4 ms·

Citations much needed for your first point, please. What I see is a list of male and female dominated fields which is a near perfect fit for what theory would p

Citations much needed for your first point, please. What I see is a list of male and female dominated fields which is a near perfect fit for what theory would predict. I'm sorry you feel the need to trivialize my point about monkeys. Unfortunately, evidence is going to keep rubbing you the wrong way, you're going to love this new thread : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942022 “At the time, it seemed clear to me that any between-sex differences in thinking abilities were due to socialization practices, artifacts and mistakes in the research, and bias and prejudice. ... After reviewing a pile of journal articles that stood several feet high and numerous books and book chapters that dwarfed the stack of journal articles … I changed my mind.” Why? There was too much data pointing to the biological basis of sex-based cognitive differences to ignore, Halpern says. For one thing, the animal-research findings resonated with sex-based differences ascribed to people. These findings continue to accrue. In a study of 34 rhesus monkeys, for example, males strongly preferred toys with wheels over plush toys, whereas females found plush toys likable. It would be tough to argue that the monkeys’ parents bought them sex-typed toys or that simian society encourages its male offspring to play more with trucks. A much more recent study established that boys and girls 9 to 17 months old — an age when children show few if any signs of recognizing either their own or other children’s sex — nonetheless show marked differences in their preference for stereotypically male versus stereotypically female toys. Halpern and others have cataloged plenty of human behavioral differences. “These findings have all been replicated,” she says. "

tptacek 9y ago
This is a whole lot of words all of which are derived from monkey studies. I think it sounds like I'm being snarky when I say that, but, no, I'm not: literally, this is an attempt to reason the 82/18% CS split from the behaviors of monkeys. You understand, right, that my side of this argument doesn't have to predict any part of human society from the behavior of monkeys? That all my argument requires me to be able to do is count?
- adrienne 9y ago
  These people never want to acknowledge the fact that programming used to be near-universally "women's work", right up until dudes decided it was cool and stole it from us. CS admissions used to be more than 40% women!
  - renaudg 9y ago
    Please tell us the name of the dude who "stole" all of your girlfriends' neatly-prepared CS college applications and forced them into psychology, sociology and art history instead. Sounds like some kind of dark patriarchy superhero I'd like to meet (he still didn't manage to steal the spot of the most talented computer scientist amongst my friends, who is a woman) Actually, there must be a similar female superhero stealing all of the boys' medical school applications as well (and overall college applications, which are majority female) Or... could this all be the result of decades of encouraging young people to follow their heart when thinking careers ? People, Occam's razor please.
    - sctb 9y ago
      Would you please post civilly and substantively or not at all? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- xyzzyz 9y ago
  The whole reason monkeys even enter the picture is because the society currently unfairly favors a hypothesis that it's all due to socialization, and not at all due to biology. Any study that attempts to show biological aspects only results in the supposed socialization event resulting in the difference being pushed earlier in the development. The studies showing that female infants are more interested in looking at pictures of faces, while male infants are more interested in looking at pictures of mechanical toys wasn't enough, so researchers are one upping and studying monkeys. It does not help though, I heard from someone saying this in good faith that the sex differences in toy preferences in monkeys are due to societal norms in monkey groups. At this point I'm seriously starting to consider the socialization hypothesis (which is obviously true to some degree, i.e. socialization plays a huge role in the observed sex differences) to be unscientific, that is, unfalsifiable.

tptacek 9y ago

This is a whole lot of words all of which are derived from monkey studies. I think it sounds like I'm being snarky when I say that, but, no, I'm not: literally, this is an attempt to reason the 82/18% CS split from the behaviors of monkeys. You understand, right, that my side of this argument doesn't have to predict any part of human society from the behavior of monkeys? That all my argument requires me to be able to do is count?

adrienne 9y ago
These people never want to acknowledge the fact that programming used to be near-universally "women's work", right up until dudes decided it was cool and stole it from us. CS admissions used to be more than 40% women!
- renaudg 9y ago
  Please tell us the name of the dude who "stole" all of your girlfriends' neatly-prepared CS college applications and forced them into psychology, sociology and art history instead. Sounds like some kind of dark patriarchy superhero I'd like to meet (he still didn't manage to steal the spot of the most talented computer scientist amongst my friends, who is a woman) Actually, there must be a similar female superhero stealing all of the boys' medical school applications as well (and overall college applications, which are majority female) Or... could this all be the result of decades of encouraging young people to follow their heart when thinking careers ? People, Occam's razor please.
  - sctb 9y ago
    Would you please post civilly and substantively or not at all? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
xyzzyz 9y ago
The whole reason monkeys even enter the picture is because the society currently unfairly favors a hypothesis that it's all due to socialization, and not at all due to biology. Any study that attempts to show biological aspects only results in the supposed socialization event resulting in the difference being pushed earlier in the development. The studies showing that female infants are more interested in looking at pictures of faces, while male infants are more interested in looking at pictures of mechanical toys wasn't enough, so researchers are one upping and studying monkeys. It does not help though, I heard from someone saying this in good faith that the sex differences in toy preferences in monkeys are due to societal norms in monkey groups. At this point I'm seriously starting to consider the socialization hypothesis (which is obviously true to some degree, i.e. socialization plays a huge role in the observed sex differences) to be unscientific, that is, unfalsifiable.