Aug 13 2009
Fads and Fallacies in the Social Sciences by Steven Goldberg: Part II
We now discuss the first two of Goldberg’s main claims. Both of them are contentious, are bitterly contested, and passion inducing. Try to keep a cool head; certainly read the caveat in Part I. Remember, too, that I will not be able to present all of Goldberg’s book-length evidence.
Environmentalism cannot explain all behavior
It is obvious and true that one’s environment influences one’s behavior. A Chinese will tend to act differently than a Russian; for example, they will tend to celebrate different holidays and show variation in respect to their elders, purely because of socialization. No one disputes this.
It is also true and obvious that one’s physiology and biology, one’s neurochemical makeup, influences one’s behavior. A 250-pound, muscle-bound man is more likely to play for the NFL than is a short, 150-pound, desk-bound man. Goldberg is fond of repeating, “an adult male’s ability to grow a moustache is not caused by our telling little girls that facial hair is unfeminine” (emphasis in original).
Bizarrely, however, many dispute this. Not about all aspects of behavior, of course—there are only a few (but still they exist) that deny that the anatomical differences between males and females lead to differences in behaviors, even in reproductive terms—but usually in those behaviors related to intelligence. That is, a sociologist might allow that men taller than six feet would, on average, make better professional basketball players than men shorter than six feet, but she would dispute that some men might, say, evince greater mathematical aptitude than others except that those differences are caused by differences in socialization and not innate ability. Even stronger would she deny that there could be any differences in intellectual ability between males and females, or between other groups.
Before we get to that, let’s take care of a common statistical argument against the importance of group differences. People often say that “within-group differences are almost always greater than between-group differences” and so the between-group differences do not matter. Goldberg offers this brilliant analogy (all emphases in the original):
It is, of course, true that the difference between the means of two groups is usually much smaller than the range within either group, but this casts no doubt on the importance of the between-group differences. No one could doubt that the mean difference in height between men and women (four or five inches) is less than the four or five foot difference between the shortest man and the tallest man or between the shortest woman and the tallest woman. But no one could reasonably use this fact to deny that it is meaningful to say that men are taller than women, that the reason is primarily hereditary, and that the difference is important in some contexts.
Men and women exhibit different behaviors (Please read all of this section before reacting.)
On “virtually everything measurable” men exhibit more variability than do women. Often, the mean of the measures will be the same for the sexes, as it does in tests of mathematical ability, or even higher for women, but the variability has always shown to be greater in men. A typical consequence of this (without getting too deeply into this) is that at the extremes more men than women will be found. That is, in any collection of the “world’s greatest” mathematicians, poets, writers, musicians, or whatever, more men than women will be and are found. But it also means that in any collection of “world’s worst” “murderers, traitors,” etc., more men than women will be and are found. The exceptions to this are obvious and well known: maternal abilities are greater in women, paternal abilities in men. It is extremely important to emphasize that these facts are true not just in the U.S.A. in 2009 but in every culture and throughout history.
A consequence when the means are equal, as regarding mathematical ability, is that men and women are equally probable in being better than average (and worse than average). You cannot say “men are better than women at math” without adding “because they have a higher probability of exhibiting extreme brilliance” and “because they have a higher probability of exhibiting extreme stupidity.” To just say “men are better than women in math” is meaningless without those additions—as is saying “men and women are equally good at math” without them (see this example).
Now, you might want to believe that, in most areas, there are no innate differences between men and women on average, but you do so based on faith, or, rather, in exact opposition to the evidence. This is because there is no and has been no evidence that men and women are the same. Sometimes, this fact is accepted (the men and women differ) but sociologists argue that the differences are caused by socialization. Whereas this explanation might be plausible in one culture at one time (ours) it becomes highly implausible when regarding all cultures and times.
Pay attention: Sally is a professional, tenured mathematician and has four papers each with eight citations in the Journal of Topology. Bill is also a mathematician in the same department as Sally and also has four papers each with eight citations. Is Bill a better mathematician because he is male? No. Can Bill take pride that he is a mathematician because he is a man? No. (If you like, swap “top grades in math class” for “papers.”)
As asked in Part I, if Sally is over six feet tall and Bill is over six feet tall, are both Sally and Bill over six feet tall? Even though Sally is a woman and Bill a man? What irks the leftist in questions like this, and what motivates her to deny the obvious differences, is that Sally might be treated differently than Bill even though she has the same abilities as him because people foolishly and incorrectly conclude that because more men will be exceptional each man will.
Instead, it is true that any woman might be better (intellectually) than any man. Knowing a person is a woman does not allow you to conclude that she will not exceed any man in ability. In fact, the true statement that more men will be found in the extremes of behavior says absolutely nothing about any individual man or woman, and so the fact that men are more variable is of little use, especially political use. The only way to tell whether Sally is better than Bill, or vice versa, is to put them to the task and see.
Importantly, men have nothing whatsoever to crow about because more of them will be in the extremes—of which, it shouldn’t be necessary to remind ourselves, there are two. Nor should any woman suffer pangs of diminished self-esteem. Nor should she not apply herself to discover whether she is a Sally. Equally, however, neither should we create programs that mandate equal percentages of intellectual jobs go to men and women—unless we are prepared, in the name of fairness, to mandate equal numbers of men and women at the bottom of society1 (we’ll need to dramatically boost the number of women in prison, for one).
Obviously, we have barely touched on this subject (such as how the male/female ratios change from culture to culture, but with the men ever greater in the extremes; nor have we discussed why men and women are different), but we have already gone on too long. Again, I beg that you read Goldberg on this before becoming too exercised.
Update: I hope readers can see that I only placed one “ought” in this entire article; in the last sentence in the penultimate paragraph. Everything else is an “is.” See Part I.
Update: Friday morning. Reader Stephen Dawson reminds us of La Griffe di Lion’s analysis of the male/female math gap. Highly recommended. Pay attention to the shift in the axis limits of Figure 3 and to the cross-cultural analysis.
Still to come: race, patriarchy, homosexuality, capital punishment, abortion.
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1This statement implies that mathematicians properly belong at the top of society.
60 responses so far
Z.Berg,
All women have a different way of tackling the sexism that is part of normal life. Some have fun with it, some turn a blind eye, Nelson style.
I happen to dislike the feminIST way. I find it rude, ungracious and demanding.
When I come across sexism from men, I make a mental note that the individual is not as bright as they seem. If they cannot recognise a person for who they are and only judge by superficial markers then they are lacking in some important mental faculties, however good their maths skills. The opposite is also true.
I don’t doubt that JH will live to see her 50% female PhD’s. I hope she does, but I believe that women can achieve this type of success by determination and resilience, both traits abundant in women. Essentially it is not a matter of whether women can achieve PhD’s but whether they want to. The PhD question is a different one to the extreme brilliance question. This does not mean it will come naturally to them. I speak of the narrow maths arena.
When women have the grades or the ability and go in another direction there is something else at play there.
The narrow topic on this post does not allow for deviation into subtlety. This does not make men better, or “more brilliant”, they are just different in my view. After all, the evidence presented concerns the tail-enders, and is shown to make the point about why more men than women appear at top levels in industry etc. That’s all.
Of course we would never read on this blog about how men are the most violent, cruel, stupid, insane, narcissistic. This does not suit our aesthetic idea of “man”.
The method employed by most wise women who you might call the “willing admitters” is simply to do what you were going to do anyway.
To quote a very clever lady in her eighties who I was speaking to on Wednesday, about her life,
“men don’t like a clever woman”…when men speak down to me or treat me like a silly old lady, I just think to myself, I had my day”. She was referring to her work which sadly I can’t divulge because it’s not my secret.
However, here’s aleftist feminist misbehaving, and I love her because she doesn’t take herself too seriously.
(and I’m with her on the curtains.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJctcICdFrM&feature=related
And the part about the bad men was the tail-enders at the other extreme. Of course this is not true of men as a rule. I Probably didn’t make that clear.
Joy:
Well, I do not think I am a “tail ender” on any of the dimensions you identified. But I do believe that Stephen Fry deserves to be seen as … He is extremely bright and very funny!
Along somewhat the same lines you describe above, I have a strong reluctance to assign traits or characteristics to groups that are not actual or potential empirical statements, e.g., Football fans tend to engage in more fights and law breaking than Cricket fans. (Though if we win the Ashes in the next few days, I might be proven wrong!) I still believe that people act, not groups. I try to judge people by what they do, not by the group to which they ostensibly belong – I know many polite and law abiding football fans and a few obnoxious and loud cricket fans.
It would be interesting to see the extent to which individuals who ascribe to many of Goldberg’s fads or fallacies have a “collective” versus “individual” mind-set.
One interesting set of data comes from the Lemon-Sommers debate that Matt provided a link to. It is almost funny as the commenters begin to lose it when trying to respond to Christina Hoff Sommers criticisms of Nancy Lemon’s misuse of information and data on the tragedy of Domestic Violence (http://chronicle.com/article/Domestic-Violence-a/47940/).
Joy, you’ve made my Saturday. I think I’ve gotten my point across.
Tom, yes, my optimistic genes might be over-expressed… you are being a party pooper. Unlike our polite Miss Joy, I do resort to name calling. ^_^
Bernie,
Hope the men in my family who have all gone to the oval today don’t provide you with any reason to review your summary of cricket fans. I’ll watch on TV. My Dad’s wearing his panama.
Also, given that I do think there are clear differences in the sexes, this makes non-sexism almost an impossible state for me or anyone. A point, I think,made elsewhere on this or another thread.
Had missed Matt’s link but your summary is fair. It’s sad that these women have lost faith in the opposite sex. Some of them really sound neurotic. I am tempted to try and ‘help’!
Lemon’s figures Smack of “unless we announce disasters no one will listen.” The thirty something percent is way off the mark, obviously. It must be more like a fraction of a percent of presentations.
I have rarely, if ever, seen an acute case.
Of the two hundred different people I saw in an eight-week period recently, there were two victims of violence. One was a boy of nine, the other, a six foot four thirty-something year old male who looked like he might be carrying something worth taking who was set upon by six black men with baseball bats ( from behind. They took everything he had. He came round with one of their feet on his head as they rummaged in his pockets. He ran in front of a car with an elderly couple in. As they were driving off, the assailants were chasing and trying to get in the car to finish him off. He had a head injury and was p-ing blood. (His Doctor said “You’ve got whiplash”.)
The police know who they are but the fellow can’t pick them out of the line up because they were behind him, it was dark, and he has lost some memory. So, these fine specimens of “man” are still on the loose. They were after his blackberry. These are the other tail-ender types I had in mind, the Neanderthals.
Joy:
Nasty story. I am not sure I would hang around the Oval too much after dark – unless it has changed since I was a kid.
As for the Lemon Sommers debate, I would add that many whose comments were from left field were (a) male and (b) from left field! And the latter is part of the issue. Though I would hasten to add that I think the misrepresentation of data is the hallmark of all political extremists.
It sounds like you may have access to actual UK data on Domestic Violence? Matt was going to check some of his data sources since there are some questions on the data that “estark” presented. Evan Stark is apparently an “expert” but it is unclear as to the weight that should be given to his data.
Woohoo! The ashes are coming home.
Sorry about that,
Although I know some who have access to that data I’m not sure how forthcoming it would be.
I only have my own clinical experience to go by. Of course cuts and bruises don’t make it to physio unless those have caused some other problem. So twenty-eight women required ‘major medical treatment’. I’m not sure what point the writer is trying to make there, but I would consider that a low number out of the original 218 in the study mentioned from August 1991.
It would be interesting to hear about the other 190.
Doctors Evan Stark and Anne Flitcraft, prominent researchers in this field, announced similar findings in their 1996 book Women at Risk: Domestic Violence and Women’s Health: “The initial conclusion of our research was that more women sought medical treatment for injuries resulting from domestic violence than for any other cause.” I don’t believe that. I think the quote is missing the words,
“violent cause of injury.” Otherwise it seems to imply that domestic violence is more common that other types of injury. In which case, tell us something we didn’t expect or know already.
There’s some dodgy misquoting which ought to be easily verified and checked from the original text, without even the need to argue about who said what or even looking at the data because aside from Lemon’s alarm and error in quoting, the numbers seem unsurprising.
Joy:
Your Dad must have enjoyed himself immensely.
WRT Domestic Violence data, I agree there are missing words. The question is what led to the missing words and why the refusal to accept the fact that it was an error. Sommer’s primary point is that academics like Lemon and Stark repeatedly make mistakes that benefit their agenda and are averse to issuing corrections. I think Sommer wins the argument both on the actual facts and the fact that her opponents do not stay on point and resort to ad hominem arguments.
Bernie,
Thank you, he did. It was a surprise, he didn’t know until twenty to ten this morning!
“They couldn’t have done it without us” he reckons.
I agree on the Lemon Vs Sommer thing,I’ve given it some thought and there doesn’t seem to be a plausable excuse for Lemon.