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The reason that people are berated for suggesting inherent differences is that there's so much more to the story. Almost nothing derives purely from genes; it's

The reason that people are berated for suggesting inherent differences is that there's so much more to the story. Almost nothing derives purely from genes; it's a complex interaction of genes, epigenetics (environmental and hereditary factors other than genes that control which genes are active), and socialization. Males and females are treated extremely differently from birth. Literally, in the very first day. Thus, it is nearly impossible to actually prove scientifically that a significant difference comes from genetic and biological factors. The socialization is a confounding factor that's impossible to separate out unless you're willing to do a study where you raise kids in isolation from society so you can treat them identically. And even "inherent" differences are often easily overcome with social solutions. There's research to suggest that the difference in spatial reasoning is societal.[1] Furthermore, I believe I saw a study suggesting that even in our society, if you put everyone through a proper course teaching them spatial reasoning, the women catch up to the men. So society can choose to eliminate "inherent" differences by devoting a few resources to something that helps one group catch up to the other. Furthermore, it ultimately doesn't matter that much. Western society has decided that we want equality between men and women. If that's not happening, then we've committed ourselves to make it happen. There are currently differences between men and women, largely from socialization. Since our society was largely built by men, it unsurprisingly is oriented toward having successful men in it. That doesn't mean we throw up our hands and say, "well, this is how our society is structured, and our society socializes men to win in that structure. I guess equality is inherently impossible." No. We find ways to reduce gender socialization (see: radical schools in Sweden). We find ways to restructure society so that there are fewer barriers to some groups' success. 1: http://lesswrong.com/lw/7fk/gender_differences_in_spatial_reasoning_appear_to/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/7fk/gender_differences_in_spatial_re...

temphn 13y ago
You don't link to actual molecular genetic research on behavior and sex differences. I will. Let's do two quick examples. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/science/studying-recent-human-evolution-at-the-genetic-level.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/science/studying-recent-hu... Gaining a deep insight into human evolution, researchers have identified a mutation in a critical human gene as the source of several distinctive traits that make East Asians different from other races. The traits — thicker hair shafts, more sweat glands, characteristically identified teeth and smaller breasts — are the result of a gene mutation that occurred about 35,000 years ago, the researchers have concluded. One pleiotropic mutation actually causes smaller breasts, among other things. For added visual impact, take a look at the EDAR transgenic mouse: http://mathildasanthropologyblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/picture-2-741394.png http://mathildasanthropologyblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/10... Wow! Across species, you can actually see that a single variant makes the mouse hair look East Asian. It's so crazily reductionist, it looks like what a troglodyte like Strom Thurmond might sketch if you had him draw an "Asian-looking mouse". Here's another great one, Fruitless: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitless_(gene)#Function http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitless_(gene)#Function Although many genes are known to be involved in male courtship behavior, the fruitless gene has been considered noteworthy because it exhibits sex-specific alternative splicing. When females produce the male-spliced gene product, they behave as males. Males that do not produce the male-specific product do not court females and are infertile.[1] ... The fruitless gene locus also controls the expression of hundreds of other genes,[6] any subset of which may actually regulate behavior. We don't yet know the human analog of Fruitless, the master regulator of sex differences. But if it exists, it's a good bet that it's on the Y or X chromosomes. Point: it's not all super-complex gene-environment interactionism that we'll never understand[1]. Indeed, as Fruitless or the EDAR story show, the genetic origins of complex gender differences and/or behavioral traits can be almost cartoonishly reductionist, attributable to a single master upstream regulator! So: do you really want to bet it all on black, bet that genetics researchers aren't going to find governing loci for human gender differences and/or sexual orientation, bet that it's 100% social construction? Because if you know anything about where genomics is going, that is a bet you are going to lose. [1] PS: I love it when people bring up epistasis, for god's sake, as a sort of catch-all neo-Lamarckianism, reached for like a drowning sailor flailing for a life preserver. Methylome much? Didn't think so. EDIT: You know what? Let's actually go line by line on this thing. Males and females are treated extremely differently from birth. Literally, in the very first day. Thus, it is nearly impossible to actually prove scientifically that a significant difference comes from genetic and biological factors. Science: doing the impossible since ten years ago. Behold, gene expression analysis of innate male/female neurological differences before birth, known since 2003 (and well before): http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031022062408.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031022062408.ht... Using two genetic testing methods, they compared the production of genes in male and female brains in embryonic mice — long before the animals developed sex organs. To their surprise, the researchers found 54 genes produced in different amounts in male and female mouse brains, prior to hormonal influence. Eighteen of the genes were produced at higher levels in the male brains; 36 were produced at higher levels in the female brains. “We didn’t expect to find genetic differences between the sexes’ brains,” Vilain said. “But we discovered that the male and female brains differed in many measurable ways, including anatomy and function.” How about this little flail-for-a-life-preserver: There's research to suggest that the difference in spatial reasoning is societal. Which in turn links to this paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/08/19/1015182108.full.pdf http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/08/19/1015182108.full... This is almost a caricature of academia. To come to the conclusion that gender differences in spatial rotation ability are "culturally influenced"...they analyze two tribes in Northeast India on a "spatial puzzle" that has never been administered to anyone before (Figure 1). And in Table 1 the mean puzzle solving time for men in the "matrilineal" society is still actually lower than that for females, even though the medians point the other way. Forget about the crimes against psychometry that such a test perpetrates. It goes without saying that they did not compute test-retest reliabilities or do a proper battery of spatial tests, let alone estimate IRT parameters for their single idiosyncratic "spatial" item. And this innocence of all aspects of item-response theory is confirmed by their supplementary information (http://goo.gl/ltysD http://goo.gl/ltysD). The more fundamental point is the lack of thinking. Not only does this study cut against the grain of literally hundreds of other datasets, it is intentionally designed to not be reproducible. Among other things, why else would one use such an obscure population? And why not use the standard Shepard/Metzler test, in which one is actually mentally rotating two objects and seeing if they correspond? One can programmatically vary the rotation parameter to increase the difficulty, and Shepard famously even observed that reaction time varies linearly with rotation angle (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/mental-rotation.html http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/mental-rota...), as if people were actually rotating the objects slowly in their heads. Anyway. You know what is reproducible? Let's consult this handy meta-analysis of 70 studies... http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10648-012-9215-x http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10648-012-9215-x It shows a huge and reproducible spatial rotation ability difference between men and women. Don't believe me? Put up a web-based test with WebGL, pay participants, and reproduce the result for yourself. But something tells me that you may not really be interested in such studies. Instead: Furthermore, it ultimately doesn't matter that much. Western society has decided that we want equality between men and women. If that's not happening, then we've committed ourselves to make it happen. Right. Comrade, here is where I bid you adieu. If men and women have fundamental neurological differences, which all the evidence indicates that they do, attempting to "close the gap" in mathematically & spatially challenging software engineering is a Sisyphean task. It is as futile as encouraging women to make it to the NBA and out-dunk the very best men. While there will be a Lisa Leslie or Cheryl Miller, there won't be very many of them, and that won't be the fault of men. Because there can be no obligation to do that which cannot be done.
- polymatter 13y ago
  I try to keep an open mind, but I am finding it difficult to get past your tone. I find people as confident and dismissive as you appear to be, are the crackpots who are not worth my time. You don't have anything in your HN profile either. But you also went to the trouble to provide references, so I am confused and want to learn more. Are you seriously suggesting its a Sisyphean task to teach women maths or business on the basis that - on average - these have historically been male dominated careers? If not, can you please explain further. Are you aware that 50 years ago women faced massive discrimination and that this may still be having a lag effect today? Have you heard of stereotype threat enough to convince someone who believes in it? You are being condescending and rude and seem to expect your audience to share your conviction in a fringe view of genetic determinism. Nobody is disputing men and women are genetically different. That this change extends to neurological changes should hardly be surprising. Different machinery require different control structures. The scientific debate is on exactly how significant these differences are compared to other factors that have significant influence including the culture. I don't think the parent was even suggesting it was 100% cultural effect either. Whereas you seem to suggest its 100% genetic, which would preclude the possibility of any woman having better spatial abilities than any man - which I hope sounds as ridiculous to you as it does me.
  - temphn 13y ago
    Have you heard of stereotype threat enough to convince someone who believes in it? Well, stereotype threat has actually been debunked. I encourage you to read this full pdf, including Steele and Aronson's response and Sackett/Hardison/Cullen's reply: http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/ogandy/C45405%20resources/Sackett%20et%20al%20stereotype%20threat.pdf http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/ogandy/C45405%20resources/Sacke... I find people as confident and dismissive This is a matter of perception. From my vantage point, people who don't know much about genetics, neuroscience, biochemistry and the like are extraordinarily confident in dismissing the influence of hard scientific evidence in favor of the wishful thinking and hand-waving of much less rigorous sociological disciplines. I don't think the parent was even suggesting it was 100% cultural effect either. See above: jackowayed himself notes that people with an alternative opinion are "berated". Only on the internet can the facts about genetics even be stated without character assassination. And then, and only then, the backpedal starts from a 100% cultural to a "50/50" position. Who knows what the split is? How can we know? Gene-culture environment interaction is so complex. And what about _epistasis_. But "we don't know" is not the position that Sandberg takes. And of course, if the position is actually not 100/0 then these gaps can never be fully closed [even if this were desirable], and this resilient inequality is not the fault of men but of Nature itself. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think "the gap can never be closed" is a position you would subscribe to (let alone jackowayed or Sandberg herself). So yeah, I think it's fair to characterize the conventional wisdom as a 100% social constructionist position, which executes a tactical rhetorical fallback when confronted with overwhelming fact...changing not one iota in its policy prescriptions, which are still in the main comprised of struggle sessions at places like Facebook HQ. Whereas you seem to suggest its 100% genetic, which would preclude the possibility of any woman having better spatial abilities than any man You know, there's something about this topic which makes people unable to reason statistically. Obviously there are tall women and short men. Obviously there are Emmy Noethers. That's just not where the averages or medians are. I mentioned Lisa Leslie and Cheryl Miller; y'all really think people who know what item-response theory is aren't intimately familiar with the concept of overlapping Gaussians...maybe even more so than people who blanche at the very thought of Bell Curves? But overlap isn't equality.
SPSteinbeck 13y ago
Your "societal factors" explanation is just kicking the can down the road, for societal factors derive from the aggregate of the individuals making up a society. Humans didn't arrive on earth with the social structures you perceive as "sexist" already in place. Humans created these social structures in the civilizations they built, many times over and in isolation from each other. That you can observe that and not notice the common factor - our humanness, our biology - is no different than a religious fanatic able to conclude the earth must indeed be 5,000 years old in light of all evidence to the contrary. Your assertion that Western society has concluded we want "equality between the sexes" is bizarre. If western society has indeed concluded that, who are all these mysterious sexists I keep hearing about? What you mean is an ignorant and detached elite (of whom Ms Sandberg is undoubtedly a member) have decided there and vision of the good is universal and any resistance (bigots, sexists, etc.) must be destroyed.

temphn 13y ago

You don't link to actual molecular genetic research on behavior and sex differences. I will. Let's do two quick examples. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/science/studying-recent-human-evolution-at-the-genetic-level.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/science/studying-recent-hu... Gaining a deep insight into human evolution, researchers have identified a mutation in a critical human gene as the source of several distinctive traits that make East Asians different from other races. The traits — thicker hair shafts, more sweat glands, characteristically identified teeth and smaller breasts — are the result of a gene mutation that occurred about 35,000 years ago, the researchers have concluded. One pleiotropic mutation actually causes smaller breasts, among other things. For added visual impact, take a look at the EDAR transgenic mouse: http://mathildasanthropologyblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/picture-2-741394.png http://mathildasanthropologyblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/10... Wow! Across species, you can actually see that a single variant makes the mouse hair look East Asian. It's so crazily reductionist, it looks like what a troglodyte like Strom Thurmond might sketch if you had him draw an "Asian-looking mouse". Here's another great one, Fruitless: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitless_(gene)#Function http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitless_(gene)#Function Although many genes are known to be involved in male courtship behavior, the fruitless gene has been considered noteworthy because it exhibits sex-specific alternative splicing. When females produce the male-spliced gene product, they behave as males. Males that do not produce the male-specific product do not court females and are infertile.[1] ... The fruitless gene locus also controls the expression of hundreds of other genes,[6] any subset of which may actually regulate behavior. We don't yet know the human analog of Fruitless, the master regulator of sex differences. But if it exists, it's a good bet that it's on the Y or X chromosomes. Point: it's not all super-complex gene-environment interactionism that we'll never understand[1]. Indeed, as Fruitless or the EDAR story show, the genetic origins of complex gender differences and/or behavioral traits can be almost cartoonishly reductionist, attributable to a single master upstream regulator! So: do you really want to bet it all on black, bet that genetics researchers aren't going to find governing loci for human gender differences and/or sexual orientation, bet that it's 100% social construction? Because if you know anything about where genomics is going, that is a bet you are going to lose. [1] PS: I love it when people bring up epistasis, for god's sake, as a sort of catch-all neo-Lamarckianism, reached for like a drowning sailor flailing for a life preserver. Methylome much? Didn't think so. EDIT: You know what? Let's actually go line by line on this thing. Males and females are treated extremely differently from birth. Literally, in the very first day. Thus, it is nearly impossible to actually prove scientifically that a significant difference comes from genetic and biological factors. Science: doing the impossible since ten years ago. Behold, gene expression analysis of innate male/female neurological differences before birth, known since 2003 (and well before): http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031022062408.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031022062408.ht... Using two genetic testing methods, they compared the production of genes in male and female brains in embryonic mice — long before the animals developed sex organs. To their surprise, the researchers found 54 genes produced in different amounts in male and female mouse brains, prior to hormonal influence. Eighteen of the genes were produced at higher levels in the male brains; 36 were produced at higher levels in the female brains. “We didn’t expect to find genetic differences between the sexes’ brains,” Vilain said. “But we discovered that the male and female brains differed in many measurable ways, including anatomy and function.” How about this little flail-for-a-life-preserver: There's research to suggest that the difference in spatial reasoning is societal. Which in turn links to this paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/08/19/1015182108.full.pdf http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/08/19/1015182108.full... This is almost a caricature of academia. To come to the conclusion that gender differences in spatial rotation ability are "culturally influenced"...they analyze two tribes in Northeast India on a "spatial puzzle" that has never been administered to anyone before (Figure 1). And in Table 1 the mean puzzle solving time for men in the "matrilineal" society is still actually lower than that for females, even though the medians point the other way. Forget about the crimes against psychometry that such a test perpetrates. It goes without saying that they did not compute test-retest reliabilities or do a proper battery of spatial tests, let alone estimate IRT parameters for their single idiosyncratic "spatial" item. And this innocence of all aspects of item-response theory is confirmed by their supplementary information (http://goo.gl/ltysD http://goo.gl/ltysD). The more fundamental point is the lack of thinking. Not only does this study cut against the grain of literally hundreds of other datasets, it is intentionally designed to not be reproducible. Among other things, why else would one use such an obscure population? And why not use the standard Shepard/Metzler test, in which one is actually mentally rotating two objects and seeing if they correspond? One can programmatically vary the rotation parameter to increase the difficulty, and Shepard famously even observed that reaction time varies linearly with rotation angle (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/mental-rotation.html http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/mental-rota...), as if people were actually rotating the objects slowly in their heads. Anyway. You know what is reproducible? Let's consult this handy meta-analysis of 70 studies... http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10648-012-9215-x http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10648-012-9215-x It shows a huge and reproducible spatial rotation ability difference between men and women. Don't believe me? Put up a web-based test with WebGL, pay participants, and reproduce the result for yourself. But something tells me that you may not really be interested in such studies. Instead: Furthermore, it ultimately doesn't matter that much. Western society has decided that we want equality between men and women. If that's not happening, then we've committed ourselves to make it happen. Right. Comrade, here is where I bid you adieu. If men and women have fundamental neurological differences, which all the evidence indicates that they do, attempting to "close the gap" in mathematically & spatially challenging software engineering is a Sisyphean task. It is as futile as encouraging women to make it to the NBA and out-dunk the very best men. While there will be a Lisa Leslie or Cheryl Miller, there won't be very many of them, and that won't be the fault of men. Because there can be no obligation to do that which cannot be done.

polymatter 13y ago
I try to keep an open mind, but I am finding it difficult to get past your tone. I find people as confident and dismissive as you appear to be, are the crackpots who are not worth my time. You don't have anything in your HN profile either. But you also went to the trouble to provide references, so I am confused and want to learn more. Are you seriously suggesting its a Sisyphean task to teach women maths or business on the basis that - on average - these have historically been male dominated careers? If not, can you please explain further. Are you aware that 50 years ago women faced massive discrimination and that this may still be having a lag effect today? Have you heard of stereotype threat enough to convince someone who believes in it? You are being condescending and rude and seem to expect your audience to share your conviction in a fringe view of genetic determinism. Nobody is disputing men and women are genetically different. That this change extends to neurological changes should hardly be surprising. Different machinery require different control structures. The scientific debate is on exactly how significant these differences are compared to other factors that have significant influence including the culture. I don't think the parent was even suggesting it was 100% cultural effect either. Whereas you seem to suggest its 100% genetic, which would preclude the possibility of any woman having better spatial abilities than any man - which I hope sounds as ridiculous to you as it does me.
- temphn 13y ago
  Have you heard of stereotype threat enough to convince someone who believes in it? Well, stereotype threat has actually been debunked. I encourage you to read this full pdf, including Steele and Aronson's response and Sackett/Hardison/Cullen's reply: http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/ogandy/C45405%20resources/Sackett%20et%20al%20stereotype%20threat.pdf http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/ogandy/C45405%20resources/Sacke... I find people as confident and dismissive This is a matter of perception. From my vantage point, people who don't know much about genetics, neuroscience, biochemistry and the like are extraordinarily confident in dismissing the influence of hard scientific evidence in favor of the wishful thinking and hand-waving of much less rigorous sociological disciplines. I don't think the parent was even suggesting it was 100% cultural effect either. See above: jackowayed himself notes that people with an alternative opinion are "berated". Only on the internet can the facts about genetics even be stated without character assassination. And then, and only then, the backpedal starts from a 100% cultural to a "50/50" position. Who knows what the split is? How can we know? Gene-culture environment interaction is so complex. And what about _epistasis_. But "we don't know" is not the position that Sandberg takes. And of course, if the position is actually not 100/0 then these gaps can never be fully closed [even if this were desirable], and this resilient inequality is not the fault of men but of Nature itself. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think "the gap can never be closed" is a position you would subscribe to (let alone jackowayed or Sandberg herself). So yeah, I think it's fair to characterize the conventional wisdom as a 100% social constructionist position, which executes a tactical rhetorical fallback when confronted with overwhelming fact...changing not one iota in its policy prescriptions, which are still in the main comprised of struggle sessions at places like Facebook HQ. Whereas you seem to suggest its 100% genetic, which would preclude the possibility of any woman having better spatial abilities than any man You know, there's something about this topic which makes people unable to reason statistically. Obviously there are tall women and short men. Obviously there are Emmy Noethers. That's just not where the averages or medians are. I mentioned Lisa Leslie and Cheryl Miller; y'all really think people who know what item-response theory is aren't intimately familiar with the concept of overlapping Gaussians...maybe even more so than people who blanche at the very thought of Bell Curves? But overlap isn't equality.

SPSteinbeck 13y ago

Your "societal factors" explanation is just kicking the can down the road, for societal factors derive from the aggregate of the individuals making up a society. Humans didn't arrive on earth with the social structures you perceive as "sexist" already in place. Humans created these social structures in the civilizations they built, many times over and in isolation from each other. That you can observe that and not notice the common factor - our humanness, our biology - is no different than a religious fanatic able to conclude the earth must indeed be 5,000 years old in light of all evidence to the contrary. Your assertion that Western society has concluded we want "equality between the sexes" is bizarre. If western society has indeed concluded that, who are all these mysterious sexists I keep hearing about? What you mean is an ignorant and detached elite (of whom Ms Sandberg is undoubtedly a member) have decided there and vision of the good is universal and any resistance (bigots, sexists, etc.) must be destroyed.