Reading this reminded me of one of the things I learnt from Dune by Frank Herbert. Which is a fiction, but a great one.

The characters in Dune had a policy that they would attempt to forget everything they knew about a topic before they began to learn more about it. Knowledge clouds judgement and hinders your ability to learn more about it.

More precisely, if you believe you know something, it will prevent you from learning more about it, especially if it is counter to what you believe.

Basically, keep an open mind.

Religious people generally suffer from this afflication. The whole intelligent deisgn movement is proof really. The purpose of science is to keep an open mind and rationalise our world. Not all scientists are good at this, but science as a concept eventually sorts out the truth. Even if it takes hundreds of years. Religious people hold on to core tennets that never waiver even in the face of overwhelming counter evidence.

It is not sexist to imply women are different to men when the difference under discussion is fact, eg:

Women know more about jewelry than men.

In case I haven’t been clear, this is not a sexist comment! Most people will agree women know more about jewelry than men, you can argue this is because society is sexist. Personally I think it’s because women are more interested in looking attractive than men. Call me sexist if you will, but it’d be ironic to imply that in this thread

Women get upset all the time about trivial things.

This is not necessarily sexist, there is plenty of scientific evidence that shows women tend to respond with greater emotion than men with regard to certain issues. However it is generalising in a fashion that most people would consider insulting. To state the above is a faux pax, but not sexist.

Women should do all the cooking.

The attitude is sexist, although the comment itself is not.

I hate women.

This is sexist.

Anyway my main point was; our differences are fascinating, the modern opinion that pointing out any difference between the sexes is being sexist is proposterous. But maybe I’m just being pedantic.