Caltech's Latest STEM Breakthrough: Most of Its New Students Are Women (latimes.com) 254
Bruce66423 shares a report from the Los Angeles Times: In a milestone breakthrough, more than half of Caltech's incoming undergraduate class this fall will be women (source paywalled; alternative source) for the first time in its 133-year history. The class of 113 women and 109 men comes 50 years after Caltech graduated its first class of undergraduate women, who were admitted in 1970. "What this means for young women is that we are a place that can be representative of them and their experiences ... where they can grow and thrive and excel and become really impressive, extraordinary scientists and engineers and go on to make a difference in this really research-heavy profession," said Ashley Pallie, dean of admissions
Gloria L. Blackwell, chief executive of the American Assn. of University Women, lauded Caltech's achievement as critical progress in reducing the substantial gap of women in science, technology, engineering and math. Although women hold about 60% of degrees in biological sciences, they represent only about 18% in computer science and 20% in engineering, Blackwell said. Research has shown that boys are not better at math and science than girls, but a persistent message in society says otherwise -- and especially discourages Latinas and Black girls from pursuing the fields because they face discrimination and have less access to role models, resources and opportunities, the AAUW says. The report notes that Caltech isn't the first educational institution to reach gender parity in STEM. Harvey Mudd College, a small private institution in Claremont, "enrolled more women than men in 2010 for the first time in its history and in 2014 graduated more women than men in engineering," reports the LA Times. "Today, women make up 52.8% of majors in computer science, 50.5% in engineering and 68.2% in mathematical and computational biology."
UC Berkeley is another powerful producer of STEM graduates, with "nearly half of students majoring in those fields [identifying] as women or nonbinary." However, the report notes that the field they enter varies significantly. "They make up more than two-thirds of students in biological and biomedical sciences, but about one-third in engineering, computer and informational sciences, and mathematics and statistics."
Gloria L. Blackwell, chief executive of the American Assn. of University Women, lauded Caltech's achievement as critical progress in reducing the substantial gap of women in science, technology, engineering and math. Although women hold about 60% of degrees in biological sciences, they represent only about 18% in computer science and 20% in engineering, Blackwell said. Research has shown that boys are not better at math and science than girls, but a persistent message in society says otherwise -- and especially discourages Latinas and Black girls from pursuing the fields because they face discrimination and have less access to role models, resources and opportunities, the AAUW says. The report notes that Caltech isn't the first educational institution to reach gender parity in STEM. Harvey Mudd College, a small private institution in Claremont, "enrolled more women than men in 2010 for the first time in its history and in 2014 graduated more women than men in engineering," reports the LA Times. "Today, women make up 52.8% of majors in computer science, 50.5% in engineering and 68.2% in mathematical and computational biology."
UC Berkeley is another powerful producer of STEM graduates, with "nearly half of students majoring in those fields [identifying] as women or nonbinary." However, the report notes that the field they enter varies significantly. "They make up more than two-thirds of students in biological and biomedical sciences, but about one-third in engineering, computer and informational sciences, and mathematics and statistics."
This is Actually the Wrong Way to Look at this (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. The article didn't state this is a graduating class, but rather the incoming undergraduate class. For all we know they just let in more women who may possibly dropout or change majors. I am not stating that it will happen or is likely to happen, just that the article doesn't seem to make any statement of the quality of the incoming class or the rigors of the entrance process. But I hope you are correct.
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"High Schools are Finally Graduating Enough Qualified Female Candidates to Meet CalTechs Undergraduate Qualifications".
False. More women than men have been entering college/university AND graduating than men for some time now [forbes.com].
Nationwide, women comprised 58% of all college students in 2020, up from 56.6% six years earlier. Women have outnumbered men among college students for decades, but the gap continues to widen. In 1979, about 200,000 more women were enrolled in college than men. By 2021, that difference had grown to about 3.1 million more women than men in college.
What this shows is for all the bullshit people like you spout, women are just as good as men in STEM, and other fields, when they're not prevented from attending due to sexism. If you doubt that, think of how many men right now are telling women their only role is to be barefoot and
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What the headline should have said is that "High Schools are Finally Graduating Enough Qualified Female Candidates to Meet CalTechs Undergraduate Qualifications". And there is now a much greater chance that they will actually graduate with a degree in 4-5 years time. This is good. That is much more important than the number admitted. I know of what I speak. I have a friend who went to Caltech manyyyyy years ago and when he was there Caltech purposely lowered the entrance requirements for women so as to admit more of them. As a result, they had a massively greater dropout percentage than the men, which in the long term did them no good and Caltech no good.
Is it that high school is stepping up it's game, or is it that caltech is stepping down both it's admissions and curriculum game. Your anecdote does not prove it's the former.
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What the headline should have said is that "High Schools are Finally Graduating Enough Qualified Female Candidates to Meet CalTechs Undergraduate Qualifications". And there is now a much greater chance that they will actually graduate with a degree in 4-5 years time. This is good. That is much more important than the number admitted. I know of what I speak. I have a friend who went to Caltech manyyyyy years ago and when he was there Caltech purposely lowered the entrance requirements for women so as to admit more of them. As a result, they had a massively greater dropout percentage than the men, which in the long term did them no good and Caltech no good.
For years I assumed that the brain of a woman was perfectly equal in capability. Until I was introduced to the fact that we separate men and women in chess competition.
Perhaps those still assuming can explain why gender separation in competition requiring only the mind, has been validated. Don’t pull out your Troll label. Debate it intelligently, and assume I’m not fully convinced.
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we separate men and women in chess
It has nothing to do with ability in chess. It's because few women were interested in chess, and the chess competition organizers wanted to grow the game and give girls a chance to see women have success, and to highlight the notion that chess can be fun and interesting for everyone.
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There is another effect, at least with respect to grad students. I was asst. dir. of a Uni lab once. The men would work alone and did not talk much among themselves about their research. The women were very social with each other and would talk among themselves about their research. If an environment is not welcoming to women, they avoid it (big surprise). There are teams of researchers out there, but I suspect the men have cut out their little pieces of the pie and work on those. I suspect women to be much
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I have a friend who went to Caltech manyyyyy years ago and when he was there Caltech purposely lowered the entrance requirements for women so as to admit more of them. As a result, they had a massively greater dropout percentage than the men.
Perhaps from the universities perspective. However some of those women considered their college career a success, they earned their MRS degree. And how did I learn about this degree, from a friend's wife. Turns out it is a common joke among women due to its underlying core truth.
Men at Caltech (Score:2)
So the males at Caltech have a higher average brightness than previous years males? I mean, logically .. given no weirdness. Assumption being instead of taking the top 2% of males they only had spots for the top 1%.
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OK .. how does that negate what I said?
When you're a top destination, you can choose (Score:3)
who and what you let in.
Question is, is this (small) class coming at the expense of a sausage fest somewhere else. And you know what? It probably does.
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Given that most college attendees are women these days, it's called 'people not going to college', which poses a problem because it means that we have overshot the goal.
It also makes for a bunch of dating problems because women on average don't date down on things like height, income, education, etc...
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Given that most college attendees are women these days,
58% are women nationwide.
But the better the school, the more men.
it's called 'people not going to college'
It's also called "demographic collapse". Birthrates have been declining for decades, and fewer people are in those age ranges.
Restrictions on foreigners attending American colleges are making the situation even worse.
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I don't object to getting more men into lower rated schools, more into education.
But 58% women implied 42% men, which is a 16% spread - It means that there are roughly 1.4 women for every man in the average college.
Re: When you're a top destination, you can choose (Score:2)
Yeah that's why narcc still hasn't lost his virginity. That and his really bad napoleon complex.
College selection process is screwed up (Score:2)
The main problem is that the colleges don't tell you what to study or do to get in. They'll take kids who start non-profits, or some other extra-curricular BS. Why can't they just have an entrance exam, project show & tell, and an essay? I get it .. being able to sit exams doesn't mean you're bright .. but then starting a non-profit with your ultra-wealthy dad doesn't mean you're bright either. That's why I am saying an exam, a project show & tell .. where you build or create some shit and then you
Why? (Score:2)
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Don't know but I hope that their admissions team kept a level playing field when deciding on who actually gets in. Cal Tech is incredibly hard to get in on the order of only 3% of applicants are admitted. It certainly wouldn't do to accept someone based on sex or ethnicity only to have them wash out in a year or two because the academics were just too tough. If these new entrants have the right stuff to succeed, and I think they probably do, then I wish them great success.
Its great to hear women outscoring men .... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Its great to hear women outscoring men .... (Score:4, Insightful)
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The consequence of this is that the degree no longer has the weight it used to.
It takes a true idiot to judge a degree based on the GPA cut-off of the applicant. It's something that isn't even remotely considered by any rankings of university. Imaging defining your life and career based on a test you took 6 years prior. Imaging thinking that one moment in your life can dictate your knowledge or intelligence for the future. It would be truly absurd.
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The consequence of this is that the degree no longer has the weight it used to.
It takes a true idiot to judge a degree based on the GPA cut-off of the applicant. It's something that isn't even remotely considered by any rankings of university. Imaging defining your life and career based on a test you took 6 years prior. Imaging thinking that one moment in your life can dictate your knowledge or intelligence for the future. It would be truly absurd.
Funny anecdote, in my early career not having a degree was kind of a big deal and made it more difficult to get into my field, though with years of experience they don't even ask for a degree anymore and I eventually dropped my associate's off my resume entirely in favor of having more room to list relevant experience.
Anyhoo, many of the interviews I am involved with now, we neither require nor check for degrees, because they have become so ubiquitous and their value so variable that they are no longer a re
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They didn't. The just stopped looking at test scores. The consequence of this is that the degree no longer has the weight it used to.
No. Unless the coursework is changed the degree will be the same. What happens if unprepared students are admitted is that the graduation rate declines.
Graduation rate is what counts (Score:5, Interesting)
We went out of our way to hire women EEs at my company (some of our CEOs, etc were female FWIW). What I found was very few stayed in hardware design. The number of hours necessary to work mostly caused them to leave. It was a very "woman friendly" company for the naysayers. R&D manager was also a woman.
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The number of hours necessary to work mostly caused them to leave. It was a very "woman friendly" company for the naysayers.
Literally every company which has a problem says they are friendly and then blame the problem itself. Corporate culture doesn't care who your boss is. I've worked for some truly horrible women who have bred a culture of sexism in the department (favouring males). Your comment has a bit in common with the "I can't be a racist, my friend is black" line of thinking.
The idea that women just don't want to work is absurd. It sounds like you have a certain company culture or departmental culture you either can't o
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That just tells us that it was a toxic place to work, with too few staff to do the needed work, resulting in long hours.
Men shouldn't put up with it either, they are just hurting themselves by staying.
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I feel queers and drag queens are underrepresented (Score:3, Funny)
What is Caltech going to do to make up for that kind of inequality?
Because which white men decided that queers can't have a major in quantum science or subatomic nuclear fusion physics?
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" we can finally progress as a civilization " -> I don't think you're coming along to 'civilization' with that attitude, bud.
Milestone breakthrough (Score:2)
The first half of that sentence is true, the latter-half is highly specious opinion. Fact is and on the whole, boys prefer the soft sciences whilst women prefer the soft sciences. Someone should do research as to why so many males are leaving higher education and in such numbers.
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Re: Milestone breakthrough (Score:3)
Backend up by what exactly?
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“Research has shown that boys are not better at math and science than girls, but a persistent message in society says otherwise” The first half of that sentence is true, the latter-half is highly specious opinion. Fact is and on the whole, boys prefer the soft sciences whilst women prefer the soft sciences. Someone should do research as to why so many males are leaving higher education and in such numbers.
Working in academia - I can give a good first clue - men are marginalized on campus. This is not a safe place for males, as you can be kicked out if a woman wants you to be. Just claim that you sexually harassed her. Or regret sex is a big one as well. What is more, Sexual harassment has been re-defined to the point that it doesn't need to have one thing to do with sex. Our Gender studies Sexual Harassment counselor told me that if you tell a woman that you like her earrings, that is sexual harassment, in
Need more men in college (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an odd achievement to be proud of. Last I looked, something like 60% of college students were women. That is a huge gap, and if it were the other way around, equal rights groups would be screaming.
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It's an odd achievement to be proud of. Last I looked, something like 60% of college students were women. That is a huge gap, and if it were the other way around, equal rights groups would be screaming.
It’s because the mainstream position is not to remove the system or toxic dominance and to treat everyone on an equal basis, it’s to reverse the roles and keep the toxic system in place to “punish people who took advantage and keep things equal” when the reality is the very few old white men who instigated the system were and are never penalized and instead it’s foisted upon an entirely different generation because that’s who they have power over.
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Yep. And hence perpetuate the problem. That will go well...
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under-represeted males in other fields (Score:5, Insightful)
It is telling that the article commemorates the achievement of over 50% of women in STEM at caltech and at the same time says that women represent 60% in biological sciences and 68% in mathematical and computational biology and doesn't address it saying they need more men, none of them seem to be really about equality when on area skewed the other way around are completely ignored or even defended as a stronghold for women.
I'm very cynical about the people who are defending the policy of getting women in STEM field, they do not care about true representation/equality but are just pushed by agendas that just want more candidates to the jobs to reduce salaries of high paying engineering jobs to keep more money at the top, they just see that basically half of the potential population is not interested in the field and are just as capable, so having them enter the job market would increase the pool of candidates and reduce salaries.
Re:under-represeted males in other fields (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also odd how the emphasis is always 'more women in male-dominated STEM fields' but they never seem to be interested in seeing gender equality in male-dominated physical labor fields.
Almost as if the goal isn't gender parity at all.
Are we sure though? (Score:2)
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Has anybody consulted a biologist? (Or a supreme court justice?)
No matter her qualifications, the moment that Jackson answered in that manner, it was 100% clear that she was a political choice and an insult to women everywhere. If you want to get more diversity at the bench that is fine, no problem there, but they need to be AT LEAST as qualified and intelligent as the existing members, preferably more so. Jackson and Sotomayor are both the worst type of diversity hire.
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Has anybody consulted a biologist? (Or a supreme court justice?)
No matter her qualifications, the moment that Jackson answered in that manner, it was 100% clear that she was a political choice and an insult to women everywhere. If you want to get more diversity at the bench that is fine, no problem there, but they need to be AT LEAST as qualified and intelligent as the existing members, preferably more so. Jackson and Sotomayor are both the worst type of diversity hire.
It's the effort to destroy meritocracy, to be replaced with equal outcomes, and not equitable outcomes.
If Caltech were 100% women (Score:2)
Would they celebrate? Men are being discounted just about everywhere in developed countries. This is not a good thing.
Much of higher education is dominated by women now anyway.
Slashdot needs new icon for these type of articles (Score:2)
Accepted Students or Applications? (Score:2)
Just DEI PR at this point! (Score:2)
obvious bias (Score:2)
This is just clueless DEI manipulation to achieve equality of outcome not equality of opportunity. ....and to the same system standing up for men to reach equality in fields such as teaching and nursing. ...Yeah thought not too.
If this is how i'ts going to be then I'm looking forward to the inevitable DEI initiatives to force women to reach equality in all the dirty jobs, such as road maintainers, sewage workers and frontline soldiers.
Yeah thought not.
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What's going to be done to encourage more men to go CalTech?
Re: biological sex vs gender identity. (Score:2, Informative)
Oh that? That's easy:
- If the SRY gene is both present and expressed, you have male, otherwise it's female. Only works for XY determination system, so all placental mammals, certain insects, snakes, fish and plants.
- Have the organs necessary to produce spermatozoa? Male. Have the organs necessary to produce ova? Female. Whether they work at your current maturity is notwithstanding. This is the more universal method, though if you remove any such organs, the prior still applies even if you're now sexually n
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"If the SRY gene is both present and expressed, you have male, otherwise it's female. " You want to double down on that? That definition is provably fail, unless you think someone who has a normal SRY gene and expression but can still get pregnant and have kids naturally is female. Here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Also, if my counterexample doesn't do it for you (because you can't understand it .. plus you don't know scientific mumbo jumbo), which variant of the SRY gene are you talking about? You re
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*is male
Re: biological sex vs gender identity. (Score:2, Informative)
On the contrary, I seem to understand that better than you do. SRY gene is present here, but not expressed. In other words, genotype but not phenotype.
The SRY gene encodes for a protein that activates yet another set of genes (present in both males and females) to differentiate the gonads into testicles instead of ovaries. If any of this mechanism doesn't work, for any reason, the gene may be present, but effectively inert, thus not being expressed.
Think having both a blonde hair gene and a brown hair gene
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Do you have any RNA-Seq data or proteomics showing it isnt expressed? You're speculating. Some of the downstream genes are activated, therefore it must be getting expressed to some extent. They taught us that much about transcription factors in middle school. You also ignored the whole thing I stated about variants, for good reason I presume. Do you know what variants are and how variants can affect function? You sure you want to double down on ""If the SRY gene is both present and expressed, you have male
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So first of all, do you even know what phenotype means? Loosely translated from its Greek root, it means "visible mark". Gene expression doesn't mean no protein transcription.
Start here dude:
https://www.genome.gov/genetic... [genome.gov]
Gene expression is the process by which the information encoded in a gene is turned into a function.
So what's the function of the SRY protein? Well, another term for it is Testes Determining Factor. The person in this paper didn't have any testes did she?
Hope that helps make up for that homeschooling, but you've got a very long ways to go.
Re: biological sex vs gender identity. (Score:5, Informative)
Don't fucking argue science if your knowledge and worldview doesn't account for gene variants and the presence of inhibitors. Does your definition work if there are SRY inhibitors present? Does your definition work if there are variants? Jackass. Keep doubling down, in the face of counter examples such as someone your test determines is "male" yet they have kids. Or your test determines they're "female" yet they produce sperm or are high testosterone. Keep up the mental gymnastics and as you double down on gender binary.
Please read what an inhibitor is and the various types there. Then read up on gene variants. Then please formulate your "binary" gender determination test. Just because you super want gender to be binary and non-spectral doesn't mean reality has to bend to it.
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Don't fucking argue science if your knowledge and worldview doesn't account for gene variants and the presence of inhibitors. Does your definition work if there are SRY inhibitors present? Does your definition work if there are variants?
Yes, it does. As I said, expression.
Keep doubling down, in the face of counter examples such as someone your test determines is "male" yet they have kids.
Except the test didn't determine male here.
You're just trying to be a contrarian at this point.
Please read what an inhibitor is and the various types there. Then read up on gene variants. Then please formulate your "binary" gender determination test. Just because you super want gender to be binary and non-spectral doesn't mean reality has to bend to it.
The "test" as it were has nothing to do with gender. I get that you can't tell the difference, but that's not what it is. I specifically disclaimed the whole gender thing, mainly because people are going down this rabbit hole of trying to redefine what the word gender means, and when they do that, at the end of the day it turns out that they really have no idea what they even wa
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I assure you your mom isn’t a tranny.
Re: biological sex vs gender identity. (Score:4, Informative)
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Yes in that case. Thats why I am arguing for feature based selection rather than denying the gender spectrum. For example, a person with a penis or whose body developed with high testosterone should not be allowed in a women’s prison or compete in the female category in sports. I am saying the gender spectrum doesn’t have to be denied in order to maintain current social order. We should discriminate on specific features.I would agree with that.
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Re: biological sex vs gender identity. (Score:2)
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Partial gene expression, having both sets of organs, all sorts of gray areas are provided us by biology.
I'm not aware of any cases where a single organism with the XY system has had both male and female gonads both present and capable of producing gametes. There are a few very odd cases of conjoined twins, but they aren't a single organism, and in fact are two organisms. You've also got some odd cases of the gonads being somewhat ambiguous, but they've never been capable of producing any sort of gametes.
Everything outside of this is, at the moment, a matter of philosophy. Like the question of whether a virus
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Even among XX-males, there are phenotypic males without SRY crossover. Autosomal mutations can lead to the activation of other sex genes without SRY.
There is no golden BB, here.
You're very close to constructing a rule that excludes the people you don't like, but you're not quite there yet.
Re: biological sex vs gender identity. (Score:3, Insightful)
Skimmed over this earlier...
Nothing. It's like a someone in Africa 500 years ago proclaiming no human can have white skin. They haven't seen one so they think that's the rule.
Dude...500 years ago was long after the Romans conquered north Africa. You do know Julius Caesar was banging Cleopatra in Egypt right? She gave birth to his only biological son. Go even further back and you'll find Greeks. Eratosthenes, who was born in Libya, first determined the circumference of the Earth in Egypt.
You really were homeschooled weren't you? Or you just huff quite a bit of glue, witch is likely how you come up with your silly reasoning that making something bigger
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How many whites were in central Africa in 1524? What are you a moron or David Livingston? Europeans couldn't penetrate more than 40 miles into sub-saharan Africa until the 1800s. There was no African that had ever seen a white person .. I'm saying there must have been plenty inland .. just like 1500 years ago very few in Northern Europe would have seen a black person. Logic is not your strong point? Anyway, my example was to illustrate that morons like you assume things they haven't seen are facts. They don
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*I'm not saying there was no African that had ever seen a white person .. however there must have been plenty inland who haven't
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How many whites were in central Africa in 1524?
Well first of all you said Africa. And even in central Africa, very few, but certainly there were. What's funny is you're going into this whole genetics thing and yet you still can't even fathom the different ways this happened.
Europeans couldn't penetrate more than 40 miles into sub-saharan Africa until the 1800s.
Muslim slave traders certainly could. Oh that's right, not all whites are European are they? But you didn't say Europeans, did you? In fact, you've also got albinos, which didn't just magically start appearing 500 years ago. I don't know why you have it in your head that no African w
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Skimmed over this earlier...
You do know Julius Caesar was banging Cleopatra in Egypt right?
You do know that Cleopatra was Greek, right? A member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, itself a remnant of Alexander's conquest of Persia, in fact.
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One that we can use on 100% of people ... with no ambiguity.
That is a ridiculous demand. For example, what do you mean by "people"? Do we need a 100% unambiguous definition of a person first?
Give us that definition and we can know exactly when the first person was born to a non-human ape.
Only the most trivial categories would allow every one of billions of things to be categorised with zero uncertainly. That does not mean people do not exist, or birds, or planets, or Mondays. Male and Female are still real.
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Male and female are real, but then some are in-between they don't carry all the traits required to fit the category. It's like you are insisting that all colors are either red or green, blue being some aberration we can ignore but all colors are red or green. Only red and green exist. Doesn't matter how many alternate colors I show, your insistence is that an object's color must either be red or green. You only think that's not ridiculous because you don't understand or see people who your category can't be
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I think you missed the point completely, and I could have been clearer.
Yes, it is almost impossible to define sex in a way that can unambiguously assign a sex to every person on earth. But you are demanding that, and seeing the failure to do so as more important than it is.
Lets examine the colour analogy. Yes, there is a spectrum between red and green, and no firm dividing line, just like sex of individuals - we agree? But almost all traffic lights are red, green or amber. You can
Is everyone on this thread a Techer? (Score:2)
Is everyone on this thread currently enrolled or recently graduated from Cal Tech?
TFA was about Cal Tech, which not that long ago wasn't admitting women has achieved a milestone of equal representation of women and men in its incoming class.
This discussion here has gone down into the weeds parsing the fine points of biology and its relationship to gender identity. Criminy, this is just like being back on campus 50 years ago.
Re:biological sex vs gender identity. (Score:5, Interesting)
That's easy. Men have a Y chromosome. Women do not. That covers 99.999... percent of humans, and so unambiguously classifies them as men, or women. The remaining 0.00000...1 percent are free to identify as nonbinary or whatever.
The demand to have a classification that covers 100% of cases is a classic logical fallacy - this definition is not 100% perfect (only 99+%), therefore it's useless and wrong, so let's ignore and throw it away completely and come up with an alternative one that relies on nothing but own feelings. I hopefully don't need to explain the flaws in this approach.
Women who are into stereotypically 'male' things are not nonbinary, they are women who are into stereotypically 'male' things. Men who are effeminate are not nonbinary, they are men who are effeminate. Men who want to wear women's clothing are not nonbinary, they are men who want to wear women's clothing. Men or women with much higher or lower testosterone than is normal for their sex are just that - it does not change their sex. It's super simple and obvious and has only been put into question by a recent ideological drive by people who want to reject reality and substitute their own.
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This is also why Gen X (and also Boomers, to a large degree) are pushing back against this whole 'oh, a girl that likes 'boy' things? Must be trans or non binary' idea.
We were raised to understand that there aren't 'boy things' and 'girl things.' To see the regressive idea now that 'if you like dresses, you must also want to get rid of your penis' or 'you like playing with trucks, you must want to get rid of your vagina' is frightening.
There's going to be raft of lawsuits ten or twenty years down the road
More specific definition (Score:5, Informative)
Males produce sperm. Doesn't matter if they have vestigial female genitalia or not.
Females produce eggs. Doesn't matter if they also have vestigial male genitalia or not.
The more specific definition is that eggs are (relatively speaking) large and immobile, and sperm are relatively small and mobile. This definition works across a wide swath of the animal and plant kingdom, where one could consider pollen to be a male characteristic (small and mobile), and ovule (the part that gets fertilized by the pollen) the female characteristic.
And as you have pointed out, the definition doesn't need to cover 100% of all cases. In the case of male and female, the obvious definition covers almost all of everything living, so in terms of information theory the words are a shorthand for the extremely common cases that are found.
Everything else can be put under the term "exceptions", and for those cases simply note that it is an exception.
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Huh? Can you give me a definition that is useful? I mean, one I can use to determine whether someone is male or female, with 100% reliability. Because if you give me an atom .. I can tell you with 100% reliability whether it is a hydrogen atom or if not, which element it is. Now, since you've doubled down on gender is binary I need you to tell me how I can determine whether a human presented to me is male or female. What specific trait should I look for to make the determination? Hell I'll even settle for a
Re:More specific definition (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, one I can use to determine whether someone is male or female, with 100% reliability.
You are unreasonable here, 100% is impossible while >99% should be enough.
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You are unreasonable here, 100% is impossible while >99% should be enough.
You're being absurd here.
For some things, 99% can indeed be enough.
For a scientific classification, that 1% deviation is the difference between fact and fiction.
Sure, you can bring in statistics and say that, "Statistically, all men have a Y chromosome", and it'd be hard to argue with you. But the value of that would be questionable, as you're also precluding people who have no say in the matter.
As pointed out elsewhere, 98% of all atoms in this universe are hydrogen and helium.
Is that good enough to s
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I can tell you with 100% reliability whether it is a hydrogen atom or if not
The funny part about your comment is that we discovered new atoms only a few months ago https://scitechdaily.com/beyon... [scitechdaily.com], and we were constantly discovering atoms which had not definition nor a an explanation for existence throughout the 20th century.
The difference between a scientist and a layperson, is that only the latter will use 100% when discussing anything.
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The difference between a scientist and a layperson, is that only the latter will use 100% when discussing anything.
Patently untrue.
Given their example, you can indeed devise a test that will allow you to say with 100% certainty whether an atom has an atomic number of 1.
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Huh? Can you give me a definition that is useful? I mean, one I can use to determine whether someone is male or female, with 100% reliability. Because if you give me an atom .. I can tell you with 100% reliability whether it is a hydrogen atom or if not, which element it is. Now, since you've doubled down on gender is binary I need you to tell me how I can determine whether a human presented to me is male or female. What specific trait should I look for to make the determination? Hell I'll even settle for a list of traits such as "7 out of 10 of these must be present" .. BUT .. there should be no possibility that someone would have the requisite number of traits in both lists or an inadequacy of traits in either list.
I can't use the sperm or egg size because .. not everyone can produce sperm or eggs.
Now note I'm actually being flexible here .. if I were pedantic or a stickler I'd ask you what physical or psychological trait or feature can be reliably predicted once the said gender identification is ascertained. I mean, it seems super important to know whether someone is male or female category .. I'm assuming that's because there's some things that can be predicted reliably once it's ascertained.
Now if instead of gender we went by feature, that would be better. "Nobody with a penis or who grew up with high testosterone levels should be in a women's prison." .. that's a useful feature to ascertain and it has a purpose.
I think you are being intentionally argumentative and unreasonable. Everyone knows, intuitively, that there is a difference between males and females, the differences are very obvious in nearly all cases and realistically no definition is even needed, though quite a few exist which work in greater than 99% of cases which is more than sufficient.
We say that people have two eyes, ten fingers and are bipedal. Some people are born blind, with extra or fewer digits or are unable to walk, they are still identifia
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In a world that is scientifically governed, 99% of cases is not more than sufficient, and the claim of that is rather shocking when you dig into the implications.
I know you're smarter than this. You can do that thought test on your own.
Imagine some characteristics of a stereotypical male with which you diverge. Now imagine it was being targeted by your political opponents.
In 2024, we shouldn't still
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Re:More specific definition (Score:5, Interesting)
This is great for biology, but not for law. For example, if you use this definition for defining who can use a restroom, how do you tell this about the person about to walk into the restroom? And of course your hand waving of "exceptions" doesn't work for the law. You can't make a law where up to 10% of people are "exceptions", that law just doesn't work. And people will not accept this definition as well. If a trans man walks into the women's room, there will be people who scream that a man is walking into the women's room. And they would be right. You could try to explain that their body produced eggs, so they are not a man, but they are going to continue screaming because they see a man even when the definition says the person is not a man. That is why these laws are always discriminatory and bound to fail. Even when you come up with a definition, people don't care about the definition, they just care about their own expectations. A trans woman who "passes" will be allowed in without question while a CIS women who is not feminine enough for some people will be questioned (see Imane Khelif).
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Yes. 99% of matter in the universe is hydrogen or helium, therefore the universe has no other elements? The only elements in the universe are hydrogen and helium. That sounds like a true statement to you? And this is ignoring the fact that we can't use gender to reliable predict anything about a person. For example, if someone sets me up on a blind date and the only thing they tell me is that she's female .. I may agree because well it would disgust me to date a man .. but what aspect of her can I be sure o
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Regarding cup size, the bigger they are, the harder and faster they fall. They don't stay perky for very long, y'know. Best go for the A-cup, at least they'll be with you a lot longer.
Gender is indeed a spectrum, a vast spectrum. Scientific American had an article on genetics and sexual traits. The combinations are boggling. Regardless of physical characteristics, a relationship is LOT more than what's between your legs. And incandescent sexual desire does not last in a relationship. If you are married and
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Best go for the A-cup, at least they'll be with you a lot longer.
Those D-cups will still be with you. They may not have the same affect on you they once had, though ;)
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Men fuck women.
I seen a movie on the interweb where it was the other way around.
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YOUR definition of water is: "a clear liquid" .,. that might work for you where you live .. but it doesn't mean that's a valid definition. There are clear liquids that aren't water, doubling down on a wrong definition doesn't mean it's correct. Insisting that all clear liquids are water won't make the definition usable. Yes, it's wise to know how to identify what water is, and also understand that there are other clear liquids in the world besides water. You've made MY point. You guys are the ones insisting
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I'll be watching to see whether the same happens at schools ... not named "Caltech."
No need to watch. It already happened at most other schools decades ago.
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I think these men are doing it wrong. Go get that degree, but make sure it is something you enjoy. The potential loss in salary will not matter. And then when you have it, keep your freedom and do not fall for the trap that a relationship with a woman has become. No need for misogyny, no need to react to the misandrism, just make your stance, "look, I respect you and your skills, but I do not want a relationship with you". And make sure that when you stray, you always use protection.
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I think these men are doing it wrong. Go get that degree, but make sure it is something you enjoy. The potential loss in salary will not matter. And then when you have it, keep your freedom and do not fall for the trap that a relationship with a woman has become. No need for misogyny, no need to react to the misandrism, just make your stance, "look, I respect you and your skills, but I do not want a relationship with you". And make sure that when you stray, you always use protection.
I had suggested very strongly to my son to get his degree online.
College campuses are an extremely toxic place for young males. I worked on campus for 40+ years now, and watched males starting to check out as womanism and misandry became institutionalized. The interesting thing is as women increasingly get their demands met, they appear to be less and less happy, especially as they hit their mid-30's and have not secured that mythical perfect guy they were told was their birthright: The pretty boy, banki
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Bio fields are hot right now, and many needed breakthroughs, research and development needed that will benefit everyone.
Less men should be enrolled in college as they have trades too, there are lots of trades most women will never do, most can't, and quite frankly there are safer ways to make more money. People who are offended at what I point out should consider that women by and large aren't oil platform workers, firemen, iron workers etc.
The problem is that the shift in society to women having highly educated "boss babe" positions of authority, while men are being relegated to work that is considered inferior, modern women are having trouble finding men who are worthy of them.
Which modern men don't find it as much of a problem. But few female CEO's will ever marry a plumber, that is beneath their assumed superiority.
What is more, we must remember the law of equivalences. Every time we celebrate more women in positions, we are exactly