Imagine if studies indicated that low testosterone limited or in some way hindered another desirable human capability. People have been fired for it and reputations ruined.
Suggesting men are emotionally stunted. Oh that's fine.
I understand the feeling you're expressing completely. But if you just import this resentment into the thread in an unprocessed way, it acidifies discussion and makes it harder for people to be thoughtful and share information across divides. Not just the gender-ideological divide, but any divide.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21139988.
Do you really want to be the one that endures an unfair attack and have your intent twisted and ruin your career, just to try to prove a point? You would be a stronger person than me, I would just pass at this point and move on.
An observed fact and problem with behavior science is that they tend to align based on the culture of where the research is taking place. In Germany around 1940 you got very distinct results in behavior science compared to modern views. Behavior research made during the cold war looks very different depending which side of the Berlin wall it came from, even when accounting for sample size and scientific methods.
There are theories that tries to explain this, like for example that researchers tend to focus narrowly on questions that feel relevant in their personal culture, and then drawing larger conclusions.
I can’t even see the title of the original paper since this one is paywalled. I was going to go try to quantify this “absence of backlash” you mentioned.
¹ It is sort of an interesting question, which majority of feminists that is. Some liberal, trans-inclusive, biological-constructivist feminists who believe in a notion of a “female brain” would potentially see no problem with the study. That is quite a minority though. The vast majority of liberal feminists would be “social constructivist” feminists who believe male/female brain differences are overblown and would view the study incredulously. Similarly, some biological-essentialist radical feminists do believe in comprehensive sex differences, and would be amenable to the finding. These would be your typical “man haters”, who are vocal online because their ideas are not welcome hardly anywhere. However, the vast majority of radical feminists believe the male/female sex differences have primarily to do with reproductive organs and, again, brain differences are overblown. And therefore would also be incredulous of the result. So all-in-all the vast majority of feminists would by default object to the study. But there is a sex-essentialist slice that cuts across the liberal/radical divide who would entertain the ideas.
On the MRA side too I believe there are sex essentialists who would be fine with the study, although many more liberal MRAs would object to it purely on the grounds of it portraying men in a negative light. I’m less familiar with the ideological divisions in that group though.
As a side note, this is part of why liberal and radical feminists are able to hate each other and talk past each other: both sides can credibly accuse the other of harboring biological essentialists.
I did hear about the president of Harvard being fired though. I read about The Bell Curve. Damore. The list goes on and on. You must know what I'm talking about.
Maybe I'm just biased so I filter bubble out evidence that sexism is sexist.
https://autistscorner.blogspot.com/2011/09/simon-baron-cohen...
On the other hand, it has been an accepted truism for many decades that the female brain is less capable of many tasks, and I haven't seen firings and ruined reputations over this. The science of this is now being seriously questioned.
"other" could mean these from the linked article:
> The growing literature on androgenic anabolic steroid (AAS) usage suggests that some users can develop bouts of aggression known as steroid rage, mood disturbance, hypomania, irritability, and depressive episodes (9–15).
Whenever I think about ourselves, I think from an evolutionary perspective. All of the mentioned effects exist in species other than humans. I can list several reasons why the behaviors could be considered desirable.
Also note, the article says the only significantly increased emotion was anger hostility. Why does anger exist?
Personally I can’t see how anger can be anything else but a manifestation of certain underlying fear as a defensive response. (That said, those emotions seem to be conventionally recognized as mostly unrelated.)
I distinguish between fear as in immediate flight response, and fear as in deeper insecurity or non-obvious harm avoidance, including things like social status preservation.
I would not bundle reflecting negatively among all that, though.
That's a very problematic and dangerous phrasing. There is also no such thing as the female brain. There are distributions of biology.
What is sexist is assuming testosterone is responsible for autism and acting on that 'knowledge' without proof in some manner that impacts other people's lives.