Hi Mary. All quite correct, but I notice you didn't comment on the crucial point, which is that women's brains finish growing about 3 years younger than male brains and what effect that might have on finished ability in comparison with brains which have had another 3 years of construction time.
If you think that has no effect, I'd be interested in why. But you'd better not have an idea on what the effect might be, and certainly not an opinion, or you'll be a whateverist too. Because there is a dearth of data, as far as I know anyway. < to imply that you know with the data that we currently have, you are then exposed to be called a whatever(ist).
It is all very simple.>
The other important question is whether women should get education younger so that they don't lose the crucial development stages after which learning things becomes difficult. Child development people know that there are optimum stages for children to learn things. Such as language when they are around 2, 3, 4. Judit Polgar started chess at age 5. What do you think the chances of her being super-duper would have been if she didn't start until age 10 or 12?
It's hilarious that everybody ignores the two questions that I'm asking, and ends by calling me a whateverist and they explain to me the most simple and commonly known things and that they know a woman who is quite good at maths, as thought that covers the situation.
<Who knows how these things will turn out? Let the chips fall and see where they will land.>
I know how things will turn out. Women get, [on average you must remember, not that all of them are identical], 3 years less brain development time. The conclusion will be, and already is, though the basis isn't mentioned, that girls should have education better tuned to their development stage. Same for boys too. Education is a pathetic lowest common denominator crowd control system rather than an intellectual development project. It's not as bad as it was, but it's not as good as it could be.
The idea that we shouldn't think about thinking because we don't have complete data is silly. Thinking about thinking doesn't make one a whateverist. By expressing your opinions, you have shown that you are a whateverist too.
It's all a bit academic though, in the big picture and the long run, as it's a bit like arguing whether male or female chimps are smarter and when their education should be carried out. Both are so hopeless that they are never going to be very good. It's important to the individuals involved though and holding girls back is unfair to them. I guess you are happy with the status quo of female repression. The Taleban is like that too. [It's fun to take arguments to extremes and come up with silly accusations of whateverism].
The development of It is going to make human brain development largely irrelevant, just as the industrial revolution made human muscles largely irrelevant, food almost free, and led to the current flaccid obesity as people eat lots of food and do little exercize. They used to load hay from dawn to dusk, manhandle cargo onto ships, carry things in wheelbarrows and dig roads over mountains with a pick and shovel. Women didn't do that, but they were quite physical too.
Google, Skype, CDMA/OFDM, billions of data inputs, fibre strung everywhere, switches and servers everywhere, is building nothing less than a photonic/electronic cyberbrain of gargantuan proportions.
Humans will be at best nodes on the periphery, helping build It and feed in data, and benefiting in symbiotic fashion. Communities with that will do well. Africa will fall further behind. Already, the first thing I want to know when buying a house is "What's the connection speed?" That was in Y2K. I made do with ADSL. Next time, I'll require fibre. Communities will divide into fibrous and non-fibrous. The digital divide won't be closing. It will accelerate as those who can use it will move into fibre zones.
Arguing over male versus female is like arguing on a scale of 0 to 1,000,000 whether males and females are both on 7, or are females on average only on 6? And whether male and female chimps are both on 1?
Mqurice |
