I think if we did a study on people with brown hair vs people with blonde hair, we would probably find that there are differences. And if we did a study on short people vs tall people, there would also be differences. Left handed-people vs right-handed people. Brown-eyed vs. blue-eyed. Six-fingered vs five-fingered. But why would we look for those differences, unless we wanted to treat them differently?
@alexander.alexis has done a lot of study on this subject. It is an academic exercise for him. I don't agree with everything he says, but I understand for him it is an area of interest, and I respect that. But I resist the argument of anyone who insists upon highlighting the differences between people, whatever they might be. And I believe @alexander.alexis to hold an equally fair-minded view.
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That's an interesting argument, and I think it probably crossed my mind in the past and then maybe got forgotten. I vaguely remember pop articles saying, e.g., that green-eyed people tend to have x personality traits, and blue-eyed people to have other personality traits, etc.
I'd say study those differences between tall and short etc. anyway! It would be interesting. I just tend to want to know everything! I mean, I often wonder if Italians are naturally better at art, or colors and composition, cos it just seems that way from the movies and art and architecture that I know of. Who knows, maybe there's something in their genes that makes them better. But if they're better at this, other people will probably be better at something else. It doesn't mean Italians should rule the world.
Back to the eye-color example, we were all very recently brown-eyed. Blue eyes evolved fairly recently from a single mutation. It's not beyond conception that the first blue-eyed person had certain characteristics that s/he transmitted to his/her progeny, and that would be interesting to know! Genghis Khan has fathered 1 in 200 of today's males, and maybe they're more aggressive compared to the average! Who knows! His genes are overrepresented compared to others', so it would be interesting to know what legacy he left us!
It would be interesting and you know I will read those references! I had read that about Genghis Khan. But his genes are likely so diluted it wouldn't make a difference. I think, behind the first few generations (fortunately) everyone is such a hybrid that it would be hard to sort. Even in cultures that seem to be homogeneous, if you look at migration patterns going back hundreds and thousands of years, you will see that we are all mongrels. I have to admit that I do look back. Vikings in Russia. Greeks in Sicily. Persians in Greece. Mongols in China.
I think I'll leave off now and read your references :)
In any case the problem doesn't lie in showing the differences betwen groups but in it purpose.
Exactly
So, @agmoore, identify differences in sex drive between men and women can for example have the purpose of helping the relationship, at least those relationships that are based on something more than sex. Knowing this can allow man to be more patient and the woman more solicitous.
Forgive me for pursuing this, perhaps beyond where I should for amity's sake. But you are wrong :) Knowing these statistics tells you nothing you can apply to your own or anyone else's life. It tells you about minute, barely discernible differences detected through culturally contexted experiments in a broad segment of the population. The individual, however, is just that. Unique, peculiar, idiosyncratic. I am a female for example, who in school was terrible at arithmetic and brilliant at geometry. Makes no sense, generally. But that's idiosyncratic me. I hate "domestic" work and love science. But that's idiosyncratic me. I am an individual. There is no way my husband or any man can learn anything meaningful about me by looking at statistics.
So, carry on with your studies if they amuse you, but believe me, if you have a relationship with a woman, these studies are likely to be of little use and may end up causing you grief.
Have a great day!
We can perhaps learn which questions to ask. Aren't psychologists trained like that? They know the signs of a paranoiac, and so if certain red flags come up, they catch them easily.
For example, in certain areas of math, men are better than women. That would make you think that men with higher testosterone are better at math, since testosterone is the main hormone that differentiates women from men. And yet, in high vs low testosterone men, it's the low-testosterone men that outperform them. And in women, it's the high testosterone women that outperform the rest. It seems the ideal is something that lies between men and women! In a way, it's good to be a little bit of both! I don't know how, but I feel this has some kind of 'practical' significance, or is inherently interesting!
A curiosity that occurs to me: we speak of Genghis Khan and his descendants. But he had a mother, who passed on her traits. She was widowed when Genghis Khan (then called Temujin) was 9. She raised her children in circumstances of great challenge. One might say it was her strength, her fortitude, her aggressive desire to survive that was passed on. She was successful, in the sense that her familial line would continue.
If we think of a beehive, it is the queen bee who is important, who passes on the genetic material of the hive. The nurse bees are females, her courtiers, as it were, who help the progeny to survive. The drones fly around and fertilize, but the essential progenitors are female. Just a thought 😁
It's all a matter of perspective, I guess :)
Edit: I'm having a little fun here.
Well no it's true. But what that really leads to is the usual theory that females (in terms of genes) should invest in their sons, and males in themselves.
If you're a male, it serves you best to go and have as much sex as you can. But if you're a female, you'll have to carry and raise the child, which leaves you little time, biologically and psychologically and resource-wise, so it serves you best if you give everything to your sons.
And unfortunately I do feel like my experience mostly confirms this theory, especially when it comes to the older generations: women loving their sons more than their daughters, more zealous about their well-being, more doting. And I guess this is partly where Freud came up with his 'penis envy', women essentially finally having the opportunity to be a male via birthing a son.