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wasoxygen  ·  3462 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Germany to legislate 30 percent quota for women on company boards

    I used ridicule ... That's not the right response

Eh, I have ridiculed your ideas before, so I'm not going to give you a hard time about it. You cited some figures instead of slinging mud, which elevates your contribution above much of this dialog.

The fact that the best citation for the theory is on Urban Dictionary doesn't mean that it's wrong, but it does make me think that it is either nonsense or there is a very unusual set of circumstances in which an important truth is hidden behind widespread delusion. There are controversial theories on Wikipedia; the bar for inclusion is pretty low.

There is a deleted article with some arguments about suitability for inclusion on the Talk page. The fallacy is described as "judging groups primarily by the success or failure at those at the top rungs." Now that I read it, that doesn't seem like nonsense. Someone might argue that some petroleum-rich country is doing well because the GDP per capita is high, ignoring that most people are poor and the wealth is concentrated in the royal family.

Applying this to men in the United States, we could rightly argue that it's a mistake to conclude that all men are doing well simply because men in leadership positions are doing well. The fallacy is to suppose that this tells us anything about how women are doing compared to men.

Grendel makes some other interesting points about biological differences, and has elsewhere given me interesting material to think about. But the handpicked quotes from pre-1902, vague allusions to antique laws, and unsubstantiated assertions like "If 9 out of 10 nurses are women, it's not because of anti-male biases" do not deserve better than ridicule.

    Have you heard of anogsognosia?

No, nor to the related Caloric reflex test: "squirting ice cold water into the left ear," which can "provide temporary pain relief from phantom limb pains in amputees." Facts are so much more interesting than arguments!