you're afraid to ask that question, then you're cutting yourself off at the knees in terms of figuring out how the world works.

Dukasaur wrote:There's always a way to investigate a question without hurting anyone. Sometimes it just takes a bit of creativity. But even if there wasn't, it still wouldn't make it immoral to ask the question, it just would mean that you'd be unable to get the answer.

It may also involve such a long period of time as to be irrelevant for most practical use.

Its not a highly advertised fact, but for a very long time, about the only real data, he best data on hypothermia, for example, came from Nazis concentration camps. Such data itself presents a moral dilemma. Does using the data for good inadvertently encourage such types of study by the, well, insane... or is ignoring such data doing the victims a disservice. Most, while not wanting to experience their fate, would likely want to see children saved in the future if it would not change their fate.

When you talk about the issue of men versus women, the issue is trickier for a reason you seem to have ignored.. much of the argument simply takes place without women involved.

Often times, its not a matter of inferiority or superiority, but of different approaches and perhaps values that differentiate men and women. However, that difference is VERY subtle and hard to pine down. Its like the elusive electron.. merely measuring it, focusing on it, changes its very character. To be objective means truly removing ourselves, but when it comes to men versus women...that is not really possible.

Dukasaur wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:
Really just depends on your notion of morality. Sure, asking a question itself seems harmless. But let's say I engage in this research and find that women are, on average, less intelligent than men. This leads to increased sexism in society, because men now think that it's scientifically proven that women are stupid. Am I responsible for that event? A consequentialist like myself might conclude that I am.

Dukasaur wrote:Which brings us to the next point. The relationship between gender and intelligence is well-researched. Your lack of contribution to that research means nothing. (Not trying to be insulting, just stating the obvious.) You basically had it right the first time. There is no difference between the average intelligence of men and the average intelligence of women. There is, however, a huge difference between their respective standard deviations. Women't intelligence tends to be tightly clustered around the mean, whereas men tend to have wide deviations. Is it sexist to say that? Men could brag that most of the biggest geniuses are men, but women could riposte that all the biggests idiots are men, too, and both would be correct.

The real gain comes not from observing the fact, but from asking, "why?" If you're afraid to ask that question, then you're cutting yourself off at the knees in terms of figuring out how the world works.

Again, you missed a pretty big point. The fact is that Mets supposed hypothetical has actually been put forward, believed for a long time. Nor has it gone away. Although the consensus is that, in general, there is little difference between men and women, if you go to the extreme, particularly the most highly oriented to math, then there is a heavy bias in men. Certain specific IQ tests have been passed only by men.

The problem is, as I stated before, of definition and lack of objectivity. Its not so much that men and women are superior/inferior, but that often the way women approach things is slightly different than men. When men are solely designing and investigating, they will inherently be biased toward other men.

Phatscotty wrote:Can't believe this issue has garnered so many comments. Can't believe some people think that if you want to own a business in America, you must buy abortion coverage.

I know you can't help but lie all the time, but it would be really nice if, perhaps just this once, you could manage not to? These contraception methods have not been shown to be equivalent to abortion.

Phatscotty wrote:This is the fundamental reason Obamacare and it's one size fits all approach were flawed from the get go.

No it isn't. There are absolutely many flaws to it, chiefly that it's not just a single-payer system rather than going through the business world at all, but this really isn't a fundamental reason.

Phatscotty wrote:Look at all the things they think they have to right to tell business owner's, that they are going to fund abortion coverage whether they like it or not.

Stop lying.

Phatscotty wrote:GET REAL! If a company wants to include that, fine! You don't hear me trying to tell others what to do and how to live and how to run their business and that religious beliefs mean nothing. Look at yourselves!

The religious beliefs of the owners of a business SHOULDN'T mean anything in the business world. If a business owner is going to claim that his religious rights are being violated, then that business owner should also be wholly responsible for any debts incurred by that business without protection - after all, the business is essentially the owner, right?

Night Strike wrote:

a6mzero wrote:And I can't believe a for profit business which is not a religious organization is allowed to opt out of a law based on the owners religious beliefs. Like a poster said earlier all u folks who work for a hindu , u will not be allowed to eat a hamburger at lunch while your at work by the time this crap hits the proverbial fan.

That would only be the case if the employer was forced to buy you hamburgers for lunch, so please make valid comparisons. And religious beliefs don't end just because a person owns a business. Just like how other Constitutional rights such as being free from warrantless searches and having due process don't end just because a person owns a business.

So were you going to just continue to ignore Metsfanmax's question to you because it's one you don't have an answer for?

BigBallinStalin wrote:Wat? So we're in agreement here? Impossible. <scrolls up>

Oh, you're against any organization requiring women to wear particular clothing.

There's a difference in the two situations being discussed.

In the second case, it is the allowance of the women to wear certain clothing at a university. They're ALLOWED, but not REQUIRED, to wear it.

In the first case, it is the practice of a business to REQUIRE the women to wear certain clothing, potentially feeling as though they MUST comply in order to make a living.

You don't see the difference between the two?

tzor wrote:

PLAYER57832 wrote:No, that is medically untrue. What is true is that some people want to claim that these birth control methods can be abortifacients.

It is medically true. The official information for the morning after pill indicates that it may prevent implantation. That''s not some right wing double speak.

Preventing implantation is not abortion... period. Trying to claim otherwise is misusing terms, in this case for intent to confuse the issues.


Furthermore, simply providing legally required INSURANCE, which may or may not be used at the discretion of the person covered and his/her doctor is not at all the same as paying for a service.

But that doesn't even really get into the basic problem. Business and religion have historically been kept separate in order to protect EVERYONE, most particularly those with "outlier" beliefs (and what an outlier is, of course changes in time). Businesses have almost always been excluded from proscribing EMPLOYEE religious practices based on the employers personal beliefs, unless it is a safety issue. (Men may need to be clean-shaven to wear face masks, for example, but while men and women can be asked to tie hair back, they generally cannot be forced to cut it unless it is so large as to prevent proper wearing of protective headgear.)

The reason is very, very simple. Employers are too easily in the position of bully or dictator. Like most bullies, they make demands that seem perfectly reasonable to them, but are not to those having to comply. It was not at all uncommon for employers in the 1950s were I grew up, in rural CA, to expect to see their employees in church and to enquire if they were not present why they were not there. My Dad and Grandfather each talked about it in a casual, almost joking way (that was just how it was). If you went to a different church, say Roman Catholic or a Synagogue, that was OK.. then you were expected to go to THOSE services, Inquiries were made!

The thing about freedom is that its always about what the LEAST powerful has, not the most powerful. Its very, very easy for people in power to just decide that their rights supersede those without power. THAT is why we have so many proscriptions against employers... because employees are not equal partners, they are beholden to their employers and too often face the "choice" of not getting an income or adhering to whatever demands the employer makes.

Metsfanmax wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:You can't with any reliability predict all the downstream consequences of your actions. All you are responsible is the immediate and direct consequences.

What are the positive consequences of finding out whether women are statistically different in intelligence than men? Can it inform policy in any meaningful way?

Whose policy about what? How do you know what policies a given piece of knowlege will influence? Maybe it will inform someone's policy in a meaningful way. Then again, maybe it will not. The quest of a scientist is to seek knowlege and understanding, not to make assumptions about what purposes some others may or may not use that knowlege for.

Metsfanmax wrote:

Do you think Rutherford is responsible for the atom bomb? And yet without his work, it never would have happened. Do you think the guy who tamed fire is responsible for burning Joan of Arc at the stake? Or better yet, IF Rutherford (or Fermi, or Becquerel, or Nernst, the specific example is inconsequential) had known that his work would lead to the atom bomb, do you think he should have stopped and become a haberdasher instead? Do you think he would be more influenced by the loss of life at Hiroshima, or by the loss of life averted because a full-scale invasion of Japan became unnecessary? Do you think he would tremble more at the idea that nuclear war might one day destroy life as we know it, or by the fact that ships with nuclear propulsion might one day save life as we know it? We just don't know what will be, or what would have been. Only immediate and direct consequences can be mapped out with any reliability.

There is a large gulf between research in the physical sciences and research in the social sciences. Research in the physical sciences will always affect the development of technology, but in ways that are hard to predict. Research in the social sciences has the express intent of affecting social policy and culture, so to claim that we can just ignore the social effects of it is absurd. For what is the value of the research outside of those effects?

No, that's absolutely wrong. True social scientists are interested in unlocking the secrets of how society works, just as physical scientists are interested in unlocking the secrets of how the physical world works.

The job of a social scientist is no different than the job of a physical scientist: to make descriptive statements about how something works. The moment you make a normative statement you've taken off your lab coat and gone home for the day.

I know all about the who heirarchy of snobberies in the academic world, and it's bullshit all the way. I majored in biochemistry, but I took economics courses on the side just out of interest. In my heyday I drank with and copulated with and dropped acid with and debated the future of the world with scientists of every type, up to and including the Chair of Psychology at a prestigious American university (who taught me about neoTantric love long before it became the buzz in the media) and after all that I can tell you with certainty

Dukasaur damn well wrote:The devotion of social scientists (at least the good ones) to the scientific method and scholarly detachment is at least as great as, and perhaps greater, than that of physical scientists. It doesn't require much effort to maintain objectivity when you're looking at a test tube of anonymous brown fluid. It takes some serious self-discipline to maintain scientific objectivity when your test tube is a city full of people you know.

A social "scientist" who's just shilling for some particular lobby group isn't really a social scientist. Social technician, maybe.

Metsfanmax wrote:

Which I suppose brings us to the next point. Do you think it matters? Plenty of people were investigating along Rutherford's lines; he was just the first. If Rutherford had retired from science and become a haberdasher, how long would it have been been before someone else got his results? Two years? Three at most? His choosing to remain ignorant would have impacted only himself.

Rutherford could not have known that at the time. And if we carry your thinking to its logical conclusion, that means Rutherford should receive no credit for his work, because someone would have done it anyway. That's not how we think -- we generally credit researchers for their discoveries, so to ignore some consequences and not others seems arbitrary.

We're rapidly drifting off topic with this one, but I'll just briefly give you my view of it.

First, we thank scientists for the time they saved. If Rutherford hadn't uncovered the nucleus, somebody else would have in due course of time. But how much time? We're not sure of course. Maybe only weeks, maybe years. Maybe decades. In any case, some unknown quantity of other people's effort was saved, and for that we thank him.

Second, of course, we just want to reassure ourselves that the mind matters. Because Tom Brady is a household name, but Ernest Rutherford is not. The general public celebrates some brainless thug who can throw a ball really far but doesn't give a shit about someone discovering the keys to the atomic world. So the 5% who care, work really really hard at slapping each other on the back to make up for being snubbed by the 95% who don't.

Metsfanmax wrote:

Which brings us to the next point. The relationship between gender and intelligence is well-researched. Your lack of contribution to that research means nothing. (Not trying to be insulting, just stating the obvious.) You basically had it right the first time. There is no difference between the average intelligence of men and the average intelligence of women. There is, however, a huge difference between their respective standard deviations. Women't intelligence tends to be tightly clustered around the mean, whereas men tend to have wide deviations. Is it sexist to say that?

Perhaps. You made a very broad statement about intelligence, when in fact what is measured is an IQ score. Would you argue that black people are less intelligent than white people on average, given the wide disparity in achievement on such tests? I wouldn't. There is important information about the test itself in there, and not necessarily some information about the abstract ability of various people to engage in reasoning.

Maybe you're right about that. Maybe the tests are wrong -- certainly many people have suggested it. But it does get me back to my original point -- if you're afraid to ask the questions, you won't get the answers.

Metsfanmax wrote:And that's one of the central problems of the social sciences -- what is or is not a "fact" is often highly dependent on interpretation. If you continuously offer a test that you know gives black people lower scores due to structural differences, and you don't think that reflects an inherent difference in intelligence, then there is a case to be made that you are contributing to racist perspectives. Because, like it or not, people treat IQ as a direct measure of intelligence despite these differences.

People interpret information incorrectly, is what you're really saying. They filter it through confirmation bias. If a study says what they want it to say, they ignore the fact that it has a huge level of uncertainty. If it says the opposite of what they want it to say, they ignore it. If someone doesn't like blacks, he'll take a study saying that blacks flunk out of school and use it to argue that they're inherently stupid. On the other hand, someone who believes blacks are suffering from systemic prejudice in America will use it to argue for systemic change in the way schools are run, or whatever. The wrong, if any, is not in asking the questions, or even in finding the answers. The wrong is in misusing the answers.

In 1982 some scientist found a small correlation between a diet high in oatmeal and a decrease in cholesterol. Quaker Oats used and abused that data to make a multi-billion dollar industry out of granola bars, basically planting the perception in the public mind that anything is health food if it has a fragment of oat in it, selling disgusting sugary candy bars as health food. Since then they've replayed that game countless times, finding a correlation between eating oatmeal and decreased risk of cancer, diabeties, and chist knows what else. None of the studies involve eating disgusting 60% sugar candied granola bars, but that is the perception they've created.

Knowing that, do you think the scientist who finds a correlation between oatmeal and declining risk of tetanus or whatever, should lie and say there is no correlation? Do you think it's ethically defensible to lie and falsify data in order to prevent what you suspect might be misuse of your results?

I don't. I think the scientists job is to make descriptive statements. After work, he's free to campaign for better truth in advertising laws or whatever, but while he's at work his duty is to the scientific method and preserving objectivity.

Metsfanmax wrote:So when you say below that it is a "fact" that men have wider deviations in intelligence than women, I question what it actually is that is a "fact."

Well, I believe it, but I'll admit I haven't seen the original data. I believe it mainly because it's consistent with what we know of other species. In almost every mammal and bird, the females have relatively consistent appearance and behaviour, while the males vary widely. Ecological theory explains that very neatly. The female is rewarded for staying out of trouble, staying safe, keeping a low profile, mixing smoothly with the crowd. The male evolutionary pressure is exactly the opposite. The male is rewarded for standing out from the crowd, being loud and proud and in general an aggressive asshole. A female who blends in with the background is more likely to keep her babies safe and pass the Darwinian test. A male won't pass the Darwinian test unless he goes out and does something unusual to attract attention. So, it's not just intelligence. In almost every attribute, males have more variation than females. So, the intelligence thing might not be true, but I have no reason to doubt it, nor do I think it's disparaging to women.

Armed with that knowlege, I'm better equipped to interpret other things. I know why there is a tendency to classify dangerous jobs as "men's" jobs. I may or I may not agree with that classification, but I am better equipped to understand where it comes from. The activist who protests against that classification, and doesn't understand where it comes from, is going to misinterpret it as a pernicious male plot to keep the women down, which it isn't, and that means he's going to take all the wrong approaches to dealing with it.

And we come at last to the original point...

The real gain comes not from observing the fact, but from asking, "why?" If you're afraid to ask that question, then you're cutting yourself off at the knees in terms of figuring out how the world works.

Dukasaur wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:You can't with any reliability predict all the downstream consequences of your actions. All you are responsible is the immediate and direct consequences.

What are the positive consequences of finding out whether women are statistically different in intelligence than men? Can it inform policy in any meaningful way?

Whose policy about what? How do you know what policies a given piece of knowlege will influence? Maybe it will inform someone's policy in a meaningful way. Then again, maybe it will not. The quest of a scientist is to seek knowlege and understanding, not to make assumptions about what purposes some others may or may not use that knowlege for.
]

The real danger is that people all to often THINK they have the answer, but are really not. Too often, they are not even really asking the correct questions. They don't even know enough yet, when first approaching the issue, to know what the correct question is.

The case of women and men's intelligence is a classic example, though probably an easier illustration is looking at the relative intelligence of race. Several famous studies in the 1960's showed a definite difference in intelligence between whites and blacks (and more recently, Asians). Note that I am NOT talking about studies by racists seeking to prove what they "already knew". I am talking about honest researchers who had the best of intentions. Still, they consistently showed that blacks are less intelligent.
It took DECADES to even begin to truly understand what was happening. Part of it was certainly "environmental" issues ranging from poorer food and medical care to lack of "mental stimulation" at home and so forth (ergo... Headstart and similar approaches). Part of it was also an inherent cultural bias by the researchers. That last is trickier to discern, but has far, far more impact overall. I cite that because I think you are all fully aware of the studies to which I refer and how attitudes have changed.

In women versus men, we see similar things, but its far more complicated and subtle. A lot of why is because we are uneasy about the roles of men and women to begin with. Fact is, babies need pretty intense care. Historically, particularly before formula was invented, that meant women had to be pretty close to the infants. That meant there was little choice in the role. Staying close to home meant it was more natural for women to cook, etc...... anyway, not getting into that whole topic here, but the point is that yes, even just asking can very much cause problems, particularly when one is not EXTREMELY careful about understanding the huge difference between very preliminary results and true, verified results.

Dukasaur wrote:Knowing that, do you think the scientist who finds a correlation between oatmeal and declining risk of tetanus or whatever, should lie and say there is no correlation? Do you think it's ethically defensible to lie and falsify data in order to prevent what you suspect might be misuse of your results?

Lying is not the issue.
The error here is far more fundamental, and you are the one making it. See, correlation in no way, shape or form indicates causation. Failure to understand such most basic facts of statistics and study results, sampling is a bit part of why we have so much disinformation out there.

Dukasaur wrote:Knowing that, do you think the scientist who finds a correlation between oatmeal and declining risk of tetanus or whatever, should lie and say there is no correlation? Do you think it's ethically defensible to lie and falsify data in order to prevent what you suspect might be misuse of your results?

Lying is not the issue.
The error here is far more fundamental, and you are the one making it. See, correlation in no way, shape or form indicates causation. Failure to understand such most basic facts of statistics and study results, sampling is a bit part of why we have so much disinformation out there.

Dukasaur wrote:Whose policy about what? How do you know what policies a given piece of knowlege will influence? Maybe it will inform someone's policy in a meaningful way.

If we cannot think of any positive examples, I question the value of the research to begin with.

No, that's absolutely wrong. True social scientists are interested in unlocking the secrets of how society works, just as physical scientists are interested in unlocking the secrets of how the physical world works.

Well, as long as you get to define what a "true" social scientist is, then we're all set. However, you're incredibly wrong in practice. Many people go into the social sciences to make the world better. And many physical scientists are doing the same. If you think that all those people out there simply have misguided intentions about being a scientist, well that's just dandy for you, but the rest of us actually give a damn about our fellow humans and "unlocking the secrets of the physical world" is only one of the many reasons why I believe in the power of science. Your no-true-Scotsman fallacy is completely unrelated to the actual world.

The job of a social scientist is no different than the job of a physical scientist: to make descriptive statements about how something works. The moment you make a normative statement you've taken off your lab coat and gone home for the day.

Further, at any rate, you're conveniently ignoring that once you make a descriptive statement about how something in society works, that does affect how society works. If I say that black people are less intelligent on average than white people, that will have consequences. If I say that the neutrino has mass, the mass of the neutrino is unaffected by my pronouncement.

Your view is also total fiction in practice because all research findings are normative statements. This is because there are always hidden assumptions that either motivate the research, or motivate how it is carried out. The one on gender and IQ is a perfect example of that. Anyone who performs such research is making a normative statement that IQ is a useful quantity to measure, and that perhaps it has interesting things to say about intelligence. If they do this and find that it is a flawed tool, and continue using it anyway, it's total crap to say there's no normative assumptions there.

A social "scientist" who's just shilling for some particular lobby group isn't really a social scientist. Social technician, maybe.

So do you believe that a climate scientist who says we should do something about global warming isn't really a climate scientist? Your standard is ridiculous and not at all based in human nature.

Maybe you're right about that. Maybe the tests are wrong -- certainly many people have suggested it. But it does get me back to my original point -- if you're afraid to ask the questions, you won't get the answers.

My point is that if you ask the questions, you might get the wrong answer, and that's more harmful than never having asked the question. And that may have happened in this case.

People interpret information incorrectly, is what you're really saying. They filter it through confirmation bias. If a study says what they want it to say, they ignore the fact that it has a huge level of uncertainty. If it says the opposite of what they want it to say, they ignore it. If someone doesn't like blacks, he'll take a study saying that blacks flunk out of school and use it to argue that they're inherently stupid. On the other hand, someone who believes blacks are suffering from systemic prejudice in America will use it to argue for systemic change in the way schools are run, or whatever. The wrong, if any, is not in asking the questions, or even in finding the answers. The wrong is in misusing the answers.

No, that's not what I am saying. This has little to do with confirmation bias because the people who designed and performed the study also believed that IQ was a useful tool to measure. Who can blame the public for taking their word on that?

Knowing that, do you think the scientist who finds a correlation between oatmeal and declining risk of tetanus or whatever, should lie and say there is no correlation?

I don't think it's a scientifically worthwhile study. I'd never publish such data, just as I would never publish the following data:



Any scientist doing halfway decent work knows about the dangers of correlation vs. causation, and if they publish anyway then they're doing active harm.

I don't. I think the scientists job is to make descriptive statements. After work, he's free to campaign for better truth in advertising laws or whatever, but while he's at work his duty is to the scientific method and preserving objectivity.

Again, normative assumptions are prevalent everywhere you look here. Why was this guy even working on this research subject? The very facts of what we choose to work on are always guided by some hidden societal or personal assumptions about what is actually worth studying. Even the climate scientist who only lobbies Congress after 5 PM and on weekends is studying climate science by way of the fact that society decided it was an important thing to study. None of us live in a vacuum.

(I'm going to skip past the rest for now, but we can continue that later.)

PLAYER57832 wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:You can't with any reliability predict all the downstream consequences of your actions. All you are responsible is the immediate and direct consequences.

What are the positive consequences of finding out whether women are statistically different in intelligence than men? Can it inform policy in any meaningful way?

Whose policy about what? How do you know what policies a given piece of knowlege will influence? Maybe it will inform someone's policy in a meaningful way. Then again, maybe it will not. The quest of a scientist is to seek knowlege and understanding, not to make assumptions about what purposes some others may or may not use that knowlege for.
]

The real danger is that people all to often THINK they have the answer, but are really not. Too often, they are not even really asking the correct questions. They don't even know enough yet, when first approaching the issue what the correct question is.

The case of women and men's intelligence is a classic example, though probably an easier illustration is looking at the relative intelligence of race. Several famous studies in the 1960's showed a definite difference in intelligence between whites and blacks (and more recently, Asians). Note that I am NOT talking about studies by racists seeking to prove what they "already knew". I am talking about honest researchers who had the best of intentions. Still, they consistently showed that blacks are less intelligent.
It took DECADES to even begin to truly understand what was happening. Part of it was certainly "environmental" issues ranging from poorer food and medical care to lack of "mental stimulation" at home and so forth (ergo... Headstart and similar approaches). Part of it was also an inherent cultural bias by the researchers. That last is trickier to discern, but has far, far more impact overall. I cite that because I think you are all fully aware of the studies to which I refer and how attitudes have changed.

In women versus men, we see similar things, but its far more complicated and subtle. A lot of why is because we are uneasy about the roles of men and women to begin with. Fact is, babies need pretty intense care. Historically, particularly before formula was invented, that meant women had to be pretty close to the infants. That meant there was little choice in the role. Staying close to home meant it was more natural for women to cook, etc...... anyway, not getting into that whole topic here, but the point is that yes, even just asking can very much cause problems, particularly when one is not EXTREMELY careful about understanding the huge difference between very preliminary results and true, verified results.

Dukasaur wrote:Knowing that, do you think the scientist who finds a correlation between oatmeal and declining risk of tetanus or whatever, should lie and say there is no correlation? Do you think it's ethically defensible to lie and falsify data in order to prevent what you suspect might be misuse of your results?

Lying is not the issue.
The error here is far more fundamental, and you are the one making it. See, correlation in no way, shape or form indicates causation. Failure to understand such most basic facts of statistics and study results, sampling is a bit part of why we have so much disinformation out there.

Of course I know tht correlation does not mean causation. The advertising executives who every day misuse data of that kind probably know it too, but they just don't care.

The point stands: Knowing that people will knowingly misuse your results to justify selling their brand of junk food and/or keeping the black man down and/or any other abuse you're worried about, do you think you should falsify your data to try to prevent their abuse? Or, as a scientist is it not your duty to present the truth regardless of where the chips may fall?

Dukasaur wrote:

PLAYER57832 wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:You can't with any reliability predict all the downstream consequences of your actions. All you are responsible is the immediate and direct consequences.

What are the positive consequences of finding out whether women are statistically different in intelligence than men? Can it inform policy in any meaningful way?

Whose policy about what? How do you know what policies a given piece of knowlege will influence? Maybe it will inform someone's policy in a meaningful way. Then again, maybe it will not. The quest of a scientist is to seek knowlege and understanding, not to make assumptions about what purposes some others may or may not use that knowlege for.
]

The real danger is that people all to often THINK they have the answer, but are really not. Too often, they are not even really asking the correct questions. They don't even know enough yet, when first approaching the issue what the correct question is.

The case of women and men's intelligence is a classic example, though probably an easier illustration is looking at the relative intelligence of race. Several famous studies in the 1960's showed a definite difference in intelligence between whites and blacks (and more recently, Asians). Note that I am NOT talking about studies by racists seeking to prove what they "already knew". I am talking about honest researchers who had the best of intentions. Still, they consistently showed that blacks are less intelligent.
It took DECADES to even begin to truly understand what was happening. Part of it was certainly "environmental" issues ranging from poorer food and medical care to lack of "mental stimulation" at home and so forth (ergo... Headstart and similar approaches). Part of it was also an inherent cultural bias by the researchers. That last is trickier to discern, but has far, far more impact overall. I cite that because I think you are all fully aware of the studies to which I refer and how attitudes have changed.

In women versus men, we see similar things, but its far more complicated and subtle. A lot of why is because we are uneasy about the roles of men and women to begin with. Fact is, babies need pretty intense care. Historically, particularly before formula was invented, that meant women had to be pretty close to the infants. That meant there was little choice in the role. Staying close to home meant it was more natural for women to cook, etc...... anyway, not getting into that whole topic here, but the point is that yes, even just asking can very much cause problems, particularly when one is not EXTREMELY careful about understanding the huge difference between very preliminary results and true, verified results.

Dukasaur wrote:Knowing that, do you think the scientist who finds a correlation between oatmeal and declining risk of tetanus or whatever, should lie and say there is no correlation? Do you think it's ethically defensible to lie and falsify data in order to prevent what you suspect might be misuse of your results?

Lying is not the issue.
The error here is far more fundamental, and you are the one making it. See, correlation in no way, shape or form indicates causation. Failure to understand such most basic facts of statistics and study results, sampling is a bit part of why we have so much disinformation out there.

Of course I know tht correlation does not mean causation. The advertising executives who every day misuse data of that kind probably know it too, but they just don't care.

There are 2 parties involved here... the one sending the data out and the ones reading it. In an ideal world, everyone would be educated enough to understand that showing a correlation does not mean causation, but most people assume the two are linked, so advertising works and people are duped.. but it also can be very destructive when such types of analysis are used to form public policy, as we are seeing of late.

Dukasaur wrote:The point stands: Knowing that people will knowingly misuse your results to justify selling their brand of junk food and/or keeping the black man down and/or any other abuse you're worried about, do you think you should falsify your data to try to prevent their abuse? Or, as a scientist is it not your duty to present the truth regardless of where the chips may fall?

Again, its not the "truth" that is in question here. The point is that if you publish something saying that there is a correlation between oatmeal and tetanus, without at the very least making it abundantly clear that causation does not mean correlation right there in the study, then you are giving Misinformation, not real information. Similarly, if you simply "put the data out", knowing it will be misunderstood, then, yes, you have culpability.

And that is really the greatest danger here lately. The conservative lobby is no longer just intent upon putting forward their opinion, they have spent decades (literally) building up an utterly false dichotomy of "fact" and "science". Its absolutely no coincidence that conservative politics are so often heavily tied to young earth creationism. No coincidence at all.

Publishing data, information is not enough. You have to be sure that the people reading it will understand and yes, use it properly. Scientists have too often just "put out the data" and claimed little or no responsibility for what happens to the data, but that is an inherently flawed approach.

PLAYER57832 wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:There's always a way to investigate a question without hurting anyone. Sometimes it just takes a bit of creativity. But even if there wasn't, it still wouldn't make it immoral to ask the question, it just would mean that you'd be unable to get the answer.

It may also involve such a long period of time as to be irrelevant for most practical use.

Its not a highly advertised fact, but for a very long time, about the only real data, he best data on hypothermia, for example, came from Nazis concentration camps. Such data itself presents a moral dilemma. Does using the data for good inadvertently encourage such types of study by the, well, insane... or is ignoring such data doing the victims a disservice. Most, while not wanting to experience their fate, would likely want to see children saved in the future if it would not change their fate.

When you talk about the issue of men versus women, the issue is trickier for a reason you seem to have ignored.. much of the argument simply takes place without women involved.

Often times, its not a matter of inferiority or superiority, but of different approaches and perhaps values that differentiate men and women. However, that difference is VERY subtle and hard to pine down. Its like the elusive electron.. merely measuring it, focusing on it, changes its very character. To be objective means truly removing ourselves, but when it comes to men versus women...that is not really possible.

Perfect objectivity may not be possible. A perfect vacuum isn't possible in practise, there's always a few particles wandering in here and there. Nonetheless, if we set perfect objectivity as our goal, we can get very very close, just as we can get very very close to a perfect vacuum.

Now, I want to zero in very tightly on the following statement of yours, because it lines up beautifully with an example I'm thinking of and then I'm going to relate it to your other post.

PLayer wrote:Often times, its not a matter of inferiority or superiority, but of different approaches and perhaps values that differentiate men and women.

This is an article I read not long ago, and I'm sorry but I don't remember where, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Someone looking at young doctors found a huge discrepancy between their objective evaluations and their subjective evaluations. They were testing hospital interns, and it turned out that on objective tests of their competence, the female doctors were significantly better, and yet on their subjective evaluations (by senior doctors) they were rated lower than male doctors.

Now, the knee-jerk reaction for some people might be to exclaim, "No surprise there! Of course the male doctors' club closes ranks to keep out the women!" But that knee-jerk reaction would be wrong. I hope you do realize that men don't actually sit around plotting to supress women. The researchers dug deeper, and they found the answer, both to why the women were better doctors, and to why they were incorrectly perceived as the opposite.

The answer lies in the different way that men and women perceive the asking of questions. Men are afraid that if they ask questions, it will be perceived as a sign of weakness, and consequently if they are unsure of a diagnosis they will go ahead and try to bluff their way through rather than admit ignorance. Women, on the other hand, have a much more relaxed attitude to asking questions and don't perceive it as a sign of weakness.

This was an answer to both problems. It answered why the women were better doctors -- they were more open about their self-doubt, and unafraid to ask for help, which led to better diagnoses and results. The same factor also explained why the men got better subjective evaluations -- the senior doctors heard the women's self-doubt and saw it as incompetence, and they heard the male interns bluff it out and saw them as competent even though in fact the male interns were often totally wrong with their diagnosis.

Now that we know this, we can improve things. We know that men have this ego problem that prevents them from admitting when they don't know something. We know that patients die because of this tendency. Now that we understand it, we can start dealing with it. There may be all kinds of solution. Perhaps we need some kind of special training for male medical students to get over their fear of asking questions. Perhaps hospitals need to monitor this in some kind of objective way -- quantitatively measure how often a doctor asks for advice, and review the records of those who don't ask for advice. Perhaps we need to start much sooner -- tackle the ego problems of boys in primary school, have some kind of game that teaches them that it's okay to admit ignorance. I don't know what form the solution will take, but I do know that a solution is only possible now that we've correctly identified the cause of the problem.

This problem was identified because someone started asking questions, and the first question they asked was "is there a performance difference between male and female doctors?" Asking that question led them to notice the huge discrepancy between objective and subjective tests of doctors' performance, and that led them to asking "why the discrepancy?" and that eventually led them to the answer. If they hadn't asked the first question, they would never have come across the reason to ask the second one. If, as Mets suggested, it's inherently wrong to even investigate gender differences for fear of being sexist, this potentially life-saving discovery would never have been made.

Now, in a later post you said,

The real danger is that people all to often THINK they have the answer, but are really not. Too often, they are not even really asking the correct questions. They don't even know enough yet, when first approaching the issue, to know what the correct question is.

We NEVER know if we're asking the right questions. We just ask, and the answers come back. Sometimes we get lucky and they're useful answers, but many times the answers just lead to more questions. Science is an inherently iterative process. We have vague questions, which lead to more specific questions, and if things go well they eventually lead to the right question.

Metsfanmax wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:Whose policy about what? How do you know what policies a given piece of knowlege will influence? Maybe it will inform someone's policy in a meaningful way.

If we cannot think of any positive examples, I question the value of the research to begin with.

This answer is for you, too.

did we prove that increasing lemons decreases car crashes?

Dukasaur wrote:Now that we know this, we can improve things. We know that men have this ego problem that prevents them from admitting when they don't know something. We know that patients die because of this tendency. Now that we understand it, we can start dealing with it. There may be all kinds of solution. Perhaps we need some kind of special training for male medical students to get over their fear of asking questions. Perhaps hospitals need to monitor this in some kind of objective way -- quantitatively measure how often a doctor asks for advice, and review the records of those who don't ask for advice. Perhaps we need to start much sooner -- tackle the ego problems of boys in primary school, have some kind of game that teaches them that it's okay to admit ignorance. I don't know what form the solution will take, but I do know that a solution is only possible now that we've correctly identified the cause of the problem.

This is exactly why there is so much that is problematic with this type of research. You have identified one possible conclusion that can be drawn from this research: men are worse doctors than women, objectively, because they are afraid to ask questions. But why did you ignore the other part: women are seen as worse doctors because they don't? (This is especially egregious given that they were objectively better to begin with.) This means that senior doctors generally see it as a weakness to ask questions rather than be confident. So your solution is, teach doctors in med school that asking questions is OK. But presumably "senior" doctors (who I assume were weighted equally between males and females -- we can get into it if that's not the case, because it may change how this should be evaluated) should realize this. The fact that they don't means there's a pernicious bias in their thinking: at best, they just are simply errant in their thinking, and should realize that it's OK to ask questions. Of course, it's not actually that simple, because male doctors are more productive than female doctors, probably in part because they're not as focused on quality of care in each individual case -- so it's not obvious that women are better doctors in some objective sense. But also, how does that have to do with the doctors and their opinions about women? You are focusing on men and why their objective performance doesn't match up to their expectations. You have not necessarily answered the question of why the expectation of women doesn't match up to their performance. It's not at all obvious to me that if you just started teaching men to ask more questions in med school (again, assuming that it's objectively better to do, which isn't obvious), that it would solve all of the bias against women. I'd have to see the study to comment more, but controlling for the differences between men and women isn't as easy as you're making it out to be.

This problem was identified because someone started asking questions, and the first question they asked was "is there a performance difference between male and female doctors?" Asking that question led them to notice the huge discrepancy between objective and subjective tests of doctors' performance, and that led them to asking "why the discrepancy?" and that eventually led them to the answer.

So the conclusions we draw are totally dependent on both the values we have -- what is a better measurement standard for a doctor, quality of care or productivity -- and what we identify as "the problem." Note how easily you concluded that the "problem" is that men are not performing as well as they should be, and we should fix that. You gave no room for the possibility that there is a "problem" about the fact that women are not being evaluated as well as they should be.

If, as Mets suggested, it's inherently wrong to even investigate gender differences for fear of being sexist, this potentially life-saving discovery would never have been made.

I obviously did not say that. I said it's probably wrong to investigate gender differences when there is no clear practical application of the policy to achieve gender parity, and there's a substantial risk of the research being used to move away from gender parity. For example, you seem to think it's obviously good that this "problem" regarding doctors was identified, because it can lead to useful policy changes. I think you are overconfident. If the key to being a better doctor was just asking more questions during a diagnosis, med schools would have solved that a long time ago.

Metsfanmax wrote:But why did you ignore the other part: women are seen as worse doctors because they don't? (This is especially egregious given that they were objectively better to begin with.) This means that senior doctors generally see it as a weakness to ask questions rather than be confident.

I didn't ignore it. I think I pretty clearly indicated that both sides of the problem have the same cause. Men believe asking questions makes you look weak. For the younger doctors, it means they were inherently afraid to ask questions. For the older doctors, it meant they interpreted the question-asking women as weak.

Metsfanmax wrote:So your solution is, teach doctors in med school that asking questions is OK. But presumably "senior" doctors (who I assume were weighted equally between males and females -- we can get into it if that's not the case, because it may change how this should be evaluated)

I don't know for sure, but "senior doctors" suggests to me a preponderance of males, because the trend toward more women entering med school didn't start until maybe 25 years ago.

Metsfanmax wrote:should realize this. The fact that they don't means there's a pernicious bias in their thinking: at best, they just are simply errant in their thinking, and should realize that it's OK to ask questions.

I don't think it's even "thinking" at all, in the conscious sense. I think it's just a visceral reaction. Hear question, perceive weakness. Luckily, people are capable of using conscious thought to override their instincts (at least to some degree) and I think just showing them that they have held this bias is a big step toward getting them to be aware of it and consciously override it.

Metsfanmax wrote:

This problem was identified because someone started asking questions, and the first question they asked was "is there a performance difference between male and female doctors?" Asking that question led them to notice the huge discrepancy between objective and subjective tests of doctors' performance, and that led them to asking "why the discrepancy?" and that eventually led them to the answer.

So the conclusions we draw are totally dependent on both the values we have -- what is a better measurement standard for a doctor, quality of care or productivity -- and what we identify as "the problem." Note how easily you concluded that the "problem" is that men are not performing as well as they should be, and we should fix that. You gave no room for the possibility that there is a "problem" about the fact that women are not being evaluated as well as they should be.

I think I made it very clear that the two problems have the same cause. Therefore, solve one, you solve the other. Teach the men that asking questions is okay, and you're addressing both.

Metsfanmax wrote:

If, as Mets suggested, it's inherently wrong to even investigate gender differences for fear of being sexist, this potentially life-saving discovery would never have been made.

I obviously did not say that. I said it's probably wrong to investigate gender differences when there is no clear practical application of the policy to achieve gender parity, and there's a substantial risk of the research being used to move away from gender parity. For example, you seem to think it's obviously good that this "problem" regarding doctors was identified, because it can lead to useful policy changes. I think you are overconfident. If the key to being a better doctor was just asking more questions during a diagnosis, med schools would have solved that a long time ago.

The thing is, you have no idea when you start what will have practical application and what won't. Now, obviously you have finite time and resources, so you prioritize the areas where you suspect there will be practical applications, but in the end it's just blind luck. One guy goes to piss behind the barracks and finds the Rosetta Stone, another guy goes to piss behind the barracks and steps in camel dung.

Dukasaur wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:But why did you ignore the other part: women are seen as worse doctors because they don't? (This is especially egregious given that they were objectively better to begin with.) This means that senior doctors generally see it as a weakness to ask questions rather than be confident.

I didn't ignore it. I think I pretty clearly indicated that both sides of the problem have the same cause. Men believe asking questions makes you look weak. For the younger doctors, it means they were inherently afraid to ask questions. For the older doctors, it meant they interpreted the question-asking women as weak.

My point is that you could be mistaking correlation for causation. It is likely true that women ask more questions during a diagnosis. That doesn't mean that this is the actual cause of the fact that women are subjectively seen as underperforming. Without seeing the study, I can speculate that when asked for a reason that the women are seen as inferior, the doctors might come up with something related to their question-asking. That doesn't make it the true cause. This is why I faulted you for suggesting that the solution is just to teach men to ask more questions. If the underlying problem wasn't the questions, then you haven't solved the discrimination against women.

I don't know for sure, but "senior doctors" suggests to me a preponderance of males, because the trend toward more women entering med school didn't start until maybe 25 years ago.

I'm not sure how relevant it is. In academia, the discrimination against hiring women seems to hold true even for senior academic faculty who are women.

I think I made it very clear that the two problems have the same cause. Therefore, solve one, you solve the other. Teach the men that asking questions is okay, and you're addressing both.

This is an assertion without proof. People are not infinitely rational beings, and just giving them evidence on how to change behavior may not change deep-seated beliefs about gender issues. Even if the cause of the discrimination against women is ultimately that they are less confident, that discrimation is now an institution in that field, which likely has a self-reinforcing nature of its own independent of the original cause, so you can't necessarily just erase it by getting rid of the original cause.

The thing is, you have no idea when you start what will have practical application and what won't.

The question you're asking is informed by what problem you find interesting or worth working on, so your standard about the objective researcher with no normative assumptions will never hold.