Toy choice preference innate?

[Formless]

As has been said time and time and time again in this type of thread and just as many times ignored, culture and biology are intertwined. You seem to view it as some kind of voluntary fancy unrelated to any other factors. "Well, if it's due to culture, then people could change their minds and it'd just disappear!" Or perhaps, "gender isn't cultural, and I know that because I never explicitly instructed my son through a computer speaker on which toys he should prefer; he chose the car by his own self, ayep!"

It's perhaps a caricature of the original sentiment, but functionally similar.

"Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?" Donald Hebb, psychologist, in answer to the question "which, nature or nurture, contributes more to personality?"

[ArmorPierce]

I want to know why the hell either sex of chimpanzees would react differently to a cooking pot.

My intial idea for an answer would be that a cooking pot is a holder that could conceivably hold an infant and females would be more likely to recognize, appreciate and exploit that concept.

it could also be used as a hat or a club. It's just crazy.

UNLESS by some weird freak of wiring girls are just attracted to pot shaped toys, with the whole cultural thing of girls cooking following from that. but that seems just too damn far fetched.

It could be something that they associated with the pots through human interaction. I suspect that the article over simplified that, possibly the person quoting it oversimplied it as well.

[DudeGuyMan]

By your logic, every human society on earth has been racist, ergo racism is innate to human beings.

No shit. The urge to divide up into an "us" and a "them" is indeed innate. Racism is just one form it can take. How far it's taken and whether it comes out as tribalism, nationalism, or religious hatred depends on the circumstances.

I suppose you'll suggest the fact that human beings don't live in perfect harmony is just a "cultural" thing?

Or, since every human society ever has been patriarchal (never mind the ones that weren't) misogynistic, chauvinistic bullshit is

The ones that weren't sort of defeat the point of using this as an example.

just normal for us and not something to be ashamed of. Or we can apply the same idiocy to slavery, war, murder, rape, religion, etc.

Bzzt. Passing a moral judgement that something is "not to be ashamed of" is different than acknowledging that something exists. The idea that something can exist in every single culture that human beings have ever created ever throughout history but NOT be considered innate to the species, just be written off as one of the vagaries of "culture" like wearing blue hats on Tuesday, is laughable.

I mean what the fuck, do you think the existence of rape and murder are just a cultural thing, and that with the right culture there will never be any rapes or murders? What the fuck are you even on about, besides hoping that I wouldn't dare suggest that any bad things are innate to human civilization?

P.S. not that I expect you to understand any of this, but here goes. I have from the start been talking about aggression, because violence is one way aggression is expressed by human beings and other animals.

Oh so when you wrote this...

Oh, but of course saying "men are more aggressive/violent" is not sexist whereas stereotypes about women would be called bullshit in about two seconds.

...you didn't mean to conflate aggression and violence at all. That was all just me being silly. Right.

Concession accepted.

[DudeGuyMan]

It's a false dilemma, but there's really no question about testosterone and aggression being linked. Hell, look at hyenas; their females are bigger and more aggressive (and have bigger fake penises) than the males because they get more testosterone. All the sparring rutting species have testosterone making them do that. So do humans. Big whoop.

Actually, I anticipated this one as well, though in fairness I won't increase the cliche` count since its a bit rarer than the rest and requires a little bit of actual research. While testosterone is correlated with aggression, the mechanism still isn't definitively known. In fact, there is at least one study that I know of that indicates it may simply increase your awareness of social status, which in turn can increase aggression if you are low on the totem pole; which in turn is mediated by how you are expected to rise up the totem pole in your society. Ed: I suspect that explains why hyena females, which are a very social species, would have high levels of a hormone they don't really need otherwise. So its not necessarily that simple.

By the way, I like how this post had almost nothing to do with what you were responding to. Gee a "correlation" is totally different from a "link" and since the "mechanism isn't definitively known" then I guess it doesn't exist!

[Formless]

No shit. The urge to divide up into an "us" and a "them" is indeed innate. Racism is just one form it can take. How far it's taken and whether it comes out as tribalism, nationalism, or religious hatred depends on the circumstances.

Oh, for fucks sake... this board needs to stop abusing the word tribalism because it has lost all meaning at this point. (increases bullshit pop-psych cliche` count to five) Anthropological evidence suggests that in fact, nomadic humans living in tribal conditions both then and now were/are not warlike savages that never interbred. Early humans even interbred with Neaderthals, a completely different (sub)species! This stereotype contradicts known facts and would have quickly led to inbreeding too boot, making it Grade A bullshit. Like everything else that's come out of your mouth so far.

The ones that weren't sort of defeat the point of using this as an example.

That hasn't stopped some people from peddling it, though.

Bzzt. Passing a moral judgement that something is "not to be ashamed of" is different than acknowledging that something exists.

Its something that we should be ashamed of when idiots like to hide behind pseudoscience to excuse their own asshattery. But also, you're completely missing the point again.

I mean what the fuck, do you think the existence of rape and murder are just a cultural thing, and that with the right culture there will never be any rapes or murders? What the fuck are you even on about, besides hoping that I wouldn't dare suggest that any bad things are innate to human civilization?

Any biologist will tell you that rape is a fringe strategy as far as reproduction is concerned, and murder as stated is not as common among humans still living the "primitive" life as people like to make it out to be, simple fact. But the point is, your "evidence" is based on non-existent logic, trying to pass off an un-analyzed assertion ("this is seen in every culture [that I know of]!") and through the magic of ignorance thinking you've proven something. You haven't, because you have not even begun to explain the link between the data and the conclusions you draw from it. The religion bit was particularly important there, champ, because you might notice that every human culture around today has its superstitious or religious beliefs, yet we know for a fact that these are cultural phenomena that transmit rather effectively from society to society, bypassing biology and yet altering behavior everywhere they go. Yet somehow we're immune to gender socialization... coughbullshitcough.

Oh so when you wrote this...

Read, you sad sack of shit:

Violence is aggression, agression is not violence.

I mean, goddamn are you dim.

[Formless]

By the way, I like how this post had almost nothing to do with what you were responding to. Gee a "correlation" is totally different from a "link" and since the "mechanism isn't definitively known" then I guess it doesn't exist!

And in one fell swoop, you demonstrate why you are a completely worthless shitposter who should not be talking about this subject. At all.

It CAN increase aggression IF you are low on the totem pole and IF your society works that way. That's culture at work, you stupid dishonest cuntrag. Once again you demonstrate your complete inability to comprehend the point.

[ArmorPierce]

No shit. The urge to divide up into an "us" and a "them" is indeed innate. Racism is just one form it can take. How far it's taken and whether it comes out as tribalism, nationalism, or religious hatred depends on the circumstances.

Oh, for fucks sake... this board needs to stop abusing the word tribalism because it has lost all meaning at this point. (increases bullshit pop-psych cliche` count to five) Anthropological evidence suggests that in fact, nomadic humans living in tribal conditions both then and now were/are not warlike savages that never interbred. Early humans even interbred with Neaderthals, a completely different (sub)species! This stereotype contradicts known facts and would have quickly led to inbreeding too boot, making it Grade A bullshit. Like everything else that's come out of your mouth so far.

That's not anthropological evidence suggesting that. Interbreeding was more likely caused through war and rape. For example, the people of Mexico is largely mestizo, spanish native descendants. Is this evidence that the natives and the spanish got along fine?

[Formless]

That's not anthropological evidence suggesting that. Interbreeding was more likely caused through war and rape. For example, the people of Mexico is largely mestizo, spanish native descendants. Is this evidence that the natives and the spanish got along fine?

No, but that's a red herring anyway: 1) the native people in Mexico were already living under an agricultural civilization that spread through conquest and warfare 2) the Spanish were likewise an agricultural civilization that spread through conquest and warfare. On the other hand, if you look at the tribes living in North America, while they weren't completely above war it wasn't their preferred method of resolving disputes due to the resource drain war incurs. Agriculture based civilizations tend to have the resources to spare and specialists who can do the fighting, so war becomes a much more attractive option to those societies. Plus, because agriculture ties your society down to a fixed geographic location, it also means you can't choose your neighbors like nomads can, increasing the odds of conflict arising.

[Formless]

Ghetto edit (to expand): lots of cultures arrange marriages and similar relationships as a way of making or strengthening ties to other families or tribes, not to mention other diplomatic benefits. Even Europe practiced this for most of its history, and the nobility kept practicing it for longer still. Considering the many reasons war is not an ideal method of resolving disputes among nomads (or even semi-nomads-- that I think better describes the seasonal lifestyle of North American tribes), this is why I think that my evidence from before of interbreeding among human populations with even neanderthal populations demonstrates humans and especially humans living tribal lifestyles tend not to be as warlike as people like to make them out to be.

[madd0ct0r]

roight. dug out the origional paper, I think.

Sex differences in chimpanzees' use of sticks as play objects resemble those of children

Sonya M. Kahlenberg1 and Richard W. Wrangham

NB Chimpanzees. a different paper to the cooking pot vervets

*
Summary
* Sex differences in children's toy play are robust and similar across cultures [1,2]. They include girls tending to play more with dolls and boys more with wheeled toys and pretend weaponry. This pattern is explained by socialization by elders and peers, male rejection of opposite-sex behavior and innate sex differences in activity preferences that are facilitated by specific toys [1]. Evidence for biological factors is controversial but mounting. For instance, girls who have been exposed to high fetal androgen levels are known to make relatively masculine toy choices [3]. Also, when presented with sex-stereotyped human toys, captive female monkeys play more with typically feminine toys, whereas male monkeys play more with masculine toys [1]. In human and nonhuman primates, juvenile females demonstrate a greater interest in infants, and males in rough-and-tumble play. This sex difference in activity preferences parallels adult behavior and may contribute to differences in toy play [1]. Here, we present the first evidence of sex differences in use of play objects in a wild primate, in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). We find that juveniles tend to carry sticks in a manner suggestive of rudimentary doll play and, as in children and captive monkeys, this behavior is more common in females than in males.

the paper also notes that this behaviour has not been noted in other studied groups, nor is it taught by mother's to their children. It is suggested as a 'child tradition'; the first seen outside humans.

the origional 2002 vervet research can be seen here:

www.x-gender.net/biogender/alexander-etal-02.pdf

amazingly, the female monekys contacted the pot even more then he doll. the papaer suggests

Color may also provide an important cue for female interest. Female rhesus monkeys have
been found to show a preference for the characteristic ‘‘reddish-pink’’ facial coloration of
infant vervets compared to yellow or green. Consistent with this female color preference, girls are also more likely than boys to prefer warmer colors (i.e., pink and red) to cooler colors
(i.e., blue and green) (Minamoto, 1985 cited in Iijima, Arisaka, Minamoto, & Arai, 2001). A
preference for red or reddish pink has been proposed to elicit female behaviors to infants that
enhance infant survival, such as contact (Higley, Hopkins, Hirsch, Marra, & Suomi, 1987).
The hypothesis that reddish pink or red may be a cue signaling opportunities for nurturance
and thus eliciting female responsiveness could explain our finding of greater female contact
with both the doll (with a pink face) and the pot (colored red).

:

I wonder what would have happened if they'd given the monkeys a fire truck toy and a blue cooking pot?

[Eleas]

I wonder what would have happened if they'd given the monkeys a fire truck toy and a blue cooking pot?

And would the reverse result have been true back in the 1930's or so, when pink was the color for boys and blue for girls? It's an interesting thought.

[Akhlut]

How about no. You are underestimating the effects of culture/socialization/learning in animals, dumbshit. Since when did animals spring forth as fully programmed robots? Are you really this goddamn reactionary? Culture, socialization and learning are not unique to us. Or do you have some sort of filter in your head that sorts out anything that doesn't conform to your cultural expectations?

Culture modifies behavior, it doesn't create it wholecloth. Even clerical celibacy, most definitely a cultural practice, fails a great deal to the biology of sexual reproduction.

Also, if you actually had a modicum of reading comprehension, you would have noted earlier in the thread how I said culture modifies human behavior (specifically, dissuading girls from playing with certain toys because they are stereotypically masculine). Why, it's almost like you only read what you wanted to read instead of the whole part where I said, and I quote:

There's also the problem that most people think that if someone brings up differences between sexes, then one must automatically sort everything into some sort of gender binary and there can never be any bleed over or anything between them, forever and ever, amen. About all I'd argue is that for the majority of behaviors, males and females have near identical needs and thus won't differ (or, at least, not differ greatly), and on actual differences (generally brought about by anatomy or raising children), the differences are going to be overlapping bell curves with tails trending toward one direction or another depending on sex.

For instance, just because a male is more uncertain of paternity than a female is of maternity of a child does not mean human males are forever barred from any and all parental investment. It just means that there is a greater chance of less parental involvement depending on circumstances. If paternity is mostly certain, then the father is likely to engage in an amount of parental investment similar to the mother, whereas if paternity is uncertain, then parental investmenti s likely to be a great deal less than what the mother provides.

Similarly, while males might be more likely to engage in coalitional violence and thus engage in play that features that sort of thing, that doesn't mean that boys will never play nuturing games, nor that girls will never play games featuring violence, simply that boys will tend toward one style of play, girls another.

Why, it's almost like I said that both sexes have significant amounts of similar traits that, generally, at most, one sex will tend more toward than the other!

So? And? (increases bullshit pop-psych cliche` count by two...) Your body frame does not determine your temperament, idiot, beyond perhaps a small effect due to height that is as likely as not related to your height relative to the group average you live in (that is, the effect is due to compensating for what you lack). In fact, I can turn this same fact around and turn it against you: women are less likely to get physically aggressive because they lack the means to do so. Hence why you see more men go to prison for highly violent crimes like assault and murder. But... everyday aggression is NOT assault and murder unless you happen to be particularly unlucky at geographic lottery when you were born.

Height/weight proprotions are selected due to specific factors, though, such as use of violence. Even if violence isn't used all the time, if it is used often enough to be selected for, it will be selected for. We see sexual dimophism in mammals that routinely have males engage in violence against one another and we see some measure of that sexual dimorphism in humans. For instance, women don't give birth to children all the time, but they do so often enough that their pelvises have been selected to be wide enough for the child's head to pass through the birth canal! Similarly, if men engaged in enough violence against one another to influence breeding success, then such dimorphism would be selected for as well, even if it is used relatively sparingly!

To illustrate, consider this anecdote (and note that I am only using it to illustrate what I am talking about, not as evidence of any particular phenomenon): when I was in school, I got bullied by people of both genders. In time, it was actually the female bullies I found I hated the most. Why? Because they specifically avoided getting physical themselves and were actually a damn slight more effective as bullies because of it. Instead, it was all ostracization, mockery, and a lot of other bullshit that was a lot harder for anyone to stop them from doing. And if they wanted to see a fight, you know what they did? They had male friends. Put two and two together.

Oh, hey, good thing I have been explicitly stating violence this entire time, not aggression. Oddly enough, women recruited males to engage in violence against one another, which I said males excel at.

[Formless]

Culture modifies behavior, it doesn't create it wholecloth. Even clerical celibacy, most definitely a cultural practice, fails a great deal to the biology of sexual reproduction.

Yes it can. See: worship, scientific experimentation, agriculture, law, medicine, tool use in general, etc. Biology is not a hard limit on what culture can and cannot make us do, even in those areas where it does make things more difficult. You can even blow your own damn head off if you want to, a direct contradiction to the most basic biological drive to survive. Again, neither humans nor animals are fully programmed robots at birth. While you protest that culture only ever "modifies" behavior, you're still making bullshit claims that don't stand up to observation. Why do you think you can just ignore a century's worth of research on learning mechanisms in the name of prioritizing the importance of instinctive behavior?

Height/weight proprotions are selected due to specific factors, though, such as use of violence. Even if violence isn't used all the time, if it is used often enough to be selected for, it will be selected for. We see sexual dimophism in mammals that routinely have males engage in violence against one another and we see some measure of that sexual dimorphism in humans. For instance, women don't give birth to children all the time, but they do so often enough that their pelvises have been selected to be wide enough for the child's head to pass through the birth canal! Similarly, if men engaged in enough violence against one another to influence breeding success, then such dimorphism would be selected for as well, even if it is used relatively sparingly!

*Whoosh!* That was the sound of the words "body frame does not determine temperament" soaring over your head. Adaptations to physiology does not necessarily correlate with mental adaptations, which is what we are talking about here. Consider: given enough time and stability, a cultural behavior should have a selection effect on biology. Extreme variations of this principle include sexual selection and artificial selection on domesticated species. Meanwhile, aggression is at the heart of all violence but violence is not necessarily at the heart of all aggression, hence obsessing over violence specifically is retarded from a psychological point of view. If indeed women are just as aggressive as men when you take away socialization and body differences, as evidenced in experimental studies and domestic abuse statistics already cited, then the point stands. "Women are less [innately] aggressive" is just a stupid (possibly sexist) stereotype and nothing more.

Edit: plus, psychologically there is a whole world of difference between the kind of violence males would have been selected for (hunting) and the types we're talking about (assaulting a member of your own species). But that is a minor side note compared to the main point.

[ArmorPierce]

I wonder what would have happened if they'd given the monkeys a fire truck toy and a blue cooking pot?

And would the reverse result have been true back in the 1930's or so, when pink was the color for boys and blue for girls? It's an interesting thought.

I don't know why this argument keeps cropping up. Assigning child wear to babies, pink or blue have anything to do with said person's preference to the color . In fact, before the 20th century, it was common for babies, male or female, to wear white dresses.

That said, there was actually a study that linked human females to the same color preference, pink tinted blue, while males preferred blue blue.

[Eleas]

I wonder what would have happened if they'd given the monkeys a fire truck toy and a blue cooking pot?

And would the reverse result have been true back in the 1930's or so, when pink was the color for boys and blue for girls? It's an interesting thought.

I don't know why this argument keeps cropping up. Assigning child wear to babies, pink or blue have anything to do with said person's preference to the color . In fact, before the 20th century, it was common for babies, male or female, to wear white dresses.

That said, there was actually a study that linked human females to the same color preference, pink tinted blue, while males preferred blue blue.

I could help, but you'd have to explain 1) the exact argument you're trying to refute -- all my post did was point towards a historical datum -- and 2) enumerate your grounds for opposing said argument logically.

[ArmorPierce]

Scientific research has shown preference towards the pink spectrum of blue is preferred by females while solid blue is preferred by males in humans.

The last time this research was brought up, plenty on this board dismissed it by statin that assigned colors to babies used to be reversed (which isn't wholey true as far as I know anyway).

The problem is that it doesn't matter what the colors assigned to babies (for some abritary reason ie red being a fire lively color) and it has nothing to do with personal color preference.

This board has a habit of dismissing scientific evidence when it doesn't suit their world view and giving logically bad reasons.

So to make it clear with you, the reason I oppose said argument (of color assignment used to be reversed) is that 1. It doesn't matter what colors we assigned for abritary reason, thus the argument is a strawman 2. scientific research opposes the argument that you are making.

In response to Formless with regard to interbreeding and such, I would agree pre-agricultural war was not a common occurence as people would rather avoid it but this is not to say that people just got along with poeple of other tribes and everyone was holding hands and were friends. I actually think that ancient man was mostly peaceful and kept to themselves when possible. Some level of interbreeding is not evidence that this was the case because as I had stated it could have simply have been due to rape.

[Bakustra]

Here, let me help you, ArmorPierce: you are arguing that women innately prefer pink and men innately prefer blue, and that this is established SCIENTIFIC FACT, which none can go against. Was the study truly cross-cultural? Did it compare more colors than just pink and blue (for that matter, 'pink-shaded blue')? We don't know unless you bring out the study, and we really can never know if similar or opposite results would have been gotten a century ago, or for that matter five centuries ago. For that matter, were there any follow-ups?

You see, SCIENTIFIC FACT is not established by a single study. Indeed, it is difficult to establish at all. Did this study consider to determine whether the rates involved were related by degree of exposure to Western/Anglo culture? Did it even go outside the First World at all? We don't know, and I doubt it.

[Akhlut]

Yes it can. See: worship,

Co-opting reverence normally reserved toward important people.

scientific experimentation,

Co-opting of our curious nature. Chimps are known to have done similar things on a much smaller scale (hence their choices of tools being cultural in nature instead of universal across the species).

agriculture,

Modifications on hunting/gathering and quasi-scientific nature.

law,

Codification, expansion, and modification of inbred morality.

medicine,

Ability to form long-term memories and usage of langauge to communicate which substances can make certain symptoms feel better.

tool use in general,

Tool use is a natural behavior in a shitload of animals, even certain insects. Our specific tools are cultural in nature, but our knack for making and using them is biological in origin.

Biology is not a hard limit on what culture can and cannot make us do, even in those areas where it does make things more difficult.

So difficult as to make it nearly impossible. Notice that most cultures embrace a lot of biological drives instead of rejecting them. Even among Puritans, who hated sex officially, mostly gossiped about it and certainly weren't afraid to actually do the deed.

[/quote]You can even blow your own damn head off if you want to, a direct contradiction to the most basic biological drive to survive.[/quote]

Suicidal behavior is almost always a result of mental illness, which is maladaptive and most definitely biological in origin.

Again, neither humans nor animals are fully programmed robots at birth. While you protest that culture only ever "modifies" behavior, you're still making bullshit claims that don't stand up to observation. Why do you think you can just ignore a century's worth of research on learning mechanisms in the name of prioritizing the importance of instinctive behavior?

Again, are you incapable of reading comprehension? It is capable of some rather large modifications, but it won't completely undermine all basal human behavior. Even among Jains, who are culturally conditioned to believe that starving one's self to death is an act of ultimate good, only very, very, very rarely engage in such behavior.

*Whoosh!* That was the sound of the words "body frame does not determine temperament" soaring over your head. Adaptations to physiology does not necessarily correlate with mental adaptations, which is what we are talking about here.

Physiology and mentality are closely related; your brain is a physical organ, after all. A blind man does not think about colors, after all. As such, physical limitations will strongly influence human thought.

And, as such, physical adaptations to what the brain does will have an effect, such as producing proportionately larger males than females if males engage in violence often enough for it to matter to their chances to reproduce.

Consider: given enough time and stability, a cultural behavior should have a selection effect on biology.

Of which the only cultural norms which have remained in place for significant amounts of time are agriculture and all that comes with it. Otherwise, culture changes with far too much rapidity to have a strong effect on adaptation.

Extreme variations of this principle include sexual selection and artificial selection on domesticated species. Meanwhile, aggression is at the heart of all violence but violence is not necessarily at the heart of all aggression, hence obsessing over violence specifically is retarded from a psychological point of view.

Again: I have not claimed women are less aggressive than men, you borderline illiterate. I've claimed that males are more likely to engage in violence, which is true, and has been for as long as we can tell, and possibly has been true for over 5 million years if human and chimp violence arose in our common ancestor.

If indeed women are just as aggressive as men when you take away socialization and body differences, as evidenced in experimental studies and domestic abuse statistics already cited, then the point stands. "Women are less [innately] aggressive" is just a stupid (possibly sexist) stereotype and nothing more.

Good thing I've never mentioned women being less aggressive than men, then! I've only maintained that males are more likely to engage in physical violence, nothing more, nothing less.

In fact, I've written a great deal about how males and females share mostly the same set of difficulties for survival and will be mostly the same! The main differences being those dealing with reproduction.

Edit: plus, psychologically there is a whole world of difference between the kind of violence males would have been selected for (hunting) and the types we're talking about (assaulting a member of your own species). But that is a minor side note compared to the main point.

The sort of body that is good at killing a zebra is also good at killing another human; the sort of body that prevents one from being killed by a zebra is also going to be good at preventing one from being killed at the hands of another human.

[Simon_Jester]

So difficult as to make it nearly impossible. Notice that most cultures embrace a lot of biological drives instead of rejecting them. Even among Puritans, who hated sex officially, mostly gossiped about it and certainly weren't afraid to actually do the deed.

Though the cultural 'drive to temperance' is quite common; the ancient Greeks, who had almost nothing in common with the Puritans, had philosophers who advocated temperance and the renouncing of Earthly pleasures in order to concentrate on 'higher matters.' Likewise the ascetic tradition in India, and so on.

But this is nearly always a minority behavior in a given culture.

If indeed women are just as aggressive as men when you take away socialization and body differences, as evidenced in experimental studies and domestic abuse statistics already cited, then the point stands. "Women are less [innately] aggressive" is just a stupid (possibly sexist) stereotype and nothing more.

Good thing I've never mentioned women being less aggressive than men, then! I've only maintained that males are more likely to engage in physical violence, nothing more, nothing less.

It would stand to reason that if you are huge, you can solve more of your problems by hitting them with a club. If you are both huge and smart, you'd tend to try to solve more of your problems by hitting them with a club, where practical.

It would also stand to reason that if you are small, you cannot solve as many of your problems by hitting them with a club, and trying may cause other people to view you as a problem to be solved with a club. If you are small and smart, you would not tend to try to solve your problems by hitting them with a club; it's bloody dangerous.

I don't see why this would surprise anyone.

[Eleas]

Scientific research has shown preference towards the pink spectrum of blue is preferred by females while solid blue is preferred by males in humans.

As Bakustra rightly points out, no, it has not.

The last time this research was brought up, plenty on this board dismissed it by statin that assigned colors to babies used to be reversed (which isn't wholey true as far as I know anyway).

Really. If it isn't true, then please provide evidence to that effect other than your own gut feeling. I'll go first, admittedly with second-hand sources.

If you like the color note on the little one's garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention.

There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.

The current pink for girls and blue for boys wasn't uniform until the 1950's.

Now. You were saying?

The problem is that it doesn't matter what the colors assigned to babies (for some abritary reason ie red being a fire lively color) and it has nothing to do with personal color preference.

Not that I advanced that argument in this thread until you did just now, but you're still talking rubbish. Children love to identify with things. Give a boy (just at the age when identification as a boy has begun) a toy, anything, and it's even odds he'll either play with it until it breaks or throw it away in a tantrum because it's a girl thing! Now, have a significant portion of the clothes he's been given since he was little be blue. Let, say, twenty percent of all plastic things intended for Boys be in that same color. Do the same to other kids around him, unless they're Girls, in case they get everything in pink instead. Forbid this color for the boy, because he just won't like it and whatnot.

Fuck, all you need to condition college-aged kids to kill each other is to split them in two groups, forbid contact between them, and treat them differently. Since babies in many cases pick up things far quicker than adolescents, it's hardly inconceivable that they would sooner or later latch on to the fact that one color is considered better for them than the other.

This board has a habit of dismissing scientific evidence when it doesn't suit their world view and giving logically bad reasons.

Poisoning the well already? You're not debating the board, you're (ostensibly) trying to debate me.

So to make it clear with you, the reason I oppose said argument (of color assignment used to be reversed) is that 1. It doesn't matter what colors we assigned for abritary reason, thus the argument is a strawman 2. scientific research opposes the argument that you are making.

This must be the slow class. The bolded part was not an argument, it's a historical datum. It has to be interpreted and used to say something other than itself in order to qualify as an argument. You're applying your inference to it and fighting that, which at best is sloppy and undercuts any attempt at real argument. At worst, it's an outright strawman.

[ArmorPierce]

I cannot get into a in depth debate but here we go.

Here, let me help you, ArmorPierce: you are arguing that women innately prefer pink and men innately prefer blue, and that this is established SCIENTIFIC FACT, which none can go against. Was the study truly cross-cultural? Did it compare more colors than just pink and blue (for that matter, 'pink-shaded blue')? We don't know unless you bring out the study, and we really can never know if similar or opposite results would have been gotten a century ago, or for that matter five centuries ago. For that matter, were there any follow-ups?

Did I say scientific fact? Scientific evidence leads to that by prior research. Yes it did compare more colors than just blue and pink. This is follow up showing blue to be favored color.

You see, SCIENTIFIC FACT is not established by a single study. Indeed, it is difficult to establish at all. Did this study consider to determine whether the rates involved were related by degree of exposure to Western/Anglo culture? Did it even go outside the First World at all? We don't know, and I doubt it.

Yes the study DID go outside the first world by testing Chinese participants. Link and quote below

"We expected to find gender differences, but we were surprised at how robust they were," said Anya Hurlbert, professor of visual neuroscience at Newcastle University. "They appear to give biological and not simply cultural substance to the old saying: pink for a girl and blue for a boy." Using rapid reactions to flash cards, the survey, published in today's issue of Current Biology, is the first to show that human colour preference can be broken down into two spectra: red-greenness and blue-yellowness. While men plumped for a wide variety of favourite tones across both, women overwhelmingly went for the red end of the red-green axis.

"This shifts their colour preference slightly away from blue towards red, which tends to make pinks - and sometimes lilacs - women's real favourites," said Prof Hurlbert, who carried out the study with research neuroscientist Yazhu Ling. "The differences were so substantial that seasoned researchers using the data are usually able to predict the sex of a participant by checking their favourite colour."

Chinese participants were tested for possible cultural differences in colour preference, but their results were in line with the overall findings. The theory is encouraging for Barbie enthusiasts, who have seen the doll attacked for her "anti-feminist" pink clothes and decor.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/ ... ws.fashion

[Akhlut]

Though the cultural 'drive to temperance' is quite common; the ancient Greeks, who had almost nothing in common with the Puritans, had philosophers who advocated temperance and the renouncing of Earthly pleasures in order to concentrate on 'higher matters.' Likewise the ascetic tradition in India, and so on.

Not to debate you, but the ancient Greeks also had Bacchanalias, while India prior to the Mughals also developed the Kama Sutra. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out whether the abstentious tradition or the hedonistic traditions were generally more popular with the majority of people.

It would stand to reason that if you are huge, you can solve more of your problems by hitting them with a club. If you are both huge and smart, you'd tend to try to solve more of your problems by hitting them with a club, where practical.

It would also stand to reason that if you are small, you cannot solve as many of your problems by hitting them with a club, and trying may cause other people to view you as a problem to be solved with a club. If you are small and smart, you would not tend to try to solve your problems by hitting them with a club; it's bloody dangerous.

I don't see why this would surprise anyone.

If all you have is a hammer, all your problems tend to look like nails.

Also, when I read back all my statements, I seem to use the qualifiers "tend toward" and "more likely to," rather than "always will" and "iron-clad rule."

[Formless]

Akhlut, if you think I'm just going to let you a) pull claims out of your ass like "religion is just reverence toward important people co-opted by culture" without evidence B) handwave away medicine by simple changing the language used to describe culture so that it incorporates enough buzzwords to make it sound like an instinct when it clearly isn't C) use the prevalence of tool use among the animal kingdom as evidence that its instinctual when it is in fact one of the critical pieces of evidence that culture/socialization is not unique to humans D) cut my post into fucking sentence fragments so that you can nitpick and avoid addressing the central issues that have to be spelled out by Simon so you can't simply ignore it, I think I can safely say you are a dishonest twat and be done with it.

[Bakustra]

I cannot get into a in depth debate but here we go.

Did I say scientific fact? Scientific evidence leads to that by prior research. Yes it did compare more colors than just blue and pink. This is follow up showing blue to be favored color.

Yes the study DID go outside the first world by testing Chinese participants. Link and quote below

*snip*
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/ ... ws.fashion

Your article sucks as an overview of the study (which does not appear to be available electronically, alas). I found a blog post that reposted specific charts from within the study that are far more enlightening. (Though the post is pretty dumb overall).

What it shows is that women don't prefer "pink", since lightness and saturation are not biased gender-wise, and that is what makes pink pink. It showed a marked bias towards reds in British Caucausian women, or possibly a bias away from reds in British Caucausian men, since the Chinese immigrant subgroup had a much smaller gap in the biases, with men peaking at between red and purple and women peaking at between red and orange. In fact, it doesn't show any sort of clear biological difference across the all of two cultures compared, since there are significant differences between Chinese immigrant and native British Caucausian women in their color preferences. So do you have anything else?

EDIT: Found the original study and it, too, insists that preference for pink is somehow a consequence of an uncertain bias towards red in their study of two cultures.

[ArmorPierce]

I cannot get into a in depth debate but here we go.

Did I say scientific fact? Scientific evidence leads to that by prior research. Yes it did compare more colors than just blue and pink. This is follow up showing blue to be favored color.

Yes the study DID go outside the first world by testing Chinese participants. Link and quote below

*snip*
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/ ... ws.fashion

Your article sucks as an overview of the study (which does not appear to be available electronically, alas). I found a blog post that reposted specific charts from within the study that are far more enlightening. (Though the post is pretty dumb overall).

What it shows is that women don't prefer "pink", since lightness and saturation are not biased gender-wise, and that is what makes pink pink. It showed a marked bias towards reds in British Caucausian women, or possibly a bias away from reds in British Caucausian men, since the Chinese immigrant subgroup had a much smaller gap in the biases, with men peaking at between red and purple and women peaking at between red and orange. In fact, it doesn't show any sort of clear biological difference across the all of two cultures compared, since there are significant differences between Chinese immigrant and native British Caucausian women in their color preferences. So do you have anything else?

EDIT: Found the original study and it, too, insists that preference for pink is somehow a consequence of an uncertain bias towards red in their study of two cultures.

wtf are you talking about pink an red? What does that have to do with anything with what did I say? Did I say that girls liked pink innately? Or did I say that abritarily assigning genders with a color has nothing to do with this study? hmmm? I never said Girls like pink because of biology. I stated they preferred pinkish tinted blue. That statement does nothing but affirm my position.

Congratulations, you've just gone ahead and somehow took what I said, and now are aruging what I was stating originally and making it seem like I was on the other end. But do continue with your strawman.