Nigel Short: Women's brains not chess brains

that's forcing people against their will. You might want to jump into a time machine and travel back a few hundred years to chit chat about that one.

Well yes and no. Didnt reat your link, always thought they had a BIG problem in explaining homosexuality lol. And obviously there's some bad ideas in EP, it's still pretty new. I came across a guy (Michael Ruse?) thet to me seemed to be a hyper conservative that used (abuses) evo psych for his own agenda. Evo pcych is in no way conservative, they are quite happy to describe all sorts of un conservative sexual behavior, and have no stance on whether its good or bad to be say polygamous or engage in mate-poaching.

When I meet psychologists though, it's teached as a normal thing. I know one that works with detection of lies (for judical system and businesses and such) and they use Ekman in daily work. Another one, from Denmark, well they were more interested in researching how woman's ovulation stages influenced their choice of mates and clothes and whatever it was they were doing than in discussing the paradigm. They also used other paradigms off course, but my clear impression was that it's a maninstream tool now. Also met a PhD in some molecular bio stuff, and they have evo psych as part of the basic modules. It's a funny develpment for me, when I found it in the mid 90ies NOONE had a clue what it was lol.

It doesnt take much space in general media yet, for instance Ekman's stuff was used to make a popular pseudoscientific Tv serie ("Telling Lies"), but he himself is unknown as far as I know. II think it's because of political corectnes, because a psychology based on evolution will obviously include gender differences, and the media just doesn't like that ATM. He got literally thousands of insciptions for a course in Italy last summer though, but I think those were all students and not "general public".

Well yes, I think turtles are funny and that's why i smuggled a turtle in :)

For the second part, I think it is a weird way of putting it. Why say "we refuse to investigate the gender differences because individuals vary a lot"? It's a lot of good knowledge you just want to say bye-bye to. Why? To me, it is hard to belive this refusal is not ideological because I simply cannot see any other point to put up this STOP sign.

Also, in general is doesn't bother anyone that studies groups that the individuals vary. Americans and Chinese vary a lot intra-group, yet we still find it usefull to study chinese language and culture and vice versa for USA. Antropologists are also cool about studying a tribe and trying to describe "it's" culture, even though they are well aware that the tribal members vary as individuals.

Medicine doesnt have problems studying men and women and such. Should we close gynecology and research into birth and such just because women also vary as individuals so now medicine is only allowed to study the things the genders share? This would seem to me to be a necessary logical conclusion of one does not want to study groups with intra-group variation.

And do what? They start out as similar and then later on become different. Genitals look the same in the beginning as well and then differentiate. And the fertilized eggs look even more the same lol. Dont see remotely a point here.

That "it's all sociology" is just an idea which is seems wrong. It happens, sometimes ideas are wrong.

That there are gender bases differences off course doesn't mean the genders should compete equally. Matters how good chess you play (or, in my case, bad :) ), nothing else.

The problem with evolutionary psych is that it says, ok, because this happened in the past for many years that's why men's brains are a and women's brains are b. However, men as a rule in developed countries don't hunt as a primary occupation, and war is not an up close and personal thing anymore. They used to say childbirth was a woman's war. Well, women still fight that exact war every day, but men can go their whole lives without hunting and killing humans. I know we have created outlets like sports and careers to kind of take the edge off, but I wonder how much longer that can go on before men's brains evolve into something entirely different? Are men (as compared to their predecessors) losing the ability for long distance sight and such? Evo psych tells us where we've been. Unfortunately, it does not tell us where we are going, or for that matter if we very well will take charge of our own brain evolution as humanity evolves. Quite interesting.

Of course this is not just a guy problem. Okay. Let's say we were able to take charge of our brain - and we somewhat overcame the chains of determinism. Great. Now, where do we collectively wanna take it ? Just greater freewill ?....or somewhere more specific ? And what will we want to take more control of ?....our identity ?

Yes M314....interesting.

"However, men as a rule in developed countries don't hunt as a primary occupation, and war is not an up close and personal thing anymore."

But surely you would be charitable enough to consider that people are talking about much, much farther back times? Times at which evolution perhaps could take an effect?

I think humans have been around for over a million years, not sure though. And at that time families probably wouldn't survive if they didn't divide the roles properly. Even if males and females started with exactly the same strength, it would seem to make more sense to have the male hunt because a woman could be carrying a baby so a woman dying has possibly more drastic consequences. When the woman is not hunting, she's training at other things and she passes it on. If this goes on for a really long time there could be some effects. There are organs we have now that we don't need but they have a history. Likewise there might be some potential characteristics males and females have that might not, anymore, be necessary for survival but are nevertheless there.

It seems like this idea is often scoffed at for being too simplistic or something, but the point is, it's not crazy that roles can develop due to certain circumstances of living, and they can be passed on. It's not a crazy thought that our distant history could affect things about our physiology now. Could be wrong, could be right, could be significant, could be insignificant.

"Evo psych tells us where we've been. Unfortunately, it does not tell us where we are going, or for that matter if we very well will take charge of our own brain evolution as humanity evolves."

Well, that's slightly off topic. No one is saying that things can't be changed over a very gradual process. But that doesn't say a lot about what to think of men and women at this current point.

"They used to say childbirth was a woman's war. Well, women still fight that exact war every day, but men can go their whole lives without hunting and killing humans."

Well yeah, childbirth is a struggle. It just seems weird to summarize an entire life just based on that.

Women as an entire gender deal with childbirth every day. Women as individuals deal with it for perhaps a week out of their entire lives.

Yes, but on a pain scale of 1 to 10 (death) ?....they say (I don't have any children) it ranks about 8.5 to 9. Most men will never experience a pain level over 4. Think about that one.

So, you were carried a'O for nine months. Then when you got out, the first you did was cry. Oh Great !

Now, who do you think should be doing the crying ?

And if it was only that. Many things can happen in nine months. Unfortunately I could tell some stories about that, and still it never will be the same when you are not feeling it in your own body.

The war vs. childbirth thing is an example of how the human condition changes and how this might affect biology in the future. Already humans having fewer children by choice I'm sure has reprocessions for the future we cannot even imagine yet. And, As I've brought up before, really, what does it matter one way or the other? Outisde of any kind of derision, are we talking about abolishing women's chess or what? What again is the point of bringing up this difference, no matter the cause or how big a difference it is? Is it just "hahaha you can't play chess well as men" or is there some kind of constructive reason to get into this debate? Otherwise, we are just talking about how things got to this point in time, which for me is not the interesting question. For me it's where we are heading. Who knows, maybe another disaster will derail all of humanity and we'll be back to hunting/gathering again? IDK. The more I think on this topic the weirder it seems to get.

Now, that's interesting. If Short expresses an unpopular opinion in a publication, then we should not walk away but rather attack him verbally for his faulty opinion - well, not him directly, since he's most likely never going to read this particular thread on chess.com. But if we are to share a room with him, then we should not attack him verbally for his faulty opinions but rather walk away.

Where's the difference? If we can attack him without his presence or his knowledge, then it's all right? But if you wanted to educate him on his opinions, wouldn't it be more efficient to talk to him directly if you get a chance to be in his presence, to make sure that he hears you and that you get a chance to interact? Or is the point only to get an adrenaline rush from self-justified hatred and to make some noise on the Internet?

I'd say that was a joke, a sort of metaphor. Nothing else.

The_Ghostess_Lola wrote:

Yes, but on a pain scale of 1 to 10 (death) ?....they say (I don't have any children) it ranks about 8.5 to 9. Most men will never experience a pain level over 4. Think about that one.

So, you were carried a'O for nine months. Then when you got out, the first you did was cry. Oh Great !

Now, who do you think should be doing the crying ?

I've heard that kidney stones are similar (from women who have given birth and had that one...)

How strange... When someone says an unpopular opinion, other people challenge his views.

people are illogical, captain. it is a footballs nature to be full of air, an apes nature to be full of hair and a humans nature to be impaired.

This reminds me of a story about a rugby player who was taken into casualty with a dislocated shoulder, where they set about manipulating the joint back into place. The poor guy couldn't help yelling in pain, and after a while a nurse said "Really, sir, there's a woman down the corridor having a baby and she's not making as much of a fuss as this!"

To which the rugby player replied, "Oh yeah? Well you try pushing it back in then and see what she says!" 

Gil-Gandel wrote:

The_Ghostess_Lola wrote:

Yes, but on a pain scale of 1 to 10 (death) ?....they say (I don't have any children) it ranks about 8.5 to 9. Most men will never experience a pain level over 4. Think about that one.

So, you were carried a'O for nine months. Then when you got out, the first you did was cry. Oh Great !

Now, who do you think should be doing the crying ?

This reminds me of a story about a rugby player who was taken into casualty with a dislocated shoulder, where they set about manipulating the joint back into place. The poor guy couldn't help yelling in pain, and after a while a nurse said "Really, sir, there's a woman down the corridor having a baby and she's not making as much of a fuss as this!"To which the rugby player replied, "Oh yeah? Well you try pushing it back in then and see what she says!" 

TMI but after my first delivery, my placenta didn't detach and I was hemorrhaging to death. The Dr. went back in there (with his burly arm and all) and manually pulled the rest of the pieces of the placenta out. Humph to the rugby guy! :)

I feel like I say this all the time, but again, if we are going to use the logic "discussing this won't save the world, therefore it's pointless," we're going to have a hard time justifying any kind of discussion at all. The entire "chess openings" section of the chess.com forums is just opening stuff -- there is not much practical use in it, besides helping you win a few "pointless" chess games. But, I would imagine, people discuss it because they are interested in it.

Now if you ask me, the topic of women and chess is interesting because the difference in, for example, the amount of male and female players is so huge, that it's mysterious. Of course, others need not agree that the topic is interesting, but then I would wonder why they are posting in these topics. Of course, I would agree, it's silly to discuss in this topic for the purpose of your own ego... regardless of the answer to this question, you do not become any better or worse at chess as a result. But to discuss this topic for the same reason you discuss most things? I don't see the problem.