Talk:Biology of gender-specific human behavior

some style issues

Hi Alastair. I just came across your article here. I'm afraid there are a serious number of style issues with the page. I'm going to quote some sections that need to be rewritten within the manual of style guidelines - as they stand they read like a synthesis - which can make them look like origianl research.

For those who can understand technical biological language, Alexandra M. Lopes and others, recently published that:

In short, science has caught up with what feminists, Goldberg and common sense have said for a long time – on average, men are more aggressive in social behaviour. This does not justify patriarchy, it merely partially explains it.

It has long been known that there are correlations between the biological sex of animals and their behaviour.[1] [2] [3] It has also long been known that human behaviour is influenced by the brain.

Have a look at these lines again. BTW it'd be best if you didn't use the term "common sense" - see WP:CK--Cailil ^talk 20:11, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Cailil, "for those who can understand technical language", is not good style, too conversational, I agree. "Common sense" is also, as you say, just inviting someone to say, "I don't see it that way, so it's hardly common sense." I don't know many people who argue that men are not more aggressive on average, but I'll change it anyway.

Not guilty regarding Original research though. Yes, if there were a few experiments that could be taken as evidence of biological influence on gender, and I reported those and made the conclusion, and no-one else had done that, then clearly it would be synthetic original research.

I'll modify the language and cite a couple more sources, there are several peer-reviewed journals that major in this area.

Gender as experienced in daily life has plenty of non-biological features, purely cultural in expression. Cultural constructions of gender are real and worth studying. However, gender is now known to be influenced biologically in ways that simply were not known even 15 years ago. There are several popular works that maximize or minimize the implications of the biological research. Pinker jumps to mind.

Anyway, I'll get to this very soon, probably over the next day or so, good points, thanks again. Alastair Haines 02:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick note, I didn't mean to accuse you of original thought :) rather I was saying that the style could make it look that way--Cailil ^talk 10:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

No worries my friend, good points well made, didn't take them personally. I don't have any original ideas regarding biology, I don't know much about it. I'm completely dependent on what I've started reading in the last six months.

There's always likely to be something of an issue when scientific research challenges political opinion, though. That too needs care in this article. Things sound original when they go against what we've been taught in school. It'll probably be an ongoing issue of refining things by quoting more sources.

I'm working on too many projects atm. I'm going to be moving slowly here. Cheers. Alastair Haines 06:43, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Removed redundancy and kept facts

I removed redundancy and kept facts because I think Wikipedia should remain an encyclopaedia, instead of turning into a heavy novel. Informations should be available quickly- novels are rather a way to spend a lot of spare time. Mikael Häggström 08:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I changed male dominance to patriarchy, since I assume we don't talk BDSM here. Mikael Häggström 08:51, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm relaxed about that terminological change. Male dominance is the terminology of ethology, but I agree it an patriarchy are effectively synonyms in ethnology. Because patriarchy is pejorative in feminist jargon, and replaced by androcentrism in many cases, I stick to male dominance as a neutral expression. Still, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. ;) Alastair Haines 11:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm returning some of the material from Sex and intelligence. Redundancy is only an issue within one specific article. There has to be redundancy across articles. We cannot, for example, remove all reference to Napoleon in the article on Battle of Waterloo because there is already an article on him. In fact, significant attention should be paid to Napoleon in setting context for that article.

Some still think gender is not biological. Removing evidence of brain differences from this article prevents people from having a one-stop shop that makes the point they are curious about. That makes it "heavy" work, rather than an encyclopedia in my thinking. Anyway, sourced text is not to be removed without consensus.

Generally speaking, I'm fairly happy with your restructuring, it's mainly a matter of moving refs to footnotes and providing a more detailed framework. That'll help with exanding the article. Thanks, cheers. Alastair Haines 12:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree; So patriarchy would, were he not patriarchy call'd.

It's good when readers can have a one-stop shop, but I'm afraid the whole subject of gender is too big to have everything in one single place. Sometimes it seems rather a question of definition; when the article is about the physical basis for behavioural differences, then it might be confusing to deal with non-biologic issues.

Anyhow, I think this article looks really informative now. Good work! Mikael Häggström 15:41, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I only made minor adjustments to the structure you set up. Made a few more minor changes. There's a swag more info out there. Oh for more time. Cheers. Alastair Haines 11:56, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Badly worded and strange ideas

Under Motives and ethic:

Patriarchy ...Perhaps one day science may be able to tell us how we could stop patriarchy by biological intervention; but science can't tell us if patriarchy is right or wrong. All we know is that it is biological, so it will take more than politics to end it.

Ethics Even if it was possible to remove partriarchal behaviour by an injection, there are ethical questions that need answers before any such procedure could be performed:

• Should it be made law for such an injection to be given?
• Should parents be given the choice, or only mothers?

None of that sounds much like an Encyclopedia. And the Ethics section is ridiculous. This isn't a place for hypotheticals. It doesn't make sense either. An injection to remove "patriarchal behavior?"

Sex Differences in Science and Math

A paper was recently published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest that has relevance to this topic. The abstract can be found here and additional related resources can be found here. Cheers, JTBurman 03:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)