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Women and men are not the same. shock horror. the tale that can't be told...

 
  

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astrojax69
21:53 / 16.02.06
this paper was rejected by the journal science, allegedly on spurious grounds, according to the author in this article in the popular press.

lawrence's thesis, that there are biological differences in brains across individuals and this should be recognised, not shoe-horned on to stereotypes of gender, seems one that bears some thought.

i wasn't sure as to put this in here or in the lab, but the issues seem to be broad social ones that science is trying, in some quarters, to address, so mebbe we can discuss? i know there have been similar threads on 'lith but this article seems worthy of a thread in itself.

as a contribution, the centre i work at has some studies submitted for publication [so i can't say too much] but broadly, we think we have shown that some emotional responses to similar stimuli are processed in different hemispheres in males and females. and of course, baron-cohen's work the paper cites gives some concrete examples of the nature of difference across the sexes of the brain...

comments?
 
 
All Acting Regiment
22:05 / 16.02.06
Well, first of all, calling this thread "the tale that can't be told" would tend to suggest that you feel there's some kind of bias towards females operating at the moment.
 
 
Saltation
22:17 / 16.02.06
(shades of the harvard boy being pilloried for being asked to ask questions.)


i find it saddening but typical of humans that "Science" the magazine, nominally an organ of Science the concept, is demanding Prescription (politics) rather than Description (science).

:
>Science...explained that its decision was because the piece did not offer "a strategy on how to deal with the gender issue"
 
 
Saltation
22:24 / 16.02.06
Legba: do you think perhaps it's fairer to say that the title was intended to suggest there's a strong bias --or more strictly: prejudice-- that there are no gender differences?
 
 
Dr. Tom
22:31 / 16.02.06
If Dobbs had wanted us to be the same, he would have made us flat. All over.
 
 
Dr. Tom
22:40 / 16.02.06
But seriously, it's no secret that men and women are different, even inthe scientific literature. Just noting the receptors in the limbic system that respond to different steroidal hormones- androgenic and feminine ("estrogenic").

This is like zeno's Paradox- refutable by simple observation.
 
 
Ganesh
22:44 / 16.02.06
Has "science" rejected this concept? I don't think so. Biological differences between genders are well-documented, and have been for some time.
 
 
astrojax69
02:33 / 17.02.06
Well, first of all, calling this thread "the tale that can't be told" would tend to suggest that you feel there's some kind of bias towards females operating at the moment.

not really; it was as much a slinky reference to 'the love that dare not speak its name' and other such euphamisms we [society, not 'lithers, of course!] adopt to deal with subjects that frighten us, or we don't quite understand but seem at first glance to be upsetting the status quo...

why do you think the title [which in full was: women and men are not the same. shock horror. the tale that can't be told] gives one sex mentioned any status in any context over the other? i can't see it in the language used. yet this seems to be what 'science' did.

the point of the essay, as i take it, was to suggest that distinctions using 'male' or 'female' to relate to brains and minds and biological concepts are essentially out-moded and that, yes, there is much in science that attests to this; but the political influences (citations are everything in science, and cititations in science in science are even more!) do not see fit to publish such findings or theses and give spurious reasons for their refusal.

what does this send as a message to the community? that women should remain in their 'traditional' [i use this term advisedly, meaning the traditions of institutions built and not significantly altered for decades] role of mother/domestic? or that men should be disregarded when they enagge in some nurturing/empathy role?

lawrence's thesis is direly humanist - we are all individual (shut up, python fans... ) - and everyone should be treated on merit and the broad generalities should be taken seriously as 'indicators' of type, not prescriptive of type...

sorry legba, i hope thast doesn't seem too cutting as a response to you. i don't mean to take you to task or anything. i enjoy your comments and would like to read any discussion you might offer on the matter. what did you make of the paper itself?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
08:44 / 17.02.06
Has "science" rejected this concept? I don't think so.

Science the magazine has. I think that's what was being referred to.
 
 
Lurid Archive
09:08 / 17.02.06
I immediately became unsympathetic to the claim on reading that our old friend, the "the cult of political correctness" is ultimately to blame. This doesn't tally with my experience of scientists, though it is reminiscent of politically motivated attacks on science which try to undermine a consensus by non-scientific means - global warming and evolution, for example.

On the face of it, however, the excuse that the article "did not, at least for us, lead to a clear strategy about how to deal with the gender issue," and that it was pulled at the last minute after having passed the peer review process does look a tad suspect. But I'd be hesitant to draw any strong conclusions without hearing the editor defend the decision in their own words. Please link to such a thing if you find it.
 
 
Lurid Archive
09:24 / 17.02.06
Having read the article, I was pleasantly surprised in that I was expecting something much worse than I found. On the whole the argument is fair and I agree with the main points. There is a whiff of PC gone mad!! in there, which is in some sense central, but the thrust of the piece - that creating a "level" playing field which overly rewards agression will be discriminatory - is eminently reasonable.

The main problem with it is the glaring omission about the poor record of science in being used to prop up and lend legitimacy to discriminatory sterotypes. I'd even go so far as to say that you can't really have a sensible discussion about the taboos around this subject unless you acknowledge this history and take some lessons from it.
 
 
alas
13:55 / 17.02.06
The main problem with it is the glaring omission about the poor record of science in being used to prop up and lend legitimacy to discriminatory sterotypes. I'd even go so far as to say that you can't really have a sensible discussion about the taboos around this subject unless you acknowledge this history and take some lessons from it.

Thanks, Lurid, for this response. I sat down last night and very nearly wrote an aggressive posting to all this (i.e., prior to Lurid's response), but then my reasonable, empathetic female mind kicked in and I closed down my computer....

Still: Fuck. fuck. fuck. fuck. fuck. fuck. fuck. Jesus guys, I get tired.

Some of you may be aware that most of my free time in the past few weeks has been devoted to this thread in the Switchboard, wherein the claim is repeatedly put forth that feminism has, pretty much all by itself, created "a flawed system in family courts that values female nurturing over male nurturing and male financial responsibility over female financial responsibility." (I'm jumping you to page 6, where I enter the fray, purely out of an aggressive self-promotion that must be some evil male portion of my brain...)

I pointed out to that poster here that part of my problem with his claims is that, in his world, feminism is always the overpowering, active agent in society. Anything that's actually 85% male dominated--little things like the judiciary system, the political system, (and I had actually also included the scientific establishment in my litany, but decided that was largely a separate issue)--all these little things are somehow just puppets of some powerful feminist force operating behind the scenes.

I went through what I believe to be a representative paragraph showing how he, without actually providing evidence, implies this overpowering agency of women and corresponding victimhood of men through the strategic use of active and passive verbs. (Which apparently the male, obsessive part of my brain gloms on to. There may be 100,000 different species of beetles in the world, but there are 1,000,000 different words in the English language, and [she rubs her knuckles on her shoulder, blows on an imaginary gun] I happen to know a bigger percentage of 'em than yer average bear...)

So, I had started writing another response to that thread, but decided to heed Kit-Kat's suggestion that we all should cool our jets for a bit. I come over to headshop, and read this thread.

Wherein, sigh, it's all "political correctness gone maaaaaaad," and, voila, handily enough, it is once again: all feminism's fault! Gosh, feminism is so handy sometimes. Someone call WPC Hell and make an arrest!

Yippee.

That is, not only does the newspaper article suggest (using, an email FROM A WOMAN SO IT'S OK!!!) to say, "the men who want to avoid the issues the article raises 'are simply running scared of getting lynched like Larry Summers.'" [The article does not note that that email must have been provided BY MR. LAWRENCE to the paper....]

When women do "aggressively" argue a point against a prominent male figure, who says women just might not be smart enough in math and science to compete with men, it's a "lynching." A lynching.

[There are several websites that show photographs of lynchings in the United States. I urge you to seek them out, if you are inclined to be sympathetic with this argument, and then come here and explain to me how these two events are at all comparable. Fucking helll. Ah, but see it's a WOMAN saying it, so it must be a) "unbiased" and b) true.]

And then, in the article itself:

About 100 years ago, Ibsen shed light on the secrets of contemporary life, and in doing so, championed women's rights. But since then, the feminist campaign for equality has helped build the belief that men and women, on average, have exactly the same aptitudes.

This juxtaposition is irritatingly evocative of what I was getting at with ShadowSax's argument, although this is much more subtle, of course. And, I don't need to point out that the argument runs in exactly the opposite direction: in ShadowSax world, feminists are directly responsible for the myth that women are more nurturing than men, and in Lawrence-world, feminists are directly responsible for an evil bland soviet-style sameness being imposed on the common sense "fact" that women are on average the real nurturers and men are on average bean counters.

I should be jumping for joy, I guess. Just link ShadowSax to this article and say: "gosh, see, here's a man saying that you should just stop yer complainin' 'cause it's biology."

But note: Once again, in the passage noted above, brave, lone male Ibsen, gets slyly credited as being, essentially, the first one to "shed light" on "the secrets of contemporary life." I.e., he doesn't state but very nearly implies that poor women might never have noticed their own oppression or even spoken about women's rights if Ibsen hadn't noticed for them. Or maybe they'd have just been too empathetic and kind to say anything...too "gentle" to have been, say, demanding women's rights for 50 years! (First Women's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, NY, 1848.)

Then, awakened into life by our reasonable, insightful friend Ibsen, the women's rights movement goes all wacko and irrational (Women! what ya gonna do!) and takes over the culture and insists on equality. Which we all know means exact sameness at least when women state it. Ok, in this case, pardon me, "helps build the belief that...."

Ok. I needed to get that out of my system. Look, sincerely, I do believe that this PA Lawrence fellow has some interesting ideas. Lurid has pretty well summed up the argument being made by the calmer part of my brain that was actually expecting much worse after the first few sentences and his persona in the news article.

I don't dispute that testosterone, in the womb and after, has a huge effect on human behaviors. For example, I partly find the ShadowSax thread interesting because although I took out the phrase "male posturing" from one of my responses, for good reasons, the thread as a whole does seem suggestive of pretty strong gender differences in argumentative styles and approaches. (By page 10, ShadowSax feels positively oppressed by the idea that his stance might be strengthened, particularly on the topic of male parenting skills, if he could demonstrate any level of empathy for anyone!)

But, once again, this Lawrence argument, and many like it that I have seen coming from the scientific establishment are framed with such a complete and utter ignorance of the history of the fight for women's rights, that it utterly trivializes what's at stake and women's roles in it. At the very least I really would urge ANY scientist working in this area to read someone like Anne Fausto-Sterling, who is is professor of biology at Brown University.

[The above link is an attempt at a Barbelith-income-generating link. If it doesn't work, you can just go here, for Fausto-Sterling's book.]

Like ShadowSax, but with far less excuse, Mr. Lawrence shows no sign of having read anything written by feminists or historians on this topic, writes an article for international publication in one of the most prominent journals on the topic, that speaks remarkably duplicitously and utterly ignorantly on this topic. Then he races to the press, shocked and angered by a very reasonable and polite explanation that "So much has been written on all sides of this problem that it sets a very high bar for novelty and persuasiveness, and although we liked your essay we have had to decide to reject it."

It's possible that the answer was too polite, and, in fact, that the editors themselves couldn't fully articulate the issues that I'm laying out, but seem to have some level of awareness of them. ("Novelty," in particular, is a little grating, and strikes me as rather opposed to the argument I'm suggesting: it's not "novelty" that's the problem here, unless it truly would be a novel idea in this discourse community to actually READ WHAT SMART FEMINISTS THEMSELVES HAVE TO SAY and RESPOND TO THE BEST OF THEIR IDEAS RESPECTFULLY, rather than creating straw men out of the worst-articulated arguments, at best, or not really reading them at all....)

The timing of the rejection may have been unfortunate, given the persecution complex that Lawrence seems to share with our friend ShadowSax, but there's no doubt in my mind that Science made the right decision.

Scientists are reasonably angered by cultural studies of science that oversimplify or ignore critical parts of the scientific argument in order to make a case that fits their beliefs. The reverse is also true.

(...although we lit types are on average too female and empathetic to comment on it...Ok! Ok! I promise that's the last snarky use I'll make of his annoying argumentative style.)
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:25 / 17.02.06
Bravo alas.

Unlike Lurid and alas I found this paper to be exactly what I expected, it shouldn't go into a respected journal because all kinds of assumptions are outlined.

If we are talking about averages rather than specific individuals than why wouldn't equal numbers of people appear in jobs anyway? The average doesn't necessarily suggest ability to be a specialist on any subject. His statistical analysis seems a little askew to me. If men are better at systemising than why would far less than 50% of top professors of literature necessarily be men? Why assign the notion gentle and reflective to women on the basis of testosterone study? One doesn't denote the other does it? Lawrence suggests that females think broadly, taking into account balancing arguments but men analyse? How are these two things exclusive?

I think this article was thrown out because contrary to initial belief it was simply contradictory. He falls back on language that is common fodder by trying to get across scientific manifestations in current society and in doing so he fails to argue his point. Bad analysis. Not systematic. A bad article that should have been rejected.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:27 / 17.02.06
I just didn't think his conclusions followed on from his premise.
 
 
alas
21:32 / 17.02.06
Oh, and, re:i find it saddening but typical of humans that "Science" the magazine, nominally an organ of Science the concept, is demanding Prescription (politics) rather than Description (science).

Did you actually read the article? Because, in this instance, Lawrence is not reporting on his own research (description/ science), and does not pretend to be. He is instead advocating a specific policy position for scientists in terms of their capacity to promote other scientists, to wit: Science would be better served if we gave more opportunity and power to the gentle, the reflective, and the creative individuals of both sexes. And if we did, more women would be selected, more would choose to stay in science, and more would get to the top.

He bases this argument on previously published arguments about sex/gender differences. It is a prescriptive, political argument, so a critique based on prescriptive/political concerns is entirely appropriate.
 
 
Lurid Archive
22:49 / 17.02.06
If we are talking about averages rather than specific individuals than why wouldn't equal numbers of people appear in jobs anyway?

Because of different characteristics, which are not equally favoured. I think I see what you are asking (whether the average will still mean there are lots of suitable women and hence not make a difference, right?) but I'm not sure this works. Thats because the argument is that there are more men with particular characteristics, hence in some random process (a job market without discrimination) more men will get through.

He mentions autism, for instance, which is far more likely to be found in men (this is true), and argues that it is an extreme form of a "masculine" trait that lends itself to obsessive behaviour some of which may be useful in academic pursuits (much less well supported, though perhaps not obviously false).

I don't think the article is contradictory, though it is rather weak. Unlike Alas, I think the "novelty and persuasiveness" point is quite relevant. Pinker has said similar things far more eloquently and with much more substance, having actually gone to the trouble of collating a large amount of relevant research, as well as having done some himself. Pinker - eg for the Blank Slate - rightly comes in for a lot of criticism from all sides, but Lawrence article barely merits the trouble of criticism. Its just so slight.

Having said that, I'm surprised that you hated it so much, Nina. After you wade past the PC paranoia bullshit (admittedly, there is a lot of that) what he is saying is that there are structural, rather than straightfowardly discriminatory, reasons for sexist bias. And that academia stop rewarding agression so singlemindedly. That seems pretty sensible to me.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
23:12 / 17.02.06
But I think the arguments to stop rewarding aggression are all wrong.

Thats because the argument is that there are more men with particular characteristics, hence in some random process (a job market without discrimination) more men will get through.

But that's assuming all types of factors- that in a job market (or society) without disrimination more men will apply, that the people who apply will fit the average and more men will display the sought characteristics.

The conclusions aren't wrong, the basic premise may not be wrong but I think the reasoning from premise to conclusion is inaccurate and that's why the article isn't sound. He isn't connecting the dots properly and that's why I don't find it persuasive. He backs up social points with science in a way that doesn't ring true because of the societal generalisations he applies.
 
 
Lurid Archive
14:30 / 18.02.06
I'm not sure what your complaint is, exactly. If you accept that there are male characteristics (this is complicated, of course and has to reference averages) and that certain jobs seek these male traits (again, tricky) then if you get men and women applying at equal rates, more men will apply.

Of course, there are lots of assumptions here that are rather questionable. But the statement is that if you choose people based on characteristics which are seen more frequently in one group than in another, you will end up choosing more from the former group (assuming both groups are of equal size and with some ceteris paribus clause). That looks quite sound to me.

If I select based on greater height, say, I'll end up choosing more men unless I make a specific effort not to.
 
 
alas
17:23 / 18.02.06
Going back to the beginning of the thread but broadly, we think we have shown that some emotional responses to similar stimuli are processed in different hemispheres in males and females. and of course, baron-cohen's work the paper cites gives some concrete examples of the nature of difference across the sexes of the brain...

astrojax: I'm aware that you can't say too much about these studies, but I very much hope that you and your colleages have a very clear awareness of the history of these kinds of studies, and that you are willing to explore the degree to which science is a discourse that is shaped by cultural/social/political concerns, not divorced from them in some "pure" atmosphere.

I hope that you have taken time to understand: 1) the still legitimate, to me, claim that science is one way we reinforce and reify ideas like gender, which are murky and messy. 2) That categories like "male" and "female" are socially-created* and scientists are not immune from the unexamined assumptions about "natural" male/female behavior. 3) That the border between "sex" and "gender" is not a clear one, but a fuzzy one, at best.

[*Edited to add: AS WELL AS driven by measureable things like chromosones and hormones--which I realize many cultural studies types seem to entirely dismiss, at times. I try hard to avoid that, myself, but I realize that may not be clear from my postings. We all get defensive when our fields seem to be under attack, and this does have a tendency to push our arguments into polarized directions. I hope we can avoid some of that polarization in this thread, and I'm actually glad you put this in the headshop and not the laboratory for that reason.]
 
 
Tryphena Absent
17:55 / 18.02.06
certain jobs seek these male traits

Firstly in an undiscriminatory society I'm not sure that those jobs will seek male traits because the traits won't be labelled as male, some people will have those traits. Even if a greater proportion of those people are male that doesn't exclude the possibility that more women will opt to apply for the job or that the men, who on average may be more likely to hold those traits, will have them to a greater degree. It just means that on average in the world more men will have those traits.

This isn't a complaint, I think you're assuming that my point is more argumentative than it is, I simply think that the discussion of averages doesn't map properly in the way that the original article, or your interpretation of the article suggests.
 
 
Lurid Archive
19:54 / 18.02.06
Firstly in an undiscriminatory society I'm not sure that those jobs will seek male traits because the traits won't be labelled as male

I think you are misunderstanding me. By "male traits" I mean traits that are held to a larger extent by men. Analogously, in this society that you imagine, do you think that it would be impossible to articulate that autistics are more likely to be men? That sounds implausible in the extreme to me. I think you are quibbling unreasonably here.

Even if a greater proportion of those people are male that doesn't exclude the possibility that more women will opt to apply for the job

I know this is a tangent, but I think it is an important one. I think I'm seeing a cultural divide at work. Sure, it isn't *impossible*, but it is clearly something that screams out for an explanation. Unless you are willing to accept this argument in some form, you are bound to the idea that discriminatory results arise from active discrimination, rather than systematic bias. From my point of view, thats a terrible stance to take.

I very much hope that you and your colleages have a very clear awareness of the history of these kinds of studies - alas

I just wanted to add support to this, partly because I think science is often portrayed as unaware of this. But, speaking as a someone from that side of the fence, I think we aren't....at least not all of us. (Although this is complicated by the fact that there is a soft/hard divide in the sciences...much miscommunication results from assuming these are essentially the same.)
 
 
astrojax69
05:07 / 19.02.06
as i understand it, the results were inadvertent - that is, the intial study was just into the way the brain/mind processes certain stimuli: serendipitously, it was observed, i think [i did not do this research myself], that a different hemisphere was processing the stimuli in men to women in some instances and this was pursued for the study submitted.

a roughly equal number of males and females (sex, not gender) all right handed were, i believe, were recruited for the initial study.

and yes, alas, I'm actually glad you put this in the headshop and not the laboratory for that reason. i put it here for this reason, too... our results are very rudimentary in building any specific thesis relating to 'female' or 'male' brains - it is the hemispheric split that interests us. yet, gender is something we have had some informal discussions on (not least as one of the investigator's close friend and sometime colleague has undergone a sex change in the long years they have known one another) and yes, we are certainly sensitive to issues of sex, gender, bias and culture.

i'll be happy to post the studies somewhere when we can release them. thanks all for the stimulating and open discussion on this thread. am enjoying
 
 
alas
20:04 / 17.03.06
On a listserv I'm on, I was directed to this debate, from May of last year, between Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke, both psychologists, both formerly of MIT, and now both are at Harvard. (So, yes, given the date, this debate was held at the Harvard of the post-Lawrence Summers debacle, and well before his ouster). The debate was sponsored by Harvard's Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative (MBB), of which Spelke is a co-director. Pinker makes the argument that there are some critical sex-linked differences that are worth attending to, while Spelke's pretty strongly on the social construction side of the debate.

I have not had a chance to make my way through the entire debate, but am very interested in what I've read so far. Anyway, it's available in several formats. Full-text (includes the slides, too, which is nice), here.

Partial video and complete audio is also available on the above site in separate segments. A complete video in AVI format can be downloaded from Harvard's MBB site, here

The person who directed me to the debate says that ze thought Pinker wound up making the stronger argument--and given the context this is likely to be a controversial position. But ze also says that Spelke wrote a follow-up paper in December last year addressing some of Pinker's points, and that's here (note: it's a .pdf file).

As I said, I haven't had a chance to work my way through very much of this, but it all seemed worth linking too.
 
 
*
22:15 / 17.03.06
Having read some of Pinker's writing, I am of the opinion that he's very good at leaving one with the impression that he's made a stronger argument, without necessarily having made a good case. I don't know about this particular debate. I just froth at the mouth a bit whenever I see his name, which, I am told, does not constitute a valid criticism of the man's work.
 
 
Lurid Archive
10:22 / 18.03.06
I'd read that before, alas, and it is an interesting debate. It is worth bearing in mind that this isn't a simple nature versus nurture debate. And, I'm sorry to say, that id entity's irritation is kinda out of place. Pinker is wrong about many things, no doubt, but annoyance at his contribution to the debate serves to confirm the existence of the ideological opposition which he says he meets so often.

Here are a couple of quotes, which are somewhat interesting:

Biological sex differences are real and important. Sex is not a cultural construction that's imposed on people.

So right away a number of public statements that have been made last couple of months can be seen as red herrings, and should never have been made by anyone who understands the nature of statistical distributions. This includes the accusation that President Summers implied that "50% of the brightest minds in America do not have the right aptitude for science," that "women just can't cut it," and so on. These statements are statistically illiterate, and have nothing to do with the phenomena we are discussing.

For myself, I can provide some anecdotal evidence since I do teach math to undergraduates (and graduates on occasion). Math ability seems to be the key point in the debate, so this is pretty relevant.

By far the biggest sex difference that I see is one of confidence. It pretty much swamps everything else and is surprisingly reliable (though, obviously, not 100% universal). That is, through teaching math for as long as I have, I have almost come to expect that male and female students will often display different attitudes and problems. Male students will tend to say that they understand everything, whereas female students will say that they understand nothing. Colleagues confirm that they have similar experiences.

I have worried about whether this difference is a result of the way we teach - this is certainly a concern - but it is unclear. Certainly female colleagues report the same thing as me, and I myself often get better feedback from women than from men (puncturing arrogance tends to get a worse response than bolstering confidence).

By the way, of those comments above, the first is by Spelke and the second by Pinker. I just thought I'd put them up to show how mistaken it would be to regard them as opposites. For myself, I have no particular axe to grind, but I do think that Pinker is right when he says (in The Blank Slate) that our ethics shouldn't be so tightly tied in with these complex debates. I don't know whether men and women have different natural aptitudes (in a statistical sense) in math - I suspect not, btw - but it doesn't really matter all that much in terms of making oppurtunities available to both.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
18:38 / 19.03.06
Male students will tend to say that they understand everything, whereas female students will say that they understand nothing. Colleagues confirm that they have similar experiences.

I'm a little unclear, are you saying that this is a biological difference or an difference in attitude based on the idea that people consistently state that men are better at maths than women?
 
 
*
19:29 / 19.03.06
Lurid, I was talking not about his conclusions but about the style of argument used in a (fairly popular) book of his, which was, as I recall, to set up straw men and knock them down in as amusing a way as he possibly could, and then claim that people who still disagreed with him were ideologically motivated. I don't know much about his methodology, since there wasn't any to speak of in that book; it was mostly an extended thought experiment, IIRC. It's very likely that he's a better scientist than a linguist, just as Noam Chomsky is a better political theorist than a linguist; regardless, I'm sorry for bringing my opinions about his linguistic methodology into a thread where it is his science which is under examination. I know if he had used something resembling scientific method in his linguistic analysis, I would have been much better pleased with it.
 
 
Lurid Archive
19:45 / 19.03.06
I'm a little unclear, are you saying that this is a biological difference or an difference in attitude based on the idea that people consistently state that men are better at maths than women?

Neither. Its an observation for which I offer no explanation - a good explanation would be remarkably difficult to justify. I honestly don't know why it is, just that it is (or seems to be) the case; if pressed I'd guess it was down to socialisation.

Lurid, I was talking not about his conclusions but about the style of argument used in a (fairly popular) book of his, which was, as I recall, to set up straw men and knock them down in as amusing a way as he possibly could, and then claim that people who still disagreed with him were ideologically motivated.

Actually, thats pretty fair. Once you get past that, he does say some interesting things with some support, but you aren't totally off the mark with that criticism.

just as Noam Chomsky is a better political theorist than a linguist

nothing to say about Chomsky really, but this statement isn't clear cut at all, for various different reasons. Just goes to show how we all take different statements as well established. Hmmm.
 
 
alas
20:11 / 09.05.06
I finally got a chance to read the two lectures, by Pinker and Spelke. I did, honestly, put those up here without reading partly because the person on the listserv indicated that ze thought the Pinker case was stronger. But I'm convinced Spelke makes a better argument, and that Pinker's is deeply flawed.

Pinker does have a very problematic and, I believe, an unethical argumentative approach that id has described pretty well, to wit-- set up straw men and knock them down in as amusing a way as he possibly could, and then claim that people who still disagreed with him were ideologically motivated. Or, in this case, "childless."

In this lecture he presents Spelke's position as his straw woman by using three brief quotations--one is from a newspaper article and I gather the other two are from a lecture at the Radcliffe Institute. He particularly depends on the Globe newspaper quotation in refuting "her position," and if you look at the latter two claims, it seems to me the latter are pretty ambiguous and their meaning would depend on their original context (which I haven't looked into, and which he provides little account of).

The fact is, he's not really dealing with an argument, but rather is engaged in attacking three isolated statements that he's carefully pulled from context, and which give me every impression were selected not because of their representativeness or strength, but because they had obvious flaws. That is not ethical argumentation.

If you examine the argument Spelke then makes, it bears almost no resemblance to the isolated quotations that Pinker has drawn out. It's possible, of course, that's she's changed her views over time. It's possible, also, that she stated things imprecisely to a Globe reporter when trying to express a complex thought or was selectively quoted there. It's true, however, that Pinker chooses not to publicly consider these latter possibilities, in particular.

I am left with the impression that he deliberately chose to exaggerate her argument in order to make it easier to argue against (and, ultimately, get laughs from), and to undercut her authority before she stepped on the stage. But his public persona is so chummy! "I like Liz! I'm a nice guy who's kinda funny!"

This straw-woman argument makes me particularly angry because women's authority is more readily undermined in our current cultural configuration, in academic contexts, as Spelke's evidence regarding the analysis of vitae by college faculty suggests. This approach was, thus, a particularly dirty move on his part, whether he deliberately calculated this effect or not.

Finally, he uses ad hominem humor when analysis is required, in a speech where he has said Anyone who takes an honest interest in science has to be prepared for the facts on a given issue to come out either way. But he's not--he's interested in "winning" a debate by whatever means he has.

For example, his aforementioned snide comment about "childless" people being the only ones who think there are no gender differences at birth. There are several problems with that assertion. First, ok ha ha "it's a joke." But, actually, no, it's deliberately invoked as a straw man claim--and the joke is dependent on a kind of "just guys" chumminess, a hegemonic "common sense" about the untrustworthiness and cluelessness of those pesky childless couples. (And, by implication, his opponent, who is painted with the same tar by association, because he hasn't sufficiently discriminated between their arguments, and in fact presents hers as parallel, when in fact it is not.)

The documented evidence that Spelke provided demonstrates that the picture is more complicated than this straw-person argument again suggests. People "see" boys differently from girls, regardless of the empirical data before them. If they think they're looking at a boy, they will see boyish behavior. But the implication of this evidence-- "parents' assessments of children are often untrustworthy, particularly when it comes to gender norms"--is not so readily assimilable into "common sense" as Pinker's chummy quip about childless people.

Spelke's conclusion feels right on the money to me, and is worth quoting in full:

But the question on the table is not, Are there biological sex differences? The question is, Why are there fewer women mathematicians and scientists? The patterns of bias that I described provide four interconnected answers to that question. First, and most obviously, biased perceptions produce discrimination: When a group of equally qualified men and women are evaluated for jobs, more of the men will get those jobs if they are perceived to be more qualified. Second, if people are rational, more men than women will put themselves forward into the academic competition, because men will see that they've got a better chance for success. Academic jobs will be more attractive to men because they face better odds, will get more resources, and so forth.

Third, biased perceptions earlier in life may well deter some female students from even attempting a career in science or mathematics. If your parents feel that you don't have as much natural talent as someone else whose objective abilities are no better than yours, that may discourage you, as Eccles's work shows. Finally, there's likely to be a snowball effect. All of us have an easier time imagining ourselves in careers where there are other people like us. If the first three effects perpetuate a situation where there are few female scientists and mathematicians, young girls will be less likely to see math and science as a possible life.
 
 
Lurid Archive
11:28 / 10.05.06
I hate to say this alas, but I think your reading of Pinker's argument is ungenerous, to a rather surprising extent.

Maybe it is because I was reading the transcript rather than watching/listening to the presentation, but Pinker devotes an awful lot of time to explaining the statistical basis of his position, and then referring to evidence which he claims supports his thesis, including the claim that there are biological differences in aptitude. To put this in perspective, he has one slide of quotations by Spelke, I think, and 5-6 slides just explaining the Normal distribution. The vast majority of his presentation is devoted to this kind of presentation of evidence. To characterise it as attacking a straw man by calling his opponent "childless" seems unwarranted. In fact, I don't think it is really fair to characterise his presentation as negative, in the sense that he makes a coherent positive case stating clearly what he actually believes and why.

The quotations he uses are largely irrelevant to his presentation, though they are striking in their lack of caution...but unless they are inaccurate or misleading, it doesn't seem fair to criticise someone for engaging an opponent about their own words (I can hardly believe I have to write that). And, to be honest, if you read Spelke's presentation it is hard to see the quotations as particularly misleading. (One might argue that he intends to imply that Spelke takes an "extreme nurture" position on all issues, but he clearly says otherwise.)

To be honest, I thought they came out fairly even in the debates, though in the exchange afterwards I think that Pinker was right in saying that the evidence Spelke was producing wasn't really relevant for the effects he was talking about (this is what all the statistics was about, to a large extent). I thought that Pinker, as always, overstated the strength of the evidence, and I am rather more convinced by Spelke's closing remarks of her presentation that we don't really know.

Having said that, I thought that Pinker made some points in the final exchange that Spelke couldn't really answer. That is, why is Math different from the Social Sciences? Pinker made a good point that Spelke's explanations couldn't really account for the differences - she really mis-stepped with the baseball example. I still probably agree more with Spelke than with Pinker, but I think he did better in that particular debate.
 
 
alas
17:21 / 19.07.06
Coming back to this after a long time, and not able to properly reply to Lurid's point because I didn't watch the video. (I.e., I read the articles, and so didn't see the controversial question and answer period.) I accept the possibility that Pinker's style so gets under my skin that I am not currently being fair to his argument or its strength. I can't fully articulate why I am loathe to watch the video, but I am. So I still haven't watched it.

However, I came back to this thread in order to post a link to an interview in yesterday's (6/18) Science Times (i.e., yes part of the annoying NYTimes--registration requirement and soon only available on pay per view. I'll PM the article to anyone who wants--as usual, just PM me).

The interview is with my new hero, Dr. Ben A. Barres, an FTM scientist from Stanford, and he's talking about sexism in science and the effects on women scientists and, well, he's fucking brilliant!

Here's a snippet:

Q. Why do some people attribute differences in professional achievement to innate ability?

A. One of the reasons is the belief by highly successful people that they are successful because of their own innate abilities. I think as a professor at Stanford I am lucky to be here. But I think Larry Summers thinks he is successful because of his innate inner stuff.

Q. What about the idea that men and women differ in ways that give men an advantage in science?

A. People are still arguing over whether there are cognitive differences between men and women. If they exist, it’s not clear they are innate, and if they are innate, it’s not clear they are relevant. They are subtle, and they may even benefit women.

But when you tell people about the studies documenting bias, if they are prejudiced, they just discount the evidence.

Q. How does this bias manifest itself?

A. It is very much harder for women to be successful, to get jobs, to get grants, especially big grants. And then, and this is a huge part of the problem, they don’t get the resources they need to be successful. Right now, what’s fundamentally missing and absolutely vital is that women get better child care support. This is such an obvious no-brainer. If you just do this with a small amount of resources, you could explode the number of women scientists.


and, after describing several instances of what was almost certainly outright sexism in his career, when he was still living as a woman, he's asked:

Q. Why didn’t you see these episodes as sexism?

A. Women who are really highly successful, they are just as bad as the men. They think if they can do it, anyone can do it. They don’t see that for every woman who makes it to the top there are 10 more who are passed over. And I am not making this up, that’s what the data show.

And it may be that some women — and African-Americans, too — identify less strongly with their particular group. From the time I was a child, from the littlest, littlest age, I did not identify as a girl. It never occurred to me that I could not be a scientist because I was a woman. It just rolled off my back.

Now I wonder, maybe I just didn’t take these stereotypes so seriously because I did not identify myself as a woman.

Q. As a transgendered person, are you viewed as having an unusually valuable perspective?

A. I think because I am transgendered some people view anything I say with suspicion. I am very different from the average person. But I have experienced life both as a woman and as a man. I have some experience of how both sexes are treated.

Q. What about the idea that male scientists are more competitive?

A. I think that’s just utter nonsense. Men just make this stuff up. But when women are made to feel less confident, they are less likely to enter the competition. I think a lot of this is just the way men and women are treated from the time they are very young.

Take my experience with M.I.T. If I had been a guy who had been the only one in the class to solve that problem, I am sure I would have been pointed out and given a pat on the back. I was not only not given positive feedback, I was given negative feedback. This is the kind of thing that undermines women’s self-confidence.

Q. What about the idea that women are too emotional to be hard-headed scientists?

A. It is just patently absurd to say women are more emotional than men. Men commit 25 times the murders; it’s shocking what the numbers are. And if anyone ever sees a woman with road rage, they should write it up and send it to a medical journal.

Q. Are men more careerist?

A. I think people do what they are rewarded for doing, and I think women realize, whether it’s conscious or unconscious, they are not going to get the rewards. So they put the hours into their families or whatever. That’s just a guess.

Science is like art, it’s just something you have to do. It’s a passion. When I go into a lab, I’ll go without sleep, I’ll go hours and hours, day after day. And I think women would do that if they weren’t given so much negative feedback.


Here's another article about Dr. Barres's position from this week's issue of Newsweek

Squee! I may have to change my name this guy makes me so happy.
 
 
*
17:32 / 19.07.06
Majikthise is suspicious of Dr. Barres' generalizations about crying and hormonal balance. But yeah. I like him; he gets huge cuddles from me.
 
 
sorenson
22:26 / 19.07.06
Very cool guy, but:

if anyone ever sees a woman with road rage, they should write it up and send it to a medical journal.

What's this? My girlfriend gets road rage all the time - I am often terrified that she will yell at someone and then get herself hurt! Does this mean I should write it up? I know a study of one does not proof make, but this kind of statement annoys me because it uses the exact same baseless argument in return rather than taking the original argument (that women are more emotional than men) on in a serious way.

On the other hand, big huggles for the recognition that 'making it' in any field is as much about luck and structural discrimination as it is about innate ability.
 
 
alas
00:01 / 20.07.06
Actually, well, yes, in my happiness for some of the other things he says, I slid right over my own reaction to that line which was--Wait! I have a least a little road rage, and I'm often perceived, I've heard, as a fairly calm and level-headed sort of female person. And I didn't know about the tears comment that id's link quotes.

So. Ok. Sigh. Definitely some clay feet. BUT his analysis of women in science in particular is at least worth exploring and rings a whole lot of bells to me, from what I've seen as an academic.

BUT yes yes. He should be more careful about generalizing from his own experience/perceptions. And should be held accountable for what he says. And so should Spelke, I agree. And me.

I realize that I am very close to this topic and that I'm frustrated because I so rarely feel like the challenges that women face in the academy are really heard. Thanks for the input. I'll go back to being all woe is me and alackaday now.
 
 
astrojax69
02:25 / 20.07.06
btw the paper initially at discussion is now published in the journal of integrative neuroscience [first item on the page - angry faces - gives a link to .pdf of paper]

as yet there is no data on male participants. as it says, it is more about brains processing data, which is comprised of information about the sex of that stimuli. getting lots of media interest; think new scientist will do something on it soon.
 
  

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