Where are you getting your “facts” from? The “Mother Goddess” cultures predate agriculture according to every source I’ve ever seen. In fact, it would appear that with agriculture (which was invented by women) we witness the rise of male Gods and the rise of patriarchy.

You show me your sources and I’ll show you mine… but please try to be intellectually honest. I’m happy to see you thinking about all this and sad to see you simplify it into tidy factually incorrect boxes.

Sorry, didnt get the link to work.

I guess you could state it that way. It’s the humans that faulter. And interpreting the data is tricky business.

Pelle:

I agree that “aggression” is too simple. It depends on how you define it. And this goes back to what I said before, what words/interpretations we (or the scientist) use.
Really looking forward to more posts from you Pelle!

I don’t think we can say that testosterone and aggression are directly linked. Human beings are way to complex for one hormone to explain an entire emotion.

From what I’ve read you get an increase in aggression if testosterone is doubled, or preferably quadrupled, in men. But those kinds of increases rarely happen under natural circumstances. Similarly if testosterone levels plummet below 20% of normal levels, aggression decreases.

So there is no clear connection between small testosterone variations in men, and aggression levels in men. However, there is a connection between men having a vastly higher testosterone level than women, and men being more aggressive than women. But even then “aggression” may not be a good word, because testosterone simply represents a force which may express itself as aggression but it can also be expressed in a much more positive way.

About your report on testosterone: it’s got nothing to do with science failing, but with human expectations, both in interpreting data and seek these out.

Yes, scince is to be regarded as carefully as any opinion any human ever states, however, science invites you to do so, which is a significant difference.

As you say, we need always to question further, but in the meantime, politics are left behind, constantly wondering.

I have no solution on this to suggest.

hampus

But isn’t it interesting, in this specific research (and if it’s true), that the “nice guys” were not more aggressive when testosterone levels were higher?

“In fact, in these men it was a decrease in testosterone level that made them aggressive. ”

That’s news to me at least, boggles my mind a bit I must confess. Perhaps they’ve got some psychological issues (a la Freud… haha).
And it’s stuff like this that encourages me to put on my “skeptical-goggles”. There are always a lot of presumptions made, by the scientists, that may have to be questioned further. There is no solid ground to stand on here, but we take things for granted just to get started, which is fine. I’m just looking for the really really good scientists who check their own values and biases first, before they conduct certain experiments. A lot of scientists claim they do, but in my opinion, they’re not self-reflexive enough. We needn’t use the postmodernist language of discoure, deconstruction and all of that. But it’s always healthy to question our own definitions (of the words we use), our thoughts etc.

But other than that, I agree with your views!

As far as I understand the research about testosterone, the current knowledge is something along these lines:

Men have a lot more testosterone than women (40 to 60 times more), and not only on a group level. Virtually every man has a lot more testosterone than every woman, regardless of upbringing and cultural surroundings.

However, the environment can play a part in the smaller fluctuations of testosterone in a certain man, or between men. If two men compete, the winner gets a boost in testosterone and the looser a decrease - at least temporarily. Social dominance may also affect testosterone levels.

So it seems to me that having a male level of testosterone is determined by biology, but the “intra-male” fluctuations may be significantly impacted by the environment.

I will do an entire post or two about testosterone in the future

Pelle

It states that while there is a clear link between testosterone and aggression, it’s not 100% true in ALL cases.

It looks like the men who was dominant, got more aggressive when testosterone levels went up. But the men who were the “nice guys” didn’t get more aggressive. This is a perfect example of why we should be carefull about what science tells us. (Note, I’m not saying that all science therefore is bad, or wrong) We form a hypothesis, we try it out, reach some conclusions that sounds “right”.. we try it over and over again, but still, we might have missed something.

So let’s just let our minds run free for a second (and please feel free to swing back at me). Let’s say that it’s the individuals personality that determines how the testosterone will effect him/her. And perhaps, the environment! (This is clearly an anti-reductionistic postmodern comment.)

Well this means that maybe we can raise our young boys to be more caring and less dominant, it might not be the testosterone that makes them dominant.

I know I know, there may be other factors that are involved on a biology level (perhaps testosterone “makes” males more aggressive, but then social conditioning “overrides” this or molds it) and I’m deliberately playing fast here. I wouldn’t exactly know how to test my own hypothesis. And this is where I loose my mind with a lot of the postmodernists/feminists today. They make up their own theory about why things are the way they are, based on the “fact” that reality is a social construction. (My guess is that this is what you, Hampus, hate about postmodernism).