Jobs for the boys

I would also like to point out that logic and sanity are not the same thing. While I do not believe all of the arguments I used in my last post were sane, I do believe they were all perfectly logical. Also, I apologise if my prose is somewhat lacking. I too have been rather busy as of late. Onwards. - "Con has rightly recognised the strength of many of my points. " I have accepted the facts that the Pro has presented, but a fact is not an argument. While I appreciate the work Pro has done in pointing out significant problems, this achievement is tainted by the fact that he has yet to propose a viable solution - which "Jobs for the boys" clearly isn't. The fact that Pro has seen fit to quietly tiptoe around several of the issues I raised with his proposed solution only further proves my point. My opponent suggests that jobs be handed out based upon friendship between parents. As I have already pointed out, ability isn't always passed through the generations. As my opponent has failed to repute this, he clearly sees my point. But ask yourself, is this the future we are envisioning for ourselves? Where once again natural ability has naught to do with a person's influence? I think not. I am not going to refute the fact that in this day and age a fair bit of time is spent compiling one's resume and such. Is this time truly wasted if it ensures that we have the best possible people in authority? The system may not be perfect, but until we find another way of selecting the person most suitable for a position it remains a better option than drawing lots out of the genetic hat. I do believe that one of the points we have managed to agree on is that if men are unable to focus in a woman's presence, one of the genders must be removed from prominent positions in the office. In the case that men were given the dominant role, women would have to be removed all together. You, my friend, by simple use of logic have just halved the work force. My opponent has suggested that the higher variation in intelligence makes men more suitable for important positions. There has been much contention around what an IQ test actually measures. The original purpose was to test pattern recognition skills, but studies, such as this(1) show that there may be other factors at play. My opponent has also suggested that men are more intelligent than women, due to a measured 5 point gap in average intelligence. This claim would seem far more valid if the same publication which my opponent sourced for this fact had not published a second article(2) in which it stated that given the equal opportunities now provided to women, womens' tested IQs are quickly catching up and have even begun to overtake those of men. Seeing as this article was published in 2012, two years after the article my opponent sourced, I think it's safe to say that new data has emerged, and it's time to move on from old, erroneous stances. Are we really willing to bet our futures on some numbers that came out of a test when we don't even know what it is we're measuring? Even if an IQ test measures what we have always assumed it does, is pattern recognition the most crucial skill in our workers? Studies have shown that a transformational leadership style is based on an individual's emotional intelligence(3). Isn't the ability to motivate workers to produce better work a more valuable skill than pattern recognition? As such, I don't see how either the supposed 5 additional IQ points or the higher variation in men's IQ is relevant to the way we select the gender most suited to "sit in the big chair". Would it be wrong to conclude from this information that it would be more harmful to reduce the workforce by half (and it's more intelligent half, on average) than to deny it a few geniuses? "Now I hate to break it to Con, but carrying children requires muscles. " First off, may I remind Pro that walking also requires muscles, as does breathing. The ability to do these things doesn't automatically mean that a person has wonderful prospects in manual labour. For those who remain skeptical, for reasons of their own, may I provide this article (4) which discusses, among other things, the effects of testosterone on muscle mass. The fact that my opponent has chosen to interpret my statement that only women can "carry children" as meaning women are the only ones who can pick a child up and carry it around, suggests to me that he is rather grasping at straws to defend his rapidly dying argument. However, I am willing to concede that my wording could have been taken either way. If the Pro wants to attempt to argue against my reassertion that men cannot give birth, he is welcome to try. I welcome him equally to contest the fact that men are more suitable for heavy labour than women, if he desires to do so. So, if we allow women to take charge, the men can continue to do other forms of labour, from the aforementioned construction to fetching the women's coffee. This is clearly a more economic use of resources than having half the population sit at home all day. My Pro warns of unemployment, but is this really an issue raised by having everyone work? Every member of society is another mouth to feed, and thus would it not be better to have more of the population working, and less people full stop? What my oponent is talking about here is overpopulation. So you say having more mouths to feed creates more jobs? This is true. It creates jobs in areas such as agriculture and retail: the very fields of business that are causing a decline in the environment(5) and the atrocities that people today call fashion. Would we not be better served if we could divert the workforce away from such areas and towards developing technologies and advancing our understanding of the universe? While we're on retail, my opponent has also suggested that keeping men in the office will somehow preserve their declining fashion sense. It is true that social expectations of working men keep them in respectable attire during office hours. This does not change the fact that these same men will happily follow today's fashions during their free time if they are so inclined. This is clearly an issue with social expectations in general, and the proportion of men in the office is not what needs to change. Continuing the theme of outward appearances, people today are faceless, it's true, but whoever said that was a bad thing? The ability to see past someone's outward appearance allows us to see a person at their core and judge them by their abilities rather than their charisma. You may say that a faceless culture implies a breakdown of communications, but 'actions speak louder than words'. I'm not about to suggest that we take an old saying as proof, but I thinks that it takes us down an interesting path of logic. My opponent has brought up the example of politicians. May I ask, would we be capable of deciding to give a politician the boot based on his policies, despite the limiting factor of not knowing what variety of tea his father preferred? No, I'm afraid to say that "Jobs for the boys" just isn't the solution we're looking for. - 1. . http://news.sciencemag.org... 2. . http://www.dailymail.co.uk... 3. Mandell, Barbara, and Shilpa Pherwani. "Relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership style: a gender comparison. " Journal of Business and Psychology 17.3 (2003): 387-404. 4. . http://www.livescience.com... 5. . http://www.environment.gov.au...