The Ivory Tower Makes You Ignorant

[Trausti]

Regarding variables that are not linked to sex differences, political
orientation, academic employment status, and parental status have essentially zero
bearing on attitudes. Thus, being conservative or liberal, an academic or not, or
being a parent have essentially no effect on whether people believe that behavioral
differences between dogs and cats or human universals (such as smiling to express
joy) are the result of organic evolutionary forces. We contend that these null findings
are consistent with the idea that the evolutionary scholarship focusing on non-sexdifferences
(e.g., the universal nature of kin selection in humans) is politically correct
and palatable across the demographic groups studied in this research. In fact, these
findings suggest that findings from human evolutionary psychology that do not
pertain to sex differences are just as non-politicized as are behavioral differences
between cats and dogs.

http://www.evostudies.org/pdf/GeherVol2Iss1.pdf

So the "nurture" position is only advanced when inconvenient science overlaps with politics. Where the science is not politically inconvenient, people accept science as it is. Anyway, in light of the Olympics going on right now, it's a bit bewildering how anyone would contend that gender differences are the result of "nurture."

 

[GenesisNemesis]

But... this study is from the Ivory Tower.

 

[ronburgundy]

Regarding variables that are not linked to sex differences, political
orientation, academic employment status, and parental status have essentially zero
bearing on attitudes. Thus, being conservative or liberal, an academic or not, or
being a parent have essentially no effect on whether people believe that behavioral
differences between dogs and cats or human universals (such as smiling to express
joy) are the result of organic evolutionary forces. We contend that these null findings
are consistent with the idea that the evolutionary scholarship focusing on non-sexdifferences
(e.g., the universal nature of kin selection in humans) is politically correct
and palatable across the demographic groups studied in this research. In fact, these
findings suggest that findings from human evolutionary psychology that do not
pertain to sex differences are just as non-politicized as are behavioral differences
between cats and dogs.

http://www.evostudies.org/pdf/GeherVol2Iss1.pdf

So the "nurture" position is only advanced when inconvenient science overlaps with politics. Where the science is not politically inconvenient, people accept science as it is. Anyway, in light of the Olympics going on right now, it's a bit bewildering how anyone would contend that gender differences are the result of "nurture."

So, what is it that makes you ignorant of the difference between correlations and casual relations?

 

[Bronzeage]

I believe if a rooster wants to identify as a hen, that decision should be respected and it is an insult to refer to this bird as a cock.

In real life, except for the eggs, there's not a big difference in the behavior of male and female chickens, and beyond that, there's not a lot of nurturing done, even by the most devoted mother hen.

 

[fromderinside]

In real life, except for the eggs, there's not a big difference in the behavior of male and female chickens, and beyond that, there's not a lot of nurturing done, even by the most devoted mother hen.

Never seen a chick consistently missing grain when it pecks have you. Hens swarm it and peck it to death while the rooster stands back and crows.

 

[Bronzeage]

In real life, except for the eggs, there's not a big difference in the behavior of male and female chickens, and beyond that, there's not a lot of nurturing done, even by the most devoted mother hen.

Never seen a chick consistently missing grain when it pecks have you. Hens swarm it and peck it to death while the rooster stands back and crows.

Hens and roosters are both scavengers. They will peck at anything that resembles food. There's not a lot of cooperation in a chicken flock, but it is where we got the term "pecking order." There is a definite hierarchy which determines who gets first place at the feeder. The rooster will have first place.

 

[fromderinside]

Never seen a chick consistently missing grain when it pecks have you. Hens swarm it and peck it to death while the rooster stands back and crows.

Hens and roosters are both scavengers. They will peck at anything that resembles food. There's not a lot of cooperation in a chicken flock, but it is where we got the term "pecking order." There is a definite hierarchy which determines who gets first place at the feeder. The rooster will have first place.

..and that relates to hens restoring order and genetically cleaning up their family (you know, if it were mice it would be females coming into heat when a new mouse is introduced) house how?

 

[Bronzeage]

Hens and roosters are both scavengers. They will peck at anything that resembles food. There's not a lot of cooperation in a chicken flock, but it is where we got the term "pecking order." There is a definite hierarchy which determines who gets first place at the feeder. The rooster will have first place.

..and that relates to hens restoring order and genetically cleaning up their family (you know, if it were mice it would be females coming into heat when a new mouse is introduced) house how?

This all points to the dangers of extrapolating conclusions about humans, using data collected from chickens.

 

[fromderinside]

Cluck?

 

[zorq]

So the "nurture" position is only advanced when inconvenient science overlaps with politics. Where the science is not politically inconvenient, people accept science as it is. Anyway, in light of the Olympics going on right now, it's a bit bewildering how anyone would contend that gender differences are the result of "nurture."

Eh. Not quite.

There is an actual controversy about the origin of certain human psychological sex differences (not generic "gender differences" as you imply). Yes, that controversy has been politicized. But, it has nothing to do with any sex differences we might see in the Olympics.

In this study people took a quiz about chickens in which EVERY correct answer was "Nature did it" and some of the people in the ivory tower got it wrong. But look at who exactly got it most wrong. It was people who study sex differences (in humans) all the time, who know that sometimes the answer is "Nurture did it" (Sociologists and Women's Studies Departments) They likely made educated guesses and tried to extrapolate their (vast) knowledge about humans onto chickens.

But what about the other Higher ED faculty? Is there any reason to think that TEACHERS, who's job BTW is to encourage students toward positive changes, (nurture them if you will), might have a propensity to recognize that NURTURE can have a great effect on people? Yes, I think so. So Yes, they also guessed wrong more often on the chicken gender questions too.

Blaming the wrong answers on political partisanship is premature.

 

[untermensche]

To me average opinion on anything has no significance.

It is a mere contingency. Not explained easily or usually explained at all.

What has significance is the range of accepted opinion.

That sheds some light on any group.

 

[Bomb#20]

http://www.evostudies.org/pdf/GeherVol2Iss1.pdf

So the "nurture" position is only advanced when inconvenient science overlaps with politics. Where the science is not politically inconvenient, people accept science as it is. Anyway, in light of the Olympics going on right now, it's a bit bewildering how anyone would contend that gender differences are the result of "nurture."

So, what is it that makes you ignorant of the difference between correlations and casual relations?

Which came first, the inclination to pre-screen hypotheses for peer-group acceptability or the academic employment?

 

[ronburgundy]

To me average opinion on anything has no significance.

It is a mere contingency. Not explained easily or usually explained at all.

What has significance is the range of accepted opinion.

That sheds some light on any group.

IF the group members are each using evidence and specified standards of evidential reasoning, then the range of accepted opinion will be more narrow.
The more they ignore any objective basis for their opinion, the more variable the opinions will be.

Regardless of range of opinion, an "average" or majority opinion that is out of step with what the evidence supports, indicates that the field in general is driven more by ideology than honest intellectual inquiry.

That said, few of the opinions even by "Women's Studies/ Sociology" academics can be clearly said to be at odds with the science.
The scale was out of 50, with 50 being the most extremely "nurture" and 25 being in the middle between nature and nurture.
For hens and roosters, even this group had a score of 18, which is on the "nature" side. For, male/female differences they scored in the mid 30's which is on the "nurture" side, but means they acknowledge some degree of nature differences on most of the behaviors.

The evidence on most these behaviors is uncertain about the exact relative contributions, so they are not so much ignoring the science as they are using their unscientific preference to toward the high end estimate in favor of nurture.

The most problematic area is on the non-gendered, across culture human universals like finding vomit disgusting, or smiling, preferences for sweet tasting foods, the types of emotions (happy, sad) that people experience (not what causes the emotions just the types), favoring kin or in-group members over strangers, etc.. These "soft science" academics had a score of 28 which slightly favors "nurture", despite the evidence and the cross cultural consistency directly specified in the questions themselves strongly favoring "nature" as primarily responsible.

 

[ronburgundy]

So, what is it that makes you ignorant of the difference between correlations and casual relations?

Which came first, the inclination to pre-screen hypotheses for peer-group acceptability or the academic employment?

Right, although I am not sure that the motive is so much seeking peer-group acceptance as simply being ideologically/politically attracted to explanations that discount biology and genetics in explaining human psychology and behavior, and this ideology attracts people into particular fields within academia.

Although, as I point out above, they are not denying biologically based differences, so much as claiming that they are less responsible than culture and socialization for currently observable differences between genders and similarities across cultures (the latter is the most problematic, since it doesn't even make logical sense that culture could explain why various cultures do not create variability in specific psychological tendencies).

From what I can tell, the implication of the OP study is that for causal reasons that are unknown, academics within fields concerned with gender politics and the culture err on the side of a high estimate for socialization effects to account for sex differences, and somehow thing that socialization can even account for basic (often unconscious) psychological tendencies that are highly consistent across different cultures.

 

[fromderinside]

How to build a self fulfilling prophesy machine. Define terms from within the area one is interested in defining. Then employ peolpe with a vested interest in that area to design it.

 

[Potoooooooo]

I believe if a rooster wants to identify as a hen, that decision should be respected and it is an insult to refer to this bird as a cock.

In real life, except for the eggs,

Don't be too sure https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/CCR/article/viewFile/13488/13422I

 

[untermensche]

To me average opinion on anything has no significance.

It is a mere contingency. Not explained easily or usually explained at all.

What has significance is the range of accepted opinion.

That sheds some light on any group.

IF the group members are each using evidence and specified standards of evidential reasoning, then the range of accepted opinion will be more narrow.
The more they ignore any objective basis for their opinion, the more variable the opinions will be.

Regardless of range of opinion, an "average" or majority opinion that is out of step with what the evidence supports, indicates that the field in general is driven more by ideology than honest intellectual inquiry.

That said, few of the opinions even by "Women's Studies/ Sociology" academics can be clearly said to be at odds with the science.
The scale was out of 50, with 50 being the most extremely "nurture" and 25 being in the middle between nature and nurture.
For hens and roosters, even this group had a score of 18, which is on the "nature" side. For, male/female differences they scored in the mid 30's which is on the "nurture" side, but means they acknowledge some degree of nature differences on most of the behaviors.

The evidence on most these behaviors is uncertain about the exact relative contributions, so they are not so much ignoring the science as they are using their unscientific preference to toward the high end estimate in favor of nurture.

The most problematic area is on the non-gendered, across culture human universals like finding vomit disgusting, or smiling, preferences for sweet tasting foods, the types of emotions (happy, sad) that people experience (not what causes the emotions just the types), favoring kin or in-group members over strangers, etc.. These "soft science" academics had a score of 28 which slightly favors "nurture", despite the evidence and the cross cultural consistency directly specified in the questions themselves strongly favoring "nature" as primarily responsible.

The problem is "social sciences" are filled with a lot of things that are not science.

There is a lot of mere opinion and speculation.

In a field filled with opinion and speculation the average opinion is completely meaningless.

Except to people with a fetish about averages and assign magical significance to averages, which are usually just random contingencies without any meaning.

 

[ronburgundy]

IF the group members are each using evidence and specified standards of evidential reasoning, then the range of accepted opinion will be more narrow.
The more they ignore any objective basis for their opinion, the more variable the opinions will be.

Regardless of range of opinion, an "average" or majority opinion that is out of step with what the evidence supports, indicates that the field in general is driven more by ideology than honest intellectual inquiry.

That said, few of the opinions even by "Women's Studies/ Sociology" academics can be clearly said to be at odds with the science.
The scale was out of 50, with 50 being the most extremely "nurture" and 25 being in the middle between nature and nurture.
For hens and roosters, even this group had a score of 18, which is on the "nature" side. For, male/female differences they scored in the mid 30's which is on the "nurture" side, but means they acknowledge some degree of nature differences on most of the behaviors.

The evidence on most these behaviors is uncertain about the exact relative contributions, so they are not so much ignoring the science as they are using their unscientific preference to toward the high end estimate in favor of nurture.

The most problematic area is on the non-gendered, across culture human universals like finding vomit disgusting, or smiling, preferences for sweet tasting foods, the types of emotions (happy, sad) that people experience (not what causes the emotions just the types), favoring kin or in-group members over strangers, etc.. These "soft science" academics had a score of 28 which slightly favors "nurture", despite the evidence and the cross cultural consistency directly specified in the questions themselves strongly favoring "nature" as primarily responsible.

The problem is "social sciences" are filled with a lot of things that are not science.

There is a lot of mere opinion and speculation.

In a field filled with opinion and speculation the average opinion is completely meaningless.

Except to people with a fetish about averages and assign magical significance to averages, which are usually just random contingencies without any meaning.

I agree that much of the social sciences is not science, and the results of the OP study suggests that Women's studies and Sociology are generally rife with people who fail to approach some key questions in their fields in a scientific way.

Statistical averages are in no way random or not typically meaningless. They don't reveal all information, but they usually reveal some meaningful information. These types of opinion measures the OP study is using are almost always distributed in a normal bell curve where the average is nearly identical to the median and mode. Thus, the average tells us that most people in the sample hover around that value and that 50% of the sample is above that value. Also, the paper reports the standard deviations which is actually a fare more informative index of variability within each group than simple range (which is highly impacted by extreme outliers). Standard deviations correspond to the % of the sample that is with a given value from the average, and thus the two values can be used to estimate the % of the sample above or below any value on the measured variable.

Assuming the most probable normal distributions, the result suggest that not only did a simple majority of the academics in Women's Studies and Sociologists strongly favor nurture as more important in gender differences but that about 93% of them favored nurture to some degree and around 17% of them had a opinion score of 47 or higher out of 50, meaning they dismissed any meaningful role of biology in the behavioral sex differences they were asked about. Also, about 65% of the people in this group think the some of the most well established human universals are more nurture than nature. This is informative and important, given that the majority in a field tend to control what ideas get published, especially in areas like Women's studies that are rife with ideological stances against the use of the kind of quantitative data that best allows for minority opinions to be aired based upon their empirical support rather than conformity to dominant ideologies.

What is less meaningful, are the averages for the "other" academic group which would be a collection of people from natural sciences, Psychology, and Humanities/Liberal Arts. These groups are likely to differ widely on these issues. The averages for this group hover right around the mid-point of the scale where nature and nurture are given equal weight. Given other information indicating more philosophical/ideological overlap of Women's Studies with Humanities than the Natural Sciences, it is likely that the averages for this "other" group are a combo of Humanities folks that share the nurture view of Women's Studies, and Natural Scientists that have a clear preference for "nature" explanations.

 

[Trausti]

I agree that much of the social sciences is not science, and the results of the OP study suggests that Women's studies and Sociology are generally rife with people who fail to approach some key questions in their fields in a scientific way.

A concern may be that these ideologically tainted "soft" sciences are passed off as just as rigorous and legitimate as the "hard" sciences.

http://spq.sagepub.com/content/79/3/181?etoc

 

[ronburgundy]

I agree that much of the social sciences is not science, and the results of the OP study suggests that Women's studies and Sociology are generally rife with people who fail to approach some key questions in their fields in a scientific way.

A concern may be that these ideologically tainted "soft" sciences are passed off as just as rigorous and legitimate as the "hard" sciences.

http://spq.sagepub.com/content/79/3/181?etoc

I don't see where they claim empirical methods that are "just as rigorous" as hard sciences. The abstract doesn't seem to make any causal claims. They are just describing various ways in which parents have been observed using Zoo exhibits to convey beliefs and expectations about gender. Hopefully, they used valid methods of systematic sampling and recorded how common these types of exchanges are. Questions like gender socialization can and should be studied with empirical quantitative methods.

I have looked at the actual "study" and sadly it they fail to use any kind of valid empirical methodology, but that cannot be gleaned from the abstract itself. What do you find especially problematic in that abstract?