"Many things that 'everyone knows' about human sex differences are not scientifically accurate," says professor Caitilyn Allen, a plant pathologist at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Yet, she adds, these ideas "affect individual life decisions and broader social policies. Getting the facts right leads to increased opportunities for everyone and improves the quality of science in general."Plant pathologist... rooting out bias... That has metaphorical potential, but I'm just going to say it's a great idea to forefront research into the truth about human sex differences. Let's get seriously scientific. Obviously, there's a danger that the point is to "root out" only the scientific mistakes that seem to diminish or hurt women in any way. Calling it "feminist biology" heightens our sense that this danger is real. And "Getting the facts right leads to increased opportunities for everyone" — that sounds prejudged. What if getting the facts right decreased opportunities for some people? Would you still want to tell us those facts or do we need facts that help women?
But the fearless pursuit of the truth about the differences between men and women? If you can do that, I celebrate you.
Posts
50 comments:
Kind of like ecology is a blend of certain ideological presuppositions and some science.
Unsurprising this happens in places like Seattle, Boulder, and Madison, where many people who share the ideology tend to gather.
AA: "Obviously, there's a danger that the point is to "root out" only the scientific mistakes that seem to diminish or hurt women in any way. Calling it "feminist biology" heightens our sense that this danger is real."
The politicization of science continues apace.
As does the continued leftist assault on free speech.
Both utterly predictable as the left gains increasing power as well as unavoidable as the left's ideas are exposed as absurd.
Their must be clampdowns lest the little folks continue harboring the wrong ideas.
Remember, it was feminists who told us that the only reason missiles/rockets are phallic shaped is because males designed them.
Yep.
Nothing to do with aerodynamics/fluid dynamics.
Nope.
It was 'cuz of the dudes.
But the fearless pursuit of the truth about the differences between men and women? If you can do that, I celebrate you.
Get used to disappointment.
Tag: Carrots and Onion Rings.
"Hyde says she hopes the new fellowship program will help researchers explore ways to recognize and avoid gender-biased science. "
Compel gender-based science is more likely.
Omigod, that's stupid. Please let it be a joke. It's April 1, right? Please let us know they're pranking us all.
Not an undergraduate program. Not a graduate program. Not a doctoral program. A postdoctoral program.
Those academic jobs are drying up faster than a California lake, aren't they?
"But the fearless pursuit of the truth about the differences between men and women? If you can do that, I celebrate you."
I'm skeptical. This may call for some cruel neutrality.
Keep us posted.
Science should be science neither feminine or masculine. The post doc student's study seems to make sense in the scheme of science in general. Giving it the feminist tag seems to devalue that it will be authentic research.
Belligerent Drunk Stand-up Comic says:
Men and women are different, this should be common knowledge, right? I'm not saying one is better than the other -- although I have a hunch (sips drink) -- but they are different. However, that doesn't mean we can't see each other as equals; we might have to pretend sometimes, but...
(sips drink)
For instance, I have a female doctor, no big deal. She sees me naked, no big deal; I try to picture her naked, no big deal, this is just how it is in the wonderful world of boys and girls...
(sips drink)
Now, when she puts her fingers up my ass she isn't doing it as a woman -- I think -- she is doing it as a doctor -- she is professional. Professional, yes, but she IS a women, which is why -- as a man -- I go home and masturbate afterwards. To contrast, my dentist is a man, and I let him put his fingers in my mouth, yet afterwards I have no desire to masturbate: professionals, yes, but there is a difference...
(sips drink)
Women, they're cute. Cute as buttons. Stop groaning, just stop. C'mon: it's fun to see them pretend to be all grown-up, when you know -- in their heart of hearts -- they'd rather be at home playing tea party and cookies with Mrs. Willickers, the cat they put the bonnet on... (sips drink) Don't get me wrong -- men, we pretend, too: for instance, I like to imagine being the pizza guy who delivers to the sorority house on lingerie-and-pillow-fight night...
(sips drink)
When it comes down to it, as men and women we are just boys and girls in bigger bodies, that's what I think. All this equality and professional stuff, it's just a thin veneer that hides the existential fear of cooties...
Thank you, you've been a peach....
There was a time, 150 years ago or so, when people gathered and wrote and talked about how money was everything and drove every human impulse. Marx and Engels captured that wave and rode it to fame and famine and despotism and murder.
Now we have feminism, and global-warmism, and general anti-humanism. Which wave will swell highest?
Not feminism, I think. It's been a long time swelling, and they won the war back in the 1920s in America, and they have a bad PR problem with the glasses and the castrating-bitch personae.
Global-warmism will likely die because it's so obviously stupid.
Anti-humanism is the ultimate cause of it all. It may be too simple and too direct to succeed as a movement; maybe it must always be disguised. Maybe anti-capitalism in general will be the next wave.
I could have used a plant pathologist when my philodendron was found dead under highly suspicious circumstances.
I'd watched enough cop shows to know I needed to draw a chalk line around it, but after that I kind of lost momentum and the investigation fizzled.
Getting the facts right leads to increased opportunities for everyone.
"Now you can see how increased spending opportunities mean harder work for everyone...and more of it, too!"
"But the fearless pursuit of the truth about the differences between men and women? If you can do that, I celebrate you."
Good luck with that. Larry Summers got tarred and feathered at Harvard and then run out of town on a rail for just suggesting there were differences.
"Science is wheeled on just as God was once wheeled on, as corroborating evidence (from a superior source) for something upon which the voice of moral reproof wanted to insist anyway." -- Matthew Parris
Lysenko would be proud of her.
"Political science" is an oxymoron. Now this moron is actually trying to politicize a real science.
Stamen envy. It happens every spring.
Pistle Power!
Many things that 'everyone knows' about human sex differences are not scientifically accurate
She womansplained.Check your privilege. I scored 29 on the victomolgy test what was her score?
Somehow feminist biology reminds me of this:
electronics for dogs
Pistils have a legitimate gripe. Every year the seed time and the harvest reoccurs; but do Pistils get a turn shooting out seeds? No and that is a clear violation of biological fairness.
You know, when you line up genotypes and directly compare one with another, especially when dealing with opposite genders, you are likely to find many differences. If they are in areas of the genome that are known to affect brain function, emotional intensities, and so forth, what conclusions will be drawn?
Let the science speak!
Female biology is science, feminist biology is ideology.
Seems all the latest science is reaffirming the classic stereotypes of the differences between men and women. I don't know how that "hurts" women...well only if their goal is to be more like men.
Seems there is a certain feminist blogger-law professor who, in the classic hysterical female mode, refuses to sleep in an RV because of a "chemical toilet", even though many are rolling luxury land yachts, and the marine toilet system isn't even remotely like a porta-potty.
Boys are icky.
Can there be any other conclusion?
No.
The only "true" differences between men and women are those which make women seem better than men.
Coleridge's example of a biology hierarchy starting out badly, "Two great sexes animate the world."
in _The Friend_ I think.
Quote is Milton.
Calling it "feminist biology" heightens our sense that this danger is real
No. Calling it "feminist biology" simply telegraphs that this is not going to be about science.
The person overseeing this PostDoc program in Feminist Biology is a Psychologist. I think that says it all.
Here's a quote of hers from the article:
Hyde says that patriarchal attitudes in biology have not only excluded women from the field, but created biases that affect research. "To me, one of the best examples is the use of male-only samples, both in human and animal research, and then generalizing the findings to all members of the species," says Hyde. "It's not a good scientific practice, but it has been accepted for decades. The result is that some findings may not apply to women."
Scientists are loath to experiment on subjects who may be (or become) pregnant. It's a huge liability issue. I don't see why this would be hard for a Psychologist to understand, but I guess it is.
I'm glad to see that the PostDoc is funded by a bequest, but I wonder how many state dollars go into oversight. Is this congruent with the Wisconsin Idea? Probably.
You know, when you line up genotypes and directly compare one with another, especially when dealing with opposite genders, you are likely to find many differences.
Prof. Hyde, at least, seems to agree in the abstract ( "To me, one of the best examples is the use of male-only samples... The result is that some findings may not apply to women.") It's only when you get down to cases that our feminist biologists seem to find it necessary to deny any specific difference you may care to name.
But the fearless pursuit of the truth about the differences between men and women?
I have no confidence that the most slippery, most nebulous ideology in the history of ideas is capable of such a fearless pursuit of truth.
So are they trying to establish a genetic/scientific/biological difference between females and feminists?
Maybe the girls (because this program will be strictly "No boys allowed", right?)can study the effect of feminism on global warming.
Shorter version, all life Earth will be extinct by 2030 and it is all the fault of MEN or, as she prefers to call them "Homo rapiens"
I think this woman would fit into the program just fine. I think her doctorate is in batshotcraziness.
Men like Guy McPherson, you are also part of the problem. How dare you – yes I’m talking to YOU, and to all liberal men like DGR & co, and I hope you will come across this – indeed how dare you continue to write about the near term life extinction while pretending it is “humanity” who has sentenced to death all life on earth. The unstoppable death-machine has always only been orchestrated by the homo rapiens. By men. YOU. Women are not and have never been responsible for the atrocities committed by men, for men’s global industrial rape and death system. By lying and deceiving you are continuing to be part of the problem, because you are masking the fact that the obvious solution all the time, long before the extinction of all life was impending, was to depopulate the earth of males or to reduce them to manageable levels again – only by doing so would have men’s patriarchal and industrial necrophilic sado-system come to an end without destroying the rest of life.
http://witchwind.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/it-seems-the-end-is-to-come/
John Henry
All the women with daddy-issues that could make it in the porn industry.
This is clearly an attempt to introduce 'feminized' science in order to reduce the gender inequality in the sciences.
As fearless and honest as a beating on Superbowl Sunday.
The radical feminists, or "rad-fems" don't believe that the 49/51, 50/50, 51/49 male/female split is natural. Look up feminist and "culling". They believe, seriously believe, that there should be a far, far smaller male to female ratio and advocate abortions of male babies until that ratio can be corrected.
That seems like a biologically, scientifically based (or at least provable/disprovable) position. I wonder if the rad fems would accept feminist biology academics' word on the proper ratio if it differs from what they believe.
If not, wouldn't that make the rad fems feminist flat-earters?
They will find that the female Cardinal is more colorful than the male and that those who think otherwise are reporting aesthetic biases deeply rooted in the aeons of male hegemony.
Politicized Science is opinion and as the great police inspector Harry Callahan once said about opinions "opinions are like assholes. everyone has one".
Yes, "Feminist Biology," just like "Aryan Science" was a developed as a reaction to "Jewish Science" (aka "Real Science"). This is ridiculous and everyone involved with it should be deeply, deeply ashamed of themselves.
The program will be overseen not by the Biology Dept., but from the Women's Studies Department. I wonder what kind of scholarship we can expect? Why more boys than girls develop autism? Why males are more likely than females to become serial killers or mass killers?
Maybe the first paper will be about how women earn 61 % of biology degrees, and how the gender gap must be closed. Or not. The agenda for many is female supremacy, and we can see the effects already, for example male hypergamy and female polyamory.
How did the old rhyme about boys and girls go?
"Sugar and spice and everything nice"
vs
"Snips and snails and puppy dog tails"
See, everything we need to know about gender biology I was force-fed in kindergarten. No need to spend post-doc time and cash on the topic.
Given that High School girls are now being compelled to run 5Ks in cross country next season, just like the boys, I wonder if the OCR (Office of Civil Rights, which was threatening WIAA with a lawsuit because of 'many complaints' they had received) would do anything if I pointed out to them that this program wasn't selecting men.
(I wonder if there's an exemption given the funding source).
Scott: "They believe, seriously believe, that there should be a far, far smaller male to female ratio and advocate abortions of male babies until that ratio can be corrected."
Well, considering it is the lefty paradise of China that is throwing off the numbers, the feminists are correct.
But in this case we have a commie-feminist "Red on Red" scenario.
What to do, what to do?
The left "lives" for abortion and the Chinese even force women to have abortions (lefties looooove that) but then it throws off the ratio's because the "choice" being made in China is to whack the girls.
What a conundrum!!
The only possible remedy for the left is to blame Bush....and Emmanuel Goldstein (assuming the left hasn't "revisionist-ed" that Orwell novel like they are trying to do to "Animal Farm).
Balfegor: " This is ridiculous and everyone involved with it should be deeply, deeply ashamed of themselves."
Shame is a bourgeois concept and not to be found on the left.
It is a dark day in the Drago household as I learned, just today, that one of my nephews will be attending at UW-Madison for a graduate degree.
I must take him aside and explain to him that he may encounter the likes of garage at some point (assuming garage is allowed into town or anywhere in proximity to other breathing individuals) and not to cough up cash to him/them simply because garage/they think he/they are entitled to the assets of others.
Feminist "biology" is where women, and men, are indoctrinated with the "choice", and taught the myth of storks and spontaneous conception. At least that's when they are not celebrating the inferiority of males and raping (not rape-raping) independent females outside their narrow consensus.
Michael: They will find that the female Cardinal is more colorful than the male and that those who think otherwise are reporting aesthetic biases deeply rooted in the aeons of male hegemony.
Don't laugh. I was recently walking on a trail in a very nice arboretum in a certain state, and paused at one of the information/interpretive displays for identifying the local birds. Usually these sorts of things show pictures of the male and female birds side-by-side, or occasionally an image of the brightly-colored male (which is what most people are interested in looking at, after all) with an inset of the drabber female. But this groan-inducingly PC display had large photos of the females, with the gaudy males appearing only in a tiny little corner inset.
At least, it induced groans in my husband and I. Followed by eye-rolls. Then we started laughing, it was so comically ham-handed. I guess some enlightened state biologist was trying to "challenge" us and shake up our stodgy sexist preconceptions. (Maybe subtly chiding us not to "other" those glamorous male cardinals with the "human gaze" or something.)
"postdoctoral program in feminist biology"
that's university speak for- you've been here over 20 years and not accomplished anything. That kind of persistance needs to be rewarded.
I just hope this made up position will be remunerated with momopoly money. The people of Wisconsin have suffered enough.
I'm waiting for feminist mathematics. I especially look forward to the theorem about having your cake and eating it too.
Post a Comment