Gender and Sexual Orientation
Category archives for Gender and Sexual Orientation
Temperature and sex determination
Posted by Greg Laden on December 2, 2014 
Some interesting new research. The paper is, unfortunately, behind a paywall but they made a video, so it is worth posting. Here’s the press release for the paper: Scientists know that temperature determines sex in certain reptiles—alligators, lizards, turtles, and possibly dinosaurs. In many turtles, warm temperatures during incubation create females. Cold temperatures, males. But…
Is Human Behavior Genetic Or Learned?
Posted by Greg Laden on March 7, 2014 
Imagine that there is a trait observed among people that seems to occur more frequently in some families and not others. One might suspect that the trait is inherited genetically. Imagine researchers looking for the genetic underpinning of this trait and at first, not finding it. What might you conclude? It could be reasonable to…
How do you tell the women from the men in Copper-Age Eastern Europe?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 15, 2013 Apparently, the women have jugs.
“…boys are innately better at math and science than girls…”
Posted by Greg Laden on December 17, 2011 Sheril Kirshenbaum has a few comments about a piece in Science addressing innate differences between boys and girls in math. I have to say, it may be hard to accept the scientific truth sometimes, but the research really does consistently say the same thing again and again. In this latest study, the science …
Time Trauma Truth and Other Matters
Posted by Greg Laden on August 22, 2011 First of all, I want you to know that I’ve devoted my life to this blog post so now you have every reason to love it more than any other blog post. Sniff sniff.
How Do You Get Sexual Orientation and Gender in Humans?
Posted by Greg Laden on July 8, 2011 Humans appear to have a reasonable amount of diversity in their sexual orientations, in what is often referred to as “gender” and in adult behavior generally. When convenient, people will point to “genes” as the “cause” of any particular subset of th is diversity (or all of it). When convenient, people will point to “culture”…
Driving The Patriarchy: Demonic Males, Feminism, and Genetic Determinism
Posted by Greg Laden on July 7, 2011 Behaviors are not caused by genes. There is not a gene that causes you to be good, or to be bad, or to be smart, or good at accounting, or to like bananas. There are, however, drives. “Drives” is a nicely vague term that we can all understand the meaning of. Thirst and hunger are…
Falsehoods: Human Universals
Posted by Greg Laden on January 26, 2011 There are human universals. There, I said it. Now give me about a half hour to explain why this is both correct and a Falsehood. But first, some background and definition.
Miss A and Miss W, Sexual Jealousy, and Julian Assange
Posted by Greg Laden on January 1, 2011 Almost Diamonds has two interesting posts on the Julian Assange sexual assault/rape accusation/charges. I want to make a comment on part of the second post, but this may not make a lot of sense to you until you read both of them. They are concise and compelling so you will not regret the time you…
What is the most important human adaptation?
Posted by Greg Laden on October 22, 2010 Human infants require more care than they should, if we form our expectations based on closely related species (apes, and more generally, Old World simian primates). It has been said that humans are born three months early. This is not accurate. It was thought that our body size predicted a 12 month gestation, and some…