RE: Blame it on The Pill, guys !!

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RE: Blame it on The Pill, guys !! - 10/7/2009 8:14:44 PM

AquaticSub

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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

quote:

ORIGINAL: AquaticSub
I've not even heard the paper referenced on my uber-feminist campus.

That's probably because it's one of the saddest, most parochial paper published in the British Isles, AS - the Mail is actually so uninteresting, even those that read it are frightened from quoting from it for fear of appearing so terribly lower middle-class - one of the worse things to be in England. I suppose the paper would be an interesting thing to include in a study on the news-reading habits of the more-than-average British female.

It's a complete scourge, but great fun if one feels like bashing the press :-) .

*laughs* That actually makes me all the more surprised I haven't heard of it but one has to be familiar with my campus and my particular circle to really understand why. It just seems like something they would be interested in. I will have to ask around to see if anyone has read of it that isn't talking about it.

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RE: Blame it on The Pill, guys !! - 10/7/2009 8:24:15 PM

kittinSol

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Hey, all knowledge is good, so if you're interested in finding out about one of the best-selling rags in the U.K., that's more than cool - it certainly offers an interesting insight into the mentality of its readership. (They always ask for more.)

I hope you won't mind, but I include a wiki article (I realise how limited this is, but it's a start) The Daily Mail . An extract of the wiki article: "The Mail takes an anti-EU, anti-abortion view, based upon "traditional values", and is pro-capitalism and pro-monarchy, as well as, in some cases, advocating stricter punishments for crime. It also often calls for lower levels of taxation. The paper is generally critical of the BBC, which it argues is biased to the left." Pro-capitalism and pro-monarchy: how hilarious is that :-)?

Believe it or not, The Daily Mail has an inside edition called Femail (authentic!) that is one of their biggest selling points.

Enjoy: it's actually a lot of fun, in an infuriating kind of way. Says a lot about a certain kind of British readership.

< Message edited by kittinSol -- 10/7/2009 8:27:40 PM >

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RE: Blame it on The Pill, guys !! - 10/7/2009 8:54:33 PM

DemonKia

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Yeah, that news source is very tabloid-y, or maybe just straight out is a tabloid -- I'll defer to kittinSol on that one. Those distinctions can be very fuzzy for me . . . . .

If one were to look at whatever scientific studies are at the heart of that article (& of which I'm betting the article's author did not read even the synopses), they probably are riddled with problems & issues. Many a social science research is -- quality, rigorous social science is difficult as all get out . . . . . . (& I say that most respectfully as an admirer of the idea of social science, I just wish it was so much better . . . . )

& evaluating 'masculinity' is absolutely in the province of the social sciences. I can't even begin to think of powerful & effective hard-science detectable bio-markers for 'masculinity' -- & nope, testosterone isn't one, it's been rather surprisingly weirdly correlated with expected stuff . . . . . The studies under that article (it's promoting a book, I think) almost surely were some kind of study that involved soliciting self-evaluations about rather ambiguous characteristics.

I like science, but some of the stuff the social sciences puts out is worded like horoscopes, applicable in so many flexible ways that the results are largely meaningless & certainly don't obviously extrapolate out to the larger population, despite how the journalists end up reporting it . . . . .

Self-reporting can provide data, but it's got significant issues. One of the strengths of science comes not from the ability of any one experiment or study to point hither or yon, but rather when the bulk of different experiments & surveys, conducted by all kinds of people all over the planet, are converging on a consensus direction, that's when we humans are onto something . . . . . . So self-reporting generated data needs to be rounded out with other info gathered thru other methods, from different 'directions' . . . . . .

& masculinity has so many components to it, that's gonna get complicated fast . . . .

So, purely shooting from the hip, I'm betting I just bracketed 80-ish% of the technical problems with that article's basis in fact . . . . . .

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RE: Blame it on The Pill, guys !! - 10/7/2009 9:08:33 PM

kittinSol

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DemonKia

I'll defer to kittinSol on that one. Those distinctions can be very fuzzy for me

Oh yeah... that's what I'm speaking of!... Kia, I'll have you defer to me any day. And no need for the pill for that either. Yeah!

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RE: Blame it on The Pill, guys !! - 10/7/2009 9:14:18 PM

DemonKia

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lol

& good, the pill & I were never tolerant of each other, biologically . . .. .

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RE: Blame it on The Pill, guys !! - 10/7/2009 9:35:11 PM

hizgeorgiapeach

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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Although... the thought of unloading a batch of progesterone and oestrogen combos inside Gor's water supply makes me rejoice, in a strangely sadistic way.

(Damnit, kitten, yer Not supposed to come out with comments I Agree with! *muttergrumblegripebitchcomplain* who am I gonna despise on the boards if you go doin somethin like that? )

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RE: Blame it on The Pill, guys !! - 10/12/2009 6:47:06 AM

GoddessSpitfire

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the news makes everything sound worse than it is, and it sounds like a load of bullshit as usual

< Message edited by GoddessSpitfire -- 10/12/2009 6:48:14 AM >

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RE: Blame it on The Pill, guys !! - 10/12/2009 8:31:59 AM

AnimusRex

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I read the article, and it seems to be an interesting hypothesis, I notice it was not peer reviewed or is an accepted fact by the scientific community. So the jury is still out.
However, it ties to another interesting article I read this weekend in the LA Times review of Books.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-ca-karen-armstrong11-2009oct11,0,4977378.story
The reviewer quotes a book by Nicholas Wade regarding the evolution. Sample quote:

"In the lost history whose DNA-aided recovery Wade chronicles, one of the most interesting chapters covers "gracilization" -- that is, "a worldwide thinning of the human skull" starting around 40,000 years ago. Why was it that, millenniums before the agricultural revolution, our ancestors became progressively lighter-boned and smaller? A crucial clue: The fossil record and contemporary breeding experiments alike confirm that domestication, whether accidental -- as in the evolution of the dog from the wolf -- or deliberate, induces pedomorphism, or the retention of juvenile features into adulthood. "Gracilization . . . occurred because early modern humans were becoming tamer," Wade writes. "And who, exactly, was domesticating them? The answer is obvious: people were domesticating themselves. In each society the violent and aggressive males somehow ended up with a lesser chance of breeding. This process started some 50,000 years ago, and, in [primatologist Richard] Wrangham's view, it is still in full spate."

Which seems counter-intuitive, that the less aggressive and violent males were selected by females for breeding. On the other hand, it could be that the less aggressive men were seen as being more fit for family and community life, which produced more stability and wealth.

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RE: Blame it on The Pill, guys !! - 10/12/2009 2:12:17 PM

DemonKia

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That man-the-hunter mythos can really over-emphasize the plusses of aggression & individual competition . . . . . & in some ways modern pop-cultural understandings of evolution have not yet caught up with the science -- most people still seem to conceptualize evolution as being some kinda 'genetic horse race' between individuals.

Evolution is changes in reproductive & survival rates between populations over many, many generations. Typically something on the order of a hundred generations is needed to see genetic change. (& leaving aside epigenetic change for the time being & for simplicity's sake . . . . )

& biologists (& etc) now mostly look at these things as being about competition between groups rather than individuals . . . . . .

Okay, given that background, the movement away from aggressiveness, evolutionarily, makes more sense to me. Aggressive individuals are problematic for groups, especially social ones. & humans are probably the most social species on the planet, especially if we exclude those (such as ants & bees) that are more 'genetically unified' than we . . . . . .

I think some of it is also that predation is much over-rated as an adaptable trait in the pop-cultural consensus. Arguably predatory behaviors are a minority among the organisms on our planet. Plants, for instance, contain only a very few predatory species, & +99% of plant speciess are not predatory . . .. .

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