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thewaitisogre · 11 months

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a closer look at the newspaper prop!

“chastising her husband” greg just couldn’t resist throwing their marriage under the bus 😭

#succession #tomgreg #tom wambsgans #greg hirsch #shiv roy #kendall roy #connor roy #roman roy #darwin perry #pam thompson

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deepquote9 · 4 months

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It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

Charles Darwin

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ddrcern · 7 months

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(x-y)³ ile bakışıyoruz

#math #my work #study #study motivation #success story #mathematics #darwin watterson #tumblog #tumblr fyp

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tenth-sentence · 7 months

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We must be cautious in attempting to correlate as strictly contemporaneous two formations, which include few identical species, by the general succession of their forms of life.

"On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" - Charles Darwin

#book quote #the origin of species #charles darwin #nonfiction #cautious #caution #correlation #contemporary #formation #identical #species #succession #life form

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transmutationisms · 5 months

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In what way are phrenological principles still foundational to research psychology & neurology, and science in general? Asking out of ignorance and wanting to know more.

so, phrenology throughout the 19th century was a broad program of research principles, self-help advice, and social-hygienic prognostication. we tend to think of it now as being reducible to a craniometric chart and a crank trying to divine personality traits from a person's skull shape—this did happen, but phrenology encompassed much more than that. it was a driving force in the increasing acceptance of ideas like brain localisation (that the brain did not act as one, but had distinct parts that could behave differently and independently to one another), the related position that human psychology and personalities could be classified / taxonomised / measured (like, 'attention' as being a faculty distinct from 'judgment' or 'reason' or so forth), and the belief that organic derangements of the brain accounted for a person's individual social / economic / intellectual success, as well as social phenomena like crime, delinquency, or addiction.

by about the 1890s, the word "phrenology" had become more or less dismissed in mainstream french and british scientific circles, and it was portrayed as a pseudoscientific perversion of respectable craniometry / anthropometry. this happened for many reasons, including that british and french medicine were professionalising over the course of the 19th century and that phrenological practitioners were often unlicensed and operating more in a marginal self-help space (akin to many of today's astrologers) than in institutionally sanctioned scientific circles. additionally, after world war ii, phrenology's association with eugenics made it even more unpalatable; it was now seen to be politically dangerous even to those who had previously endorsed eugenics. the same happened to many other theories and disciplines of social-hygienic or degeneration-theory ideas.

however, the rejection of phrenology that began in the late 19th century and intensified in the late 20th has been largely superficial, and 'modern' science has never really grappled with the phrenological roots of so much neuro-deterministic and anthropomentric thinking, from psychiatry to a great deal of moralistic public health to the incredibly deeply entrenched, yet blatantly prejudicial in every way, idea that a person's appearance is indicative of their character or morality. fundamentally phrenology was a major driver in the acceptance (in many different fields) of scientific 'naturalism', a general rejection of prior christian teleological thinking and search for universally deterministic scientific laws instead. rendering mental action into the category of 'natural thing governed by natural laws' was foundational, for example, to darwin's conception of evolution and his effort to distinguish his own theory from the teleological evolutionary theory of robert chambers.

none of this is to say that scientific naturalism ought to be inherently rejected, or replaced with christian metaphysics; however, failing to grapple with the fuller legacy of phrenology, and eugenics more generally, because we don't want to upset what philosophical boundaries we think we've erected between religion and 'modern' science allows such eugenic thinking to retain its centrality in current scientific practice.

it is also always worth emphasising that phrenology, like a lot of scientific theories of self-improvement, has frequently been employed as a vehicle of liberal ideology, particularly in britain. although phrenological practitioners have at various times tried to ally themselves with a superficially radical sort of 'common man's' rejection of the élite scientific institutions, phrenology has at the same time followed a general trajectory whereby it emphasises more and more an idea of personal responsibility for one's own neuro-biological traits and associated character flaws. this is often seen as more palatable than outright hereditarian thinking because, rather than tacitly endorsing the expurgation of the biologically 'unfit', the liberal phrenologist affirms that people simply need to overcome, tame, or temper their own neurobiological defects in order to live productive, socially desirable lives. cf. 'negative' versus 'positive' eugenics.

if you're interested in this i would recommend roger cooter's 'the cultural meaning of popular science: phrenology and the organisation of consent in 19th-century britain' (1984) and philip rehbock's 'the philosophical naturalists: themes in early 19th-century british biology' (1983). cooter was an avowed marxist and his account of phrenology, science, and their relationships to industrial capitalism—while not flawless—is markedly different from any other prior literature on the topic. rehbock's book is less politically daring and less focussed on phrenology specifically, but clarifies some aspects of scientific naturalism and what is meant by distinguishing a 'modern' scientific episteme from earlier practices and principles.

#hps

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thedivineart · 1 year

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PICK A CARD ✶ list of reasons why will you love your future spouse﹙🍥﹚

one

cards: 7 of hearts, 10 of hearts, 4 of diamond,

peaceful and calming or healing aura

loves to surprise people but in positive way

sincere and devoted to their feelings

will possibly give you a loving and happy marriage life

successful individual due to their honesty

make someone softens around them

someone who to have large family like 4 kids and more

brings happiness and security at home

loves to play with kids

fear of being abandon or being left alone

brings heat and warmness in your heart

allowing you to fulfill your desires

very committed person when it comes to marriage life

everything they do or say something it brings amusement into you

build strong foundation for the relationship and marriage, as well friendship and sexual matters

financially stable or someone who will bring comfort in your life whether emotional and materialism

others: south node in taurus, strong taurus placements, moon in libra or strong libra placements, grass green, mint green, lavander or purple, violet, Possible names: mint, cyan, wrigley, pepper, Wesley, Adam, Esme, Aaron, Rhodes, Keanu, Sabrina, Emerald, Naomi, Alex/ Alexander / Alexandra, Ann or Anna / Hannah, Danielle/ Daniela / Daniel, Venus / Vanessa / Van / Vaughn, Oliver/ Olive /Olivia, Gareth, Finn / Finley, Kelvin / Kevin, Justine, Alfredo / Alfred / Wilfred, Wilson, Tomas or Toby

If you liked this reading leaving like, comment or feedback and re-blog are highly appreciated, thank you😊🤍

two

cards: ace of hearts, 10 of hearts, 10 of clubs

in life their main focal is home, family and the happiness they can bring into their abode life

very passionate in family, give gifting and nourishment to love ones

may love to stay at home probably a home body individual or they are often into their home spending time with their family

also they are affectionate for their family , relationship and even in friendship

someone who care a lot and often reminds you to take care of yourself

likes to visits his or her love ones or the people they care the most

reliable person who knows how to solve and give advice specially in home and family matters

someone who can't say no or have a hard time to refuse in favor of others

they may also likes to bring joy in family

successful in any aspects of life like in business

the happiness is growing when you are with them

this person is the one whom you will called "home"

stable, solid and happy marriage life

you will become more happy or will smile often when you meet them

they want a huge family, lots of kids cause they do believe that the more the merrier it is

sometimes they will be annoyed in you or you will be annoyed in them

spending and taking vacations in near beaches, family bonding or a simple date in beach or something near water

will work hard to achieve something in their life not really only for themselves but for the family also

they feel success is only valid because they have a family who's support and affectionate into them

others: sagittarius, sagittarius rising, strong sagittarius placements, sagittarius conjuncts in taurus, moon in taurus, taurus placements, taurus conjunct aquarius, aquarius sun, strong aquarius placements, aquarius conjunct pisces, pisces rising, pisces placements, aquarius in 4th house, possible names: Megan, Lola / Lolita / Lollie, Mauve, Maggie / Margie / Madge, Gen, Olive, Cyrus, Ace, Cecil / Celina / Cecilia, Art / Artemis, Seraphine / Seraphina, Sage, Scarlett, Eleonor or with a, Rosalinda, Celeste, Ethan, Henry, Gema / Gemma, Rhea, Amethyst, Phoebe, Genevieve, Darwin, Alex / Alexander, Gallen, Hugo, Kyla or Kyra or with H, Kai, Finn, Rio, Clio, Gareth, Mina, Juliet, Joe

If you liked this reading leaving like, comment or feedback and re-blog are highly appreciated, thank you😊🤍

three

cards: 6 of clubs, queen of spades, jack of clubs , jack of diamonds

they do take the responsibility in problems or situation to resolve it, however in very specific people who happened to pick this pile, your fs doesn't want to deal to this kind of responsibility into their life.

they do use their intelligent to outsmart the people who will going to betray them

likes to share their thoughts, opinions, ideas and feelings; honest

when saying something you may notice they have hand gestures and body language

reading and writing is their way of showing love perhaps it could be one of their hobbies

cannot leave without learning and studying most of the time; could be educated individual as well, lots of achievement in study matter.

open and willing to share an advice if you need it, even not too they still giving you an advice though

ambitious and skillful when it comes to work and something they do

primarily to people who pick this pile doesn't still know who is this person or they still don't yet appear in your life, in few people you knew this person. a relative by marriage for some

they don't live in your neighborhood, living far away, might be a foreign for few

they know how to turn tables for good and probably in bad too; know how to convince people and manipulative as well

don't like to get close to anybody or everybody, it's like they got strong boundaries or they do know to keep their privacy to people that mostly appear as cold and aloof

hardworking and honest often in trusted position whenever they are, in school / university, sports, into their community etc, they love to participate in anything

others: moon in sagittarius, strong sagittarius placements, sagittarius conjuncts virgo, virgo sun, moon and rising, placements in virgo, purple, green, pretty, handsome, attractive well being, adventures, extrovert, loves freedom, optimistic, fair minded person, likes to be honest, Seraphina or Seraphine, blaze, sage, Scarlett, Diana or Dianne, Aurora, Arc, Archer, Hunter, Apollo, Curtis, Marshall, Alden, Jason, Clark, Dustin, Amelia, Virginia, Emery, Aster, Rhea, Gaia, Pari, Melissa, Hazel or Acel, Daphne or Daphnie, Agatha

If you liked this reading leaving like, comment or feedback and re-blog are highly appreciated, thank you😊🤍

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fuckyeahmarxismleninism · 1 year

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March 14, 1883: Death of Comrade Karl Marx, communist revolutionary and founder of scientific socialism.

Frederick Engels’ Speech at the Grave of Karl Marx:

On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep – but for ever.

An immeasurable loss has been sustained both by the militant proletariat of Europe and America, and by historical science, in the death of this man. The gap that has been left by the departure of this mighty spirit will soon enough make itself felt.

Just as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.

But that is not all. Marx also discovered the special law of motion governing the present-day capitalist mode of production, and the bourgeois society that this mode of production has created. The discovery of surplus value suddenly threw light on the problem, in trying to solve which all previous investigations, of both bourgeois economists and socialist critics, had been groping in the dark.

Two such discoveries would be enough for one lifetime. Happy the man to whom it is granted to make even one such discovery. But in every single field which Marx investigated – and he investigated very many fields, none of them superficially – in every field, even in that of mathematics, he made independent discoveries.

Such was the man of science. But this was not even half the man. Science was for Marx a historically dynamic, revolutionary force. However great the joy with which he welcomed a new discovery in some theoretical science whose practical application perhaps it was as yet quite impossible to envisage, he experienced quite another kind of joy when the discovery involved immediate revolutionary changes in industry, and in historical development in general. For example, he followed closely the development of the discoveries made in the field of electricity and recently those of Marcel Deprez.

For Marx was before all else a revolutionist. His real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutions which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the modern proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its emancipation. Fighting was his element. And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and a success such as few could rival.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/death/burial.htm

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kloppool · 5 months

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things from yesterday’s game that i will think about for a while

- domi and trent after his free kick

- endo‘s performance…it was gini vs barca 2nd leg esque

- darwin’s braids

- trent’s face when macca scored

- the camera vibrating and shaking from the roar of the crowd when trent’s winner went in

- luis CLINGING to trent

- everybody knee-sliding (some more successful then others)

- VIRGIL GETTING A CUT FROM SAID KNEE SLIDE

- klopp clutching domi and darwin

- the energy from the crowd to see us through the last few mins, that YNWA was incredible

#lfc #liverpool fc #liverpool #trent alexander arnold #dominik szoboszlai #wataru endo #alexis mac allister

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 year

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By: Robert Lynch

Published: April 7, 2023

In my first year of graduate school at Rutgers, I attended a colloquium designed to forge connections between the cultural and biological wings of the anthropology department. It was the early 2000s, and anthropology departments across the country were splitting across disciplinary lines. These lectures would be a last, and ultimately futile, attempt to build interdisciplinary links between these increasingly hostile factions at Rutgers; it was like trying to establish common research goals for the math and art departments.

This time, it was the turn of the biological anthropologists, and the primatologist Ryne Palombit was giving a lecture for which he was uniquely qualified — infanticide in Chacma baboons. Much of the talk was devoted to sex differences in baboon behavior and when it was time for questions the hand of the chair of the department, a cultural anthropologist, shot up and demanded to know “What exactly do you mean by these so-called males and females?” I didn’t know it at the time but looking back I see that this was the beginning of a broad anti-science movement that has enveloped nearly all the social sciences and distorted public understanding of basic biology. The assumption that sex is an arbitrary category is no longer confined to the backwaters of cultural anthropology departments, and the willful ignorance of what sex is has permeated both academia and public discussion of the topic.

Male and female are not capricious categories imposed by scientists on the natural world, but rather refer to fundamental distinctions deeply rooted in evolution. The biological definition of males and females rests on the size of the sex cells, termed gametes, that they produce. Males produce large numbers of small gametes, while females produce fewer, larger ones. In animals, this means that males produce lots of tiny sperm (between 200 and 500 million sperm in humans) while females produce far fewer, but much larger, eggs called ova (women have a lifetime supply of around 400). Whenever scientists discover a new sexually reproducing species, gamete size is what they use to distinguish between the males and the females.

Although this asymmetry in gamete size may not seem that significant, it is. And it leads to a cascade of evolutionary effects that often results in fundamentally different developmental (and even behavioral) trajectories for the two respective sexes. Whether you call the two groups A and B, Big and Little, or Male and Female, this foundational cell-sized difference in gamete size has profound effects on evolution, morphology, and behavior. Sexual reproduction that involves the union of gametes of different sizes is termed anisogamy, and it sets the stage for characteristic, and frequently stereotypical, differences between males and females.

My PhD advisor, the evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, was at that doomed colloquium at Rutgers. It was Trivers, who four decades earlier as a graduate student at Harvard, laid down the basic evolutionary argument in one of the most cited papers in biology. Throwing down the gauntlet and explaining something that had puzzled biologists since Darwin, he wrote, “What governs the operation of sexual selection is the relative parental investment of the sexes in their offspring.” In a single legendary stroke of insight, which he later described in biblical terms (“the scales fell from my eyes”), he revolutionized the field and provided a broad framework for understanding the emergence of sex differences across all sexually reproducing species.

Because males produce millions of sperm cells quickly and cheaply, the main factor limiting their evolutionary success lies in their ability to attract females. Meanwhile, the primary bottleneck for females, who, in humans, spend an additional nine months carrying the baby, is access to resources. The most successful males, such as Genghis Khan who is likely to have had more than 16 million direct male descendants, can invest relatively little and let the chips fall where they may, while the most successful women are restricted by the length of their pregnancy. Trivers’ genius, however, was in extracting the more general argument from these observations.

By replacing “female” with “the sex that invests more in its offspring,” he made one of the most falsifiable predictions in evolution — the sex that invests more in its offspring will be more selective when choosing a mate while the sex that invests less will compete over access to mates. That insight not only explains the rule, but it also explains the exceptions to it. Because of the initial disparity in investment (i.e., gamete size) females will usually be more selective in choosing mates. However, that trajectory can be reversed under certain conditions, and sometimes the male of a species will invest more in offspring and so be choosier.

When these so-called sex role reversals occur, such as in seahorses where the males “get pregnant” by having the female transfer her fertilized eggs into a structure termed the male’s brood pouch and hence becoming more invested in their offspring, it is the females who are larger and compete over mates, while the males are more selective. Find a species where the sex that invests less in offspring is choosier, and the theory will be disproven.

The assertion that male and female are arbitrary classifications is false on every level. Not only does it confuse primary sexual characteristics (i.e., the reproductive organs) which are unambiguously male or female at birth 99.8 percent of the time with secondary sexual characteristics (e.g., more hair on the faces of men or larger breasts in women), it ignores the very definition of biological sex — men produce many small sex cells termed sperm while women produce fewer large sex cells termed eggs. Although much is sometimes made of the fact that sex differences in body size, hormonal profiles, behavior, and lots of other traits vary across species, that these differences are minimal or non-existent in some species, or that a small percentage of individuals, due to disorders of development, possess an anomalous mix of female and male traits, that does not undermine this basic distinction. There is no third sex. Sex is, by definition, binary.

In the 50 years since Trivers’ epiphany, much has tried to obscure his crucial insight. As biology enters a golden age, with daily advances in genotyping transforming our understanding of evolution and medicine, the social sciences have taken a vastly different direction. Many are now openly hostile to findings outside their narrow field, walling off their respective disciplines from biological knowledge. Why bother learning about new findings in genetics or incorporating discoveries from other fields, if you can assert that all such findings are, by definition, sexist?

Prior to 1955, gender was almost exclusively used to refer to grammatical categories (e.g., masculine and feminine nouns in French). A major shift occurred in the 1960s when the word gender has been applied to distinguish social/cultural differences from biological differences (sex). Harvard Biologist, David Haig documented that from 1988 to 1999 the ratio of the use of “sex” versus “gender” in scientific journals shrank from 10 to 1 to less than 2 to 1, and that after 1988 gender outnumbered sex in all social science journals. The last twenty years have seen a rapid acceleration in this trend, and today this distinction is rarely observed. Indeed, the biological concept of sex in reference to humans has become largely taboo outside of journals that focus on evolution. Many, however, are not content with limiting the gender concept to humans and a new policy instituted by all Nature journals requires that manuscripts include a discussion of how gender was considered in all studies with human participants, on other vertebrates, or on cell lines. When would including gender be appropriate in a genetic study of fruit flies?

This change is not merely stylistic. Rather, it is part of a much larger cultural and political movement that denies or attempts to explain away the effects of biology and evolution in humans altogether. The prevailing dominant view in the social sciences is that human sex differences are entirely socially constructed. In that interpretation, all differential outcomes between men and women are the result of unequal social, economic, and political conditions, and so we do all we can to eliminate them, particularly by changing our expectations and encouraging gender-neutral play in children. This received wisdom and policies based upon it, however, are unlikely to produce the results proponents long for. Why is that?

Because sex differences in behavior are among the strongest effect sizes in social, and what might be better termed, behavioral sciences. Humans are notoriously inept at understanding differences between continuous variables, so it is first useful to define precisely what “statistical differences between men and women” does and does not mean. Although gamete size and the reproductive organs in humans are either male or female at birth in over 99 percent of cases, many secondary sexual characteristics such as differences in upper body strength and differences in behavior are not so differentially distributed. Rather, there is considerable overlap between men and women. Life scientists often use something called the effect size as a way to determine if any observed differences are large (and therefore consequential) or so small as to be ignored for almost all practical purposes.

Conceptually, the effect size is a statistical method for comparing any two groups to see how substantially different they are. Graphically, it can be thought of as the distance between the peaks of the two distributions divided by the width of those distributions. For example, men are on average about 6 inches taller than women in the United States (mean height for American women is 5 feet 3 inches and the mean height for American men is approximately 5 feet 9 inches). The spread of the height distributions for men and women, also known as the standard deviations, are also somewhat different, and this is slightly higher for men at 2.9 inches vs 2.8 inches for women. For traits such as height that are normally distributed (that is, they fit the familiar bell curve shape), one standard deviation on either side of the mean encompasses about 68 percent of the distribution, while two standard deviations on either side of the mean encompass 95 percent of the total distribution. In other words, 68 percent of women will be between 60.2 inches and 65.8 inches tall, and 95 percent will be between 57.5 to 68.6 inches. So, in a random sample of 1000 adult women in the U.S., approximately 50 of them will be taller than the average man (see figure above).

A large effect size, or the standardized mean difference, is anything over 0.8 and is usually seen as an effect that most people would notice without using a calculator. The effect size for sex differences in height is approximately 1.9. This is considered to be a pretty big effect size. But it is certainly not binary, and there are lots of taller-than-average women who are taller than lots of shorter-than-average men (see overlap area in figure). Therefore, when determining whether an effect is small or large, it is important to remember that the cutoffs are always to some degree arbitrary and that what might seem like small differences between the means can become magnified when comparing the number of cases that fall in the extremes of (the tails of their respective distributions) of each group.

In other words, men and women may, on average, be quite similar on a given trait but will be quite different in the number who fall at the extreme (low and high) ends of their respective distributions. This is particularly true of sex differences because natural selection acts more strongly on men, and males have had higher reproductive variance than females over our evolutionary history. That is to say that a greater number of men than women have left no descendants, while a very few men have left far more. Both the maximum number of eggs that a woman produces over the course of her reproductive life versus the number of sperm a man produces and the length of pregnancy, during which another reproduction cannot occur, place an upper limit on the number of offspring women can have. What this means is that males often have wider distributions for a trait (i.e., more at the low end and more at the high end) so that sex differences can be magnified at the tail ends of the distribution. In practical terms, this means that when comparing men and women, it is also important to look at the tails of their respective distributions (e.g., the extremes in mental ability).

The strongest effect sizes where men tend to have the advantage are in physical abilities such as throwing distance or speed, spatial relations tasks, and some social behaviors such as assertiveness. Women, meanwhile, tend to have an edge in verbal ability, social cognition, and in being more extroverted, trusting, and nurturing. Some of the largest sex differences, however, are in human mate choice and behaviors that emerge out of the evolutionary logic of Trivers’ parental investment theory. In study after study, women are found to give more weight to traits in partners that signal an ability to acquire resources, such as socioeconomic status and ambition, while men tend to give more weight to traits that signal fertility, such as youth and attractiveness.

Indeed these attitudes are also revealed in behavior such as age at marriage (men are on average older than women in every country on earth), frequency of masturbation, indulging in pornography, and paying for sex. Although these results are often dismissed, largely on ideological grounds, the science is rarely challenged, and the data suggest some biological difference (which may be amplified, indeed enshrined, by social practices).

The evidence that many sex differences in behavior have a biological origin is powerful. There are three primary ways that scientists use to determine whether a trait is rooted in biology or not. The first is if the same pattern is seen across cultures. This is because the likelihood that a particular characteristic, such as husbands being older than their wives, is culturally determined declines every time the same pattern is seen in another society — somewhat like the odds of getting heads 200 times in a row. The second indication that a trait has a biological origin is if it is seen in young children who have not yet been fully exposed to a given culture. For example, if boy babies are more aggressive than girl babies, which they generally are, it suggests that the behavior may have a biological basis. Finally, if the same pattern, such as males being more aggressive than females, is observed in closely related species, it also suggests an evolutionary basis. While some gender role “theories” can attempt to account for culturally universal sex differences, they cannot explain sex differences that are found in infants who haven’t yet learned to speak, as well as in the young of other related species.

Many human sex differences satisfy all three conditions — they are culturally universal, are observable in newborns, and a similar pattern is seen in apes and other mammals. The largest sex differences found with striking cross-cultural similarity are in mate preferences, but other differences arise across societies and among young children before the age of three as boys and girls tend to self-segregate into different groups with distinct and stereotypical styles. These patterns, which include more play fighting in males, are observable in other apes and mammal species, which, like humans, follow the logic of Trivers’ theory of parental investment and have higher variance in male reproduction, and therefore more intense competition among males as compared to females.

If so, why then has the opposite message — that these differences are either non-existent or solely the result of social construction — been so vehemently argued? The reason, I submit, is essentially political. The idea that any consequential differences between men and women have no foundation in biology has wide appeal because it fosters the illusion of control. If gender role “theories” are correct, then all we need to do to eliminate them is to modify the social environment (e.g., give kids gender-neutral toys, and the problem is solved). If, however, sex differences are hardwired into human nature, they will be more difficult to change.

Acknowledging the role of biology also opens the door to conceding the possibility that the existence of statistically unequal outcomes for men and women are not just something to be expected but may even be…desirable. Consider the so-called gender equality paradox whereby sex differences in personality and occupation are higher in countries with greater opportunities for women. Countries with the highest gender equality,24 such as Finland, have the lowest proportion of women who graduate college with degrees in stereotypically masculine STEM fields, while the least gender equal countries such as Saudi Arabia, have the highest. Similarly, the female-to-male sex ratio in stereotypically female occupations such nursing is 40 to 1 in Scandinavia, but only 2 to 1 in countries like Morocco.

The above numbers are consistent with cross-cultural research that indicates that women are, on average, more attracted to professions focused on people such as medicine and biology, while men are, again, on average, more attracted to professions focused on things such as mathematics and engineering. These findings are not a matter of dispute, but they are inconvenient for gender role theorists because they suggest that women and men have different preferences upon which they act when given the choice. Indeed, it is only a “paradox” if one assumes that sex is entirely socially constructed. As opportunities for women opened up in Europe and the United States in the sixties and seventies, employment outcomes changed rapidly. However, the proportions of men and women in various fields stabilized sometime around the early 1990s and have barely moved in the last thirty years. These findings imply that there is a limited capacity for outside interventions imposed from the top down to alter these behaviors.

In the cold logic of evolution, neither sex is, or can be, better or worse. Although this may not be the kind of equality some might want, we need to move beyond simplistic ideas of hierarchy.

It is understandable, however, for some to fear that any concession to nature will be used to justify and perpetuate bias and discrimination. Although arguments for why women should be prohibited from certain types of employment or why they should not be allowed to vote were ideological, sex differences have been used to justify a number of historical injustices. Still, is the fear of abuse so great that denying any biological sex differences is the only alternative?

The rhetorical contortions and inscrutable jargon required to assert that gender and sex are nothing more than chosen identities and deny what every parent knows require increasingly complex and incoherent arguments. This not only subverts the public’s rapidly waning confidence in science, but it also leads to extreme exaggerations designed to silence those who don’t agree, such as the claim that discussing biological differences is violence. The lengths to which many previously trusted institutions, such as the American Medical Association, go to deny the impact that hormones have on development are extraordinary. These efforts are also likely to backfire politically when gender-neutral terms are mandated by elites, such as the term “Latinx,” which is opposed by 98 percent of Hispanic Americans.

Acknowledging the existence of a biological basis for sex differences does not mean that we should accept unequal opportunities for men and women. Indeed, the crux of the problem lies in conflating equality with statistical identity and in our failure to respect and value difference. These differences should not be ranked in terms of inferior or superior, nor do they have any bearing on the worth or dignity of men and women as a group. They cannot be categorized as being either good or bad because it depends on which traits you want to optimize. This is real diversity that we should acknowledge and even celebrate.

Ever since the origin of sexual reproduction approximately two billion years ago, sexual selection, governed by an initial disparity in the size of the sex cells, has driven a cascade of differences, a few absolute, many more statistical, between males and females. As a result, men and women have been experiencing distinct evolutionary pressures. At the same time, however, this process has ruthlessly enforced an equality between the sexes, ensured by the fact that it takes one male and one female to reproduce, which guarantees the equal average reproduction of men and women. The production of sons and daughters, who inherit a near equal split of their parents’ genetic material, also demands that mothers and fathers contribute equally to their same- and their opposite-sex children. In the cold logic of evolution, neither sex is, or can be, better or worse. Although this may not be the kind of equality some might want, we need to move beyond simplistic ideas of hierarchy, naively confusing difference with claims of inferiority/superiority, or confusing dominance with power. In the currency of evolution, better just means more copies, dominance only matters if it leads to more offspring, and there are many paths to power.

The assertion that children are born without sex and are molded into gender roles by their parents is wildly implausible. It undermines what little public trust in science remains and delegitimizes other scientific claims. If we can’t be honest about something every parent knows, what else might we be lying about? Confusion about this issue leads to inane propositions, such as a pro-choice doctor testifying to Congress asserting that men can give birth. When people are shamed into silence about the obvious male advantages in almost all sports (but note women do as well or better in small bore rifle competition, and no man can match the flexibility of female gymnasts) and when transgender women compete in women’s sports, it endangers the vulnerable. When children are taught that all sex differences are entirely grounded in mere identity (whether self-chosen or culturally-imposed) and are in no way the result of biology, more “masculine” girls and more “feminine” boys may become confused about their sex, or sexual orientation, and harmful stereotypes can take over. The sudden rapid rise in the number of young girls diagnosed with gender dysphoria is a warning sign of how dangerously disoriented our culture can become.

Pathologizing gender nonconforming behavior often does the opposite of what proponents intend by creating stereotypes where none existed. Boys are told that if they like dolls, they are really girls trapped with male organs, while girls who display interests in sports or science are told they are boys trapped with female organs and born in the wrong body. Feminine boys, who might end up being homosexual, are encouraged to start down the road towards irreversible medical interventions, hormone blockers, and infertility. Like gay conversion therapy before, such practices can shame individuals for feeling misaligned with their birth sex and encourage them to resort to hormone “therapy” and/or surgery to change their bodies to reflect this new identity. Can that be truly seen as progressive and liberating?

The push for a biologically sexless society is an arrogant utopian vision that cuts us off from our evolutionary history, promotes the delusion that humans are not animals, and undercuts respecting each individual for their unique individuality. Sex is neither simply a matter of socialization, nor a personal choice. Making such assertions without understanding the profound role that an initial biological asymmetry in gamete size plays in sexual selection is neither scientific nor sensible.

Robert Lynch is an evolutionary anthropologist at Penn State who specializes in how biology, the environment, and culture transact to shape life outcomes. His scientific research includes the effect of religious beliefs on social mobility, sex differences in social relationships, the impact of immigration on social capital, how social isolation can promote populism, and the evolutionary function of laughter.

I've said before that I learned more about evolution as a result of combatting evolution denial from the religious than I ever did at school. It's similarly true that I've learned more about sex, biology, chromosomes, genes and hormones as a result of the sex-denialism and anti-science attitudes of the gender cult.

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willtheweaver · 3 months

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A writer’s guide to forests: from the poles to the tropics, part 7

Is it no.7 already? Wow. A big shout out to everyone who has had the patients to stick with this. Now onto this week’s forest…

Dry forest

Water is life. That’s a fact. And especially where it doesn’t rain for more than half the year.

Location: Dry forests are scattered throughout the Yucatán peninsula ,South America, various Pacific islands,Australia, Madagascar, and India. Areas have been cleared by human activity, and the SA dry forests are classified as the most threatened tropical forests.

Climate: Temperate to tropical, with just enough rain to sustain trees. Many are monsoonal, with rain coming in one or two brief periods separated by a long dry season.

Plant life- Hardy trees, such as Baobab and Eucalyptus are able to last with little rain by tapping into groundwater with extensive root systems. Many trees are evergreen, but in India, many species are deciduous. Trees are often more spaced out, and shrubs and grasses grow extensively. Cacti are common plants in the Americas, with some growing tall enough to be considered trees. In order to survive the heat and lack of water, many small plants are annuals, or store water in tubers. Palms can make up a large percentage of the trees, as was the case in the now vanished forests of Easter Island.

Animal life- As they can come and go when they please, birds are common species. Larger animals are active year round, with smaller species of mammals, amphibians, and certain insects only coming out during the rainy season. Isolation means that islands become home to many endemic species; think about Madagascar and the lemurs, or Darwin’s finches, iguanas, and tortoises in the Galapagos. Isolation has also led to the marsupials of Australia developing to fill the niches that would normally be occupied by placental mammals .The introduction of invasive species has brought about the extinction of island fauna.

How the forest affects the story- Water, or the lack of will be the biggest challenge your characters will face. Rivers and lakes may be seasonal, so other sources will have to be utilized. Drinkable fluids can be obtained from various plants and animals, or maybe the bedrock is porous and water accumulates in cenotes. Your characters could come from a culture that builds artificial reservoirs to collect the rain and store it for the dry season. With careful water management, cities can thrive in dry areas. But your characters will have to be careful. Prolonged drought will see societies go the way of the Maya. Deforestation leaves the topsoil vulnerable to the wind, and forests, farms, and grassland will inevitably turn to desert. Whether nomadic or sedentary, your characters and their society will have to find a way to interact with the forest without destroying it or themselves. Can they do it? Can a damaged biosphere be restored before it’s too late? The success or failure of your characters and/or their predecessors can be a driving focus of the plot. Of course ,when the rains do come, it could be in the form of a cyclone. Dry ground does not readily absorb water, and flash floods are a danger. Water can grant life, but it can take it as well.

#writing #creative writing #writing guide #writing inspiration #writing prompts #writer #writers #writing community #writer on tumblr #writeblr

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birdstudies · 7 months

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September 14, 2023 - Medium Ground-Finch (Geospiza fortis) Found primarily in scrub and the edges of forests on most of the Galapagos Islands, these birds in the tanager family are in the group of species known as Darwin’s finches. They eat seeds, fruits, and insects. During rainy El Niño years small seeds from grasses and other plants are more available, making finches with smaller bills more successful at finding food and more common in the population. In drier years when larger seeds become easier to find, larger-billed birds are more successful and the population’s average bill size tends to increase. Males build spherical nests from dry grass and other plant materials where females lay clutches of four eggs.

#medium ground-finch #tanager #darwin's finch #geospiza fortis #bird #birds #illustration #art #grassland #birblr art

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tenth-sentence · 7 months

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The forms which are beaten and which yield their places to the new and victorious forms, will generally be allied in groups, from inheriting some inferiority in common; and therefore add new and improved groups spread throughout the world, old groups will disappear from the world; and the succession of forms in both ways will everywhere tend to correspond.

"On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" - Charles Darwin

#book quote #the origin of species #charles darwin #nonfiction #evolution #natural selection #improvement #succession

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blueboyluca · 10 months

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These two books are wonderful companions that I highly recommend.

Wonderdog is the history of dog science, covering Darwin, Morgan, Pavlov, Skinner, Scott & Fuller, Miklósi, Hare, Bradshaw, Horowitz, Wynne and Berns (among others). It tracks the path of our understanding of what dogs are, how they work and where they fit.

The Secret History of Kindness follows another path. Starting with Skinner, it tracks the history of positive reinforcement training through the Brelands, Bailey, Pryor, Donaldson and ending up at Sidman. It's a different kind of read, but it spends a lot of time thinking out loud about how to understand dogs, how to treat them kindly, and what we need to change to do so.

One thing that really struck me when reading Holbrook Pierson's book was her stubbornness when it comes to love. I see this theme very commonly among dog trainers, their aversion to using the word love and their hesitation to apply it to dog behaviour. I share their skepticism, as we all know my thoughts about dog buttons, particularly their use of such an abstract term. And I used to harbour sharper thoughts about the topic, but I've since softened. What does it matter either way? I love my dogs, and the behaviour they show to me may as well be love. I'm not afraid of it, of its authenticity, of its depth, of anything.

While Howard comes at the topic of love from a similarly scientific perspective, he comes to the conclusion that it may as well be love. Wynne, the author of Dog is Love (currently reading), fully argues the point. There is a lot of evidence to support the idea: brain hormones, separation distress, heartbeat, MRI scans and ethological observation.

This is enough for these men, why isn't is enough for Holbrook Pierson? My guess is the gender thing. Knapp covered this in her exquisite book Pack of Two. Women get judged more for showing love to animals. Their feelings are routinely diminished, their behaviour ridiculed. I can't help but feel that Holbrook Pierson is holding back, not allowing herself to fully accept the idea of a dog's love. She wrote, "...being successful as a positive-reinforcement trainer depends on leaving the lovely messiness, the hopes and expectations, the merged emotions, the story line of love, out of the matter entirely." I simply don't agree. I contain multitudes, and so do my dogs.

These two books have been some of the best I've read in my ongoing self-education around dogs. They are excellent histories of dog science: thoughtful, nuanced and very enriching.

#dog books #dog thoughts

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litapeanut · 2 months

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Netflix's Alexander the making of a god: pretty rad actually

My judgement: 8/10

While I'm not a history professional but a humble Alexander-the-great enthusiast, and I must admit I cannot judge the historical accuracy of all bits of information presented in the documentary either, I'm still impressed by the overall production as well as the producers' intention.

Firstly, I appreciate the presentation of a "non-Europe-centric" world at the time of ATG (which is objective since this was a pre-colonialism era, where multiple powerful nations outside of Europe existed, such as ancient Persia, ancient India and ancient China) and ancient Persia is portrayed as a strong rival instead of an uncivilised foreign hostile (I laughed every time the Greeks or Persians refer to each other as "barbarians" because this was how almost every ancient kingdom viewed the others, which is funny from a modern perspective). In the same respect, Darius is given a rationale for his motivation and shown as a worthy opponent.

In regards to acting, to me this series has the most accurate casting choices so far, and even if Buck Braithwaite (the actor portraying Alexander) doesn't deliver the sort of grandiose performance one would expect to be suitable for a figure like ATG, I'm moved by how human and nuanced his version of Alexander feels.

I'm definitely pleased with how truthful the relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion is portrayed, it's probably the very first time in human cinematic history that we see a portrayal like this (confettis!).

Regarding the low ratings, I'm aware that there are primarily two concerns resulting in this: 1) conservatives being deeply upset about Alexander being explicitly bisexual. I disregard such opinion completely since I know it is decidedly conservative which I don't agree with; 2) a neutral concern about the show not offering enough historical facts / not being accurate enough. As mentioned above I'm not a history professional, so as a common viewer I can only "blindly" trust the scholars being consulted.

In fact, I found the ratings of nearly all the ATG cinematic productions to be relatively low, from the 1963 Alexander, to the 2004 Alexander, and to this Netflix production. I understand that people throughout the ages have had mountainous expectation for any portrayal of ATG since he was not only a truly competent ruler but also a cultural legacy. And there's also another layer: even though he had accomplished monumental success as a conquerer, nonetheless his conquering brought wars and suffering to the civilians. Although the geopolitical dynamic then was different from that of now, meaning the countries he conquered were not considered "less developed", still you CANNOT tell the contemporary audience, some of whom are descendants from those conquered countries, who are people of colour, that Alexander's conquering of their countries was a natural result of social Darwinism, that these countries deserved to be conquered and casualty didn't matter – it's insensitive. As a POC myself, in my eyes Alexander was very much a hero of his time who had some greatness that all people can aspire to, but his military exploits are morally debatable according to modern standards (I don't hate him, I almost named my cat after him, I only want to view him as dialectically as possible). In sum, positioning the moral of his story for the post-colonial modern audience is tricky. Therefore, this Netflix documentary is the best reimagination of him, at least in my personal opinion.

#review #long opinion #alexander the great #alexander x hephaestion #netflix #alexander making of a god #documentary #history

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