Reclaiming (evolutionary) biology! (thinking about what Heather Brunskell Evans said)

Likedust

Apparently, I haven't expressed myself clearly. I don't "want" to find anything, except the truth.

I am interested in the extent to which certain currently observable sexed differences in behaviour - for example, men being more violent - can be accounted for by innate factors vs socialisation.

I would be quite happy if most of those differences turned out to be due to socialisation. BUT I simply don't believe in pre-judging something ahead of the data, and making claims that later science might prove to be untrue.

Because : 1) Too much damage has been done in the past by people taking that approach (to lots of people, not just to women)
2) That is precisely what we are criticising TRAs for doing, as well as for suppressing research
3) Because if we put all our eggs into the basket of "all sex differences are due to socialisation, and that's why women should be treated equally", what happens to our case if science later reveals that actually there are some significant differences?

You mention aptitude, as if you think I was talking about that - but I've already said earlier in the thread that I don't believe significant differences in aptitude will be found, because already the data doesn't point that way - that's the one area that has been relatively well researched, and anyway as Aspie said, it's unlikely just in theoretical terms that evolution would select for sexed differences in maths ability.

Hopefully I've now clarified my stance on this: I don't really want to have to keep posting to say I haven't said what I haven't said. Anyway, I'm in the coffee shop at John Lewis now, fortifying myself with a latte for sallying forth to the shops before they get too crowded, so may or may not be back to the thread later.

I suppose my beef is with this is that you already can tell a female from a male brain. Here's the steps:

1. is it inside a male or female body?

2. does it have female or male sex chromosomes in the DNA?

3. it's size and density - more like a typical woman or typical man?

If there are differences in aptitude or brain imaging it is unlikely you will see definitive sex differences like you see in the sex organs or sex chromosome. The differences are far more likely to have 2 clusters in the distribution, like height.

What if all we have is our sexed bodies, how this affects our thinking, environment/socialisation, hormonal influences and how we are mentally affected by our reproductive role. All of which are highly significant and worth researching in a lot of detail. Very real palpable things.

What if this 'other' thing is just phlogiston?

What is this extra thing you want to find evidence for?

You already can tell the difference between a male and female brain. They both weigh the same but women's are smaller and denser. No new-fangled science required.

What other brain differences are you looking for?

I'm sure you'll be able to see the effects of sex hormones on the brain.

What are you looking for- what is this sexed brain you think science is going to throw up?

AspieandProud

Yes, separated twin studies are really, really interesting. The most important thing about them, IMO, is that they really did disprove the blank slate theory pretty conclusively.

The thing that makes me cautious about all this, though, is my awareness of how much scientists' abilities to study these things is likely to improve in future. Genomics is still in its infancy, and neuro-imaging even more so. When people say something like "you can't tell male and female brains apart by looking at them", I just think: no, not at the moment, with our relatively crude technologies, but what about in 30 years time?

More knowledge plus potential new technologies not yet thought of perhaps could answer a lot of questions people now think will never be answered. I think it was Bill Bryson's book about the history of science that drew my attention to how many times in history even scientists have wrongly said "that question will always remain unanswerable", because they simply couldn't imagine the future technology that in fact would answer it. I guess maybe I am just cautious by nature, but that's why I am keeping an open mind on this subject.

And now, time to get ready to spend the day Christmas shopping

I only read OP not thread but as an evolutionary biologists here’s my take:

Humans are mammals - since mammals gestate young there is an overall tendency among mammals to see the more common “sex role” (males the “competitive” sex, females the “choosy” sex).

However there is a general trend in mammals, birds especially that sexual dimorphism tends to decrease in lineages with biparental care. Specifically, sex specific “ornaments” and “weapons” in males are reduced when compared to harem/mate-guarding polygamy. If you look at humans in the context of great apes this appears to have happened in the human lineage. Males and females are less dimorphism than in, say, orangutans, gorillas, or chimps.

There is of course residual physical sexual dimorphism. When it comes to behavior however most of the variation in male and female sexual (and other) behavior that we see can be demonstrated to be culturally - based. Attempts to identify “biological” reasons for mating behaviors have always come up short.

In short I would argue that the Homo sapiens adaptation for persistent culture and cultural evolution is such a strong effect that biology has little to do with behavior other than a tiny nudge. This nudge is enough that we start with most societies being patriarchal. But they needn’t remain so.

But that is how psychological research is conducted. Multi-variable analysis is important, in order to tease out which factors are significant. You have to start with a pre-determined hypothesis to test, though, because otherwise you can invalidate your methodology

So it seems the data is already out there. Why not just look at already has been researched filtering by sex? Clearly it is because you cannot eliminate sociological factors.

The thing is though sex is quite different to race. Ethnic differences really are only skin deep and have evolved relatively recently in response to people finding themselves in different climates after modern humans migrated from the horn of Africa 70,000 years ago

However there is far more genetic diversity among sub-saharan Africans than among those who migrated from the horn of Africa. Perhaps it isn't just skin deep. It is certainly possible. Perhaps certain talents and abilities are passed down through different genetic heritage. I have fuck-all interest in finding out because from an ethical perspective I believe that information gleaned by this research is dangerous because us humans are a bunch of fuckwits that need stereotypes so as not to become overwhelmed by the sheer diversity that exists.

This thread makes me wonder if there is a hankering for Plato's Republic (or like the film Divergence for a more modern example).

As to criminology and personality disorders, I am pretty sure PDs are evenly spread between women and men, but they are expressed differently. Is this different expression nature or nurture? Does it matter? The important issue is finding ways to stop men from being responsible for the majority of the world's shit.

The traditional tool for teasing out environmental influences was twin studies.

Find a pair of identical twins brought up separately and see how they turned out.

If one is brought up in a materially or emotionally and or impoverished environment and ends up in prison for stealing cars and the other is brought up with all the advantages imaginable, goes to Oxbridge, becomes a stock trader, then ends up in prison for embezzlement, there’s possibly a genetic link.

There aren’t many twin studies done these days though because they don’t seperate twins.

One of my favourite films is Trading Places. It’s not about twins but it is about a social experiment on environmental causes of behaviour.

LangCleg That's interesting. Criminology, specifically the effect of personality disorders, was at the back of my mind when I wrote the above, as a different example I could have used, instead of violence. Is that what you're reading about, or is it other aspects?

My point is, the effectiveness of various policies we might adopt to counter-act that tendency to violence is likely to be different, depending on what's causing it. So if we want effective social policies, the nature/nurture issue is important.

Yes, very much this. I've recently been reading quite a lot of ultra realist criminology, which is enlightening in this regard - not just nature/nurture but other issues feminism doesn't usually talk about.

LikeDust

How about instead of going out with an intention to find natural differences between men and women, you do what ever psychological/aptitude testing and research you can, with sex as well as blood group as well as economic background, etc, etc as ways to interpret the results.

But that is how psychological research is conducted. Multi-variable analysis is important, in order to tease out which factors are significant. You have to start with a pre-determined hypothesis to test, though, because otherwise you can invalidate your methodology - I can't remember the name for this frowned-upon practice, but if you cherry-pick your results you can end up making the statistical probability of the results invalid.

That aside, I think there are two things here that it's important to keep separate. The first is the study of what differences currently exist between population groups (of any sort) without trying to determine the cause of those differences. This is done for various reasons, but is often important for provision of services, to address population needs as closely as possible.

The second is studies that try to address what proportion or elements of a population characteristic are caused by nature or nurture. These are much more difficult to do, but the reason psychologists are interested in the question (apart from just scientific curiosity) is because the best way to address a problem may differ significantly, depending on what causes it.

So take violence: blank slate-ists believed that all violence was a learned response. So if a young child was violent, it was probably because of violence in the home. But now evidence is coming out that there are genetic predispositions and personality types that predispose an individual toward violence. My point is, the effectiveness of various policies we might adopt to counter-act that tendency to violence is likely to be different, depending on what's causing it. So if we want effective social policies, the nature/nurture issue is important.

You need to research properly how much behaviour is gendered and how much is societally imposes (preferring pink is clearly societal, boys playfighting more than girls is (imo) probably innate).

Asserting that ‘gender is a social construct’ is not helpful and is denying evolution.

Once you accept that some behaviour is gendered then you get to the corollary that men’s propensity to violence is not bad or something that needs dealing with, as it is the same propensity that allowed teams of (mainly) men to split the atom or put a man on the moon. It is a question of channelling this propensity in the right direction.

I know that there is such a huge intersection of cultural and genetics and that it is impossible to unpick.

OTOH, I think that thinking of either sex as superior is just silly and, by acknowledging innate differences, whilst recognising the huge overlap and treating everyone as an individual, we are more likely to reach a true and longterm equality.

I dunno about Pandora's box - more of a can of worms, akin to looking to science to justify racial inequalities with different natural propensities.

How about instead of going out with an intention to find natural differences between men and women, you do what ever psychological/aptitude testing and research you can, with sex as well as blood group as well as economic background, etc, etc as ways to interpret the results.

The reason why you have to be extremely cautious is because sexism is normal. Every subject tested will have been socialised with sexism. As would every scientist testing. As would every person interpreting the data.

What would this add?

We already know men and women are different - look at the crime stats. Men wake up with hard ons in the morning and their first thought is on getting an orgasm. Why is there a need to dig deeper to devise ways to psychologically categorise babies when there is plenty of evidence of sex differences in adults?

But that's some thing I personally find unsatisfactory, as it places feminism in a long line of political philosophies that prioritises ideology over the pursuit of truth.

This is one advantage I have being an Aspie. I’m not afraid to think about biology effects my brain because I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking and reading about how it differs from others. I have to think consciously about my emotional state. If I don’t monitor it it can get out of hand.

Resting state, not testing state.

Im taking more about the constraints laid down by our preferences. I gave the example of religion to make the point that even when you take it away choice is not ‘free’ in the way we like to think of it. A woman born in Afghanistan has few choices because of society but take away all societal constraints and we still have preferences that weight the choices we take. We experience the feeling of following our preferences as freedom but those preferences themselves might not be a matter of choice. Take homosexuality. I don’t think being gay is down to socialisation. I don’t think people ‘choose’ to be gay either.

We like to think we have choices but we can all look back on bad decisions we made and think I only did that because I was drunk, or someone spiked my drink, or I was coked off my nut, tired, or angry, or afraid, or in love. We see that as exceptions to normal behaviour and we talk about competence or diminished responsibility or crimes of passion. But drugs like alcohol or GHB or coke change the degrees of activity already occurring in the brain and anger and fear and love also increase the activity of hormones like adrenaline or testosterone or oxytocin (a cynic might argue that love is just a hormone imbalance). There’s no neurotransmitter- or hormone-free testing state upon which drugs and emotional states act. We are never entirely free.

But we don’t experience sobriety and calm as if they are as just as constrained by biology as intoxication or extreme emotional states.

I may be getting way off topic. What were we talking about again?

Separate thread to discuss Heather Brunskell-Evans and the topic of bodily autonomy and when women stopped being able to discuss their bodies (part of her wide-ranging talk at LAWS):

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3440521-Heather-Brunskell-Evans-and-Bodily-Autonomy

It seems to me that there's an element that some feminists see the existence of innate sex differences in behaviour as a Pandora's box that, for fear of the consequences, should be kept firmly closed, or at least only peered into extremely slowly and cautiously.

But that's some thing I personally find unsatisfactory, as it places feminism in a long line of political philosophies that prioritises ideology over the pursuit of truth.

For example, a poor girl in Afghanistan is going to have a lot fewer choices than a wealthy white male born in America.

And the girl may have no choice but to bear children, whereas the male can never choose to do so. The girl's lack of choice on this is social, the man's is biological.

In other words some people get what they are given and some people choose what they want to have. This disparity can be drawn along all sorts of lines of inequality: sex, 'race', nationality, social class, etc.

But how much choice we actually have and we have the feeling of choice is social and to do with the luck of the draw of where we are born and the body we have.

For example, a poor girl in Afghanistan is going to have a lot fewer choices than a wealthy white male born in America.

A lot of this boils down to where you stand on the concept of ‘free will’.

If you are a hard determinist, you don’t have any. It’s all just the Big Bang playing itself out and you are just along for the ride. Free will is an illusion. You do what your brain tells you to do.

On the other hand if you are a philosophical libertarian (this is distinct from political libertarianism though there is some overlap) then you have absolute free will and make free, rational choices, and your brain has nothing to do with it. It’s just the organ where choice happens to happen.

I don’t think either philosophy is really palatable.

I’m more a ‘compatiblist’ which is the philosophy supported by people like Daniel Dennett. You have free will within the constraints of nature. Yes, you might chose your career, you might choose to have kids, you might choose cornflakes in the morning, but these choices act within the constraints of your preferences.

Let’s take an uncontroversiak example. You chose cornflakes this morning instead of branflakes or a bacon butty. Is that free will? You could have had the others if you chose to but where you free? Well, if you are a vegetarian or a practicing Jew or Muslim the bacon butty was out. If you are concerned about your health you might have gone for the branflakes. But you like the taste of cornflakes so you went for cornflakes.

These factors are social or biological or both. The religious taboos are social. The health concern is social (we place value on health as a society) and biological (branflakes are the healthy option). And taste is really down to biology (everyone’s sense of taste is different).

But would any of us really deny we had a choice?

I think this goes to career choices too. We can choose and we think that choice is free because it feels free but it is influenced by social and biological factors.

Feministme

Funnily enough, using the search feature a while back, I found this really good, open-minded discussion by feminists about evolution-related matters, from 2007. It was in "Other topics", though - however, I don't know if this was because the FWR board had not yet been set up (the first post listed in Feminist Chat is from 2010).

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/other_subjects/267947-evolution-and-feminism

I also think looking for sex difference in personality and ability is different from 'height' because you can look at height distribution and you don't say to a woman "you have a more male height" or to a man "you have a more female height" even if they are more in the cluster occupied by the opposite sex.

However setting out to investigate sexed personality or ability is starting from a biased premise. Surely you should start out from a neutral position from a particular investigation - for example - reaction times. You could plot the results and mark whether the participants are male or female. You would need to state that you cannot be sure if a clustering of two separate sexes was nature or nurture. For example, faster reaction times might be because girls need to react quicker to bullying or boys might play more sports.

I think there are good reasons that people are cautious about this area. Because scientists can be sexist as can Joe public interpreting and applying the findings, which can lead to unhappy people.