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Interesting series of documentaries about feminism - Page 42

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Dangermousecatdog
Profile Joined December 2010
United Kingdom7084 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-07 17:38:02
June 07 2014 17:37 GMT
#821
On June 08 2014 02:05 Ghostcom wrote:
I'm pretty sure oBlade understands my question. Same for Socrates. You are the special flower here.

Mmm, yes he sure does.

On June 08 2014 00:11 oBlade wrote:
To be fair I don't know exactly what he meant by "Can you tell me without a shadow of a doubt that cultural norms do not spring from biology?" because "spring from" is so vague but I assume "spring from" wasn't supposed to mean "totally and only determined by."




On June 08 2014 01:53 Ghostcom wrote:
EDIT2: I'm actually convinced I'm getting trolled here, so I'll leave this thread for tonight.

You know, it doesn't quite work to act all hurt and indignant, that you are getting trolled and going to leave, only to reread the thread and reply straight afterwards.
oBlade
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States6205 Posts
June 07 2014 19:35 GMT
#822
What I mean is although I don't totally know the scope of his question, I suspect your interpretation of his question was wrong because the answer is too obvious and it would make him look like an idiot.

On June 08 2014 01:09 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 08 2014 00:11 oBlade wrote:For instance you said culture changes at a rate too fast to be determined by biology as biological evolution isn't working at the same rate.
I said no such thing.

I don't mean to misrepresent you.

4) The culture of a group of people, a region, a country changes over time. You are now arguing that that group of people are having the biology changing.

That's basically what you said. Although cultures change, it's way too fast compared to evolution so it can't be explained biologically.

On June 08 2014 01:09 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 08 2014 00:11 oBlade wrote:I mean, culture has its own forces of change or evolution obviously? That doesn't mean biology isn't relevant?
When did I say biology is irrelevent to forces of change or evolution?

I'm asking whether you think biology is a factor relevant to culture.

On June 08 2014 01:09 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 08 2014 00:11 oBlade wrote:I mean what you're saying would be like: Science has learned too much too fast in the last 400 years, we went from the first airplane to landing on the moon in 70 years, so obviously biology isn't responsible for our intelligence because that progress is too fast to be accounted for by genetics. This doesn't make sense right?
Yes it doesn't make sense, because you have equated science directly as a function of intelligence. But cultures change. If cultures change and "cultures spring from biology", what has changed in that biology in order for that statement to be true?

That's the force of the analogy. Other animals don't have science, but we do, because we're intelligent, and that intelligence comes from our genes. Science has progressed quite rapidly in a few hundred years. That's faster than evolution works on humans. Does science changing fast suddenly mean biology isn't a factor in our intelligence? The same is true of culture. We're not much different than 100 years ago but our culture is. It still comes from biology though.

I can offer other analogies; I sprang from my father's testicles. Though I've changed quite a bit since then, that doesn't necessitate a corresponding change in my father's testicles.

Obviously there is a semantic inconsistency here where you think "spring from" means something very strong like biology is the sole causative factor, so you disagree, whereas Ghostcom and I think "spring from" means something weaker like biology is a necessary cause, or a contributing factor, or the origin, so we agree.
"I read it. You know how to read, you ignorant fuck?" - Andy Dufresne
Dangermousecatdog
Profile Joined December 2010
United Kingdom7084 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-07 20:40:02
June 07 2014 20:34 GMT
#823
Well, he said he was playing devil's advocate. Which implies that he would bother to express himself clearly. But he appears incapable of doing so, even when acknowledging his own lack of clarity. So it's clear that he isn't taking devils advocate, but just plain advocacy but without any degree of reasoning. Why is Ghostcom being dishonest? That's up to him to answer. For me "spring from" would mean to cause or originate from", but ghostcom did say he was being deliberatly vague" so he can twist and tun his question to whatever he wants it to mean so it's a question without meaning.

You equated intelligence to advancements in science. Surely advancements in science is a part of culture. Cultural knowledge to be exact. We aren't any/negligibly more intelligent to humans 70 years ago.

Our biology has not changed in the last 70 years, but our cultures have and are changing. So I am not sure what your point is, except to agree with the broad point that culture does not spring from biology, unless you truly are arguing that we have become so intelligent that we are instinctively more intelligent than our immediate predecessors and as a result there is our advancements in technology and science.

Anyhow I will respond to "I'm asking whether you think biology is a factor relevant to culture."

I think that isn't the question you want to be asking. But I'll bite. Taking biology to be the physiology and behaviours of a living organism then without certain biology, there is no consciousness, no method to transfer culture. You talk about animals and intelligence, so I feel free to talk about animals as related to the question. Ignoring the behavioural aspect, otherwise the question will become rather circular. Without consciousness, there is no culture. Or in other words, the vast majority of lifeforms do not have a culture. Therefore having certain biological chracteristics is vital to culture.

Of course that be should be so obvious (hopefully), so what exactly is your question? I would presume you mean the physiology and behaviours of different cultures of humanity.

Which would include all the differing culture of humanity throughout the whole of human history. Which includes a huge and varied differences and similarities of all of these cultures. Which I would presume that you are somehow arguing that are dependent on biology. It seems obvious that any cultural difference between humans would not be due to differences between the biology of each culture, be it the culture of a country, ethnic group or otherwise.

So, what exactly are you trying to argue, because it seems fairly obvious that if you are going to ask a question, the question is going to be:

"How exactly CAN differences in human culture be affected by the differences in human physiology?
Sokrates
Profile Joined May 2012
738 Posts
June 07 2014 21:31 GMT
#824
So you made up all that fuzz because you didnt like how the question was phrased in the first place? Good job.
Dangermousecatdog
Profile Joined December 2010
United Kingdom7084 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-07 22:13:09
June 07 2014 22:03 GMT
#825
Fuzz? Why ar you being angry for no reason? You are against feminism I get that. But that is that and this is this.

Ghostcom basically said his question is deliberately vague, so there really isn't any reason to reply to him, since he doesn't have a point to make or an opinon he wants to expose.

But since you seem to be affronted by the idea that people should make sense when they type, lets take a look at you shall we?

On June 08 2014 00:56 Sokrates wrote:

Because that is what you do not understand. They dont have to be exactly the same, what is important to know is the "fundamental basis". One culture will prefer a different game than the other but what they have in common is that every culture enjoys playing games. If you dont know what i m arguing about you should read the thread.

Yes and...? Are you going to follow up on this? How is this related to anything? There is a broad human culture. Which I have already said exists. Though somewhere there is probably a culture somewhere humans defecate into their own homes and eat alone. But the real question is this relates to differences in culture being caused by biology how?

Look you have to make a difference between every cultural norm is existing without biology or SOME cultural norms are free from biology. Feminists believe that everything is just a matter of culture and biology doesnt have an impact. And that is why you should read the thread and you would know what we are arguing about.


See, now I see where you are coming from. You don't know, or care about the question being asked.

You are talking about a totally different question from the one ghostcom is asking. Of course ghostcom afterwards says he doesn't mean anything at all in his question, precisely then his question can imply anything he wants. So I will discuss with oblades who you can actually have a conversation with instead.
kwizach
Profile Joined June 2011
3658 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-07 22:57:25
June 07 2014 22:55 GMT
#826
On June 07 2014 22:50 Ghostcom wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 07 2014 22:27 kwizach wrote:
On June 07 2014 22:17 Ghostcom wrote:
On June 07 2014 22:08 kwizach wrote:
On June 07 2014 07:59 sevencck wrote:
On April 15 2014 13:27 KwarK wrote:
I don't think it matters in the least as a feminist. Even if one sex has a slight advantage over another in a given area it doesn't change the fact that the ability of both sexes will be on a bell curve that is mostly overlap, even if we accept that there are differences the number of men so incredibly unique that no woman could replace them is going to be minuscule and have no bearing upon whether a woman is as good as a given man. The vast majority of jobs won't have such extreme requirements that no woman can do them and as long as the women that can do them are equally considered for the position then who cares. I want equality of opportunity.


Hope nobody minds me bumping this thread.

The thing is, you have no reliable means of measuring whether there is equality of opportunity between men and women, even if it remains your goal. If the sexes are biologically different, even to a small degree, then you have no logical ground to comment on what extent social factors explain disparities, or frankly if they do at all.

If men and women were exactly the same in their interests, talents, and proclivities, then I'd agree, disparities would be attributable to society, and we'd be right to address social norms.

Even conceding that the differences may be small, however, the fact that men and women are not the same in their interests, talents, and proclivities, makes it impossible to conclude that any disparities are due to social forces. In fact you could as easily argue that social forces are exactly a result of men and women being different.

In short, one must rule out biological differences before any argument pertaining to equality of opportunity between men and women becomes remotely compelling, and this is why most feminist explanations for social phenomena are increasingly being dismissed.

The nature of opportunity would only follow from observing results between identical groups. I think different races are close enough to identical to comment on opportunity based on results. Men and women, however, aren't close enough to identical to allow us to do this.

Erm, none of what you just said is true - that there exist extremely small biological differences between men and women doesn't prevent us in any way from studying how cultural/social factors have an impact on social/political/economical differences in how men and women are treated/live in our societies. In fact, that's exactly what gender studies (and, more broadly, social sciences) do.


I think his point is that we don't know how small that difference actually is, and that gender studies/social sciences tend to completely neglect said difference claiming it all to be caused by social constructs - without actually controlling for the impact of biology (because we don't really know how big it is).

No, he went farther than that. He said that there was "no logical ground to comment on what extent social factors explain disparities, or frankly if they do at all". There is plenty of scientific literature in social sciences studying effects of social factors. There are still some debates with respect to the role played by biological factors, but the importance of cultural factors is disputed by virtually nobody because it has already been thoroughly established.


Playing the devils advocate here:
How can you establish that a predictor is causative of the outcome when you have a variable which influences both the predictor and the outcome by an unknown factor which is ENTIRELY ignored? Can you tell me without a shadow of a doubt that cultural norms do not spring from biology? Could the distinction be artificial?

I'm not sure what you mean by "spring from" and which cultural norms you're referring to. As Dangermousecatdog said, there are some obvious links between biology and cultural norms - you need our biological selves for norms to exist in the first place, and if we were hermaphrodites chances are that some of our sex-related cultural norms would be very different :-) In any case, if you're playing Devil's advocate for sevencck, I'm under the impression that you didn't read his post properly. Let's quote part of it again:

On June 07 2014 07:59 sevencck wrote:
If the sexes are biologically different, even to a small degree, then you have no logical ground to comment on what extent social factors explain disparities, or frankly if they do at all.

If men and women were exactly the same in their interests, talents, and proclivities, then I'd agree, disparities would be attributable to society, and we'd be right to address social norms.

Even conceding that the differences may be small, however, the fact that men and women are not the same in their interests, talents, and proclivities, makes it impossible to conclude that any disparities are due to social forces. In fact you could as easily argue that social forces are exactly a result of men and women being different.

In short, one must rule out biological differences before any argument pertaining to equality of opportunity between men and women becomes remotely compelling [...].

Let's put aside his assertion that men and women are "not the same in their interests, and talents, and proclivities" (as if culture played no role in shaping them) and focus instead on his argument that we have "no logical ground to comment on what extent social factors explain disparities, or frankly if they do at all", that it is "impossible to conclude that any disparities are due to social forces", and that we cannot make an argument pertaining to equality of opportunity between men and women unless we rule out the slightest biological difference.

Do you agree with me that religious extremism is a social force? If so, and since you will surely agree with me that religious extremism has an impact on the respective opportunities of men and women in plenty of regions/countries (for example because it can lead to preventing women from having access to equal education and certain jobs), you disagree, like me, with sevencck's statements. And that's just one example among millions. Again, extensive work has been done in the social sciences with regards to the impact of culture on the role of women in human societies. Sure, some cultural norms/stereotypes originally stem from differences in biology - for example, the fact that women give birth is undoubtedly linked to norms pertaining to taking care of babies. It is ludicrous to assert, however, that it is "impossible" to conclude that social forces play a direct role in disparities between men and women.

I'd like to add that if you'd like to discuss the respective impacts of nature and culture, I've already said all I have to say on the matter earlier in the thread and I'm not interested in starting the debate again (particularly from scratch). I was specifically replying to sevencck's argument that we cannot establish that social forces play a role and that there is therefore no reason to address social norms. Even allowing women to have access to education is addressing a social norm.
"Oedipus ruined a great sex life by asking too many questions." -- Stephen Colbert
Sokrates
Profile Joined May 2012
738 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-08 00:03:04
June 08 2014 00:01 GMT
#827
On June 08 2014 07:03 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Fuzz? Why ar you being angry for no reason? You are against feminism I get that. But that is that and this is this.

Ghostcom basically said his question is deliberately vague, so there really isn't any reason to reply to him, since he doesn't have a point to make or an opinon he wants to expose.

But since you seem to be affronted by the idea that people should make sense when they type, lets take a look at you shall we?

Show nested quote +
On June 08 2014 00:56 Sokrates wrote:

Because that is what you do not understand. They dont have to be exactly the same, what is important to know is the "fundamental basis". One culture will prefer a different game than the other but what they have in common is that every culture enjoys playing games. If you dont know what i m arguing about you should read the thread.

Yes and...? Are you going to follow up on this? How is this related to anything? There is a broad human culture. Which I have already said exists. Though somewhere there is probably a culture somewhere humans defecate into their own homes and eat alone. But the real question is this relates to differences in culture being caused by biology how?

Look you have to make a difference between every cultural norm is existing without biology or SOME cultural norms are free from biology. Feminists believe that everything is just a matter of culture and biology doesnt have an impact. And that is why you should read the thread and you would know what we are arguing about.


See, now I see where you are coming from. You don't know, or care about the question being asked.

You are talking about a totally different question from the one ghostcom is asking. Of course ghostcom afterwards says he doesn't mean anything at all in his question, precisely then his question can imply anything he wants. So I will discuss with oblades who you can actually have a conversation with instead.


I m angry because you didnt get the context and then you nitpick at the phrasing of the question. Nothing more nothing less. That is why i understood him and you didnt. You also felt the need to flame me for my nick besides calling yourself Dangermousecatdog...
Dangermousecatdog
Profile Joined December 2010
United Kingdom7084 Posts
June 08 2014 00:14 GMT
#828
Sokrates, rather than trying to shit on me for actually bothering to answer his question, why don't you tell me exactly what he meant to ask? You proffess understand Ghostcom, despite professing not to understand what he himself was asking, so go ahead. Tell me exactly what he wanted to ask as a devils advocate. You are the one who is really obsessed over the semantics of his question. It doesn't matter one way or another what he meant to ask, because as you can see, I have happily answered OBlade. He is reasonably polite and is able to construct a logical argument. You on the other hand...
Sokrates
Profile Joined May 2012
738 Posts
June 08 2014 00:49 GMT
#829
What i think he wanted to ask was why we do not turn around the whole discussion and assume that every cultural norm is based on biology and just exclude possible artificial social factors and apply the same mind gymnastics like the feminists do.

The point is that you have two factors and excluding either of them by "definition" is retarded. Gender studies postulates there are no innate biological differences between men and women and therefore every difference you find has to be social. This also implies that you just have to change society and challange every different outcome because these differences are created by society and not by nature itself, not even taking into account that nature has any effect at all.

sevencck
Profile Joined August 2011
Canada705 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-08 02:07:11
June 08 2014 01:44 GMT
#830
On June 08 2014 09:49 Sokrates wrote:
What i think he wanted to ask was why we do not turn around the whole discussion and assume that every cultural norm is based on biology and just exclude possible artificial social factors and apply the same mind gymnastics like the feminists do.

The point is that you have two factors and excluding either of them by "definition" is retarded. Gender studies postulates there are no innate biological differences between men and women and therefore every difference you find has to be social. This also implies that you just have to change society and challange every different outcome because these differences are created by society and not by nature itself, not even taking into account that nature has any effect at all.



Precisely. With no ability to control for or isolate either, I don't see how conclusions can be drawn with such certainty. It's essentially a conclusion that is on the leash of ideology. If you believe that biology plays no important factor in the behavior and choices of men and women, then naturally it follows to conclude that differences are a consequence of society. But once you accept that biology plays a role, however small, I don't see how drawing such conclusions is possible anymore.

On June 08 2014 07:55 kwizach wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 07 2014 22:50 Ghostcom wrote:
On June 07 2014 22:27 kwizach wrote:
On June 07 2014 22:17 Ghostcom wrote:
On June 07 2014 22:08 kwizach wrote:
On June 07 2014 07:59 sevencck wrote:
On April 15 2014 13:27 KwarK wrote:
I don't think it matters in the least as a feminist. Even if one sex has a slight advantage over another in a given area it doesn't change the fact that the ability of both sexes will be on a bell curve that is mostly overlap, even if we accept that there are differences the number of men so incredibly unique that no woman could replace them is going to be minuscule and have no bearing upon whether a woman is as good as a given man. The vast majority of jobs won't have such extreme requirements that no woman can do them and as long as the women that can do them are equally considered for the position then who cares. I want equality of opportunity.


Hope nobody minds me bumping this thread.

The thing is, you have no reliable means of measuring whether there is equality of opportunity between men and women, even if it remains your goal. If the sexes are biologically different, even to a small degree, then you have no logical ground to comment on what extent social factors explain disparities, or frankly if they do at all.

If men and women were exactly the same in their interests, talents, and proclivities, then I'd agree, disparities would be attributable to society, and we'd be right to address social norms.

Even conceding that the differences may be small, however, the fact that men and women are not the same in their interests, talents, and proclivities, makes it impossible to conclude that any disparities are due to social forces. In fact you could as easily argue that social forces are exactly a result of men and women being different.

In short, one must rule out biological differences before any argument pertaining to equality of opportunity between men and women becomes remotely compelling, and this is why most feminist explanations for social phenomena are increasingly being dismissed.

The nature of opportunity would only follow from observing results between identical groups. I think different races are close enough to identical to comment on opportunity based on results. Men and women, however, aren't close enough to identical to allow us to do this.

Erm, none of what you just said is true - that there exist extremely small biological differences between men and women doesn't prevent us in any way from studying how cultural/social factors have an impact on social/political/economical differences in how men and women are treated/live in our societies. In fact, that's exactly what gender studies (and, more broadly, social sciences) do.


I think his point is that we don't know how small that difference actually is, and that gender studies/social sciences tend to completely neglect said difference claiming it all to be caused by social constructs - without actually controlling for the impact of biology (because we don't really know how big it is).

No, he went farther than that. He said that there was "no logical ground to comment on what extent social factors explain disparities, or frankly if they do at all". There is plenty of scientific literature in social sciences studying effects of social factors. There are still some debates with respect to the role played by biological factors, but the importance of cultural factors is disputed by virtually nobody because it has already been thoroughly established.


Playing the devils advocate here:
How can you establish that a predictor is causative of the outcome when you have a variable which influences both the predictor and the outcome by an unknown factor which is ENTIRELY ignored? Can you tell me without a shadow of a doubt that cultural norms do not spring from biology? Could the distinction be artificial?

I'm not sure what you mean by "spring from" and which cultural norms you're referring to. As Dangermousecatdog said, there are some obvious links between biology and cultural norms - you need our biological selves for norms to exist in the first place, and if we were hermaphrodites chances are that some of our sex-related cultural norms would be very different :-) In any case, if you're playing Devil's advocate for sevencck, I'm under the impression that you didn't read his post properly. Let's quote part of it again:

Show nested quote +
On June 07 2014 07:59 sevencck wrote:
If the sexes are biologically different, even to a small degree, then you have no logical ground to comment on what extent social factors explain disparities, or frankly if they do at all.

If men and women were exactly the same in their interests, talents, and proclivities, then I'd agree, disparities would be attributable to society, and we'd be right to address social norms.

Even conceding that the differences may be small, however, the fact that men and women are not the same in their interests, talents, and proclivities, makes it impossible to conclude that any disparities are due to social forces. In fact you could as easily argue that social forces are exactly a result of men and women being different.

In short, one must rule out biological differences before any argument pertaining to equality of opportunity between men and women becomes remotely compelling [...].

Let's put aside his assertion that men and women are "not the same in their interests, and talents, and proclivities" (as if culture played no role in shaping them) and focus instead on his argument that we have "no logical ground to comment on what extent social factors explain disparities, or frankly if they do at all", that it is "impossible to conclude that any disparities are due to social forces", and that we cannot make an argument pertaining to equality of opportunity between men and women unless we rule out the slightest biological difference.

Do you agree with me that religious extremism is a social force? If so, and since you will surely agree with me that religious extremism has an impact on the respective opportunities of men and women in plenty of regions/countries (for example because it can lead to preventing women from having access to equal education and certain jobs), you disagree, like me, with sevencck's statements. And that's just one example among millions. Again, extensive work has been done in the social sciences with regards to the impact of culture on the role of women in human societies. Sure, some cultural norms/stereotypes originally stem from differences in biology - for example, the fact that women give birth is undoubtedly linked to norms pertaining to taking care of babies. It is ludicrous to assert, however, that it is "impossible" to conclude that social forces play a direct role in disparities between men and women.

I'd like to add that if you'd like to discuss the respective impacts of nature and culture, I've already said all I have to say on the matter earlier in the thread and I'm not interested in starting the debate again (particularly from scratch). I was specifically replying to sevencck's argument that we cannot establish that social forces play a role and that there is therefore no reason to address social norms. Even allowing women to have access to education is addressing a social norm.


The thing is, you've misunderstood my argument somewhat. I'm not really saying that biology is 100% responsible for anything. I'm not arguing that society doesn't play a role, I think society and biology both play a role in most things. My argument is that it's not possible to attribute anything solely to one of those factors or frankly even to decide how much of a role each factor plays in a causal relationship with social phenomena. Our biology shapes our behavior, our behavior shapes our societies, and our societies shape our behavior; it's all intertwined.

My point is that it is not possible to accurately attribute anything to society like the feminists do. Women lag behind men in STEM, I certainly agree that is true. Where I differ with feminists is where they believe it's attributable to social forces, and thus whether it's even a problem. Women also lag behind men in coal mining and underwater welding. The difference between most feminists and myself is that I don't think either is a problem, because I don't profess to attribute anything entirely to society in some causal sense.

On June 07 2014 22:50 Ghostcom wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 07 2014 22:27 kwizach wrote:
On June 07 2014 22:17 Ghostcom wrote:
On June 07 2014 22:08 kwizach wrote:
On June 07 2014 07:59 sevencck wrote:
On April 15 2014 13:27 KwarK wrote:
I don't think it matters in the least as a feminist. Even if one sex has a slight advantage over another in a given area it doesn't change the fact that the ability of both sexes will be on a bell curve that is mostly overlap, even if we accept that there are differences the number of men so incredibly unique that no woman could replace them is going to be minuscule and have no bearing upon whether a woman is as good as a given man. The vast majority of jobs won't have such extreme requirements that no woman can do them and as long as the women that can do them are equally considered for the position then who cares. I want equality of opportunity.


Hope nobody minds me bumping this thread.

The thing is, you have no reliable means of measuring whether there is equality of opportunity between men and women, even if it remains your goal. If the sexes are biologically different, even to a small degree, then you have no logical ground to comment on what extent social factors explain disparities, or frankly if they do at all.

If men and women were exactly the same in their interests, talents, and proclivities, then I'd agree, disparities would be attributable to society, and we'd be right to address social norms.

Even conceding that the differences may be small, however, the fact that men and women are not the same in their interests, talents, and proclivities, makes it impossible to conclude that any disparities are due to social forces. In fact you could as easily argue that social forces are exactly a result of men and women being different.

In short, one must rule out biological differences before any argument pertaining to equality of opportunity between men and women becomes remotely compelling, and this is why most feminist explanations for social phenomena are increasingly being dismissed.

The nature of opportunity would only follow from observing results between identical groups. I think different races are close enough to identical to comment on opportunity based on results. Men and women, however, aren't close enough to identical to allow us to do this.

Erm, none of what you just said is true - that there exist extremely small biological differences between men and women doesn't prevent us in any way from studying how cultural/social factors have an impact on social/political/economical differences in how men and women are treated/live in our societies. In fact, that's exactly what gender studies (and, more broadly, social sciences) do.


I think his point is that we don't know how small that difference actually is, and that gender studies/social sciences tend to completely neglect said difference claiming it all to be caused by social constructs - without actually controlling for the impact of biology (because we don't really know how big it is).

No, he went farther than that. He said that there was "no logical ground to comment on what extent social factors explain disparities, or frankly if they do at all". There is plenty of scientific literature in social sciences studying effects of social factors. There are still some debates with respect to the role played by biological factors, but the importance of cultural factors is disputed by virtually nobody because it has already been thoroughly established.


Playing the devils advocate here:
How can you establish that a predictor is causative of the outcome when you have a variable which influences both the predictor and the outcome by an unknown factor which is ENTIRELY ignored? Can you tell me without a shadow of a doubt that cultural norms do not spring from biology? Could the distinction be artificial?


Exactly, very well said.
I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it. -Albert Einstein
Ghostcom
Profile Joined March 2010
Denmark4783 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-08 16:30:00
June 08 2014 16:22 GMT
#831
On June 08 2014 09:14 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Sokrates, rather than trying to shit on me for actually bothering to answer his question, why don't you tell me exactly what he meant to ask? You proffess understand Ghostcom, despite professing not to understand what he himself was asking, so go ahead. Tell me exactly what he wanted to ask as a devils advocate. You are the one who is really obsessed over the semantics of his question. It doesn't matter one way or another what he meant to ask, because as you can see, I have happily answered OBlade. He is reasonably polite and is able to construct a logical argument. You on the other hand...


I find it hilarious how you try to play the victim since Socrates is not talking politely to you considering the shitty attitude you have had throughout the last couple of pages. You didn't even read the thread and as a consequence didn't understand a question because you missed the context. You then complain about a lack of clarity, whilst the question itself was actually perfectly clear when read in the context of the thread. Because of your laziness/ineptitude you proceed with a bunch of ad hominems, attempting to insult my intellect as well as misrepresenting what was actually written, quoting out of context and strawmanning like no tomorrow. The attitude with which you entered this thread is quite astounding and it only gets worse throughout culminating in this post of yours where you try to call out Socrates. I am thoroughly impressed by your shamelessness - I mean it should be at least a little thought-provoking that everyone who actually read the thread understood me (and twice commended me for my communication).

EDIT: Let me give you a little tip which Day[9] was actually one of the guys who presented to me some years ago: Arguing is not about being right or winning an argument. It is an exchange of ideas to reach an improved understanding of the subject for all parties involved. That is what sevencck and kwizach has done - and what do you know? It looks like they actually got somewhere just with their 4 posts in the last couple of pages.
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26972 Posts
June 08 2014 17:26 GMT
#832
'Arguing is not about being right or winning an argument. It is an exchange of ideas to reach an improved understanding of the subject for all parties involved.'

I really wish more people had this point of view, especially when it comes to discourse on the internet.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
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