Steve Stewart Williams

Quotes

1. Some differences may never be completely eradicated – not, at any rate, without draconian interventions that limit people’s freedom and potentially make them miserable. Such interventions may be modern-day equivalents of earlier efforts to force gay people to be straight or left-handers to use their right hands: a progressive form of conversion therapy.

   p. 29

2. 

   Men are more willing than women to take risks. Almost by definition, this means a higher chance of great success, but also a higher chance of catastrophic failure. One study found that when an attractive woman was watching, male skateboarders started trying riskier moves on their boards, which led to more impressive stunts and more wipeouts. This is a good illustration of a pervasive pattern, which applies as well to the workplace. According to one study, for example, part of the reason that men start more new businesses than women – and therefore that they succeed and fail more than women – is that more men than women are overconfident.

   p. 258

3. 

   Unless sex differences are products of discrimination or cause demonstrable harm, progressives have no more right to eliminate them than traditionalists have to enlarge them.

   p. 29

4. 

   Our genes push us in certain directions, but our genes aren’t the only things shaping us, and thus we can often push right back.

   p. 24

5. 

   According to an old joke, everyone knows that men and women are different… except social scientists. Plenty of research reveals the truth in the jest. One study, for example, found that social scientists are more likely than civilians to chalk up sex differences to nurture rather than nature, and that this even extends to differences between hens and roosters. As we’ll see later, even when it comes to humans, the evidence sides with the civilians, making this one area where laypeople have a firmer grasp on reality than many alleged experts – and one area where academia seems to impair people’s understanding of the world rather than improving it.

   p. 17

6. 

   In our species, both sexes are choosy about their long-term mates, and both compete among themselves for the best mates on offer. For that reason, both sexes have their equivalents of the peacock’s tail and the deer’s antlers. Indeed, when it comes to physical attractiveness, females in our species have the larger “peacock’s tail”: a reversal of the usual pattern in nature. It’s all very weird.

   p. 15

7. 

   If variation and overlap imply that sex differences in brain, mind, and behaviour aren’t really real or important, they equally imply that sex differences in earnings aren’t really real or important – and the same for sex differences in power, privilege, and many other areas central to the activist worldview. The inconsistency in the treatment of the gaps has a political explanation, not a scientific one: The overlap argument is levelled selectively against differences the levellers want to minimize.

   p. 19

8. 

   A vocal minority see positing sex differences as more than a mere faux pas or difference of opinion, and view it instead as a moral transgression. For individuals in this camp, the idea that the sexes are naturally identical has become a sacred belief. Disagreement is seen not as an honest mistake or interesting challenge to be evaluated, but as sacrilege. And the typical response to sacrilege isn’t a tolerant appreciation of the wonderful diversity of human lifeways: “Well, I’m not personally into sacrilege, but if other people are, who am I to judge?” Instead, the typical response is to censor, to silence, to cancel, punish, and shun.

   p. 21

9. 

   In our primary approach to making babies, humans are more like the average bird than the average mammal. Again: all very weird.

   p. 16

That’s all the quotes.

9 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more