When Science Attacks

I have a pet peeve. Some scientists treat non-scientific knowledge (including know-how) as inherently, across-the-board inferior, and cite the "scientifically flawed" terms of such knowledge (which are often not meant to be read scientifically) for their argument. "If we follow this to its conclusion, it's clearly absurd" type reasoning, but without checking the basis of the original statement, or its purpose.

This really gets my goat. I think it's arrogant and gets in the way of the richer knowledge that results from considering multiple perspectives, or ways of knowing about things.

... And Scientists Are From Science-Planet (OOooooooo....)

The example that's really killing me the last few weeks (maybe a couple months, hmm, there's a real hook in this for me!) comes from Intimate Relationships by Miller & Rowland, the textbook for a class I'm taking on just that subject.

In their initial discussion of gender differences, Miller and Rowland go to great pains to destroy the "foolish idea" that "men and women are so different as to almost have come from different planets". They're referring of course to Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars, John Gray's long-running relationship self-help book series.

[I paraphrase:] "If this were true, we could expect a graphical depiction of the differences to look like this, with little to no overlap between the sexes."

"The empirical data gained over a century of psychological research, however, shows that, while there are some systematic differences, men and women share much more in common than we are sometimes be led to believe," say Miller and Rowland. "Graphing such data shows clearly that most of the variation among women or men is also shared between women and men."

Well Yeah, But...

I am not disputing Rowland and Miller's general assertion about gender differences. (Or sex differences, as the case may be. In this context those two terms are commonly interchangeable -- that's called gender normativity and I've got some thoughts on that issue that will have to wait for another post. Also, we're talking about heterosexual relationships; same deal.)

Women and men share most qualities in common. But there's a gaping hole in Rowland and Miller's argument -- or rather, there's just no argument to be had. Gray is not speaking their language, and they're not speaking his.

Functional Description vs. Scientific Explanation

I don't know about you, but when, after a period of occlusion by the Earth, the sun again becomes visible to me above the horizon, I call that "sunrise". I say, "the sun came up at about 6:30 this morning."

Likewise, when I am no longer able to see the sun due to its again being occluded by the Earth, I say, "the sun went down. (What a beautiful sunset.)"

As much as I love science, and fully understand that the sun is not actually going up and down, describing my experience of the sun in this way is still fully functional for my purposes. Now, if I'm trying to launch a spacecraft, I'll probably adopt different language and conceptual models. In the meantime though, the sun comes up to start the daytime, and goes down to start the night.

We are all fully capable of understanding things from different perspectives, and choosing the most effective and efficient perspective in a given context.

Rowland & Miller seem not to understand this, however. When John Gray says "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus", he is not making a scientific statement. Even they know that he's not making a literal statement ("This guy is crazy! I have home video of my son's birth and it was definitely in an Earth-based hospital!"), but they suddenly become confused enough to devote a couple pages in their textbook to showing that this "theory" of sex/gender differences is out to lunch.

Here's what I think Gray is saying:

from inside an intimate relationship, people experience their opposite-gender partners as extremely different from them in certain regards, particularly in the areas of emotional expression, intimacy needs, & communication.

Put that in your graph and smoke it!

As a hypothesis, I feel pretty good about that gloss on Gray. I'm pretty confident it would bear out under study. But how boring and lifeless is the language? Even for science writing, it could be leaner and more transparent -- and Gray is a popular writer. His purpose is to teach people to understand their intimate partners better, leading to better compassion, and to try new behaviours, leading to higher relationship functionality and satisfaction.

He couches this in a hyberbolic metaphor about different sexes being different species. Because its a little out there, rings true for some people, gives an easy-to-digest narrative/conceptual structure to his ideas, and makes people laugh, it works. He sells books. People's relationships benefit. (Mine has, my Dad's has, &c.)

Finally, importantly: Grey's angle is in no way incompatible with Rowland & Miller's assertion about gender differences. Think about sexual attraction: zoom out far enough and the differences between sexes and genders are small, but when it comes to the nitty-gritty, they make all the difference.

Science, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down

Scientific psychology practiced by academics has a different audience and a different purpose. It speaks a different language, or at least views relationships from a very different perspective. The only thing that happens when people like Rowland & Miller (and anyone who gets entrenched in their favourite way-of-knowing from time to time [yeah I've maybe done it once or twice]) attack other perspectives is that divisions are created (knowledge cliques if you will) and everybody's progress slows down.

Physicists and astronomers don't harp on civil engineers for treating the earth as a stationary body. That's a very reasonable assumption in that context. Likewise, laboratory psychologists shouldn't harp on relationship coaches for treating men and women as very different creatures. Up close and personal, they really are.