The Uncomfortable Science Of Sex Differences - Steve Stewart-Williams - #1120

Where this was said

Why Sex Differences Matter

At 4:08 · chapter starts 2:07

Chris Williamson recalls the shared experience of reading Robert Wright's The Moral Animal and describes how it reframed his understanding of human nature in a single sitting. Stewart-Williams echoes the sentiment — the book shaped his entire career and gave him the feeling of sudden insight that childhood explanations of the moon's phases had. The conversation quickly turns to the unavoidable social charge surrounding the topic: even expressing fascination with sex differences invites accusations of motivated reasoning. Stewart-Williams disarms this with his four-word philosophy: let people be themselves. He is careful to insist that evolutionary origins carry no normative weight — something being natural does not make it good, permissible, or desirable. He also warns against using multivariate aggregation of small differences to exaggerate how distinct men and women actually are: the same technique could make New Zealanders and Australians look like different species.