5 ms·

Though only surprising or outrageous if you denied obvious signs for political reasons. There are biological differences starting from conception, and it would

by summm 5y ago

Though only surprising or outrageous if you denied obvious signs for political reasons. There are biological differences starting from conception, and it would have been surprising if that didn't manifest in the brain.

beckman466 5y ago
> obvious No it's not. It is however obvious that you're a fan of Simon Baron-Cohen. It's also obvious that you're trying to downplay the holes in his research. "Why do so many scientific studies highlight gender differences? When science journalist Angela Saini was on book tour, a man approached her from the audience. He stuck his face right up in hers and backed her body into a corner. All this to spit out: “Women just aren't as good at science as men are. They've been shown to be less intelligent.” Saini listed names of celebrated female scientists and cited a few studies, but he wouldn’t budge. "In the end," she admits, "I gave up. There was nothing I could say for him to think of me as his equal." Earlier this year, Saini published the book that man should have been reading instead of denigrating women in STEM. It's called 'Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong, and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story'. 'Inferior' is "a set of scientific arguments...to reinforce that equality isn’t just a political ideal but every woman’s natural, biological right," Saini writes in her introduction. Through 100+ years of biology, anthropology, and neuroscience research, she illustrates that many studies on hard-wired gender differences have been debunked, exaggerated, or misinterpreted by the press. Few of these studies have been successfully replicated. Female scientists have even conducted research with different results, only to find their male counterparts were unwilling to acknowledge them. Scientific journals looking for cutting-edge research don't showcase the majority of gender difference experiments, which reveal that there aren't many differences at all -- at least not statistically significant ones. Worst of all, these dubious "facts" are perpetuating myths on gender that still haunt women today. Over the next three Sundays, I’ll be sharing three scientific studies that Saini dissects in Inferior. I hope these give you counterarguments whenever somebody tries to tell you how your female brain works. [...] SIMON BARON-COHEN & "SYSTEMATIZING-EMPATHIZING" BRAINS Remember Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard who insisted women's brains are worse at grappling with STEM subjects? The study used to defend his remarks was an experiment done on infants, testing the hypothesis that girls are born as empathizers and boys are born as systematizers. Simon Baron-Cohen, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Cambridge University, led the charge. [...] “Its basic message,” Saini writes, “is that the “female” brain is hardwired for empathy, while the “male” brain is built for analyzing and building systems, like cars and computers.” Baron-Cohen's reasoning is that male fetuses are exposed to more testosterone in the womb, which he links to systemizing behavior. Girl babies, with their lack of testosterone, are left behind. Suffice it to say that there are problems with the Baron-Cohen experiment. Since its findings were published in 2000, other scientists have not only discovered multiple errors in the experiment design, but have failed to replicate the results. They’ve even conducted new experiments with results contradicting Baron-Cohen’s conclusions." Source: https://www.writingonglass.com/content/gender-differences-science https://www.writingonglass.com/content/gender-differences-sc...
- swiley 5y ago
  I don't know who this guy you're talking about is but you can look at the grade distributions men and women have in school and see a pretty obvious difference. You could argue there's an environmental reason men have a more shallow (wider variance) distribution while women tend to have a narrower one with a higher mean but I haven't heard a good argument for it. At the end of the day this of course says very little about individuals, I think that's the mistake people make looking at these sorts of statistics and ideas (and why everyone gets so hung up on the idea that there are mental differences between the sexes.) Even individual performance academically says almost nothing about their ability to perform professionally IMO.
- krona 5y ago
  Male/Female gaze/attention experiments in infants has been reproduced many times. Some scientists say the differences aren't big enough to make a difference (lets say, in behaviour), but I'd argue we have no idea what a large enough difference would be if we saw it - all we know is the difference exists.
- ben_w 5y ago
  I am extremely dubious about most supposed differences between the brains of men and women — given how much my own psyche can be changed by the hormonal boost from exercise, or all the research showing that things as simple as “being taller”[0] or “handling money”[1] can influence us, there’s a lot of noise compared to signal. However, if there were no differences at all, everyone would be equally attracted to men as to women, and nobody would be trans. That’s pretty much the limit of what I can argue, given I’m software developer not a biology PhD. [0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/know-your-mind/201401/does-our-height-influence-our-mental-health https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/know-your-mind/20140... [1] https://www.npr.org/2009/08/07/111579154/study-your-brain-thinks-money-is-a-drug?t=1621158180639 https://www.npr.org/2009/08/07/111579154/study-your-brain-th...
- tgv 5y ago
  Acknowledging differences is not the same as "the “female” brain is hardwired for empathy," is it?
- deleted 5y ago
tgv 5y ago
I'm sure there are, but I'm not sure this approach can correctly identify them. There's a well known size difference in brains between the genders, but obviously within the genders as well. Common MRI practice is to map each brain onto a standard shape; otherwise the regions can differ too much. They've done that here too, it would seem. But that involves distorting areas, and I didn't see that they could exclude that as a reason for the difference. So there's a difference, but to me it's not clear where they come from. Perhaps someone who's more experienced in diffusion tensor imaging knows.
- austincheney 5y ago
  It’s not entirely clear what that means. There is a measurable size difference in that statistically male humans have slightly larger brains than female humans but there is not a measurable distinction of mass thereby indicating female brains comprise higher density brain tissue. To my knowledge there isn’t a correlation in that sex density difference to observed performance measures.
  - tgv 5y ago
    I've always understood the average difference in brain mass is in the order of 15%. > observed performance measures I only know of higher variation in male performance. But since we can't even define intelligence beyond some coarse and hard to quantify concepts, I don't think there's a sufficiently firm conclusion to reach from small differences in average intelligence in relation to brain size or mass (which seem to only reach an r^2 of 0.1).
  - rlonn 5y ago
    Higher density means faster computation but also potential overheating issues. If the clock frequency is the same of course.
- readthenotes1 5y ago
  I'm confused about the use of gender. Does it mean chromosome? Xx, xy, xxy,? Or how one socializes?

by summm 5y ago

beckman466 5y ago

> obvious No it's not. It is however obvious that you're a fan of Simon Baron-Cohen. It's also obvious that you're trying to downplay the holes in his research. "Why do so many scientific studies highlight gender differences? When science journalist Angela Saini was on book tour, a man approached her from the audience. He stuck his face right up in hers and backed her body into a corner. All this to spit out: “Women just aren't as good at science as men are. They've been shown to be less intelligent.” Saini listed names of celebrated female scientists and cited a few studies, but he wouldn’t budge. "In the end," she admits, "I gave up. There was nothing I could say for him to think of me as his equal." Earlier this year, Saini published the book that man should have been reading instead of denigrating women in STEM. It's called 'Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong, and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story'. 'Inferior' is "a set of scientific arguments...to reinforce that equality isn’t just a political ideal but every woman’s natural, biological right," Saini writes in her introduction. Through 100+ years of biology, anthropology, and neuroscience research, she illustrates that many studies on hard-wired gender differences have been debunked, exaggerated, or misinterpreted by the press. Few of these studies have been successfully replicated. Female scientists have even conducted research with different results, only to find their male counterparts were unwilling to acknowledge them. Scientific journals looking for cutting-edge research don't showcase the majority of gender difference experiments, which reveal that there aren't many differences at all -- at least not statistically significant ones. Worst of all, these dubious "facts" are perpetuating myths on gender that still haunt women today. Over the next three Sundays, I’ll be sharing three scientific studies that Saini dissects in Inferior. I hope these give you counterarguments whenever somebody tries to tell you how your female brain works. [...] SIMON BARON-COHEN & "SYSTEMATIZING-EMPATHIZING" BRAINS Remember Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard who insisted women's brains are worse at grappling with STEM subjects? The study used to defend his remarks was an experiment done on infants, testing the hypothesis that girls are born as empathizers and boys are born as systematizers. Simon Baron-Cohen, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Cambridge University, led the charge. [...] “Its basic message,” Saini writes, “is that the “female” brain is hardwired for empathy, while the “male” brain is built for analyzing and building systems, like cars and computers.” Baron-Cohen's reasoning is that male fetuses are exposed to more testosterone in the womb, which he links to systemizing behavior. Girl babies, with their lack of testosterone, are left behind. Suffice it to say that there are problems with the Baron-Cohen experiment. Since its findings were published in 2000, other scientists have not only discovered multiple errors in the experiment design, but have failed to replicate the results. They’ve even conducted new experiments with results contradicting Baron-Cohen’s conclusions." Source: https://www.writingonglass.com/content/gender-differences-science https://www.writingonglass.com/content/gender-differences-sc...

swiley 5y ago
I don't know who this guy you're talking about is but you can look at the grade distributions men and women have in school and see a pretty obvious difference. You could argue there's an environmental reason men have a more shallow (wider variance) distribution while women tend to have a narrower one with a higher mean but I haven't heard a good argument for it. At the end of the day this of course says very little about individuals, I think that's the mistake people make looking at these sorts of statistics and ideas (and why everyone gets so hung up on the idea that there are mental differences between the sexes.) Even individual performance academically says almost nothing about their ability to perform professionally IMO.
krona 5y ago
Male/Female gaze/attention experiments in infants has been reproduced many times. Some scientists say the differences aren't big enough to make a difference (lets say, in behaviour), but I'd argue we have no idea what a large enough difference would be if we saw it - all we know is the difference exists.
ben_w 5y ago
I am extremely dubious about most supposed differences between the brains of men and women — given how much my own psyche can be changed by the hormonal boost from exercise, or all the research showing that things as simple as “being taller”[0] or “handling money”[1] can influence us, there’s a lot of noise compared to signal. However, if there were no differences at all, everyone would be equally attracted to men as to women, and nobody would be trans. That’s pretty much the limit of what I can argue, given I’m software developer not a biology PhD. [0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/know-your-mind/201401/does-our-height-influence-our-mental-health https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/know-your-mind/20140... [1] https://www.npr.org/2009/08/07/111579154/study-your-brain-thinks-money-is-a-drug?t=1621158180639 https://www.npr.org/2009/08/07/111579154/study-your-brain-th...
tgv 5y ago
Acknowledging differences is not the same as "the “female” brain is hardwired for empathy," is it?
deleted 5y ago

tgv 5y ago

I'm sure there are, but I'm not sure this approach can correctly identify them. There's a well known size difference in brains between the genders, but obviously within the genders as well. Common MRI practice is to map each brain onto a standard shape; otherwise the regions can differ too much. They've done that here too, it would seem. But that involves distorting areas, and I didn't see that they could exclude that as a reason for the difference. So there's a difference, but to me it's not clear where they come from. Perhaps someone who's more experienced in diffusion tensor imaging knows.

austincheney 5y ago
It’s not entirely clear what that means. There is a measurable size difference in that statistically male humans have slightly larger brains than female humans but there is not a measurable distinction of mass thereby indicating female brains comprise higher density brain tissue. To my knowledge there isn’t a correlation in that sex density difference to observed performance measures.
- tgv 5y ago
  I've always understood the average difference in brain mass is in the order of 15%. > observed performance measures I only know of higher variation in male performance. But since we can't even define intelligence beyond some coarse and hard to quantify concepts, I don't think there's a sufficiently firm conclusion to reach from small differences in average intelligence in relation to brain size or mass (which seem to only reach an r^2 of 0.1).
- rlonn 5y ago
  Higher density means faster computation but also potential overheating issues. If the clock frequency is the same of course.
readthenotes1 5y ago
I'm confused about the use of gender. Does it mean chromosome? Xx, xy, xxy,? Or how one socializes?