So what? Can you name at least one non-gender specific trait which displays greater deviation in females when expressed in commonly used units (yes/no)?
Think about various possible characteristics: blood pressure, 100m dash time, hair length, sleep duration, number of friends on Facebook, longevity, lymphocyte count ...
No, it's the standard scientific process. When one party sees quite a few black ravens (mortal humans) and hypothesizes that all ravens are black (all humans are mortal), the other party willing to disprove the hypothesis ought to seek and to demonstrate a non-black raven (an immortal human) rather than to muse that it is silly to assume that absolutely all existing ravens must be black (all existing humans must be mortal).
Yours is a misconception about the meaning of the word "scientific".
All falsifiable hypotheses about reality are by their nature scientific (as in "regulated by or conforming to the principles of exact science", where the meaning of "science" is taken as "systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation"; both definitions from dictionary.com), as opposed to mythological, superstitious, etc.
Encyclopedia Britannica gives the following definition:
"scientific hypothesis, an idea that proposes a tentative explanation about a phenomenon or a narrow set of phenomena observed in the natural world. The two primary features of a scientific hypothesis are falsifiability and testability, which are reflected in an “If...then” statement summarizing the idea and in the ability to be supported or refuted through observation and experimentation"
It is true that your claim is falsifiable, however it does not refer to a "a phenomenon or a narrow set of phenomena", but rather an very wide set of disparate phenomena, and does not provide any explanation or connection between these phenomena.
I'd say that the difference in trait deviation in human males vs females is a very narrow set of natural phenomena. You're right, a tentative explanation is missing. One could be a moderating effect of two X chromosomes in females vs one in males: the deviation of the half-sum of two random variables with identical properties is less than their deviation in isolation.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 08:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 09:39 am (UTC)I am not sure whether you are kidding or not :)
Think about various possible characteristics:
blood pressure, 100m dash time, hair length, sleep duration, number of friends on Facebook, longevity, lymphocyte count ...
Is male variance larger for all of them?
no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 09:50 pm (UTC)All falsifiable hypotheses about reality are by their nature scientific (as in "regulated by or conforming to the principles of exact science", where the meaning of "science" is taken as "systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation"; both definitions from dictionary.com), as opposed to mythological, superstitious, etc.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 10:23 pm (UTC)"scientific hypothesis, an idea that proposes a tentative explanation about a phenomenon or a narrow set of phenomena observed in the natural world. The two primary features of a scientific hypothesis are falsifiability and testability, which are reflected in an “If...then” statement summarizing the idea and in the ability to be supported or refuted through observation and experimentation"
It is true that your claim is falsifiable, however it does not refer to a "a phenomenon or a narrow set of phenomena", but rather an very wide set of disparate phenomena, and does not provide any explanation or connection between these phenomena.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 10:49 pm (UTC)