I haven't read the book, but I found this debate between Louise Perry and Aella (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEL9zZNkRRg) illuminating. It seems like Perry's case actually hinges more on differences in sex drive and sociosexuality than physical strength. Also, both differences would only need to be true for the majority of men and women, not universal, for Perry's conclusions to apply.
> If you know that the average adult woman is only half as strong as an average adult man, you don’t know that almost all women are weaker than almost all men unless you also know the standard deviations. If the standard deviation is high enough, then a significant minority of women can be stronger than the average man, and a significant minority of men can be weaker than the average woman.
As a matter of mathematical possibilities, you are correct; she cited studies sloppily; you get a point in debate club.
As a matter of reality, she's right. The distributions aren't even close to overlapping, for any measure of strength you care to name. You do know that, don't you? We don't need studies for this for the same reason we don't need RCTs on parachutes. (We have them anyway, though it's not worth my time to collate enough...)
I occasionally meet people who say something like "Oh, men are stronger on average but it's not a large difference!" Inevitably, I discover they've never played sports at any serious level (including high school), worked any physical job, or been involved in any serious violence. This says great things about society allowing people to live lives of words and the mind, and safety! But it says terrible things about the vision of reality our media surfaces.
"Men who get women by beating up everyone else who wants to have sex with the women tend not to have much interest in whether the women would prefer an emaciated kpop star instead."
But women who are happy with those men tend to fare better in their company than those who resent them, so the former should be expected to be more reproductively successful than the latter. Therefore, there's a selection pressure for women to be attracted to such men.
"There is a slight of hand"
Should that be "sleight of hand"? Do you mean "an insult made with a hand"? Is that a deliberate typo to catch pedantic busybodies like me?
I haven't read the book, but I found this debate between Louise Perry and Aella (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEL9zZNkRRg) illuminating. It seems like Perry's case actually hinges more on differences in sex drive and sociosexuality than physical strength. Also, both differences would only need to be true for the majority of men and women, not universal, for Perry's conclusions to apply.
> If you know that the average adult woman is only half as strong as an average adult man, you don’t know that almost all women are weaker than almost all men unless you also know the standard deviations. If the standard deviation is high enough, then a significant minority of women can be stronger than the average man, and a significant minority of men can be weaker than the average woman.
As a matter of mathematical possibilities, you are correct; she cited studies sloppily; you get a point in debate club.
As a matter of reality, she's right. The distributions aren't even close to overlapping, for any measure of strength you care to name. You do know that, don't you? We don't need studies for this for the same reason we don't need RCTs on parachutes. (We have them anyway, though it's not worth my time to collate enough...)
I occasionally meet people who say something like "Oh, men are stronger on average but it's not a large difference!" Inevitably, I discover they've never played sports at any serious level (including high school), worked any physical job, or been involved in any serious violence. This says great things about society allowing people to live lives of words and the mind, and safety! But it says terrible things about the vision of reality our media surfaces.
"Men who get women by beating up everyone else who wants to have sex with the women tend not to have much interest in whether the women would prefer an emaciated kpop star instead."
But women who are happy with those men tend to fare better in their company than those who resent them, so the former should be expected to be more reproductively successful than the latter. Therefore, there's a selection pressure for women to be attracted to such men.
"There is a slight of hand"
Should that be "sleight of hand"? Do you mean "an insult made with a hand"? Is that a deliberate typo to catch pedantic busybodies like me?