It's a courageous study in the current environment. Is it even legal in the US to suggest there could be an intellectual difference between sexes, even at a certain age?
You mean like when Lawrence Summers was forced to resign from Harvard because he said that (well-known) differences in IQ distribution might have an impact on the number of women in STEM, but more research was needed (and fighting against sexism should also continue).
He was completely right with his information. The bell curve for male IQ is much shallower resulting in men greatly outnumbering women both at the top and the bottom of the IQ chart (note: that doesn't mean that a man with the same IQ as a woman is smarter, just that there are more men with higher IQs).
The idea that abstract logic, spatial reasoning, and pattern recognition (what IQ indicates) are primary components in being good at STEM is well-known too. The one idea definitely implies the other and stating that causal implication shouldn't be a crime.
Nobody stepped forward to disprove the science. They simply screamed sexism. They didn't care that he had even said that fighting the sexist component was also important. They didn't care that he had said the science might be disproven. They only cared that they didn't like the idea no matter if it was true or not.
History is filled with ideologues hurting and killing men of science for ideas we now know to be true. Freedom to research, study, and publish those studies without being threatened or harmed is paramount. If there's a problem, then fight the science -- not the scientist.
It isn't like Lysenkoism it is Lysenkoism. Despite all evidence to the contrary, people want to believe that intelligence isn't heritable, that all humans minds are blank slates and all differences in preferences and intelligence amongst humans are caused by environmental effects. Apparently, natural selection and sexual dimorphism stop above the neck. Our inability to stomach ugly truths is quite impressive. Darwin won the body, Lysenko the mind.
Why does this get so much attention? Men and women are obviously different in a lot of ways, why should the brain be an exception? Discovering that there are no differences would be an astonishing result, the opposite is what one should expect.
Because the official feminist line is there are no physical differences in the brain of men and women. Extra attention is needed to overcome the rhetoric.
Gender theory is by-and-large a sociological theory, not a scientific one. It's extraordinarily difficult -- from an epistemological point of view -- to produce strong evidence for the claim that gender is orthogonal to sex.
What this means, in practice, is that the selection criteria will be vague, which in turn is likely to produce massively varying results from study to study.
I see why you're interested in this, but I think you're basing your hypotheses on a false premise: namely that gender theory is hard science.
The findings are interesting, however I don't think that such a small sample can be used to make any conclusive assumptions and I think that these findings should be taken with a grain of salt. Since all these studies tend to have quite small sample sizes, it is quite likely that they will contradict past studies of similar sizes.
n=50 (closer to 100 with the control group) is massive for a brain-imaging study.
More to the point: statistical power matters, which is only indirectly related to sample size. I mean no disrespect, but this kind of criticism usually betrays ignorance of statistics and scientific methodology.
Do you suspect the study is under-powered? If so, why?
[+] [-] cm2187|10 years ago|reply
It reminds me of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
[+] [-] hajile|10 years ago|reply
He was completely right with his information. The bell curve for male IQ is much shallower resulting in men greatly outnumbering women both at the top and the bottom of the IQ chart (note: that doesn't mean that a man with the same IQ as a woman is smarter, just that there are more men with higher IQs).
The idea that abstract logic, spatial reasoning, and pattern recognition (what IQ indicates) are primary components in being good at STEM is well-known too. The one idea definitely implies the other and stating that causal implication shouldn't be a crime.
Nobody stepped forward to disprove the science. They simply screamed sexism. They didn't care that he had even said that fighting the sexist component was also important. They didn't care that he had said the science might be disproven. They only cared that they didn't like the idea no matter if it was true or not.
History is filled with ideologues hurting and killing men of science for ideas we now know to be true. Freedom to research, study, and publish those studies without being threatened or harmed is paramount. If there's a problem, then fight the science -- not the scientist.
[+] [-] Moshe_Silnorin|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umanwizard|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|10 years ago|reply
That said, the study was done by a team in Hungary.
[+] [-] mkrfox|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danbruc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RightWingRabble|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkrfox|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omginternets|10 years ago|reply
What this means, in practice, is that the selection criteria will be vague, which in turn is likely to produce massively varying results from study to study.
I see why you're interested in this, but I think you're basing your hypotheses on a false premise: namely that gender theory is hard science.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] modanq|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] anon6_|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] TerryADavis|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] known|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nv-vn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omginternets|10 years ago|reply
More to the point: statistical power matters, which is only indirectly related to sample size. I mean no disrespect, but this kind of criticism usually betrays ignorance of statistics and scientific methodology.
Do you suspect the study is under-powered? If so, why?