(no subject)

[bubosquared]

Aaaaand for your WTFuckingF link of the day: The Feck? There are no words, people, NO WORDS!

I'm trying to figure out my travel arrangements for Escapade, despite the Virgin website being down for maintenance. My basic problem is now getting from here to Heathrow as cheaply and quickly as possible. (Virgin only fly from there, and every other possibility I tried either cost twice as much as Virgin, or had a ten-hour layover in Frankfurt.) Any suggestions?

Comments

[wibbble]

> Next time somebody loftily tells you that differences between the sexes are grounded in biology,
> you have my permission to slap them with a judicial case

Of course, there are a great many differences between the sexes, both physical and psychological, that /are/ grounded in biology. (Consider this: there's strong evidence that shows that alcoholism has major genetic factors in men, but the same evidence shows that there is likely /no/ genetic factor in women. And yes, I was just in a psychology lecture.)

For flights to London, try the usual suspects in the cheap airline business: EasyJet's the main one, but 'BMI baby' and FlyBe might be useful, too. Oh, and don't forget the overnight sleeper train from Waverly. Virgin run that one, IIRC.

[rane-ab.livejournal.com]

Consider this: there's strong evidence that shows that alcoholism has major genetic factors in men, but the same evidence shows that there is likely /no/ genetic factor in women. And yes, I was just in a psychology lecture.

Really? I seem to hear pretty much that women are as prone to alcoholism as men are. Can't remember any links, though! How so are men more prone to alcoholism, genetically?

[wibbble]

I didn't say anything about overall risk factors - I'm talking about the genetic component.

The data is taken from twin studies, looking at the chance that one twin will be an alcoholic if the other twin is. For male monozygotic twins the chance is 77%, but for dizygotic twins it's 54%. Since dizygotic twins are genetically no closer related than normal siblings, the difference must be due to genetic factors. For female monozygotic twins the chance is 39%, and for dizygotic twins it's 42% - within the margin of error that's basically the same number, therefor there's not likely to be any genetic component in female alcoholism.

[rane-ab.livejournal.com]

What were the circumstances of that study? What other factors did they take in account? What was the alpha-factor? *curious*

[wibbble]

I have no idea, it was mentioned without references during the lecture I had a couple of hours ago. It's a fair bet that it's a reputable study - she made a point of mentioning the other ones which were a bit new and/or tenuous.

[rane-ab.livejournal.com]

Er. Well, I can't really know, but I've always made it a point to be rather suspicious if I don't get any details... People have a way of contradicting themselves, not to mention make mistakes. Especially if they don't actually know what genetic basis there is supposed to be, exactly.

[wibbble]

I'm not sure I understand you, here. These studies are not trying to show specific genes, just that there is a hereditary component, versus a purely environmental effect.

[rane-ab.livejournal.com]

True. But I've always been thought that if there's no obvious (reasonable) biological explanation, you should be wary of results. Because what is the chance that there's some kind of coincidence? What's the chance someone's messed up the causal component?

[wibbble]

Well, these types of studies are very well established, and work well. Monozygotic (MZ) twins should have very similar environments, and dizygotic (DZ) twins should also have very similar environments. Differences between them should be larger down to genetic factors.

I'll ignore the 'coincidence' thing, because that's why they make us learn a lot of stats stuff. There's significance tests and all that - the differences there are certainly significant, and it's not like this will be done with five pairs of twins.

Again, I don't understand that last part. It doesn't seem to make sense.

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

True, true, there definitely are differences there, but I've never really seen it proven that women are "biologically inclined" to primp/only enjoy sex because it leads to babies/whatever, which is how a lot of people tend to use the argument.

Thanks on the tip! Some googling has revealed relatively okay coach services between Luton/Stansted/Gatwick and Heathrow, so depending on connecttions and such, I'll take Easyjet down to London and then London-LAX. Still a lot of transfers, but it beats ten hours in Germany, man.

[wibbble]

Well, yeah. It's important, though, to remember that just because something is horribly sexist doesn't mean that it's not actually true. People saying it doesn't make it true, but a company sacking someone for not wearing make-up doesn't make it false, either.

I doubt that there's a major biological component for why women wear make-up, but I'm not going to say there's definitely not unless I'd seem some decent studies which backed it up.