Intoscience

very informative, thanks What about sending Maverick (Tom Cruise) to shoot it down? I'm sure he would have sorted it no problem 😝

I'm more than happy to abandon an old model for new, if it is an improvement based on evidence and logic. First we have to define and agree on all parameters.

I agree that sex & gender are often conflated, certainly so in these types of discussions. But some of the confusion arises when we are discerning the difference between biological sex, how we label such and the relationship that may have with biological/physical differences. In biology is it not so that in general there is the basic accepted model - male & female, which is binary?

Interesting!

Ok, so you agree that there are genetic differences that may influence tendencies and then there are social (learned/taught) differences that may influence tendencies? Phi seems to be implying that the vast majority of, if not all tendencies are learnt, even from a really young age. From your posts I have read and if interpreted correctly you appear to take a similar stance? On another thread - girls v boys there is agreement amongst most that in general girls learn speech earlier than boys due to genetics. This implies the tendency is innate not learned. Interestingly, we, myself and my siblings, wore hand-me-downs, the colour and style was irrelevant whether girl boy or other. There are old photos of me as a toddler in a frock, and some with my younger sister wearing my trousers.

Is that learned/taught or innate?

I'm not sure this is strictly true. Women are encouraged and applauded around my parts for taking roles that tend to be male dominated. Though the reality is that when opportunities are available to all with no stigma or expectation, the men tend towards the heavy lifting, physically intensive roles and the females tend towards the less physical, lighter more attentive roles. I'm not convinced that this is just learned, you see at a very young age boys playing rough and tumble (competition driven tendencies) girls playing with less physical intent. Basically you are saying that males can be taught to be non competitive and instead nurturing and women to be competitive and non nurturing. Maybe so, but to what extent and for the vast majority? I'm not sure. Males in general have evolved to be competitive, for a reason, survival and to enable them to continue their gene pool. Yeah sure, we are civilized enough to identify this and learn to be different. It's going to be a difficult task to overcome millions of years of evolution. Is that the vast majority of species then? Needed and innate are two different things. There are many things that we don't need but are born with, appendixes for one. I don't agree that we should not try and learn to be better and have better control over our instinctual tendencies. But before we "learn out" a tendency should we consider why, for what gains and if its worth the effort? So are you denying that there are general physical & phycological differences between males and females? How boring

Going back to the OP, you do see in general males more interested in things per-say, how they are built, how they work, etc... and females more interested in people, caring, nurture... etc. Not exclusively of course, since it is a spectrum, so we are talking about as we tend towards the extremes. We often see male dominated jobs such as construction, engineering etc.. whilst there are female dominated jobs like nursing, care work... You have to wonder whether this tendency is learn't or innate from birth. You see similar traits in nature where quite often the female tends to the younglings and the males go to hunt, or protect, or just move on etc... This then begs the question? Do we tend to be biased because our "nature" leads us this way? Or is it indeed the society in which we live and what we learn? I think that it is a combination, of both. You see boys playing with dolls and girls with cars (nothing wrong in that) but has it been observed and documented on how they play with them, how they interact with the objects they show interest in?

You, Depends on what you want to gain from it. If you want lots of likes then post lots of things people like to hear. Or if you want to be true to yourself then post what you feel, believe in, agree with, disagree with... honesty.

Yes, nice feeling being validated. I guess it makes you feel accepted, part of something... contributing in some way positively. Keep posting and i'm sure it will go up, careful not to post too much which generated negative feedback though else your number may go down. Remember, its quality not quantity that counts. Just to be clear I only give "lil green ones" for posts I feel I strongly agree with or inform me of something I wasn't aware of that I find useful/interesting. I try very hard to avoid giving lil red ones, because though I may not agree with a post, I may be trashing someone's opinion that matters dearly to them, even though I may not agree with it or see the logic.

There you go, feel better now? 😉

+1 I can't, when faced with a desperate unsolvable situation having to choose between either child is a prospect I would fear the most. The only honesty that has any true value is being honest with yourself.

What makes you think I think they don't? How deep do we need to delve into bias? There are positive and negative bias's depending on the contexts/circumstances. I'm bias towards my child's welfare over my own. This could be viewed as a positive bias and negative. One could argue that my child's welfare may depend on my own. Ideally both welfares should be considered equally, so no bias. But in reality this is never the case. Depending on the circumstances one often has to make a choice, which then becomes a natural bias towards the choice made.

Well yeah, but there is always going to be a natural bias if you set a small set of standards across a wide and diverse range. Then you have to define "tough love" & "tough in order to win" then context for each or either... A parent yanking a child back and causing pain to save that child from running in front of a vehicle and suffering worse consequences. A rugby player, or similar, american football player, tackling another player in order to scores points towards winning. Both examples are considered acceptable in the particular circumstances but by your definition would fall under the "bullying" category

My point is some things are learnt, others are traits (mental) that are inherent within personalities (within the make up / process of our brains) that no amount of learning can change. At this point it may be possible and perhaps the only option to use physical intervention to alter/improve things via; drugs, operations etc... . What is normal behaviour in your own mind might well be abnormal behaviour to others. So if the consensus is that someone is deemed a bully, then the person maybe viewed as acting out abnormal/unacceptable behaviour. But for the person doing the bullying in their mind it might be normal and/or acceptable. Or they may not even be aware or recognise, or have the capacity to understand that they are bullying. So I guess, based on my reasoning, my response to your question is - It depends on the individual

Or born different. For most people some things cannot be learned, no matter how much is taught or how hard they try.

I was definitely a water faring animal in my previous life, probably a loner, not a pack animal. Or maybe from Atlantis. 🤔

No point in talking about it then, close the thread.

Waves, strings, vibrations... what ever one might consider I guess. I was not promoting anything per-say. It was in response to a suggestion about parallel "reality's" within the same universe. But as you stated its all conjecture based on ideas that are not testable. Though I may agree with you I can't help wondering why it's still doing the rounds among modern day scientists? You also by your own admission stated that you belong in the "epistemological camp". By the way just to be clear I share the same view, so I'm not arguing the case for any particular theory, but this doesn't make one idea right or wrong, its just a view point based on our interpretation of data/theories. that's what I like about you dim

Essentially the "big bang" theory is a theory based on what we can measure/observe, anything beyond this is speculation. So in answer to your question, "is the big bang theory a complete model?", well the answer is no. It is a model, of the observable universe both present and in the past.

I guess you could consider this as frequencies, where one reality is slightly out of phase with another. And? Its a plausible theory held by many credible scientists as a real possibility, so its at least worth thinking about, no?

Yes, and for the record I agree with you.

I assumed the discussion was around sexual preference, what has love got to do with it? +1 Though in summary, its a little more complex - "A phobia is an overwhelming and debilitating fear of an object, place, situation, feeling or animal. Phobias are more pronounced than fears. They develop when a person has an exaggerated or unrealistic sense of danger about a situation or object" The key point being ( see underlined). Yeah agreed, I think some fears maybe innate, a good survival mechanism. Phobias on the other hand are more likely to be from social construction, a fear of misunderstanding or acceptance, opposition to personal opinions/beliefs etc...

I'm no genius and not even bordering on such, so there you go the tests fail miserably. We did the test as a bit of fun competition between siblings, I don't even know what would constitute as a good/bad/average score. I have heard 200 banded around for those considered very intelligent, so I assumed I sat just slightly above average, which would fit well with my academic and working career. I'm not a big fan of these types of tests for the reasons I stated in my previous posts, but they are ok for a bit of fun. I don't think this is true for all cases. Some people may avoid doing the tests in fear they might score lower than they expect. So whether you do the test for vanity or whether you avoid the test in fear of disappointment both may indicate an inferiority complex. Some people are just interested in where they may fit in comparison to the average within their society, and not really have issue either way, but just accept it is what it is. Then others, myself included, who don't particularly find the tests that important just do it for a bit of fun and don't really care either way what they score (so long as they beat their sibling! lol).

I took one a good few years back for fun as a competition against my younger sister. She scored 137 and I scored 134 (she always reminds of this at our monthly family quiz evenings). To be fair and I think the running score is 7 - 6 to her 😆. I think the difficulty with these sorts of tests is that people have varying capabilities across a very wide range of applications, some of which may not be fairy captured within the test. For example, people who can retain a lot of information maybe considered extremely intelligent, quiz masters etc... and there may well be a correlation to some degree. But there are also people who have very poor memories, but who are extremely good at problem solving. So who is the most intelligent? To pitch one against the other maybe an unfair comparison, especially so if the measure of intelligence is in anyway biased. lets consider me and my partner. I'm a problem solver, engineer... this is what I do for a living and I'm fairly good at my job. My partner is an artist, a carer, she has an eye for creativity, artistic design. She considers herself far less intelligent than me because she is far less capable, academically, practically and so forth... Yet I consider her very intelligent because she can create beautiful art, she can design and fashion spaces to match colours that work or blend, she can see detail in such things that I just don't ever see.