It would have been far more interesting if the study was on the brains of mathematicians (everyone has the same career), in more than one country (help removes one cultures influence).
I wonder how the nature versus nurture aspect comes into play in this. Are male and female brains inherently wired differently, or do they wire differently as we grow up due to the different experiences and upbringing men and women are subject to?
This might be a dumb question, but one that immediately pops up for me.
Definitely not a dumb question, this is what immediately jumped into my head too. I imagine it's very difficult to get an answer to this. A controlled experiment is obviously impossible, but perhaps comparing results from a diverse range of cultures around the world could give a clue.
A 100% proper controlled experiment with double blinding etc. is not possible, perhaps, but there are transgender children who often are raised as if they were of their physical sex, which obviously causes them to suffer.
I always wondered - if it's purely a social construct that boys play with trucks and girls play with dolls etc., then why in most stories about a girl trapped in a boy's body we hear her say "I wanted to play with girls" (contrary to society's expectations), "I wanted to play with dolls" etc.?
The story of Bindaya Rana (from Pakistani), who was born as a male:
"Bindiya Rana, one of Pakistan’s first transgender candidates [...] “I used to wear my sister’s clothes,” she said. “And use lipstick and powder and nail polish. I wanted to play with dolls and be in the kitchen.” Her parents disapproved when they found her in makeup, beating her."
It's a gaping hole in the theory that we are wired differently "as we grow up due to the different experiences and upbringing men and women are subject to".
If one's self-identified gender could be overriden so easily, there would me much less personal tragedies in this world.
Well, one could have genetic differences that lead to those preferences; it doesn't have to be an encoded preference for a particular type of object.
For example, a genetic predisposition towards competition and physical activity could lead to a general preference for certain kinds of sports, even if those didn't exist for most of human evolution.
In case you haven't noticed, I'm talking out of my ass here, I have no idea if this is true, it just seems a reasonable possibility.
Yes, and similarly the fear of falling off the roof of a tall building can't be genetic at all, given that for most of human evolution there were no skyscrapers around :)
His point is not that fear of falling is learnt by visiting tall buildings but that the logic of his argument is the same as yours. If you can find the flaw in his argument then you should be able to find the flaw in your own.
Help me out then, because I don't see it? A fall is deadly, whether you fall from a skyscraper or a tree.
You mean there might have been something else like nail polish, and people evolved a preference for that? But what would that have been? Some meshed up leaves people put on their finger nails?
Apparently there is something like a preference for being a woman, and using nail polish can be a proxy for that. But my point is that it is most likely learned that nail polish has something to do with being a woman. And the mechanism is not "I wish I was a woman so that I could use nail polish", it is more likely "I wish I could be a woman, and nail polish makes me feel like one".
Nevertheless, I am also not a biologist, just making things up. But I think some basic logic can be applied by everyone.
But those are messages for the men, not for the woman who applies the lipstick. So is the desire basically to be sexually attractive like a woman? Or falling in love with one's reflection in the mirror?
I find it fairly obvious that natural seating contest must have worked in favor of women more inclined to beautify themselves (whether out of vanity or something else, doesn't matter at all).
Sure, but doesn't that mean that we agree there is no genetic disposition towards liking nail polish/lipstick? The reason people like lipstick is not that they have a genetic disposition to like lipstick, it's because lipstick fakes a sexual signal.
Maybe, but my point is that lipstick and nail polish are very likely learned preferences. Perhaps there is some mechanism by which a child picks the people it learns it's preferences from.
I've read for example that kids learn their beauty ideals from the people that surround them, but there is also a taboo to not fall in love with closely related people. For example researchers looked at people living in a Kibuz and found that there were hardly any love affairs among them.
I think it's a learned /expression/ of reproductive signalling.
I think of lipstick as just a human equivalent of a monkey with a big red butt (which is natural, but doesn't serve any purpose other than to let other monkeys know they're in heat).
They're human ways of drawing attention to sexuality. In our society we can't paint our genitals, so we paint another set of lips. Or our fingernails, etc.
When a child picks lipstick, however, they're not being sexual, just emulating adults. They same way they copy adults tone (ever heard a kid 'scold' another kid, the same way their parents would?) Most infant animals do that too.
I'm not going to argue for a genetic preference for lipstick and nail polish, but in the case of trucks and dolls, that could plausibly be based on differing genetic preferences for, say, Large Moving Things vs Human Interaction, or something, despite trucks and dolls not having been around for long.
I always wondered - if it's purely a social construct that boys play with trucks and girls play with dolls etc., then why in most stories about a girl trapped in a boy's body we hear her say "I wanted to play with girls" (contrary to society's expectations), "I wanted to play with dolls" etc.?
Possibly because they identify themselves with other girls, and are more susceptible to the same influences? If society expects a certain gender as a whole to behave in a certain way, and an individual identifies with that gender, then it's not odd that it may be influenced as well.
Not that I have no idea if this is true or not, I just find that an unconvincing argument against the social construct theory.
I never said that it by itself invalidates the theory altogether :)
If someone puts a theory forward, however, it's their job to come up with plausible answers for such doubts.
The one you suggested is possible, of course. How well substantiated it is though? Theories should include some evidence that supports the hypotheses they are based on.
Well there is the case of ducklings, who think the first thing they see after leaving the egg shell is their mother. So if you are there instead of their real mother, they'll follow you around until they become independent.
Just to show an example where some preference is not genetic, but there is a mechanism to pretty much hardwire it shortly after birth.
What would you say does "I want to be a woman" mean? I doubt it is as simply as "I want to play with dolls and use lipstick".
Through this discussion I wonder if it is more about how you are being valued in society. For example nail polish and lipstick are used to enhance sexual attraction. So maybe it is a desire to be valued for sexual attractivity, rather than actions, power or wealth (or whatever, men are valued for different things in different environments, I suppose).
You assume that being brought up like a boy/girl (that is, boys toys/games vs girl's toys/games) would be the mechanism that determines our gender. Why should that be the case? The mechanism could be something different entirely (As with the ducklings who accept the first thing they see as their mother).
Without that assumption, there is no contradiction in the "theory". Although it is also not a theory that can explain how people are made to feel like girls or boys. I don't think such a theory exists yet, or if it does, it has been silenced by political correctness.
The change in brain connectivity around age 13 could potentially explain the nurture side. Though this is one of those endless debates that may never be answered.
"Male and female brains showed few differences in connectivity up to the age of 13, but became more differentiated in 14- to 17-year-olds."
Wouldn't that indicate an effect caused by puberty instead? Not that nurture can't affect puberty, but I don't think having a beard was caused by how my parents raised me ;)
I don't know, and certainly the brain seems to be very amendable (ie taxi drivers have enlarged regions for dealing with maps).
However, I'd like to point out that there apparently is a genetic difference in male and female bodies. While women can become very strong and develop "body builder" physiques, it's certainly not the norm (also not sure how much hormone pills play a role in the women who turn out like that).
Of course from that it doesn't follow that differences in the brain are genetic, but imo it makes it seem possible. Clearly the physique is optimized for different ways of living, so why not the brain.
I imagine that nature/nurture research on geneticly similar populations with very different cultures could be incredibly interesting. Say North and South Korea. Not without any difficulties of course...
Anyone who has ever worked with people of different sexes could have told them. Men and Women go about solving problems in vastly different ways.
Women do better in high stress, high information volume situations, are able to make more intelligent choices when little or no data is available. Men are better with logic puzzles, but generally are poor listeners, and have poor soft skills. Women are better managers of people, Men, better managers of things.
Obviously, these are not universal truths, but there are certain roles I would prefer a woman candidate for, others I would prefer a man, I'm going to make a judgement on the person, but their gender is part of the experience package.
Better keep that under your hat in any consultation with HR.
It's one thing to have useful heuristics and rules of thumb, but when it conflicts with official, blessed truths about "humans are all identical", it's important to be careful what you say and to whom. Especially in the workplace, where there can be real consequences for having the "wrong" points of view.
It's understandable why it's an issue to use heuristics based on a person's gender, race or upbringing are an issue. However, there are likely instances where it's useful. I honestly don't know how to separate my logic from emotions on this one, especially when it comes to things like racial profiling or hiring practices based on gender. I am ethically opposed to each, despite the fact that I know that they can often be useful.
I agree, profiling based on race and sex is unwise and undesirable.
We all bring our particular preferences and biases to the table, so we need to do the best we can to be fair and reasonable to the candidates that come in front of us.
Two Candidates, identical qualifications, identical experience, both interview well, I'm going to go with my 'intuition' to make the final call, whatever it is that goes into that is between myself and my concience.
The loss of meaningful distinction in gender identity is a major cultural problem for the West that threatens our very survival. The "humans are all exactly identical, no questions asked" thing is extremely problematic.
Sure, but don't ever say that in a job interview or when you're dealing with HR, college administrators, politicians, or any other profession that requires a large dose of avoiding reality. ;)
From the outside it looks like your comment could easily be translated as "women need to know their place", but with fancier words to make it look philosophical.
> "humans are all exactly identical, no questions asked"
No one asserts this, not even gender studies majors. What's problematic is asserting that gender differences should have any bearing on what a member of a particular gender is allowed to do.
Subscribing to stereotypes is what excludes a large number of extraordinarily talented women from either entering or finding work in the tech industry.
Christina Hoff Sommers is one of the leading feminists who has helped focus some attention on the situation of boys, and making sure that boys are not getting left behind as there is a surge of effort to make sure things are "equal" for girls and women.
From the main author: If you look at functional studies, the left of the brain is more for logical thinking, the right of the brain is for more intuitive thinking.
I was under the impression that this left brain/right brain theory had been debunked by functional imagery.
I'm not sure, I think only the theory that some people are left or right-brained has been debunked. And that there is a strict separation of concerns. IIRC stuff like language processing is still >50% done in the left brain half.
But I can't find any relevant studies I'd understand on Google Scholar right now so I might be wrong. And as I'm a layman take this with a grain (or more) of salt ;)
Language processing is indeed often lateralized (symbolic interpretation left, intonation right, in (most) right-handed people[0]), and other specific tasks are also lateralized, but I don't think you can generalize it like she does.
I do have a background in neuroscience (I did research on headache physiology a few years ago), but I'm not too familiar with functional imaging.
--
[0] Handedness is a strange thing. The gene that governs it has two alleles. One is dominant, and causes right-handedness. The recissive one, doesn't necessarily cause left-handedness. Handedness is people with two recessive genes is random, roughly 50/50 (a bit less for each, since it can also make one ambidextrous).
The clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation of the main cowlick is also governed by the same gene, in the same fashion, AFAIK, independently (the dominant gene makes the cowlick turn clockwise).
One might ask if there is a clear line between female and male brains (like genitals for example) or differences are more like height - statistically men are higher than women, but there's much overlap.
I believe that it is the second case - which means you really shouldn't base decisions on the sex of person and brain "wiring" you believe she or he has.
That doesn't stop people trying to figure it out, and being consistently wrong on every turn doing so. HR stands as a shining example here, hiding behind "personality tests".
It takes more than a few paragraphs to sum up the pathological problems in neuroscience research.
Studies like the one in the article give us data points, but nowhere to draw any conclusions from.
Conclusions in things like this are very often 'just-so' stories, of the kind you hear from the Evo Psych nonsense-heads.
Almost every study purporting to show innate differences between males and females has been shown to lack rigor, blindness, or has drawn conclusions from imaginary sources based on pre-conceived notions not found in the data.
You can see those preconceived notions in this thread. Many of the comments have a very strong stench of "of course, we've known this all along, men and women are different, and it's unfortunate that only men are good at the things that pay a lot of money, but that's life". The latter part may not be stated directly, but anyone who has paid any attention to this kind of argument on the internet knows that it's heavily implied under a very thin surface in the majority of comments like this.
So when even one day old babies are shown to pay different attention to mechanical things vs faces between boys and girls, that's just evo psych non-sense too? Or the fact that the countries with the most gender equality in society show less preference in men or women to break with gender stereotypes in their jobs?
Note that the article cleverly omits any numerical data, likely not to scare of the numberophobic readers. Nowhere does it say whether female brains where 0.1% more connected, 1%, 10%, 100% or 1000% across hemispheres. It just says "more connected." So, if you want to calibrate your gender difference prejudices those numbers are very important -- without them the article doesn't say very much.
Wouldn't those numbers only be useful if you understood the impact of x% differences? Does a 10% increase in left-right connectivity make you 10 times better at some task or 1000 times better?
I think we (or at least I!) know too little for any of this to be truly meaningful. But it's still interesting.
The problem is that society could influence the results. After all, are these "wirings" nature or nurture? It'd probably take analysis of many people from many cultures and backgrounds to get a good feel for it.
Are you really disregarding, with scare quotes and a smiley, an entire field of study to which many thousands have contributed papers, books, and research?
It's this attitude that leads to the sexism in our industry. Seeing this kind of bollocks upvoted on a regular basis is extremely disheartening.
> Are you really disregarding, with scare quotes and a smiley, an entire field of study to which many thousands have contributed papers, books, and research?
Hey, people do the same with psychology and religion all the time.
Seems likely that a large chunk of this is hormonally affected - seeing as the changes kick in at the start of puberty.
In which case it's worth remembering that hormonal levels vary dramatically for both men and women, and I'd expect that over a large sample size you'd see a fair amount of crossover.
Significant portion: "... [O]ther experts have crunched the numbers and they state that although the differences are statistically significant, they are actually not substantive. And remember, these are average differences with a lot of overlap. It’s possible that my male brain is wired more like an average female brain than yours, even if you’re a woman."
70 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 135 ms ] threadWhich can be hormonal, can be cultural, can be both.
This might be a dumb question, but one that immediately pops up for me.
I always wondered - if it's purely a social construct that boys play with trucks and girls play with dolls etc., then why in most stories about a girl trapped in a boy's body we hear her say "I wanted to play with girls" (contrary to society's expectations), "I wanted to play with dolls" etc.?
I googled it up just now - http://prospect.org/article/transgender-candidate
The story of Bindaya Rana (from Pakistani), who was born as a male:
"Bindiya Rana, one of Pakistan’s first transgender candidates [...] “I used to wear my sister’s clothes,” she said. “And use lipstick and powder and nail polish. I wanted to play with dolls and be in the kitchen.” Her parents disapproved when they found her in makeup, beating her."
It's a gaping hole in the theory that we are wired differently "as we grow up due to the different experiences and upbringing men and women are subject to".
If one's self-identified gender could be overriden so easily, there would me much less personal tragedies in this world.
For example, a genetic predisposition towards competition and physical activity could lead to a general preference for certain kinds of sports, even if those didn't exist for most of human evolution.
In case you haven't noticed, I'm talking out of my ass here, I have no idea if this is true, it just seems a reasonable possibility.
You mean there might have been something else like nail polish, and people evolved a preference for that? But what would that have been? Some meshed up leaves people put on their finger nails?
Apparently there is something like a preference for being a woman, and using nail polish can be a proxy for that. But my point is that it is most likely learned that nail polish has something to do with being a woman. And the mechanism is not "I wish I was a woman so that I could use nail polish", it is more likely "I wish I could be a woman, and nail polish makes me feel like one".
Nevertheless, I am also not a biologist, just making things up. But I think some basic logic can be applied by everyone.
Lipstick -> red lips -> sexual symbol (looks similar to vaginal labia) -> more reproductive choice
But those are messages for the men, not for the woman who applies the lipstick. So is the desire basically to be sexually attractive like a woman? Or falling in love with one's reflection in the mirror?
I've read for example that kids learn their beauty ideals from the people that surround them, but there is also a taboo to not fall in love with closely related people. For example researchers looked at people living in a Kibuz and found that there were hardly any love affairs among them.
I think of lipstick as just a human equivalent of a monkey with a big red butt (which is natural, but doesn't serve any purpose other than to let other monkeys know they're in heat).
They're human ways of drawing attention to sexuality. In our society we can't paint our genitals, so we paint another set of lips. Or our fingernails, etc.
When a child picks lipstick, however, they're not being sexual, just emulating adults. They same way they copy adults tone (ever heard a kid 'scold' another kid, the same way their parents would?) Most infant animals do that too.
Possibly because they identify themselves with other girls, and are more susceptible to the same influences? If society expects a certain gender as a whole to behave in a certain way, and an individual identifies with that gender, then it's not odd that it may be influenced as well.
Not that I have no idea if this is true or not, I just find that an unconvincing argument against the social construct theory.
If someone puts a theory forward, however, it's their job to come up with plausible answers for such doubts.
The one you suggested is possible, of course. How well substantiated it is though? Theories should include some evidence that supports the hypotheses they are based on.
Just to show an example where some preference is not genetic, but there is a mechanism to pretty much hardwire it shortly after birth.
Through this discussion I wonder if it is more about how you are being valued in society. For example nail polish and lipstick are used to enhance sexual attraction. So maybe it is a desire to be valued for sexual attractivity, rather than actions, power or wealth (or whatever, men are valued for different things in different environments, I suppose).
Without that assumption, there is no contradiction in the "theory". Although it is also not a theory that can explain how people are made to feel like girls or boys. I don't think such a theory exists yet, or if it does, it has been silenced by political correctness.
"Male and female brains showed few differences in connectivity up to the age of 13, but became more differentiated in 14- to 17-year-olds."
However, I'd like to point out that there apparently is a genetic difference in male and female bodies. While women can become very strong and develop "body builder" physiques, it's certainly not the norm (also not sure how much hormone pills play a role in the women who turn out like that).
Of course from that it doesn't follow that differences in the brain are genetic, but imo it makes it seem possible. Clearly the physique is optimized for different ways of living, so why not the brain.
From UC Irvine: "The study shows women having more white matter and men more gray matter related to intellectual skill"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050121100142.ht...
Women do better in high stress, high information volume situations, are able to make more intelligent choices when little or no data is available. Men are better with logic puzzles, but generally are poor listeners, and have poor soft skills. Women are better managers of people, Men, better managers of things.
Obviously, these are not universal truths, but there are certain roles I would prefer a woman candidate for, others I would prefer a man, I'm going to make a judgement on the person, but their gender is part of the experience package.
It's one thing to have useful heuristics and rules of thumb, but when it conflicts with official, blessed truths about "humans are all identical", it's important to be careful what you say and to whom. Especially in the workplace, where there can be real consequences for having the "wrong" points of view.
We all bring our particular preferences and biases to the table, so we need to do the best we can to be fair and reasonable to the candidates that come in front of us.
Two Candidates, identical qualifications, identical experience, both interview well, I'm going to go with my 'intuition' to make the final call, whatever it is that goes into that is between myself and my concience.
From the outside it looks like your comment could easily be translated as "women need to know their place", but with fancier words to make it look philosophical.
> "humans are all exactly identical, no questions asked"
No one asserts this, not even gender studies majors. What's problematic is asserting that gender differences should have any bearing on what a member of a particular gender is allowed to do.
Subscribing to stereotypes is what excludes a large number of extraordinarily talented women from either entering or finding work in the tech industry.
Being unable to sit still, wanting to run around - now treated as an illness Roughhousing - a normal male activity, is now a crime in schools.
Here is a good article making my point - http://ideas.time.com/2013/08/19/school-has-become-too-hosti...
http://www.amazon.com/The-WAR-AGAINST-BOYS-Misguided/dp/0684...
I was under the impression that this left brain/right brain theory had been debunked by functional imagery.
But I can't find any relevant studies I'd understand on Google Scholar right now so I might be wrong. And as I'm a layman take this with a grain (or more) of salt ;)
I do have a background in neuroscience (I did research on headache physiology a few years ago), but I'm not too familiar with functional imaging.
--
[0] Handedness is a strange thing. The gene that governs it has two alleles. One is dominant, and causes right-handedness. The recissive one, doesn't necessarily cause left-handedness. Handedness is people with two recessive genes is random, roughly 50/50 (a bit less for each, since it can also make one ambidextrous).
The clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation of the main cowlick is also governed by the same gene, in the same fashion, AFAIK, independently (the dominant gene makes the cowlick turn clockwise).
I believe that it is the second case - which means you really shouldn't base decisions on the sex of person and brain "wiring" you believe she or he has.
While we're at it, lets go back to pi=3, like god intended.
Studies like the one in the article give us data points, but nowhere to draw any conclusions from.
Conclusions in things like this are very often 'just-so' stories, of the kind you hear from the Evo Psych nonsense-heads.
Almost every study purporting to show innate differences between males and females has been shown to lack rigor, blindness, or has drawn conclusions from imaginary sources based on pre-conceived notions not found in the data.
You can see those preconceived notions in this thread. Many of the comments have a very strong stench of "of course, we've known this all along, men and women are different, and it's unfortunate that only men are good at the things that pay a lot of money, but that's life". The latter part may not be stated directly, but anyone who has paid any attention to this kind of argument on the internet knows that it's heavily implied under a very thin surface in the majority of comments like this.
I think we (or at least I!) know too little for any of this to be truly meaningful. But it's still interesting.
It's this attitude that leads to the sexism in our industry. Seeing this kind of bollocks upvoted on a regular basis is extremely disheartening.
Hey, people do the same with psychology and religion all the time.
In which case it's worth remembering that hormonal levels vary dramatically for both men and women, and I'd expect that over a large sample size you'd see a fair amount of crossover.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/getting-in-a-tangl...
Significant portion: "... [O]ther experts have crunched the numbers and they state that although the differences are statistically significant, they are actually not substantive. And remember, these are average differences with a lot of overlap. It’s possible that my male brain is wired more like an average female brain than yours, even if you’re a woman."