There’s this gene that about half of all people carry. It’s a pretty nasty gene – it massively increases the risk of the carrier being a murderer or a murder victim, going to jail or dying in an accident. And a new paper in Bioessays – by Prince Henry’s Institute researchers Joohyung Lee and Vincent R. Harley – suggests this gene might be responsible for an aggressive response to sudden stresses.
That could explain the bit about murder, accidents and jail.
Despite all the bad press this gene gets, it isn’t all bad. Carriers have the same number of children as non-carriers. And the biggest winners in our evolutionary history – the people who have left the most descendants – have all been carriers.
The gene is called SRY – short for “sex-determining region on the Y chromosome”. It’s the crucial genetic instruction that triggers an embryo to develop into a male. Without SRY, the embryo becomes a girl.
New findings about the way SRY works might explain the differences in how men and women respond to stress. These findings might also explain why men are more susceptible than women to Parkinson’s Disease, schizophrenia and autism.
Running on adrenaline
The hormone epinephrine achieved fame and brand-name recognition as adrenaline. Everyone from weekend warriors to elite BASE jumpers (is there any other kind?) professes its near-magical capacity to elicit superhuman feats of strength and speed. When the chips are down and the boys need to give 110%, that old adrenaline rush kicks in.
Not only does that adrenaline rush cause many of us to speak in seamless cliché, it prepares us to fight or to flee from whatever threatens us. And that rush actually comes by way not only of adrenaline, but two other hormones in the catecholamine group: norepinephrine and dopamine.
For some decades, the catecholamine-mediated fight-or-flight response was considered the dominant human response to stress. But most detailed studies were done on men. As psychologist Shelley E. Taylor and colleagues from the University of California (Los Angeles) first proposed in a 2000 study, women’s fight-or-flight response isn’t nearly as strong.
Instead, Taylor argued, there is another suite of responses to stress, to which she attached the catchy name “tend-and-befriend". “Tending” involves our nurturing responses – protecting and reassuring ourselves and others. “Befriending” involves creating social networks and seeking out their protection under stress.
Women, according to Taylor, more often respond to stress with this nurturing and social response than with the familiar fight-or-flight. And the urges behind tend-and-befriend behaviours are often regulated by oxytocin – a hormone important in breastfeeding and mother-child bonding – and by female reproductive hormones.
Different strokes for different folks
The discovery that people differ in their response to stress provided a real step forward in the biological study of behaviour. But is the notion that men, when presented with danger, either fight or flee, while womenfolk band together to defend and reassure the nursery herd, any improvement?
To my mind, pop-science simplifications like this play to the outdated nature-nurture dichotomy – the idea that our behaviour is either biological and genetic in origin or that it depends entirely on context, experience and social environment.
Catecholamines stimulate men and women to fight or to flee, even if they differ, on average, in their level of arousal, how readily they fight or how quickly they flee. Likewise, even though oxytocin has long been recognised as an important hormone in women, it also functions in men.
In both sexes, oxytocin facilitates parent-offspring bonding, couple formation and the building of trust. Men tend-and-befriend too, even if they do it on average less often than, and in different ways to women.
The crucial caveat “on average” really counts here. Within each sex, people differ in their tendency to fight-flight or tend-befriend and in how they adopt these broad types of response to stress. And the circumstances of the stress, plus the individual’s life experience, interact with the hormones and hormone receptors to produce a huge variety of behaviours.
Those various behaviours fall – with varying degrees of accuracy – into categories such as tend-and-befriend and fight-or-flight. But the variation within and among individuals is every bit as interesting as the gross average differences observed between sexes.
A new role for SRY
All of this is why a recent press release caught my attention. “Men respond more aggressively than women to stress”, trumpeted the media office of the Bioessays journal, “and it’s all down to a single gene”.
Just as oxytocin and female sex hormones gave Shelley Taylor the female-centric basis for tend-and-befriend, the new paper by Lee and Harley suggested the male bias in fight-or-flight might be due to SRY.
The idea flows from some exciting new research on the SRY gene. For over 20 years we have known that SRY determines sex by making a protein (called, surprisingly, SRY protein) that stimulates a few key embryonic cells to develop into testes.
Testosterone from the testes then signals other tissues to make the body into a male. Without SRY protein, the body follows the default settings and those same embryonic cells become ovaries. For some time, researchers thought that once SRY had initiated testes development its work was done.
In recent years, however, various researchers, including Harley, have found SRY protein in the human brain, and other tissues. And in those places it interacts with catecholamines such as adrenaline and dopamine.
Lee and Harley’s new paper suggests SRY protein could make male tissues more susceptible than female tissues (which lack SRY protein) to the fight-or-flight symptoms of increased nervous activity, circulation and capacity to move rapidly.
For too long, explanations of male-biased behaviour have looked no further than testosterone. Men tend to have about ten times as much circulating testosterone as women, and sex differences are often casually written off to differences in testosterone concentration.
Excitingly, Lee and Harley make the very testable suggestion that an exclusively male gene – known to be involved in catecholamine signalling – might make men more prone to the fight-or-flight response than women.
Bad press
Unfortunately – and I’m not too surprised given the breathless press release – the interesting and important implications of this finding have been largely overlooked by a news media hungry for simple, familiar stories.
According to one report “the macho gene that makes men behave aggressively has been found”. Let’s leave aside the fact that SRY was identified in 1985, and the quite obvious fact that because SRY makes men male it is as responsible as any gene can be for differences between males and females.
But reports such as the above simply stoke the idea that complex social issues – such as sex differences in behaviour – can be entirely understood with the identification of a gene involved.
Once we know, as we do, that men are many times more likely than women to be murderers and murder victims, go to jail or to suffer from certain diseases, our work has barely even begun. These facts require both explanations and an understanding of how they come to be before they can become anything more than interesting observations.
What excites me most about Lee and Harley’s paper is that it suggests new pathways for research into male-specific disorders. Parkinson’s Disease, autism, schizophrenia and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder are all more common in men than in women. And they all involve altered catecholamine levels.
In Parkinson’s Disease, for example, nerve cells sensitive to dopamine are progressively lost. Could the presence of SRY somehow make male nerve cells more vulnerable to death? Perhaps doctors could use this knowledge to minimise the harmful consequences of SRY protein in the brain.
To me, understanding how evolution has generated differences in men’s and women’s susceptibility to appalling diseases is so much more interesting and important than another round of titillating stereotypes about badly behaved men and über-nurturing women.
You can follow Rob Brooks on Twitter @Brooks_Rob.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Is the so-called “fight or flight” response simply an exaggeration of “solve the problem, and don’t just complain about the problem”
Men work together in millions of teams and groups each day of the week, and fighting rarely occurs, and the men in these teams and groups solve innumerable problems.
But I look around and I see very few problems being solved by women, but a lot of complaints. If generalisations are to be made, women are more likely to complain about a problem, while men are more likely to attempt to solve the problem.
Men are more likely to fight the problem and solve it.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
A score of -20 for my comment. Gee, I think this indicates people are lodging some type of complaint, but it doesn’t solve any problem.
Out of the last 32 authors of articles in The Conversation, only 8 were female authors. This is probably a good day for female authors, as many days have 0 female authors. It is the same on any other website I have seen to date.
Many of the articles suggest solutions to problems, and the vast majority of problems throughout the world are actually being solved by men. The number of suggestions and solutions to problems provided by women are minimal in comparision.
Tracy Soh
Addiction Medicine Physician
"Men are more likely to fight the problem and solve it"
Fighting a problem is not always the best way of solving it...
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Tracey,
So what exactly is your suggestion on how to solve a problem, or are you making a suggestion or not?
Besides all the websites that rarely have female contributors, I have personally been to countless department meetings and productivity meetings, and various women have sat there and offered nothing. They let men make all the suggestions and offer possible solutions to problems.
Is that women's way of solving problems?
Paul Richards
logged in via LinkedIn
"Is that women's way of solving problems?"
Dale if you get a definitive answer to that question you will make history.
+20 for trying.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Dale,
It is a mystery, but I won’t stress too much about it.
My theory is that women rarely offer possible solutions to problems in case they get something wrong, and they don’t want to be seen as getting something wrong.
And this characteristic is world wide or universal (or in other words, most women are born with this characteristic).
Rob Brooks
Rob Brooks is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Director, Evolution & Ecology Research Centre at University of New South Wales
Ironic, Dale, that this is your big point, because you never seem to do anything on this forum other than complain.
Try to put your ideas into coherent order and publish them so the readers can evaluate if you have anything to add.
Lisa Milne
Education at Southern Cross University
Dale is what's know as a 'troll' - don't feed the monkeys people it only encourages them! he makes these beyond a joke comments on many articles here, its a sport (if you're sick of it disrupted serious discussions before they get started then complain to the mods as I have rather than rate him.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Hi Rob,
I have noticed in your articles, you have never said anything positive about the male gender. That may be acceptable in the academic area, but outside of academia, it may not be so acceptable.
Walk down the street and have a look around you. Basically everything has been built, designed or installed by men, and they solved many problems to do that.
They solved problems and were often under stress in solving those problems. If they were overly aggressive, very little would be built, designed or installed by men.
I also have a theory that many women don’t want to be seen getting something wrong, so they offer very few suggestions or solutions to problems, in case they get it wrong.
They let men offer solutions to problems, and carry out problem solving.
They let men risk getting it wrong.
Lisa Milne
Education at Southern Cross University
Here's a woman offering a solution - moderators - please can you add a report user button? surely we don't trolls like dale filling up all of the comments sections...the other solution I've implemented re this this problem is to cease feeding the troll by engaging with his non-arguments. Mods??
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Hi Lisa
Yesterday, I offered solutions to problems such as economic failures of companies, accumulating space debris, and how to solve the nurse’s dispute.
https://theconversation.edu.au/time-to-stop-rewarding-economists-for-bad-behaviour-5836
https://theconversation.edu.au/giant-lasers-and-kamikaze-satellites-its-time-to-deal-with-our-space-junk-problem-5864
https://theconversation.edu.au/nurses-dispute-with-baillieu-highlights-pressure-on-australias-ailing-healthcare-system-5890
What did you do?
Complain?
Ian Donald Lowe
Seeker of Truth
I have to agree with Dale. This article takes some basic science and manipulates it with half-truths and lies by ommision.
Not every murderer or criminal in the world is male. Not every male is a murderer or criminal. As Dale stated, men can work together and achieve many things without violent responses.
The anti-male campaign needs to stop. Whatever vision of a brave new world you have is flawed. Read Huxley's novel and find out why. Then read Orwell's 1984 and find out where we really seem to be heading.
Paul Richards
logged in via LinkedIn
Agression in men is overt, obvious, outward, offensive and socially unacceptable. War is the most obvious outcome of male agression and there is no justification for.
However one of the most agressive acts women engage in is the use of "silent treatment" excluding others from their group.
This social agression becomes more prevalent in girls from K8 - K12, and they justify their behaviour to their peers by asking for group solidarity. Encouraging others to ignore individuals is a central…
Read moreIan Donald Lowe
Seeker of Truth
Some women, young women in particular it seems, are very aggressive to other (young) women, going much further than the use of "silent treatment". Sometimes they bully (online bullying is a mostly feminine phenomenom) and sometimes they fight. There are no absolutes when it comes to human behaviour, if there were, the world would be a far simpler place.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
The score has now gone below -30. That is stressful.
No its not.
I am somewhat amused to see so many academics using everything men build or provide for them, such as university buildings, roads, water supply, food and of course funding for universities, but can’t think of anything positive to say about men
It does definitely appear that everything said about men by university academics has to be negative.
I also had another look through the article, and it didn’t actually define what is stress, or what is aggression, or who is male and who is female.
I wonder why?
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Walk down the street - every single human being you see was gestated and given birth to, at considerable personal inconvenience (and risk, especially if you go walking down a Third-World street) by a woman. Most of these people received most of their formal education from women, particularly in the early years. If you're able to read this forum, you can thank a woman for that.
So, womens' work goes largely unseen, unrecorded and uncelebrated over the years? That's a feminist idea you know.
Dale, if you insist that "no academic has ever said anything positive about men", then please go and do some proper research to support this ie: find a record everything ever said by all academics. Otherwise please stop insulting everyone by continuing to make this baseless, insulting and ridiculous claim.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Lorna
I have done some research, and I couldn’t find a single academic from any university in Australia who has ever said anything positive about the male gender.
The male gender is aggressive, antisocial, can’t collaborate, is egotistical, has bad-boy hormones, is similar to fish, birds and insects, and one lecturer recently said they should all be sterilised. That’s just on The Conversation, and its similar everywhere else I looked.
Maybe universities should stop having men anywhere near their campuses, and of course, stop using any money that was originally earnt by men.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
The score for my comment has now gone to -50.
Gee.
Today’s count of authors in The Conversation was 17 male authors and 2 female authors. That seems normal.
It must be too stressful or “too male” for female university employees to identify problems, and then think of possible solutions, and then write about the possible solutions on the web.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Ok people, show of hands:
If there had been 17 female authors this week and 2 male authors, who reckons Dale would be furious at the female domination of the Conversation and demanding that quotas are set so that mens' output equals or exceeds womens'?
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Lorna,
You are about the only female who makes comments to articles also. For all the money being spent on educating women, they are actually giving back very little.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Details please: what universities, what publications, what timescale?
Otherwise you're just, as my granny used to say, opening your mouth and letting your belly rumble
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Here's a bonza suggestion:
Instead of paying ASIO operatives to spy on environmental protesters, why doesn't the Govt. pay the protesters to spy on themselves? For a minimal fee they could observe their actions during all their waking hours. As for reports, they could publish a blog. Apparently people publish blogs on the Internet for free so arguably the activists could be asked to do the same, say on a weekly basis. Saves the taxpayer money, gets the surveillance done efficiently!
Here's…
Read moreLorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
I was going to frame a response in terms of Ada Lovelace, Rosalind Franklin, Marie Curie, Grace Murray Hooper, Lise Meitner and other famous achievers from the history of science; inspiring women like Vandana Shiva; women I know personally who contribute to society: the ambulance driver, 3 doctors, 3 midwives, 3 PhD students studying environmental remediation and 3 studying cancer treatments, 2 teachers of permaculture, 3 environmental activist leaders...
But then I realised that we're fundamentally at cross purposes. To me, "making a contribution" means doing something of value in the real world and improving other peoples' lives. To you, "making a contribution" means clogging up the comments sections of online articles with purile nonsense.
Could it possibly be that women have BETTER THINGS TO DO than argue with you?
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Lorna,
I know countless men with formal qualifications.
The article is just another from a university academic that maligns men.
If the intent of such articles is to chase men out of universities, then science in universities will go into complete freefall, and the universities will be left with women mostly doing arts courses where there is no right or wrong answer, and after their courses, they contribute not much at all really.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
"To me, understanding how evolution has generated differences in men’s and women’s susceptibility to appalling diseases is so much more interesting and important than another round of titillating stereotypes about badly behaved men and über-nurturing women."
Did you read to the end of the article Ian, or just skim the title and go straight for the fury?
Rob is talking about new insights into the causes (and thus hopefully treatments) for autism, Parkinson's disease and the like - which are mostly suffered by men. It's about improving mens' health.
In what way is this part of an "anti-male" campaign? Are you saying you want all research into understanding and treating debilitating diseases suffered by men?
If this was an article about research into diseases suffered disproportionately by women, you and Dale would be all fired up about how mens' health is being neglected and why is all this money wasted on useless, whiny women.
Rob Brooks
Rob Brooks is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Director, Evolution & Ecology Research Centre at University of New South Wales
Spot on, Lorna.
It doesn't surprise me that these guys don't read to the end of the article. I appreciate you kicking in on this, as I try to opt out. Decided long ago not to argue with creationists, and these guys share a great many similarities: paranoia, dim-wittedness, huge confirmation bias and an inability or unwillingness to weigh complex ideas.
Instead I've been spending my time writing the next instalment for everybody's pleasure.
Occasionally I do chime in, just to stoke the outrage, as the more Dale get's his undies in a bunch about what I write, the more hits the article gets. This one's been going gangbusters! Not sure why that happens, but 51 net minus votes can't be bad for traffic.
I'm sure the Conversation editors smile quietly to themselves every time a troll goes in hard.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Yep, those pointless, self-indulgent female-dominated courses: nursing, physiotherapy, teaching, social-work, speech-therapy, medicine, exercise-science...
When you get sick or old and infirm, I hope you're prepared to look after yourself, mop up your own vomit, wipe your own arse. Teach yourself to walk and talk after a hip-fracture or stroke.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Lorna
In your posts you have made many personalised insults, and now use foul language.
Very aggressive.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
"My theory is that women rarely offer possible solutions to problems in case they get something wrong, and they don’t want to be seen as getting something wrong.
And this characteristic is world wide or universal (or in other words, most women are born with this characteristic)"
"women... after their courses, ... contribute not much at all really".
"If generalisations are to be made, women are more likely to complain about a problem, while men are more likely to attempt to solve the problem".
And you think the word "arse" is offensive?
Seriously, you're SUCH an arse.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Loena,
Sorry if I upset you. I simply thought I would inform you that you were becoming very aggressive.
This is my concern with universities and schools. A student or anyone else has to agree with a lecturer or teacher, or they can receive rough treatment by the lecturer or teacher.
In time there is less and less reliability with universities, and if a lecturer has biased, discriminatory, feminist or negative views about the male gender, then students are compelled to agree with those views.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
"you were becoming very aggressive." Do me a favour, cut and paste me a quote showing exactly where I was agressive.
"In your posts you have made many personalised insults". Ditto.
"A student or anyone else has to agree with a lecturer or teacher, or they can receive rough treatment by the lecturer or teacher". Have you ever BEEN to a university? Don't you agree that this claim is insulting to all lecturers and teachers?
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
"My theory is that MEN rarely offer possible solutions to problems in case they get something wrong, and they don’t want to be seen as getting something wrong.
And this characteristic is world wide or universal (or in other words, most MEN are born with this characteristic)"
"MEN... after their courses, ... contribute not much at all really".
"If generalisations are to be made, MEN are more likely to complain about a problem, while WOMEN are more likely to attempt to solve the problem".
NOW do those comments look insulting to you?
Sam Chafe
Retired scientist
Softly, softly, Lorna. The capitals aren't necessary. I think both Dale and you are in danger of overstepping your convictions. Disagreements are never solved by shouting and, before you object, when you get to my age you're allowed to give gratuitous advice.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Lorna,
An example is when you called me an "arse".
That is aggression.
A narrow, bigoted or feminist type view could be that men are aggressive under stress.
You were placed under stress, simply by reading some words on a computer screen, and became aggressive.
Another theory is that women usually avoid stressful activities, and leave such activities to men.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Sam, the capitals were for clarification: I took some of Dale's comments and substituted "man" for "woman". This site doesn't support bold or italic so capitals have to do.
Sure, feel free to give gratuitous advice. But at my age, and with my breadth of experience, I know the difference between an argument constructed on a basis of logic and critical thinking, and baseless, offensive vilification. Have a look at some of Dale's comments e.g. on this post:
https://theconversation.edu.au/stand-up-for-feminism-on-international-womens-day-lest-our-hard-fought-rights-slip-away-5729
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Lorna,
Quite frankly, you were placed under minimal levels of stress, and you still became aggressive.
Multiple any stress you have been placed under by at least a factor of 10, and that would be the level of stress many men are placed under every hour of every day while at work and elsewhere.
Perhaps you should consider the real world, before you believe anything said by a university academic or feminist.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Righto Dale, I'll just crawl back to my cosseted little imaginary world of high-school teaching, and co-ordinate groups of 30 adolescents while they experiment with acids, electricity and fire.
There were 7 billion people in my imaginary world last time I checked. Reckon it's a lot less crowded in your real one.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Sam, I should also own up to a very low boredom threshold. As you pointed out earlier, I do enjoy a bit of sarcasm but the ole' threshold seems to have kicked in there re: Dale's comments, which to be honest I've read over and over again in practically every Conversation article that even vaguely concerns gender issues - or Universities too actually.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Lorna,
Lorna,
Try working in 40 degrees C heat, with 90 + dB noise levels, doing 12 hr shifts, while supervising people spread over 7 acres of plant, doing everything from laboratory work to operating multimillion dollar pieces of equipment, to maintenance and servicing of that equipment. As well as being shift supervisor, I was also first aid officer, had a forklift operator’s ticket and drove a truck. I did that for 10 years, and I was just an average type supervisor.
But that is the type of work many men do.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Wow. You're really floored me now. Not sure how to respond to such a purile comment.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Nope, not even going to bother. Got stuff to do.
Dale, I've read a lot of people try to reason with you on he comments sections of a lot of articles. I've seen you spout the same deluded, illogical nonsense over and over again. When presented with facts, you either deny them, say you've "done some research" (don't make me laugh) or come out with some bizarre non-sequitur.
All those people have eventually given up. I doubt you lack the intrinsic capacity to understand but you certainly won't be told.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Lorna
And I am a qualified trainer. I have also written code in 8 different computer languages, as well as used everything from SCADA systems to AI systems, and I am presently writing mobile apps.
I don’t think the work men do is "puerile". There may be attempts by academics to portray men as puerile and the source of all evil, but that is not reality.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
There really is no getting through to you is there?
I don't think the work men or women do is purile. It's *your comments* that are purile.
Why not take a look at all the comments from men who've tried to wake you up to the idiocy of your claims. Nearly half the people on Earth are men. Wonder why they're not all complaining of a conspiracy of feminists? Could it possibly be because there isn't one.
Off you go, and think about it.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
"I have also written code in 8 different computer languages". Great to hear you're taking advantage of the pioneering work of Ada Lovelace and Grace Murray Hopper, who didn't just write code, they INVENTED it.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Lorna
And I am also a WHSO, I have various operator tickets, and have done everything from dig out drains to develop the documentation for laboratories up to ISO standard, and from de-scaling the inside of vessels with a needle gun, through to developing process control systems for factories with a $200 million a year turnover.
The list goes on, but you can nominate the university academic or feminist who has said one positive word about the male gender.
I can’t find that academic or feminist, and I do believe most university academics or feminists do not have a clue about what men do.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
I disagree Rob. Something has been ringing a bell re: Dale's comments - they remind me of students who persistently disrupt a class with attention-seeking behaviour. You soon realise that the other students, who aren't getting their share of air-time, usually have far more interesting and original ideas. You have no way of knowing what erudite and well-informed potential contributors are reading your articles but avoiding the comments section like the plague - either because they can't be bothered engaging with trolls or because the level of discourse rapidly becomes a joke.
Lisa Milne
Education at Southern Cross University
Hi Lorna,
Dale is a troll (trying tp provoke) - ignoring him used to be the only option but now you can report his offensive, defamatory or abusive comment using the report abuse button (hover mouse near his comments).
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Thanks Lisa,
I'm already familiar with Dale's "work". I've read other peoples' attempts to reason with him, can't really justify why I bother trying ... call it PhD-procrastination ;)
Lisa Milne
Education at Southern Cross University
Lorna - way to go -interacting with dale directly is pointless, since he doesn't understand the way arguments and proof work / is bigoted - either that or he simply does this for a reaction...ie his 'proof' that men do more stressful work generally - a little anecdote pertaining to a single man (him) a sample size of 1.
You could point out how fallacious this is by citing the documented high stress levels in female dominated work like teaching, nursing, GP's, social work or even certain types…
Read moreMal O'Keeffe
Agricultural Scientist
"attention-seeking behaviour" yes I think you have hit the nail on the head there Lorna. Type of bloke everyone avoids like the plague at the pub.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Hi Rob,
I've just read your highly denigrating comments made about men , e.g “paranoia, dim-wittedness, huge confirmation bias and an inability or unwillingness to weigh complex ideas.”
Making such comments could be the way you react to stress, but it also seems to be the way you portray men in general (i.e negatively).
Sam Chafe
Retired scientist
Notwithstanding feminism, there is an inevitability about the nature of men and women which is manifest every day of our lives: we are different. This is not to say that one is better than the other; rather we form essential parts of the whole. It is entirely pointless for women to say that they equally qualified to carry out all of the roles of men, as it is for men to say they are equally equipped to carry out all the roles of women. This is not a popular idea these days, when everyone seems to…
Read moreDale Bloom
Analyst
Sam, I agree.
The more egalitarian the society, the more people assume their natural roles. Only through a totalitarian society can everyone be made the same, and that won’t last very long.
There have been articles appearing in The Conversation suggesting men are aggressive, they are antisocial, and the have bad hormones. These articles are obviously attempts to vilify and malign men, and that won’t last very long either.
Greg Canning
General Practitioner
Thank Rob, interesting article and a welcome change from as you mention the sensationalist way such findings are usually reported. As you point out complexities of human behavior are not an all or nothing nature/ nurture issue but a complex interplay or balancing of genetic and environmental factors. In terms of evolution however relatively minor genetic changes often take dozens of hundreds of generations to make an impact whist social / cultural evolution can cause very major change in just one…
Read moreRob Brooks
Rob Brooks is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Director, Evolution & Ecology Research Centre at University of New South Wales
Thanks for that helpful comment and links, Greg. I think the idea of "girls behaving badly" needs a lot of scrutiny. I might look into it as a possible future article topic.
One thing folks often overlook is that our ancestors faced enormously variable circumstances, and the greatest product of evolution is our capacity to tailor our behaviour to circumstances. Individuals respond to changing economic or ecological circumstances by altering their behaviour, and we notice - at a society level - changes in the aggregate outcome (like the number of juvenile female offenders).
So the presence of a social or economic stimulus that effects a change does not make evolution irrelevant. Natural selection has fitted us out to respond to those circumstances, and often it is an evolved response to the cultural/social cue that we are seeing.
This fact - that nature and nurture interact and don't exclude one another - is the most important point of most of my articles.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Rob Brooks.
A look through your articles, shows numerous maligning remarks being made about the male gender. And for every maligning remark you make, you also include yourself.
So how aggressive are you under stress?
John Harland
bicycle technician
Umm, is this getting anywhere?
Why feed the trolls - those who measure their life's achievement in column inches of drivel?
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
As a vague experiment in how many people will spray coffee over their screens when they read about the "reverse bowser". (Honestly I thought that was one of my finer moments. I'm still wondering how it'd be cleaned between users).
On a side issue, I must say, the words "life's achievement" and "column inches of drivel" seen in the same sentence, set off unhelpful thoughts in the minds of people writing up PhD theses (How am I ever going to manage to keep it down to 100000 words?). However unlike Dale I have enough insight to realise when my personal problems are my own responsibility, not the fault of some easy-to-point-to group of people - the vast majority of which I have never met.
Sam Chafe
Retired scientist
I think I'd quit before the going gets any rougher, Dale. Lorna appears to have your measure and can back up her position with intelligent comment and support, at the same time laced with caustic humour. When she finishes her PhD, I think we will have a new and worthy contributor to Science.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
You're too kind Sam! Yep, as soon as I nail this PhD I'm patenting my baked-bean powered "reverse bowser" and I'm gonna be richer than Gina Rinehart. Then, like J.K. Rowling I'll give it all away to charity, and will be able to bask in the satisfaction of actually having done something useful.
I'll be back to comment as soon as I've done that.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
“intelligent comment” For sure.
The new science curriculum in universities.
“Men react more aggressively to stress”
Q What is stress?
A Don’t ask questions.
Q What is aggression?
A Don’t ask questions.
Sam Chafe
Retired scientist
But first you're going to perfect your stand-up routine.
John Harland
bicycle technician
Dale, you write as if you are awfully insecure about your manhood. Could you spare us your gender identity crises, please.
Emma Anderson
Artist and Science Junkie
I have read, and I forget where, that females may be just as likely to have an attention deficit as males, however, the clinical presentation varies and therefore the rate of diagnosis is lower. "Boys being boys" might present with conduct symptoms, which will be less likely to be overlooked and lead to a diagnosis. Maybe that's how SRY is involved, not actually in whether or not girls get ADD spectrum disorders at all. Same might be true of the overlaps with autistic spectrum, and, conduct disorders…
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