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Also, one of my yoga teachers has been talking about the anatomical differences in women's and men's backs for years; she brings it up to caution women not overextend the arch in their low backs. I somehow doubt this is particularly "new knowledge," at least outside the West, though apparently including women in western research studies gives scientists cooties.
apparently including women in western research studies gives scientists cooties.
Which is really ironic, being that scientists invented cooties in the first place.
Well, it seems that one self righteous remark too many by the Metachat Feminists (TM) edged my irritation level over 9000. Also, I've had my fill of beating up on western science. There's a lot of left wing causes at which non-western systems have failed abjectly. Nobody is any "better," white liberal guilt notwithstanding.
The study is "Fetal load and the evolution of lumbar lordosis in bipedal hominins" (Nature, vol. 450, pp. 1075-1078). Here is the PDF.
I somehow doubt this is particularly "new knowledge," at least outside the West
Have you actually read the paper? If you did read it, could you understand it without a dictionary to hand?* I'm guessing not, so I'm not sure how you can leap to criticising Western science based on it.
mud, I've lost interest in being "useful." Like I said, over 9000
Well, with a reading that high on your exaspo-meter, why don't you just avoid threads like this? The way I see it, you have three basic choices. 1) Try to explain why you're exasperated in hopes that things will change and your exasperation will lessen. 2) Avoid threads that might set your exaspo-meter off, which will probably have the added effect of lowering your blood pressure. 3) Make yourself look like an incredible jerk by engaging in unnecessary, unfruitful personal attacks.
I wish you hadn't gone through door number 3, because a) you're smarter than that, and b) occhiblu did nothing to deserve your venom.
Because, matthewr, western research studies are notorious for excluding minorities (and I understand there are many reasons for this, so don't assume I'm on my high horse about feminism). Occhi may have been generalizing, but she need not have read the paper to make an educated guess that the discoveries contained therein have been considered common knowledge by other folks for a long, long time.
Well, I can't speak for the rest of us, but, for me personally, carrying a bunch of random junk and crumpled-up receipts in my back pockets provides a precise counterweight.
From the SF Chronicle article: Harvard anthropology researcher Katherine Whitcomb found two physical differences in male and female backs that until now had gone unnoticed: One lower lumbar vertebra is wedged-shaped in women and more square in men; and a key hip joint is 14 percent larger in women than men when body size is taken into account.
The abstract doesn't seem to make any different assertion; the full paper requires a payment that I'm not going to make.
My point is that they weren't unnoticed. I had heard about them years ago from a woman whose anatomical knowledge came from studying yoga and yogic anatomy. My criticism of Western science comes from the assumption that "no one knew" of this thing that, in fact, apparently many people knew about.
To be fair, though, Western science doesn't really know anything until a study takes place. That's what makes it science. They (scienticians, that is) can't just say "Yes, this is true because yogic anatomy says so".
A lot of the pitfalls of popular-press science reporting show up in this article. One of them is certainly "nobody knew that..."
Another is lines like this:
The back changes appear to have evolved to overcome the cost of walking on two feet
..a good example of the kind of writing that leads people to deep misconceptions about what evolution is and does. Evolution doesn't occur to 'overcome costs.'
I do think this is a cool thing to note, one of the several ways women's bone structure in general differs from men's that accommodates childbearing, but yeah, not sure why critiquing another 'OMG latest finding explains everything!' pop-science article should set anybody off.
Specklet, it was not so much an educated guess as a knee-jerk dismissal based on no information. It's a truism that 'Western' science neglects women, or has neglected women in the past, and hardly a good argument for instinctively every piece of research into female biology with contempt. I'd be interested to see some evidence that anyone outside the sciences, particularly yoga teachers, considered the findings of this paper "common knowledge".
There are, no doubt, plenty of valid criticisms of the reporter's piece, but surely everyone knows by now that arguing about 'science journalism' is a fool's game: head straight to the paper itself, which most likely clears up any confusion.
And there are, no doubt, plenty of valid criticisms of the the study, but surely everyone knows by now that taking seriously any critique that includes the phrase "gives scientists cooties" is a fool's game: assume humorous and hyperbolic intent, which will likely clear up any confusion.
I somehow doubt this is particularly "new knowledge," at least outside the West, though apparently including women in western research studies gives scientists cooties.
It's new knowledge in the sense that we know a) which limbs causes this b) what the exact differences actually do c) are able to model these in a computer d) apply finding to evolution and our understanding of women e) are able to do this without taking killing pregnant women and dissect them to figure out exactly where the shift in gravity is coming from.
Honestly, using a throw away "common knowledge" remark to bust out some statements about a) western scientific theory and b) gender issues is pretty weak. This research was not to discover what parts of men and women physically differ or how to apply it to our everyday lives - it was to figure out exactly which bones are doing what and showing how that relates to evolution. Practically, not much changes from what we already experienced in our personal lives but in the scope of understanding evolution and our own development, this discovery is pretty darn neat.
My criticism of Western science comes from the assumption that "no one knew" of this thing that, in fact, apparently many people knew about.
You're ignoring what the study actually shows and instead arguing about claims that the study doesn't make. It doesn't say we didn't know that women and men have different backs - it says that we didn't know how women are able to do what they can do.
Overwhelmingly, males have been considered the normal clinical subject for studies and trials and findings were generalized. Ironically, that gave rise to the very situation we're talking about here -- that for generations, medical professionals may have assumed that vertebra shape was not significantly different in males and females. Well, turns out it is! What might that mean for potential future studies of spinal problems, nerve problems, treatment of chronic conditions? Who knows - it might have huge implications or not, but the 'surprise' in the article results only from the assumption of the male physique as the human norm.
So it's not unreasonable to express some jadedness about findings like this. The problem of women's health research needing to uncover/sort out what a couple hundred years of the medical profession has overlooked will be with us for a while. That's not to say the medical learning we have had isn't valuable -- just hasn't been complete and, even today, is often fraught with assumptions.
It's not just a truism that Western medical research has neglected women in the past and continues to do so - it's demonstrably true
A truism is something that's self-evidently true — "a statement so obviously true as not to require discussion" — not something that's untrue, so I'm not sure where we disagree here.
Huh, I didn't know that about 'truism;' for my entire life I thought it meant something akin to 'cliche' only meaning 'something offered as truth.' Wikipedia adds that "A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device."
Whoops. Consider me educated.
I still think that the history of neglected traditional knowledge is good enought reason to look critically or perhaps a bit jadedly at new findings which focus on differences of gender (and ethnicity, and so on). That doesn't mean I don't that traditional cultural knowledge or knowledge from other thought systems shouldn't be examined and, where appropriate, brought into the fold of formal scientific findings. As far as I'm concerned, Western science has done a lot more good than harm, despite the fact that harm has been sometimes done. But because of the history of the field, there's no reason to be surprised that women and others might receive news of new findings such as this with a bit of world-weariness.
Just to clarify, since we're now on to performance art and schnozzes and nipplage -- I didn't mean to start anything by posting this. I really only posted it because the headline made me giggle.
The headline is why the story is getting the play, I'm sure -- "why pregnant women don't topple over" is a winning synopsis. If this research had been about a foot bone and explained why people evolved to get bunions, we probably wouldn't be seeing it.
Pie, of course since I read the article I noticed that the researchers were women. But I'm not sure how you think that should change the way I view a new scientific finding (would you expect me to agree with them more, or withhold critique because they share my gender?). They work within the medical tradition we're talking about (and I'm sure are very good at it, judging by their employment and success at getting funding). The article wasn't good enough to discuss how they formed this research question and zoned in on skeletal adaptations making pregancy more likely to succeed, nor does it discuss their thoughts on the shortcomings of a medical research history that has priveleged the male model - that would have been interesting, but hey, it's a 'hey martha' pop-science piece, so, you know. Anyway, we can't rule out that they became scientists precisely in order to examine and correct the medical record. Who knows? What's sure is that just because people share a characteristic, it doesn't mean they'll be in agreement about everything or see issues through the same lenses. It's no more true with gender than with race or class.
Anyway, whatever. I'm about to topple over and I'm not even preggers. No one means harm, energy best saved for another day. When it comes to genderish things that are troubling, I'm much more sad about the girl in the pics jonmc posted, the girl who seems to equate sexiness and fun and brass and carefree youth with flirtatiously posing with her boyfriend's gun to her head and then enjoying a little brutal rampaging.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
