Comment by Declanomous | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Declanomous | Hacker News Reader

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There's actually very substantial differences in the metabolism inside of muscles for men and women. Nobody realized this because literally every study that created baselines for what was going on inside the muscles in relation to the metabolites that ended up in the blood was done with men. So when women were later included in studies they just used the blood workup or VO2 to estimate energy expenditure and the like, and it turns out those are nearly completely wrong.

Long story short, women switch to catabolism way earlier than men, while they still have glycogen inside their muscles. Men don't switch to catabolism until after they are completely out of glycogen and are creating fucktons of lactic acid. Since your muscles run on glycogen, and lactic acid is not a great thing to have kicking around, women actually appear to have a better metabolism for endurance.

Unfortunately a lot of doctors and researchers are men, and are extremely dismissive of the idea that there is any reason to actually study women, instead inventing behavioral reasons for why you don't always get the same results for men and women in studies.

I think the fact that you are willing to chalk up the fact that women are winning these races on occasion to there not being enough elite runners has signs of a similar chauvanism.

(This is mostly off the top of my head, but I have a degree in biology and I have studied metabolism fairly extensively)

> you are willing to chalk up the fact... has signs of a similar chauvanism.

You were making a good point until the ad hominem. The personal attack makes me want to discount everything you said.

That's an unreasonable thing to do, especially since it was less an ad hominem attack than it was pointing out the fallacy at the root of your misunderstanding. They were doing you a favor. But mostly because, "I will take this one line from your statement, to show that you were arguing in bad faith, and use it to nullify the rest of what you said," is... very obviously a rhetorical tactic, rather than a substantive counterargument.

Or perhaps it's simply a form of peer pressure. "Be civil or nobody here will listen to you".

I'm sorry you feel that way. Regardless of your feelings on the matter, the claim that women beat men occasionally because of a small sample size is chauvinistic, regardless of whether or not it was intended to be.

Unlike other events, where strength is a limiting factor (for instance, sprint speed is limited by muscle mass), there isn't much of a reason to believe that women would be worse at distance running.

For instance, the same line of logic would be 100% chauvinistic if someone said "The best engineer in this field is a woman, but it's a narrow field, I assume the sample size is very small."

People used to make very similar claims about the inferior mental capacity of women as they do about physical performance now. Yes, men outperform women in feats of strength, however, in many sporting disciplines the fact that men continue to outperform women is most likely due to the fact that men are generally encouraged to participate in sport to a greater degree than women, and sporting communities are more welcoming to men.

The author of the comment I replied to has no basis for his claim that the sample size accounts for the women winning beyond a feeling that men are superior athletes in all ways. That is chauvinism, and if that claim makes you feel uncomfortable or angry, perhaps you should reflect on why that is.

No, what that person said was not chauvinistic. You're just trying very hard to imply it that way and your horrendous smugness about it isn't helping.

Especially when you're backing them up with ridiculously biased assumptions (which aren't supported by the science): "In many sporting disciplines the fact that men continue to outperform women is most likely due to the fact that men are generally encouraged to participate in sport to a greater degree than women"

I'm sure the reason Serena Williams can barely compete with a fringe male pro is because society is mean to her.

You're trying extremely hard to avoid scientific realities and scolding anyone who acknowledges them as "chauvinist". Your method of argument is everything that's wrong with societal discourse in 2019.

>I think the fact that you are willing to chalk up the fact that women are winning these races on occasion to there not being enough elite runners has signs of a similar chauvanism.

Or maybe it has to do with the fact that men drastically outperform women in almost any other physical trial, and this therefore has the markings of a statistical anomaly? What's with this desperation to explain away any differences with accusations of sexism?

What's next? Chauvanism is the reason we believe that men can lift heavier weights than women?

> What's next? Chauvanism is the reason we believe that men can lift heavier weights than women?

I know you are joking to make a point but there are actually people that believe that.

Men generally have the potential to be stronger than women, yes, but in general men are only stronger than women and larger than women, neither of which is particularly meaningful in endurance racing.

I replied to the comment above you in greater depth, but basically endurance appears to be something that women have the potential to be better at than men. If this strikes you as wrong, well, it's probably because it challenges your conception of male superiority rather than because of any innate advantage that men actually have.

> If this strikes you as wrong, well, it's probably because it challenges your conception of male superiority rather than because of any innate advantage that men actually have.

It strikes me as wrong because it contradicts the actual data I have on hand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon#IAU_World_Best_P...

It challenges all the data that so far have supported that men dominate in endurance too.

Stop injecting bigotry into everything. This axe to grind of yours is the very same that is infesting and ruining academia and industry.

My conception of physical male superiority stems from the inarguable fact that in almost every physical test men have been shown to unquestionably dominate. There's a reason sports are segregated. Your ideal world of equality does not exist; this bias is based in reality. Am I saying it's impossible in this case that women may actually be better suited for ultra endurance? No, but it's unlikely because the data isn't there, not because of your sexism Boogeyman man. I don't appreciate being slandered without substantiation either.

Edit: to summarize, extraordinary facts require extraordinary evidence, of which you currently have non, only plausible speculation. This has absolutely nothing to do with chauvinism, and, frankly, your reverse bias is dangerous.

This is exactly the problem. Since running naturally normalizes for body weight, going by your "stronger and larger", we would expect men to be significantly slower. At any endurance event, starting at a mile. But the evidence isn't there.

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