Testosterone is no more "poisonous" than estrogen. Males have more aggressive behavior, and are more territorial, sure--which is great when dealing with aggressive carnivorous animals or dealing with hostile environments. The world was a very dangerous place for our ancestors, and those "aggressive" qualities helped keep children alive and allowed us to spread around the world. Too much aggression is no worse than too much passivity. Assigning negative adjectives to extremes of "male" behavior without a balance of examining negative "female" behavior simply plays into a "women rule, men drool" attitude that is precisely as sexist as a man saying women should stay barefoot and pregnant.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Testosterone: Friend Or Foe?
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9 comments:
And, there is evidence that low testosterone is a factor in heart disease, diabetes, etc.
IIRC, the effects of testosterone are more complicated than just assuming that they match a stereotype of masculinity.
A link that isn't an hour long radio show: testosterone causes status-seeking, not aggression.
More generally: We're so good at medical studies that most of them are wrong.
Nancy: Thanks for the link to we're so good at medical studies that most of them are wrong. It does a great job of making the points of tried to make about believing the studies based on statistics and math models I have tried to make on this site. The problems pointed out in the article for medical studies and models also apply in other areas like global warming/climate change,as the article briefly indicates. The article also skips over one major problem. The results of hypothesis tests often depend on the hypothesis you choose to test. For example if the question is "are blacks properly represented in congress?" I can start with the hypothesis they are properly represented and with the right data accept that hypothesis or I can start with the hypothesis they aren't and with the same data accept that they aren't.
I think what you'd have to do, Marty, is present the premises to base the stats on. If, for instance, one thinks that, say, a group should be represented according to their percentage of population, you get one result. If upon percentage of, say, inherited wealth, you get another. So there is a great deal of flexibility. I personally accept the "life span/infant mortality" stat as measure of a culture's health, and take the position that public health care has a direct effect on these things. There are intelligent, good people who do not accept this--so the stats look very different to them. I suppose we just have to deal with this. Reality, even mathematical, is hugely subjective.
Steve: The question of health care is a complex one. Let's look at a situation that occurred at my son's office yesterday. A mother brought her 15 year old son in for an eye exam. He was having vision problems. My son examined him and diagnosed the problem as possible a possible brain tumor and or hemorrhaging. They called an ambulance and had the boy taken to the hospital for immediate testing. The diagnose was confirmed and immediate surgery was called for. The hospital in our area was not capable of preforming the necessary surgery, so the boy was helicoptered into Manhattan to a hospital that handles these types of cases. My son had to get past the first level at the insurance company to get the cost of all this including the helicopter covered, but the insurance company finally agreed. The insurance company did not do a cost benefit analysis is it worth paying all that money to for a fifty-fifty chance of saving the boy's life. They just needed to be convinced the doctor thought it necessary. Much of the discussion in the health care debate is about how to reign in costs and doing cost benefit analysis on tests, procedures etc. I wonder if this boy's expenditures would pass the cost benefit test in a government run program.
Steve, I agree with you about the prejudice against men-- it was noticeable in that radio show about testosterone.
Part of my point was that the prejudice about aggression gets overlaid on the finding that men have more testosterone. There's probably a physical reason for higher aggression levels, but it's very easy to jump to conclusions about science.
Marty, it's a gamble either way. You might have an insurance company which is willing to pay for an expensive, 50% chance treatment, or you might have one that blows you off. The government might be willing to pay a lot for treating your disease (especially if the disease has a politically competent constituancy), or your disease might get lost in politicking.
A little more on the difficulties of finding out what's going on with much of anything: Do black women have poor chances of dating black men?.
I didn't choose my link title carefully. "Do black women have poor dating chances?" would be more exactly.
"Too much aggression is no worse than too much passivity."
...unless you're the target of that excess aggression.
"IIRC, the effects of testosterone are more complicated than just assuming that they match a stereotype of masculinity."
I've even heard of menopausal women in secure heterosexual relationships (secure enough that their men will stay with them despite some new facial hair) taking testosterone supplements because they miss their premenopausal sex drives and want to get some of that back.
"Part of my point was that the prejudice about aggression gets overlaid on the finding that men have more testosterone. There's probably a physical reason for higher aggression levels, but it's very easy to jump to conclusions about science."
Has anyone studied how much of it might have to do with height instead of coming directly hormones? Like if thug A is 6'2" and surrounded by smaller people, thug B is 5'1" and can only tower over children, and both A and B are equally aggressive but A lashes out at some of those smaller adults nearby while B doesn't have smaller adults available and settles for hitting her kids long before they can make the mental connection between doing act of mischief and getting a consequence of being spanked?
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