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This reads like propaganda, not science. Also, I don't get it. "In her paper, Eliot and her co-authors acknowledge that psychological studies have found gender

This reads like propaganda, not science. Also, I don't get it. "In her paper, Eliot and her co-authors acknowledge that psychological studies have found gendered personality traits (male aggression, for example) but at the brain level those differences don’t seem to appear." Are you saying that aggression is not related to the brain?

Mindwipe 5y ago
It's certainly possible it's primarily hormonally driven where any biological mechanism exists, and there are certainly hormonal mechanisms that are not run by the brain.
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  My understanding is that aggression is driven by 3 neurotransmitters inside the brain. (dopamine, GABA, serotonin) That would make it highly likely that differences in aggression are related to differences in receivers for those transmitters in the brain.
  - jayd16 5y ago
    Why is that more likely when men have more testosterone and taking too much testosterone causes aggressive behavior?
jayd16 5y ago
I think its about brain structure, not necessarily brain chemistry.
kaitai 5y ago
They're talking about brain structure ("Males’ brains are larger than females’ from birth, stabilizing around 11 % in adults. This size difference accounts for other reproducible findings: higher white/gray matter ratio, intra- versus interhemispheric connectivity, and regional cortical and subcortical volumes in males. But when structural and lateralization differences are present independent of size, sex/gender explains only about 1% of total variance." -- from the abstract.) So this paper is in some sense about the "hardware" component, rather than the hormones or the programming. I'm not surprised. There's not really much evolutionary sense in building different brain hardware when you can dynamically manipulate so much with hormones and social pressure. Why are people so devoted to the idea that there must be a big structural or anatomical difference? It simply doesn't make sense to me, from observing children before & after puberty -- unless I think of the societal benefits of enforcing belief in structural difference in the brain. It makes division of labor easier and keeps divide & conquer going if you can exploit genders against each other rather than thinking they've got a common interest against another economic class.

Mindwipe 5y ago

It's certainly possible it's primarily hormonally driven where any biological mechanism exists, and there are certainly hormonal mechanisms that are not run by the brain.

fxtentacle 5y ago
My understanding is that aggression is driven by 3 neurotransmitters inside the brain. (dopamine, GABA, serotonin) That would make it highly likely that differences in aggression are related to differences in receivers for those transmitters in the brain.
- jayd16 5y ago
  Why is that more likely when men have more testosterone and taking too much testosterone causes aggressive behavior?

jayd16 5y ago

I think its about brain structure, not necessarily brain chemistry.

kaitai 5y ago

They're talking about brain structure ("Males’ brains are larger than females’ from birth, stabilizing around 11 % in adults. This size difference accounts for other reproducible findings: higher white/gray matter ratio, intra- versus interhemispheric connectivity, and regional cortical and subcortical volumes in males. But when structural and lateralization differences are present independent of size, sex/gender explains only about 1% of total variance." -- from the abstract.) So this paper is in some sense about the "hardware" component, rather than the hormones or the programming. I'm not surprised. There's not really much evolutionary sense in building different brain hardware when you can dynamically manipulate so much with hormones and social pressure. Why are people so devoted to the idea that there must be a big structural or anatomical difference? It simply doesn't make sense to me, from observing children before & after puberty -- unless I think of the societal benefits of enforcing belief in structural difference in the brain. It makes division of labor easier and keeps divide & conquer going if you can exploit genders against each other rather than thinking they've got a common interest against another economic class.