10 ms·

I think the point of the article is that the science supports the fact that there are sex differences in the brain. Ideas that the article does not propose inc

I think the point of the article is that the science supports the fact that there are sex differences in the brain. Ideas that the article does not propose include: - Men are better than Women or vice versa. - Men are better suited to X activity or job. The point was that the science should be evidence lead and defended from ideologues regardless of your view on the broader political issues. Ideologues attempt to bend all evidence to support a pre-existing conclusion, and the politicisation of science is bad in all cases because it undermines the entire process. It's depressing that a publication such as Nature should be affected in this way.

pryce 7y ago
If your ideology is that any measured sex differences in the brain should be automatically interpreted as 'innate' facts about men and women, rather than -say- the cumulative result of a combination of gene expression (including sex chromosomes), developmental biology and (in anything other than newborns) socialization, then you're still imposing an ideology on the available data. 'Blank slate theory' simply isn't what feminists are arguing; they are arguing that our society has a woefully poor record of hastily ascribing traits to a kind of biological determinism, and further claims of that type should be heavily scrutinised.
- MrScruff 7y ago
  I believe at least some of the studies mentioned were dealing with rats rather than humans. I didn't read anything from the sourced article that overstepped the bounds of what could be said from the research. It seemed like all the interpretation was being done by the non-scientists.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  They're not just saying they should be heavily scrutinized. At least some are saying that it's flat out bad science to acknowledge the differences, or perform research into the subject at all. They're denying science for ideological ends. It's pretty much the same thing as conservatives with climate change. They don't like what science has to say, so they're trying to shut it down. I'm generally pro-feminism, but no 'side' has a monopoly on bad opinions.
- frotak 7y ago
  Observing physical differences is not imposing an ideology. The physical differences exist today and are exhibited based on biological genders. That does not preclude that these differences are unduly influenced by environmental issues (including socialization). However denying that they exist (which is what Cahill is objecting to here) on the basis that the cause might be environmental and not "innate" just means that the ability to understand and treat neurological disorders in females decreases. The reality is that there are differences. The cause of that reality can be complicated and nuanced and not inescapable. but as the change in societal standards is quite slow all that's happening is a disservice to an entire half of the population.
sharpneli 7y ago
“[the anti–sex difference contingent is] in fact advocating for biomedical research to retain its male subject–dominated status quo so disproportionately harmful to women.” The money quote. The situation in neuroscience is pretty much the same as if in Machine Learning people would say ”You must use just white males in face recognition training”.
- gubbrora 7y ago
  I reckon there are more Asians in machine learning than there are white people, so that example is misleading.
  - sharpneli 7y ago
    https://www.google.fi/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2018/2/11/17001218/facial-recognition-software-accuracy-technology-mit-white-men-black-women-error https://www.google.fi/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/20... Just one example. This issue in ML has been on the surface for few years now.
    - guitarbill 7y ago
      From that article: > And, as The Atlantic story points out, other groups have found in the past that facial recognition algorithms developed in Asia were more likely to accurately identify Asian people than white people; while algorithms developed in parts of Europe and the US were able to identify white faces better. Maybe Wakanda can share their facial recognition tech and we can combine them all into a fair model? (Joking about the first part, obviously, and about the second part, e.g. Aboriginal Australians, Maori, etc that don't neatly fit into those three categories.)
Iv 7y ago
I wish more people realize that when someone proclaims equality between all the people, it is an ideal that we want to strive towards as a society. It is not a statement of nature. It is because there are inequalities naturally, either innate or acquired, that it is necessary to state equality as a goal. This is the old is/ought dichotomy.
- mercacona 7y ago
  There’s another idea I’ll like to add to your comment: equity, which how policies should allow society to grow in equality.
  - Iv 7y ago
    I knew someone would mention equity. I must say that, for one, I feel the need to push back against this new trend of trying to obfuscate what equality is about. Equity = equality. People who fight these notions pretended to not understand what equality is and say that equality of opportunity is what it means. No, to any sane, empathic, person, the meaning of equality is clear: you want similar outcomes for everybody. It sounds complicated only to the people who think that a flat tax is the only fair tax. Let's not indulge to their (often voluntarily) obtuseness. In 20 years, they will pretend that equity means something else and we will have to come up with another word to express the same old concept. You know, it took me a while to understand how well balanced the french motto was: liberty, equality, fraternity. If you lack one of these, you will corrupt the two others. If you think about equality while also keeping fraternity in mind (as in, "what would I want for my loved ones?"), then it becomes obvious that we are not talking about crap like "equality of chances" but true equality.
    - Isinlor 7y ago
      Equality from Oxford dictionary: The state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities. Equality from Merriam-Webster dictionary: the quality or state of being equal; the quality or state of having the same rights, social status, etc. French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: Article I – Men are born and remain free and equal in rights (highlight mine). Social distinctions can be founded only on the common good. BTW - I come from a country with a communist history and the result of enforcing equality of outcome is indeed equality as you understand it i.e. almost everyone was equally poor. Some people actually feel genuinely sentimental about it. For example, a bubble gum or coca cola bought from capitalist shop with hard to come by dollars had to feel special. My mother often tells my a story how she enjoyed coca cola when visiting West. In general, my parents were really appreciating being able to eat oranges or bananas basically once a year for Christmas. Now, in capitalism it's an everyday thing and doesn't feel special anymore.
AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
science supports the fact that there are sex differences in the brain. ... does not propose [that] men are better suited to X activity or job. If two things are different (any things not just brains), surely there will be some cases when one works better than another?
- szemet 7y ago
  It may be likely - but it is not a logical necessity: there can be large structural differences between functionally equivalent things (artificial, engineered example: like a C64 computer and a C64 emulator)
- threeseed 7y ago
  Being suited to a job is a combination of hundreds of factors e.g. experience, temperament, social skills, personality type. And those factors do not necessarily correlate with gender. So ignoring all of those factors and just focusing on gender is illogical. Especially given that men/women are not all uniform and exhibit wildly different personality and behavioural traits.
  - claytongulick 7y ago
    It really depends on the job, doesn't it? If the job is, for example, a dock worker physically lifting heavy crates / boxes all day, is it unreasonable to expect there to be a gender bias in hiring for that position? How about a bouncer at a bar?
upatricck 7y ago
-> Men are better suited to X activity or job. If two things are different, and they are a large number of functions. Chances are that they will be functions where thing A is better than thing B, and many where thing B is better than A.
BurningFrog 7y ago
The key to understand and talk about this is to use the term "on average" a lot. The best non controversial example is height. As we all know, men are on average taller than women. As we also know, that doesn't mean every man is taller than every woman. If you're a man, there is almost certainly a taller woman out there, if you're a woman, there is surely a shorter man. So if there is a job where height is an advantage, there are two stupid ways to approach this. (A) Since men are taller, only men should be allowed to do the job, (B) Since any gender can have any height, gender distribution in this job must be 50/50. I claim the right answer is (C), let everyone who is qualified (by height) do the job, and don't be surprised or offended when there is a 80/20 distribution in that work force.
- montecarl 7y ago
  I guess there is also a (D), which would be, to make it so that most people regardless of height could do that job. There could be a simple or cheap way to enable shorter people to perform as well. In that case, you could greatly expand your available workforce. If there isn't an easy way to do that then you can fallback to (C).
- davrosthedalek 7y ago
  I agree, but after some time I started wondering: What happens if the employers measurement of quality (height) has an uncertainty? If the employer has two candidates very close together, using Bayesian statistics, the employer must conclude that the male (for height) is more likely to be better, because there are more men that are this tall than women. I think this is "fair" for the employer to do, as their goal is to hire the best person. But obviously it's unfair to the tall woman.

pryce 7y ago

If your ideology is that any measured sex differences in the brain should be automatically interpreted as 'innate' facts about men and women, rather than -say- the cumulative result of a combination of gene expression (including sex chromosomes), developmental biology and (in anything other than newborns) socialization, then you're still imposing an ideology on the available data. 'Blank slate theory' simply isn't what feminists are arguing; they are arguing that our society has a woefully poor record of hastily ascribing traits to a kind of biological determinism, and further claims of that type should be heavily scrutinised.

MrScruff 7y ago
I believe at least some of the studies mentioned were dealing with rats rather than humans. I didn't read anything from the sourced article that overstepped the bounds of what could be said from the research. It seemed like all the interpretation was being done by the non-scientists.
TulliusCicero 7y ago
They're not just saying they should be heavily scrutinized. At least some are saying that it's flat out bad science to acknowledge the differences, or perform research into the subject at all. They're denying science for ideological ends. It's pretty much the same thing as conservatives with climate change. They don't like what science has to say, so they're trying to shut it down. I'm generally pro-feminism, but no 'side' has a monopoly on bad opinions.
frotak 7y ago
Observing physical differences is not imposing an ideology. The physical differences exist today and are exhibited based on biological genders. That does not preclude that these differences are unduly influenced by environmental issues (including socialization). However denying that they exist (which is what Cahill is objecting to here) on the basis that the cause might be environmental and not "innate" just means that the ability to understand and treat neurological disorders in females decreases. The reality is that there are differences. The cause of that reality can be complicated and nuanced and not inescapable. but as the change in societal standards is quite slow all that's happening is a disservice to an entire half of the population.

sharpneli 7y ago

“[the anti–sex difference contingent is] in fact advocating for biomedical research to retain its male subject–dominated status quo so disproportionately harmful to women.” The money quote. The situation in neuroscience is pretty much the same as if in Machine Learning people would say ”You must use just white males in face recognition training”.

gubbrora 7y ago
I reckon there are more Asians in machine learning than there are white people, so that example is misleading.
- sharpneli 7y ago
  https://www.google.fi/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2018/2/11/17001218/facial-recognition-software-accuracy-technology-mit-white-men-black-women-error https://www.google.fi/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/20... Just one example. This issue in ML has been on the surface for few years now.
  - guitarbill 7y ago
    From that article: > And, as The Atlantic story points out, other groups have found in the past that facial recognition algorithms developed in Asia were more likely to accurately identify Asian people than white people; while algorithms developed in parts of Europe and the US were able to identify white faces better. Maybe Wakanda can share their facial recognition tech and we can combine them all into a fair model? (Joking about the first part, obviously, and about the second part, e.g. Aboriginal Australians, Maori, etc that don't neatly fit into those three categories.)

Iv 7y ago

I wish more people realize that when someone proclaims equality between all the people, it is an ideal that we want to strive towards as a society. It is not a statement of nature. It is because there are inequalities naturally, either innate or acquired, that it is necessary to state equality as a goal. This is the old is/ought dichotomy.

mercacona 7y ago
There’s another idea I’ll like to add to your comment: equity, which how policies should allow society to grow in equality.
- Iv 7y ago
  I knew someone would mention equity. I must say that, for one, I feel the need to push back against this new trend of trying to obfuscate what equality is about. Equity = equality. People who fight these notions pretended to not understand what equality is and say that equality of opportunity is what it means. No, to any sane, empathic, person, the meaning of equality is clear: you want similar outcomes for everybody. It sounds complicated only to the people who think that a flat tax is the only fair tax. Let's not indulge to their (often voluntarily) obtuseness. In 20 years, they will pretend that equity means something else and we will have to come up with another word to express the same old concept. You know, it took me a while to understand how well balanced the french motto was: liberty, equality, fraternity. If you lack one of these, you will corrupt the two others. If you think about equality while also keeping fraternity in mind (as in, "what would I want for my loved ones?"), then it becomes obvious that we are not talking about crap like "equality of chances" but true equality.
  - Isinlor 7y ago
    Equality from Oxford dictionary: The state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities. Equality from Merriam-Webster dictionary: the quality or state of being equal; the quality or state of having the same rights, social status, etc. French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: Article I – Men are born and remain free and equal in rights (highlight mine). Social distinctions can be founded only on the common good. BTW - I come from a country with a communist history and the result of enforcing equality of outcome is indeed equality as you understand it i.e. almost everyone was equally poor. Some people actually feel genuinely sentimental about it. For example, a bubble gum or coca cola bought from capitalist shop with hard to come by dollars had to feel special. My mother often tells my a story how she enjoyed coca cola when visiting West. In general, my parents were really appreciating being able to eat oranges or bananas basically once a year for Christmas. Now, in capitalism it's an everyday thing and doesn't feel special anymore.

AlexTWithBeard 7y ago

science supports the fact that there are sex differences in the brain. ... does not propose [that] men are better suited to X activity or job. If two things are different (any things not just brains), surely there will be some cases when one works better than another?

szemet 7y ago
It may be likely - but it is not a logical necessity: there can be large structural differences between functionally equivalent things (artificial, engineered example: like a C64 computer and a C64 emulator)
threeseed 7y ago
Being suited to a job is a combination of hundreds of factors e.g. experience, temperament, social skills, personality type. And those factors do not necessarily correlate with gender. So ignoring all of those factors and just focusing on gender is illogical. Especially given that men/women are not all uniform and exhibit wildly different personality and behavioural traits.
- claytongulick 7y ago
  It really depends on the job, doesn't it? If the job is, for example, a dock worker physically lifting heavy crates / boxes all day, is it unreasonable to expect there to be a gender bias in hiring for that position? How about a bouncer at a bar?

upatricck 7y ago

-> Men are better suited to X activity or job. If two things are different, and they are a large number of functions. Chances are that they will be functions where thing A is better than thing B, and many where thing B is better than A.

BurningFrog 7y ago

The key to understand and talk about this is to use the term "on average" a lot. The best non controversial example is height. As we all know, men are on average taller than women. As we also know, that doesn't mean every man is taller than every woman. If you're a man, there is almost certainly a taller woman out there, if you're a woman, there is surely a shorter man. So if there is a job where height is an advantage, there are two stupid ways to approach this. (A) Since men are taller, only men should be allowed to do the job, (B) Since any gender can have any height, gender distribution in this job must be 50/50. I claim the right answer is (C), let everyone who is qualified (by height) do the job, and don't be surprised or offended when there is a 80/20 distribution in that work force.

montecarl 7y ago
I guess there is also a (D), which would be, to make it so that most people regardless of height could do that job. There could be a simple or cheap way to enable shorter people to perform as well. In that case, you could greatly expand your available workforce. If there isn't an easy way to do that then you can fallback to (C).
davrosthedalek 7y ago
I agree, but after some time I started wondering: What happens if the employers measurement of quality (height) has an uncertainty? If the employer has two candidates very close together, using Bayesian statistics, the employer must conclude that the male (for height) is more likely to be better, because there are more men that are this tall than women. I think this is "fair" for the employer to do, as their goal is to hire the best person. But obviously it's unfair to the tall woman.