Even if you assume that societies are more likely to structure their gender constructs around innate psychological traits than physical traits
Eugine's argument was that the probability of societies structuring their gender constructs around innate psychological traits has to be updated upwards on seeing culturally universal gender stereotypes that have something to do with psychology. It doesn't need assumption of high prior on the hypothesis.
you've got a major confound when assessing the strength of the effect.
That's true, but irrelevant with respect to the parent comment.
It is difficult to show that people of a gender that is generally trained to work with refrigerators have, as an innate feature of their psychology, an effective strategy for searching fridges.
Do the test with cooks of both genders; their experience of using fridges is unlikely to differ significantly in length. Do another test with women raised in feminist families and compare to general population.
I didn't dispute Eugine's argument - I just thought it worthwhile to point out that the evidence itself is obviously confounded. If we consider the confound itself - the gender-based training - evidence of the hypothesis, we're stuck in a tricky chicken-and-egg situation. It wasn't a refutation of Eugine's comment, but I hardly think it's irrelevant.
Do the test with cooks of both genders; their experience of using fridges is unlikely to differ significantly in length.
Unless female cooks are more likely to become professionals as the result of early an...
Today's post, Rational vs. Scientific Ev-Psych was originally published on 04 January 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
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