Dark Bilious Vapors

But how could I deny that I possess these hands and this body, and withal escape being classed with persons in a state of insanity, whose brains are so disordered and clouded by dark bilious vapors....
--Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy: Meditation I

Home » Archives » April 2005 » Guy Things and Sports Trivia

[« Mini-Dreams for the Road] [More about those Women's rights... »]

04/13/2005: Guy Things and Sports Trivia


I was trying to recalling a 6th grade experience of seeing a Cubs v Mets game in NY City at Shea Staduim when I mentioned to Len:

"...but I was only in 6th grade - and not having that "girl disposition" to remember every sports FACTOID which EVER occurred as part of my right of passage into adolescence -as is the case for you GUYS -I wasn't taking copious notes either in my Greymatter. *smile* But I'm sure you could tell me ALL about it."


Presume for a minute that all the flap about Lawrence Summers and the "differences between men and women" in the acedemic fields of math (or engineering) are "true" to some statistical percentage. Or that the recent "Gender" DNA differences mean something on a statistical basis as a reason few women *pursue* math at the advanced levels as men.

"Why" is the question...as to "what makes this the case" if it is indeed the case?

I think this "sports trivia right of passage" is a key ingredient of the above "difference" between Men & Women on topic of this mathematics points...because, if I was to posit a societal distinction -- it would be that Guys...from a very early age, begin this "mathematical" and "statistical" discussion and memorization as it related to all sports facts and trivia.

And it's not just the *who won or lost* and the final score, but very sophisticated statistical stuff like RBI's averages over the season or against a particular teams, hitting or scoring percentages per game, per season. And just a host of this kind of complicated mathematical type of "scorekeeping" which is then exchanged among their peers (unless one is a complete Geeky outsider to the social world of boys) and on up through adulthood.

It isn't necessary to even LIKE every sport...or know all of them...any single sport will do. They all have relevant mathematical "trivia" to keep track and score-cards about.

But there's no "comparable" girls experience to this phenom. I can't think of single girl activity that compares by the *early age* at which it begins, or covers such complex - mathematical fomulas and stats for them to "meditate", *muse*, and *female-bond* over throughout life. (Blancing checkbooks nothwithstanding. LOL)

So what do you think? Do I have an interesting idea here? It seems to the have the ring of "plausible" if not a kernel of "truth" in life experience to it? And it explains many things about this issue at a very general level (subject to somene being "crazeee" enough to get a grant and study it officially.)

I am not proposing that men and women aren't different, but simply that we could better use and understand those differences and re-create this world view, to make it better functioning and better for the vast majoirty of people if we abandoned the "male modeling" as the goal to strive for (and making women perform in this male paradigm) as the predominate world view and shifted these prioroties around to a "feminine model." But also if we understood these differences better as a whole (than ignore them as merely PC-incorrect to discuss at all.)

Len points out how in:
"Alan Schwarz's _The Numbers Game_ (a history of baseball statistics)
it's interesting how many people in math-intensive professions (not just
mathematicians but actuaries, economists, accountants, operations
researchers, sabermetricians, etc.) got their interest in number
crunching through being introduced to baseball statistics."

I sent an e-mail to Mr. Schwarz...and I'll see if he responds with any *thoughts.*

So ponder this one.

Karen on 04.13.05 @ 05:56 AM CST



[ | ]

April 2005
SMTWTFS
     12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930



Home
Archives
Archives of Blogger site
Archives: May '04-Feb '05
Archives: Feb-March '05



RSS 1.0 FEED
Powered by gm-rss

Len's sidebar:
About Len (The uncondensed version)
Memorial to a dear friend
Frederick W. Benteen
The Web of Leonards
The St. Louis Cardinals
The Memphis Redbirds
The St. Louis Browns
The Birdwatch
Hey! Spring of Trivia Blog
BlogMemphis (The Commercial Appeal's listing of Memphis blogs)
The Guide to Life, the Universe, and Everything
George Dubya Bush Blows
Kraftwerk: Chicago, 6/4/2005
My Chicago: Part One
My Chicago, Part Two
Millennium Park
Miscellaneous Chicago
Busch Stadium Tour and BoSox/Cards Game: 6/6/2005
St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum

Len's extended blogroll:

Brock's Sidebar:
About Brock
The Agitator
Agoraphilia
apostropher
Boing Boing
Brad DeLong
Crooked Timber
The Decembrist
Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Fafblog
Flypaper Theory
Heretical Ideas
John and Belle Have a Blog
Jon Rowe
Julie Saltman
The Language Guy
Literal Minded
Majikthise
Marginal Revolution
Matthew Yglesias
Oliver Willis
Orin Kerr
Pandagon
Pharyngula
Political Animal
Positive Liberty
Signifying Nothing
Unfogged
Unqualified Offerings

Karen's Sidebar
About Karen
The Ig-Nobel Prizes
The Annals of Improbable Research
The Darwin Awards
EBaums World
Real Clear Politics
U.S. News Wire
Foreign Affairs
The Capitol Steps
Overlawyered
Engrish
Legal Affairs
Nobel Laureates for Change
Program On International Policy
Law of War
Sunday Times
Media Matters
Fafblog
Is That Legal?
Discourse
Andrew Sullivan
Evolutionblog
Literal Minded
Jon Rowe
Dysblog
Freespace Blog
Thought Not
Publius Pundit
Maddox
Blog Maverick
Rosenberg Blog
Crooked Timber
GreeneSpace
EdCone.com
Conglomerate
McSweeney's

The Rocky Top Brigade:


Rocky Top Brigade Sampler


A New Memphis Mafia


The liberal alternative to Drudge.

Get Firefox!




The Rebel Alliance of Yankee Haters
Blue Squadron (NL)
Babalu (Marlins)
Leaning Toward the Dark Side (Mets)
Ramblings' Journal (Cubs)
Mediocre Fred (Brewers)
Len Cleavelin (Cardinals)
Red Squadron (AL)
Obscurorama (Red Sox)
Frinklin Speaks (Mariners)
Steve Silver (Twins)
Steve the Llama Butcher (Red Sox)
Rob the Llama Butcher (Rangers)
MoatesArt (Red Sox)
Rammer (Tigers)
JawsBlog (Indians)
Ubi Libertas (Blue Jays)
Oldsmoblogger (Indians)
Mass Backwards (Red Sox)
Unassigned
Industrial Blog
Cry Freedom



How many visitors are here:


Blogrings/Blog indexes/Blog search:
« ? Verbosity # »


Listed on Blogwise
Blogarama - The Blog Directory
Popdex
Popdex Citations
Technorati
Blog Search Engine



Greymatter Forums Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com
template by linear