Thursday, November 8, 2018

did i go over this before?

height is not thought to be entirely genetic today, at all, but determined by a complicated mix of genetic and nutritional factors - but mostly nutritional factors. and, what determines nutritional factors? the answer is cultural differences.

see, we feed girls less than we feed boys, and we expect girls to eat less than boys, too. so, we've set up a cultural input into a nutritional mechanism. and, without very rigorous controlled studies, we can't be absolutely certain what the dominant factor is - although what we know does suggest that if we control for nutrition then we should also control for height.

i believe that the classic experiment on this topic was done via a comparison of italian immigrants to the new york area. it was found that the children of italian immigrants were shorter than their parents, and this was attributed to poorer nutritional levels in new york, compared to those in italy.

to fully debunk the claim, what what we need to do here is to perform a very specific experiment, where we feed girls the same way as we feed boys right now, and we feed boys the same way as we feed girls right now. this is probably unethical, because the way we feed girls is a consequence of systemic sexist bias. however, i might suggest that we keep an eye on rising average female height - as one would expect that women should be getting taller over the next several years, or at least they should be in certain regions, as the way we feed and exercise our daughters changes to a more egalitarian basis. while this data is likely a long time coming, it is worth noting that data in countries where both sexes are very poor (like nigeria, and india) suggests that the height differences are questionably statistically significant.

to suggest i'm offended is a base strawman argument to distract from the factual question, which i dispute, and which is being stated without any convincing evidence - and contrary to the general understanding of the underlying mechanism.

is that what you wanted? good. i've got lots more. because, this is the frustrating thing - the fact is that reality has a left-wing slant to it, and not a right-wing filter on it.

and, we can debate the tabula rasa elsewhere. i'm going to follow rosseau. as i must.



"brain sex" is also a deeply debunked pseudoscience, and it is somewhat distressing to hear it referenced by a tenured professor.

the question of muscle mass needs to be investigated with controlled studies, just as height. but, again - there's little reason to think genetic factors should overpower nutritional/cultural ones.

regarding fat distribution, the mechanism is hormonal, and while this can be modified through medication, it is an understood genetic sex difference, if it is not further modified through chemistry.

mature gametes are binary, but all specialized cells can in theory be reproduced from source, so there is no reason we couldn't artificially create an egg from a male hair cell, or sperm from female skin cells. the specialization may be real, but drawing some kind of innate difference between them is anti-evolutionary.

likewise, one should note that both human sexes have x chromosomes, so we should not be talking about the difference between x and y but about the presence of a y, which is a flag - and which can be overturned via exposure to the relative sex hormones. and, you will note that i will repeatedly concede that there is a difference in chemistry, even as i reject a substantive difference in meaningful biology. this places the issue on a spectrum, as hormone levels fluctuate widely across the sexes - and are modifiable via medication.

right. and, are the overlapping bell curves determined to be causally determined by genetic sex differences, via rigorous science? (usually not). are they even statistically separable by gender? (usually not). and, are those differences in interest determined to be causally determined by genetic sex differences via rigorous science? are they even biological? (i can't come up with a single example, actually)? if not, is culture a better explanation?

the classical argument for women's rights was that women are not incapable but uneducated - that this is cultural.

ugh. this is stupid. i'm done.