Links - 7th September 2018 (2)

4 beneficial evolutionary mutations that humans are undergoing right now - "Beneficial mutation #1: Apolipoprotein AI-Milano
Beneficial mutation #2: Increased bone density
Beneficial mutation #3: Malaria resistance
Beneficial mutation #4: Tetrachromatic vision"

Human Sexuality: How Do Men and Women Differ? - Letitia Anne Peplau, 2003 - "A large body of scientific research documents four important gender differences in sexuality. First, on a wide variety of measures, men show greater sexual desire than do women. Second, compared with men, women place greater emphasis on committed relationships as a context for sexuality. Third, aggression is more strongly linked to sexuality for men than for women. Fourth, women's sexuality tends to be more malleable and capable of change over time. These male-female differences are pervasive, affecting thoughts and feelings as well as behavior, and they characterize not only heterosexuals but lesbians and gay men as well. Implications of these patterns are considered."

Sexual Frequency Among Lesbians | Michele O'Mara, PhD, LCSW - "Twelve percent (50 lesbians) of the sample reported having no sex in the last six months. Thirty-seven percent (154 lesbians) of the sample reported having sex once monthly or less. Combined, these groups represent almost half of the sample population, suggesting that the majority of lesbians are having sex once monthly or less... research largely supports the fact that lesbians are less sexual than other couple pairings"

Gays vs. Straights: Any Differences in Sexual Satisfaction? - "Satisfaction with sexual activities. It was remarkably similar for all groups. The only difference was that women, both lesbian and straight, felt somewhat more satisfied with non-genital caresesses than men, both gay and straight, presumably because compared with women, men tend to be more genital-focused. But all groups expressed very similar levels of satisfaction with their lovemaking."

Feminist Apparel CEO Alan Martofel Is Admitted Abuser - "The employees of the popular clothing company Feminist Apparel thought they were creating tools for the resistance. The online store’s viral shirts and accessories — which feature sayings like “Cats against catcalls” and “Trans rights are human rights” — became staples at events like the Women’s March and Pride"
Another male feminist!

PIERS MORGAN: The orange Trump baby balloon is a pathetic stunt - "Giuliani, whose own 'zero tolerance' policies were widely applauded for substantially reducing violent crime in New York, added: 'He's so busy attacking President Trump's visit and in the meantime, crime is spiralling in London. If crime is going up, he is obviously not paying attention to his job. This is one mayor who can tell him how to reduce crime – you have to pay attention to your job. From one mayor to another – do your job, Mr Khan.'... If President Obama was still President, and there was a plan to fly a giant black baby balloon of him in diapers over parliament – how long do you think it would have taken Sadiq Khan to reject that idea as 'racist' and 'offensive'?... When the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, came to Britain recently, there was barely a murmur of discontent. I've seen bigger, angrier protests outside my local pub when someone accidentally puts the tennis on the TV during the current World Cup."

The Trump baby blimp is the ultimate symbol of Britain’s commitment to free speech
Meanwhile: British Police Arrest At Least 3,395 People for 'Offensive' Online Comments in One Year

Global Increases in Individualism - "we examined 51 years of data on individualist practices and values across 78 countries. Our findings suggest that individualism is indeed rising in most of the societies we tested. Despite dramatic shifts toward greater individualism around the world, however, cultural differences remain sizable. Moreover, cultural differences are primarily linked to changes in socioeconomic development, and to a lesser extent to shifts in pathogen prevalence and disaster frequency."

The unique way the Dutch treat mentally ill prisoners - "One of the unique things about the Dutch criminal justice system is that a person can be judged to be responsible for their crime on five levels. “Dutch law differs from English law in that it recognises a sliding scale from full responsibility through to total lack of responsibility, with three levels in between,” explains one report in the journal Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health. While the diminished responsibility clause in the UK is similar, there is no such sliding scale."

Bridging the STEM Gender Gap Divide - "It was because of the rush to judgement without knowing all of the facts made by people like me that he had lost his job. From then on, I resolved to never judge a person guilty of racism or sexism based on portrayals in the media without first reading what they said, verbatim and in context. The Boggart metaphor also applies is a second way that Ms. Champion may not have realized. In addition to distorting one’s perceptions, assuming the worst of others can literally cause them to become more extreme. When someone is demonized, they will often develop an animus toward the person or people demonizing them. When someone is silenced, they will feel forced to retreat to their own echo chamber, only able to speak their mind to those who largely think the same things as them... The sole metric that we use for diversity in the industry is the percentage of the big three “underrepresented” demographics: African-Americans, Hispanics, and women. Little attention is given to the fact that there is an abundance of other minorities, including immigrants, Jews, Muslims, atheists, Asians, LGBT, and people on the autism spectrum... One of my greatest beefs with the messaging of outreach programs directed toward women is that they often tend to misrepresent what life as a software engineer is like, portraying our work as more interdisciplinary and interpersonal than it actually is. In effect, we lure women into the profession by lying to them about what their life will be like here. This could explain at least some of the so-called leaky pipeline where women are more likely than men to leave the profession... It has often been claimed that girls do not receive the same encouragement to go into STEM as boys... I learned programming out of books beginning at age 7, despite having no formalized mentorship until late high school. My parents did not support these activities, and I was bullied mercilessly by my peers for having different interests from what was considered to be cool. Social justice activists often speak of the value of lived experiences, yet the lived experience of someone like me is clearly unwelcome... Even the phrase “Not all men are like that” has been viewed by many as hate speech"

High-Skilled White-Collar Work? Machines Can Do That, Too - The New York Times - "One of the best-selling T-shirts for the Indian e-commerce site Myntra is an olive, blue and yellow colorblocked design. It was conceived not by a human but by a computer algorithm — or rather two algorithms. The first algorithm generated random images that it tried to pass off as clothing. The second had to distinguish between those images and clothes in Myntra’s inventory. Through a long game of one-upmanship, the first algorithm got better at producing images that resembled clothing, and the second got better at determining whether they were like — but not identical to — actual products."

New blood pressure guidelines: why blood pressure measurements are often wrong - "When researchers have compared the blood pressure readings that doctors record to the values obtained by nurses who are specifically trained to follow correct technique, the results are alarming. Casual measurements taken by doctors overestimate blood pressure by about 10 mmHg. That could be the difference between normal blood pressure (120 mmHg) and stage one hypertension (130 mmHg), according to newly updated US definitions"

Man, 33, jailed 5 years for sex with girl half his age - "Despite knowing that she was only 15 years old, he promised her a monthly "allowance" of S$4,000 to S$5,000 for sex, and told her to delete their correspondence to each other so no one would find out... the victim, who is now 17, had set up a profile on a money-for-sex online platform. The girl, who cannot be named due to a court gag order, said that she was looking for someone to pay for her tuition fees... Lim, however, never meant to pay her. He intended to abscond after they had sex. Investigations later revealed that in 2016, Lim used this trick on more than six women. His modus operandi was to discard the prepaid SIM card he used to contact them after he had sex with them"
If she'd been 16 it'd have been better to have not paid her as it wouldn't have been an offence, presumably

Study the Studies- What We Know About Same-Sex Parenting - "the studies that show “no difference” often used poor methodology (non-random samples, parental (self) reporting vs. actual child outcomes, short duration, etc.) to reach their conclusions... researchers would sometimes recruit subjects via posts on an LGBT-friendly site, state that they were doing a study on gay parenting, and then hand select 20-40 participants. (Not exactly the unbiased scientific method that you learned about in high school.) In any field of study, such factors have a major impact. But when you take into account the cultural/political landscape leading up to redefining marriage, it’s clear that something other than scientific inquiry played a role in the outcomes... Finding Random Participants is Difficult and Time-Consuming- That’s Why Most Didn’t Do it... children who have married same-sex parents fare worse than those with unmarried same-sex parents... The largest study to date – the National Health Interview Study which began with 1.6 million cases and yielded 512 same-sex parent families – destroys any fantasy that children with same-sex parents fare “no different” than children raised in the home of their married mother and father... 'If the greatest benefits for child well-being are conferred only on the biological offspring of both parents; •and since same-sex relationships cannot, at least at present, conceive a child that is the biological offspring of both partners, in the way that every child conceived by opposite-sex partners is such; • then same-sex partners, no matter how loving and committed, can never replicate the level of benefit for child well-being that is possible for opposite-sex partners.'"

ZMABSO on Twitter: "> Complaining about "unrealistic depictions of women in videogames"… "
Feminist Frequency Radio: Banner avatars vs reality vs a realistic depiction of the 3 hosts
Addendum: This is now gone, so I've mirrored it

Canine Intelligence—Breed Does Matter
In dogs, it is uncontroversial that subspecies have different levels of intelligence

Hundreds of lives saved by universal healthcare in US - "In 2006, Massachusetts began requiring health insurance coverage for nearly all residents – years before the rest of the country. Now a study shows that after the reforms went into effect, the state saw a 2.9 per cent decrease in the death rate through 2010. According to the study, which was led by Benjamin Sommers of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, that translates to around 320 lives saved every year... there were fewer hospital visits after the state’s reforms. Another study, released last year, showed that between 1 and 2 per cent of Massachusetts residents reported better health statuses."

The Democratic Party left me and I'm not alone - "I’ve been a loyal Democrat for about 15 years. As someone who became a citizen in 2006, I became a Democrat during the George W. Bush years, because I liked the party’s anti-war, pro-minority, pro-environment, pro-little guy positions...
The Democratic Party and its followers have left me for many reasons, but here are a few examples:
The party and its followers have been showing illiberal tendencies for some time.
It has gone off the rails on immigration, free speech, identity politics and some other issues — a topic I’ll defer for another day.
I’m no Trump supporter, but I’ve been horrified and repulsed by the political and cultural left’s hatred, demonization and mistreatment of President Trump, his family, his administration officials and his voters, which is even worse (if that’s possible) than what the right did to President Obama."

homo economicus, homo oppressus - "Sociology has its own version of homo economicus, a theory that simplifies the world but has some real limitations. I call it “homo oppressus.” In this model of the world, human beings are driven by two psychological impulses:
Homo oppressus sees that world in terms of in groups and out groups.
Homo oppressus actively seeks to defend the status and privilege of their group.
There is an important normative side to “Homo oppressus” theory – the actions of lower status groups are usually seen in a better light than actions of higher status groups, which might be called “the underdog bias.” There is also a second bias concerning policy – policies that try to minimize in-group/out-group differences are preferred to those that increase baseline levels of well being but maintain inter-group inequalities."

Racism against whites: What's the problem? - "these divergent goals are especially toxic together during interracial interactions. Think about it: if you are working hard to be liked, and the other person is not cracking a smile and not reciprocating to your overtures, your goals are not being met. Similarly, if you are working hard to be respected, and the other person is instead being smiley and gooey with you, your goals are not being met. In other words, the motive to be liked leads to behaviors that are interpreted as disrespectful, and the motive to be respected leads to behaviors that are interpreted as unfriendly! Talk about having your signals cross-- both members of the dyad are trying to achieve something to counteract a stereotype, and precisely because of that, neither participant ends up having a positive interaction. In fact, the researchers found that the more an interracial dyad's goals differed, the more negative feelings they had towards each other at the end of the interaction... even when stereotypes are directed against groups that have not been historically stigmatized, they still perpetuate the cycle of inequality. Why? Because these stereotypes prevent us from being able to sit down together at the same table, to hire each other, to elect each other to boards, to become friends."