Reply #28: Thank you for so carefully reading my post.

[Red State Blues]

"For example, men are taller than women. Or are they? Isn't it MORE ACCURATE by far to say that most men are taller than most women, which automatically implies that SOME women are taller than SOME men?"

"The huge, enormous, terrible problem comes in in precisely where you shot off your big mouth, frankly, which is making blanket statements that end up circumscribing the opportunities and indeed whole LIVES of people who happen to be of the other sex."

"I find your whole post enormously, if somewhat subtly, offensive. Your willingness to discuss differences in such broad terms without qualifiers concerns me."

What is the "huge, enormous, terrible problem" when I have so carefully said, "I would never advocate "steering" any child's educational opportunities based on sex."

What sort of qualifiers would you like? I thought my very careful use of GENERAL, and INDIVIDUAL and in all caps, no less, pretty well "qualified" what I was saying.

What part of this sentence don't you understand?: "I also believe that it is terribly wrong and misguided to to apply any information from a general study to an individual."

"As long as the world is filled with sexism, there will always be people who are willing if not eager to note those differences and make laws and social policies that end up restricting rights and benefits of half the human race. You and your words feed right into that pathology, IMO. And I wouldn't call living longer a "behavior" -- as if it were something under one's conscious control -- either."

As you and others have pointed out, "living longer" was a terrible example from a scientific behavioral standpoint and I would glady take my spanking were it not for your statement: "And that's precisely the kind of statement that in a world still dominated by men can be used against women as a class to reduce their pension and similar benefits and, in fact, routinely is by insurance comapnies, Social Security, etc."

So we come to the crux of your argument, "It is wrong for ME to speak the truth (as I believe it to be), if there is ANY possibility that ANY idiot may then misuse that truth to further their small minded goals."