Science, sex, brains and gender

[charlou]

The other day I was listening to a fascinating ABC radio interview with two authors who have separately studied and written about the science of the brain and sex differences, how scientists study and interpret it, and how those interpretations are popularised ... They discuss bad scientific methodology, inconsistencies and a great deal of confirmation bias (no surprises there) going on in this area ...

Audio available here: Battlelines: science, sex, brains and gender

If that page is not available to you I will copy/paste the transcript (available from Wednesday) if you're interested.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Now, now, now, little lady, don't get yourself all worked up about this.

[charlou]

I'd prefer flippancy to be kept to a minimum in this thread.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I'd prefer flippancy to be kept to a minimum in this thread.

Of course you would, dear. now go put the kettle on while I check out the interview.

[charlou]

Beer for me thanks.


Looking forward to hearing any thoughts on the interview.

[JimC]

My two cents worth...

If there are any gender based differences in human cognition, they are both statistical only, and tendencies rather than rigid determinants...

Our cognition and cultures are (or should be) flexible enough to overcome any of the old hominid biases that get in the way of being authentic, free humans of either sex.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Interesting. What she seems to be saying is that there is an implicit acceptance of the fact that gender-based behavioral differences are derived from nature rather than nurture. This is counter to the perceived wisdom with most other developmental changes - where the two tend to be given equal billing - a fact which inclines me to give weight to her arguments.

I doubt that we will ever really know how much is down to one or another for sure though - not without performing long-term experiments on human children - something that is a tad frowned upon.

[Hermit]

The other day I was listening to a fascinating ABC radio interview with two authors who have separately studied and written about the science of the brain and sex differences, how scientists study and interpret it, and how those interpretations are popularised ... They discuss bad scientific methodology, inconsistencies and a great deal of confirmation bias (no surprises there) going on in this area ...

Audio available here: Battlelines: science, sex, brains and gender

If that page is not available to you I will copy/paste the transcript (available from Wednesday) if you're interested.

The notion that women's brains are wired differently - leading to different inclinations and behaviour - reminds me of wide-held prejudices regarding the reason Jews are being so prominent in the finance and law professions, and how easily it is forgotten that they were actually forbidden to pursue 'good christian trades' by imperial edicts for several hundred years in addition to being excluded from them by less formal means.

[Mr.Samsa]

Looking at the bad research in this area is kind of a pet interest of mine. I found that some good reviews on this has actually been done by Mark Liberman over at Language Log. He mostly focuses on research surrounding language differences between genders (like here where he debunks the myth that women speak around 20,000 compared to men's 7,000), but he also goes on to look at other supposed gender differences in other blog entries. There's a list of those entries here.

I made a thread on ratskep a while ago about the language differences myth, but it was mostly ignored. It's here if you were interested.

The main problem in this area is Louann Brizendine, who seems to come out every few years with the same moronic book containing the same made up facts, but just with a new catchy title. She's actually the subject of Liberman's link above, where he tracks back through her reference list to find where she got the claim of a difference in lexical budgets between genders, and traces it back to a religious marriage pamphlet from the 90s. Apparently it was just made up on the spot by the author, to support this claim:

Here's the problem. At the end of the day -- whether the woman works in an office of in the home -- there is huge difference between the man's word count and the woman's. A man has spent nearly all his words. He comes home tired and drained, looking for a place to recharge for the next day's battle at the office.

A woman, however, is just warming up. She has thousands of words left to speak, and since her husband's word count is depleted, the conversations often wind up sounding like nothing more than question-and-answer sessions.

[JOZeldenrust]

Looking at the bad research in this area is kind of a pet interest of mine. I found that some good reviews on this has actually been done by Mark Liberman over at Language Log. He mostly focuses on research surrounding language differences between genders (like here where he debunks the myth that women speak around 20,000 compared to men's 7,000), but he also goes on to look at other supposed gender differences in other blog entries. There's a list of those entries here.

I made a thread on ratskep a while ago about the language differences myth, but it was mostly ignored. It's here if you were interested.

The main problem in this area is Louann Brizendine, who seems to come out every few years with the same moronic book containing the same made up facts, but just with a new catchy title. She's actually the subject of Liberman's link above, where he tracks back through her reference list to find where she got the claim of a difference in lexical budgets between genders, and traces it back to a religious marriage pamphlet from the 90s. Apparently it was just made up on the spot by the author, to support this claim:

Here's the problem. At the end of the day -- whether the woman works in an office of in the home -- there is huge difference between the man's word count and the woman's. A man has spent nearly all his words. He comes home tired and drained, looking for a place to recharge for the next day's battle at the office.

A woman, however, is just warming up. She has thousands of words left to speak, and since her husband's word count is depleted, the conversations often wind up sounding like nothing more than question-and-answer sessions.

What?! She thinks there's a limit on the number of times per day you can use a word in your lexicon? Like wizards' spells in D&D? That's beyond stupid.

[JOZeldenrust]

Interesting. What she seems to be saying is that there is an implicit acceptance of the fact that gender-based behavioral differences are derived from nature rather than nurture. This is counter to the perceived wisdom with most other developmental changes - where the two tend to be given equal billing - a fact which inclines me to give weight to her arguments.

I doubt that we will ever really know how much is down to one or another for sure though - not without performing long-term experiments on human children - something that is a tad frowned upon.

Transgender kids are yielding quite a bit of info on this subject. Research is still in its early stages, but it's expected that the younger a transgender kid is allowed to assume the desired cultural gender identity, the smaller all the cognitive and behavioural differences between these people and people with a standard gender identity will be.

[Mr.Samsa]

What?! She thinks there's a limit on the number of times per day you can use a word in your lexicon? Like wizards' spells in D&D? That's beyond stupid.

Yeah, she isn't the smartest person in the world. Like I said, she has a couple of books on gender differences and almost every "difference" she discusses is as ridiculous as a lexical budget. For good measure, I think she also chucks in some evolutionary psychology to explain things like men are better at reading maps because in their days as hunters they were the navigators...

[GreyICE]

It's very much another case of economics smacking down science so hard that science's head bounces. For all that economics is a "soft science" some days it seems a lot harder to get around than the hard sciences.

The simple fact of the matter is that men and women want to be told that their differences in the relationship aren't because of them. They want to be told that it's something hardwired into their brains, so they're no more at fault than they are for any other instinctual behavior - it's just what humans do. The relationship isn't in trouble because she's really boring and doesn't actually fix her problems and drones on about them - he just exhausted his "lexinarium." She isn't completely useless because she can't follow simple instructions, she's "not communicating with her emotional center."

The science will continue to come up with cool dumb stuff 'proving' this until we give up on the last of our cultural stereotypes and just let it slide.

Honestly, I'm inclined to view stuff like this as incredibly detrimental because it is actually a block to solving things. But those who choose to believe it don't want the problem solved, they want to be able to live with the problem. I can't cure relationship issues, so I tend to leave stuff like this alone (besides mocking evolutionary psychology, the least useful of the pseudosciences (I think I'd have better luck with homeopathy).

P.S. My goto for dumb stuff in the name of economics is the WHO report on Cocaine that discovered small doses were non-addictive, properly regulated it could have positive effects, and there was not necessarily detrimental effects from long-term low-moderate level careful use. A very interesting result that is so radioactive that it's sealed in Chernobyl. Expect that power plant to produce electricity before WHO is allowed to publish the paper.

[DRSB]

Looking at the bad research in this area is kind of a pet interest of mine. I found that some good reviews on this has actually been done by Mark Liberman over at Language Log. He mostly focuses on research surrounding language differences between genders (like here where he debunks the myth that women speak around 20,000 compared to men's 7,000), but he also goes on to look at other supposed gender differences in other blog entries. There's a list of those entries here.

I made a thread on ratskep a while ago about the language differences myth, but it was mostly ignored. It's here if you were interested.

The main problem in this area is Louann Brizendine, who seems to come out every few years with the same moronic book containing the same made up facts, but just with a new catchy title. She's actually the subject of Liberman's link above, where he tracks back through her reference list to find where she got the claim of a difference in lexical budgets between genders, and traces it back to a religious marriage pamphlet from the 90s. Apparently it was just made up on the spot by the author, to support this claim:

Here's the problem. At the end of the day -- whether the woman works in an office of in the home -- there is huge difference between the man's word count and the woman's. A man has spent nearly all his words. He comes home tired and drained, looking for a place to recharge for the next day's battle at the office.

A woman, however, is just warming up. She has thousands of words left to speak, and since her husband's word count is depleted, the conversations often wind up sounding like nothing more than question-and-answer sessions.

I couldn't agree more on your stance on Louann Brizendine, you'd expect more from somebody with such a CV and such credentials!

[Deep Sea Isopod]

I'm going to listen to it now.

On another forum, someone (bigoted racist) has said that because there are no eminent black scientist, (So I've pointed out Neil deGrass Tyson to him) this somehow proves their brains are smaller, so as it's a fact that female brain is smaller than the male's, this means black females have the brain the size of a dog.

Now, I'm waiting for him to support his claim of a smaller female brain. So, has anyone got a link/paper I can provide to shut this twat up?