Marilyn “vos Savant” scored one major victory in her life. (More than most.) She correctly (copied? noodled?) the correct answer to the Monty Hall problem.
Which by itself is only of minor interest. What got her the very well deserved publicity were the scores of Experts, many “PhD” academics, many intellectuals, wrote to say she was wrong.
She was right. The Experts were wrong.
Well, we’re used to that by now. These days we’re taken aback when an Expert gets something right.
The danger of being right and of being in the public eye, though, is the temptation to become an Expert oneself. Here’s Marilyn’s column this past Sunday.
In some competitions, a man’s greater physical strength is irrelevant, such as chess or billiards. Yet tournaments are hosted for women only. How is this justified? Or is it that the women can’t beat the men?
—Randal P., St. Louis, Missouri
Both these pursuits were invented by men and have a long history of male interest and involvement. Women have only recently begun to even consider participation, and they may never find them compelling enough to join in large numbers. Note that 85 percent of the members of the U.S. Chess Federation are male. Hosting events for women may be a well-intentioned effort to encourage more female activity, but they imply inferiority, which is inherently damaging.
This is an Expert’s answer. At the time I write, that the top 100 ranked chess players in the world are men. There was a woman a while back who breached the century barrier, but her victory was fleeting.
Randal P. is wrong. Pool is still a physical game. Not of constant brute strength, of course, but of finesse, subtlety, and endurance. The top players are all men, I believe (maybe I misinterpreted a name here or there).
I hereby make the startling prediction: these “disparities” will always be so.
Unless, as we have also seem time and again, the way rankings are computed changes. Perhaps the number of ovaries, or some similar asininity, will somebody be given great weight in the computations.
You might laugh. But it’s only at yourself.
Back on 6 June I predicted a woman would soon be awarded a Fields medal (in mathematics) because of gender “disparities” (there are many supporting quotes at the link; update: see the comments below, too).
I was delighted to learn shortly after that prediction that not only did a woman win the heretofore prestigious award, but a—-put down your drink, child, or cigarette before reading further—a Ukrainian woman (Maryna Viazovska).
I rewarded myself both a cigar and a brandy for that pick. Doubting whether she deserved the award, and suspecting it was a political, is the necessary and direct result of the stated affirmative-action-type policies of mathematical bigwigs.
Enter The Atlantic. Some female there wrote the article “Separating Sports by Sex Doesn’t Make Sense“. Here’s the money quote:
Decades of research have shown that sex is far more complex than we may think. And though sex differences in sports show advantages for men, researchers today still don’t know how much of this to attribute to biological difference versus the lack of support provided to women athletes to reach their highest potential. “Science is increasingly showing how sex is dynamic; it has multiple aspects and also shifts; for example, social experiences can actually change levels of sex-related hormones like testosterone in our bodies in a second-to-second and month-to-month way!” Sari van Anders, the research chair in social neuroendocrinology at Queen’s University, in Ontario, told me by email.
The Atlantic’s authoress is a True Believer. And scidolator. There is no other way, save outright lying, she could have allowed herself to write “researchers [etc.]” If you need Science to tell whether there is are “sex differences” between males and females, you are lost.
Van Anders is an Expert. And, if her email is accurate, an idiot. Expert is not quite synonymous with idiot, though the gap narrows weekly. Pretending, or actually being, perplexed by the obvious is the true mark of the modern academic. Aligning that academic perplexity in the direction of political mania is what creates the Expert.
Now in years past, I always joked that if one really believed there were no sex differences in athletic ability, then teams should be composed of only the best players, with sex irrelevant. Those calls always met silence from “activists”, because in their true hearts they knew what they desired was absurd.
No longer.
They have allowed themselves to finally believe, really believe, their own propaganda. Just like the mathematicians.
Here I make another bold prediction. Sex will no longer be officially considered in school sports. But because in this scheme, the best players would always be male, what counts as “the best” will change.
Possessing, say, breasts (that haven’t been sliced off by some gender-theory quack), will count. More likely it won’t be anything anybody is willing to write down. But a coach, desirous of keeping his job, will say, “I guess that Maggie looks okay.”
I can’t wait for the press to explain how it wasn’t Maggie’s fault that she wasn’t able to tackle that running back, even though she gripped his neck and rode on his back all the way to the end zone. It was sexism.
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Like you, I have long advocated for the elimination of separate sports for men and women. There’s actually a compelling climate alarmist argument for doing so. Today, there are separate men’s and women’s basketball, for example. At every level that’s approximately twice as many buses, twice as much gym time, twice as much everything. That’s a LOT of fossil fuel use to support superfluous athletic activities.
As an added bonus, by eliminating sex-based sports duplication we also eliminate the “trans-delusionals in sports” issue. This is a win-win!
The first woman to win the Fields Medal was Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014.
Raymond,
Thanks. The point, of course, remains.
Agreed.
On the physical side, here’s a clip of a youngish female cop requiring help from multiple males to subdue a 64 year-old during a recent traffic stop in Willoughby, Ohio:
https://youtu.be/fIEvRgrnApQ
She is one of the four Fields Medal winners. As far as I concern, all of the nominated young mathematicians deserve the award. They are brilliant, undoubtedly with IQ in the top 0.1%. While math is not subjective, the views on whether a research area or work in math is more important, contributes more significantly, or is worthier of an award are often subjective.
If you doubt whether she deserved the award, just read her research and judge for yourself. It’s as simple as that.
Wild Goose,
Great example. There are daily videos illustrating the stark reality that (the vast majority of) women do not have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to respond appropriately to deadly violence–armed or bare hands–that cops can face in any split second of their day.
Active Self Protection is an excellent YouTube channel. An expert (!) there analyzes incident videos, guiding the audience through learning points to better prepare ourselves.
Unfortunately, probably in fear of being deplatformed, the host will frequently warn commenters to refrain from noticing the race of criminal perpetrators, or the dismal sex-related performance of cops.
An excellent example of the unfitness of the vast majority of women for a deadly encounter is illustrated in the clip below. Note that the lady cop is directly responsible for her partner’s grievous wounds (she neglects to shoot the bad guy), and is unable to take any constructive action in the violent encounter. Only when her partner (who killed the bad guy, while taking multiple gunshots) asks her to help him, does she do anything constructive (puts a tourniquet on his leg). And she’s only able to do that after her wounded partner consoles her, tells her she’s doing okay, and she can do this (administer first aid to him, so that he doesn’t bleed to death).
But, don’t notice her sex, or draw any conclusions from your observation. Ignore reality!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2KJpHWeWSA
Highland dancing is a sport where males and females compete without distinction up to and including the world championships. What the men gain from their superior strength and power, the women counter with superior flexibility and gracefulness. There is segregation by age, however, recognizing that precision of technique and timing, as well as strength, changes through childhood up to about 18, at which point everyone is considered an adult. The most successful highland dancer ever, with ten world titles, is a woman Colleen Rintamaki and tied second with eight titles each, are a man Gregor Bowman and a woman Marielle Lespérance. The last male to have won any of the three age group world championships is David Wilton in 2011, more than a decade ago. This year there were two men in the twenty finalists of the adult category but neither managed to finish in the top six overall. Males are admittedly in a very small minority (maybe 10%? of registered dancers). Whether males and females win in proportion to their participation numbers is not something I have ever seen calculated in the 30 or so years I have been observing highland dancing. I’m guessing it is close. It is encouraging that those who govern and compete in highland dancing do not really care about male vs female issues, except to wish that more boys would stick with it in the face of negative peer social pressure.
The trouble is that the majority of conservatives, even those who vocally oppose affirmative action, will refuse to admit that once affirmative action is in place it is rational to distrust the qualifications of minorities. “There are always some minorities which have just as good qualifications as the average for non-minority, and some geniuses who far outperform that average.” All true. And if you know enough about this particular person (who happens to be a minority) in this particular job or whatever to say that she is skilled enough to meet or greatly exceed the capabilities necessary, fine.
But usually you don’t know that. For example, suppose you see a woman in a field that has been explicitly recruiting more women, regardless of qualifications. Usually all you will know is that she is a woman and that the people who hired her said that having diversity is of the utmost importance (even beyond the job itself.) Even if women and men were equally capable on average for the position, the fact that the worst men have been filtered out of the hiring pool but the same was not done for women means that the average man who was hired will be much more capable than the average woman who was hired. If in fact men on average were more capable than women, the effect is only magnified. Now it’s certainly possible that the random woman on the job that you are seeing is a prodigy who is better than any man would be. It’s also possible that you’ll get a straight with a 2 and a 6 even after only one card in the flop helped out. But it’d be idiotic to bet everything on it.
100 of top 100 chess players are men.
90 of the last 100 men I saw on Evening TV news robbing gas stations were young black men.
How can I integrate these 2 indisputable facts into my world view without being a RACIST?
Simple. I use them to support conclusion all white men are supremacist, colonizer, oppressors!
It’s the age of Big Lies. Big lies get told because people, even otherwise intelligent ones, can be made to believe them. And once planted in unwary minds, Big Lies, like invasive weeds, are devilish hard to uproot. In this fallen world Big Lies bring big power to Big Liars. That’s why we are told that Satan, the Father of Lies, is the prince of this world, and that men had best be “innocent as doves, but wise as serpents”.
And it makes me wonder what other Big Lies I may be entertaining. Things I was taught back in more impressionable days but neglected to examine critically myself. Some of them I have already uncovered. Knowing we are susceptible to deception, especially self-deception, is valuable knowledge.
As a former surfer, I will sometimes check the World Surfing Association competitions. Of course, women’s surfing is now promoted as enthusiastically as the men’s contests.
Now, female ballet dancers are just about the epitome of grace and fluid movement. Yet every female surfer I’ve seen is all wide stance, elbows and knees, yank and crank turns, and a hair’s breadth away from losing her balance. The men make their rides in a with fluid almost effortless grace. Go figure.
JWM
For male gymnasts, the Olympic order is:
1) Floor exercise
2) Pommel horse
3) Still rings
4) Vault
5) Parallel bars
6) Horizontal bar
For female gymnasts, the Olympic order is:
1) Vault
2) Uneven bars
3) Balance beam
4) Floor exercise
Should this be changed?
As a motor racing fan for the past sixty years, I’ve watched as women have occasionally participated in both automobile and motorcycle racing, competing against men. A few have shown talent, but not one has made it to the top of the field, in spite of the fact that they were given generous opportunities, and brute strength is not a factor. There are simply other qualities missing.
–>”but they imply inferiority, which is inherently damaging.”
I find this absurd. The implication is entirely subjective. She’s saying encouraging more participation by women (by hosting women-only events) is damaging.
It’s a bit like saying competitive sports shouldn’t keep score because doing so implies inferiority (winners and losers), which is inherently damaging. E.g., everyone’s character and mental constitution is built of eggshell, and cannot accept their losing or placing anywhere but first place. This is the realm of the participation trophy, where everyone is a winner!!!!
“Shirts!”
GOOSE
You don’t do that to a WOMAN!!! … Oh my
Kent
No misogyny now … there are plenty of good women cops
Truth be told … I’ve seen some stupid male cop vids too, 😉
All should be taught that every person has gifts from God, and that those are their strengths waiting to be discovered and used for His glory. Not all will be amazing before other people, but all will be and are, loved cherished by God our Father, and that is all we need, and that is all we need to know.
God bless, C-Marie
The greatest sport, the only sport that matters, where skill, grace, strength, endurance, and mental acuity are paramount, is, of course, golf.
The best male golfers are better than the best women golfers, but the best women are vastly superior to 99.9999% of men.
If you don’t play golf, too bad for you. If you don’t play well, you have my pity. Try harder. But there is no sport or game that compares.
Kent-
Thank you for the excellent counter-example and channel recommendation!
We know the male cop in your clip is a tough hombre because he didn’t go into shock, didn’t panic, stayed positive, counseled his partner, and guided her through the aid process.
It took him a ton of physical and mental fortitude to achieve that with his life on the line.
Cary-
Michele Mouton in 80s Group B rallying was quite a driver. There have been women that have been quite successful in auto and motorcycle drag racing, but I don’t know the specifics behind their achievements.
God’s great gift to women is motherhood, holding hands with the Creator in the birthing of a new soul. Often wonder how a woman feels when she sees a full grown child and realizes that creature issued from my body by the power of Almighty God. All the rest is dross.
One of the errors of Russia that spread throughout the world was to put all women to work, many of them by economic necessity, and thus emasculating men as husbands and material providers and bringing great pressure to bear against the family.
In last year’s Olympics they did this nonsensical “mixed medley” events in both track and swimming where you have teams of two men and two women. And lo and behold, whenever we have a situation in which men and women happened to be racing at the same time, the men are always faster than the women, and it’s not even close. There was one track race where a woman got a significant head start (because of her male teammates no doubt) and she ended up finishing dead last (or at least around it, I don’t quite remember) as the male runners run past her in quick succession.
It’s what EMJ often liked to call ‘the cunning of reason’. I’m sure the IOC and the powers that be was promoting some nonsensical narrative about men and women competing together (thus “equality”) but instead ended up showing the disparity between the sexes.
Uncle Mike. AMEN
And don’t forget to check out “The Kind-Hearted Magician” here: https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/36178/
John,
“No misogyny now … there are plenty of good women cops”
Noticing reality is misogyny? Yeah, don’t think so.
“Truth be told … I’ve seen some stupid male cop vids too,”
The exception proves the rule. Also, the examples of incompetence that we are able to see in public videos are necessarily an incomplete sample.
Not many people are cut out to be cops (or soldiers). Enforcing DIE in order to diversify the ranks of such occupations is deadly. Some of the DIE hires will be able to perform, and some of them at a high level. But that does not change Reality–combat (including street combat cops engage in) is not a natural skillset of women.
Just as nurturing occupations (nursing, nursery school teacher, etc.) require knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and interests that are not natural for the vast majority of men.
That’s nature. That’s Reality. Not misogyny, or misandry.
Kent
You know that I was quoting the “podcasters”
“Not many people are cut out to be cops”
The podcasters brought that up in the video and encouraged those people who “know” they’re not cut out to walk away. You’re going to get yourself or somebody else in deep dew.
John,
I LIVE in “deep dew”! Nothing new there!
Incompetent lady cop parks patrol car on railroad tracks during traffic stop. Puts arrestee in back of car while searching suspect’s car. Train comes. Hits patrol car. Who could have guessed? that would happen?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyKyGJ3jb40