Savaged by Statistical Sheep II

As I mentioned in my previous post, Susan Walsh was determined to prove that Rollo's illustrative graphic showing how women's sexual value peaks sooner than men's, something that is both intuitively obvious and empirically observable, is a based on a myth of plummeting female sexual value.


Susan first tried using logic, but her inept attempts at utilizing it turned out to be either incorrect or irrelevant. But futile though they were, those attempts weren't anywhere nearly as embarrassing as her attempt to appeal to the mathematical authority of a random commenter whose claims to be a "PhD statistician" are, to say the least, more than a little dubious.

Susan wrote: "These sorts of graphs reflect aging male fantasy – a sort of 50 Shades of Bray. Enter Kelly, a PhD statistician who takes the top chart apart with math."

This is never going to make an impact, but as a PhD statistician I am going to tell you why all this red pill crap is wrong. Women peak sooner, but men have a broader peak.

    1. Those graphs are wrong because, with a fixed number of people in the world, equal between the sexes, you have to scale the curves so that the area under each one is the same.

    2. The top valued man is not a “10,” ever…He is downgraded by competition in the market.

    He’s some relatively lower value scaled by the fact that men’s sexual prime lasts longer. Why is this, for the non math geniuses out there? Because if there are 50 men who are 7.5′s, and there are only 30 women, then men’s actual score and actual value on the dating market is downgraded because he can’t just choose a 7.5 and take her.

    3. There are even more men competing for the same women.

         a. Not only does the male curve have a broader prime, and therefore more area, there is another factor at play – women hit menopause around 55, but most men want to keep having sex into their 70′s.

         b. Consider that “alpha” males often have several girlfriends, taking more off the market. And women are out of the game for longer to recover from being dumped.

         c. Women are more likely to focus on their kids after divorce and stay out of the dating market.

         d. There is even less area under the female curve because the super attractive part up until age 18 is not even legal for sex.

    This all serves to downgrade men’s real value on the dating market.

    So take that blue curve, and shrink it until the area underneath is the same as the area underneath the women’s curve. This is why women tend to date men 5 years or so older, rather than 16 years older. A lot of this red pill stuff is wishful thinking. There is a little truth to it, but the relative lesser availability of women overall makes it a weaker effect.

    If you looked at the curve and said to yourself, “I am going to be a 10 at age 36!” you are probably only going to be a 7.5 because your whole curve has shrunk, due to you competing with a whole lot of men. There is a giant tranche of men who are 6′s and 7′s who are going to be competing for a much smaller tranche of 6-7 level of sexual attractiveness in women. Many will have to either settle or be alone.

The first, and obvious, response is: what math? This attempted refutation isn't based on statistics or math, it is nothing more than nonsensical babbling and Susan should be mortified at taking it seriously, let alone thinking that it "takes the chart" apart in any way.  Shall we begin?

1. The SMV chart is not the entirety of "the red pill".
2. It is unclear what she means by "women peak sooner but men have a broader peak". Is she making a statement or falsely describing the chart? The chart shows women peaking sooner AND having a broader peak.
3. It is very clear that Kelly has not understood that 10 does not represent "the perfect 10", but rather, the individual male's peak. It is impossible for a man to never reach his own peak sexual market value. And worse, if the mere existence of competition in the market intrinsically degrades one's sexual rank, how can there be female 10s? Kelly's statement assumes that there is no competition in the market for women, which is obviously false.
4. We finally reach "the math".  First, note that it is a hypothetical if-then statement and there is no reason to believe it is applicable to the real world. Second, it is incorrect: she is still confusing individual peak SMV with overall SMV rating. Third, even if we utilize the latter, a 7.5 paired with a 6 does not reduce his sexual market value, it merely means he has Hand in the relationship. Fourth, she again forgets that what she asserts about men would apply to the female curve as well.  And fifth, I note that the only "math" presented here is the controversial notion that 50 is more than 30.
5. The assertion that there are more men competing for the same women as they get older would be indicative of plummeting female sexual market value for most women, not disproof of it. In such a situation, the demand may remain high for some women due to the supply-demand curve, but the overall supply has dwindled. And even that is dubious, for the obvious reason that men can simply date younger women... as we observe them to do.
6. There is absolutely no reason for there to be the same area underneath both curves. This is begging the question, it is not a refutation. She might as credibly have insisted on coloring the blue area yellow and claimed to have refuted the chart on that basis.
7. Again, "the lesser availability of women" presumes declining female attractiveness.
8. Kelly leaves out an obvious option. Men who are 6s and 7s who cannot find women of similar sexual market value their own age are not doomed to either settle or be alone, as they can also pair up with the more plentiful younger women of similar sexual market value.

Notice that no math was required for this refutation, because there was no math involved in the first place. Argumentum ab auctoritate is usually fallacious, but an appeal to an observably incompetent non-authority is so bizarre that I don't see any need to further beat the dead horse. I don't go in for much pop psychology, so rather than speculate why Susan would elect to put forth such an inept argument, I would simply encourage her to critique them more thoroughly before making them public.