![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Ladies and gentlemen, I accept the law banning federal funding for abortions. I think it's silly, but if that's what people need in order to look themselves in the mirror, I am perfectly happy with the compromise that abortions are legal and use private grants. I'll take that.
In return, I wonder if you would consider a similar reasonable proposal: no taxpayer funding of psychology research on sex differences, that "men are from mars, women are bad drivers" stuff. If you can't get enough books about how 6 male undergrads used a limited emotional vocabulary with their TA and how a survey of the class revealed fewer girls than boys played Halo, you are apparently not alone, but I don't want it on my dime.
This is the only time you will hear me say I don't want to fund science. I will fund stupid science. I will fund frog levitation. But I've never met a sex-difference psych experiment that showed a statistically significant difference that couldn't be attributed to stereotype threat, researcher bias, or limited sample size. Most of which are then made worse in subsequent studies of adults who've read the previous studies.
They make us look like asses, is what I'm saying.
And say there was someday a miraculous study that did show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that women be shoppin' and men have bad taste in paint colors for indisputably biological reasons - what's step 2? Do we say women aren't allowed to design planes, because it unnecessarily endangers passengers? Do we say men aren't allowed to interact with children, because they're a bad influence?
No. We just feel sad. We'd get the same benefit from laypeople talking about how their husbands won't ask for directions and scientists issuing regular press bulletins that we're all decaying all the time, irreversibly.
It's bad research, is what I'm saying. It neither tells us how we are nor how we should be. I'm tired of it. No taxpayer funding for sex-difference psych studies. You with me?
In return, I wonder if you would consider a similar reasonable proposal: no taxpayer funding of psychology research on sex differences, that "men are from mars, women are bad drivers" stuff. If you can't get enough books about how 6 male undergrads used a limited emotional vocabulary with their TA and how a survey of the class revealed fewer girls than boys played Halo, you are apparently not alone, but I don't want it on my dime.
This is the only time you will hear me say I don't want to fund science. I will fund stupid science. I will fund frog levitation. But I've never met a sex-difference psych experiment that showed a statistically significant difference that couldn't be attributed to stereotype threat, researcher bias, or limited sample size. Most of which are then made worse in subsequent studies of adults who've read the previous studies.
They make us look like asses, is what I'm saying.
And say there was someday a miraculous study that did show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that women be shoppin' and men have bad taste in paint colors for indisputably biological reasons - what's step 2? Do we say women aren't allowed to design planes, because it unnecessarily endangers passengers? Do we say men aren't allowed to interact with children, because they're a bad influence?
No. We just feel sad. We'd get the same benefit from laypeople talking about how their husbands won't ask for directions and scientists issuing regular press bulletins that we're all decaying all the time, irreversibly.
It's bad research, is what I'm saying. It neither tells us how we are nor how we should be. I'm tired of it. No taxpayer funding for sex-difference psych studies. You with me?
