Re: Some relevant criticism, some not

First, as modernites, we are used to see the children fully dressed, and we are used to shortcut any natural way to tell them apart by appealing to their dress, which is cultural. So we are (intentionally by the culture, imho) made ignorant of natural boy/girl differences and therefore we fail to look for them and recognize them. A neutral test would have to use either "primitive" peoples (or "dirt poor" populations) who are used to see children fully naked or naked except their genital region (whether modern underwear and shorts or traditional loinclothes), and who therefore are used to notice body clues that we fully-dressed modernites are not. Essentially, your sample is not relevant to humankind. It's only relevant, at best, to fully-dressed modernites.

You are making a pretty sweeping claim, and I challenge you to prove it. At any rate, this has no bearing on the test. Seamus and Glil said they can easily spot the difference regardless of the child's age or cultural cues. We shall see.

Second, you did post a relatively large number of intentionally ambiguous or androgynous children. A truly random sample of children would always have many fewer "androgynous" children than you posted. So, your test proved that ambiguous children do exist. Also that neither a GL nor a BL nor a teleio population are significantly more apt at telling them apart. That alone is a good (and replicable) finding. But it does seed doubt into your 50% rate. The rate is artificially low by your intentionally "hard" sample used. Life has a much higher success rate - I know nobody that fails 50% of the time in real life, seriously. Do you?

I posted an exactly equal number of children I found androgynous (but only by cultural cues) and that I didn't. In fact, I made that choice consciously. And again, if Glil's and Seamus's claims hold up, then they should be able to tell regardless of the cultural cues, because that is what they claimed. Also, thanks for tipping them off to my methods. But there you go, guys. I'll even give you the advantage by telling you that I will do the same with the new test: an equal number of culturally androgynous kids and culturally non-androgynous kids. I will not, however, reveal how many of each gender I use, nor the overall number of kids' faces I will reveal.

Moreover, my test was not "intentionally hard"--it was intentionally balanced. And again, if the claim is true, it should not have a significant impact on their answers. Now, the point you made about flat images versus live models is relevant, and I will factor that in by offering a 10% curve on a percentage score of a possible 100%, just as if a teacher gave a grade curve. That is a pretty generous curve, I think, and should more than make up for the disadvantage of judging live vs. flat image models. Therefore, they now have two extra advantages (on top of the advantage of judging a face rather than a chest, since faces are easier): the 50/50 gender ambiguous vs. non-gender ambiguous, and the 10% curve.

Third, naked chests might be not publishable on GC, but I do believe that, even if it is very vestigial compared to what it should, and unconscious to a point, we are better when we see the whole person than the face only. I have a feeling if your test had not been a face test but a full body test, you'd get a better answer rate. Now of course, there is the problem that clothes send strong cultural messages, so it is extremely hard to isolate that factor; but I am willing to bet that if we dressed, idk, a hundred children identically (whether all as boys, all as girls, or all with a reasonably gender-neutral attire), gender distributed 50/50, and with a large proportion of ambiguous looking ones as in your original test - you would find out that face alone got a lower success rate than whole body. In any case I think it would be a more interesting test. And moreover, I think it would reflect the tested subject's real exposure to boy/girl differences that has learned, consciously or subconsciously, to tell them apart by body.

Of course we are, but the two people who made the claim suggested they could judge by chest alone, not the whole body. Shall I offer full body images then? How many advantages should I give the guys who boasted that they could tell the difference between a nude boy's and nude girl's chests? Maybe I should give hints because, you know, in real life there are hints, like the toys they play with, etc. Ah, but then we go back to the claim, which was simple and testable. And I will test them if they are up to the challenge. I'm still waiting for their answers.

And finally, you two (or you three) are bound to be measuring different things. The boy/girl differences in body are given by gender, and they are derived from bone structure, therefore they exist, as I said, even before birth. Any anthropologist and a good forensic can tell apart a dead boy and a dead girl just that way. But face differences depend much less on gender and much more on race. (And the same anthropologist will have a much harder time telling you the gender of the child from a skull alone - but will be able to tell you their race) The chests of White, Black and Asian girls have more in common with each other girl than with White, Black and Asian boys. But the faces of White, Black and Asian girls have more in common with White, Black and Asian boys than with each other. Bodies are more similar within gender across race; faces are more similar within race across gender. It would be still more interesting, then, to make your test cross-racial. I did notice too many Whites the first time. :p More scientifically important, it would be a way to test whether it partly depends on familiarity (as I am openly speculating). Assuming most GCers are more used to White people, it should follow that success rates are higher in the White subset of the test.

For the umpteenth time, their claim was that they could judge a certain part of a child's anatomy and tell the difference by sight alone, minus any other cues. Whatever criteria they use to make that assessment is up to them. They were the ones who made the claim, not me. I devised a worthy challenge for them to see if that claim holds true. So far I've received no answer from either of them. I believe they are reconsidering their boasts now that they have actually been challenged to deliver. But who knows? Maybe they can tell young girls easier from young boys. I don't think so, but I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and offer a simple test to prove it. Now, I will say no more about this until they agree to take the test or not, and I am asking you, in the spirit of fairness, to withhold any further opinions, suggestions, etc. until the test is devised, presented and completed.