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Yes, I think its rather obvious what the "social explanations" are. I don't play the little, "let me ask someone a question when I already known the answer" game.
I don't think it's obvious for you, not by any stretch. In the google vid I linked, Ben Barr covers a lot of research with insightful commentary. Here is the vid again. You have not addressed any of it.
The 'stereotype threat', which is rooted in research by Claude Steele, that goes back to what is noted in the OP and similar studies.
"For example, on a mathematics test, if you remind a group of girls that boys tend to do better on this type of test, it is likely that the girls will do more poorly on the test than they would have had they not been told." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat
You can take issue with whatever you want, but there are major differences in the brains of men and women. The idea that women are men are the same mentally is just rather silly (not to mention dogmatic), there is also no question those differences have deep ramification in all aspects of life.
So, this is simply the case because you state as such? I don't argue that there are differences in brain function. Sure, men have more grey matter and women white; women have more activity in the frontal cortext, etc IIRC. You have not provided any evidence that these difference result is innate ability that lend to success in tasks. Just because these are your assumptions does not make it the case. And simply asking the question, with nothing to back your assertions, is not enough.
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And my primary point in this thread has been that this says little about whether men are actually better in some sense in Mathematics than women.
It gives a clue as to why women have not been equally succeeding in higher maths. It's something to consider vs the nothing, outside disparity, you have brought to this conversation.
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Just to note, I'm not saying much about "technical subjects", rather subjects that utilize advanced mathematics. Many of the "technical subjects" do not require an understanding of advanced mathematics.
You may not. The majority that hold to innate ability are. Either way, I provided the vid that covers commentary by a neurologist, who's opinion, if any, is relevant. Again, I hope you take the time to check it out.
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The point is simply that the tests can very well be highly biased, they could be biased towards men or women. How would you know, because the people that wrote them say it?
You are making the assertion. The onus is upon you to establish bias. Again, merely making a suggestion does little for the conversation. The fact of the matter is that these tests are public record. Go get some or even on of these tests, and point to where you are seeing bias.
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Right I have not tried to justify my position, but this is completely separate from noting an alternative hypothesis.
In this pariticular debate, given its potential consequences for women, I fail to see the merit of a hypothesis that you cannot test, or even consider how to establish its validity. We can all come up with alternative hypotheses, so what? To quote Barres, as it pertains to scientists at least, "hypotheses require supporting data...and a good scientist know how to formulate testable hypotheses." Although, given your admission that you are not a scientist, I can understand why this expectation may elude you.
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Provide links? These are backroom discusses between professors and administrators. There are no links. When the ratio starts to get "bad" there is pressure to get more women in and they will lower their standards or offer far superior packages for women. I'm certainly not going to name names....
Again, says you. The vid I provided gives a solid argument that pokes holes in this suggestion. The research provided shows that women have to produce somewhere in the realm of 3x more than a male counterpart for similar considerations. If you have something to offer that doesn't begin and end with your personal assumptions, I'm game to read it.
User_ID I don't think anyone is arguing that there aren't some brain differences in men and women...
There are not just some differences the brains are different in many ways to the point where diseases do not even effect them in the same fashion. Regardless, I did not mention this as an argument for the mathematics issue, rather just to note that there are profound differences so it would not be particularly surprising if men and women were better and different sorts of mental tasks.
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Originally Posted by Kaye02
.... If one needs these relations spelled out for them then one probably shouldn't be in college.
I think this comment is rather silly, the relationships between the various fields and how they relate to each other historically is in no sense obvious. This is an area of significant scholarship, of which most people are ignorant of. For example, pick any science major at random and I would bet they are largely ignorant of the foundations and history of their field. Could they for example answer such simple questions as "What is science", "What is a scientific explanation", etc. Probably not.
There are not just some differences the brains are different in many ways to the point where diseases do not even effect them in the same fashion. Regardless, I did not mention this as an argument for the mathematics issue, rather just to note that there are profound differences so it would not be particularly surprising if men and women were better and different sorts of mental tasks.
How you relate this to congnitive ability, I do not know. Differences do not imply causation.
There are not just some differences the brains are different in many ways to the point where diseases do not even effect them in the same fashion. Regardless, I did not mention this as an argument for the mathematics issue, rather just to note that there are profound differences so it would not be particularly surprising if men and women were better and different sorts of mental tasks.
I think this comment is rather silly, the relationships between the various fields and how they relate to each other historically is in no sense obvious. This is an area of significant scholarship, of which most people are ignorant of. For example, pick any science major at random and I would bet they are largely ignorant of the foundations and history of their field. Could they for example answer such simple questions as "What is science", "What is a scientific explanation", etc. Probably not.
You took what I said out of context. I said when they are studied around the same time and I said at a basic level. I didn't say one didn't need to study those things, I just said it doesn't have to be at exactly the same time.
No, but existence in a math department is not the same as actual achievement in the field. The former can and is engineered, I have no idea what it would be if women were not given favorable treatment when the ratio started to "look bad".
I want to address your claims of favorable treatment. I don't have data that specifically address math deptartments, but rather the sciences in general. But, I do not think it's unreasonable to correlate favor or lack of favor across discipline lines.
Barres's concerns address the low numbers of women professors in the sciences and engineering. He notes that it's not really a matter of degree attainment. While women hold fewer degrees in the hard sciences, the numbers are rapidly growing. What he notes is the striking differences between degree attainment and full professorship and this stretches across all areas in academia, not just the sciences.
He purports discrimination, not favorable treatment. Anecdotally, he has a unique vantage as a female to male transexual in the sciences. But, I'm just going to address the research. Although, I want to note one story - a colleague of his noted that his research was better than his sister's. This man did not know he was a transexual and that he and his sister are the same person.
There are a few points I'd like to address for this conversation, which are also noted in his vid.
1. There is no compelling evidence for relevant innate gender differences in cognition.
Likewise, I have yet to come across this type of evidence.
2. There is overwhelming evidence for severe degrees of gender based prejudice.
As has been noted in this thread via several links.
3. To make such harmful statements about innate ability, a person must be sure he is right.
In the case of Barres' commentary, he's referring to Pinker (psychologist) and a few others. He goes on to rightly criticize evolutionary psychology, an integral component of the gender inferiorty/discrimination debate.
Investigations into why women hold professorial positions at lesser rates and why women tend to be generally lacking in success professionally, compared to men, are readily available for anyone interested. Much of it points towards gender bias that advantages men by both genders. Yes, women are just as likely to view other women as less competent, which is incredibly sad.
Some examples noted, regardless of field, since women are under-represented in the humanities as well as the sciences-
A. In the postdoc fellowship competition, women had to write three times as many papers compared to males.
Postdoc fellowship competition effect of 2.5-fold. WennerÃ¥s, C. & Wold, A. Nature 387, 341–343 (1997).
B. When symphony orchestras went to gender blind auditions, the number of females selected increased 5-fold.
C. Double-blind review increases representation of female authors (2008) Trends in Ecol. and Evol. Bio. 23:4-6, Budden, et al.
D. A gender-labeling study conducted at Harvard with Harvard profs and potential applicants for tenure track positions. For exceptional, or as labeled 'walk-on-water', candidates (male or female) there wasn't bias. But, for average vita's, the type most profs come across, there was a bias that advantaged males. You can find this info in the Spinker transcript.
All of the above thwarts assertions that women receive favorable treatment. It argues the opposite.
I don't think it's obvious for you, not by any stretch.
Generally, it does not make sense to pretend to know what is obvious or not to another person. Again, I don't play these games. I looked at some of the links you posted, but it was the same old same old. I have not had time to watch the video.
You see even if I was not already aware of the issues I could have easily searched for them and typed a response if I was interested in this sort of game.
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Originally Posted by Braunwyn
You have not provided any evidence that these difference result is innate ability that lend to success in tasks. Just because these are your assumptions does not make it the case.
The idea that two rather different structures lead to the exact same abilities is rather improbable, if not outright inane. As I mentioned to the other poster, I did not mention this as a way of justify the claim that men are better at advanced mathematics than women. Rather to note, that there are profound differences and no amount of wishing or whatever else is going to change it.
In terms of differences in talent there are a number of well document cases:
This can explain to some degree why men appear better at certain mechanical tasks (could have something to do with mathematics too):
Also, from this "and men outperformed women in remembering symbolic, non-linguistic information". This can obviously give men an edge in mathematics and related fields...
And of course, the most obvious, emotional differences:
The list is rather long and many more examples can be found with a search. But basically, when there is noticeable differences in brain structure there is almost always noticeable differences in brain function. But that should be obvious.
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Originally Posted by Braunwyn
You are making the assertion. The onus is upon you to establish bias. Again, merely making a suggestion does little for the conversation.
Oh geez! Not this again. The point again is to offer an alternative hypothesis, this does indeed demonstrate something. It demonstrates that the conclusion being made cannot be made until this alternative is ruled out. And, its not a particularly outlandish idea either.
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Originally Posted by Braunwyn
I fail to see the merit of a hypothesis that you cannot test, or even consider how to establish its validity. We can all come up with alternative hypotheses, so what?
When did I suggest it was not testable? Its clearly an emperical question and can be tested.
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Originally Posted by Braunwyn
To quote Barres, as it pertains to scientists at least, "hypotheses require supporting data...and a good scientist know how to formulate testable hypotheses." Although, given your admission that you are not a scientist, I can understand why this expectation may elude you.
You serious? You asked for evidence, which is different than asking me how in princple such an assertion could be tested. When forming a hypothesis was is key is that 1.) it fits existing data and 2.) that its testabe. These are both satisfied here, but you seem to for whatever reason equate the lack of supporting evidence with the lack of testability. This of course makes little sense, hence I'd suggest science eludes you.
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Originally Posted by Braunwyn
Again, says you. The vid I provided gives a solid argument that pokes holes in this suggestion.
Poke holes in it? I've been involved in the conversations! This is not an assumption, but rather obviously I can't do much without "naming names".
I highly doubt the person in the video claims that women have to do 3x better work to get into Ph.d programs than men. There would be no way to hide this and it would be a rather obvious case of sex distrimination.
I don't know what your point in posting this is? Pinker (which I rather like, I may add) states exactly what I've been stating here:
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But the datum we are disputing is not how well boys and girls do in school, or how well men and women do in college, because there we agree there is no male advantage. The phenomenon we really are discussing is performance at the upper levels: getting tenure-track job, getting patents, and so on. And here the analyses have shown that the SAT is not biased against girls. That is, a given increment in SAT score predicts a given increment in the variable of interest to the same extent whether you're male or female."
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Originally Posted by Braunwyn
All of the above thwarts assertions that women receive favorable treatment. It argues the opposite.
I have never suggest that there is never a bias against women, rather I stated that I have seen many examples of favorable treatment for women in male dominated fields. Here I more so have in mind ph.d candidates than tenure-track positions.
The negative side to forced equality, is reverse discrimination. That was my point. Asserting that there is no gender gap when there is one can be just as damaging as the opposite.
Regardless, I can't help but note the irony that almost everyone that argues against a gender gap is ahem.....a woman.
You took what I said out of context. I said when they are studied around the same time and I said at a basic level. I didn't say one didn't need to study those things, I just said it doesn't have to be at exactly the same time.
You hardly said anything, so its sort hard to take it out of context. You suggested that if someone cannot note the connections between fields by themselves then should not go to college, right? What did you mean by this?
Generally, it does not make sense to pretend to know what is obvious or not to another person. Again, I don't play these games. I looked at some of the links you posted, but it was the same old same old. I have not had time to watch the video.
You see even if I was not already aware of the issues I could have easily searched for them and typed a response if I was interested in this sort of game.
This game, as you call it, is a discussion. If you are not interested in discussion, then I don't understand the appeal of posting.
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The idea that two rather different structures lead to the exact same abilities is rather improbable, if not outright inane.
To start, they are not two different structures. That's a ridiculous claim.
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As I mentioned to the other poster, I did not mention this as a way of justify the claim that men are better at advanced mathematics than women. Rather to note, that there are profound differences and no amount of wishing or whatever else is going to change it.
Profound in what way? Your link below does support the assertion of profound structural differences let alone profound difference in ability. I will quote.
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In terms of differences in talent there are a number of well document cases:
This can explain to some degree why men appear better at certain mechanical tasks (could have something to do with mathematics too):
"One possible explanation is that the different brain structures allow for different strategies used by men and women. While men appear able to globally rotate an object in space, women seem to do it piecemeal. The strategy is inefficient but it may be the approach they need to take," said Nopoulos, who also is a psychiatrist with UI Hospitals and Clinics.
"The big question remains whether this is nature or nurture. On the one hand, boys, compared to girls, may have opportunities to cultivate this skill, but if we eventually see both a strong performance and parietal lobe structural difference in children, it would support a biological, not just environmental, effect," Nopoulos added."
I can buy into the idea that brains will process differently and that sex differences can lend to this, even if women generally take the longer route from A to B. This does not support the idea of innate talent resulting in success in task, careers, fields, whatever. And as the authors note, whether it is nature or nuture is something we do not know.
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Women remember daily events better (something, I have noticed myself!):
Also, from this "and men outperformed women in remembering symbolic, non-linguistic information". This can obviously give men an edge in mathematics and related fields...
Sure, there may be areas where one or the other has an easier time. But, an edge does not account for the gross disparities we see professionally in all fields.
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And of course, the most obvious, emotional differences:
The list is rather long and many more examples can be found with a search. But basically, when there is noticeable differences in brain structure there is almost always noticeable differences in brain function. But that should be obvious.
I'm not familiar with research IRT to emotional differences between men and women. But, I do not deny that I have witnessed it myself. I'm not saying men aren't emotional, I tend to find them to be a bit more emotional then women via aggression, but it is different.
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Oh geez! Not this again. The point again is to offer an alternative hypothesis, this does indeed demonstrate something. It demonstrates that the conclusion being made cannot be made until this alternative is ruled out. And, its not a particularly outlandish idea either.
When did I suggest it was not testable? Its clearly an emperical question and can be tested.
How then?
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You serious? You asked for evidence, which is different than asking me how in princple such an assertion could be tested. When forming a hypothesis was is key is that 1.) it fits existing data
Of which, until this post, you have supplied zip. Even still, your evidence is wanting and I am not aware of this existing data you have failed to convey so I don't know what you'r talking about. You have asserted innate ability due to brain structure, of which the evidence is wanting. You have also asserted possible bias in standardized tests, which reads more like a CT.
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and 2.) that its testabe. These are both satisfied here, but you seem to for whatever reason equate the lack of supporting evidence with the lack of testability.
Nothing of the sort has been satisfied. You making statements about "the obvious" whatever the heck that is, is not a test nor satisfactory evidence.
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This of course makes little sense, hence I'd suggest science eludes you.
Of course, that's not a practical statement given my profession.
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Poke holes in it? I've been involved in the conversations! This is not an assumption, but rather obviously I can't do much without "naming names".
I don't know what the heck you're talking about. I'm not telepathic. I cannot read your mind. Who knows what naming names is supposed to mean. As if that lends to the discussion in any way.
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I highly doubt the person in the video claims that women have to do 3x better work to get into Ph.d programs than men. There would be no way to hide this and it would be a rather obvious case of sex distrimination.
Nobody is attempting to hide it. The research is published. Although, you need to read it in order to be aware of it.
This is not true, there is a lot of evidence. I just posted some.
No, you posted studies that at most provide the possibility of advantage on some, of many, spatial tasks. To boot, your study adds the disclaimer of a nature vs nurture debate. Sorry, that does not constitute male advantage.
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I don't know what your point in posting this is? Pinker (which I rather like, I may add) states exactly what I've been stating here:
And Pinker, who I do like as well, has been taken to the cleaners. His non-peer reviewed novel doesn't hold water to peer-reviewed literature. In the gender debate it has been made clear that Pinker rests upon ideology, not science.
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I have never suggest that there is never a bias against women, rather I stated that I have seen many examples of favorable treatment for women in male dominated fields. Here I more so have in mind ph.d candidates than tenure-track positions.
I can appreciate your anecdotes, we all have them, I certainly do. Again, for nth time, it's not helpful in the general debate regarding gender differences, bias, descrimination with out subsequent data for support. I have dozens of anecdotes, as a female scientist, that I can bring to the table, but I recognize that they, on their own, don't lend to the conversation outside personal sharing. I certainly don't expect you or anyone else to generalize them.
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The negative side to forced equality, is reverse discrimination. That was my point. Asserting that there is no gender gap when there is one can be just as damaging as the opposite.
I'm not sure I understand this. If a gap exists, it exists and is supported by the evidence. For the last several decades, via standardized tests, these gaps were readily apparent and people came up with reasonings as to why they exist. Hence, the debate.
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Regardless, I can't help but note the irony that almost everyone that argues against a gender gap is ahem.....a woman.
I can't help to note that when ever I have a conversation on the net about gender differences, it's never with a scientist. And I'm pretty sure I know why this is. Though, the last guy I conversed with happened to be in IT.
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I said when they are studied around the same time and I said at a basic level. I didn't say one didn't need to study those things, I just said it doesn't have to be at exactly the same time.
