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Originally Posted by sapiens
I have a few comments:
1) Because we cannot examine rearing practices experimentally does not mean that all sex differences can be attributed to "socialization".
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Quite true, but it does not mean that all or at least some of them cannot be. Obviously I'm not saying that characteristics such as men tending to be on average stronger than women are socially influenced (although an argument could be made that, especially in years past, the strength gap was at least in part attributable to that), but crap like the stereotype that men don't show emotions while women are emotional fountains I would guess can almost certainly be traced to social influences.
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2) We do have examples of efforts to treat a boy as a girl from birth. Check out Dr. Money's research or research on 5-alpha reductase deficiency. It doesn't work out.
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In the first place, the results of a "scientific study" conducted by as unethical a whack job as Dr. Money should be taken with a rather large grain of salt. Secondly, you'll note that the parents raised David/Brenda/Bruce as a boy for 1.5 years before switching him to a girl - we cannot know how that influenced his development.
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3) Sex differentiation of the brain occurs during gestation in humans. This is established.
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no argument there.
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4) We can use behavior genetics methods like twin studies and adoption studies to examine the relative impact of genes, shared environmental factors, and unshared environmental factors on the development of psychological traits.
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How? Unless one of those twins is raised completely gender neutral or as the opposite gender, you can't.
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5) Through strong inference, we can investigate the relative merits of different theories of human development and psychology. If the results of experiments come out in favor of an evolutionary or behavior genetic position, we have support for that account of development. If they come out in favor of a "socialization" position, we have support for that account of development. We don't need to randomly assign people to sex roles to investigate these issues.
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This is rather like saying "If I do the right thing to lead it will become gold and therefore .. . " without telling us what you have to do to the lead.
OK, you have strong inference. What experiment do you intend to conduct?
(late edit - fixed broken quote)