The Color Blue

I would like to apologize for making it clear in my resolution that I am indeed referring to today's color preferences and not the color preferences of individuals hundreds of years ago. I do, however, think I made it quite clear in which context I was speaking of when I indicated "societal influence" in my resolution. The second sentence of R1 clearly indicates that societal influence is: "peer pressure and society's approval of this color for males" in the context of this debate. Furthermore, my opponent's main premise in her response simply is that ancient job roles were dictated by societal approval rather than physical abilities. While this indeed is a valid argument, the evidence behind this conjecture is lacking in the extreme. Testosterone is considered a male hormone but is actually an androgen (a hormone that affects tissue regeneration). It encourages bone density, lean muscle mass, sex drive, and a few other traits in both men and women. Since men have higher levels of testosterone these traits tend to be stronger in them than in women. . http://en.wikipedia.org... For this reason societal jobs were created due to natural superiority in the field of strength rather than "society's approval" or "peer pressure". Explicitly, jobs originated out of natural abilities rather than societal approval for these jobs. Therefore this refutation is rendered null. Subsequently, my opponent goes onto make the same null point when referencing the bumblebee. I do find that my opponent has mistakenly tried to slant the concept of evolution to match this argument in her favor. It is quite clear that evolution occurs primarily do to the need to adapt and to survive. Not because members in a society approve of this job roles. These job roles are assigned simply because it betters the chance of surviving. "Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes. Natural selection acts on the phenotype, or the observable characteristics of an organism, such that individuals with favorable phenotypes are more likely to >>>>survive<<<< . .. than those with less favorable phenotypes. " . http://en.wikipedia.org... Therefore my opponents argument that societal approval dictates natural selection is rendered null. My opponent again resolves to semantics to argue the case of sexual dimorphism and twists the meaning of societal influence to suit her own purposes. Then, my opponent attempts to refute the study itself after trying to sway its results in her favor. However, my opponent does make a legitimate argument when she conjectured that had the study been taken in the time frame where pink was designated for boys and blue for girls (1920s - 1940s) there may have been different results. However, my opponent has provided no evidence refuting the study's findings, or showing that such would be the case. Additionally, only in the 1920s were different gender colors assigned in Western Culture, however there is no evidence that popular colors were any different than they are today. Additionally a poll was done in 1939 , Parents magazine polled customers in a New York department store and found that 80% of shoppers preferred blue for boys and pink for girls. This may be an assumption, however it resides from a logical premise: that favorite colors did simply not change in the course of 19 years. . http://www.gentlebirth.org... Burkitt, Barrett, and Davis (2003) studied color preference in 330 U. K. children (age range=4-11 years). Each child was shown 10 colored cards (black, blue, brown, green, orange, pink, purple, red, white, and yellow) and asked to point to his or her favorite color. "There were, however, some interesting patterns in the Affect and Nature justifications as a function of color type. When we compared the colors pink/purple vs. blue, the former was more likely to elicit Affect justifications, whereas the latter was more likely to elicit Nature justifications. Affect (i. e. , a focus on the subjective, internal world) is commonly associated with femininity whereas Nature (i. e. , a focus on the objective, external world) is commonly associated with masculinity. 3) Affect: The child provided a specific emotion or affectively-based justification (e. g. , "It makes me happy" or "It's a pretty color"). (4) Nature: The child provided a nature-based justification (e. g. , "I like the color of grass"). " . http://findarticles.com... This final study shows the reasoning behind the color choices in children and further backs my argument of a genetic principle for color preferences. (1) Gender-Specific or -Linked: The child provided a gender-specific (e. g. , "Because it is a pretty girl color") or gender-linked justification (e. g. , "Because it is like Spiderman"). (2) Personal: The child provided an individualized justification that was not clearly gender-linked (e. g. , "It's the color of my wall"). The following reasons were also included in the study however the top justifications were 3 and 4, which clearly indicate that color preference is not gender biased. Furthermore it supports my argument that color preference originates from evolution/genetics. I have clearly resolved that color preference originates from a source other than peer pressure or society's approval of that color. Color preference originates by evolution/genetics. My opponent has clearly accepted the validity of the first scientific study resolving this, because he has not refuted the validity of it (only that results may have been different if conducted in another time period). Therefore as a result I have affirmed my resolution and strongly urge all voters to vote Pro in this debate. I appreciate my opponents participation in this debate and would like to thank voters for reading it. I strongly encourage all members voting to leave a reason for their response. Members who vote but leave no reasons for their decisions will not be counted in the final vote.