Art Vandelay said:
"I assumed randomly selected from the average of population."
By that, do you mean "US population"?
That was what i meant with any culture. Ancient rome, today US, stone age, today Israel,...
With a slight exclusion, i exclude any society, that extremely pronounces women to go to war and discourages men strongly to go to war over at least a hundred years. The only society i know of is the greek myth of amazons, i did not think about it, as it is not certain it realy existed.
Art Vandelay said:
You said "no matter what cultural background or exact weapons used." In Israel, pretty much everyone, male or female, receives military training.
I would still choose 5 men over 10 women.
There might be a small selection effect regarding Israel i do not know about. People who are more upset by the constant terror are more likely to emigrate and less likely to immigrate. If this "can stand the constant terror less" is corelated with the ability to perform well as a soldier(which i only guess it is, certainly no proof to offer), then the special situtation israel would cause a slight selection bias.
Also i realize i had the assumption(damn german pazifism), that not the major part of a population consist of armed forces, so a society, where the army makes up 20-30 % of the population, i would closely rethink my bet for the 5 men.
Art Vandelay said:
In other countries, almost no one does. When I said "equally trained", I was referring to any level of training, as long as it was constant. Ten women with no experience or taining against five men with no experience or training? No contest.
Here we differ, 5 untrained men against 10 untrained women, i would bet on the women.
But the definition of untrained is a bit tricky, you know even a weekly soccer match is already some sort of training, at least you learn how to jump above legs, that gets handy when someone tries to kick you.
Art Vandelay said:
Ten well trained women against five wel trained men? No contest, even if one first randomly chooses the 15 people among the general population, then trains them (eliminating the selection bias you alude to before).
Here i bet differently, the 5 man will fair beter on the average.
Though it depends upon, what you do with those selected randomly, who have problems to get thorugh the training(i'm absolutely certain, that i would have to quit after at most 1 week of basic military training and the ratio could be different for men and women).
Art Vandelay said:
In the US, more men receive training in military skills and skills applicable to a fight (wrestling, boxing, tackling, etc.)
There arises a problem due to the fact, that nearly any physical activity is a bit training for a specific potential combat situation.
If someone is used to catch balls, then he will be better able to catch a fist. He still might do it in a way, that harms him, but getting harmed because of deflecting a fist not optimally is preferable to get a straight hit in the face. Otoh, it will be little help in a gun fight. There again playing hide and seek can help, if the other one does not know where you are, he has more problems shooting you.
Art Vandelay said:
I think, therefore, that most of the difference in the US between men and women is due to culture (not all). I don't think "killer instinct" is very relevant;
You know that the US and other armies realized during WW2, that a large part of the soldiers do not realy try to kill enemy soldiers?
(i think 50%+, number of course depends on exact situation, but do not worry, they learned, how to train theri soldiers, that they have less stoppage to use violence)
So the mindset regarding the use of violence does affect combat abilities(if you do not try to kill you cannot win) and this is where i think men have an edge no matter the background or training, i think they have less stoppages to use violence generally. This i think is also a reason, why criminals tend to be mostly men, especially, when it comes to violence.
I agree that it is pretty hard to prove that the differences in general treating of men and women are not the sole cause for the difference in agressiveness.
But i have a book(ok, popular science) at home about fundamental differences between men and women, where the author mention that sometimes by normal medical examinations it is realized(often during adolescence), that the person does have a different gender, than diagnosed at birth and what he/she and parents thought. A study looking solely at such accidentally discovered misconceptions showed, that the female thought to be male, still had a habit to spend there time more with "female" activities(playing with puppets,games that do not declare winners,...) and liked those more, than with "male" activities(scuffling, playing games where winning is the main goal,...) and disliked it when their parents wanted them to do such activities. It was the same way the other way round.
Certainly such a study can be easily screwed e.g. by the defintions or by the fact, that those wrongly identified males and females are less likely to be detected, if they get along well with the role society puts them in.
I can, if you want, provide author names and their exact jobs and i can look if there is some information allowing to find that study.
Art Vandelay said:
Your post seems more concerned with showing why the military is not relevant, than with showing that otherwise your statement is correct.
I was trying to show why training induces a selection bias, as people who dislike violence very much(those who prefer running away, instead of picking a stone and smash it a dozen times on their enemies head, while he is grounded), will certainly not on their free will join military training. But those who dislike violence very much, will also be less effective when forced to use it, because thy are more likely to hesitate.
But i agree, i have no good proof to offer, i'm mostly guessing, just like the side who says "it is all training", because definite proof and repeatable tests are hard to come by.
I just have the impression that "it is all training" is often not preferred, because it offers the better facts, but because it is more political correct.
It certainly would get more difficult to convince all the dumb heads out there that equality laws and movement are a good idea, while at the same time telling them, you know, men are realy at reading maps and women are realy better in caring for children. This would open the doors for all the chauvinistic reviosionist out there to get women back in homes to child care. Therefore i understand, that it is a touchy issue.
Carn
