Originally Posted by
selil
Deus Ex,
Caveat: I am not calling you on the carpet, or trying to insult you. So, take the following as you can and adjust fire accordingly.
First you are making a logic error of specific to be applied to the general case. It is absolutely possible to construct an argument that excludes a gender, or ethnicity. Your later discussions about carrying a comrade out of a fire fight carrying a full ruck, after a 30 mile march is a fine example of hyper specificity to a small sampling of cases. You even give a counter example yourself in stating that most men would be driven to failure.
So the question is what level must somebody meet to be given the opportunity versus excluded?
You also use a lot of absolutism (none, all, every) statements. Then handily toss out you're not interested in discussing edge cases (but, your argument is completely constructed of them). The use of superlatives are also logical fallacies, but worse they can lead to erroneous decisions based on the least evidence rather than the preponderance of the evidence.
I like your MMA example. Like you I train in a variety of martial arts (Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Jiu Jitsu , and a minimal amount of Aikido or Hap Kido). I'm not claiming any expertise it is just a point of reference. I easily beat my 19 year old sparring based on guile, strength (me 190lb, him 130lb), but he zips out a 5K in 14-15 minutes, while I plod along at 25 minutes. Simply, there are to many variables across age, training, body type, and conditioning to make any type of substantive comparison.
There is also a concern about the specifics of the example of combat. From your argument you constrain the idea of one man versus the world. I refer to this as the evil side of "army of one", but to put a kinder point on it, you forget the other guys in the squad. If as you stated earlier that even most men would be hard pressed to make the grade perhaps the argument is fully moot. Perhaps the examples of extreme are then examples of other failures that shouldn't have even happened.
I though don't hear an anti-gender argument. I hear an argument that to many soldiers (regardless of gender) are not making the grade. This would follow with recent studies by the Marine Corps, and the Army into recruits entering. The rapid escalation of cross-training and other forms of exercise based on the level of recruit entering are fine examples of adaption to the realities of a soft civilian population. I'm not interested in political correctness, but if we are going to disenfranchise and expel from opportunity half the population, the argument should be well founded and factually based.
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