4 ms·

I'm not trying to blame anyone, but I believe the truth of the matter is that it is caused by culture. I believe the truth is that boys are girls are not wired

by curi 19y ago

I'm not trying to blame anyone, but I believe the truth of the matter is that it is caused by culture. I believe the truth is that boys are girls are not wired differently, and their brains do not work differently. One reason to question the notion of specialized hardware (brains) for boys and girls is the concept of universality. The easiest, by far, way to be able to do many computations, is to create a computer that can do all computations. Similarly, the easiest way by far to create a system capable of creating a variety of kinds of knowledge, is to create one capable of creating any knowledge. One reason to believe culture would be behind these kinds of differences is we know that our culture transmits vast quantities of knowledge to children. Far more information than is in DNA, just in terms of bits. But also in terms of importance. We also know our culture believes boys and girls are different, and treats people different for many reasons.

axod 19y ago
"I believe the truth is that boys are girls are not wired differently, and their brains do not work differently." Do you have children? A girl and a boy? I do. I can tell you categorically that they most definitely without a doubt are 'wired' differently. Regardless of what you do. Treat them absolutely identically. Even before they have outside influences. Before they start nursery/school. Before society/friends influence them. They act very differently indeed. I didn't get that before I had kids. I thought girls liked dolls because people give girls dolls. They don't. It's a reflex. It's how they're built. Just like boys love cars and doing outside stuff. I seriously don't know what else to say here if you think men and womens brains are identical and work the same.
- curi 19y ago
  Authority of experience, based on anecdotal evidence, is not a valid way to argue scientific issues. Further, you have not addressed well known exceptions to your claims, such as tomboys and males who do not love to be outdoors.
  - Tichy 19y ago
    However, all you provide is your belief, which frankly to me seems to be driven by your wishful thinking. I personally don't know if men and women are wired differently or not, but I can't understand your concept of belief. Give us some scientific evidence, and I will mentally assign your claim a probability. But I won't believe it.
    - curi 19y ago
      I have provided some arguments (for example, about universality). I have also provided some (as yet unanswered) criticism of the other view. If you don't understand my comments, and wish to, you could ask questions, and I will be happy to explain further. Evidence would not be the right thing to provide, because I am not predicting different human behavior than the mainstream theory, I am simply explaining the same evidence in a different way. So evidence can't resolve this dispute. (Setting aside evidence from analysis of brains which is beyond our present technology.)
      - Tichy 19y ago
        Well the universality thing is really a very weak argument. The brain is quite universal, but it still is specialized, for example for image processing. It is a finite resource, you only have so many neurons in a brain, and only can train them on so many tasks. So it probably makes sense to devote more neurons to some tasks than to another. Of course you may ask, when is it decided what specialization is chosen, genetically or by nurturing. Clearly we can learn and specialize on things through nurturing, but some things we are also born with, for example a language instinct. So I don't think your argument is an argument at all. I don't know if you are a woman or a man, but one thing I notice is that women can always tell me what everybody else is talking about in a cafe. I can only concentrate on the woman I am talking to, and blank out all the other people in the room. Maybe it is a personal deficit of mine (bad hearing or whatever), but I could imagine it is a women thing (broader attention). Just an example.
        curi 19y ago
- acks 19y ago
  Did you actually treat both of your children exactly the same? Did you buy them both only either gender specific clothing, or an equal amount of girl and boy clothing, until they were old enough to prefer otherwise? Did you do the same with toys? Did they have any contact at all with other people? Family, friends, random strangers in grocery stores who come up to coo at your baby, etc. The first question most people ask (if it is not already obvious by the clothing) is 'girl or boy?' They then treat the child accordingly. The way people coo and talk to boys and girls is different. The toy that they are most likely to pick up and offer to the baby differs according to gender. (So, just having both boy and girl toys available isn't enough.) They hold girls more gently, and play rougher with boys. Oh, and, fwiw, I do have children, a boy and a girl. But, I do not think this make me an authority. More likely, having children would make me biased -- I have a vested interest in believing I treated both of my children equally. An outside observer would be more likely to see my subtle biases. In the same way, parents often favour one child, without realizing they are doing it, even when it is obvious to other people around them.
Tichy 19y ago
I know for a fact that boys and girls are very different. If you don't believe me, just google for porn. I am not saying that women's minds are not wired for startups/maths/whatever (I don't know), but the cultural differences are rooted in biological differences. Women have babies, which is very costly. Hence they need a different mindset (more responsibility, time to take care of kids etc.), they are also very valuable to men, so they can sell their bodies as baby-making machines rather than do startups. Different options in life create different paths... Men have to do something impressive to convince women to carry their babies, hence the startup thing (high risk, but if success, there will be babies).
- curi 19y ago
  So, your theory is that selection pressure for [various things] resulted in adapted genes. One of the major questions this position has to answer is: why did that selection pressure result in adapted genes instead of adapted memes? Prima facie, it would result in adapted memes, because memes evolve faster -- they have much shorter generations.
  - Tichy 19y ago
    Well, I would recommend the book "Why is sex fun" by Jared Diamond. I don't know all the theories anymore, but the gist is that there is/was a biological arms race between men and women. For example, the reason that women have to be inseminated inside their bodies is so that men can not be sure who is the father of the women's babies. Because otherwise, men are prone to killing offspring of other men (at least in the animal kingdom). Now, if a woman sleeps with another man, we still can not be sure that she is not carrying our baby. At least that is one theory, as far as I remember. There are several more aspects that come into play. There actually was one chapter with the theory that men go hunting to impress women (and I would be ready to make the leap and equate hunting with startupping). Gathering would be more energy efficient than hunting, but hunting allows men to come home as bigshots, make a big party, and impress lots of women. That theory was only based on one study of a primitive society, though, so I guess the evidence is not yet very strong. Just a theory... Anyway, a good book to read in my opinion. Other than that, I am not sure I agree to your question. Men and women certainly have different genes, have they not? I think the asymmetry is inherent in the problem of growing a baby inside of your body. Perhaps it would have been possible to allow both men and women to get pregnant, but it might have been too much overhead (although there are animals that can switch gender, and come to think about it, there are human hermaphrodites). Most animals seem to have a difference between men and women - for example the spiders that eat their mates...

by curi 19y ago

axod 19y ago

"I believe the truth is that boys are girls are not wired differently, and their brains do not work differently." Do you have children? A girl and a boy? I do. I can tell you categorically that they most definitely without a doubt are 'wired' differently. Regardless of what you do. Treat them absolutely identically. Even before they have outside influences. Before they start nursery/school. Before society/friends influence them. They act very differently indeed. I didn't get that before I had kids. I thought girls liked dolls because people give girls dolls. They don't. It's a reflex. It's how they're built. Just like boys love cars and doing outside stuff. I seriously don't know what else to say here if you think men and womens brains are identical and work the same.

curi 19y ago
Authority of experience, based on anecdotal evidence, is not a valid way to argue scientific issues. Further, you have not addressed well known exceptions to your claims, such as tomboys and males who do not love to be outdoors.
- Tichy 19y ago
  However, all you provide is your belief, which frankly to me seems to be driven by your wishful thinking. I personally don't know if men and women are wired differently or not, but I can't understand your concept of belief. Give us some scientific evidence, and I will mentally assign your claim a probability. But I won't believe it.
  - curi 19y ago
    I have provided some arguments (for example, about universality). I have also provided some (as yet unanswered) criticism of the other view. If you don't understand my comments, and wish to, you could ask questions, and I will be happy to explain further. Evidence would not be the right thing to provide, because I am not predicting different human behavior than the mainstream theory, I am simply explaining the same evidence in a different way. So evidence can't resolve this dispute. (Setting aside evidence from analysis of brains which is beyond our present technology.)
    - Tichy 19y ago
      Well the universality thing is really a very weak argument. The brain is quite universal, but it still is specialized, for example for image processing. It is a finite resource, you only have so many neurons in a brain, and only can train them on so many tasks. So it probably makes sense to devote more neurons to some tasks than to another. Of course you may ask, when is it decided what specialization is chosen, genetically or by nurturing. Clearly we can learn and specialize on things through nurturing, but some things we are also born with, for example a language instinct. So I don't think your argument is an argument at all. I don't know if you are a woman or a man, but one thing I notice is that women can always tell me what everybody else is talking about in a cafe. I can only concentrate on the woman I am talking to, and blank out all the other people in the room. Maybe it is a personal deficit of mine (bad hearing or whatever), but I could imagine it is a women thing (broader attention). Just an example.
      - curi 19y ago
acks 19y ago
Did you actually treat both of your children exactly the same? Did you buy them both only either gender specific clothing, or an equal amount of girl and boy clothing, until they were old enough to prefer otherwise? Did you do the same with toys? Did they have any contact at all with other people? Family, friends, random strangers in grocery stores who come up to coo at your baby, etc. The first question most people ask (if it is not already obvious by the clothing) is 'girl or boy?' They then treat the child accordingly. The way people coo and talk to boys and girls is different. The toy that they are most likely to pick up and offer to the baby differs according to gender. (So, just having both boy and girl toys available isn't enough.) They hold girls more gently, and play rougher with boys. Oh, and, fwiw, I do have children, a boy and a girl. But, I do not think this make me an authority. More likely, having children would make me biased -- I have a vested interest in believing I treated both of my children equally. An outside observer would be more likely to see my subtle biases. In the same way, parents often favour one child, without realizing they are doing it, even when it is obvious to other people around them.

Tichy 19y ago

I know for a fact that boys and girls are very different. If you don't believe me, just google for porn. I am not saying that women's minds are not wired for startups/maths/whatever (I don't know), but the cultural differences are rooted in biological differences. Women have babies, which is very costly. Hence they need a different mindset (more responsibility, time to take care of kids etc.), they are also very valuable to men, so they can sell their bodies as baby-making machines rather than do startups. Different options in life create different paths... Men have to do something impressive to convince women to carry their babies, hence the startup thing (high risk, but if success, there will be babies).

curi 19y ago
So, your theory is that selection pressure for [various things] resulted in adapted genes. One of the major questions this position has to answer is: why did that selection pressure result in adapted genes instead of adapted memes? Prima facie, it would result in adapted memes, because memes evolve faster -- they have much shorter generations.
- Tichy 19y ago
  Well, I would recommend the book "Why is sex fun" by Jared Diamond. I don't know all the theories anymore, but the gist is that there is/was a biological arms race between men and women. For example, the reason that women have to be inseminated inside their bodies is so that men can not be sure who is the father of the women's babies. Because otherwise, men are prone to killing offspring of other men (at least in the animal kingdom). Now, if a woman sleeps with another man, we still can not be sure that she is not carrying our baby. At least that is one theory, as far as I remember. There are several more aspects that come into play. There actually was one chapter with the theory that men go hunting to impress women (and I would be ready to make the leap and equate hunting with startupping). Gathering would be more energy efficient than hunting, but hunting allows men to come home as bigshots, make a big party, and impress lots of women. That theory was only based on one study of a primitive society, though, so I guess the evidence is not yet very strong. Just a theory... Anyway, a good book to read in my opinion. Other than that, I am not sure I agree to your question. Men and women certainly have different genes, have they not? I think the asymmetry is inherent in the problem of growing a baby inside of your body. Perhaps it would have been possible to allow both men and women to get pregnant, but it might have been too much overhead (although there are animals that can switch gender, and come to think about it, there are human hermaphrodites). Most animals seem to have a difference between men and women - for example the spiders that eat their mates...