Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00384)

On Sun, 12 Jan 1997, Tom Robertson wrote:
> >>Women _are_ more compassionate and cooperative than men.
> >
> >	All one needs to disprove that is to find one given man who is more
> >cooperative and compassionate than one woman.  One must label generalizations as such; if you had stated, "In general, women are more compassionate and cooperative than men", it would be far more difficult to disprove.
> 
> The default is the other way around.  Since part of the definition of a
> generalization is that it _has_ exceptions, only absolute statements made
> the way I said this one need to be specified.  If I had meant that the
> least compassionate and cooperative woman is more compassionate and
> cooperative than the most compassionate and cooperative man, then I would
> have had to qualify my statement with the word "all" before both the word
> "women" and the word "men."  My statement is correct as it stands.

Your statement, as it stands, is an opinion. It would become correct if
you defined the terms "compassionate" and "cooperative" (as people use 
these words with many meanings) and then offered some evidence that, given
your definitions, there is objective grounds for making such a
generalization. Science often makes generalizations that can be considered
correct or incorrect - one can state, for instance, that only women have
the ability to lactate, or that only women have the ability to have long
hair. Evidence can be used to say that the first is "correct" (as a
generalization - there are always biological anomolies) , while the second
generalization is "incorrect".  

But stating an opinion in the form of a generalization is just that: the
assertion of an personal opinion. It is only possible to begin speaking of
"correct" or "incorrect" when evidence (which in this case would likely
have to be statistical studies of the global population of men and women
to be valid) begins to be presented, and the methodology of the evidence
gathering and analysis is open to investigation. It is the evidence
gathering, processing, and analysis functions that differentiates a
generalization that has grounds in objective reality from one that is
simply a personal opinion, a personal or cultural bias, or a folk tale.  
							Regards, -JRC

[PS. This post is not a flame.]