It might be irrelevant to you, but I consider it a test of people's conviction on the subject.
Women are more naturally predisposed to caring for children and are more emotionally capable, in general. Saying this is not even remotely equivalent to judging their worth in such a bizarre construct as merchant banking, for example.
Obviously this is very hard to qualify objectively, but it is very fashionable these days to treated men and women as absolute equals even though it is not the case. Soldiers for example are very rarely female, and with good reason.

Gender stereotypes are only applicable when you employ them, mine are irrelevant? I see. You can't embrace stereotypes selectively. Either men are more emotionally suited to certain things and women are more emotionally suited to certain other things or all people are adaptable and capability depends on the person rather than the gender of the person. How deep is your conviction on this subject?

Sounds more like your opinion to me. It would be just as accurate if i were to claim that men are just more naturally predisposed to the kind of objectivity and dispassion necessary in the business world.

Even if women were more capable child rearers(which you admit there is little actual evidence of), that doesn't mean that all men, or even most men, are incapable of raising children effectively.

It is very hard to qualify because it is bullshit. It isn't hard to understand why infantry are rarely female. I'll help: The army thinks women are less capable in the role of infantry because women are typically smaller and less muscular than men. That is a fact. The army also thinks gay men are less capable, even though they're still men. The army thinks a lot of things that may or may not be accurate. That is why the army isn't in charge of social policy. If women are less capable, why are there policewomen or firewomen? What you're saying would be the equivalent of claiming that men are more capable of the business of war than women are on a fundamental emotional level, which is another assertion you'll find nearly impossible to support effectively.

It is very fashionable to treat men and women as equals, because for the most part, they are.

You couldn't hit the fucking point if it was an elephant three feet away.
You would have to define what sort of traits are required to be successful in the business world.
On the one hand empathy and higher social capabilities might help a women be successful. Objectivity and dispassion might help make a man successful.

Objectivity and dispassion are less likely to make you a better parent than a woman however, your child is not a company car.

I introduced the armed forces bit because a friend of mine covered this in his thesis. The fact is that on average women exert 80% more energy than men to achieve the same results in a battlefield situation, therefore they are less efficient. What the army thinks about gays is not really an issue, so there was hardly any point mentioning it.

The work of the emergency services doesn't revolve solely around beating up criminals in as efficient a manner as possible. Women are more accomplished at resolving issues such as domestic abuse, if solely because the presence of a woman might calm the victims.

Along with everything else you've said, you've really showed your biases and social programming by your implied definitions of success. I disagree with you wholeheartedly.

How do you measure energy exerted? Where's the study that says this? And even if this was true, does it really matter? Is all that matters in war is efficiency? I am not convinced that all that matters in war is the ability to efficiently kill. Particularly when I look at how Iraq is now, and see how the war has turned into a nightmare in its unpredictability and change in tactics. Truly, how can one say that men are better in this situation than women? I'm finding this really hard to grasp giving the over-simplification by abstraction that you've presented.

My point was that you can use whatever definition of success you like and the end product may be achieved, despite the inherent differences. More than one way to skin a cat, if you will.
Obviously it would be crude to suggest that the approaches are completely separate, and that no areas of overlap (or complete overlap) occur.

However business is not intrinsically linked to one sex despite the chauvinist attitudes employed therein, but child birth and child care is.
Are you actually interested, or implying that it can't be done?
One way is to measure the oxygen intake of the body, but I don't know what particular methods were used in the study, like I said it was a friend of mine who really got into this. I trust him and the academic staff not to be just talking out of their arses.
Noone mentioned the only need for efficiency was in killing. Any task someone might find themselves doing during a war is affected. If your whole operation is nearly twice as slow as the enemy, you're screwed.
Do you have evidence to the contrary? One example might be that women are much less respected in society than men in the middle east, even if all else was equal they still wouldn't be suitable. Perhaps now the war in a traditional sense is over they could undertake a role much like that i described of policewomen. This is hardly still a war, more like an occupation met with civilian resistance.

All i'm asking for is some consistency. I see your point, you're basically trying to claim that men are less capable parents than woman and using this idea to bolster your assertion that gay marriage would be bad thing because it would take mothers out of their most efficient role as child bearers. Does that sound about right?

You accuse me of being thick-headed while you seemingly couldn't understand a point that didn't originate in your own skull if it was rammed into your head a la clockwork orange.

Let me reiterate my point to you, though. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that men are any less capable parents than woman. None. Not one shred that isn't completely anecdotal. I don't care if your friend wrote a million papers regarding a woman's ability to exert 80% more energy because that is not relevant. Even if it was, "I know a guy who says this" is rarely sufficient evidence for anything under any circumstances. Is that the clarity you've been begging for?

Seriously, you're fucking with me, right? You expect me to take you seriously when all you can do when on the defensive is throw out a handful of generalizations based on your own half-baked perspective?

Now, feel free to respond by ignoring everything that i just said, like you seem to like to do.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/announcement.php?f=56

Tune in next week to see if I ever get tired of quoting your ad homiem attacks, and posting the link to the forum rules beneath them.

Stick to your arguement. I don't agree with a single word of it...but it's not so weak as to require personal insults.

As far as I know the university doesn't pass people who's argument is based on anecdotal evidence. The studies are there, I just don't know his sources as I didn't write the thing. It's hardly just a case of "he said this so it's right". We could both sit here and discredit each others sources based on our own personal opinion, but it doesn't get us to a reasonable conclusion.
Surely you can agree with me that men and women have a different fundamental physiological make-up.
I know I'm crap at citing my sources, but I read an article in a science magazine about work done in India regarding intelligence. Something similar here. Basically the findings were that intelligence is linked to genetics. What this is saying is that your psychological make-up is strongly influenced by your physical make-up.
It isn't an unreasonable suggestion that men and women are therefore psychologically different. These points are covered in the following articles (the 2nd one is particularly interesting).

Men, Women More Different Than Thought
Understanding The Difference Between Men And Women

edit: you poor, poor people... I'm away for the rest of the week :rolleyes:

As far as i know, unless i see a name and an article from a reputable source, i don't know your friend from jayson blair.

So now we've gone from "Men are less capable of raising children." to "Men and women are physically and psychologically different." Ooooooooooookay, i know that men and women are in a general sense, different. Women have the boobies and men have the peepees. I know that, in general, they have psychological differences too. That is nothing new. However, you're not doing much to support your assertion that men are less capable of raising children. We know men and women are often different, but we don't know the cause (how much is nature and how much is nurture) or the extent to which people are bound by their genitalia. An article on the differences between men and women medically and an article on the differences between men and women mentally don't mean anything in the context of your position. Find me an article that says point blank that women are conclusively better at raising children than men to such an extent that allowing a child to be raised in a household without women poses a real and significant danger to that child's future well being. Without that, your position on gay marriage means nothing.

:confused: :confused: oh yeah, :crazy: :crazy: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Okay....now that we can get back to the topic.

Homophobia, is fear. Racism is fear. My question would be:

What the hell are these people afraid of?

Losing power, but more importantly, of themselves.

It's fascinating how people look at their opponent's positions and automatically assume they are afraid. Does it help an argument to think of the opposing side as cowards?

Funny....I do not remember accusing someone of cowardice, but instead a mindset, nor do I have an opponent. I was stating a fact (thus the meaning behind the term Phobia), and asking a question. If indeed you are implying that you are homophobic or racist, that would be a different story. Yet I would still prefer not to be considered an opponent, rather I would be very interested in finding out what the reasoning behing these feelings could be.
The only logical (to me) reason for either of these states of mind would be fear, as I dislike the term ignorance. Even the ignorant excuse is limited however, as one can always gain knowledge and subdue such things. Thus we are again left with fear, whether as suggested it is of a loss of power/control, or a fear of understanding that which is different.

An article summing up my position quite nicely can be found here:

Orson Scott Card's take on homosexual marriage

It is very long, so it is only for the very patient. It sums up my feelings on the subject in a more eloquent manner than I can.

weee, internet :icare:
Obviously every study is worthless without a reputable name attached, and every reputable supplier of articles is unbiased and 100% accurate. Different methods produce different outcomes even with the best of intentions.
Why don't you pick up on all the cases where people are blatantly lying.

"Same-sex marriages do not suffer from problems of being weak relationships, complicated custody/inheritance/divorce settlements, birth defects or abuse within the relationship any more then normal heterosexual marriages." courtesy of Mantus.
Where does this information come from? How did someone manage to study homosexual marriage when it isn't legal yet?

I'm trying to establish that women are clearly naturally predisposed to the care of children by their nature. It comes naturally to women.
During the incest argument, you basically claim there must be some validity in the incest taboo because most people believe so. I don't know about where you live, but where I live most people would consider the mother the better parent.
It would be very hard to prove, but that does not make it wrong by default. I have yet to see proof to the contrary. (Conveniently the burden of proof appears to fall on me every time, even when it seems so obvious to everyone else that their arguments are correct regardless of evidence.)

The studies I found seem to support the same conclusion...

“People have assumed that the sex of the parent has a major effect on children’s development, but we found that isn’t the case,” he said. “Researchers need to focus on other factors, such as family resources, which seem to have a real impact.”

The Ohio State University

So why do many cultures have womenhood and manhood training threshold rituals?

Pardon my french, but i think that's horseshit. Mothers have a special role to play in the first years of life, especially through breastfeeding. But even then, there's little a mother can do that a father can't. Children basically have one system for determining who is a parent. Who feeds them. You feed a child, change it's diaper, hold it when it screams...it will form a bond with you. Male, female, biological parent or not. Which is why it's complete horseshit to suppose that homosexual families somehow can't take care of kids properly.

Parenting is about what you do, not who you are or what's between your legs.

That was a short week. :|

OMG! adysav took something i said, and blew it way out of proportion, shocking.

I am not mantus, and i do not speak for him. I will agree that that statement, while seemingly plausible, lacks evidence. Anyways, would you trust me if i attempted to bolster my argument with, "My friend just completed a study on gay marriage and found that it is just like hetero marriage except for the genitalia of those involved."? If so, then cheers, because my friend just happened to complete such a study. ;)


Yes, humans are clearly predisposed to take care of their young. You have no basis to claim that women are naturally better parents than men. None. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooone.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall.
All you can say is that women are different than men, and hope that everybody else makes the cognitive leap that you did by assuming that women are better parents than men.

How is that even measurable? It's not as if the concept of "good parent" is a definitive one. Maybe you could start be defining what it means to be a good parent, and then making an argument as to why men are less capable of fulfilling those criteria.

You must have me confused with someone else. I never argued against incest. I could care less about the actions of consenting adults, related or not. How many times to i have to make that clear? As for the opinions of the people where you live, did you conduct a poll? Or are you just assuming? It doesn't matter. What you're immediate area thinks is irrelevant to anything i care about. I know at least two fathers in my immediate circle of friends who make much better parents than the women they had children with. This is probably completely irrelevant to you. While that may not mean shit in the context of this internet discussion, you can't pretend that there are many fathers who are better parents than many mothers.

You can't prove it, and that's fine. Your problem is that you can't back up your statement with any kind of logic that doesn't involve some sort of miraculous cognitive jump from point a to point b. Men and women are different, no shit. It does not automatically follow that either is particularly more inclined to effective child rearing.

I'm sorry if you feel like you're being unfairly asked to back up your assertions with some sort of coherent logic, but that is part of the process of arguing. You make a statement as to the nature of reality, and then you back it up with logical statments.






All i can say is that OSC should stick to writing sci-fi. He assumes that tradition is valid simply because it exists. He assumes that humans are incapable of defining their relationships in terms other than those they learned form their parents. He spends a long time talking about the effects of divorce on children, which is completely irrelevant. He assumes that people can't act morally without the force of society's expectations weighing down on them. He claims that monogamy is definitively the most effective foundation for a civilization based on haphazard logic. He forgets that reproduction isn't that crucial to the marrying habits of society any more, we can choose when to have children. He seems to think that only men would benefit from monogamy. He sees at the root of every problem someone on the left.

I guess in short i think osc is full of shit.

I'm still away, but I have to find something to do while my girlfriend is out.
If you want to lie to bolster an inconsequential argument with people you don't know, that's up to you.
It seems odd then that women come out best in 90% of custody cases. Why do the courts not find it obvious that men and women are equally capable.
If determining the better parent was not measurable, I imagine a lot of these cases would come to a stalemate.

A poll for www.actionforhealthykids.org resulted in 66% of people believing women are better parents.

I find it hard to believe that you're serious with this one. Courts are hardly the bastions of determining which sex is better at what. Particularly in your case, you're claiming that divorce cases in the United States will give us valuable information about the nature of men and women. I'm sure you know the flaw in your argument here, do you really want us to tell you how ridiculous this one is?

When I was talking about how society's beliefs about things affects policy, you argued in a tangential response that you can't determine if something is true or not based on society's beliefs. Now, you're doing just that. This is one of the reasons that you are getting a lot of responses about your inconsistency - you're being very inconsistent.

66% of people think there's green cheese on the moon. So? 2/3rds of people can believe anything, and it changes nothing.

If someone tells you every day of you life: "Men ALWAYS wash dishes. It's a manly thing to do."

Do you think that you'd wash dishes? Natural advantage or not...you're ignoring a huge component of the debate, that gender roles are affected by our cultural understanding. There is much that has nothing to do with "natrual" but everything to do with how you were raised, the culture around you, and the values of that culture.

It's been pointed out that measuring which sex would be a better parent is very difficult. Given the lack of actual evidence to the contrary and the status of a legal ruling, it seems reasonable.

That's my point, noone else can see their inconsistencies. If someone else states that most people believe one thing, then great, it must be so. If I state that most people believe something else, I'm being inconsistent and my argument is flawed. Every statement I make must be backed up, citing sources and such, but someone else can get away with 'most people say so'.
Which is it to be?

I wash the dishes, I don't think evolution really took that one into account to be honest.
Yes in the main part gender roles are affected by our history and traditions and the desire of men to beat women into subserviency. Men can cook and women can drive, but each has an inherent advantage over the other when it comes to certain things.

No, we were talking about two different things. I was talking about public opinion towards something, not whether there was some sort of factual basis for that opinion. You're changing the subject by responding tangentially, so let's try this again:

You are saying that society believes something so it is true because decisions are made upon those beliefs.

I was saying that society believes something so if you want change to occur regarding that belief it is incombent upon the person to provide very convincing evidence to change that belief.

These are not the same things at all.

Now, for this:

Why? Other than, "because you said so". I happen to see quite a few problems with our court systems due to the ability of judges and juries to make decisions based on stereotypes, biases, and prejudices - not to mention that the punishments/settlements tend to be very arbitrary in their terms.

There are serious problems with using divorce cases as a study into natural predisposition of humans. First, divorce cases are instances of failures of things working out between two adults, it has nothing to do with what makes for the best parenting for kids. Often the arrangements are made that the father has to pay child support and the woman keeps the children because the male earns more money and can support the child financially, and the woman can spend more time with the child. Does that have anything do with a nature predisposition?

I could keep going, but I have to go teach a few classes. I'm sure that there will be more to respond to eventually, and if necessary I will go into further depth into why your process of determining whether women or men are better parents is flawed.

To which you offer absolutly no proof relevant to this debate. Pardon my extreme disbelief that this in any way shape or form has any bearing on the integrity of queer families. When the leading organizations of medical, pyschological and social work all agree that queer families are the equal of hetero families (1)...then why the in the world are we supposed to take your opinion as fact?

1. http://www.hrc.org/Template.cfm?Sect...ontentID=17907

Are you actually trying to claim that a person's genitialia has more to say about how well they can raise a child than who they actually are? Admit it, you're completely full of shit.

Well, if a lot of people think it true, than it must be true, right?

In essence you're agreeing with me but you don't realise.
Firstly, the survey was not connected to my piece on court rulings, what people believe is what people believe and nothing more.

Secondly, custody suits are determined on a case by case basis and not by some popular statistical formula. The case is evaluated to determine who the child will be better off with. The people who make up the judicial system are educated people who, due to the nature of their work, have to be less prejudiced than most people. Therefore the outcome is more likely to reflect the truth about those cases than you sitting there spouting off that either sex parent is equally capable.

Thirdly, in the second part of that quote you say in order for change to occur based on their belief, they should provide very convincing evidence.

The status quo is that women are regarded as better parents by the relevant authorities. You believe that men are equally good parents but offer no convincing evidence to that effect.

This is interesting. You seem to be reverting to traditional gender roles about working in order to defend a case about gender roles in parenting.
Is this a valid defence of the position? Surely when each individual case is determined, the outcome should reflect who is the better parent. What you are saying may well apply when the case is resolved amicably between the parents. For the remaining cases see the following passages:
---
3. The focus of the evaluation is on parenting capacity, the psychological and developmental needs of the child, and the resulting fit.

In considering psychological factors affecting the best interests of the child, the psychologist focuses on the parenting capacity of the prospective custodians in conjunction with the psychological and developmental needs of each involved child. This involves (a) an assessment of the adults' capacities for parenting, including whatever knowledge, attributes, skills, and abilities, or lack thereof, are present; (b) an assessment of the psychological functioning and developmental needs of each child and of the wishes of each child where appropriate; and (c) an assessment of the functional ability of each parent to meet these needs, including an evaluation of the interaction between each adult and child.
---
6. The psychologist is aware of personal and societal biases and engages in nondiscriminatory practice.

The psychologist engaging in child custody evaluations is aware of how biases regarding age, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, culture, and socioeconomic status may interfere with an objective evaluation and recommendations. The psychologist recognizes and strives to overcome any such biases or withdraws from the evaluation.

quoted verbatim from APA Guidelines for Child Custody

showing a case where bias has clearly ruled our legal system...and then hold it up as proof that the bias is fact? i don't think that works.

This is getting hopeless. What you are discussing has nothing to do with nature, it has everything to do with society. I know what the difference is and I have been consistent in qualifying it. You haven't, for instance, you have just said: "The people who make up the judicial system are educated people who, due to the nature of their work, have to be less prejudiced than most people." These people are not scientists, anthropologists, or sociologists. They are not experts in the nature of humanity, and they aren't authorities on this manner. This is a flaw in argumentative logic. When citing authorities, they need to be relevent to the subject matter.

I don't know. I'd probably agree that most judges are less prejudiced than most people; however, I believe most people are pretty darn predjudiced. MartinGuerre's point is interesting, and, given the information we have before us, I don't know if it's possible to say whether the courts give custody to women from bias or b/c it's best for the child. Perhaps it's both -- because society believes that the mother is more important, it's easier for the child to be with her. And, Adysav, you do realize that just because the guidelines enjoin lack of bias, doesn't mean that there will in fact be lack of bias. Note also that the guidelines are for psychologists, not judges. They manifestly do not support your position that women are better parents, and they do not support your contention that judges are fully impartial.

Perhaps the judges have access to some sort of top-secret scientific studies whose results once-and-for-all-time conclusively prove that all men are shitty parents. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Or, to put it less assholey, what do these judges know that we don't and where did they learn it? My bet's on nothing and nowhere.

This borders on the absurd. "A good way of determining," eh? If everyone were homosexual, the world would end! If everyone decided not to go to work anymore, the world would end! If everyone drove a hummer, the strain of greenhouse gases and crude oil usage would break the ozone and the economy! If everyone decided that parenting wasn't for them (because hey, it's a free country), we would die out! Hey, let's make procriation compulsory!

Debating whether it's morally acceptable to be gay is quite passé. (In fact, morality itself is philosophically untenenable.) People are different, get over it. I hardly think gay couples cause you any harm--and, well, if you sit up late at night angsting over their activities, I'd say its your problem, not theirs.

As for gay marriage, it's a smoke and mirrors trick to divert the electorate from the real issues: universal health care, Enron-esque robberbaroning, the privatization of the military, &c.

Cheers!

This would make sense if it was decided by the judge. But it isn't. A court appointed psychologist will decide who the better parent is, which is why I quoted from the American Psychological Association.

Ah, yes, the APA. The people who, not too long ago, thought that lobotomy was an acceptable cure for depression.

Would you believe the bloke that invented the lobotomy got a Nobel prize for his efforts. Oddly enough people still have brain surgery for psychiatric conditions.

From the guidelines the APA seem to run a reasonable operation as regards child custody, and not one mention of lobotomy :)
I suppose you want me to concede that a child custody specialist can't possibly be an expert because 60 years ago someone in a related profession decided lobotomies were a good idea.

This is all irrelevant. Being psychopathic in any way merely means that you have varied signficiantly from what is considered normal. Psychology is a social science that is based primarily on social norms and functioning within the context of society, rather than a science of the innate nature of humanity. Psychology is helpful for many reasons, but it is so contextualized. Psychology can tell you how human behavior and affect can be changed, let us know what "normal" is and isn't, and some of the chemical reactions that occur that can be altered with drugs.

For all the psychology is, I don't think that in this instance it is indicative of what you're saying that it is indicative of.

I think if there conclusive evidence supporting the idea that woman are better parents than men to any significant degree we would actually have a study to point to, rather than being forced to infer something indirectly from child custody cases where we have no knowledge of the actual details. Don't you think?

Or do you think that the knowledge of these child psychologist as to the superiority of the female specties in the area of child rearing is being actively suppressed?

I believe the question was, "Is homosexuality philosophically wrong?"

The answer is, as this thread has demonstrated: What kind of philosophy do you believe in?

wilbjammin & co, since you don't have any more decent criticisms of my argument perhaps you could share the treasure trove of evidence that disproves me.

What argument? You make a few generalizations backed up by questionable figures of authority. These are not the basis for "argument".