Unequal/Unfair Marriages

Unbounded
41

Ok. I’m not actually sure that it is widely accepted. Your original claim was that 40% of men and 80% of women reproduced, historically, over a long period of time. I understand that you don’t think the exact numbers are important. Where you got the numbers was important to me because I was trying to figure out where your argument was coming from.

I think that the actual source of your numbers are from an interpretation of a study (or studies?) on genetic diversity that compare Y-chromosome diversity to mitochondrial DNA diversity, and conclude that the current population has about a 2 to 1 ratio of female to male ancestors. Full disclosure, I asked Gemini where you got your numbers from, and it pointed me in this direction. It gave me some names, like Dr. Roy Baumeister, as the popularizer of your particular version of this theory. I found these old NYT articles about it: The Missing Men in Your Family Tree - The New York Times and Is There Anything Good About Men? And Other Tricky Questions - The New York Times . One of those articles does admit that the 80/40 numbers are somewhat arbitrary, and the important thing is the 2 to 1 ratio.

I do have some criticism of this interpretation of the data. I don’t think that a 2 to 1 ratio of female to male ancestors in our current DNA necessarily means that twice as many women as men have reproduced historically. But I would like to check if this is what you were talking about before getting into that.

42

This seems like a possible correlation / causation fallacy.

Suppose as a hypothetical there is some personal attribute, xyzzyx, that has a big causal effect on the statistical measures (life expectancy, career, income, creativity, suicide risk, victim of crime or risky behavior) independent of marriage. Xyzzyx could be things like drive / ambition, prudence, intelligence, or even physical attributes like height or muscle mass. Suppose further that the sexes differ on their preference for the level of xyzzyx in their opposite-sex marriage partners. Men prefer women who are relatively lower on xyzzyx whereas women prefer men who are relatively higher on xyzzyx. Being peronally high in xyzzyx causes a man to be more likely to be married, whereas being high in xyzzyx causes a women to be more likely to be single.

In that hypothetical scenario, I think we could see the kind of statistical measurements being described even if marriage itself had no causal relationship at all with the statistical measures and there was no net advantage being transferred from women to men via marriage.

I don’t know whether or not this hypothetical is actually the case either in whole or in part, but it seems plausible that it could be.

43

Do you think your concern is especially bad or is typical of most studies?

44

So no? You didn’t directly answer my question.

How did you decide to call the video propaganda if you aren’t familiar with the studies it refers to? (I’m assuming you don’t have better knowledge of which studies are relevant and familiarity with other ones instead. If you do, you can say so.)

Bigger picture, relevant to interpreting the video and studies, what do you think an equal/fair marriage looks like? How common or uncommon do you think those are? Do you think equal/fair marriages are the default which require something atypical (like abuse) to avoid, or do you think unequal/unfair marriages are the default which take significant work to avoid?

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45

I clicked to the NYT page from the YouTube description, then clicked to show transcript:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/podcasts/elizabeth-gilbert-modern-love.html?showTranscript=1

I can’t find the words from the clip in the transcript using text search.

46

If the study does make the correlation / causation error, I do think the error is especially bad. But not because I think it is an uncommon type of error in studies.

I don’t know if the error is typical of most studies; that would require a level of broad quantitative awareness of studies that I lack. But I have reasonable confidence that when they occur, correlation / causation errors are not some kind of rare exception.

Something that I think is also common and possible here, is that a study itself carefully describes its findings as correlational (does not make the error), but then popular commentary such as the video you linked contains made up causal assertions the commentator incorrectly attributes to the study.

Assuming the study didn’t actually demonstrate causality (which it could have - I haven’t read it and have no opinion about whether it did), what’s especially bad about either the study itself or the subsequent commentary is its attack on a core value and functional component in many womens’ lives with a rational-sounding but erroneous argument that people find hard to resist. There’s much more potential harm in erroneously attacking womens’ propensity to marry or stay married, compared to making the same type of error while attacking less impactful cultural behaviors like womens’ propensity to pierce their ear lobes and keep the holes from reclosing.

47

I am not familiar with them.

I didn’t answer the question that reply because I thought I already answered it. I was just following up after checking the sources. Maybe I shouldn’t have quoted it like that.

48

Do you need to read soviet science papers to recognize soviet propaganda about their scientists? How are you able to do that?

It doesn’t even matter if there are supporting papers somewhere because Gilbert is lying anyway. She says, in no uncertain terms, that several things that are outright false (both intuitively, and easy to disprove) and implies that she’s an expert on the matter.

Also, let’s not forget that the video doesn’t reference any studies, and Gemini just hallucinated some possible options.

49

Well yeah you kept trying to drill into something that I thought wasn’t very important and made a big deal of me not giving you an answer in a form that you wanted but didn’t specifically ask for.

Yeah, that’s my understanding. I would have been less specific about the type of DNA analysis, but yeah that’s the physical analysis method used.

Sure, FWIW, before you waste any time, I care about whether there have been asymmetric selection pressures on men and women. (Obviously not all selection pressures are asymmetric, though)

I am interested in whether the 80/40 thing is wrong or there are other competing and contradictory ideas, but there are lots of ways for 80/40 to be wrong that just expose more or different selection pressures.

50

Do you want to discuss this? Do you want to have a friendly, reasonable discussion? You just seem tilted/mad. You didn’t answer my question and instead started arguing with stuff I didn’t say.

51

I wasn’t very concerned about correlation vs. causation in this case because I already know an explanation and arguments, which to me was already primary before studies. Any studies are just a bonus on top of the existing reasoning. I think correlation studies can be OK in that sort of secondary role. If there’s no correlation, it’s a problem for your reasoning, so it’s good to check. And the studies may help in some other ways too.

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52

Good point.

Disclaimer: the following is a guess based on intuition and years of occasionally reading stuff written by critical rationalists, fallibilists, and other loosely related philosophically minded people. I do not have any specific examples in mind and I am open to the idea that this intuition is unfair, does not apply to as many people as I think it does, and is more of a self-report about my previous beliefs.

I feel like a lot of philosophy/CR related people (like the loose categories mentioned above) sometimes focus too much on correlation not equaling causation and can be very dismissive/skeptical of studies as a result. I think I used to do this, personally. I had a very low opinion of psychology, for example.

But from what I have seen talking to people who work in sciences, I think that many(most? IDK) of them are aware of those potential issues. They don’t just research stuff and then draw conclusions solely from correlation. They have often do have theories and explanations already, and the data they gather is just a part of that process. For example, if their theory implies there ought to be a connection between A & B and they can’t find any correlations then that is a problem for their theory.

Sometimes scientists find unexpected correlational data and they try to think of explanations for that. But even then, I do not necessarily think that’s a bad thing to do. I think the people who assert something like “we know X because of Y correlation” are wrong, and that does happen, but I am not sure those people are a majority or representative.

If anything I think people like that often end up popular talking head influencer types (e.g. Jordan Peterson, Jonathan Haidt, etc.) who make a career of talking about some definitive knowledge they think they found about the world. That type of influencer can appeal to journalists and laypeople. But in my experience regular scientists/psychologists often view those high profile popular figures with some disdain, because they aren’t really doing science anymore. Instead they’ve moved into advocacy/politics/etc.

I do think part of the reason I used to put more emphasis on correlation not equaling causation was because of journalists, laypeople, and pop thinkers. They often lack the humility that a lot of the actual people doing the studies have, and want to make definitive conclusions about reality based on their agenda and whatever popular study supports that agenda. But I think I was wrong to be so dismissive of the people doing the studies. And as long as the argument makes sense, citing a study that appears to be relevant to that argument seems fine to me.

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53

It occurs to me that “external cooperation” is a pretty loose phrase that has multiple possible meanings.

Do you that all of your examples, and the original one about men wanting relationships, involve broadly equivalent types of external cooperation?

Here they all are in one place:

54

What’s more common is claiming that correlation hints at causation. And a lot of people’s explicit epistemological arguments in debate are terrible, but not necessarily what they do.

The studies look worse when they are backing up a bias (the pre-existing explanation is misogyny or some pro- or anti-capitalist bias or many other things) or when the media exaggerates them. But I think often it’s the bias itself, not the use of correlation, which is the larger problem. But then they may make invalid arguments about the correlation because they can’t give good arguments for their bias, thus emphasizing the correlation stuff more even though it’s not the root cause.

I think a lot of studies where I’ve complained about correlation arguments were ones where I had some other disagreement with the conclusion. Also people can be very dismissive of good arguments when there isn’t enough “evidence” (expensive studies), which is frustrating, and even when I agree with a conclusion I don’t want people to see a few mediocre studies as the primary reason to accept it, even if the studies aren’t bad, just overrated (by lay people and maybe or maybe not by the scientists).

Also my primary field is epistemology where abstract concepts like the role of correlation are the central issues, unlike in medicine, psychology, etc.

1 Like
55

Yeah, that makes sense.

I might be being too charitable, overcorrecting from my previous position and flipping the other way. But one thing that occurs to me is that I think some amount of people who say a “correlation hints as causation” also do have an actual coherent explanatory theory for why the correlation makes sense as a cause. I think it may be messy, they may not be expressing things well from an epistemological standpoint, but that does not necessarily mean they are just foolishly attributing causation with no good explanation at all.

It would be nice if scientists were better at epistemology, since that’s pretty relevant to their field. So I want to be careful not to be too generous here. But I do think plenty of useful science can be done by people who are very flawed and messy and not great outside of their specific area of interest.

This seems totally plausible to me.

Yeah I can see how that would be frustrating. People often treat studies as an authority and I agree they can be dismissive of good arguments if you don’t have that authority. Not good.

Good point.

I was thinking about sciences. Especially the “softer” ones like psychology where things tend to be messier and harder to prove, because that is a field where I have changed my thinking.

And IMO in psychology there are a lot of good and bad actors all working in the same field publishing studies and arguing about what the studies prove. Some of them probably deserve the disdain I used to have for the field as a whole. But I’m less confident than I used to be about how broad my disdain should be.

56

Some quick thoughts on the video without reading (mostly) anything in this thread (I kinda skimmed over some stuff briefly):

says that married women are less contented and stuff in every measurable way than single women. mmm. i could believe that.

a married man outperforms unmarried men. hmm. idk about that one as much, but sure. well, i can believe it. i just dont think this is as sweeping of a claim as the one above. then again i think most dudes probably just benefit from having a women in their life. the same men who barely know their medical history probably wouldn’t know it single. i don’t think that’s a case of them pushing it onto a women. they just don’t care. having a wife that remembers all that probably helps.

hmm. so far the only thing thats bothered me is her comment on the proportionality of what the women loses and what the main gains. just cause is it really that neat/clean/proportional? thats it. idk if she’s being exaggetory for a camera/video or if it really is like that (or close enough that its not unreasonable to report it like that)

ok seems like it loops.

hmm. besides the above comment the only other issue I kinda have is if she’s saying that all marriages are like that. i can believe that the vast vast majority of marriages are shit for the women, just not all.

57

Did she say that? Can you figure out whether she said that? Do some analysis? Or explain why you think she might have said it? Like was there a specific sentence or a general impression?

58

I’ll watch the video again tomorrow and see if I can pinpoint anything exactly she said that made me think that, but it was just a general impression.

I don’t think its particular to her. I think I’d have the same reaction if someone said, idk, people who eat candy are happier. Makes it sound like all people who eat candy are happier by doing so. Even if they just meant it statistically (so they acknowledge some unhappy candy eaters).

59

Do you think you are correct or mistaken here? Can you brainstorm arguments for and against?

60

In argumentative or adversarial discussions, it’s very risky to characterize what the other person said or did without giving a quote of them saying or doing it.

you kept trying to drill … and [you] made a big deal of … a form that you wanted but [you] didn’t specifically ask for.

Note the “you” statements. Two “you” and two more implied “you” via conjunction. Four clauses about “you” compared to two comments about yourself (one “I”, one “me”).

It’s often better to talk about the topic or words directly instead of the person. Talking about yourself is also safer. If you do comment on the other person, and you don’t have high confidence they will agree (as you shouldn’t here), then you should give quotes/facts/evidence.

Part of the context here is you’re quoting someone clarifying about a potential misunderstanding. The earlier context was anon111: “You are talking about whether your answer was evasive, but that wasn’t even my main concern. I don’t recall bringing up evasiveness at all.” And then you quoted them following up on that, trying to clarify their concern was dismissiveness not evasiveness. So you should have extra low confidence about “you” statements and should be extra careful to use quotes/evidence shortly after potentially having misread them about something that isn’t even fully resolved yet (creating a new misunderstanding or problem before the previous one is resolved is one of the ways conversations fail: when errors are coming up faster than they’re being corrected, it’s really hard for conversations to make progress, so after a problem is a good time to be extra careful to try to prevent that from happening).

Making inaccurate statements about what someone did or said, without using a quote, is similar to misquoting. It’s something to put high effort into avoiding on this forum. Part of discussion guidelines/goals of this forum is to quote people accurately, rather than misquoting or not quoting (which can lead to not accurately engaging with what they actually said even without any “you” statements). Elsewhere, it’s so common to see people talk past each other, misparaphrase, misquote, respond to straw men, etc. I want people here to really try to do better, at least in argumentative discussions.

Also, compare to what anon111 wrote in the quoted section:

my … I … I … you … My … not you.

That’s four things about themself compared to one about you (the “not you” part didn’t make a claim about you). Their self-statement to other-person-statement ratio there is 4:1, compared to your ratio of 2:4. (That’s just from a small text sample. I didn’t review broader patterns.) Talking about yourself is much lower risk (you’re allowed to speak for yourself), can be related to being reflective, and can be related to not being defensive (defensive people often go on offense and stop analyzing and engaging with incoming criticism and try to refocus the conversation on other people).

Does this make sense? Is this helpful from your point of view? Are you open to abstract critiques about your discussion methodology?

Also, broadly speaking, you seem to be expressing disinterest in some topics and some preferences about which object level topics to discuss. In my experience, the initial discussion topic often doesn’t matter much because the most important part of the discussion is often about logic, epistemology, discussion methodology, bias, how to evaluate scientific papers, etc., rather than the direct topic. The original topic provides an opportunity (like an example discussion) that enables discussion about these other more important topics that tend to come up rapidly, and take logical priority, largely regardless of what the original topic is. However, not everyone wants to discuss abstract or meta stuff like logic, epistemology, discussion methodology, bias, etc. My view is that many discussions, especially about hard or controversial topics, aren’t very productive without any improvements to philosophical/meta issues, and that those improvements can then be reused on many other topics, making them highly valuable. (Having topic changes to underlying philosophy issues, instead of keeping the topic more narrow, is one of uses for the “unbounded” discussions at this forum.)