Month: April 2013

Riley Schwengel

Staff Writer

As this year’s House Party Weekend approached, I predicted that we would see another slew of hospitalizations due to excessive drinking. Come Sunday, I was not disappointed.  Once again, House Party saw numerous individuals get sent to the hospital because they had too much to drink. The emergency personnel were so busy on the Friday of House Party that I witnessed a group of police and kids wait almost an hour for an ambulance to come for one of the students. That’s purely insane. Luckily this individual was barely over the limit for hospitalization and was not in any immediate danger, but if it had been an emergency and had that person been in real trouble, there could have been a serious problem.

While the sheer number of hospitalizations was shocking to me, what really irked me were other people’s reactions when they heard about the individuals sent to the emergency room. When the number of hospitalized students was mentioned, I often heard, “Well it sounds like this year’s House Party was a success!” in response. 

What? I’m sorry, but that does not sound like a success to me. I don’t see how a person ending his or her night with doctors and nurses instead of friends can be seen as reasonable. I think our overall mentality about drinking and partying is heading into a very dangerous and reckless direction, and I worry that if we don’t reevaluate our priorities, we will see more hospitalizations in the future–or worse.

Now I want to be clear: I am not against the drinking culture in general. I acknowledge drinking and partying responsibly and think that they are one of many reasons why college is such an extraordinary experience. I don’t think that we need to make any changes in school policy or even in legislation (though a lower drinking age would be nice). I do think that we need to make some serious changes to our mentality about drinking.

Right now, it seems like drinking is perceived as a competition or challenge, one in which whoever gets the highest score wins. But that’s not how it should be. Drinking is a social event, one that’s not meant to be competitive or aggressive. It should be the individual’s choice about how much to drink, whether to play drinking games, have only a couple drinks or not drink at all. I don’t think students today realize this. There is an extreme sense of peer pressure that forces people to drink in extreme amounts and endanger themselves in order to live up to their peers’ expectations.

Students’ attitudes about drinking have become more and more aggressive in the past couple decades. It has turned from a popular social event to a dangerous competition where even the so-called “winners” can end up in the hospital. I think it’s time we reevaluate how we spend our weekends. Drinking is not some evil vice. It has, in fact, been a staple of the American college lifestyle almost as long as America has had colleges. It is the students who have become reckless and must become more conscious of the risks we are taking when we partake in such activities.

Justin Marinelli

Senior Writer

It’s rather trendy nowadays to claim that all differences between males and females are the result of societal pressures, and that biology has no role whatsoever. I have always been suspicious of this view, as I am of any claim that sounds overly simplistic. Data from the biological sciences suggest that the difference between males and females isn’t just limited to genitalia, but also to nervous and endocrine function, as well as the extent of possible expressible phenotypes once grown.

In no way do I seek to alienate those who don’t identify with the male-female dichotomy or feel a mind-body disconnect, nor am I attempting to invalidate their experiences, but the generalizations I wish to discuss have been scientifically validated, and I think they are worth noting.

First off, males and females have, on average, equal intelligence, but the range of possible intelligences for males is far more extreme. What this means is that males are far more likely to be geniuses and have above-average intelligence, but they are also more likely to suffer from cognitive disabilities and have low levels of intelligence. The implications of this fact are enormous, as it explains not only why Nobel Prize winners are usually male, but also why most school dropouts and people of exceptionally low IQ are also male. It also implies that in any society in which intelligence is rewarded, more males than females will rise to the top, as those with the highest level of intellect are more likely to be male, but that moves us into territory too nuanced and controversial to adequately discuss here.

Everyone knows that males tend to have higher levels of testosterone than females. What most people don’t realize is the sheer magnitude of this difference. Males can have up to 30 times the amount of testosterone coursing through their veins (and there is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that this number is too low to describe all cases). Testosterone is highly correlated with status-seeking behavior, of which physical aggression and risk-taking are simply two of many means to that end. The reason males tend to be more physically aggressive and take more risks is not driven by social conditioning, but rather biology playing itself out (you can observe this by noticing how even at ages far too young for social conditioning to have taken hold, males are more likely to engage in these behaviors than females).

Finally, a good neuroscientist can actually differentiate the brain based on sex. Female brains have a much higher ratio of white matter to grey matter, indicating a greater degree of connectedness between different parts of the brain. Males have 10 times more grey matter, indicating much higher levels of localized cognition. The degree to which these differences affect how males and females think and experience the world is still being investigated, but it would fly in the face of logic to suggest that such vast difference in structure would have no effect on cognitive output.

There are many out there who react to discussion of the differences between males and females with hostility, claiming that such thoughts will inevitably lead to sexism and belief in biological essentialism. I shouldn’t even have to point out that this is ridiculous. If there are differences, we should understand and respect them, not ignore them.

Maybe there are certain things that one sex will be better at than another. This doesn’t have to mean that one sex is any better than the other. It doesn’t grant one sex any greater moral worth. It simply means that human beings are equal, but not necessarily equivalent. It emphasizes that we are not all interchangeable–to some degree we are all unique and individual. In a society that places great value on the idea of individuality, why would you ever want to suppress that truth?