P(women are better at maths than men on average) should be independent of whether one wants it to be true,
Why shouldn’t one want the statement: ‘women are better at maths than men on average’ to be true? Note, don’t confuse the above statement with the statement: ‘men are worse then [this fixed level] at maths on average’.
Well, its certainly widely considered that wanting there to be differences between the sexes is wrong, or at least it is if men are better at something. Personally I don’t care whether men or women are better at maths, but if most people do, then I suppose they are entitled to their own values.
Personally I don’t care whether men or women are better at maths, but if most people do, then I suppose they are entitled to their own values.
I’m not sure about that. Near as I can tell their values here are either poorly thought out or insane. Consider the following thought experiment:
Suppose men are on average better at math then women. Suppose you could reduce the male average to the female average by pressing a button, should you?
Well, that both decreases inequality and lowers the average. A better thought experiment would be to ask whether, if you had a button which would affect the next generation of children (so you do not infringe on the rights of people who already exist) to increase math ability in women but decrease it in men, should you use it to bring the averages in line?
Far stranger actually is that some people seem to be strongly attached to the idea that men and women are equally strong on average, even though this is obviously not true.
You can take this further. Would the world be better if everyone was equally good at everything? Seems kinda dull to me.
A better thought experiment would be to ask whether, if you had a button which would affect the next generation of children (so you do not infringe on the rights of people who already exist) to increase math ability in women but decrease it in men, should you use it to bring the averages in line?
Well, that would make the universe less organized and in particular make it harder to find the people with the best people in math, so likely retard scientific progress somewhat.
If you want to find the best people in maths, you are far better off testing them, rather than reasoning based on the base rate, unless the inter-group difference is very large.
Not sure we should be applying thermodynamics to society in this manner
I am quite sure—this is nonsense on stilts.
By this “reasoning” the fact that all life on Earth replicates via DNA is horrible, twins are an abomination, and industrial mass production is an unmitigated disaster.
Why shouldn’t one want the statement: ‘women are better at maths than men on average’ to be true?
The sentence you quote doesn’t make a statement about whether one should want it to be true. It makes a statement about “wanting it to be true” being independent from ’being true”.
Why shouldn’t one want the statement: ‘women are better at maths than men on average’ to be true? Note, don’t confuse the above statement with the statement: ‘men are worse then [this fixed level] at maths on average’.
Well, its certainly widely considered that wanting there to be differences between the sexes is wrong, or at least it is if men are better at something. Personally I don’t care whether men or women are better at maths, but if most people do, then I suppose they are entitled to their own values.
I’m not sure about that. Near as I can tell their values here are either poorly thought out or insane. Consider the following thought experiment:
Suppose men are on average better at math then women. Suppose you could reduce the male average to the female average by pressing a button, should you?
Well, that both decreases inequality and lowers the average. A better thought experiment would be to ask whether, if you had a button which would affect the next generation of children (so you do not infringe on the rights of people who already exist) to increase math ability in women but decrease it in men, should you use it to bring the averages in line?
Far stranger actually is that some people seem to be strongly attached to the idea that men and women are equally strong on average, even though this is obviously not true.
You can take this further. Would the world be better if everyone was equally good at everything? Seems kinda dull to me.
Well, that would make the universe less organized and in particular make it harder to find the people with the best people in math, so likely retard scientific progress somewhat.
If you want to find the best people in maths, you are far better off testing them, rather than reasoning based on the base rate, unless the inter-group difference is very large.
Huh? 8-/
Well, a system where all the elements are the same has maximal entropy.
Not sure we should be applying thermodynamics to society in this manner—we are not ants—but I can see what he means.
I am quite sure—this is nonsense on stilts.
By this “reasoning” the fact that all life on Earth replicates via DNA is horrible, twins are an abomination, and industrial mass production is an unmitigated disaster.
To be fair, I would like to see conciousness on non-biological substrates.
The sentence you quote doesn’t make a statement about whether one should want it to be true. It makes a statement about “wanting it to be true” being independent from ’being true”.