Gender vs Intellectuality

[SkepticLance]

To Chemhawk

 

Learning affects behaviour, sure. That is very basic and 100% certain. Thus, a girl learns that a dress is suitable clothing for her gender, and she becomes comfortable wearing it. In Scotland, the boys may learn to wear the dress!

 

However, the effect of sex hormones on gender based behaviour is well demonstrated. Today, there are thousands of case histories of the behavioural results for dosing people with the 'wrong' sex hormone in preparation for sex change operations. Females who are treated with testosterone become more aggressive in conflict situations. Males who are treated with oestrogen become more interested in babies. And so on.

 

Sex hormones are a result of genetics, when human intervention is not involved. Thus, behaviour that is mediated by sex hormones can be called nature, rather than nurture.

 

One clue to distinguishing between nature and nurture in human behaviour is to look at cross cultural similarities. If something is purely learned, then it will vary tremendously from culture to culture. If it is genetic, it will show enormous similarities from culture to culture.

 

For example : wearing dresses. Lots of cultures have males wearing robes, or kilts, or clothing similar to dresses. Thus, selection of type of clothing for your gender is learned.

Example 2. Fighting. Who does most of the fighting? Universally, it is males. Thus, that kind of gender determined aggressive behaviour is genetic.

[Mr Skeptic]

Example 2. Fighting. Who does most of the fighting? Universally, it is males. Thus, that kind of gender determined aggressive behaviour is genetic.

 

However, it could also be that in general, it is better to lose half your country's men, than to lose half your country's women. The women can "borrow" a man, and in one generation restore the fighting force. But if they lost half their women, it would take much longer to repopulate. So there may be some behaviors that are universally or near-universally learned. I'm quite sure that men make better fighters, especially before when strength was more of an issue, but what about the Amazon ladies?

[SkepticLance]

To Mr Skeptic

 

Sorry to burst a bubble, or destroy a fondly held myth, but the Amazons were just a legend. There is no proper evidence they ever existed.

[DrDNA]

Example 2. Fighting. Who does most of the fighting? Universally, it is males. Thus, that kind of gender determined aggressive behaviour is genetic.

 

However, it could also be that in general, it is better to lose half your country's men, than to lose half your country's women. The women can "borrow" a man, and in one generation restore the fighting force. But if they lost half their women, it would take much longer to repopulate. So there may be some behaviors that are universally or near-universally learned.

Maybe I'm missing something but aren't you both really saying the same thing? I.e., it (it being losing men in battle) would not be as severely penalized in an evolutionary sense as losing women in battle would be.

........what about the Amazon ladies?

Wooo hoooo

[Paralith]

However, it could also be that in general, it is better to lose half your country's men, than to lose half your country's women. The women can "borrow" a man, and in one generation restore the fighting force. But if they lost half their women, it would take much longer to repopulate.So there may be some behaviors that are universally or near-universally learned. I'm quite sure that men make better fighters, especially before when strength was more of an issue, but what about the Amazon ladies?

 

That is much more political theory than it is behavioral evolution. A behavior largely determined by "nature" is an adaptive behavior, and behaviors that are adaptive must, ultimately, bring benefit to the individuals that carry them out. Thus, repopulating the country isn't in itself a concern for the individual; maintaining a fighting force of males that can protect your territory (and resources) and females and offspring from threatening competitors is much more so.

 

During our specie's evolution, males most likely had to fight to protect territory from other groups and to gain higher dominance ranks within the group in order to secure the most mating opportunities. With luck and the right amount of aggression, the risk of injury is well worth the potential benefits. For females the risk of injury is far higher, so direct aggression is usually harmful to their reproductive success.

 

However, should a situation ever arise wherein females can gain great reproductive benefits through direct aggression (perhaps even a culturally determined situation), then you may get your Amazons. In some species of animal, where sex roles are effectively reversed and females compete with each other for males, the females are in fact larger and stronger than the males.

[alhamra....]

i am not sure, but i think boys have higher EQ than girls.hehehehe

[iNow]

i am not sure, but i think boys have higher EQ than girls.hehehehe

 

Your post seems to imply otherwise.

[SkepticLance]

To Paralith

 

Re male aggression.

 

As a female, you should appreciate that this aspect of male nature is under female command. Human males are more competitive and more aggressive than human females mainly in order to win female approval and mating rights. It is only because women select aggressive males as mates that aggression becomes a male feature. Of course, the aggression or competitive behaviour females approve of is just that between male/male, leading to one male gaining status. The alpha male then becomes the preferred mate.

 

The very sad fact that this aggression leads to war and large scale mortality is a side effect of evolution, as a result of the fact that current technology permits lethal results way out of proportion to the actual 'aim' of evolution.

 

Perhaps in the future, human females may prefer more peaceable males?????

[iNow]

To Paralith

 

Re male aggression.

 

As a female, you should appreciate that this aspect of male nature is under female command. Human males are more competitive and more aggressive than human females mainly in order to win female approval and mating rights.

Yeah... especially the homosexual ones.

 

Lance,

 

The above is quite a generalization, and while I understand that you are trying to suggest that male aggression is the result of naturally selected tendencies (where females played a large role in those selection pressures), your suggestion that aggression is "controlled" by females is off base. Males may adjust their behavior in order to secure a mate, but making a statement such as yours above ignores the vast psychobiological mechanisms underlying aggressive behaviors.

 

Aggression is not just a human trait, but when exercised in humans it comes from the most prehistoric (reptilian) part of our brain (hippcampal/amygdalal regions). It's not like some microchip to which females have a remote control, but a feature of the vast majority of life... both male and female. It aided in survival, and has done so all the way back to some of the earliest and simplest of life forms.

 

If you're going to generalize such as you have in this thread, you should at least couch your statements using the terminology of trends and bell curves. Cheers.

[SkepticLance]

To iNow

 

Be careful not to over-react. Sure, what you said is correct. However, you are putting more into my post than I intended. I suspect it is mainly a result of the inadequacies of language. When we communicate, words can be interpreted several ways, and we all need to have something of a feel for context to reach the proper interpretation. I may have made an error in using the word 'command', but it is hardly a major error.

[1veedo]

SkepticLance is correct in what he's saying. There is a lot more to the story than that and implications in every day social interactions but on the basic biological level that's pretty much how it is.

[Paralith]

It's ok, INow - I was going to tell Lance that while I would definitely word it differently, since as you say "under female command" makes it sound like women are telling men to go off and fight each other, he's got the spirit of the law if not the letter of it. Ultimately it is mating opportunities that are the stimulus for within-group male-male competitive aggression.

 

However, when it comes to active female choice, females may not necessarily prefer to mate with males who are simply aggressive. I would say it's more accurate (for humans - this is often different for other animals) that females prefer males who can accomplish a certain dominance rank, who can procure resources and security - and that aggression is one method by which males achieve these things, and was probably the primary method during the earlier stages of hominid evolution. But there are other ways that males can achieve these things, particularly modern human males - through charm and charisma, through intelligence, etc. This can even be true of other apes - though mostly anecdotal, chimp researchers have remarked that some males see to maintain dominance via "force of personality."

 

Another aspect of female choice in this matter is that females may even help their favorites achieve higher status. Even in chimpanzees, during a dominance struggle between males, the females of the troupe may rally around their preferred candidate for the alpha position.

 

As INow said, male aggression has its roots deep in the lineages of sexually reproducing animals, but in more modern and socially complex species, aggression can be modified or even replaced by other tactics. Perhaps competition would be a better word to describe the unchanging pursuit of males after desirable females.

[iNow]

Be careful not to over-react. Sure, what you said is correct. However, you are putting more into my post than I intended. I suspect it is mainly a result of the inadequacies of language.

You should not blame language itself for your inability to use it properly.

 

 

I may have made an error in using the word 'command', but it is hardly a major error.

Actually, it completely changes the meaning and tone of your entire post. Only those with existing subject knowledge would know that you "meant" something else, and those new to the topic would not. Hence, I posted the clarification I did on their behalf.