Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Sexual Dimorphism

I won’t mention any names, but someone put a bug up my butt.  It’s something that I don’t understand about my own gender.  Holly Dunsworth, an anthropology professor, made a few tweets in regards to Jerry Coyne’s article.

The Ideological Opposition to Biological Truth

• It's not that these facts aren't necessarily facts, or whatever. It's that it's too simple and biased toward some stories, ignoring others.
  
  
• Knowledgeable people aren't objecting to facts. They're objecting to biased story-telling and its annoying and harmful consequences.
  
  
• What about the other side of the sexual dimorphism story? The women? Selection could well be the reason they stop growing before men.
  
  
• Perhaps men can make babies while growing, but perhaps women can't. Energetically, metabolically. So reproduction wins over growth.
  
  
• ...and it's as if women don't exist at all in these tales except as objects for males to fight over or to fuck but it's nice to have choice!
  

Here’s what I don’t understand about the feminist aversion towards sexual selection.  Darwin was a little biased.  I get that.  He thought that female choice would result in the development of beauty without utility. On the contrary, male-male competition would improve the species.  But if size is a sign of health, and if women do prefer tall, strong men, how in the hell is that sexist?  What am I missing?

Yeah, sacrificing facts for an ideological or idealistic "larger truth" has become pretty standard among the left.

If most women could override their biology (or cultural conditioning, according to feminists), they could sexually select for metro-sexual, effeminate men and actually change the selection pressure on men. But we all know that those guys are the perpetual, platonic friends who generally don't contribute as much to the gene pool. But I think intrasex competition reinforces the opposite sex selection, so I doubt a unilateral change would have any real impact.

(Jan 6, 2017 04:16 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah, sacrificing facts for an ideological or idealistic "larger truth" has become pretty standard among the left.

If most women could override their biology (or cultural conditioning, according to feminists), they could sexually select for metro-sexual, effeminate men and actually change the selection pressure on men. But we all know that those guys are the perpetual, platonic friends who generally don't contribute as much to the gene pool. But I think intrasex competition reinforces the opposite sex selection, so I doubt a unilateral change would have any real impact.

I know, right? Or we could make a pact. Do only weak men and no one over 5’2. Nah, then we’d have to do all the heavy lifting and protect you. Screw that.

(Jan 5, 2017 11:20 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ] Sexual Dimorphism

I won’t mention any names, but someone put a bug up my butt.  It’s something that I don’t understand about my own gender.  Holly Dunsworth, an anthropology professor, made a few tweets in regards to Jerry Coyne’s article.

The Ideological Opposition to Biological Truth

• It's not that these facts aren't necessarily facts, or whatever. It's that it's too simple and biased toward some stories, ignoring others.
  
  
• Knowledgeable people aren't objecting to facts. They're objecting to biased story-telling and its annoying and harmful consequences.
  
  
• What about the other side of the sexual dimorphism story? The women? Selection could well be the reason they stop growing before men.
  
  
• Perhaps men can make babies while growing, but perhaps women can't. Energetically, metabolically. So reproduction wins over growth.
  
  
• ...and it's as if women don't exist at all in these tales except as objects for males to fight over or to fuck but it's nice to have choice!
  

Here’s what I don’t understand about the feminist aversion towards sexual selection.  Darwin was a little biased.  I get that.  He thought that female choice would result in the development of beauty without utility. On the contrary, male-male competition would improve the species.  But if size is a sign of health, and if women do prefer tall, strong men, how in the hell is that sexist?  What am I missing?

In a pioneering study of Japanese immigrants to Hawaii published in 1939, Harry Shapiro found there to be a significant difference between the heights of Hawaiian-born Japanese and the Japanese immigrant population. Shapiro concluded that environmental factors, particularly diet and healthcare, play a significant role in determining height and other physical characteristics. The underlying idea here is that migration from poor countries to rich ones may lead to dramatic changes between generations. In a similar study, Marcus Goldstein (1943) found there to be differences in the heights and other characteristics of the children of Mexican immigrants and their parents, as well as with native born Mexican children.

well you had to force me didnt you.
now i must think of you as female.
(bit tounge in cheek referring to my ambition to treat all people equally when it comes to projected paradigms of bigotted behaviour patterns, be they cultural or eronious)
anywho...
well i think the issue is 2 fold
1 men get quite upset about not being the first choice and any excuse you use is going to be an issue.
2 you cant change height but you can change wealth and looks. although not many change looks but working out heaps to get an awesome body tends to then change your position in the market for breeding options(if superficial sexual selection for sexual engagement is classed as a breeding option(which im fairly sure many to most women will rebuke such a suggestion fairly quickly).
thereis also the "in your face" element for non tall men who have always seen the tall men selected ahead of them.. so that is considered as bowing to sexism as a practice.
unfortunately the debate is riddled with people trying to have sexual satiation for their ego and self esteem thus so they feel there is hope of finding a sexual partner whom is substantially better looking than they consider themselves or act.
ironically here the anthropologists should be jumping in and asserting some frames of pairing Vs Mating and modern capitalistic greed as a process of buying a higher rated sexual mate than you are on the very same scale.

hope that gives you some pointers to your question

(Jan 6, 2017 05:22 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]

(Jan 6, 2017 04:16 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah, sacrificing facts for an ideological or idealistic "larger truth" has become pretty standard among the left.

If most women could override their biology (or cultural conditioning, according to feminists), they could sexually select for metro-sexual, effeminate men and actually change the selection pressure on men. But we all know that those guys are the perpetual, platonic friends who generally don't contribute as much to the gene pool. But I think intrasex competition reinforces the opposite sex selection, so I doubt a unilateral change would have any real impact.

I know, right?  Or we could make a pact.  Do only weak men and no one over 5’2.  Nah, then we’d have to do all the heavy lifting and protect you.  Screw that.

Those traits traditionally associated with a "strong male" are not necessarily physiological. They require that very same "strong male" to stick around and raise the children.
The Alpha Male is exactly what we say it is, nothing more or less. 

Men aren't a Calvin Kline ad of a handsome, fit man holding a baby... but we're doing our best to ensure they are. Right down to the black and white photo of him in his underwear. Give it 50 years, and CC's 50's avatars will be 2018 versions of CK or Levis ads. Not a solution, but a pendulum. 

 Oh, and Syne - the propensity to sacrifice facts in favour of idealism is not only the province of the left. The last three words were entirely unnecessary.
The application of facts in support of one viewpoint or another has resulted in the meaning of the word "fact" to become eroded - and you're not helping.

Same goes for Rainbow Unicorn and his "capitalistic greed" bit.
For fucks sake, capitalism has nothing to do with it. Unless you think that even in your perfect Utopian non-capitalist society, there would be no such thing as a successful man.

... and god help us all if you're right.

(Jan 6, 2017 03:55 PM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: [ -> ]Those traits traditionally associated with a "strong male" are not necessarily physiological. They require that very same "strong male" to stick around and raise the children.

Weren't you just criticizing Syne for not recognizing "tongue and cheek"?  

Beauty Without Utility

Why would Darwin think that?  Is that what men do?  

Awhile back, I was thinking about a study that showed that men are more cooperative than women.  I was invited to a female gathering.  A few ladies brought their children.  That is when you see the highlights of female cooperation.  Everyone watched over them and participated in their care.

Like I said before, females are very aggressive and very competitive.  It’s funny because supposedly, we’re the ones that don’t want to be viewed as mere objects.  What was it that she said again?  Objects of beauty to either fight for or fuck.  

Beauty without utility; well, that is our weapon of choice against each other.  Yes, she’s beautiful but crazy.  Beautiful but a slut.  Beautiful but a bitch.  Beautiful but a conniver.  Beautiful but dumb as a box of rocks.  Beautiful but fake.  Beautiful but a prude. Beautiful but a gold digger.  When we’re competing, our weapons of choice are criticism and social exclusion.  

So, here we are complaining that men view us as objects without utility, and yet we’re the ones whispering the lack of utilities into their ears.  We complain about their aggressive behavior, but we primarily choose aggressive males, whether it be intellectually, financially, or physically.  Do we want the pretty boys?  They’re more prone to divorce.  Why?  Is it because they're more likely to cheat or because they tend to rely on their looks vs. utility?  It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one.  For women, it is also just as easy to fall in love with an unattractive man vs. a useless pretty boy.

IMHO, the tension between women and men seem to lie within those two little words.  Beauty and utility.  Objects of beauty vs. objects of utility.   We want to be seen as useful, but this is exactly what men complain about.  They don’t want to be seen as a mere utility.

"Man is for woman a means: the purpose is always the child."—Nietzsche

A Beautiful Woman is Always in Danger of Becoming a Witch  

"But what is woman for man?  Two different things wanteth the true man: danger and diversion."—Nietzsche

Love and War

Why are we so prone to herd mentally and why do we fall in love so easily?

Desire

Our social basis of self-preservation extends beyond our own personal physical survival.  Both are a means of escape.  It is a necessity and a diversion from the human condition.  We consider not only our present needs, but our future needs, as well, and this, too, extends beyond the self.

Whether it be the power of love or the love of power, both are equally intoxicating. The gods were always considered the source of the living water, our love and power.

"Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have tended."—J.C.


The symbolic, the abstract, and language are very useful tools, and have allowed us to rule the world, but at the same time it has also caused us to see patterns that aren’t there, e.g., ideologies, gods, systems of order.

The Scheme of Things

"Where then, do you turn once you’ve turned away from everything unworthy of belief? "

Towards each other.  You fall into each other.

If the universe is the ultimate free lunch then life must be a feast.  I cannot tell you how to live, but if you want to live a life worth living, you have to eat the fruit, bitches.  

My girlfriend’s dog just died.  She’s sad, lonely, and single.  I'm hoping to cheer her up by taking her out to lunch and wine tasting.  Today I will strive to be the perfect wing-women.

Cheers!

(Jan 6, 2017 03:55 PM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: [ -> ]

(Jan 6, 2017 04:16 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah, sacrificing facts for an ideological or idealistic "larger truth" has become pretty standard among the left.

Oh, and Syne - the propensity to sacrifice facts in favour of idealism is not only the province of the left. The last three words were entirely unnecessary.
The application of facts in support of one viewpoint or another has resulted in the meaning of the word "fact" to become eroded - and you're not helping.

Ah, but the right doesn't foster the pretense that they hew especially close to science. We all expect religious people to be forwarding ideological views, but the left pretends they are forwarding science, while twisting it ideologically, as illustrated by the link in the OP. You trying to equate the two seems biased or naive. Sure, if the right claimed to be just as objective and science-based as the left, you might have a point. But since they don't, the left is clearly busy obfuscating their ideological motives, even if primarily from themselves.

(Jan 6, 2017 03:55 PM)Ben the Donke Wrote: [ -> ]Same goes for Rainbow Unicorn and his "capitalistic greed" bit.
For fucks sake, capitalism has nothing to do with it. Unless you think that even in your perfect Utopian non-capitalist society, there would be no such thing as a successful man.

... and god help us all if you're right.

Good point, i am being quite lazy with my terminology.
and after reading your response i realise most would read my word use as a political statement rather than a clinical discription of a process of collective action.
i am not anti capitalism fyi if that helps with interpretation of the origin point of the use. though it should not make much difference. though most people tend to have very clear divides between concepts of social or societal mechanisation of ideological principals in action.
(expanding that a little for better clarity)... social concepts, ideas, ideologies, morals, wants, needs, all put into actual working practice.
they create a culture. be that percieved or purported, i refer to the actual physical working model.

soo... capitalism in action = ?
media in action = ?
society/people watching media = ?
people acting in accordance with media by going out and purchasing things, going to partys wearing things, themes, art, building and housing design... all things effect all things.
some more directly and expressly than others.
capitalism is a simple fact of mechanisation of society.
suggesting 1 system is purely capitalist or purely communist is simply false.
there are no pure capitalist or pure communist systems inplace, AND people as a species bend concepts such as pure anything into more of a working model of human traites, thus mixed market economys are most desirable by the majority of free thinking people.
greed expressed through a mechnisation of capitalist processs
thus capitalistic greed...
the nature of the money feeding its own will to make more money and people and organisations putting energy into that which tends to drive its self into a greater form of pure money making devoid of the human animal in a societal function.
thus... leaders must balance capitalistic greed against the human needs to make sure society does not break down in either direction.
be that into communisn which stiffles free will artistic expresion and freedom of speach and thought...much like pure capitaism does just the same.


i use the word "pure" because a vast majority of readers are pre programmed to think mixed market economys are infact capitalism.
this is simply a lack of the readers proper study or interest...lazy brain people i term them.peopel who have no desire to actually find out the facts and fact check things who form opinions around superficial non referenced information.
hope that clarifys
as you were

(Jan 6, 2017 05:50 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]She’s sad, lonely, and single.

She's Alcahol, Alcahol, & more Alcahol ? did i hear you right ?

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(Jan 6, 2017 06:29 PM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]obfuscating their ideological motives, even if primarily from themselves

supplanted reality by denial of self understanding.
thats not a very factually based arguement as it can apply to both sides.
interestingly enough i find it bizar that americans normalise a clear divide in society when it comes to ideological paradigms of political values.
were all the politicans and leaders not millionaires and billionaires i would give it due consideration to consider the ideologies worth study.
however. the rich rule and that is the american system. much the same in other countrys.
as soon as you show a working model where rich do not rule THEN and only then can you validate a left or rght arguement devoid of a fundermentally over riding factor of predetermination.

(Jan 6, 2017 06:29 PM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Ah, but the right doesn't foster the pretense that they hew especially close to science. We all expect religious people to be forwarding ideological views, but the left pretends they are forwarding science, while twisting it ideologically, as illustrated by the link in the OP. You trying to equate the two seems biased or naive. Sure, if the right claimed to be just as objective and science-based as the left, you might have a point. But since they don't, the left is clearly busy obfuscating their ideological motives, even if primarily from themselves.

Unfortunately,  this is veering from the main topic, and a rather verbose explanation, but this is exactly where I’m stuck. On this word…ideology.

It is often used as a pejorative, but Marx used the term "ideology" in two ways. Broadly, it meant the entire "superstructure," such as ideas, beliefs, institutions, laws, and social systems, built upon the economic "base." Marx also used the term to denote legal, social, political, religious, philosophical, and cultural ideas and thought.  Ideology is "the imaginary relation to the real conditions of existence".

We have the ability to have representations, not only of the physical world, but the invisible world of causation.  We have this ongoing model of reality in addition to our experience of reality.  We’re obsessed with creating the correct model.—Peter Tse

Allen Wheelis uses the expression "scheme of things," as a social creation, something offered to the individual by society as a system of significance.

In the jungle there is no right or wrong.  We long to go back, but there’s no turning back.  You can take the man out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the man.  We became aware of our choices.  The agony of choice flooded the market with absolute truths.  We buy and sell snake oil.  Zapfee thought that we relate to these truths as moths to a flame.

Nihilism can then be used to describe a rejection of such systems, tools and rules on knowing how to live, but they seem almost inescapable, a necessity, if you will.

Earlier, I said to Ben that you have to either have a little more faith in people or throw yourself to the dogs. Once you ask yourself how the truth can succeed in a world where the lie is all-conquering, you immediately become a contra mundum, and you’d better be strong because you’ll have far more enemies than friends.

Freedom Creates the Condition for Morality

Can you give yourself your own evil and your own  good and hang your own will over yourself as a law?

Here is where I find myself trapped, and faced with a conundrum, an inescapable rabbit hole, as I see it.  At the very moment you try to pick yourself up, and brush off the nihilistic dust, you’re immediately kicked in the gut.  You’re a hypocrite straightaway, knowing full well that you are one of them.  One in need of a system of measure to judge one’s self.  Like Nietzsche said, in trying to impose order on life, you run the risk of losing touch with reality, and replacing it with your own concoction, but in order to love life, you have to eat the fruit, and gain the knowledge of good an evil, but in doing so, it’s almost as if you have to have a willing suspension of disbelief.  

Syne leans towards panentheism.  Leigha (wegs) leans towards fairy stories.  Tolkien, too, suggested fairy stories. He defends fairy stories as a means of escape from the human condition.  He thought Christianity served this purpose by creating a mythological nature of the cosmos.  Nietzsche, on the other hand, suggested Amor Fati (love of fate).

Wisdom and the Whip

Similar to the short story, "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chaing that inspired the movie “Arival”, is the love of fate.

In other words, if you could see your lives laid out before you, would you change anything? Chiang’s more direct message and Nietzsche’s Amor Fati is telling us to live as if the answer is, and always will be, a resolute no.

Love of fate?  Does anyone have any better ideas?

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(Jan 7, 2017 07:41 AM)RainbowUnicorn Wrote: [ -> ]

(Jan 6, 2017 05:50 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]She’s sad, lonely, and single.

She's Alcahol, Alcahol, & more Alcahol ? did i hear you right ?

We drank alcohol, if that's what you're asking.  We also had some goat cheese...not a fan.