Great piece! Love the condensation of the main points. I will save a link to this post - which should be accompanied by a post explaining why some people react so very emotional and hostile to any mention of sex differences. Which should be accompanied by a post about techniques of de-escalation …
I've been reading your book on Progressivism—it's brilliant and hilarious! Seriously, your objective approach is amazing. Any tips on how to evaluate evidence like you do?
Perhaps the best way to train yourself in reasoning is to see a lot of examples of good reasoning, and to get a lot of practice (try giving arguments, raising objections, and listening to what others say).
Is it culture? Certainly it is both culture and genetics. Culture affects mate selection and mate selection affects genes. Hunter-gather bands adapt to changing environments by changing their culture. Genes evolve and cultures evolve. Genes affect culture and culture affects genes.
People who say it’s just culture are wrong. People who say it’s just genetics can be mostly correct assuming they are taking a snapshot in time. When time is a variable, over long periods of time culture certainly has an impact.
Certainly there are some male-female differences that are cultural. You can identify these because they differ from one society to another. E.g., the women in some countries are wearing veils; obviously cultural. Also, there's probably some gene-culture co-evolution, where longstanding cultural institutions create selective pressures. E.g., monogamous and polygamous traditions might affect what kind of genes are most adaptive.
“(I would guess that most men have never regretted having sex and perhaps cannot even relate to that idea. It would be sort of like the idea of regretting accepting some free money.)“ Perhaps a man contracting an STD would feel regret.
True. Or a rapist who got caught. Or a person who was caught cheating. Etc. However, these are all cases of regretting certain tangible negative consequences. Women sometimes regret sex in itself, independent of any tangible consequences.
Excellent post; thanks for being willing to dive into the controversial waters!
Nit-picking about point C. 2.:
You say, 'Women’s reproductive capacity is maxed out at 1 offspring per 9 months' and then, 'If a woman gets a second husband, she does not double her reproductive capacity; she can still only reproduce once per 9 months'. I think the first point is factually wrong and slightly misaligned with the second (and main) point.
When a woman becomes pregnant, she is out of action for 9 months and locked in, which is your second point, but women COULD have more than 1 offspring in 9 months, twins as an example. (I said it was nit-picking!)
Yes, I thought of mentioning the possibility of twins, triplets, etc., but it seemed better to just talk about the standard case. Of course, men also have the same chance of having twins, etc., so the point remains that their reproductive capacity is multiplied by the # of partners they can get, which isn't the case for women.
There is also the point that if a woman gets another husband, she might increase her reproductive potential because, perhaps, she gets more resources, which perhaps increases the probability of the offspring surviving. But I judge this to be a small factor.
I heard another explanation once for why men did not reproduce that often in the past: many of them died in inter-tribal warfare before getting to reproduce. Is that something that came up when you were looking into evolutionary psychology?
Yes, but that is not an entirely different explanation. The inter-tribal warfare was largely over women. In most (all?) tribes, you're not allowed to kill your own tribe members. So men would attack neighboring tribes to kill the men and kidnap the women. Pinker discusses this in _How the Mind Works_.
Great piece! Love the condensation of the main points. I will save a link to this post - which should be accompanied by a post explaining why some people react so very emotional and hostile to any mention of sex differences. Which should be accompanied by a post about techniques of de-escalation …
I've been reading your book on Progressivism—it's brilliant and hilarious! Seriously, your objective approach is amazing. Any tips on how to evaluate evidence like you do?
Perhaps the best way to train yourself in reasoning is to see a lot of examples of good reasoning, and to get a lot of practice (try giving arguments, raising objections, and listening to what others say).
Thanks for your time!
I am glad to hear you enjoyed Huemer's book, Marlon! Hope you're well.
Is it culture? Certainly it is both culture and genetics. Culture affects mate selection and mate selection affects genes. Hunter-gather bands adapt to changing environments by changing their culture. Genes evolve and cultures evolve. Genes affect culture and culture affects genes.
People who say it’s just culture are wrong. People who say it’s just genetics can be mostly correct assuming they are taking a snapshot in time. When time is a variable, over long periods of time culture certainly has an impact.
Thanks Dr. Huemer.
Certainly there are some male-female differences that are cultural. You can identify these because they differ from one society to another. E.g., the women in some countries are wearing veils; obviously cultural. Also, there's probably some gene-culture co-evolution, where longstanding cultural institutions create selective pressures. E.g., monogamous and polygamous traditions might affect what kind of genes are most adaptive.
“(I would guess that most men have never regretted having sex and perhaps cannot even relate to that idea. It would be sort of like the idea of regretting accepting some free money.)“ Perhaps a man contracting an STD would feel regret.
True. Or a rapist who got caught. Or a person who was caught cheating. Etc. However, these are all cases of regretting certain tangible negative consequences. Women sometimes regret sex in itself, independent of any tangible consequences.
Yep. Starting to sound like a role playing game. You only earn regrets under special cases.
Excellent post; thanks for being willing to dive into the controversial waters!
Nit-picking about point C. 2.:
You say, 'Women’s reproductive capacity is maxed out at 1 offspring per 9 months' and then, 'If a woman gets a second husband, she does not double her reproductive capacity; she can still only reproduce once per 9 months'. I think the first point is factually wrong and slightly misaligned with the second (and main) point.
When a woman becomes pregnant, she is out of action for 9 months and locked in, which is your second point, but women COULD have more than 1 offspring in 9 months, twins as an example. (I said it was nit-picking!)
Yes, I thought of mentioning the possibility of twins, triplets, etc., but it seemed better to just talk about the standard case. Of course, men also have the same chance of having twins, etc., so the point remains that their reproductive capacity is multiplied by the # of partners they can get, which isn't the case for women.
There is also the point that if a woman gets another husband, she might increase her reproductive potential because, perhaps, she gets more resources, which perhaps increases the probability of the offspring surviving. But I judge this to be a small factor.
I heard another explanation once for why men did not reproduce that often in the past: many of them died in inter-tribal warfare before getting to reproduce. Is that something that came up when you were looking into evolutionary psychology?
Yes, but that is not an entirely different explanation. The inter-tribal warfare was largely over women. In most (all?) tribes, you're not allowed to kill your own tribe members. So men would attack neighboring tribes to kill the men and kidnap the women. Pinker discusses this in _How the Mind Works_.