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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35351 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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The triumph of the blank slate

an article in the Atlantic recently made the case that separating sport by sex doesn’t make sense, because it ‘reinforces the idea that boys are inherently bigger, faster, and stronger than girls in a competitive setting — a notion that’s been challenged by scientists for years.’

On a similar theme, a few weeks back the New York Times ran a piece arguing that ‘maternal instinct is a myth that men created’. In the essay, published in the world’s most influential newspaper, it was stated that ‘The notion that the selflessness and tenderness babies require is uniquely ingrained in the biology of women, ready to go at the flip of a switch, is a relatively modern — and pernicious — one. It was constructed over decades by men selling an image of what a mother should be, diverting our attention from what she actually is and calling it science.’

Just recently, Scientific American stated that ‘Before the late 18th century, Western science recognized only one sex — the male — and considered the female body an inferior version of it. The shift historians call the “two-sex model” served mainly to reinforce gender and racial divisions by tying social status to the body.’

Yet what is strange is that such ideas are triumphant, even as the scientific evidence against them mounts up, with the expanding understanding of genetics and the role of inheritance. The tabula rasa should by all rights be dead, indeed it should have been killed twenty years ago with the publication of one of the most important books of the century so far, Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate.

Rather than blank slate-led ideas falling to mockery and obscurity, the opposite has happened — they’ve proliferated and spread. Pinker was obviously right, yet seems to have lost.

i recently was in a seminar discussing fixed versus growth mindsets, and it was argued that believing in any innate/genetic component of intelligence was connected to a 'fixed' mindset. we were discouraged from using the idea of 'talent' as it implied that some people were just naturally better at some things than others. it seems like a core part of the 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' mantra that is finding its way everywhere - the idea of innate difference is anathema to the principle behind caring about equity versus equality.

I think the growth vs. fixed mindset paradigm is bunkum . Its obvious that although practice can improve absolute ability, relative differences will persist, which is more important. People want to not just get better at things, but better relative to other people or good enough to make a living or attain some recognition. competitors train equally hard for marathons, yet some runners are still clearly better than others. Despite law school prospects using the same apps and study methods, why do some individuals score higher on the LSAT than others? Likely IQ.

an article in the Atlantic recently made the case that separating sport by sex doesn’t make sense, because it ‘reinforces the idea that boys are inherently bigger, faster, and stronger than girls in a competitive setting — a notion that’s been challenged by scientists for years.’

I think women can be more competitive at endurance-like events relative to men, but the women-in-sports debate focuses on activities in which men are massively better, like mma (anything to do with combat, speed, strength). I have observed this myself...women climbing mountains as well as men, which would be like going to the gym and seeing women doing 225+ reps on the bench with good form, which you will never see. Indeed, the best women's marathon time is 2:14 vs, 2:02 for men, a 10% difference. By comparison, the best men's deadlift is about 70% greater than the best women's deadlift. I think this is why marathon or 5k,10k events tend to be more diverse than other sports activities.

I think the mindset idea has some value - innate talent might be important, but for practical purposes, you can't change the genes you were born with, whereas you can practice hard. At the same time, it might be that people are better off trying to identify their talents and disposition and act in a way that matches them, rather than trying to shove their square self into a round hole.

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