6 ms·

Men’s and Women’s Brains Appear to Age Differently

44 points by bootload 11y ago

anon6_ 11y ago
Worked as a health tech for 10 years around seniors. I can confirm the behavior of men and women differ at these times through social means. Men want to know how their child is doing, women on the other hand care more about how her child makes her appear socially. I'm not sure I think it's constructive to point out differences in gender though. On HN, it automatically triggers me. It's already difficult enough for a women to get a job programming without being harassed or her talent overlooked. Not to mention, how would you feel if every guy trying to "help" you was actually trying to take a pass at you? Invaded? Creeped out? I dated someone for a few weeks at my last startup but don't really want to see anyone now. If you want to get non-biased information on technology and women, I highly recommend http://geekfeminism.org/ http://geekfeminism.org/ and http://rationalwiki.org http://rationalwiki.org. If you run an open source project, definitely consider getting a code of conduct. Any serious project has one by now.
cm2187 11y ago
It's a courageous study in the current environment. Is it even legal in the US to suggest there could be an intellectual difference between sexes, even at a certain age? It reminds me of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
- umanwizard 11y ago
  Of course it's legal to say or suggest anything in the US that doesn't immediately endanger someone's safety in a concrete way. First amendment...
- mkrfox 11y ago
  I missed the part that covers intellectual differences. Can you point it out?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  It's totally, 100% legal. Though just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's a good idea if you value your career and peaceful existence.
- hajile 11y ago
  You mean like when Lawrence Summers was forced to resign from Harvard because he said that (well-known) differences in IQ distribution might have an impact on the number of women in STEM, but more research was needed (and fighting against sexism should also continue). He was completely right with his information. The bell curve for male IQ is much shallower resulting in men greatly outnumbering women both at the top and the bottom of the IQ chart (note: that doesn't mean that a man with the same IQ as a woman is smarter, just that there are more men with higher IQs). The idea that abstract logic, spatial reasoning, and pattern recognition (what IQ indicates) are primary components in being good at STEM is well-known too. The one idea definitely implies the other and stating that causal implication shouldn't be a crime. Nobody stepped forward to disprove the science. They simply screamed sexism. They didn't care that he had even said that fighting the sexist component was also important. They didn't care that he had said the science might be disproven. They only cared that they didn't like the idea no matter if it was true or not. History is filled with ideologues hurting and killing men of science for ideas we now know to be true. Freedom to research, study, and publish those studies without being threatened or harmed is paramount. If there's a problem, then fight the science -- not the scientist.
  - Avshalom 11y ago
    Larry Summers took a vacation, got a 7 figure job in private industry, worked for the Obama administration and is now back at Harvard. If only we could all be so persecuted.
    - hajile 11y ago
      That's a rather patronizing position. He was lucky because he is rich and connected. The other scientists sacrificed on the alter of ideology are seldom in a similar position. When they lose their jobs, they don't have the same money and friends to fall back onto. A fear of retribution hurts science and hurts human progress.
  - groth 11y ago
    It's true that Lawrence Summers was largely ousted for an unpolitic statement; however, I would like to extend more credence to the Harvard Faculty, which collectively, overwhelmingly, voted to dismiss him as president. 1. I think it's important also to recognize that the "science" he cited was not fool-proof. In the way that most science is not (for example, check out the 50 year long & still on-going dispute with Phillip Morris about the harmful effects of tobacco). And that moreover, the specific reports he cites can certainly be disputed on the methodology (where are minority women? where are women of different socio economic classes? where are women working in technical fields whose performance do not correspond to standardized test scores? etc) 2. Even if Summers was absolutely right about sex difference between men and women, some of the outrage directed towards him came not from particular concern with his science, but the effects that such statements would have on the construction of a liberal democratic society (which Harvard, despite it's many follies, is mostly invested in). A society which operates on the truth that women just can't do math as well is one which condones expectations that adversely effect female participation in communities of scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and tech-related fields. *edit for formatting
- mc32 11y ago
  Sure it's legal; why wouldn't it be? That said, the study was done by a team in Hungary.
- Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
  It isn't like Lysenkoism it is Lysenkoism. Despite all evidence to the contrary, people want to believe that intelligence isn't heritable, that all humans minds are blank slates and all differences in preferences and intelligence amongst humans are caused by environmental effects. Apparently, natural selection and sexual dimorphism stop above the neck. Our inability to stomach ugly truths is quite impressive. Darwin won the body, Lysenko the mind.
mkrfox 11y ago
I want to see a study like this on nonbinary and agender people.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - drdeca 11y ago
    I'm not sure how that would be accomplished. (That is, I'm not sure how you would control for that) Nor am I 100% on what you mean by "safe-space exposure", though I think I get the gist. edit: Also, I figure running such a study would probably be harder due to the smaller number of people in question?
  - tosseraccount 11y ago
    Nonbinary? Safe exposure? What are you people talking about?
    - mkrfox 11y ago
      I wrote a little thing to explain nonbinary: http://blog.mkronline.com/2015/11/nonbinary-gender-explained.html http://blog.mkronline.com/2015/11/nonbinary-gender-explained... As for safe spaces, it's to address the reality that minority voices tend to go silent when they don't feel safe. Some people in colleges and in political media have a twisted view of this concept, and it's got a lot of people angry.
      - tosseraccount 11y ago
        "Gender and sex made a cute couple, but it’s time to move on." oooh kay.
        dang 11y ago
        You've been posting many comments that break the HN guidelines. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do that. That means dropping the snarky swipes and posting civilly and substantively, or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
modanq 11y ago
Surprisingly, there are also other differences we all learned in 2nd grade.
nv-vn 11y ago
The findings are interesting, however I don't think that such a small sample can be used to make any conclusive assumptions and I think that these findings should be taken with a grain of salt. Since all these studies tend to have quite small sample sizes, it is quite likely that they will contradict past studies of similar sizes.
- omginternets 11y ago
  n=50 (closer to 100 with the control group) is massive for a brain-imaging study. More to the point: statistical power matters, which is only indirectly related to sample size. I mean no disrespect, but this kind of criticism usually betrays ignorance of statistics and scientific methodology. Do you suspect the study is under-powered? If so, why?
  - nv-vn 11y ago
    >n=50 (closer to 100 with the control group) is massive for a brain-imaging study. The problem I see with it being a small group is not necessarily that the results are inaccurate because of size/lack of statistical power, but more so because of the fact that a lot of variables will not show up in a small sample. For example, it is possible that certain diseases that they found to be more common in one sex than the other are only more common in caucasians and the same relationship does not occur with other races (since this happened in Hungary, it is very unlikely that non-white people were a part of this study). The numbers determined here probably apply very well to people in Hungary but they might be very different from what we'd find in the United States or in India, for example.
    - omginternets 11y ago
      What you're describing is an epiphenomenon, and increasing the sample size won't fix this. In fact, increasing the sample-size (i.e. over-powering a study) increases the propensity for spurious correlation. This may well be an epiphenomenon, but that's why reproductibility (not statistical significance) is the gold-standard of science.
TerryADavis 11y ago
The author is little more than a phrenologist. Take a monkey-nigger and let him stare at an electrical circuit schematic for as many years as you like. The nigger is not going to get very far by drawing boxes around regions. Imagine a person with no math skills and no low level understanding looking at a core-i7 chip schematic. Just shut the fuck-up, retard-nigger. You don't know anything about logic gates. God, I don't want to hear your impression of a core-i7. God says... momentousness's mama patch undershirts implementing carsick ambitious openness's multiplexors alga's Bahama's freethinking's trillionth stairway's rebound's redrawing lopsidedly meteorologist abort slattern's checkroom's thwarts do nonpareil's douche's chaplain stimulant's shaming maroon's spank tomfooleries dankness's foreplay freeman twisting Okinawa's specie's imprecation understates Seleucus hailstorms tush's herded dethroned multiculturalism's nasalizes raga Gacrux catalog bagatelle sacraments Thar buttery displease substructures greatest electromagnet pragmatism's wealthiest enlistees Shakespearean robust scrubs evaluates Wezen's slouch stagflation Muhammad's inhalation's enthusiasms numbskull's caddie's hives earmarking Riel Kr die Macao Marlboro's haunting newsboy noncompliance's escalator's downturns wiggliest halved steadfastness's applicant harkening nobler funked cornets nonresidents blogs effacing palmier womanhood spindle shaves reordering
known 11y ago
Unlike men, women's brain is horizontally wired and good at multitasking. http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/how-male-female-brains-differ?page=2&print=true http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/how-male-female-brains...
danbruc 11y ago
Why does this get so much attention? Men and women are obviously different in a lot of ways, why should the brain be an exception? Discovering that there are no differences would be an astonishing result, the opposite is what one should expect.
- RightWingRabble 11y ago
  Because the official feminist line is there are no physical differences in the brain of men and women. Extra attention is needed to overcome the rhetoric.

44 points by bootload 11y ago

Worked as a health tech for 10 years around seniors. I can confirm the behavior of men and women differ at these times through social means. Men want to know how their child is doing, women on the other hand care more about how her child makes her appear socially. I'm not sure I think it's constructive to point out differences in gender though. On HN, it automatically triggers me. It's already difficult enough for a women to get a job programming without being harassed or her talent overlooked. Not to mention, how would you feel if every guy trying to "help" you was actually trying to take a pass at you? Invaded? Creeped out? I dated someone for a few weeks at my last startup but don't really want to see anyone now. If you want to get non-biased information on technology and women, I highly recommend http://geekfeminism.org/ http://geekfeminism.org/ and http://rationalwiki.org http://rationalwiki.org. If you run an open source project, definitely consider getting a code of conduct. Any serious project has one by now.

cm2187 11y ago

It's a courageous study in the current environment. Is it even legal in the US to suggest there could be an intellectual difference between sexes, even at a certain age? It reminds me of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

umanwizard 11y ago
Of course it's legal to say or suggest anything in the US that doesn't immediately endanger someone's safety in a concrete way. First amendment...
mkrfox 11y ago
I missed the part that covers intellectual differences. Can you point it out?
TeMPOraL 11y ago
It's totally, 100% legal. Though just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's a good idea if you value your career and peaceful existence.
hajile 11y ago
You mean like when Lawrence Summers was forced to resign from Harvard because he said that (well-known) differences in IQ distribution might have an impact on the number of women in STEM, but more research was needed (and fighting against sexism should also continue). He was completely right with his information. The bell curve for male IQ is much shallower resulting in men greatly outnumbering women both at the top and the bottom of the IQ chart (note: that doesn't mean that a man with the same IQ as a woman is smarter, just that there are more men with higher IQs). The idea that abstract logic, spatial reasoning, and pattern recognition (what IQ indicates) are primary components in being good at STEM is well-known too. The one idea definitely implies the other and stating that causal implication shouldn't be a crime. Nobody stepped forward to disprove the science. They simply screamed sexism. They didn't care that he had even said that fighting the sexist component was also important. They didn't care that he had said the science might be disproven. They only cared that they didn't like the idea no matter if it was true or not. History is filled with ideologues hurting and killing men of science for ideas we now know to be true. Freedom to research, study, and publish those studies without being threatened or harmed is paramount. If there's a problem, then fight the science -- not the scientist.
- Avshalom 11y ago
  Larry Summers took a vacation, got a 7 figure job in private industry, worked for the Obama administration and is now back at Harvard. If only we could all be so persecuted.
  - hajile 11y ago
    That's a rather patronizing position. He was lucky because he is rich and connected. The other scientists sacrificed on the alter of ideology are seldom in a similar position. When they lose their jobs, they don't have the same money and friends to fall back onto. A fear of retribution hurts science and hurts human progress.
- groth 11y ago
  It's true that Lawrence Summers was largely ousted for an unpolitic statement; however, I would like to extend more credence to the Harvard Faculty, which collectively, overwhelmingly, voted to dismiss him as president. 1. I think it's important also to recognize that the "science" he cited was not fool-proof. In the way that most science is not (for example, check out the 50 year long & still on-going dispute with Phillip Morris about the harmful effects of tobacco). And that moreover, the specific reports he cites can certainly be disputed on the methodology (where are minority women? where are women of different socio economic classes? where are women working in technical fields whose performance do not correspond to standardized test scores? etc) 2. Even if Summers was absolutely right about sex difference between men and women, some of the outrage directed towards him came not from particular concern with his science, but the effects that such statements would have on the construction of a liberal democratic society (which Harvard, despite it's many follies, is mostly invested in). A society which operates on the truth that women just can't do math as well is one which condones expectations that adversely effect female participation in communities of scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and tech-related fields. *edit for formatting
mc32 11y ago
Sure it's legal; why wouldn't it be? That said, the study was done by a team in Hungary.
Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
It isn't like Lysenkoism it is Lysenkoism. Despite all evidence to the contrary, people want to believe that intelligence isn't heritable, that all humans minds are blank slates and all differences in preferences and intelligence amongst humans are caused by environmental effects. Apparently, natural selection and sexual dimorphism stop above the neck. Our inability to stomach ugly truths is quite impressive. Darwin won the body, Lysenko the mind.

mkrfox 11y ago

I want to see a study like this on nonbinary and agender people.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- drdeca 11y ago
  I'm not sure how that would be accomplished. (That is, I'm not sure how you would control for that) Nor am I 100% on what you mean by "safe-space exposure", though I think I get the gist. edit: Also, I figure running such a study would probably be harder due to the smaller number of people in question?
- tosseraccount 11y ago
  Nonbinary? Safe exposure? What are you people talking about?
  - mkrfox 11y ago
    I wrote a little thing to explain nonbinary: http://blog.mkronline.com/2015/11/nonbinary-gender-explained.html http://blog.mkronline.com/2015/11/nonbinary-gender-explained... As for safe spaces, it's to address the reality that minority voices tend to go silent when they don't feel safe. Some people in colleges and in political media have a twisted view of this concept, and it's got a lot of people angry.
    - tosseraccount 11y ago
      "Gender and sex made a cute couple, but it’s time to move on." oooh kay.
      - dang 11y ago
        You've been posting many comments that break the HN guidelines. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do that. That means dropping the snarky swipes and posting civilly and substantively, or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

modanq 11y ago

Surprisingly, there are also other differences we all learned in 2nd grade.

nv-vn 11y ago

The findings are interesting, however I don't think that such a small sample can be used to make any conclusive assumptions and I think that these findings should be taken with a grain of salt. Since all these studies tend to have quite small sample sizes, it is quite likely that they will contradict past studies of similar sizes.

omginternets 11y ago
n=50 (closer to 100 with the control group) is massive for a brain-imaging study. More to the point: statistical power matters, which is only indirectly related to sample size. I mean no disrespect, but this kind of criticism usually betrays ignorance of statistics and scientific methodology. Do you suspect the study is under-powered? If so, why?
- nv-vn 11y ago
  >n=50 (closer to 100 with the control group) is massive for a brain-imaging study. The problem I see with it being a small group is not necessarily that the results are inaccurate because of size/lack of statistical power, but more so because of the fact that a lot of variables will not show up in a small sample. For example, it is possible that certain diseases that they found to be more common in one sex than the other are only more common in caucasians and the same relationship does not occur with other races (since this happened in Hungary, it is very unlikely that non-white people were a part of this study). The numbers determined here probably apply very well to people in Hungary but they might be very different from what we'd find in the United States or in India, for example.
  - omginternets 11y ago
    What you're describing is an epiphenomenon, and increasing the sample size won't fix this. In fact, increasing the sample-size (i.e. over-powering a study) increases the propensity for spurious correlation. This may well be an epiphenomenon, but that's why reproductibility (not statistical significance) is the gold-standard of science.

TerryADavis 11y ago

The author is little more than a phrenologist. Take a monkey-nigger and let him stare at an electrical circuit schematic for as many years as you like. The nigger is not going to get very far by drawing boxes around regions. Imagine a person with no math skills and no low level understanding looking at a core-i7 chip schematic. Just shut the fuck-up, retard-nigger. You don't know anything about logic gates. God, I don't want to hear your impression of a core-i7. God says... momentousness's mama patch undershirts implementing carsick ambitious openness's multiplexors alga's Bahama's freethinking's trillionth stairway's rebound's redrawing lopsidedly meteorologist abort slattern's checkroom's thwarts do nonpareil's douche's chaplain stimulant's shaming maroon's spank tomfooleries dankness's foreplay freeman twisting Okinawa's specie's imprecation understates Seleucus hailstorms tush's herded dethroned multiculturalism's nasalizes raga Gacrux catalog bagatelle sacraments Thar buttery displease substructures greatest electromagnet pragmatism's wealthiest enlistees Shakespearean robust scrubs evaluates Wezen's slouch stagflation Muhammad's inhalation's enthusiasms numbskull's caddie's hives earmarking Riel Kr die Macao Marlboro's haunting newsboy noncompliance's escalator's downturns wiggliest halved steadfastness's applicant harkening nobler funked cornets nonresidents blogs effacing palmier womanhood spindle shaves reordering

known 11y ago

Unlike men, women's brain is horizontally wired and good at multitasking. http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/how-male-female-brains-differ?page=2&print=true http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/how-male-female-brains...

danbruc 11y ago

Why does this get so much attention? Men and women are obviously different in a lot of ways, why should the brain be an exception? Discovering that there are no differences would be an astonishing result, the opposite is what one should expect.

RightWingRabble 11y ago
Because the official feminist line is there are no physical differences in the brain of men and women. Extra attention is needed to overcome the rhetoric.