elfmotat

The qualifier "in part" is included in all but the first of those. The "could be" was in reference to your incredulity at the notion that biology "could" play a factor. I didn't say it "could be" a factor. I said it is almost certainly a factor.

They aren't new qualifiers at all. If you go back and read my posts you'll notice that I've been using them all along.

I'm not. But if I was would it qualify as objectification? Claim: there is a subculture of angry misogynist gamers. Evidence: anonymous death threats issued against popular feminist video game critic. You have not established that angry misogynist gamers sent the threats. The threats were anonymous. It's not about who should or should not be believed -- there is no evidence in either direction so the default is to believe neither. Belief is reserved for when there is evidence. I'm definitely sure I never said that death threats should be dismissed. That still doesn't mean you know who sent them.

Fair enough. I have little doubt that unconscious bias plays a role in, for example, the hiring process. I'd say more generally that advocacy statistics (the methodology) is misleading/poor. I'm still not really clear on objectification. For example, is it acceptable for me to ask out someone in my engineering class who I find sexually attractive? Am I objectifying her by doing this? Why or why not? Your claim was that there is a subculture of angry misogynist nerds. If true, it's much smaller than you're making it out to be. Nobody knows who sent the death threats -- it could very well be that she sent them herself. She's been exposed for fraudulent behavior in the past. (For example, lying about playing or even liking video games before she started raising funds for her "Tropes vs. Women" series.) Maybe it was an angry woman-hating nerd like you think. Maybe it was a radical feminist trying to make it look like an angry woman-hating nerd. You don't know any better than I do. If I misrepresented your position then I apologize. You have expressed numerous times that it's a bizarre and unbelievable notion that sexually dimorphic interests could be in part responsible for the gender gap in STEM fields.

I never denied the existence of sexual harassment, I asked for a definition of objectification. I could be annoying and say that the primary function of any animal is reproduction, but I won't. The difference is still not so clear to me. How would you distinguish the behavior of someone treating a woman as if her primary function is sex from the behavior of someone treating her as if sex is one of her functions? I don't think you're very well informed on this topic. I agree it's not very relevant, but:

Just to nitpick your terminology, I find it a bit disingenuous to call a form of hatred "unintentional." I'm pretty aware of when I do/don't hate somebody. "Unintentional sexism," maybe, but misogyny? No. What exactly does this establish? That there's no real connection between faculty and student gender demographics? Do you actually have any data on how frequently, where, or to whom this scenario takes place? Source? I fail to see the "thus." All I saw in that post was opinion and non-cited claims. I don't know how to argue with a blanket declaration. I also weep for the world you seem to see around you -- where women are so easily manipulated that cultural programming plays a more dominant role in their career choice than their own desires and preferences. I find the view that women lack agency derogatory. I don't know what you mean by "sides." The only sides in this thread seem to be "biology plays at least some part in career choice," vs. "biology absolutely does not under any circumstances have any sort of influence on career choice." I think the former is a more sound approach. Yes, I would say that's probably accurate, except the military part where physical strength/endurance has an influence on who does/doesn't get in. Just like men are innately more interested in dangerous careers. The workplace-death gender ratio is ~20:1, not because of sexism against men, but because men are more likely to take a dangerous job. Except that's not true. The wage gap compares overall mean salaries, not on a job-by-job basis. When you control for career choice the gap shrinks to <5%. When you add in the fact that men are more likely to work extra hours and take less on time leave, it shrinks even further. Why is it stupid and extreme? My only position is "biology plays at least some role." Yours seems to be "biology plays exactly zero role." That seems far less reasonable to me. Source? I thought we already established that nobody is saying sexism doesn't exist, nor that social progress can't be made. These are the opinions of a blogger, and I'm not sure what you expect me to do with them. Would you like me to read through and respond line-by-line like I'm doing here? There isn't anything concrete to respond to in the block of text you quoted. I've never understood what the term "sex object" means, outside of the literal. What's the difference between "finding someone sexually attractive" and "sexual objectification"? Is there a clear distinction? It just seems like an overused scary buzzword.

This should be good. Yeah, I'd say so. Wow, that's pretty bad. The injustice!

"Beyond reasonable doubt" is the standard in the US, and innocents are still put on death row. It's not a good enough standard by which to be executing people.

Norway, Sweden, Denmark? True. I suppose my reply was irrelevant.

My point was, should we write in an exception to the law in the case of video evidence? My conclusion being no, that's still not enough in every circumstance.

So then we get into whether or not exceptions should be made and under what circumstances. For example, let's say a guy robs a bank and kills a security guard in the process. There is video evidence of the crime being committed, including high-resolution face-shots. Seems open and shut. But I can imagine scenarios where the guy may be innocent: maybe the video was doctored to make it look like he did it, or maybe someone else coerced him into robbing the bank by threatening his family, etc. The problem with the DP is that it's a permanent punishment, so there is no room for error.

I have no moral objection to the death penalty, but I have a practical objection to it -- too many innocents are wrongfully convicted for me to conceivably support such a policy. There's always some room for error, which is unacceptable in matters like these.

However interest in chemistry should serve as a better indicator of interest in physics than, say, a known interest in history. Just like early childhood interest in mechanical systems -- positively correlated with prenatal testosterone levels -- should serve as a better indicator of STEM interest than, say, early childhood interest in human faces -- negatively correlated with prenatal testosterone levels. I was asking out of curiosity, so that I'd have warning if I'm engaging in a pointless battle. It's no fun arguing with ideologues. The title of the thread is "Why is the female crowd..." I pointed out that at least some of it is almost certainly due to sexually dimorphic interests. If you have a problem with the studies I cited then explain why. Somehow biological, yes. Totally biological, no. Calling it absurd is not an argument. Longitudinal studies from Cambridge are not term papers. That's not an argument either. The same trend continues into gender-egalitarian countries, and the gap has been at a roughly stable percentage for the past 30-odd years. I cut out the parts about "natural ability," because every study I've ever seen has indicated no significant gender difference in average math/science ability. Ability is not interest. I can be a talented author without wanting to major in English. Related:

I feel like I'm talking to a wall. Are you intentionally being obtuse? Mechanical systems are a subcategory of science, technology, and engineering. I've already made explicit that I've never said sexism doesn't exist, or that social progress can't be made. Do you have some sort of ideological basis for your refusal to acknowledge that human psychology is dimorphic? I've encountered radical feminists in the past who were unwilling to admit that sexual dimorphism even exists.

So I see you missed post 2. It's not a matter of opinion -- I presented evidence. If you have a problem with the link I cited in post #2 then explain why.

You're strawman-ing me again. I didn't say it was relevant to ability -- I said it was relevant to level of interest. See post 2.

I was quoting the statistics in table 1, which are from the OECD. Also notice that I didn't say sexism doesn't exist, or that there isn't room for improvement in education. I'm only pointing out that biology does play a factor, and that humans are a sexually dimorphic species.

I don't think so. The gender gap in STEM is cross-cultural. If what you say is true one could expect to see significant deviation in different countries, but that's not what we find. The percentage of women in STEM hovers around 30% in nearly all developed countries. (See here.) When something is universal like that it's an indication of nature, not nurture. I don't think it's particularly bizarre that humans have sexually dimorphic interests.

The gender gap in STEM fields in developing countries is usually smaller than in most modern western countries. In countries where people are free to work in whatever fields they want, they will tend to choose careers they find fulfilling and interesting. In countries where money is an issue, people choose whatever pays well.

Higher levels of prenatal testosterone is correlated with greater interest in mechanical systems in children. (See here.) Males have 2-3 times the fetal testosterone levels as females on average. I'd venture a guess that testosterone probably has a similar effect on the brain later in life.

The graphic you're describing is just a picture of past and future light-cones. Its relation to the point of your post seems unclear. "Minkowski space" is just a fancy name given to flat spacetime, i.e. spacetime with no curvature/gravity. Co-latitude and longitude are two of the four Schwarzschild coordinates on Schwarzschild spacetime. They mean the same thing that they do in ordinary spherical coordinates. I fail to see how this relates to Minkowski space or light-cones.

Please define: quantum mass dark mass "channeling gravity to a point" I'm not familiar with any of these terms.

And as everyone else has been trying to explain, it depends. It depends on the mass of the planets, the planets' compositions, whatever debris might be between them, the relative planes of their orbits, the eccentricity of their orbits, etc., etc. Asking, "is 20 mil km safe(?)" is a nonsensical question. There are too many unspecified variables here to make a blanket statement of "yes" or "no."

Interesting read, +1.

In the static approximation the gravitational force between two masses is given by: [math]F_{G} = \frac{G M m}{r^2}[/math] where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of one body, m is the mass of the other body, and r is the distance between the two masses. The force of expansion between any point in space and a mass is given by: [math]F_{\Lambda} = \frac{\Lambda c^2 m r}{3}[/math] where [math]\Lambda[/math] is the cosmological constant, c is the speed of light, m is the mass in question, and r is the distance between the mass and the point in question. So, setting these equal we get: [math]r^3=\frac{3GM}{\Lambda c^2}[/math] or: [math]r=\sqrt[3]{\frac{3GM}{\Lambda c^2}}[/math] For reference, the value of the cosmological constant is of the order ~10-52 m-2, so the value of r is going to be very very large no matter what mass value you decide to give the bodies.