There are at least 5 reasons why Team Red is not fond of this argument (often deriding it with the acronym NAWALT).
Taken literally, it is seen as pedantic, much like the guy who insists that every statement of the form “men are stronger than women” be followed by the suffix “on average”. Of course in a planet of 3 billion women there are going to be some exceptions; that’s not an interesting observation.
If women have less biological variability than men (see Coscott’s poll above), we would expect a single mating behavior model to have greater predictive power among females than among males.
The prior probability that a particular woman does not follow the Team Red model is not seen as good. Powerful evidence is needed to overcome it.
The man who brings up this point is often talking about his sweetheart, and will thus be unable to analyse the relevant evidence in an un-biased fashion.
FWIW, reading that first link has made me less sympathetic to Team Red. I’m assuming you consider that blog to be a strong exemplar for the team or you wouldn’t have chosen it; to me it reads as dripping with contempt for women and makes me take the idea that Team Red is engaged in dispassionate analysis less seriously.
On point 1, to clarify—my experience (and no, I’m not literally talking just about my own relationships) is that we’re talking about about at least a substantial minority, not rare exceptions. I also don’t think the behaviors in question are scalar; it doesn’t make sense to talk about them “on average” unless you’re making a fairly uninteresting point about the modal woman, where then non-modal women are qualitatively different.
On point 2, again, the reason women are thought to vary less than men is that they have two copies of the x chromosome. It’s a principle roughly similar to the difference between rolling 2d6 and 1d12; you expect a lower standard deviation in the former. And again, there’s no reason for this to predict that women would be homogenous in their mating strategies.
Point 3 is basically assuming the conclusion.
Point 4. Not in this case.
Point 5. The comment you link to contains numerous inaccuracies about US divorce law, as is pointed out in that thread. Aside from that, what Lumifer said.
On point 2, again, the reason women are thought to vary less than men is that they have two copies of the x chromosome.
The reason women are thought to vary less than men is because that’s what nearly all the statistics say. There is a fairly straightforward ev-psych explanation for this. As for the mechanism, there is no consensus on it and it’s not at all clear that the mechanism you describe is the only (or even main) one.
The reason women are thought to vary less than men is because that’s what nearly all the statistics say.
The only statistics I’ve actually seen addressing sex differences in standard deviations from the mean are IQ, height, weight, and life expectancy. Do you have links to studies from this perspective on other traits?
There is a fairly straightforward ev-psych explanation for this.
Without disputing the fact that evolutionary psychology may correctly explain some things, the problem with ev-psych exlanations is that they can explain anything. Just as you can finance pundit diametrically opposed stock market data and they’ll find some way to fit both sets to their theory, and armchair evolutionary psychologist can explain any behavior in ev-pysch terms, correct or not. Being able to offer a mechanism is, in my view, rather important for corroboration.
the problem with ev-psych exlanations is that they can explain anything.
Um, no. Yes it’s possible to rationalize anything if one is creative enough, this isn’t limited to ev-psych, but just as some arguments are better then others, some ev-psych explanations are better then others, and this one is pretty straightforward: namely since the number of children an individual female can have is much more limited then an individual male, it makes sense for females to use less risky, i.e., lower variance, strategies. Hence, we should expect males to have a higher variance in most traits unless there is some reason for that particular trait to be selected otherwise.
Being able to offer a mechanism is, in my view, rather important for corroboration.
Um, in fact in this case a single mechanism would be evidence against the ev-psych explanation, which predicts evolution to arrange this for each trait in whatever way it happens to stumble upon.
That may or may not be so, but ev-psych explanations are no more than post factum just-so stories, nothing but handwaving. They are useful to humans because humans have a need to have things explained, but they are not science.
Honestly, your comment appears to consist of a bunch of non-sequiturs. In case I’m missing something could you explain whether you think this is equally true of any evolutionary explanation. If not what’s so special about ev-psych?
Ok, what about evolution itself, or the theory of the big bang? Basically, I’m trying to figure out what you mean by “no more than post factum just-so stories, nothing but handwaving”.
Evolution is a mechanism that can trivially be shown to work. Evolution can be demonstrated in species with short reproduction cycles. The Big Bang theory makes predictions about what you should see and what you should not see in reality. So far its predictions were correct.
The Big Bang theory makes predictions about what you should see and what you should not see in reality.
So does ev-psych. If you mean that ev-psych rarely makes predictions as opposed to explaining existing data, the same appears to be true of the big bang.
Taken literally, it is seen as pedantic, much like the guy who insists that every statement of the form “men are stronger than women” be followed by the suffix “on average”. Of course in a planet of 3 billion women there are going to be some exceptions; that’s not an interesting observation.
One thing I’ve noticed is that, whereas zero-article plurals in English are usually taken to only refer to central elements of a category (“ducks lay eggs” even though male ones don’t) in descriptive statements, they often aren’t in normative statements (say “ducks aren’t allowed here”). Therefore, claims like “women are X; therefore, women shouldn’t be allowed to do Y”, insofar as “women are X” would normally be taken to refer to typical women and “women shouldn’t be allowed to do Y” would normally be taken to refer to all women, sound a lot like fallacies of equivocation to me.
Therefore, claims like “women are X; therefore, women shouldn’t be allowed to do Y”, insofar as “women are X” would normally be taken to refer to typical women and “women shouldn’t be allowed to do Y” would normally be taken to refer to all women, sound a lot like fallacies of equivocation to me.
Or maybe the claimers do not believe that every rare exception warrants a deontological obligation to create an entire legal/social/institutional framework to acommodate it, regardless of consequences such as horrible inefficiency, toxic social pathologies, or the abandonment of vitally important Schelling fences (I am reminded of a comment on Steve Sailer’s blog: “The military is too male. I don’t have a joke, I’m just really in awe of that phrase. I’m thinking about the length of a journey that a culture must undertake in order for that to stop sounding crazy.”)
If that’s their argument, I’d rather they stated that explicitly, rather than relying on the ambiguity of generic plurals.
(And in certain cases I can’t see what’s wrong with just using the same legal/social/institutional framework that already exists for men. “After all, we are a university, not a bath house.”)
Because the consequences of assuming a woman does not follow the Team Red model when she does are so terrible, a man is better off provisionally assuming that all women operate under the Team Red model.
The consequences you linked to are exactly the same for assuming a woman follows the Team Red model when in fact she does not.
Refusing to marry a woman who wouldn’t divorce you anyway? I can see that consequences of doing that are also bad, but “exactly the same” sounds like a stretch.
There are at least 5 reasons why Team Red is not fond of this argument (often deriding it with the acronym NAWALT).
Taken literally, it is seen as pedantic, much like the guy who insists that every statement of the form “men are stronger than women” be followed by the suffix “on average”. Of course in a planet of 3 billion women there are going to be some exceptions; that’s not an interesting observation.
If women have less biological variability than men (see Coscott’s poll above), we would expect a single mating behavior model to have greater predictive power among females than among males.
The prior probability that a particular woman does not follow the Team Red model is not seen as good. Powerful evidence is needed to overcome it.
The man who brings up this point is often talking about his sweetheart, and will thus be unable to analyse the relevant evidence in an un-biased fashion.
Because the consequences of assuming a woman does not follow the Team Red model when she does are so terrible, a man is better off provisionally assuming that all women operate under the Team Red model.
FWIW, reading that first link has made me less sympathetic to Team Red. I’m assuming you consider that blog to be a strong exemplar for the team or you wouldn’t have chosen it; to me it reads as dripping with contempt for women and makes me take the idea that Team Red is engaged in dispassionate analysis less seriously.
On point 1, to clarify—my experience (and no, I’m not literally talking just about my own relationships) is that we’re talking about about at least a substantial minority, not rare exceptions. I also don’t think the behaviors in question are scalar; it doesn’t make sense to talk about them “on average” unless you’re making a fairly uninteresting point about the modal woman, where then non-modal women are qualitatively different.
On point 2, again, the reason women are thought to vary less than men is that they have two copies of the x chromosome. It’s a principle roughly similar to the difference between rolling 2d6 and 1d12; you expect a lower standard deviation in the former. And again, there’s no reason for this to predict that women would be homogenous in their mating strategies.
Point 3 is basically assuming the conclusion.
Point 4. Not in this case.
Point 5. The comment you link to contains numerous inaccuracies about US divorce law, as is pointed out in that thread. Aside from that, what Lumifer said.
The reason women are thought to vary less than men is because that’s what nearly all the statistics say. There is a fairly straightforward ev-psych explanation for this. As for the mechanism, there is no consensus on it and it’s not at all clear that the mechanism you describe is the only (or even main) one.
The only statistics I’ve actually seen addressing sex differences in standard deviations from the mean are IQ, height, weight, and life expectancy. Do you have links to studies from this perspective on other traits?
Without disputing the fact that evolutionary psychology may correctly explain some things, the problem with ev-psych exlanations is that they can explain anything. Just as you can finance pundit diametrically opposed stock market data and they’ll find some way to fit both sets to their theory, and armchair evolutionary psychologist can explain any behavior in ev-pysch terms, correct or not. Being able to offer a mechanism is, in my view, rather important for corroboration.
Um, no. Yes it’s possible to rationalize anything if one is creative enough, this isn’t limited to ev-psych, but just as some arguments are better then others, some ev-psych explanations are better then others, and this one is pretty straightforward: namely since the number of children an individual female can have is much more limited then an individual male, it makes sense for females to use less risky, i.e., lower variance, strategies. Hence, we should expect males to have a higher variance in most traits unless there is some reason for that particular trait to be selected otherwise.
Um, in fact in this case a single mechanism would be evidence against the ev-psych explanation, which predicts evolution to arrange this for each trait in whatever way it happens to stumble upon.
That may or may not be so, but ev-psych explanations are no more than post factum just-so stories, nothing but handwaving. They are useful to humans because humans have a need to have things explained, but they are not science.
Honestly, your comment appears to consist of a bunch of non-sequiturs. In case I’m missing something could you explain whether you think this is equally true of any evolutionary explanation. If not what’s so special about ev-psych?
Basically, yes, “evolutionary explanations” are narratives and not science.
Ok, what about evolution itself, or the theory of the big bang? Basically, I’m trying to figure out what you mean by “no more than post factum just-so stories, nothing but handwaving”.
Evolution is a mechanism that can trivially be shown to work. Evolution can be demonstrated in species with short reproduction cycles. The Big Bang theory makes predictions about what you should see and what you should not see in reality. So far its predictions were correct.
So does ev-psych. If you mean that ev-psych rarely makes predictions as opposed to explaining existing data, the same appears to be true of the big bang.
One thing I’ve noticed is that, whereas zero-article plurals in English are usually taken to only refer to central elements of a category (“ducks lay eggs” even though male ones don’t) in descriptive statements, they often aren’t in normative statements (say “ducks aren’t allowed here”). Therefore, claims like “women are X; therefore, women shouldn’t be allowed to do Y”, insofar as “women are X” would normally be taken to refer to typical women and “women shouldn’t be allowed to do Y” would normally be taken to refer to all women, sound a lot like fallacies of equivocation to me.
Or maybe the claimers do not believe that every rare exception warrants a deontological obligation to create an entire legal/social/institutional framework to acommodate it, regardless of consequences such as horrible inefficiency, toxic social pathologies, or the abandonment of vitally important Schelling fences (I am reminded of a comment on Steve Sailer’s blog: “The military is too male. I don’t have a joke, I’m just really in awe of that phrase. I’m thinking about the length of a journey that a culture must undertake in order for that to stop sounding crazy.”)
If that’s their argument, I’d rather they stated that explicitly, rather than relying on the ambiguity of generic plurals.
(And in certain cases I can’t see what’s wrong with just using the same legal/social/institutional framework that already exists for men. “After all, we are a university, not a bath house.”)
The consequences you linked to are exactly the same for assuming a woman follows the Team Red model when in fact she does not.
Refusing to marry a woman who wouldn’t divorce you anyway? I can see that consequences of doing that are also bad, but “exactly the same” sounds like a stretch.
No, failing to sustain a satisfying relationship because you are giving your wife what you assume she should want, except that she actually doesn’t.