Lifestyle

TOPICS:

Previous

PAGE: 

1 ... 

104 | 105 | 106

 ... 944

Next

Previous

PAGE: 

1 | 2

Next

Elly

Elly

SUICIDEGIRL

South Carolina, USA

AUG 17, 2007 11:50 AM



Once again the general population is presented with so-called scientific studies proving that specific proportions of our bodies predetermine not only our level of intellect, but also dictate our sexual orientation. Basically, this “scientific evidence” affirms “the old claim that women who excel at math and science are less feminine—or at any rate more masculine—than their sisters who can’t balance a checkbook or tell the difference between a phenome and a phoneme, but can talk up a storm.” In her recent article, "Giving Science the Finger," Jody Kolodzey says it's no surprise that these acclaimed math whizzes are presumed to be lesbians too.

A research team of British psychologists has confirmed that women with longer ring fingers then index fingers are natural-born calculators with “a corresponding aptitude for verbal communication.” These scientists explain that women with these extra long digits are commonly more masculine (due to prenatal exposure to more testosterone than estrogen) and are overall better at thinking and functioning in the world.

[The researchers’] generalizations based on hand shape not only are formulated from small pools of data, but smack of pseudo science. And not so much palmistry—although its practitioners maintain that a short ring finger indicates someone who is shy and lacking in emotional control (sounds like that stereotypical woman again, doesn’t it?)—as phrenology.





Another pack of eager-beaver researchers at Berkeley seems to think the length of one’s fingers will also determine sexual identity. Psychologist, Marc Breedlove, published a report confirming that digit ratio is directly related to sexual orientation.

[In the Breedlove study, straight men and lesbians were found to have longer ring fingers than index fingers on their right hands. Straight women and gay men had index and ring fingers of about equal length, although this was mitigated by whether a gay man had older brothers, in which case his hand was likely to have the shorter index finger common to straight men and lesbians—only way shorter.

The syllogism implicit in the two studies is that women who are good at math and science are likely to be lesbians.


Ah, yes. And brown-eyed people are smarter than blue-eyed. Let’s not kid ourselves, doctors. Didn’t you see that episode of Oprah? When you assume, you make an ass out of you and an ass out of me, so why make everybody with stubby ring fingers fret the SATs even more than they already do? I know plenty of people who’d like to blame heredity for their poor test-taking skills. Then again, I guess I can’t say none of my gay friends are concerned with the length of fingers.



Jace

Jace

San Francisco, CA
February 2004

AUG 18, 2007 12:03 AM

Shouldn't the scientific community be giving these people the intellectual equivalent of being stuffed in a locker right about now?

comrade

comrade

Portland, OR
April 2004

AUG 18, 2007 12:34 AM

With alpha = 0.05, about 5% of the correlations you find will probably be due to random chance. This study sure smells like that 5%.

JDPatriot

JDPatriot

Fort Lauderdale, FL
January 2004

AUG 18, 2007 12:34 AM

Correlation does NOT necessarily equal causation.

However, were these "findings" to have any real "proof" it would be interesting.


As it stands, it simply sounds like some kids looking to make the grade any way they can. Even if they have to stretch the intentions of the scientific method past their breaking point.

Emi

Emi

SUICIDEGIRL

USA

AUG 18, 2007 01:04 AM

LOL if this were true i'd be the smartest lesbian that ever lived!

RudieCantFail

RudieCantFail

Baton Rouge, LA
January 2006

AUG 18, 2007 01:17 AM

mellon

mellon

USA
October 2004

AUG 18, 2007 01:26 AM

Jace, that would be poetic justice indeed.

Clidna

Clidna

Canada
January 2005

AUG 18, 2007 01:39 AM

My ring finger is a good centimetre longer than my index... please don't tell my husband that apparently I'm a lesbian. whatever

freshprncebelair

freshprncebelair

Ellicott City, MD
June 2004

AUG 18, 2007 03:06 AM

Clidna said:
My ring finger is a good centimetre longer than my index... please don't tell my husband that apparently I'm a lesbian. whatever



Lesbians have a high incidence of longer ring finger (I think it was 89%), but a lot of straight women have it too. It's just that a far lower percentage of straight women have the longer ring finger.

Sort of like how all lesbians are women, but that doesn't make all women lesbians

DeadRat

DeadRat

United Kingdom
February 2006

AUG 18, 2007 04:04 AM

Reminds me of of of Douglas Adams books where a census shows that staistically everyone in the universe has 3.1 legs and owns an hyena.

Jokes aside, "correlation" do not equal "statistically significat scientific proof" and I don't think they'll be able to publish these findings in any scientific journal unless they have rock solid data to back their claims. Which I found unlikely.

Tiger_Fodder

Tiger_Fodder

Braintree, MA
June 2007

AUG 18, 2007 05:38 AM

And the size of your pecker corresponds to the size of your feet...yep!...aha!

Gillionaire

Gillionaire

Manchester, NH
February 2007

AUG 18, 2007 05:59 AM

Yeah, my index and ring fingers on my right hand are roughly equal length. I guess I fuck dudes.

zyryx

zyryx

Tyler, TX
April 2004

AUG 18, 2007 06:01 AM

but Albert Einstein had brown eyes, so yes, we brown eyed people are all geniuses!

Darke

Darke

Columbia, MO
June 2005

AUG 18, 2007 06:02 AM

InnocentSid said:
And the size of your pecker corresponds to the size of your feet...yep!...aha!



No, I think it's the SMELL of one's feet that correlates to the smell of the penis.... mah feets smell likes CANDY!
biggrin

apesamongus

apesamongus

Atlanta, GA
July 2002

AUG 18, 2007 06:07 AM

These findings should be tested and reviewed by other scientists in order to confirm or debunk them. If they're confirmed by enough people, then they're likely true. That's how science works, no matter what it's trying to test. Science does not have the luxury of being nice or fair or pretty.

Hussein

Hussein

I'm lost
March 2004

AUG 18, 2007 06:54 AM

JDPatriot said:
Correlation does NOT necessarily equal causation.

However, were these "findings" to have any real "proof" it would be interesting.


As it stands, it simply sounds like some kids looking to make the grade any way they can. Even if they have to stretch the intentions of the scientific method past their breaking point.



No, JD, correlation doesn't equal causation, and that's why this news article is completely misleading. I haven't read the new British study, but I'm quite familiar with the Breedlove work. He has never proposed, as the news article says, that

. . . specific proportions of our bodies predetermine not only our level of intellect, but also dictate our sexual orientation.



In fact, that's a really irresponsible distortion of his work.

It's bizarrely fascinating that, although the claim that homosexuality is not a "choice" and has a biological basis is the foundation of most arguments for equal rights, a number of gay men and lesbians seem intent on trashing scientists who share this belief (based on what they know about biology) and provide empirical support for it. I don't get it. Isn't that a job for religious nutjobs and the GOP?

And Breedlove isn't a "kid" or just a "psychologist" (the original article seems to use that term pejoratively). He's a senior neuroscientist and psychologist, and one of the world's leading experts on the sexual differentiation of the nervous system.

I'm not slamming you, JD, I just get really pissed off at anti-science articles that reflect absolutely no understanding of the original work or its scientific context. How is that different from the creationists' tactics? (The comparison to phrenology is pretty ironic, actually. Who's the phrenologist here?)

And apesamongus is absolutely correct. If people think Breedlove's findings are bullshit, they're free to try to falsify them. Go for it. But simply asserting that the work isn't statistically significant ain't gonna cut it.

testykitten

testykitten

Andorra
February 2005

AUG 18, 2007 07:01 AM

well...my ring finger is longer than my index finger and i hate math and love cock.

bairdduvessa

bairdduvessa

Centerville, MA
April 2005

AUG 18, 2007 07:12 AM

bah

Hussein

Hussein

I'm lost
March 2004

AUG 18, 2007 07:17 AM

.

Ticktockman

Ticktockman

Durham, NC
April 2006

AUG 18, 2007 08:10 AM

testykitten said:
well...my ring finger is longer than my index finger and i hate math and love cock.

How many inches of cock do you love? Now what's that in centimeters?

The article is terrible, laden with scare quotes, fearmongering, and poorly conceived conflation with phrenology. Science writing in the media is poor in general, but this is a half dozen sigmas down the bell curve.

Brosnan has a summary of findings here.

-TTm

brett54

brett54

Australia
November 2004

AUG 18, 2007 08:39 AM

The report that I was aware of (at least a decade old) related the finger size to Lesbians ..... BUT also, importantly, to boys with Autism.

I think the link was due to an excess of testosterone during gestation.

These processes are not completely known to us.
An example were the >4 legged frogs being born.

We know very, very little about medicine. A specialist doctor (and Protestant) said to me that,

"medicine is at about the same level that engineering was in the year 1200".

"if the Catholics hadn't killed off the inteligensia during the inquisition, we'd be further ahead".

WADO

WADO

Brooklyn, NY
March 2006

AUG 18, 2007 08:42 AM

So does that mean my up-turned left eyebrow, rising to a point in the middle and which I affectionately call my "Devil-Brow", is the reason I'm such a smarmy jack-ass?

WADO

WADO

Brooklyn, NY
March 2006

AUG 18, 2007 08:46 AM

brett54 said:

"medicine is at about the same level that engineering was in the year 1200".

"if the Catholics hadn't killed off the inteligensia during the inquisition, we'd be further ahead".



That is a great point, something I forget about more often than I'd like. We lost huge amounts of pharmacopial data in those years, and a great deal of knowledge concerning herbal treatment was forced underground since it was practiced by gypsies.

brett54

brett54

Australia
November 2004

AUG 18, 2007 08:52 AM

Re-reading the article, I'm a litle confused at the intent.
Are you upset the generalisations OR that research is being done into gender specific qualities???

Through evolution, I'd hope that the males (hunters) had greater hand eye coordination and spacial awareness - else, throwing the spear would be a challenge.

By the same argument, females have greater social skills and verbal skills - who were out in a group collecting fruit, vegetables etc. whilst the men hunted the meat.

No pseudo science about this - this is how our ancestors got us to where we are today.

These differences show up in society and are important areas of research.
For example, the advanced learning capabilities of teenage girls c.f teenage boys (we just take an extra few years to get there).

Boys have testosterone - Girls have estrogen/progesterone, we can't change that - and I'm sure that they do affect us in different ways - good, bad or indifferent.

Here is a list of some researchers,

Stian Reimers was lead scientific advisor on the Sex ID project. He is a psychology researcher at University College London.

Michael Peters is Professor of Psychology at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

John Manning is Professor of Psychology at the University of Central Lancashire.

legionnaire

legionnaire

Belgium
November 2003

AUG 18, 2007 09:41 AM

I think the problem here is that it is the linked article (which is about the original research) is the one drawing the harsh conclusions, not the scientists themselves.

The work has been published - the first Breedlove study correlating finger digit ratio to sexual orientation was published in Nature, subsequent studies have shown up in other reputable scientific journals. Which, of course, doesn't mean that it's gospel truth, but that at least their methodology is sound.

A more recent paper from the Breedlove lab shows that in fact there are some serious inconsistencies in published findings on the subject that should make anyone hesitate before drawing the kinds of conclusions that the linked article, and hence the original article do.

It was already posted earlier but worth repeating because it's true -

Sort of like how all lesbians are women, but that doesn't make all women lesbians



Having a characteristic of one doesn't automatically give all the of the characteristics of the other.

Let's try to contain the hysteria, folks. Plenty of women have been good at math, both heterosexual and straight.

Previous

PAGE: 

1 | 2

Next