Is this a restatement of the old argument “quit usin’ them fancy words, boy, they don’t impress me none?” Juxtapositions of this against your objections to “uneducated” are made and noted.

“McDuff`s attempt to state that your gender does not make you different flies in the face of science, no matter how elequently he puts it.”

To reiterate, you’re misunderstanding on a basic level what my problems with your claims are. If I had ever claimed once that men and women were physiologically equal in every aspect then you would be making the correct counter-argument. I have not and would not make that claim. What I am saying is:

The physiological differences in behaviour due to gender are much narrower than the essentialist conception of a binary-gender species;

These differences are exaggerated by socialisation;

That even with biological and socialisation pressures taken into consideration and saying that men and women are at this moment different in behaviour, that the amount of overlap across the different gender populations still means that the various “therefores” you draw, of “jobs for the boys” etc are flawed. If, to pick a hypothetical, it is the case that 70% of the male population and 55% of the female population are physiologically adept at role X, it makes no sense to claim that “women can’t do role X.” However, the level of statistical variance we deal with can often be a lot smaller than that;

That even so the arguments can be further muddied because we as a society are set up to reward gender-normative roles (aggressive men, nurturing women etc) and suffer from a lot of this kind of thing, which means that “jobs for the boys” aren’t even necessarily the kind of things that traditional masculine types are good at, they’re just the kind of thing they’ve traditionally done and we’ve post-hoc rationalised that they must be better suited to it.

This article is a wide-reaching meta-analysis and makes a number of the points I’ve made here in more detail. The point is, though, setting up a straw man of “there’s no difference in gender” and then knocking it down with some studies of different primates fundamentally fails to address the problematic way in which you allow that evidence to stand as a proxy for proof of everything you believe about the way we deal with gender in all human societies and ours in particular.

This isn’t “eloquence”, it’s called having an opinion just a touch more sophisticated and complex than a halfbrick to the face.

———

“Getting back to the original matter. If I own a pub that is frequented by dockers or maybe the BNP and I make a reasonable living, might I not be putting that at risk by employing a barman who is, gay, black etc.? It may well go against my principle NOT to employ him but in thinking of the best interest of the business I would not.”

See this is one of those really interesting bits of apolegia for discrimination that gets a lot of traction because it sounds so suspiciously reasonable. But the reasonableness of this statement is a whisper-thin lacquer of unexamined prejudice. Underlying it is the assumption that the only people with money are white racists. Otherwise one would make the reasonable assumption that if you stuck to your principles — malleable as they are — that the BNP members would leave and be replaced by all the blacks and gay people with money who haven’t wanted to frequent your pub because it was full of violent racists. Wouldn’t you? There’s also the issue of how you came into the possession of a BNP pub while apparently not being racist. Perhaps you’d started off believing that not all “dockers”, which I presume is a stand in for white working class males, are racist only to be disabused and discover that, actually, every single docker is not only a straight, white male but also a racist. Because gay men can’t be dockers, apparently, because they’re too busy listening to show tunes or serving in the military. And there’s no such thing as a black working class man who might work on the docks. Or that those who aren’t black or gay would stop drinking beer if it was served to them by a dark-skinned queer, which seems to me to be the most ludicrous assumption of all. None of these assumptions or the others I haven’t mentioned bear up well to scrutiny, and without them your conclusion that your hands are tied by the bitter economics of the situation seems rather flimsy, seeming rather like a fig leaf to cover an ugly truth.

And it’s that reason that equality laws matter. Because people insist that they’re not racist but everyone else is, their hands are tied. So it’s a worthwhile use of the law to say “stop being a fool” to people who believe that employing someone who isn’t straight, white and correctly gendered for the role will mean the end of their business.

———————

As far as attacks go, take whatever you will from the comments. If you stroll into a thread and proudly mansplain that you’re a “feminist’s nightmare” I would have thought you’d appreciate a feminist agreeing with you. You are a nightmare for feminists, but it’s not because you’re right, it’s because you’re common. Common sense, common knowledge, common assumptions, and a common mistaking of “it’s always been this way” for “therefore there’s nothing to worry your pretty little head about”.

You also seem to be under the mistaken impression — albeit one quite often shared by a particular kind of pearl-clutching white male taken to having attacks of the vapours — that support for legal equality on the basis of race, gender and sexuality also extends to treating every pearl of wisdom that drops from every mouth as being precious unto Jesus’ sight or something, even if said pearls turn into hoary old cliches when you shine a bit of daylight on them. I’ve said before, if you’re going to quack, I’m going to call you a duck. If you’re going to lambast us with your opinion and base it on an obviously superficial and pop-sci knowledge of the research on gender development and expression, I’m going to point out that uneducated patriarchs have been saying that kind of thing for millennia now, while changing the texts they read from every so often according to the fashion, and it’s nothing if not tedious. My use of “insidious” I already explained once, and you’re welcome to address the points about free-riding conclusions if you wish to dispute my usage. Until then, however, I think I’ll stick with it.

————————

“Mcduff again picks the weak part of my argument and avoids the rest, as any good debater will do.”

No, I picked apart the central flaw in your argument. Yes, also the weak point, but shouldn’t that ring some kind of alarm bells in your own head? Without a mechanism of selection or adaption, there is no theory. What you have there is just waffly quasi sci-fi fluff that amounts to “there might be a god of some kind, mightn’t there?” And the only reasonable answer I can offer to that is, “yes, there might be, so what?” Just as small samples of monkeys behaving in suspiciously gendered ways doesn’t imply that women can’t lift bricks or audit a shipping manifest, so a hypothetical sci-fi deity’s potential existence doesn’t imply in any sense that said deity would have even the slightest knowledge of our existence, let alone that it would construct a system of morality for our particular species of primates that concerned itself with whether one male romantically fondled another male’s testicles. We can “assume for the sake of argument” all the way to wherever we like, but frankly I don’t know why the superficial pebble-dashing of tabloid physics is in any sense necessary to whatever point it is you think you’re making.

“There might be a god, mightn’t there” is just as valid if you don’t pull some half-understood words out and drop them into a post with a smug thud. What about the anthropic principle? Which anthropic principle are you on about, anyway – there’s more than one. As with everything else you drop in, it’s basically meaningless because “you can’t prove it didn’t happen like this” is a specious argument. You might as well just make the assertions you wish to make without tying yourself in knots attempting to shoehorn quasi-scientific rationales in where they don’t belong to try and give your opinions the sheen of objectivity.

More monkey business:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/

We know that there are marked differences in genders not caused through socialization. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia can cause them, there are also numerous Gender disorders. By stating the existence of these we maintain that there are natural differences. There are of course socialized differences too, I know a few lesbians that have become so because of abuse or other interactions.

McDuff`s attempt to state that your gender does not make you different flies in the face of science, no matter how elequently he puts it.

Getting back to the original matter. If I own a pub that is frequented by dockers or maybe the BNP and I make a reasonable living, might I not be putting that at risk by employing a barman who is, gay, black etc.? It may well go against my principle NOT to employ him but in thinking of the best interest of the business I would not.

In business as in politics and life we have an image to convey for success, talk of legislating equality in certain cases may not be in keeping with that. Would the public accept a Danny La Rue figure as PM, would the World ? Hypothetically it shouldn`t make a difference. Hypothetically it shouldn`t make a difference if a Lord turned up in jeans and T shirt but it does. We have many rules that stop certain people from having certain careers not just gender differences, how far should we go.

We all discriminate, it doesn`t just apply to gender I believe there have been experiments regards Courts where Jury`s were believed to discriminate because of the way a person looks.

McDuff seems to insinuate I have a belief that women are below me, this is untrue. I have stated before there are many women above me and equality does not exist. We live in a world where a pecking order must exist else evolution would not occur. My argument that there are jobs for boys and jobs for girls will remain, physically we are different and science proves that fact not the other way around.

Regards McDuffs view that because you may not be the norm, in that you are gay or transexual or whatever that I would treat you differently, yes I would. In so much as I adjust the way I treat all people, I am not a machine. I see your weaknesses or strengths and try to adjust accordingly but not in a bad way.

Should gay`s or other be allowed to work in Religions ? I think that`s best left to the Religion. Should Dr Frank N Furter be Prime Minister ? Should my wife be allowed three storeys high to fix the roof ? She`s quite able by the way, it`s just if I fall the kids don`t lose as much and she`s more precious than me. Plus the fact I am physically more able in that concern..the way nature intended, not that there aren`t some women of equal physique but that`s not the norm.

——————————————

Going back to Quantum physics which I`ll admit I wasn`t taught at school and do not have the time or inclination to study in any great depth. Mcduff again picks the weak part of my argument and avoids the rest, as any good debater will do. I unfortunately do not have the armoury he does but that isn`t to say he`s right.

He states quite rightly that I can give no theory of posits of mechanism of selection and adaption of an evolved God. Of course I cannot science isn`t good enough yet. Of course it also is not good enough to fill in the gaps of his theory of evolution on Earth.

Again he picked up on my lack of knowledge and attempted to beat me over the head for my lack of education on a few points but avoided such things as Anthropic Principle and The Goldilocks Enigma. Both of which point to a Creator being a plausible or at least equal explanation of life and the Universe. The actual odds of this all happening randomly are less believable than a creators existence.

—————————————-

As far as Mcduffs claims that he doesn`t attack, this is poppycock.

Stating publicly that I am an “uneducated Patriach” who knows all and then adding later that my views were insiduous is without doubt an attack on my person. If it is mere critique as he states it would appear that I would not fall into his view of equality. This is one of the failings of equality law…If we have to force it upon people it isn`t ever going to be equal, you are just subjecting people to your obviously unequal opinions.

I would gently caution that, at least as regards homosexuality, your expertise in religion should not be taken as an expertise in biology. The fields of study do not, in my experience, commute.

And while I admire your enthusiasm, the coherence of your argument needs a little polish. It relies, I would suggest, a little too much on conflation of overtly atheist political systems with each other, and the assumption of universal bad faith on the part of this monolithic block you don’t really justify creating. Chinese Communism is not really equivalent to Soviet Communism, and it’s worth asking, for example, whether Marx is really 100% equivalent to Rousseau.

Your hypothetical persecution when a mythical “Times Author” refused to criticise a mythical school in a mythical column does, indeed, demonstrate a hypothetical complete hypocrisy which I am sure we are all eager to test as and when Dawkins gets round to setting up an “atheists only” school. But, while the hypothetical behaviour is damning, it’s worth at least wondering whether it has ever occurred on the other side; perhaps whether of not, say, a Christian writer has defended the behaviour of Christians or the Church while damning similar behaviour from members of other organisations? It’s something you might want to explore in your dissertation.

Finally, I would just like to provide a small correction. When I said that religions were a social control mechanism, it was not in the Marxist sense of opiating the masses, but in the sense that all social systems have a mechanism for the transmission and policing of shared values. Indeed, that’s one of the ways in which you know it’s a “society” rather than just a group of people who happen to be geographically grouped. Indeed, in many societies our arbitrary Western distinction between religious and secular belief – which as you rightly allude to is a product of enlightenment thinking – did not and continues to not hold. An interesting side-story to the political development of Japan Post-WWII, for example, tells of how they fully intended to adopt the American “separation of Church and State” value, they first had to work out which parts of their culture were which, since it was not something that it had occurred to them to consider those elements of their society separately. While our society is large and diverse, and multiple systems of value transmission operate side-by-side, there’s no denying even now that many subgroups of our society rely on religion as a mechanism for maintaining their own shared values, be that on the wrongness of homosexuality, the natural submissiveness of women, or the importance of selling one’s possessions and giving the money to the poor. There’s nothing conspiratorial about it. The Catholic Church, after all, has a system of rules to be obeyed and a complicated threat system of hell and purgatory upon death to enforce those rules. Judaism has a complicated system of Rabbinical law. The British State has laws and a judicial system. They’re all merely examples of social control systems, and there’s nothing eerie or unnatural about such things. Indeed, one could hardly keep a society together without them, and even if you tried to get rid of them they couldn’t: shared values and social policing are to groups of people what mushrooms are to a damp tree stump.

My only comment would be that, for the majority of Britons now, there seems to be a preference for a value system and enforcement mechanism more in line with an irreligious state than with a specific Church, and that perhaps we should question whether they should not be protected somewhat from a system that perpetuates a value system most of them don’t have any real time or use for in the 21st century. The majority of the British population that is either gay or female or both, for example, really has little use for traditional, and unfortunately often religious, hierarchical systems of social organisation based around tribal understandings of gender, and this does, I am afraid, put the state into conflict with some religious groups on occasion.

Other than that, though, an enjoyable set of comments! Do let us know how the doctorate goes, won’t you? I for one am eager to read your dissertation when you’re done.

Much of the Standard History, such as how Religion dominated the Middle Ages and turned them into the Dark Ages, is also the product of Propaganda told by the Enlightenment thinker sin order to justify their own overthrow of the Church and purge of the culture from Christian Influences. This is also why Modern Atheists have less qualms with Pagans, as the Enlightenment venerated Ancient Rome and Greece.

The thought processes of the Enlightenment underwent further development in the 19th Century, and eventually formed the basis for Secular Humanism. Still, you can trace the thoughts back to Various thinkers, and in the end back to the Enlightenment itself.

And it does have a fixed Value system and set of Doctrines it wishes to impose on Society.

It has also hijacked the word “Secular”.

The Legal term Secular once upon a time meant Neutral in regards to Theological Discussions, yet now it means that we must have a sort of imposed Atheism. No Expression can be made of Any Religion, and whilst in Public everyone has to act in accordance to a set of standards and beliefs derived from the Humanist Value system.

They just declare this “The Secular way” and pretend its not a Religiously derived set of beliefs itself, for we bar consideration that Secularism is itself a Religion because otherwise it becomes a self contradicting Hypocrisy. By denying it is a Religion, you can maintain the ruse that it’s not only a non-religious belief system, but THE Non-Religious belief system, and then force everyone to comply with it.

All in the name of Reason and tolerance.

But who defines what is Tolerant?

I made a badly written post on Free Speech back about 6 months ago because I was busy with University repost and such, but I mentioned an example another poster mentioned on Homophobia. He had though we should limit some hateful worlds, especially in regards to Homophobia. But who defines Homophobia? Is simply disagreeing that Homosexuality is a Natural, normal, and Healthy lifestyle Homophobic? If so, should we criminalize Churches for teaching this?

And what if Modern thinking is wrong? Certainly there is no Scientific evidence that people are Born Gay, and some people profess to have left Homosexuality and returned to Heterosexuality. Should we just accuse them of lying as has become standard practice because they don’t fit the accepted mould?

When does Tolerance extend also to those who disagree with the prevailing view of those in command of these movements?

On Lord Hy***‘s example, the Times Author Criticised a Church School for not hiring Militant Atheists. This is claimed to be an ac of Intolerance and discrimination, but The truth is, when people demand Militant Atheists be given teaching positions in Faith Schools, whose beliefs said Militant Atheists will openly attack in a class of impressionable Children, they aren’t really interested in Tolerance at all, but in Control. They want to impose onto others their own Religious beliefs and Values, they just say theirs aren’t Religious as to get by with it.

However, if a Secular School was founded by the likes of Richard Dawkins for the intent of Teaching a Secular Humanist perspective, and indoctrinating them into his Atheistic beliefs, and said School refused to Hire a Devout, Practicing Catholic who would Challenge those views on the grounds that Said Teacher would possibly undermine the Students adherence to Said Atheistic perspective, then I doubt the Times Columnist would take the side of Anti-Discrimination and would instead Favour the Schools right to protect the purity of its purpose. it’s a Double standard I’ve seen time and again.

The Truth of the matter is they just want to ensure society become s and Remains one dedicated to the principles of Secularism as they personally have defined it, and demand compliance form everyone else in regards to this. It is, in the end, just forcing others to go along with your Personal Religion, and imposing its teachings on them.

Its just not called Religion as to get by with it.

I think that, as with Faith, we have allowed the modern Debate on Religion, that really stems for the Neo-Atheist movement which itself is nothing but a revival of older Enlightenment ideals and beliefs, to colour our perceptions.

The reason I say this is because most here seem to want an easy explanation for what Religion is, a mean to demonise Religion as evil, a quick reason for why they personally aren’t Religious, and shouldn’t be considered as such, and of course an equally quick and simple, not to mention Sinister, reason for Religions existence.

Usually the Sinister reason for Religion to exist is that it was created to control the Masses, and McDuff used a varient of this by claiming Religion was created to Reinforce an older social Order. None of this is true according to Modern Research on Religion. I should know, I am not some uneducated fool but in University getting a Doctoral Degree in Psychology and my focus happens to be on Religious studies.

The truth is, Religion is the Fundamental understanding we have of our world. To those who think there is something more Fundamental than Religion that undergirds it, your wrong. While Religions certainly grow more complex based upon teachings and reflection, Religions are ultimately just Philosophical Models we use to understand the Fundamental nature of our existence. In this way, everyone is Actually Religious, and that includes people like Cuff, Troika, and Richard Dawkins, who advocate a systematic belief system, such as Secular Humanism, which in the end does have exactly the same traits as all other Religions, including Doctrines and Dogmas.

When Christians pray to God, for example, they aren’t Praying to an Abstract Religious Concept or some sort of Vague notion, but to a very real being that actually hears their prayers and form whom their brains respond to as if he is their. They even, while praying, activate the Same centres of their Brains that they would to people they speak to such as their Neighbours, a Bus Driver, or Co-worker. To those who Pray, God is as real as anyone else, and there is no Mystical otherworldly sense to it at all.

By the same token, when Christians hold to certain Moral views, its not base don Blind Faith, but on a thought process that tells them something is a sin because it actually brings real and tangible harm to themselves or society. Sins aren’t themselves Arbitrary, either but based at the very least on observation of the Real World.

Faith is not belief without evidence and Religious Faith is not some unenlightened blind allegiance that goes unquestioned by the believer that the fortunate Atheist avoids by thinking for himself, and such arrogant claims have gotten old. Especially when you consider that Modern Atheisms beliefs have a History you can easily track and didn’t emerge as individuals began to think r themselves and arrive at all their own Conclusions independently.

Take, for instance, Homosexuality. Many Atheists feel that Homosexuality is a natural, normal variation in Human Sexuality, and assume this is based solely on dispassionate Logic. Yet Atheist in the Soviet Union in Living Memory had outlawed Homosexuality, as had Communist China. Homosexuality was seen as a Mental illness and unhealthy by most Atheists throughout most of World history, including by Modern, Western Atheists in the 20th Century in both Europe and America. Modern Atheists have Embraced it more for Cultural Reasons than for actual independent thought on the subject or real research, and all based on the fact that they think they are suppose to embrace it due to what they think an Atheist is suppose to be.

Another example is the love affair with Reason and Logic, yet the conflation of those things solely with the beliefs they personally Hold to. Theists are classified as Irrational on the grounds that they are Theists, because the Atheist assumes only Atheism can be Logically defended, and has defined the Atheist Position as the only Logical one.

I’ve been around long enough to have seen some remarkably poorly thought out arguments for Atheism, including those in “The God Delusion”, and I know full well most arguments used regularly on the Internet by Atheists are horribly ill thought out, yet somehow they magically become “Logical” because they are an argument that supports the Correct decision.

And I’ve gone too long, so Ill finish the post in a bit.

Your specific claim was that God was, or could be, explained by applying evolutionary principles to “energy” either in the universe or outside of it. I don’t know what multiverses or the anthropic principle have to do with that. I feel more like you’re throwing various things you’ve heard at the wall to see what sticks, wheras, while this might be a sideline, I was at least curious to see whether you did have a mechanism for adaption and selection. So far though I’m not even fully convinced whether you’re arguing for God being an evolved, emergent consciousness of energy patterns within the universe or exterior to it.

Certainly, your arguments don’t seem to be promoting any positive understanding of what it is you believe, as much as explaining how you don’t understand this quantum malarkey and you feel that you’re entitled to your beliefs regardless of evidence or workable theoretical models. While I can’t dispute the subjective truth of that position, I must admit to remain at a loss as to what the question is that you suppose I am unable to answer.

(The theory of schroedinger’s cat, incidentally, doesn’t state that the cat doesn’t exist. It states that it exists in an indeterminate state until measured. Of course, as I said, it’s not actually about cats, but subatomic particles, and used to describe how at that level we can only talk about events in terms of probabilities – a photon may have a 4% chance of reflection off a pane of glass, but we cannot say which 4% reflect until measured)

There are, however, a number of questions I’ve asked about this little sideline question that have gone unanswered. For example, are you talking about energy within the universe, in which case E=MC^2 would hold, but so would the relativistic limit of the speed of light act as a limiting factor on any universe-wide network? Or are you talking about energy outside the universe, in which case, what basis do you have for applying general relativity?

Further, to keep going back to your initial question as to how your theory differs from my concept of evolution: evolution specifies a mechanism for mutation, adaption and selection. It is a change over generations of patterns. My question remains, what mechanism for adaption and selection do you propose that would apply for a complex pattern of “energy”, in or beyond this universe?

Insidious is a valid term for what happens with this kind of argument. Some results which match people’s cognitive biases are hitched onto much broader claims and used to add a veneer of respectability where none is deserved. It’s exactly what you did. “Boys play with trucks and form allegiances for power.” Your “proof” was a study which related to the first part of that, albeit in a weaker form in the original study than after it had gone through the media translation machine. Nonetheless, you felt no reservation about attaching the follow up to it is as a free rider, like an earmark to subsidise cheese production attached to a US Federal Defense Bill.

Thus a tiny piece of scientific information becomes a set of substantive claims about gender essentialism used to justify legislation which perpetuates discrimination. What word other than insidious captures that level of creeping unjustified certainty? I don’t see it as a positive thing.

Perhaps you should stop taking your adopted role as the Voice Of The Common Man here so personally. You’re conveniently voicing a number of arguments which are by no means unique to your good self, nor staggering in their originality. The responses, likewise, are not original nor personal, they’re aimed at the platonic ideal of Carl H, who is a vocal and powerful lobby group in our electorate.

“insidious gendered claims”

Is not an attack ! I wonder which part of the multiverse you`re from ?

The fact is Quantum Physics does not negate a creator, in someways it helps to serve it IS one of a few probabilities, that include a multiverse.

So if we accept you would rather the multiverse version and I the Creator version then each of our beliefs are equally valid. If we also accept that they are theories or beliefs, I cannot give you an answer anymore than you me.

Now in terms of arguing with a sociopath, there is no answer there either. The best thing to do is the same as in the cat theory, turn your back then it doesn`t exist. Of course there is alway`s more quantum theory, that even something far away is affected by that which it has a link to.

I find it difficult to walk away, I know, but I must and soon. I would not like this blog to become the passion of your denigrating as others have. It`s a shame because you have a lot to offer but as your comments in the link below show a lack of diplomacy and understanding for fellow beings.

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/01/07/homophobic-former-archbishop-speaks-out-on-immigration/