Gender and Sexual Orientation
gregladen | June 25, 2016On Friday, June 24, President Obama designated the Stonewall National Monument - the first national monument dedicated to telling the story of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community's struggle for equal rights.
Listen for the Ken Burns tribute near the end.
gregladen | December 2, 2014Some interesting new research. The paper is, unfortunately, behind a paywall but they made a video, so it is worth posting.
Here's the press release for the paper:
Scientists know that temperature determines sex in certain reptiles—alligators, lizards, turtles, and possibly dinosaurs. In many turtles, warm temperatures during incubation create females. Cold temperatures, males. But no one understands why.
A recent study sheds further light on this question. The findings of researchers Kayla Bieser, assistant professor at Northland College, and Thane Wibbels, professor of reproductive biology…
gregladen | March 7, 2014Imagine that there is a trait observed among people that seems to occur more frequently in some families and not others. One might suspect that the trait is inherited genetically. Imagine researchers looking for the genetic underpinning of this trait and at first, not finding it. What might you conclude? It could be reasonable to conclude that the genetic underpinning of the trait is elusive, perhaps complicated with multiple genes, or that there is a non-genetic component, also not yet identified, that makes finding the genetic component harder. Eventually, you might assume, the gene will be…
gregladen | April 15, 2013Apparently, the women have jugs.
No, seriously. In a certain archaeological culture known from the vicinity of Prague, male and female burials are distinguished by the mode of burial and the artifacts. The males tend to be buried with their heads towards the west and along with various weapons. Females, on the other hand, tend to be buried with their heads towards the east and surrounded by domestic jugs.
This is interesting for many reasons (to an archaeologist, at least) but even more interesting is the possible discovery of a transgendered person's burial. This is a male skelton…
gregladen | December 17, 2011Sheril Kirshenbaum has a few comments about a piece in Science addressing innate differences between boys and girls in math. I have to say, it may be hard to accept the scientific truth sometimes, but the research really does consistently say the same thing again and again. In this latest study, the science ...
[doesn't] rule out the existence of very small biological difference, but, by comparing test scores across cultures, [does] indict local social factors as the likely primary culprit. Gender gaps vary from place to place, showing that cultural factors swamp biological ones.
Read about…
gregladen | August 22, 2011First of all, I want you to know that I've devoted my life to this blog post so now you have every reason to love it more than any other blog post. Sniff sniff.
Or, could it be that I've been watching too much America's Got Talent (which, clearly, it does not, except that yo-yo guy was pretty good). I mean, seriously, if America's Got Talent then why is there Country Western Music? Anyway, I have noticed this trend of the argument for Not Being Voted Off The Island being that I've Invested Myself Emotionally Beyond Belief and I think that's a bad trend.
Speaking of time, this was one of…
gregladen | July 8, 2011Humans appear to have a reasonable amount of diversity in their sexual orientations, in what is often referred to as "gender" and in adult behavior generally. When convenient, people will point to "genes" as the "cause" of any particular subset of th is diversity (or all of it). When convenient, people will point to "culture" as the "cause" of ... whatever. The "real" story is more complicated, less clear, and very interesting. And, starting now, I promise to stop using so many "scare" quotes.
Prior to birth there are a number of factors than can influence things like gender or sexuality…
gregladen | July 7, 2011Behaviors are not caused by genes. There is not a gene that causes you to be good, or to be bad, or to be smart, or good at accounting, or to like bananas. There are, however, drives. "Drives" is a nicely vague term that we can all understand the meaning of. Thirst and hunger are drives we can all relate to. In fact, these drives are so basic, consistent and powerful that almost everyone has them, we share almost exact experiences in relation to them, and they can drive (as drives are wont to do) us to do extreme things when they are not met for long periods of time. While eating…
gregladen | January 26, 2011There are human universals. There, I said it. Now give me about a half hour to explain why this is both correct and a Falsehood. But first, some background and definition.
Most simply defined, a human universal is a trait, behavior or cultural feature that we find in all human societies. Men are always on average larger than women. All humans see the same exact range of colors because our eyes are the same. The range of emotions experienced by people is the same, and appears in facial expressions and other outward affect, in the same way across all humans.
The term "Human Universal"…
gregladen | January 1, 2011Almost Diamonds has two interesting posts on the Julian Assange sexual assault/rape accusation/charges. I want to make a comment on part of the second post, but this may not make a lot of sense to you until you read both of them. They are concise and compelling so you will not regret the time you spend on them:
Assange and the Presumption of InnocenceAssange and the Victim Conspiracy
The issue is that of jealousy or resentment. Some Assange defenders, for some reason, seem to feel the need to point out suspicious or negative aspects of the women, their actions, reactions, decisions, etc…
gregladen | October 22, 2010Human infants require more care than they should, if we form our expectations based on closely related species (apes, and more generally, Old World simian primates). It has been said that humans are born three months early. This is not accurate. It was thought that our body size predicted a 12 month gestation, and some suggested that Neanderthals would have had such, but this research conclusion has been set aside based on new analysis. But it is still true that developmentally, human children do not reach a stage of development that allows some degree of self care for a very long time…
gregladen | October 12, 2010Or, when the hunting season is closed, watch teh game (the guys), or when there are no sales, admire each other's shoes (the gals)?
This is, of course, a parody of the sociobiological, or in modern parlance, the "evolutionary psychology" argument linking behaviors that evolved in our species during the long slog known as The Pleistocene with today's behavior in the modern predator-free food-rich world. And, it is a very sound argument. If, by "sound" you mean "sounds good unless you listen really hard."
I list this argument among the falsehoods, but really, this is a category of argument…
gregladen | July 6, 2010According to those who decide these things. This is what I had assumed would happen assuming that Caster Semenya is an XY person with complete AIS. (see: Caster Semenya's Gender: What would the science be?)
The current news story, just being reported and quite incomplete (and perhaps appropriately so) is from the BBC.
gregladen | September 11, 2009Well, we don't know because the necessary detailed information has not been released. I do not personally know the Caster Semenya story, medically or biologically speaking, but there has been a lot of discussion and apparently wild speculation on this, and I may have a thing or two to help clarify.
If the reports we are hearing are true, Semenya is fairly likely to be an individual with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. This may be wrong. So, I'll tell you a little about AIS and then you can disconnect your knowledge of AIS from Semenya, or connect it up, as appropriate, later on.
It has…
gregladen | August 4, 2009The Aquatic Ape Theory is being discussed over at Pharyngula. As PZ points out, an excellent resource on this idea is Moore's site on the topic. Here, I just want to make a few remarks about it.
The Aquatic Ape Theory (AAT) is a human evolution Theory of Everything (TOE) and thus explains, as it should, everything. That is a dangerous way for a theory to act, because if it tries to explain everything then it is going to be wrong in a number of places, and it is going to seem (or even be) right in a number of places but only by chance. (Unless, of course, the TOE is totally rad and really…
gregladen | June 2, 2009Or to put it more accurately, yet another study seems to show that girls learn from their teachers, parents, and peers that they are not supposed to be good at math. Sterotypes can be fulfilled. Pleas stop doing that, everyone.
Here is some press on this story.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers continue to find evidence that shows there is no innate difference in the math ability of males and females.
"There is a persistent stereotype that girls and women are just not as good at math as boys and men," said UW-Madison psychology professor Janet Hyde. "And the data we have…
gregladen | May 14, 2009Why does a soldier throw himself on a hand grenade to save the lives of a half-dozen unrelated fellow soldiers? Why does someone run into a burning building they happen to be passing to save a child they don't know? From a Darwinian perspective these seem to be enigmatic behaviors that would "select against" such individuals (or more properly, select against the heritable component of this behavior).
There are several possible explanations for this....
...The most important one might be that this sort of behavior doesn't really happen very often. It is so rare that it can be ignored and…
gregladen | May 12, 2009According to a study just coming out in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, "variations in emotional intelligence--the ability to identify and manage emotions of one's self and others--are associated with orgasmic frequency during intercourse and masturbation."
In short, the study found:
Emotional intelligence was not associated with ... age and years of education, nor did we find a significant association between emotional intelligence and potential risk factors for [female orgasmic disorder] FOD such as age, body mass index, physical or sexual abuse, or menopause. We found emotional…
gregladen | May 3, 2009... well, not really, you should not burn any book. But don't just leave this one around for your kids to accidentally read.
Source of book.Hat tip