Commentary

Is Google right to say that sex differences don’t exist?

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Radical feminists complain a lot about sexism, but damage is self-inflicted
Radical feminists complain a lot about sexism, but damage is self-inflicted

Google recently fired a software engineer who asked them to do a better job of promoting diversity by actually appealing to women’s different needs and desires. He suggested more collaborative coding (“pair programming”) and more part-time work options. Google responded to his suggestions by ejecting him forcibly from their left-wing politically correct echo chamber. Google executives claim that their company is rooted in science. Well, is there a science of sex differences? Who is right?

This article from The Globe and Mail, which is the more leftist of Canada’s two national newspapers, is written by a PhD in the field of sexual neuroscience from York University.

She says:

Despite how it’s been portrayed, the memo was fair and factually accurate. Scientific studies have confirmed sex differences in the brain that lead to differences in our interests and behaviour.

As mentioned in the memo, gendered interests are predicted by exposure to prenatal testosterone – higher levels are associated with a preference for mechanically interesting things and occupations in adulthood. Lower levels are associated with a preference for people-oriented activities and occupations. This is why STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields tend to be dominated by men.

We see evidence for this in girls with a genetic condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, who are exposed to unusually high levels of testosterone in the womb. When they are born, these girls prefer male-typical, wheeled toys, such as trucks, even if their parents offer more positive feedback when they play with female-typical toys, such as dolls. Similarly, men who are interested in female-typical activities were likely exposed to lower levels of testosterone.

As well, new research from the field of genetics shows that testosterone alters the programming of neural stem cells, leading to sex differences in the brain even before it’s finished developing in utero. This further suggests that our interests are influenced strongly by biology, as opposed to being learned or socially constructed.

Her article is filled with linked to peer-reviewed papers, although I removed the links when quoting her article.

She even links to peer-reviewed papers to refute the Google science-deniers:

Many people, including a former Google employee, have attempted to refute the memo’s points, alleging that they contradict the latest research.

I’d love to know what “research done […] for decades” he’s referring to, because thousands of studies would suggest otherwise. A single study, published in 2015, did claim that male and female brains existed along a “mosaic” and that it isn’t possible to differentiate them by sex, but this has been refuted by four – yes, four – academicstudies since.

This includes a study that analyzed the exact same brain data from the original study and found that the sex of a given brain could be correctly identified with 69-per-cent to 77-per-cent accuracy.

[…]Contrary to what detractors would have you believe, women are, on average, higher in neuroticism and agreeableness, and lower in stress tolerance.

I think the key point in this debate is one that the author makes herself: women ought to be able to find ways to study and work on things that are interesting to them. Of course some jobs pay more than others because they are more productive, and of course we should make women aware of the consequences of studying nonsense subjects that don’t pay. We don’t want women running up student loans they’ll never pay back, then defaulting on them and passing the costs off to taxpayers. But we shouldn’t try to push women into STEM jobs by watering down the requirements of those jobs – that just treats the people who can do the jobs very unfairly.

In my own case, I prefer women who do have STEM degrees and STEM work experience, but that’s because I think that STEM education and work experience grinds out some of the characteristics of women that make them bad partners for goal-directed men like myself. I have every reason for wanting more women in STEM, but I want them to do it honestly. I want them to be treated fairly, and not get a whole bunch of advantages in education and the workplace just because they are women.

News

Reported cases of sexually-transmitted diseases reaches record high

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HIV infection rates from Center for Disease Control
HIV infection rates from Center for Disease Control

This is from the far-left CNN, of all places.

Excerpt:

There were more reported cases of sexually transmitted diseases last year than ever before in the United States, according to the latest STD surveillance report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The annual report, which was released on Wednesday, showed that the rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis — the three most commonly reported STDs in the nation — increased between 2014 and 2015, reaching an all-time high.

Reported cases of primary and secondary syphilis rose by 19%, gonorrhea cases rose by 12.8%, and chlamydia cases rose by 5.9%, from 2014. All three STDs are curable with antibiotics, but most infections go undiagnosed and untreated, according to the CDC.

What is interesting is how overspending by bureaucrats on social welfare, amnesty, refugees, etc. has left less money to combat sexually-transmitted diseases:

In a foreword to the new report, Bolan wrote that some 21 health department STD clinics across the country have closed due to many state and local programs experiencing budget cuts. Therefore, fewer people have access to the testing and treatment resources provided by such clinics.

Meanwhile, as more STD cases emerge, treating infections costs the country nearly $16 billion annually.

With the national debt doubled from 10 to 20 trillion under Obama, Obama’s free-spirited supporters can look forward to not having access to the “health care” they now need.

Not surprisingly, the reckless young people who voted for Obama are the most reckless with sex. And so they are the most affected by STDs:

Young people, 15 to 24 years old, accounted for nearly two-thirds of last year’s chlamydia diagnoses — and half of the gonorrhea diagnoses.

Not only are there more STD infections, but the diseases have adapted to beat our antibiotics.

The Center for Disease Control reports:

Gonorrhea has progressively developed resistance to the antibiotic drugs prescribed to treat it. Following the spread of gonococcal fluoroquinolone resistance, the cephalosporin antibiotics have been the foundation of recommended treatment for gonorrhea. The emergence of cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea would significantly complicate the ability of providers to treat gonorrhea successfully, since we have few antibiotic options left that are simple, well-studied, well-tolerated and highly effective. It is critical to continuously monitor antibiotic resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae and encourage research and development of new treatment regimens.

Gonorrhea is the second most prominent STD, right behind chlamydia.

One reason for the upsurge in STDs might be society’s growing celebration of male homosexuality.

The Center for Disease Control explains:

P&S syphilis among men who have sex with men (MSM) has been increasing since at least 2000. In 2014, rates of P&S syphilis increased among MSM, who account for 83 percent of reported cases among men when the sex of the partner is known. Also concerning is that more than half of MSM (51 percent) diagnosed with syphilis in 2014 were also HIV-positive. Infection with syphilis can cause sores on the genitals, which make it easier to transmit and acquire HIV.

Syphilis is currently the only STD for which information on the sex of the sex partner is reported. However, a growing body of evidence indicates that MSM are experiencing similar increases in gonorrhea and chlamydia infections– underscoring the need to further understand what is contributing to the rise.

Gay and bisexual men face a combination of social, epidemiologic, and individual risk factors that can fuel high levels of STDs. Higher prevalence of infection within sexual networks increases the likelihood of acquiring an STD with each sexual encounter.

And on a different CDC page:

Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men made up an estimated 2% of the population but 55% of people living with HIV in the United States in 2013. If current diagnosis rates continue, 1 in 6 gay and bisexual men will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime, including 1 in 2 black/African American gay and bisexual men, 1 in 4 Hispanic/Latino gay and bisexual men, and 1 in 11 white gay and bisexual men.

The CDC’s solution to this disparity is to ask for more taxpayer money, of course. No disapproval here, just take the money from the moral people and pay for the choices of the reckless people.

Right now, many people are freely choosing to engage in these behaviors, and to celebrate the lifestyles of those who engage in these behaviors, because they think that the government has unlimited taxpayer money to pay for all the costs of these decisions. Little do they know about the national debt, and what happens to “government-provided” health care when the interest rates on that debt increases. As a society, we have decided that it is better to be forgiving and compassionate when people make reckless, risky decisions. “Oh, we can just make the prudent people pay for the mess – they have money”, the progressives say. And that works fine, until the money runs out, and people realize that the mean, judgmental, controlling bullies who were defending chastity, fidelity, marriage, moral standards and personal responsibility were right all along.

Commentary

Man builds $51 million theme park for his special needs daughter

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What is the essential characteristic of a successful father?
What is the essential characteristic of a successful father?

This inspiring story comes to us from The Federalist.

Excerpt:

A Texas dad wanted to take his daughter, who has special needs, somewhere she could feel included while having fun. When Gordon Hartman realized a place like that didn’t exist, he decided to build an amusement park for her in San Antonio, Texas.

Gordon recounts watching his then-12-year-old daughter, Morgan, who is on the autism spectrum, try to play with a group of children who were swimming in a hotel pool where they were vacationing. But the kids ran away from her, likely because they didn’t know how to interact with someone with special needs.

The interaction broke Gordon’s heart and later inspired him to sell his homebuilding business to set up a nonprofit, The Gordon Hartman Family Foundation, which provides grants and sponsorships to local charities that serve the special-needs community.

He then worked with a team of doctors, engineers, and special needs experts to create Morgan’s Wonderland, a theme park tailored to accommodate visitors with special needs. More than one million people have visited the $34 million park since its opening in 2010. Last month, Gordon opened an adjacent waterpark, Morgan’s Inspiration Island, to the tune of $17 million.

“When [Morgan] comes here she’s a rock star! Lots of people want to talk to her and take her picture, she’s very good with it,” Hartman told BBC.”Morgan knows the park is named after her, but I don’t think she understands the magnitude of what it represents and how it’s changed lives.”

The nice thing about this story is that it really shows what the design for fathers should be. This is what young single women should be looking for in a man. This pattern of behavior where the man is not greedy about money, but is instead able to take an interest in the lives of others who need help in order to grow, and then investing in them using money that he has earned by working. We can measure this father on a moral scale and say that he is a good father.

Many people seem to take pride these days in not judging men on moral grounds any more. Everything is feelings about surface-level concerns. Men are praised for offering fun and thrills right now, but not for what they do in a family unit as husband and father. There is no concept of a design for men that allows them to be graded out on the criteria that really matter. Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner, etc. all seem to be viewed by many as very desirable. I read women on the left who say that they will not even go out with a man who isn’t pro-abortion. Being pro-abortion basically means that you think sex is about recreation, not about something a husband and wife do in the context of marriage. And it also means that taking the life of an innocent person is a good way to avoid taking responsibility for your own choices. But this is exactly the opposite of what makes a good husband and a good father! Why would anyone choose that over this father in the story?

I can tell you one thing about this story. That little girl’s mother chose well. She didn’t let the culture sway her away from picking a man who majored in character. And now her daughter is getting the benefit of her good decision-making. A woman’s taking care of her children starts with making good decisions about men. And good decisions about men means deciding on men who are hard workers, good earners, sensitive to others, protectors of the weak, and generous givers. Good men let other people impose on them. Good men invest in the people around them. We need teach young women to remember what it is that men are designed to do.