Denis Dutton

"Arrhenius estimated doubling CO₂ would produce a world 5℃ hotter. This, thankfully, is higher than modern calculations but not too far off, considering he wasn’t using a sophisticated computer model!"

This is talking about the variable called "equilibrium climate sensitivity". Climate sensitivity is a key question in any fact-based discussion of climate change. There are three problems with this statement:

1. ECS calculations based on empirical measurement come in far, far lower than 5 degrees, more like 1.7-2.5 degrees and this has been falling over time, e.g. measurement based estimates of ECS in 2001 were higher than they are today.

2. ECS calculations based on models (which scientists should consider weaker evidence than observational data, but don't) are extremely uncertain, with estimates ranging from 2 to 4 degrees.

3. The range of values models use for ECS are getting wider over time, not narrower as you'd expect.

So it's really tough to say that Arrhenius was close given that modern climatologists have no idea what the correct value for ECS is even though they've been studying it intensively for 40 years, that their "sophisticated computer models" disagree very deeply about the right value and this is getting worse with time, and that all those values are still too high when compared to studies that aren't modelling based.

It's also worth noting that even the headline is totally misleading. Today climate change is used as a synonym for global warming but for…

Before getting too keen on geo-engineering, take a few minutes to ponder the following paragraph from an article in Newsweek:

"Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."

http://www.denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf

If this paragraph makes no sense to you, it's because - with the exception of the proposed geo-engineering project - it sounds like something that could have been written last week. It was actually written in 1975 when climate change meant the coming ice age. Here's Spock to tell you more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQSBn50o_8M

It's a good thing they didn't try to melt the arctic, right? But notice how there's absolutely no communication of any nuance, uncertainty or the possibility that the scientists were wrong. Only laments about how the "planners" were…

The article "Is There Anything Good About Men?" by Roy Baumeister [1] takes some interesting angles on the reasons and motivations for men choosing war, and generalizes why the worlds most powerful people, as well as the overwhelming majority of most prison populations, are men.

In some ways, the reasons look to clearly stem from culture and society's influence, as discussed in the Baumeister article.

On the other hand, there is definitely a some element of the innate [2] "us vs. them" at play, allowed to run unbridled in the suspenseful environment of war. I imagine this would result in an experience not easily replicated in the real world.

No where else offers this:

1. You might get to kill "bad people"

2. You won't get in trouble for it

3. You don't have time to think or process it. It just happens, split second, you die or they die, you panic, resort to your training, you live. Instead of being punished, you are a hero.

4. You might die. Hearing a bullet whiz by your head and surviving, followed by the subsequent huge adrenaline rush.

5. If you don't die, you see yourself as an invincible super hero that gets to save the world.

There are ways to replicate a lot of this, like joining a street gang or getting involved in organized crime, but instead of becoming a hero, you get 20-to-life. Not quite the same risk-reward.

Something about it seems very juvenile, in the sense of getting to do "bad things" with very little risk of negative consequence, and there's…

Alright, I'll bite. But, I've never heard of any research suggesting women have a different cognitive capacity than men. I read some research a number of years ago suggesting cross-culturally women had better language skills than men, but I don't know if this is still considered to be true.

I can't remember reading anything in the manifesto which suggested women are less capable as software engineers. The essay did suggest women were less interested in programming than men (obviously true - see enrolment figures) and that at least some of the effect size is due to biological factors (probably true - see below).

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None of these links suggest any capacity difference. Only that there is a biologically influenced gender difference in interests.

Here's an essay contextualising and summarising the historical specifics of male and female gender roles in society: http://www.denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm

Here's a study of how prenatal androgen effects psychological thing vs people orientation, and how it influences career choice:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/

A summary of studies looking at big 5 personality distributions and other effects. Of note is the long section describing blindspots in current research:
"Gender Differences in Personality and Interests: When, Where and Why?"
http://sci-hub.cc/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x

Here's a Dutch documentary where they send a camera crew around asking different researchers about gender…

I think you should re-read the post. The phrase "on his/her/their computers" is repeated 4 times in the (fairly short) post. I think it's pretty clear that this doesn't apply when comparing a pad/paper CEO and an engineer. And we very purposefully didn't draw any conclusions (though we did admittedly ask leading questions to fuel the conversation!).

We say a few times in the comments that this could well be a reflection of the types of jobs that the 4000 women have compared to the 4000 men-- they may have more social jobs or more "afk" jobs. It'd be an interesting followup to grab 1000 female engineers and 1000 man engineers to see if the differences hold up. I don't know if it will, but what if it did? Would it be so horrible if women were less suited for multitasking and knowledge work? Because they sure as heck are better at a lot of other things. They're, on average, smarter than men. They have better reflexes. Check out "Is there anything good about men" - great essay: http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm

If they WERE less suited for it, it would be interesting to see how much culture and education influenced their suitability. i.e. Does the difference fade away if you correct for educational differences, etc.

At the end of the day, it's just an interesting chunk of from a single web service that has a very strong bias towards geeky users.

>Nah, this is just a stereotype. It is born out of the stereotype that the female oriented jobs all tend to be inclined in that way; female oriented jobs are historically non-academic, practical and not usually physically taxing. This is due to historical prejudice against female ability.

Or arguably a historical prejudice against female expendability. Males are expendable - http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm (this comes up here quite frequently, you've probably seen it already).

Quoting that link:

"A second thing that makes men useful to culture is what I call male expendability. This goes back to what I said at the outset, that cultures tend to use men for the high-risk, high-payoff undertakings, where a significant portion of those will suffer bad outcomes ranging from having their time wasted, all the way to being killed."