21 Apr '15 10:51>3 edits
As chess players it has come to our attention that British Grandmaster Nigel Short made a claim about the strength of women players in comparison to men on the basis of a biological argument, that being that men are more biologically fitted to play chess.
It is of course an epic fail for a number of reasons. For example the disparity in the number of male players to female, the fact that Short himself has been outplayed by women and probably the most damning that there is no emphatically right or wrong way to play chess making any biological argument quite unsound.
The reasoning however is rather familiar. A biological argument is being utilised in order to make statements about something as complex as the cognitive process in chess. We theists see this kind of reasoning all the time from rampant materialist intent on reducing every aspect of the human experience to biological processes and it fails on every level.
What happens when the standard value of chess pieces ceases to govern and chess becomes a mode of self expression, an art form the players engaging in a metaphysical battle and the cumulative display of reason, logic and experience triumphs, where intuition plays a major part? What of the biological disparity then? Thus it appears to me that Short and all other base materials commit the greatest folly in attempting to reduce the human experience to mere biological processes.
It is of course an epic fail for a number of reasons. For example the disparity in the number of male players to female, the fact that Short himself has been outplayed by women and probably the most damning that there is no emphatically right or wrong way to play chess making any biological argument quite unsound.
The reasoning however is rather familiar. A biological argument is being utilised in order to make statements about something as complex as the cognitive process in chess. We theists see this kind of reasoning all the time from rampant materialist intent on reducing every aspect of the human experience to biological processes and it fails on every level.
What happens when the standard value of chess pieces ceases to govern and chess becomes a mode of self expression, an art form the players engaging in a metaphysical battle and the cumulative display of reason, logic and experience triumphs, where intuition plays a major part? What of the biological disparity then? Thus it appears to me that Short and all other base materials commit the greatest folly in attempting to reduce the human experience to mere biological processes.