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Comment by soganess | Hacker News Reader

After reading both his big books and seeing a few interviews, I am left with the sense that he is just a new spin on the old ceremony.

Example: He has a positive view on the gender gains of the last 100 years and a broad definition of gender in the future[1], but still believes in gender essentialist stuff [2]. If forced, I'd rather people adopt his views over those of others, so you are right there. But the bones of his arguments are the same ones we've heard for ages repackaged with an affect of intelligence that is agreeable to modern sensibilities.

As an aside, regardless of whether you believe in gender essentialism or not, having someone talking out of both sides of an argument doesn't instill a ton of confidence that the individual has considered the interplay of their arguments.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqiXae9eLPY

[2]: https://youtu.be/TYAKHLrr51w?t=128

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How can you expect him to answer a question about a major historical difference between men and women across all known societies… without out talking about the essential differences between men and women?

Curious how you would have answered.

Bio-esentialism and gender essentialism is not about "essential differences" as in "distinct and considerable", but about the idea of your biological gender being solely responsible for determining a persons psychological and social attributes.

It's a simplistic point of view that does not consider the sociological aspects of gender contributing to gendered outcomes.

The very point of the question was to address a gender difference that's independent of any specific society.

The phrasing was: "spatially across the world, and temporally throughout history."

He then talks about innate differences in animals which leads to matriarchal societies (he claims in elephants and bonobos.) Then speculates that there may be a similar distinction in humans. How do you find this simplistic? How is this "gender essentialism"?

It's gender essentialism because he makes a foregone conclusion that "there will be static gender differences across cultures" and then he implies that they are unavoidable and due to innate gender factors.

He looks at an outcome, and then draws a conclusion about the mechanism behind the outcome which supports his position.

He does this without proposing an experiment to verify his hypothesis about the mechanisms. Just finding a correlation with gender says nothing about any "innate mechanism".

It's his opinion based on his reading of the science, lol. And a reasonable one with which I mostly agree. If you think you have a better theory that explains gender differences, by all means, tell the world! But don't vilify people who have different outlooks over the data.

There is no question that biology plays a role in gender outcomes, but the view that gendered outcomes in society are 100% explainable by biology and unavoidable is the bio-essentialist view, which is naive and simplistic. Why would Harari's -- a historian's -- hot take be preferable to the consemsus ofof gender researchers and sociologists who actually study gender in experiments and statistical studies?

I don't think I'm vilifying anyone by saying this. But if that's where we're heading, yes, I think he's a grifter, same as Michio Kaku. He goes far beyond his area of expertise to make big statements that give him publicity.

> Why would Harari's -- a historian's -- hot take be preferable to the consemsus ofof gender researchers and sociologists who actually study gender in experiments and statistical studies?

Everyone can decide for themselves. Speaking for myself, sociologists are notorious for downplaying the importance of genes to individual/group outcomes (something that, IMO, should be consensus) and I imagine they will try to push a blank slate agenda whenever they can. So I adjust my trust in them accordingly.

I know sociologists, and I call bullshit on them downplaying the "importance of genes". Sociology looks at statistical evidence and argues about the mechanisms of societal outcomes based on that.

Even if we accept your comment that sociologists don't know what their talking about, Harari is not the right alternative to turn to. Harari is not a biologist, he is a historian. If you ask evolutionary biologists, they tend to agree with the sociologists.

Everyone can be wrong for themselves, sure. I'll stick to the biologists, geneticists, and endocrinologists over a historian trying to sell books. That's adjusting my trust accordingly

> I'll stick to the biologists, geneticists, and endocrinologists over a historian trying to sell books.

You make it look like there's a consensus between them.

It's unfortunate that Harari gets this bad press. I've read his books and listen to a bunch of his podcasts and he looks very open-minded and scientific based. I see myself disagreeing with him a lot of times, but I don't get mad at him because he tries to speak the language of science, which is good enough for me.

I mean the main point against would be that he’s not a biologist and doesn’t seem to have done much reading in the area.

Well, is != ought. So the recognition of gender essences a la Simon Baron-Cohen is not incompatible with striving to minimize those changes. We may stumble along the way, and it may prove to be a fool's errand, but in principle this is not impossible to achieve.

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