charlie@cca.UUCP (Charlie Kaufman) (10/12/83)
I read with amusement a recent posting suggesting that perhaps the
reason there are very few women amoung the world's best chess players
was lack of physical stamina. It was amusing not because the idea is
absurd, but because it illustrates the lengths people will go before
considering the obvious (which is not to say correct) explanation: that
there exist differences, at least on average, in the minds of men and
women that make men better chess players.
There. I said it. It's out in the open.
Differences between men and women (or blacks and whites, or any of a
number of other bases) are a sensitive issue. Differences in physical
characteristics are a dangerous topic; differences in mental
characteristics are strictly taboo.
Why? It's OK to talk about differences in the mental characteristics of
individuals - some people are smarter than others, some more obnoxious,
etc. Why is it wrong to discuss the possibility that some of these
differences might be correlated with sex/race/national origin/whatever?
And if the subject is broached, why is an apologetic - but of course
group x is better at y - always appended?
Discrimination is a crime against individuals; not against groups. The
fact that discrimination is based on group membership is irrelevant.
The crime is that it is arbitrary and capricious. If the victims were
chosen by lottery, the results would be no less unfair.
So what if group A is better (on average!) than group B at activity C?
It is still wrong to deny b's the same chance as the a's. We do not
have to deny the difference to proclaim the injustice. Denying the
difference is dangerous (you might be refuted) and distracts attention
from the real issue. Why do we go out of our way to do so?
--Charlie Kaufman
charlie@cca
...decvax!cca!charlieguy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (10/12/83)
een men and women (or blacks and whites,
or any of a number of other bases) are a sensitive issue.
Differences in physical characteristics are a dangerous topic;
differences in mental characteristics are strictly taboo.
Why? It's OK to talk about differences in the mental
characteristics of individuals - some people are smarter than
others, some more obnoxious, etc. Why is it wrong to discuss
the possibility that some of these differences might be correlated
with sex/race/national origin/whatever? And if the subject is
broached, why is an apologetic - but of course group x is better
at y - always appended?
Why? Very simple. Such arguments have historically 1) been scientifically
unfounded and 2) used to justify existing prejudices against groups. Did
you know that Eastern European Jews were, by and large, feeble-minded? No?
Well, according to IQ tests performed around the beginning of the century,
they were! And these "scientific facts" were used to justify restrictive
immigration policies at the time. The history of all arguments about
differences in mental abilities is a rather unsavory one, and frankly I
think anyone offering such claims about mental abilities had better expect
to be asked a lot of very hard questions. Stephen Jay Gould wrote a good
book on the subject, "The Mismeasure of Man", and I seem to remember another
recent book on the same subject.
Not being a biologist, I don't know how credible any claims about correlations
between race/sex/national origin and intelligence are. I can't say, for
example, whether the gene pool of a given racial or national group is
homogeneous enough to be able to make such claims sensibly. Furthermore, I
can't say whether the known biological differences between races and sexes
(I have never seen any evidence of a gene for Frenchness, so we will ignore
the question of national origin here) could cause differences in mental
ability. I have seen it claimed (does anybody have a reference, so that
this claim can be checked up on) that in Germany women have more difficulty
with verbal as well as mathematical skills, while in Japan both sexes do
about equally well on both verbal and mathematical skills; a connection was
suggested between what the sexes were expected to be good at and what they
ended up being good at (it has also been claimed that students show more
ability when they are given more attention by teachers, and that males are
given more attention in school than females).
So what if group A is better (on average!) than group B at
activity C? It is still wrong to deny b's the same chance
as the a's. We do not have to deny the difference to proclaim
the injustice. Denying the difference is dangerous (you might
be refuted) and distracts attention from the real issue. Why
do we go out of our way to do so?
Nobody is totally denying the difference. It is merely being said that
1) the evidence for the differences is weak, at best; 2) in the past,
people offering "evidence" for these differences *were* refuted; and 3)
those people turned out to have axes to grind. Given this, I think it
worthwhile to go out of my way to question somebody offering such claims
(just as I consider it worthwhile to go out of my way to question claims
about "paranormal" phenomena, even though some might just say "well, those
scientists (I do not claim to be one, I'm just speaking generically here)
just won't look at anything that doesn't fit their world view).
Guy Harris
{seismo,mcnc,we13,brl-bmd,allegra}!rlgvax!guytrb@masscomp.UUCP (Andy Tannenbaum) (10/15/83)
Yes, physical stamina is an an advantage during a chess tournament. On the other hand, there are probably quite a few women around who could run rings around 62 year old Viktor Korchnoi (semifinalist in the current World Chess championship) and Anatoly Karpov (current champion, who is physically built approximately like I am, and who is nicknamed "the fetus" on the chess circuit - we're talkin' thin). These guys probably have more stamina and ability to concentrate than most folks who stick to more casual endeavors, but that doesn't mean that they can out-physical a woman who's in excellent shape. Chess is a funny business in that sense anyway. The stamina and strength and concentration ability are secondary. The primary necessity is an overwhelming and indescribable ability to play chess well. The chess grandmaster does not need stamina or strength to beat the lower 95% of all rated chess players. The grandmaster can beat tens of us simultaneously while blindfolded. In a normal one on one game, a grandmaster does not have to spend more than a second per move in order to crush the normal player. The stamina and strength only come into play during epic battles against other grandmasters. An interesting point, The US Chess federation prints ratings lists every few months, with tables of the top 50 women, men, and kids in various age categories. The top US women are rated about the same as the top boys under 14. Certainly chess isn't a measure of raw intelligence. Hang around some chess players some time and you'll discover for yourself that chess knowledge isn't a measure of raw intelligence. What is a measure of raw intelligence? I don't know. Andy Tannenbaum Masscomp Inc. Littleton MA (617) 486-9581
stephen@alberta (10/21/83)
s of such general groupings. You make the statement with very little acknowledgement of the fact that YOU might be wrong too. It is very difficult to prove differences to prove such cases for such over-generalizatons into visible minorities. With a visible minority the difference may be due to genetics, training (including, and especially societial attitudes) or some combination of the two. The main danger, and the reason for the taboo is that when the difference is due to tranining but attributed to genetics, it becomes self-sustaining. Example: The best honors math student I know is a girl. She had another (femake) friend who also liked math, and when they took honors calculus "just for fun" (they were both in pre-med) her math prof encouraged her to <defect> to math. NOW: Which is abnormal, the fact that she (as a girl) liked math or the fact that she was encouraged to stay with it even though she was a girl? Stephen Samuel (alberta!stephen)
rene@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/21/83)
As I recall, studies showed women do have MORE stamina than men. I
remember vividly the films of marathon runners. The man won, but he
collapsed and had to be half carried, half dragged off the track. The
woman came in later, but she jumped up and down and looked as if she
could have danced all night. What a difference! (This was the Boston
Marathon, but I don't recall the year)
- rene
--
Arpa: rene.umcp-cs@CSNet-relay
Uucp:...{allegra,seismo}!umcp-cs!renepreece@uicsl.UUCP (10/26/83)
#R:cca:-587500:uicsl:16400029:000:209 uicsl!preece Oct 19 12:09:00 1983 It's a little off the subject, since I don't really think that stamina is a significant factor in chess excellence, but didn't NASA studies twenty-odd years ago determine that women had MORE stamina than men?