We are all fallible. Even experts. Especially about matters as value-laden as questions of "normality" of types of human beings. If you disagree with Amaury de Riencourt, and give reasons for your disagreement, then the fact that you have no credentials would not matter. Your reasons should be evaluated on their own terms. This particular claim about gender and normality is difficult to agree or disagree with because it is so vague. You think the statement implies that to be male is to be "abnormal"; but it may only mean that to be male is to be a variant (non-standard form). (I don't know the work of Amaury de Riencourt, so I do not know what is meant, and whether it is a biological, sociological, political etc claim.)

You are right; chance isn't what is meant by "free will." But freedom of the will may be consistent with determinism, anyway. (Compatibilists argue that free will may be determination by some processes--e.g. one's own character traits--and not others--e.g. external coercion.)

You are right that some philosophers have dismissed Freud's ideas on the grounds that they are "not scientific." I agree with you that this judgment is too harsh. Freudian interpretations are theories for which there can be evidence for or against. In practice, however, traditional Freudian analysts have been rather quick to accept and reject theories based on little evidence and much "intuitive plausibility." They have not considered that other interpretations of behavior and dreams may be equally likely. The philosopher of science Adolf Grunbaum thinks that the science of psychoanalysis is so sloppy that it should be thought of as "unscientific" or "pseudoscientic." But not all philosophers of science or psychologists reject psychoanalysis. Some think that Freud's specific account (in terms of id, ego, superego) is not as well confirmed as some other accounts (e.g. object relations theory).

The definition of "illness" that you are using was originally developed by Christopher Boorse, and many others who have looked for an "objective" concept of illness have also adopted it. You are correct to say that on this view, all illness, including mental illness, is due to some dysfunction. And you are correct to note that we do not know (for most mental illnesses) whether or not there is a brain dysfunction. In fact, some have suggested that depression can be a functional response to failure and/or loss. Different concepts of illness are worth considering here. For example, "subjective" concepts in which "illness" is defined as an undesirable or unwanted state. According to such definitions, there is mental illness when there is (serious)mental distress (since distress is undesirable or unwanted). In practice, much can hang on whether or not something is labelled an "illness": medical treatment, insurance reimbursement, sympathy, excuses, responsibility, etc. That's really too bad, in my...

Hating patriarchy would be a more precise response than hating men. Some men are feminists, and some women align themselves with patriarchy.

You have clearly done a good deal of thoughtful and critical thinking about abortion, and I suggest that you take a look at some of the philosophical literature, starting with Judith Thomson's essay "A Defense of Abortion" (widely reprinted in philosophy anthologies.) She questions some seemingly obvious premises--like your assumption that a fetus the day before birth has the same rights as a newborn--by arguing that what is at stake is not only the personhood of the fetus but also the fact that the fetus is dependent on another human being. She uses creative thought experiments to explore whether dependent beings have the right to continued dependence on this human being, especially when the dependence came about without consent (e.g. if a woman became pregnant as a result of rape). She also makes a distinction between what is clearly wrong and what is selfish/uncaring. Even if you continue to think that sex selective abortion is discriminatory and wrong, you need not conclude that a woman has no...

SOME scientists are keen on unification--and some are not. Philosophers of science have generally focussed on unification, typically viewing unified theories as more deeply explanatory (e.g. Hempel, Kitcher) or just as simpler or more elegant (e.g. Van Fraassen, Quine), and many scientists--particularly physicists--have expressed similar views. More recently philosophers of science, especially those working in areas of philosophy of biology, psychology and the social sciences have argued that our best theories are, and should be, disunified (John Dupre's "The Disunity of Science" was one of the early works on disunity; a more recent work on disunity in biology is Sandra Mitchell's "Biological Complexity and Integrative Pluralism". Scientists themselves sometimes say that they are eclectic in methodology and/or theory, indicating that they work in a pluralistic and disunified framework.

One thing you could do is do a library search on the author(s) names, perhaps have a librarian help you. You are quite right to have high standards for empirical claims. Be careful not to let "I think it's an unlikely claim" have too much weight; the reason we do empirical studies is because we are sometimes surprised by the findings (otherwise, why bother?) Many feminist academics (although not all) have the highest standards in their research.

The Celsius scale of temperature places the zero at the freezing point of water, not at "absolute zero" which is conceptualized as the time when molecular motion ceases. So 20 degrees C is not twice the temperature of 10 degrees C. The zero for temperature is minus 273C.

This is an interesting analogy and it is one that some philosophers of science (e.g. Ronald Giere) have developed. It captures the idea that scientific theories represent the world by naming its objects and relations. But it is just an analogy, and like all analogies, the similarities only go so far. The map analogy is good for illustrating how theories can be partial and not complete e.g. a map of the London Underground is partial, revealing topological relationships but not distances, and likewise classical thermodynamics reveals temperature/pressure/volume relationships but not magnetic forces. The map analogy is less good for understanding the success of theories in quantum mechanics and particle physics, where theories are valued for their predictive power but not necessarily for their representativeness. Maps are also more complicated than is assumed in the analogy: for example, different projections of 3D structures into 2D (e.g. the different projections of the earth's surface) may...

This is an interesting analogy and it is one that some philosophers of science (e.g. Ronald Giere) have developed. It captures the idea that scientific theories represent the world by naming its objects and relations. But it is just an analogy, and like all analogies, the similarities only go so far. The map analogy is good for illustrating how theories can be partial and not complete e.g. a map of the London Underground is partial, revealing topological relationships but not distances, and likewise classical thermodynamics reveals temperature/pressure/volume relationships but not magnetic forces. The map analogy is less good for understanding the success of theories in quantum mechanics and particle physics, where theories are valued for their predictive power but not necessarily for their representativeness. Maps are also more complicated than is assumed in the analogy: for example, different projections of 3D structures into 2D (e.g. the different projections of the earth's surface) may...