The upshot is that the very strongest female athletes are barely above the median of grip strength for men. The top 75th percentile of female athletes are below the bottom 25th percentile of men. Another way to look at it is cumulative distributions. You can tell looking at this that there is overlap between the two sample distributions. How much? Ten percent of women have stronger grips than the bottom five percent of men. The difference in distributions is big enough that the very strongest non-elite athlete female in the whole data set has a weaker grip than most of the men.
Men are stronger than women (on average)
Every now and then there is a debate on who is more “anti-science”, the Left or the Right. I’m not too interested in the details of that, but, a few years ago I expressed my skepticism to Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science, that liberals were somehow reflexively more “pro-science.” I suggested […]
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Beeecaaaause… dudes have cause to exercise grip daily?
Gimme a break! I am a liberal, living in a liberal town, teaching physiology at a liberal university and married to a feminist. Â I never met anyone, man or woman, who didn't admit that men usually have more upper body strength than women. Â What's next? A scientific study to determine whether women typically have less hairy chests than men?
+Mark Bothwell I'm not sure what the point of your comment is.
I mean, did you even read the study? Â (no you didn't, you had a knee-jerk reaction to someone criticizing "your side")
+Dustin Wyatt The linked article implies that liberals are hypocrites because they criticize conservatives for being anti-science, while harboring their own anti-science beliefs such as denying that there are biological differences between men and women; eg, denying that men have more upper body strength than women.  I contend that this is BS – I have never met a liberal who denied that men have more upper body strength than women. Stupid is not restricted to any political philosophy, so I am sure there must be a liberal somewhere who thinks that way, but it certainly is not a typical liberal belief.
I suspect that the hidden agenda here is criticizing liberals for the belief that women are generally as intellectually capable, and as capable in performance of most jobs as men. Â The author of the article just didn't have the balls to say that, so he attacked the straw dog of muscular women.
So, no, you didn't read the study.
And you can suspect all you want, but the author is a widely published and respected author and scientist whose blog is often linked by bloggers across the political spectrum.
So, I suspect your suspicion is wrong and you really just didn't like him criticizing a potential liberal weakness.
+Dustin Wyatt I read every word. The author says " I suggested to him, for example, that when it comes to aspects of the biological basis of human behavior… liberals are highly resistant to accepting any differences across groups because of their adherence to social constructionism….  Who doesn’t know the extent of this biological difference? Well, lots of people at a minimum pretend not to". I think that I summarized that thesis pretty accurately. If you read it differently, please tell me what you think the author is saying.
I think it's fairly common knowledge that men have greater upper-body strength than women – on average. Of course, I made this argument to a Feminazi once and she went batshit crazy calling me a MRA proponent.
Oh those silly liberals.
+Mark Bothwell​ that's a quote from the blog post, not the study. While you implied the purpose of the study was silly, the study lies out the reason it was conducted.
lol at this dude jumping up to shriek at any criticism of liberals
How would he react to the discovery that actual leftists think modern liberals are weak-ass capitalist babies
You're living in a fantasy land if you don't acknowledge that there is a subset of the left that won't acknowledge differences between men and women or any other grouping of people.
+Dustin Wyatt Fair enough.  I misunderstood your comment. The study is not silly. The blog author's use of the study is silly – because it is a straw dog argument. The author criticizes liberals for refusing to admit that there are differences between men and women, and then uses as an example a difference that nobody except the lunatic fringe would deny.
I do have one criticism of the study itself – the authors claim that even athletically trained women lack grip strength, and they use women trained in handball and judo as their study group., claiming that these sports have unusual requirements for grip strength. That is ridiculous. I play handball – there is no gripping involved. I can't think of a sport where grip strength is less important. Â Judo is a poor example also. Â I would like to see measurements of grip strength of female gymnasts or wight lifters. Still, it is silly to deny that women tend to have less grip strength.toÂ
By the way, I am objecting only to the specific example, and the intellectual dishonesty used in the linked blog post. I actually agree with the premise that political correctness sometimes causes some liberals to deny real differences between human groups, be it gender, social, or racial differences. Â This can be contrasted to the tendency of some conservatives to exaggerate such differences to justify unjust policies. Â Too bad we can't have honest discussions of the facts without our prejudices distorting the conversation.Â
Oh how apropos that this came across my feed today:
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/liberals-and-conservatives-both-resist-science-but-differently/