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>Obviously there are easily observed physiological differences in brain structure and in the endocrine system etc, however it is a massive leap to go from that

>Obviously there are easily observed physiological differences in brain structure and in the endocrine system etc, however it is a massive leap to go from that to asserting that observed differences in behaviour are down to this rather than down to societal factors. It's actually no leap at all. Evolution put those differences in brain structure for a reason. It certainly isn't random, but due to some evolutionary benefit, and given that these differences are in the brain, it actually necessitates that there will be differences in behavior resulting purely from these physiological differences. It doesn't say what those differences are, but that there will be some, and then good science would tell us to learn what specifically those are. In addition, in terms of evolution, you would expect there to be reliable, biologically caused behavioral differences between men and women due to the importance of specialization. Evolutionary, you don't have hundreds of thousands of years of men and women specializing in certain tasks without there being some built-in, biologically caused preferences in terms of what interests guide each gender.

JonnieCache 15y ago
Oh I agree that behavioural differences are to some extent caused by biology, and that biology has been determined by evolution. That is obvious, for the reasons you state. What I am attacking is the idea that we can be at all certain about which behaviours are biologically influenced and which are socially constructed, or about the extent to which each factor is influential. Both factors self-evidently interact in highly complex ways to produce the behavior we observe. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to isolate either one of them, largely due to ethical problems with the experiments that would be necessary. The only thing that we can be certain of IMO is the fact that all behaviour is inextricably influenced by both nature and nurture.
acdha 15y ago
In other words, you missed the point entirely: this is more continued evidence-free speculation, complete with hand-wave theorization that there has been a gender-based task division matching the dominant Western religious-driven socialization for hundreds of thousands of years when we have no data for more than a small percentage of that period and considerable evidence that the proposed specialization wasn't globally true even during that small period of time where we do have data. It's highly likely that there are measurable differences in the capabilities between male and female brains but neuroscience is very far from being able to explain anything high-level enough to start speculating about the complex skills relevant to these discussions: say, hypothetically, that we found evidence suggesting male brains tend to be 10% faster at detecting the path of a fast moving object or recognizing orientation of geometric shapes - does that tell you anything about someone's ability to write a research paper or debug a program? The other major confound is that many people rely on MRI data to support claimed differences and even assuming that the technology is precise enough and the relevant brain structures well understood enough (neither of which is really true) all that will tell you is what the brain looks like now, not why: children who play the piano extensively will have different brain structure but it's from years of practice causing hypertrophy, not because there's a pianist gene pre-ordaining that they would be good performers. Finally, "Evolution put those differences in brain structure for a reason" demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the mechanism: there are many, many examples of things which exist by accident (e.g. the crazy design of our eyes) or because they're connected to something which is beneficial enough to compensate for the drawbacks.
- JohnsonB 15y ago
  >In other words, you missed the point entirely: this is more continued evidence-free speculation, Actually it's not evidence-free, it is a simple application of evolutionary theory. The "point" of the OP's post, as he stated directly, was that there was no "evidence" supporting the theory that observed gender difference are biologically caused. Pointing out that different brain structures between male and females means different behavior that would necessarily be observable directly refutes that point. > complete with hand-wave theorization that there has been a gender-based task division matching the dominant Western religious-driven socialization for hundreds of thousands of years Again, application of theory. Tens of thousands of years ago, our low level of technological development necessitated specialization. A family back then would have no other option than division of tasks based on gender because, for example, someone had to stay close to camp and care for children and someone had to go out on the physically more demanding food gathering tasks. Which genders do you think would do what? If you can visualize some way it would be more efficient for the males to constant shuttle back to camp from a hunting trip to tend the baby instead of just staying out as the job required, or for the females to do the hunting with their significantly less muscular bodies and the males to tend to the infants at camp without breasts, then by all means, do. Otherwise its a fairly obvious conclusion to be drawn from simple establish facts (women are statistically less muscular, men don't have breasts.) >It's highly likely that there are measurable differences in the capabilities between male and female brains but neuroscience is very far from being able to explain anything high-level enough to start speculating about the complex skills relevant to these discussions Who said anything about "high-level" being the criteria? You seemed to have pulled that qualification out of thin air. >The other major confound is that many people rely on MRI data to support claimed differences and even assuming that the technology is precise enough and the relevant brain structures well understood enough That misses the point, we don't have to understand the brain structure to know that a physiological difference in the brain will cause behavior differences, it's functionally necessary. You don't have different brain structures without an equivalent differences in behavior. It's also not important that we can't detect less significant differences in brain physiology because MRIs aren't more precise than they are; they have a specific scanning resolution and can therefore detect features reliably that are above the minimum resolving dimensions of the MRI. Those are the features being talked about here. And as far as the assertion that some of these brain differences are caused by nurture, there are simply some gender based brain differences that are too consistent and develop too early to be explained by anything as variable as culture or upbringing. >Finally, "Evolution put those differences in brain structure for a reason" demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the mechanism: there are many, many examples of things which exist by accident Actually, that is a fundamental misunderstand of evolutionary mechanisms, it is essentially impossible to have reliably observed features in a species that are not caused by evolutionary benefit. A side effect feature which you are proposing is a moot point, because side effect features are still connected to some other distinct feature that is beneficial evolutionary, and if the side effect feature is only observed in one gender then the primary-beneficial feature which causes it is still also in one gender only, and we are still in a situation where one gender is different from another via physiological brain differences.
drzaiusapelord 15y ago
I lot of the people who refuse to accept biological origins of gender differences don't usually have much faith in evolution to begin with. Funny how both the far-right and the far-left tend to agree on things, especially skepticism of science (or at least its casual dismissal) that counters their zealous views.
- dgabriel 15y ago
  This is a silly comment. Do you think PZ Meyers doesn't have much faith in evolution (hint: he thinks evolutionary psychology is mostly junk science)? The problem with evo-psyche is that it is relatively new, very little has been proven via repeatable experimentation, but it is easily used to confirm existing bias. Rejecting some claims of evo psych and biological determinism is obviously not the same as rejecting all of evolution.

JonnieCache 15y ago

Oh I agree that behavioural differences are to some extent caused by biology, and that biology has been determined by evolution. That is obvious, for the reasons you state. What I am attacking is the idea that we can be at all certain about which behaviours are biologically influenced and which are socially constructed, or about the extent to which each factor is influential. Both factors self-evidently interact in highly complex ways to produce the behavior we observe. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to isolate either one of them, largely due to ethical problems with the experiments that would be necessary. The only thing that we can be certain of IMO is the fact that all behaviour is inextricably influenced by both nature and nurture.

acdha 15y ago

In other words, you missed the point entirely: this is more continued evidence-free speculation, complete with hand-wave theorization that there has been a gender-based task division matching the dominant Western religious-driven socialization for hundreds of thousands of years when we have no data for more than a small percentage of that period and considerable evidence that the proposed specialization wasn't globally true even during that small period of time where we do have data. It's highly likely that there are measurable differences in the capabilities between male and female brains but neuroscience is very far from being able to explain anything high-level enough to start speculating about the complex skills relevant to these discussions: say, hypothetically, that we found evidence suggesting male brains tend to be 10% faster at detecting the path of a fast moving object or recognizing orientation of geometric shapes - does that tell you anything about someone's ability to write a research paper or debug a program? The other major confound is that many people rely on MRI data to support claimed differences and even assuming that the technology is precise enough and the relevant brain structures well understood enough (neither of which is really true) all that will tell you is what the brain looks like now, not why: children who play the piano extensively will have different brain structure but it's from years of practice causing hypertrophy, not because there's a pianist gene pre-ordaining that they would be good performers. Finally, "Evolution put those differences in brain structure for a reason" demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the mechanism: there are many, many examples of things which exist by accident (e.g. the crazy design of our eyes) or because they're connected to something which is beneficial enough to compensate for the drawbacks.

JohnsonB 15y ago
>In other words, you missed the point entirely: this is more continued evidence-free speculation, Actually it's not evidence-free, it is a simple application of evolutionary theory. The "point" of the OP's post, as he stated directly, was that there was no "evidence" supporting the theory that observed gender difference are biologically caused. Pointing out that different brain structures between male and females means different behavior that would necessarily be observable directly refutes that point. > complete with hand-wave theorization that there has been a gender-based task division matching the dominant Western religious-driven socialization for hundreds of thousands of years Again, application of theory. Tens of thousands of years ago, our low level of technological development necessitated specialization. A family back then would have no other option than division of tasks based on gender because, for example, someone had to stay close to camp and care for children and someone had to go out on the physically more demanding food gathering tasks. Which genders do you think would do what? If you can visualize some way it would be more efficient for the males to constant shuttle back to camp from a hunting trip to tend the baby instead of just staying out as the job required, or for the females to do the hunting with their significantly less muscular bodies and the males to tend to the infants at camp without breasts, then by all means, do. Otherwise its a fairly obvious conclusion to be drawn from simple establish facts (women are statistically less muscular, men don't have breasts.) >It's highly likely that there are measurable differences in the capabilities between male and female brains but neuroscience is very far from being able to explain anything high-level enough to start speculating about the complex skills relevant to these discussions Who said anything about "high-level" being the criteria? You seemed to have pulled that qualification out of thin air. >The other major confound is that many people rely on MRI data to support claimed differences and even assuming that the technology is precise enough and the relevant brain structures well understood enough That misses the point, we don't have to understand the brain structure to know that a physiological difference in the brain will cause behavior differences, it's functionally necessary. You don't have different brain structures without an equivalent differences in behavior. It's also not important that we can't detect less significant differences in brain physiology because MRIs aren't more precise than they are; they have a specific scanning resolution and can therefore detect features reliably that are above the minimum resolving dimensions of the MRI. Those are the features being talked about here. And as far as the assertion that some of these brain differences are caused by nurture, there are simply some gender based brain differences that are too consistent and develop too early to be explained by anything as variable as culture or upbringing. >Finally, "Evolution put those differences in brain structure for a reason" demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the mechanism: there are many, many examples of things which exist by accident Actually, that is a fundamental misunderstand of evolutionary mechanisms, it is essentially impossible to have reliably observed features in a species that are not caused by evolutionary benefit. A side effect feature which you are proposing is a moot point, because side effect features are still connected to some other distinct feature that is beneficial evolutionary, and if the side effect feature is only observed in one gender then the primary-beneficial feature which causes it is still also in one gender only, and we are still in a situation where one gender is different from another via physiological brain differences.

drzaiusapelord 15y ago

I lot of the people who refuse to accept biological origins of gender differences don't usually have much faith in evolution to begin with. Funny how both the far-right and the far-left tend to agree on things, especially skepticism of science (or at least its casual dismissal) that counters their zealous views.

dgabriel 15y ago
This is a silly comment. Do you think PZ Meyers doesn't have much faith in evolution (hint: he thinks evolutionary psychology is mostly junk science)? The problem with evo-psyche is that it is relatively new, very little has been proven via repeatable experimentation, but it is easily used to confirm existing bias. Rejecting some claims of evo psych and biological determinism is obviously not the same as rejecting all of evolution.