12 ms·

The cognitive differences between men and women

177 points by walterclifford 9y ago

mnsc 9y ago
From the article. "Men, on average, can more easily juggle items in working memory. They have superior visuospatial skills: They’re better at visualizing what happens when a complicated two- or three-dimensional shape is rotated in space, at correctly determining angles from the horizontal, at tracking moving objects and at aiming projectiles." From this article: http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/picture-yourself-as-a-stereotypical-male http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/picture-yourself-as-a-s... "As it turns out, there is zero statistically significant gender difference in mental rotation ability after test-takers are asked to imagine themselves as stereotypical men for a few minutes. None. An entire standard deviation of female underperformance is negated on this condition, just as a man’s performance is slightly hindered if he instead imagines himself as a woman." What gives?
- Numberwang 9y ago
  Sounds like a placebo effect.
- DalaiObama 9y ago
  "Stereotype threat" isn't doing well in replication. https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/04/07/hidden-figures-replication-failures-in-the-stereotype-threat-literature/ https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/04/07/hidden-fig... Money quote: "Research on stereotype threat and women’s performance on math tests is one example where publication bias undermines the findings in a seminal study that produced a large literature of studies on gender differences in math performance. After correcting for publication bias, this literature shows very little evidence that stereotype threat has a notable and practically significant effect on women’s math performance (Flore & Wicherts, 2014)."
  - meowface 9y ago
    If "male visuospatial advantage" isn't being replicated when stereotype threat is taken into account, and stereotype threat isn't being replicated when other experimental variables are taken into account, I don't think that necessarily proves or disproves male visuospatial advantage or that it can or can't be explained by stereotype threat. I think we need some meta-analyses here.
    - leereeves 9y ago
      A meta-analysis wouldn't solve the problem unless it somehow included previously unpublished data. Publication bias has left whole fields of science untrustable. If an individual scientist cherry-picked interesting data the way publications cherry-pick results to publish, it would be called fraud.
      - meowface 9y ago
        Very true. I should've said "more studies and more meta-analyses need to be conducted".
  - mnsc 9y ago
    Great find! The statistical analysis in that article is miles above my competence but I get the gist of it. And I also agree with the comments that I don't think ethical research can show how big or small this effect is because a lifetime of stereotyping can't be undone completely in a single experiment.
- mpweiher 9y ago
  "In conclusion, a replicability analysis with the R-Index shows that stereotype-threat is an elusive phenomenon. Even large replication studies with hundreds of participants were unable to provide evidence for an effect that appeared to be a robust effect in the original article. The R-Index of the meta-analysis by Flore and Wicherts corroborates concerns that the importance of stereotype-threat as an explanation for gender differences in math performance has been exaggerated. " https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/tag/does-stereotype-threat-influence-performance-of-girls-in-stereotyped-domains-a-meta-analysis/ https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/tag/does-stereotype-t...
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- canoebuilder 9y ago
  The second quote sounds like the shoddy/fictitious work of someone attempting to push an agenda with the discredited notion of "stereotype threat." 3d rotation sex differences present themselves as early as infancy. https://www.google.com/search?q=infants+3d+rotation+sex+differences https://www.google.com/search?q=infants+3d+rotation+sex+diff...
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jostmey 9y ago
I'd like to think society can truely embrace diversity instead of uniformity. Sadly, racial and sex discrimination still exist leaving society stuck with imperfect solutions to deep rooted problems.
- d33 9y ago
  Could you give an example of an "imperfect solution to a deep rooted problem"?
  - rsmuckles 9y ago
    Affirmative action programs are like the canonical imperfect solution to a deep rooted problem, especially for college admissions. Although they certainly help handfuls of disadvantaged minority students achieve higher education and the success that results from that, those fortunate individuals rarely have the power to do anything to resolve the socioeconomic problems that plague the communities that they came from. Having a token minority on your Fortune 500 board is great, but it doesn't do anything to resolve the class struggle in the Americas.
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- exabrial 9y ago
  ^ this ^ so much. It makes me very sad to see male masculinity being shamed and female empathy mocked as a weakness. The important differences should be celebrated, not viewed as a superiority contest.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    How are you going to do that in a way that isn't shitty to "feminine" men or "masculine" women?
    - phaed 9y ago
      You can't save everyone from feeling shitty. It's a similar argument overweight people have against ads showing fit and healthy people, they want those ads removed cause it makes them feel shitty about themselves. What they need to do is analyze why it makes them feel shitty, and if they don't like what they see, rather than try to change everyone else, they should look into changing themselves. If you accept who you are and are content with it, there is no reason to feel shitty in the first place.
necessity 9y ago
Of course cognitive differences can make one better than the other in certain tasks, stop being so defensive. PC is anti-intellectualism.
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danharaj 9y ago
1) There are sex-differentiated characteristics of the brain. 2) Those sex-differentiated characteristics tend to be a mosaic in the brain [1]. 3) Despite being a mosaic, statistics can still differentiate sex based on individual brain characteristics [2]. 4) Therefore the current social structures that differentiate the roles men and women play in society are biologically derived /s /s /s /s A long time ago, it was decided that women and men had their place because god ordained it. When that fell out of fashion (still fashionable in many places), shallow thinkers used sed to make it seem more respectable. Putting this into the context of the recent discussion about the role of sex/gender in the tech industry, let's suppose that biological differences influence a person' career choice. Let's also acknowledge that until the last 60 or so years women were basically barred from pursuing technical work in great numbers by social obstacles. The question is, when did those social obstacles become so negligible that only biological factors are left as plausible reasons for gender disparities in, say, programming? Very few people disagree with the idea that society should treat people equally irrespective of their gender. There's just a contingent of people who say that such social parity has already been achieved (or maybe we've gone too far), and another contingent who say that parity has not been achieved. If we're already in an egalitarian society, then clearly the only reason for significant differences in the division of labor and social participation between different genders must be of biological origin. In other words, the contentious issue of biological differences between men and women isn't contentious because of the biology, but because of the assumptions that need to be made in order to correlate those differences with the structure of society. [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468 http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468 [2] http://www.pnas.org/content/113/14/E1968.short http://www.pnas.org/content/113/14/E1968.short
- VMG 9y ago
  > There's just a contingent of people who say that such social parity has already been achieved (or maybe we've gone too far), and another contingent who say that parity has not been achieved. There also is a contingent of people who say that equal treatment will not lead to social parity.
  - danharaj 9y ago
twh270 9y ago
The brain is a physical, biological organ just like the heart, eyes, etc. So yes, just as there are minor physical differences between men and women in other ways, there are minor physical differences in the brain as well. Across a sufficiently large sample set, men will on average be slightly better at some things, and women will on average be slightly better at other things. For the reactionary crowd, please note I said "minor differences" and "slightly better". There's a ton of overlap and much more similarity than difference. Also I want to be clear to separate biological differences from culturally trained differences. The things we do and are exposed to growing up certainly have an effect on brain development, just as they do on the rest of the body. To further that last point, IMO it is almost certain that culturally assigned gender roles have played a part in our evolutionary biology. So this is not a discussion that can really be separated from the role of culture. I hope that continuing research in this field helps educate people to see that men and women are far more alike than different.
- nyxtom 9y ago
  This ^. Indeed, men and women are different and some tasks, mental models may be different over the average. Even traits such as the propensity for aggression as a side effect of more testerone in the body. This certainly doesn't mean you won't find aggressive women, but on the whole the nuances seem quite a lot simpler when you take into account varying levels of hormones and neuroplasticity. I think it is worth exploring the effects of culture on gender, but I honestly think the simpler answer is one of neuroplasticity and the brains adaptation to selection, hormones and environmental stress. When you stop thinking in diametrically opposing ways of being, you realize humans on the whole (men and women) are far far more alike than we let on.
JimboOmega 9y ago
As a trans person, I have read that changing the hormones changes the brain shape quite a bit towards the cross sex sizes. It will be a very interesting experience...
jungletime 9y ago
Seems like the "google memo guy" just expressed many of the view points of the youtube famous psychologist and UofT professor Jordan Peterson. I'm not sure if its related, but Jordan's channel was shut down for a day for an unexplained reason, fueling many conspiracy theories.
mcappleton 9y ago
For thousands of years men have run society and women have been homemakers. We are biologically wired with those roles in our DNA. Today we are trying to upset those roles, and It causes a huge amount of psychological problems. Women are not designed to run their own lives. They are designed to follow the significant man in Their life. Today since they are expected to be like men, they are completely overwhelmed and are now doped up on drugs like xanax to cope. More freedom is not always a good thing. Studies show that with more rights women are actually less happy today than they were 40 years ago.
epx 9y ago
Men are, by far, more violent. This is a major weakness, or "defect". Why women shouldn't have their own, peculiar, weaknesses? I think that even psychiatric conditions like depression, borderline, ADD, etc. manifest very differently in men and women.
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- Nokinside 9y ago
  Statistically women appear to have less deviation physically, mentally or socially. It could be a result of how primates have evolved. For males increasing standard deviation in traits makes it more likely that they are among the few top males that can mate with multiple females. For female being more robust ensures maximum number of children. Women have both glass ceiling and glass floor. There are far less successful women, but there are also far less women living in the streets.
  - cherry_su 9y ago
    Some variation could be explained by the existence of a second X chromosome. This redundancy hides variation that could otherwise be exposed by a recessive gene on a male's sole X chromosome, without the chance of a dominant gene on the second X chromosome to mask it.
  - torrent-of-ions 9y ago
    Have you ever wondered what the point of males is? We take it for granted and many of us probably think males are actually necessary for reproduction but, of course, they are not. Many organisms reproduce just fine without sex. Those that do have sex end up with 50% of the population unable to reproduce. That's an incredible cost, so what is the advantage? Many biologists study sex and it's one of the most fascinating questions out there. The general theory is that producing males allows the organism to try out some really wacky stuff. You can't play around too much with females. If your children are female and they can't reproduce then that's the end of your line. So the selective pressure on female offspring being good is high. It's a different story for males. You only need one good male and you're set. So if you produce 10 males, 6 might be average, 2 exceptional, and 2 complete failures (in evolutionary terms). Those 2 exceptional specimens will pick up the slack for the others. Not only that, but those two exceptional specimens will reproduce more than any set of males that were all average (like a set of females). So not only is there no selective pressure to produce 100% "good" males, there is a strong advantage to producing a few exceptional males. The trouble is, modern feminists only look at the few exceptional males (the CEOs, Nobel prize winners etc.) and whine about it. The other end of the spectrum, the men on the street or committing suicide, are completely invisible to them.
mempko 9y ago
My response here will be unpopular but. Yes, there are cognitive difference, but it doesn't matter. Building software is a complex social event and requires incalculable amount of different skills sets and team effort. To use single differences to claim men are better at software like the Google guy did is just stupid. It's unscientific conjecture born out of likely deep seated issues many nerds, like me and others, have with the opposite sex. In other words programming likely has become a "safe place" for a certain group of people and they want to protect that space. However, in doing so they end up with a bankrupt culture which likely has a negative effect on the quality of the very software they write. EDIT: in reference to my "Google guy" remark. I think this fight is ultimately about growth vs fixed mindsets. My hunch is self proclaimed "conservatives" have a fixed mindset. Meaning they think people are born a certain way and can't grow.
- mcappleton 9y ago
  >Yes, there are cognitive difference, but it doesn't matter. Do you have any evidence to back up this claim? You make a lot of assertions that I think these guys scientific experiments refute.
  - danharaj 9y ago
    What percentage of programming performance is visualizing rotations of 3d objects in your head? The parent's post is based on a reasonable heuristic: Programming is an activity with challenges that require a broad set of skills both technical and social. If such work requires a sufficient diversity of skills to be done effectively, differences in individual skills are less important than the proficiency of the group as a whole. Heuristics are the only thing that can guide here. How many studies are there that bridge the gap between basic cognitive tasks and something as complex as creating software at a company?
  - wawerOS 9y ago
    I have two questions. First which claim? I think I see at least two separate claims in memkpos post (that cognitive differences exist and that they don't matter). Second, what experiments are you referring to that disprove memkpos claim? I ask only to clarify.
bayonetz 9y ago
This topic has obviously become highly socio-political. The current fashion is that there are basically NO biological sex-type differences; that any sex-type differences are socially imposed and generally disadvantageous to women. I think a meta-study style article like this useful to show all the rich and varied science on the matter and to help spark a dialogue around "what if?". If we assume even half of the implications of the cited studies here are true, then that is plenty of sex-type difference to recon with. The citings show as many differences favoring women as they do men. They are just that -- differences, each with their requisite pros and cons. It just makes sense that an intelligent evolutionary process would have lead to the sexes as being best as partners with a division of complimentary abilities and preferences. I can't see us making much progress on the societal equalization across sexes if we don't embrace and harness the very real differences that exist between them.
- tunesmith 9y ago
  "The current fashion is that there are basically NO biological sex-type differences" - seriously who argues this? I asked below and only got two examples of rebuttals, not examples of people actually arguing this.
  - silverlake 9y ago
    It said so right in the article: "Social psychologists and sociologists pooh-poohed the notion of any fundamental cognitive differences between male and female humans, notes Halpern"
  - gehwartzen 9y ago
    Well by definition there have to be biological differences in the sexes so I'm not sure how anyone could argue that.
- jackcosgrove 9y ago
  I don't think evolution would necessarily favor specialization between the sexes. However we do have evidence that fewer men have reproduced than women. This means men have been under greater selection pressures than women, which would lead to specialization. I think this is an outcome of the length of time that women are fertile relative to the time required to gestate and ween a child, plus the length of time that a man is virile. This introduces an asymmetry between the number of women who can mate and the number of men who can mate. Your claim of sexual specialization may stand for more complex organisms which follow the mating pattern above, but I don't think there's necessarily a biological imperative to specialize the sexes, beyond the specialization in their reproductive systems.
tunesmith 9y ago
Can someone point out to me an example of someone arguing there is no difference between men and women? I regularly see people arguing against this viewpoint, but I am not sure I have ever seen the viewpoint itself.
- mpweiher 9y ago
  Regarding the mind, "The Blank Slate" is actually the dominant viewpoint. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa Deviations are not tolerated. For more details, see Pinker (who then debunks this): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate
- callesgg 9y ago
  It is common knowledge that we are all the same, just as it was common knowledge that the earth was flat a few 100 years ago. People don't argue for common knowledge, it is common knowledge. Here is a interesting case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVaTc15plVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVaTc15plVs
nether 9y ago
Similarly, some leftists claim that race is a social construct because there is more genetic variation within a race than across them. Except you have genetic tests that easily identify race: https://www.wired.com/2007/12/ps-dna/ https://www.wired.com/2007/12/ps-dna/ and medical studies that indicate the race of patients studied, because it is a medically significant concept: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Different-Races-Are-Genetically-Prone-to-Different-Diseases-44056.shtml http://news.softpedia.com/news/Different-Races-Are-Genetical....
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  Which races are you talking about? The ones leftover from 19th century pseudoscience? Can you point me to a science paper that shows a genetic basis for these so-called races? Not, notably, working back from genes to crazy theories. I could genetically detect ginger haired people, or people with green eyes, that doesn't make those races. So what defines your races?
  - mnsc 9y ago
    I have deviced a test that can, with 100% accuracy, detect a dark skinned individualist. I call it "ocular inspection" and it uses eye tools.
    - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
      Using the same tools I can with 100% accuracy detect someone with red hair from someone with brown hair. What is your basis for separating people with different skin colors into different races but not people with different hair colors?
- Udik 9y ago
  It's still a mystery to me how it is possible, from a merely logical point of view, that two groups are more diverse internally than between them. Especially (but not necessarily) when all the elements of one group are different from the element of the other group for at least one constant characteristic.
mrcabada 9y ago
How do we now this isn't something that is being caused due to the female being suppressed in our history? This studies are biased due to the fact that females haven't been treated equally for centuries and this affects on how the female see the world, affecting the real meaning of the study. It's like taking a male that you have treated emotionally bad and you tell him thru all his life he can't do this and that and a male where you tell him he must be strong, he must do this and that. Boths are males and I bet you will find the same differences between these two males and between a male and a female.
callesgg 9y ago
Here in Sweden if you are of the opinion that men and women are biologically different, people will call you "racist", bigot, idiot, and so on. It is terrifying, difference has somehow become connected to the thought that one gender should be inferior. Personally i don't care particularly much WHY the sexes are different, we are different that is enough knowledge for me in my life at the moment. I do however care about people communicating facts that are not based on science.
- tunesmith 9y ago
  Hi, do you have an example of that happening in Sweden?
- mnsc 9y ago
  As a fellow swede I don't have the same experience. I instead see many cases of biological differences between sexes (that exists) being over emphasized in order to rationalize maintaining status quo.
torrent-of-ions 9y ago
Here on HN you'll be banned if you're not careful too.
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- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  Do you have an example of that? My experience on HN is that there exists a small minority of users who might shout you down, but I've never seen or heard of a user being banned for discussing something like this in good faith.
  - jshevek 9y ago
    I've seen it claimed, without substantiation, that anyone who argues against the fashionable position can't possibly be doing so "in good faith" - because the unfashionable position itself is declared to be a bad faith position. I've seen this repeatedly on HN.
  - torrent-of-ions 9y ago
    Well the very comment you replied to has been detached for being "off topic".
- micahbright 9y ago
  I've seen several comments flagged for no reason - what they have in common is that they cogently refute liberal ideology
- sctb 9y ago
  You get banned on Hacker News for violating the guidelines, and it's possible to share contrary opinions without doing so. See also: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20linkless%20martyr&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20linkless%20martyr&so.... We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942874 and marked it off-topic.
stared 9y ago
Food for thought: * Trans people of Reddit, what was something you weren't expecting to be told, find out, or experience when going through your transition (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_trans_people_of_reddit_what_was_something/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_t...) So yes, even hormones by themselves make changes, going beyond cultural pressure and upbringing. Exposure for different chromosomes, and hormones, though all live (including prenatal development) may have even stronger impact.
- agarden 9y ago
  Interesting reading. Here's a relevant snippet from that page: "I was extremely egalitarian prior to my transition I staunchly didn't want to think there were any neurological differences between men and women, it became obvious over time to me begin on estrogen there were. It's just tricky to discern the difference. It was distressing to realize that it makes a big difference and my brain and mind were just playthings of my body." https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_trans_people_of_reddit_what_was_something/d2e6fho/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_t...
ilaksh 9y ago
The problem is that rather than evaluating actual individuals who of course vary widely, these tendencies are used as justification for pre-judgement or inequality.
nyxtom 9y ago
The Google memo guy would of made a lot more inroad had he referenced this material. Nothing in this article screams controversial to me. I also don't see a problem with wanting to hire more women in tech. These differences outlined do not all appear advantageous or otherwise disadvantage one gender over another and lend better credence to being a great engineer. Anything that makes that claim is conflating a false narrative on extremely weak grounds. Having said that, the memo is a trigger for people on multiple extremes. The reaction from both sides of this reminds me of forums on parenting nature vs nurture.
- throwgoog452 9y ago
  The Google memo author did reference similar material. The fucking Gizmodo leak stripped out all author's hyperlinks. The hyperlinks were how he cited his sources. This fact keeps getting lost on people: the document was not only well-written, but also well-supported!
  - nyxtom 9y ago
    I don't buy that argument. Referencing work doesn't mean you just slap a bunch of links and call it good. Build up of context; heck even just mention Google Project Aristole. Are you saying Gizmodo stripped links and all paragraphs that provided reference context and explanation of said material? Sorry, I think perhaps to me his writing style came off as amateur at best to me. It seemed rushed, wavering, and made irrelevant arguments without proper build up or context. It wasn't until the very end that he even decided to state the context of mountain view to begin with. Reading it made it sound like over generalizations and frankly just a long reddit rant. Reading through this article linked here, nothing came off as especially controversial to me. Seeing that the author of the memo seems to have some professional background in the field of biology I would of expected better; at least check for typos.
anwar19 9y ago
Here's an interesting piece by a female Associate Professor of Sociology at Stockholm University. https://econjwatch.org/file_download/943/SternSept2016.pdf?mimetype=pdf https://econjwatch.org/file_download/943/SternSept2016.pdf?m... The paper is titled "Undoing Insularity: A Small Study of Gender Sociology’s Big Problem" and it's core theme is that gender sociology insulates itself from ideas that are contrary to status quo. Do give it a read.

mnsc 9y ago

From the article. "Men, on average, can more easily juggle items in working memory. They have superior visuospatial skills: They’re better at visualizing what happens when a complicated two- or three-dimensional shape is rotated in space, at correctly determining angles from the horizontal, at tracking moving objects and at aiming projectiles." From this article: http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/picture-yourself-as-a-stereotypical-male http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/picture-yourself-as-a-s... "As it turns out, there is zero statistically significant gender difference in mental rotation ability after test-takers are asked to imagine themselves as stereotypical men for a few minutes. None. An entire standard deviation of female underperformance is negated on this condition, just as a man’s performance is slightly hindered if he instead imagines himself as a woman." What gives?

Numberwang 9y ago
Sounds like a placebo effect.
DalaiObama 9y ago
"Stereotype threat" isn't doing well in replication. https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/04/07/hidden-figures-replication-failures-in-the-stereotype-threat-literature/ https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/04/07/hidden-fig... Money quote: "Research on stereotype threat and women’s performance on math tests is one example where publication bias undermines the findings in a seminal study that produced a large literature of studies on gender differences in math performance. After correcting for publication bias, this literature shows very little evidence that stereotype threat has a notable and practically significant effect on women’s math performance (Flore & Wicherts, 2014)."
- meowface 9y ago
  If "male visuospatial advantage" isn't being replicated when stereotype threat is taken into account, and stereotype threat isn't being replicated when other experimental variables are taken into account, I don't think that necessarily proves or disproves male visuospatial advantage or that it can or can't be explained by stereotype threat. I think we need some meta-analyses here.
  - leereeves 9y ago
    A meta-analysis wouldn't solve the problem unless it somehow included previously unpublished data. Publication bias has left whole fields of science untrustable. If an individual scientist cherry-picked interesting data the way publications cherry-pick results to publish, it would be called fraud.
    - meowface 9y ago
      Very true. I should've said "more studies and more meta-analyses need to be conducted".
- mnsc 9y ago
  Great find! The statistical analysis in that article is miles above my competence but I get the gist of it. And I also agree with the comments that I don't think ethical research can show how big or small this effect is because a lifetime of stereotyping can't be undone completely in a single experiment.
mpweiher 9y ago
"In conclusion, a replicability analysis with the R-Index shows that stereotype-threat is an elusive phenomenon. Even large replication studies with hundreds of participants were unable to provide evidence for an effect that appeared to be a robust effect in the original article. The R-Index of the meta-analysis by Flore and Wicherts corroborates concerns that the importance of stereotype-threat as an explanation for gender differences in math performance has been exaggerated. " https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/tag/does-stereotype-threat-influence-performance-of-girls-in-stereotyped-domains-a-meta-analysis/ https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/tag/does-stereotype-t...
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canoebuilder 9y ago
The second quote sounds like the shoddy/fictitious work of someone attempting to push an agenda with the discredited notion of "stereotype threat." 3d rotation sex differences present themselves as early as infancy. https://www.google.com/search?q=infants+3d+rotation+sex+differences https://www.google.com/search?q=infants+3d+rotation+sex+diff...

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jostmey 9y ago

I'd like to think society can truely embrace diversity instead of uniformity. Sadly, racial and sex discrimination still exist leaving society stuck with imperfect solutions to deep rooted problems.

d33 9y ago
Could you give an example of an "imperfect solution to a deep rooted problem"?
- rsmuckles 9y ago
  Affirmative action programs are like the canonical imperfect solution to a deep rooted problem, especially for college admissions. Although they certainly help handfuls of disadvantaged minority students achieve higher education and the success that results from that, those fortunate individuals rarely have the power to do anything to resolve the socioeconomic problems that plague the communities that they came from. Having a token minority on your Fortune 500 board is great, but it doesn't do anything to resolve the class struggle in the Americas.
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exabrial 9y ago
^ this ^ so much. It makes me very sad to see male masculinity being shamed and female empathy mocked as a weakness. The important differences should be celebrated, not viewed as a superiority contest.
- closeparen 9y ago
  How are you going to do that in a way that isn't shitty to "feminine" men or "masculine" women?
  - phaed 9y ago
    You can't save everyone from feeling shitty. It's a similar argument overweight people have against ads showing fit and healthy people, they want those ads removed cause it makes them feel shitty about themselves. What they need to do is analyze why it makes them feel shitty, and if they don't like what they see, rather than try to change everyone else, they should look into changing themselves. If you accept who you are and are content with it, there is no reason to feel shitty in the first place.

necessity 9y ago

Of course cognitive differences can make one better than the other in certain tasks, stop being so defensive. PC is anti-intellectualism.

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danharaj 9y ago

1) There are sex-differentiated characteristics of the brain. 2) Those sex-differentiated characteristics tend to be a mosaic in the brain [1]. 3) Despite being a mosaic, statistics can still differentiate sex based on individual brain characteristics [2]. 4) Therefore the current social structures that differentiate the roles men and women play in society are biologically derived /s /s /s /s A long time ago, it was decided that women and men had their place because god ordained it. When that fell out of fashion (still fashionable in many places), shallow thinkers used sed to make it seem more respectable. Putting this into the context of the recent discussion about the role of sex/gender in the tech industry, let's suppose that biological differences influence a person' career choice. Let's also acknowledge that until the last 60 or so years women were basically barred from pursuing technical work in great numbers by social obstacles. The question is, when did those social obstacles become so negligible that only biological factors are left as plausible reasons for gender disparities in, say, programming? Very few people disagree with the idea that society should treat people equally irrespective of their gender. There's just a contingent of people who say that such social parity has already been achieved (or maybe we've gone too far), and another contingent who say that parity has not been achieved. If we're already in an egalitarian society, then clearly the only reason for significant differences in the division of labor and social participation between different genders must be of biological origin. In other words, the contentious issue of biological differences between men and women isn't contentious because of the biology, but because of the assumptions that need to be made in order to correlate those differences with the structure of society. [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468 http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468 [2] http://www.pnas.org/content/113/14/E1968.short http://www.pnas.org/content/113/14/E1968.short

VMG 9y ago
> There's just a contingent of people who say that such social parity has already been achieved (or maybe we've gone too far), and another contingent who say that parity has not been achieved. There also is a contingent of people who say that equal treatment will not lead to social parity.
- danharaj 9y ago

twh270 9y ago

The brain is a physical, biological organ just like the heart, eyes, etc. So yes, just as there are minor physical differences between men and women in other ways, there are minor physical differences in the brain as well. Across a sufficiently large sample set, men will on average be slightly better at some things, and women will on average be slightly better at other things. For the reactionary crowd, please note I said "minor differences" and "slightly better". There's a ton of overlap and much more similarity than difference. Also I want to be clear to separate biological differences from culturally trained differences. The things we do and are exposed to growing up certainly have an effect on brain development, just as they do on the rest of the body. To further that last point, IMO it is almost certain that culturally assigned gender roles have played a part in our evolutionary biology. So this is not a discussion that can really be separated from the role of culture. I hope that continuing research in this field helps educate people to see that men and women are far more alike than different.

nyxtom 9y ago
This ^. Indeed, men and women are different and some tasks, mental models may be different over the average. Even traits such as the propensity for aggression as a side effect of more testerone in the body. This certainly doesn't mean you won't find aggressive women, but on the whole the nuances seem quite a lot simpler when you take into account varying levels of hormones and neuroplasticity. I think it is worth exploring the effects of culture on gender, but I honestly think the simpler answer is one of neuroplasticity and the brains adaptation to selection, hormones and environmental stress. When you stop thinking in diametrically opposing ways of being, you realize humans on the whole (men and women) are far far more alike than we let on.

JimboOmega 9y ago

As a trans person, I have read that changing the hormones changes the brain shape quite a bit towards the cross sex sizes. It will be a very interesting experience...

jungletime 9y ago

Seems like the "google memo guy" just expressed many of the view points of the youtube famous psychologist and UofT professor Jordan Peterson. I'm not sure if its related, but Jordan's channel was shut down for a day for an unexplained reason, fueling many conspiracy theories.

mcappleton 9y ago

For thousands of years men have run society and women have been homemakers. We are biologically wired with those roles in our DNA. Today we are trying to upset those roles, and It causes a huge amount of psychological problems. Women are not designed to run their own lives. They are designed to follow the significant man in Their life. Today since they are expected to be like men, they are completely overwhelmed and are now doped up on drugs like xanax to cope. More freedom is not always a good thing. Studies show that with more rights women are actually less happy today than they were 40 years ago.

epx 9y ago

Men are, by far, more violent. This is a major weakness, or "defect". Why women shouldn't have their own, peculiar, weaknesses? I think that even psychiatric conditions like depression, borderline, ADD, etc. manifest very differently in men and women.

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Nokinside 9y ago
Statistically women appear to have less deviation physically, mentally or socially. It could be a result of how primates have evolved. For males increasing standard deviation in traits makes it more likely that they are among the few top males that can mate with multiple females. For female being more robust ensures maximum number of children. Women have both glass ceiling and glass floor. There are far less successful women, but there are also far less women living in the streets.
- cherry_su 9y ago
  Some variation could be explained by the existence of a second X chromosome. This redundancy hides variation that could otherwise be exposed by a recessive gene on a male's sole X chromosome, without the chance of a dominant gene on the second X chromosome to mask it.
- torrent-of-ions 9y ago
  Have you ever wondered what the point of males is? We take it for granted and many of us probably think males are actually necessary for reproduction but, of course, they are not. Many organisms reproduce just fine without sex. Those that do have sex end up with 50% of the population unable to reproduce. That's an incredible cost, so what is the advantage? Many biologists study sex and it's one of the most fascinating questions out there. The general theory is that producing males allows the organism to try out some really wacky stuff. You can't play around too much with females. If your children are female and they can't reproduce then that's the end of your line. So the selective pressure on female offspring being good is high. It's a different story for males. You only need one good male and you're set. So if you produce 10 males, 6 might be average, 2 exceptional, and 2 complete failures (in evolutionary terms). Those 2 exceptional specimens will pick up the slack for the others. Not only that, but those two exceptional specimens will reproduce more than any set of males that were all average (like a set of females). So not only is there no selective pressure to produce 100% "good" males, there is a strong advantage to producing a few exceptional males. The trouble is, modern feminists only look at the few exceptional males (the CEOs, Nobel prize winners etc.) and whine about it. The other end of the spectrum, the men on the street or committing suicide, are completely invisible to them.

mempko 9y ago

My response here will be unpopular but. Yes, there are cognitive difference, but it doesn't matter. Building software is a complex social event and requires incalculable amount of different skills sets and team effort. To use single differences to claim men are better at software like the Google guy did is just stupid. It's unscientific conjecture born out of likely deep seated issues many nerds, like me and others, have with the opposite sex. In other words programming likely has become a "safe place" for a certain group of people and they want to protect that space. However, in doing so they end up with a bankrupt culture which likely has a negative effect on the quality of the very software they write. EDIT: in reference to my "Google guy" remark. I think this fight is ultimately about growth vs fixed mindsets. My hunch is self proclaimed "conservatives" have a fixed mindset. Meaning they think people are born a certain way and can't grow.

mcappleton 9y ago
>Yes, there are cognitive difference, but it doesn't matter. Do you have any evidence to back up this claim? You make a lot of assertions that I think these guys scientific experiments refute.
- danharaj 9y ago
  What percentage of programming performance is visualizing rotations of 3d objects in your head? The parent's post is based on a reasonable heuristic: Programming is an activity with challenges that require a broad set of skills both technical and social. If such work requires a sufficient diversity of skills to be done effectively, differences in individual skills are less important than the proficiency of the group as a whole. Heuristics are the only thing that can guide here. How many studies are there that bridge the gap between basic cognitive tasks and something as complex as creating software at a company?
- wawerOS 9y ago
  I have two questions. First which claim? I think I see at least two separate claims in memkpos post (that cognitive differences exist and that they don't matter). Second, what experiments are you referring to that disprove memkpos claim? I ask only to clarify.

bayonetz 9y ago

This topic has obviously become highly socio-political. The current fashion is that there are basically NO biological sex-type differences; that any sex-type differences are socially imposed and generally disadvantageous to women. I think a meta-study style article like this useful to show all the rich and varied science on the matter and to help spark a dialogue around "what if?". If we assume even half of the implications of the cited studies here are true, then that is plenty of sex-type difference to recon with. The citings show as many differences favoring women as they do men. They are just that -- differences, each with their requisite pros and cons. It just makes sense that an intelligent evolutionary process would have lead to the sexes as being best as partners with a division of complimentary abilities and preferences. I can't see us making much progress on the societal equalization across sexes if we don't embrace and harness the very real differences that exist between them.

tunesmith 9y ago
"The current fashion is that there are basically NO biological sex-type differences" - seriously who argues this? I asked below and only got two examples of rebuttals, not examples of people actually arguing this.
- silverlake 9y ago
  It said so right in the article: "Social psychologists and sociologists pooh-poohed the notion of any fundamental cognitive differences between male and female humans, notes Halpern"
- gehwartzen 9y ago
  Well by definition there have to be biological differences in the sexes so I'm not sure how anyone could argue that.
jackcosgrove 9y ago
I don't think evolution would necessarily favor specialization between the sexes. However we do have evidence that fewer men have reproduced than women. This means men have been under greater selection pressures than women, which would lead to specialization. I think this is an outcome of the length of time that women are fertile relative to the time required to gestate and ween a child, plus the length of time that a man is virile. This introduces an asymmetry between the number of women who can mate and the number of men who can mate. Your claim of sexual specialization may stand for more complex organisms which follow the mating pattern above, but I don't think there's necessarily a biological imperative to specialize the sexes, beyond the specialization in their reproductive systems.

tunesmith 9y ago

Can someone point out to me an example of someone arguing there is no difference between men and women? I regularly see people arguing against this viewpoint, but I am not sure I have ever seen the viewpoint itself.

mpweiher 9y ago
Regarding the mind, "The Blank Slate" is actually the dominant viewpoint. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa Deviations are not tolerated. For more details, see Pinker (who then debunks this): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate
callesgg 9y ago
It is common knowledge that we are all the same, just as it was common knowledge that the earth was flat a few 100 years ago. People don't argue for common knowledge, it is common knowledge. Here is a interesting case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVaTc15plVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVaTc15plVs

nether 9y ago

Similarly, some leftists claim that race is a social construct because there is more genetic variation within a race than across them. Except you have genetic tests that easily identify race: https://www.wired.com/2007/12/ps-dna/ https://www.wired.com/2007/12/ps-dna/ and medical studies that indicate the race of patients studied, because it is a medically significant concept: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Different-Races-Are-Genetically-Prone-to-Different-Diseases-44056.shtml http://news.softpedia.com/news/Different-Races-Are-Genetical....

ZeroGravitas 9y ago
Which races are you talking about? The ones leftover from 19th century pseudoscience? Can you point me to a science paper that shows a genetic basis for these so-called races? Not, notably, working back from genes to crazy theories. I could genetically detect ginger haired people, or people with green eyes, that doesn't make those races. So what defines your races?
- mnsc 9y ago
  I have deviced a test that can, with 100% accuracy, detect a dark skinned individualist. I call it "ocular inspection" and it uses eye tools.
  - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
    Using the same tools I can with 100% accuracy detect someone with red hair from someone with brown hair. What is your basis for separating people with different skin colors into different races but not people with different hair colors?
Udik 9y ago
It's still a mystery to me how it is possible, from a merely logical point of view, that two groups are more diverse internally than between them. Especially (but not necessarily) when all the elements of one group are different from the element of the other group for at least one constant characteristic.

mrcabada 9y ago

How do we now this isn't something that is being caused due to the female being suppressed in our history? This studies are biased due to the fact that females haven't been treated equally for centuries and this affects on how the female see the world, affecting the real meaning of the study. It's like taking a male that you have treated emotionally bad and you tell him thru all his life he can't do this and that and a male where you tell him he must be strong, he must do this and that. Boths are males and I bet you will find the same differences between these two males and between a male and a female.

callesgg 9y ago

Here in Sweden if you are of the opinion that men and women are biologically different, people will call you "racist", bigot, idiot, and so on. It is terrifying, difference has somehow become connected to the thought that one gender should be inferior. Personally i don't care particularly much WHY the sexes are different, we are different that is enough knowledge for me in my life at the moment. I do however care about people communicating facts that are not based on science.

tunesmith 9y ago
Hi, do you have an example of that happening in Sweden?
mnsc 9y ago
As a fellow swede I don't have the same experience. I instead see many cases of biological differences between sexes (that exists) being over emphasized in order to rationalize maintaining status quo.

torrent-of-ions 9y ago

Here on HN you'll be banned if you're not careful too.

deleted 9y ago
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LyndsySimon 9y ago
Do you have an example of that? My experience on HN is that there exists a small minority of users who might shout you down, but I've never seen or heard of a user being banned for discussing something like this in good faith.
- jshevek 9y ago
  I've seen it claimed, without substantiation, that anyone who argues against the fashionable position can't possibly be doing so "in good faith" - because the unfashionable position itself is declared to be a bad faith position. I've seen this repeatedly on HN.
- torrent-of-ions 9y ago
  Well the very comment you replied to has been detached for being "off topic".
micahbright 9y ago
I've seen several comments flagged for no reason - what they have in common is that they cogently refute liberal ideology
sctb 9y ago
You get banned on Hacker News for violating the guidelines, and it's possible to share contrary opinions without doing so. See also: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20linkless%20martyr&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20linkless%20martyr&so.... We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942874 and marked it off-topic.

stared 9y ago

Food for thought: * Trans people of Reddit, what was something you weren't expecting to be told, find out, or experience when going through your transition (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_trans_people_of_reddit_what_was_something/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_t...) So yes, even hormones by themselves make changes, going beyond cultural pressure and upbringing. Exposure for different chromosomes, and hormones, though all live (including prenatal development) may have even stronger impact.

agarden 9y ago
Interesting reading. Here's a relevant snippet from that page: "I was extremely egalitarian prior to my transition I staunchly didn't want to think there were any neurological differences between men and women, it became obvious over time to me begin on estrogen there were. It's just tricky to discern the difference. It was distressing to realize that it makes a big difference and my brain and mind were just playthings of my body." https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_trans_people_of_reddit_what_was_something/d2e6fho/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_t...

ilaksh 9y ago

The problem is that rather than evaluating actual individuals who of course vary widely, these tendencies are used as justification for pre-judgement or inequality.

nyxtom 9y ago

The Google memo guy would of made a lot more inroad had he referenced this material. Nothing in this article screams controversial to me. I also don't see a problem with wanting to hire more women in tech. These differences outlined do not all appear advantageous or otherwise disadvantage one gender over another and lend better credence to being a great engineer. Anything that makes that claim is conflating a false narrative on extremely weak grounds. Having said that, the memo is a trigger for people on multiple extremes. The reaction from both sides of this reminds me of forums on parenting nature vs nurture.

throwgoog452 9y ago
The Google memo author did reference similar material. The fucking Gizmodo leak stripped out all author's hyperlinks. The hyperlinks were how he cited his sources. This fact keeps getting lost on people: the document was not only well-written, but also well-supported!
- nyxtom 9y ago
  I don't buy that argument. Referencing work doesn't mean you just slap a bunch of links and call it good. Build up of context; heck even just mention Google Project Aristole. Are you saying Gizmodo stripped links and all paragraphs that provided reference context and explanation of said material? Sorry, I think perhaps to me his writing style came off as amateur at best to me. It seemed rushed, wavering, and made irrelevant arguments without proper build up or context. It wasn't until the very end that he even decided to state the context of mountain view to begin with. Reading it made it sound like over generalizations and frankly just a long reddit rant. Reading through this article linked here, nothing came off as especially controversial to me. Seeing that the author of the memo seems to have some professional background in the field of biology I would of expected better; at least check for typos.

anwar19 9y ago

Here's an interesting piece by a female Associate Professor of Sociology at Stockholm University. https://econjwatch.org/file_download/943/SternSept2016.pdf?mimetype=pdf https://econjwatch.org/file_download/943/SternSept2016.pdf?m... The paper is titled "Undoing Insularity: A Small Study of Gender Sociology’s Big Problem" and it's core theme is that gender sociology insulates itself from ideas that are contrary to status quo. Do give it a read.