c0nc0rdance vs. Thunderf00t

[Professor_Fennec]

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So Mr. c0nc0rdance's beings his new video attacking Cult of Dusty for his open use of drugs as "promoting illegal behavior" to children, even though his actions would more accurately be interpreted as a persecuted minority, disparagingly referred to as "drug abusers", acting out in the spirit of passive resistance.  In other words, Cult of Dusty was reflecting the drug culture of Colorado as apposed to just making a glorious spectacle of himself.  On a personal note, I would say this is very reflective of c0nc0rdance's own bias as a statist prude, who is open to all cultures, save for those he does not like.  Seriously, his channel should have "British fucking nanny" written all over it. 

Then he moves on to Challenge Thunderf00t's attack on feminism, an attack that I think Thunderf00t has carefully worded to focus only on the rise of extreme feminism.  C0ncordance seems to be lumping Thunderf00t with MRA stereotypes, which I think betrays c0nc0rdanc's overt diplomacy.  C0nc0rdance then moves on to make the oddest comparison between men and women having no meaningful difference in physical ability when they loaf around on the couch, vs. when they train for sporting events, thus the phrase "throwing like a girl" is wrong.  This logic just left me baffled.  Its like saying "If I drained the blood of ten men and ten women, their ability to perform physically challenging events would be the same, thus men and women are equal."  Did anybody else spot c0nc0rdance moving the goal post with his couch potato analogy? 

Growing up, I got into scuffles and fights between both boys and girls, and I can safely say that when it comes to throwing balls and punching faces, girls were less physically capable.  Pretty much every boy grows up learning this.  Women generally don't like to fight nor compete physically, because they aren't motivated like men are via testosterone.  Testosterone is an antagonist to oxycontin, a hormone associated with in-group bonding and intimate love.  Men make a lot of oxytocin, too, but it gets counterbalanced by the antagonistic effects of testosterone. 

The effects of testosterone include motivations to take more risks, to seek out adventure and to be less empathetic towards the pain of others.  This makes boys play more roughly than girls, and over time this effect helps them develop their hand-eye coordination, and the physical activity + the anabolic effects of testosterone give them bigger muscles, too. 

In the end, Social Justice Warriors like c0nc0rdance are upset because making accurate generalizations of about particular demographics should not be spoken because it could discourage the exceptions to the generalizations being made from succeeding in an academic or athletic way.  All his study proves is that you shouldn't ask a person's race or biological sex until after they fill out a job application, perform an interview or take a test, not before.  More over, his study ignores cultural aspects of urban culture and among women where academic achievement and athleticism are actively discouraged respectively. 

So, what happens next?  Will c0nc0rdance and Thunderf00t finally have the battle royal we've all been waiting for, or will the unity of the Magic Sandwitch Show finally be broken, especially when Aron Ra has announced himself as an ardent feminist?

[Travis Retriever]

The bit about testosterone reminds me of a bit from GirlWritesWhat where the folks on the show point out that said hormone gets an undeserved bad rap:
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[Professor_Fennec]

There are also studies that show traits associated with high levels of testosterone, in utero, are associated with winning it bigger at the stock market, too.  If your ring finger is longer than your index finger, an indicator of high in utero testosterone exposure, you are more likely to get rich playing the stock market game.  The reason is because your likelihood to take risks is much greater then those who got less testosterone exposure. 

http://www.dana.org/Publications/Brainwork/Details.aspx?id=43777

What's even more interesting is that your finger ratios may also relate to how you respond to testosterone.  For some, it can actually make you more cooperative after injection. 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/naturally-selected/201205/what-do-your-fingers-tell-about-your-hormones-personality-and-sexuali

[Travis Retriever]

The digit ratio stuff is kinda odd for me.  On one hand, if you go by the length of my fingers the way it is shown here:  http://www.psychotherapybrownbag.com/.a/6a010537101528970b0120a5ec9566970c-pi My fingers are equal in length.  But if you go by the length of the fingers at the knuckle to the tip, it's a ratio closer to about 0.90.  *Shrugs*

And yeah, the stuff about more testosterone making a lot of males calm wouldn't surprise me.  As I know that being obese (I'm working on reversing that, damnit. >.>; ) tends to cut testosterone levels by as much as 50% (!).  Stupid increased aromatization. >.<* And increases cortisol and insulin levels...yeah... On top of fat tissue producing lots of estrogen in males...good times.  Good times.

As for the "testosterone causes violence" nonsense.  How do they explain females being more likely to abuse their children? I mean I know that's not what the current narrative says, but it is true.  Most child abuse is from the mother.  And the women are more likely to use weapons and attack infants and young children.

Further compounding this is the fact that, in healthy (read: lean, active, non drug abusing) males, testosterone and estrogen levels rise and fall in synch.  When one rises/falls, so does the other.

Also, just read your first post entirely...Did AronRa seriously announce that? O.o

Anyways, yeah, all the talk of hormones and stuff reminds me of this:  http://bayesianbodybuilding.com/biosignature-reviewed-hormones-key-weight-loss/ Especially the latter half starting at the subtitle/section "The Other Way Around".  Nothing like a good debunking of broscience/momscience to make the day feel good. X3

[dallen68]

The digit ratio stuff is kinda odd for me.  On one hand, if you go by the length of my fingers the way it is shown here:  http://www.psychotherapybrownbag.com/.a/6a010537101528970b0120a5ec9566970c-pi My fingers are equal in length.  But if you go by the length of the fingers at the knuckle to the tip, it's a ratio closer to about 0.90.  *Shrugs*

Mine's actually hard to tell. If you look at my hand, there is a significant difference in length, but the knuckles aren't even either, so maybe not. How this would help with gambling (or stock market, or race car driving... )

[Ibrahim90]

mine matches fine, but obviously I'm but one sample point. 

[Professor_Fennec]

As the article points out, measuring your fingers can be tricky.  This is why it was done in the studies based on body scans, where finger length could unambiguous be measured. 

If you want to do this at home, I would suggest taking measurements of your fingers from the first joint where your fingers end and your palms begin, to the tip of your fingers.  It would be helpful to have somebody else assist you.  Once you have your finger lengths recorded, see how they compare.

[Travis Retriever]

As the article points out, measuring your fingers can be tricky.  This is why it was done in the studies based on body scans, where finger length could unambiguous be measured. 

If you want to do this at home, I would suggest taking measurements of your fingers from the first joint where your fingers end and your palms begin, to the tip of your fingers.  It would be helpful to have somebody else assist you.  Once you have your finger lengths recorded, see how they compare.

I tried measuring it from tip to where palm begins...again like, I said, as it showed in the figure I posted. In which case they were about equal length.  But it was inconsistent with the bone length which goes from the knuckle to the tip.  Personally, I don't get why they didn't use the latter, as that would make more sense to me. Questionable practices aside....Yeah, makes sense, as I'm bisexual, rather than straight.

[BlameThe1st]

You think all of this is bad, PZ Myers wrote a blog post about the video: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/07/21/so-close/

The comments to that post are just as bad, if not worst:

Why the fuck should we be willing to "engage" with people who want to deny us rights and call us slurs? What's to discuss? They're wrong, just like creationists are wrong. There is nothing to discuss. What they are telling us is that we can all get along so long as some of us keep to our place and do not question our superiors. Fuck that noise. If I wanted to make nice with bigots who will only accept me if I am silent and pliant, I'll join a fundamentalist church.

[Professor_Fennec]

Free Thought Blogs is a fundamentalist church.  It really is a place for free thought all the time, except when it's not.  Dissent against the FTB website patriarch, PZ Meyers, will not be tolerated.  Just ask Thunderf00t. 

Why can't people like PZ just make their case and explain their point of view in plain English, so that we can properly criticize it, instead of him resorting to inflammatory rhetoric with a basis no more sophisticated then "you're wrong because it's obvious, duh". 

I'm actually quite surprised that PZ hasn't been named a Biggest Bogon Emitter, yet. 

[MrBogosity]

I'm actually quite surprised that PZ hasn't been named a Biggest Bogon Emitter, yet. 

Because you have to stand out to be BBE. Sadly, what PZ does is not at all atypical.

[evensgrey]

Free Thought Blogs is a fundamentalist church.  It really is a place for free thought all the time, except when it's not.  Dissent against the FTB website patriarch, PZ Meyers, will not be tolerated.  Just ask Thunderf00t. 

Why can't people like PZ just make their case and explain their point of view in plain English, so that we can properly criticize it, instead of him resorting to inflammatory rhetoric with a basis no more sophisticated then "you're wrong because it's obvious, duh". 

I'm actually quite surprised that PZ hasn't been named a Biggest Bogon Emitter, yet.

Because PZ is completely incapable of any form of rational discourse.  Anyone who, like PZ, considers himself to be infallible is incapable of rational discourse.  (The conclusion that PZ thinks he is infallible seems to be an inevitable conclusion from his definition of "rational," as one of the requirements is "agrees with me".)

[MrBogosity]

Because PZ is completely incapable of any form of rational discourse.  Anyone who, like PZ, considers himself to be infallible is incapable of rational discourse.  (The conclusion that PZ thinks he is infallible seems to be an inevitable conclusion from his definition of "rational," as one of the requirements is "agrees with me".)

Ironically enough, it's the same failing (well, one of the MANY failings) that Ayn Rand suffered from.

[evensgrey]

Ironically enough, it's the same failing (well, one of the MANY failings) that Ayn Rand suffered from.

Ayn Rand did remarkably well under the circumstances (and having escaped the Bolsheviks by the skin of your teeth is nearly as bad as anything people lived through got in the 20th century).

I really have no idea why Stefan Molyneux will just gush about her and her writing.  He doesn't do that about anyone else in any of his stuff that I've seen, and this is the guy who took Christopher Hitchens to task for his admiration of psychopath Che Guevara.  Of course, he also has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of what fiction is, what it does, and how it works.

From what I understand, she wrote just like any other Russian novelist wrote, except she was writing in English she mostly learned from movies.  The result is her novels read like really bad movies.  I waded through Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead back in my early teens, and there's no way I could do that again. 

[R.E.H.W.R.]

Ayn Rand did remarkably well under the circumstances (and having escaped the Bolsheviks by the skin of your teeth is nearly as bad as anything people lived through got in the 20th century).

I really have no idea why Stefan Molyneux will just gush about her and her writing.  He doesn't do that about anyone else in any of his stuff that I've seen, and this is the guy who took Christopher Hitchens to task for his admiration of psychopath Che Guevara.  Of course, he also has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of what fiction is, what it does, and how it works.

From what I understand, she wrote just like any other Russian novelist wrote, except she was writing in English she mostly learned from movies.  The result is her novels read like really bad movies.  I waded through Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead back in my early teens, and there's no way I could do that again.

I listened to the audiobook.