The Uncomfortable Science Of Sex Differences - Steve Stewart-Williams - #1120

Do you think that you could have published this book six years ago? I think that I could have, but it would have been a less wise move. I think it would have gone down uh a a lot worse six years ago. Things have kind of cooled off a little bit, I think. Why is talking about sex differences so controversial?

Well, it's a good question and I think that it's a few things. I mean, sometimes it surprises me, because sometimes I think A lot of the differences that we're talking about, they're really quite modest differences. Um, they are often differences in preferences rather than cognitive abilities, so they're kind of neutral as far as I'm concerned. Um and if anything, I think probably they put men in a worse light than women.

Um so sometimes it surprises me, but I think rarely The main reason is a long history of sexism against women. And I think that we've got quite a long science as well has a bit of a sordid history in terms of how we've spoken about women, especially in the 1800s. I I've got a quote, one of my favorite quotes, one of my favorite examples of this is from um scientist by the name of Gustave Le Bon and he he wrote that uh sure there are some women who are as intellectually accomplished as your typical man, but they're about as rare as a as a two-headed gorilla and so therefore we don't really need to think about think about them.

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