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Originally Posted by tofu
Significant is something of a weasel word there. You haven't read the study, and you don't know what the variance is, so you're just saying it's not significant and praying to the god of PC that I haven't read the study either.
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No, I was simply trusting the eminently clear summary of the study found in the article.
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I have read the study, and though I'm not a statistician and therefore not in a position to say if any particular variance is significant in and of itself, it clearly is significant that the variance was always greater for males, and showed no particular trend.
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So you have no evidence that the variance was significant, but you will assert that it is significant anyway. I'm glad I understand the situation.
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The authors of the study (the Hyde study, the study referenced in the OP of this thread) feel that this difference is not significant enough to explain the disparity of PhDs, but that's not the same thing as being not significant at all.
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Actually, the exact quote from Hyde, the author of that study, was:
"There just aren't gender differences anymore in math performance. So parents and teachers need to revise their thoughts about this."
But you can ignore that, for whatever reason you have.
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Indeed, the authors say that their data predict twice as many males than females should be in PhD programs. Their findings predict 33% female participation, but reality shows only 15% participation.
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Perhaps it has eluded you that the people in PhD programs today reflect performance in school years ago. Ergo, you are misinterpreting their conclusion, which is that the disparity is less than it used to be. But
far more importantly, you are
still equating professional performance with innate differences in aptitude. I'm not sure how many times I'm going to need to point out this recurrent fallacy in your logic, it is as though it never occured to you that people's environments affect their professional choices and performance in those choices. I cite common sense.
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So once again Ken, you're wrong, and not on a matter of opinion but of fact.
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Actually, I am completely correct, because what I said was, you have so far completely failed to establish a shred of evidence in favor of innate genetic math aptitude differences. And that is still completely true. That fact stems from nothing but sheer logic-- as long as you ignore the obvious impact of environment, you can make zero meaningful conclusions about genetic differences.
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After the beating you've taken from Drunk Vegan earlier in this thread (starting around page 14 he referenced numerous scientific studies, but you have posted not one single shred of scientific evidence), I would think you'd be more careful about what you say.
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He made the exact same mistake you are making now. The thread is about
innate differences in aptitude. As such, I'm still waiting for you, or
Drunk Vegan, or
anyone, to present a
shred of evidence that is controlled for all the environmental factors I had to point out to
Drunk Vegan and am now pointing out to you, yet again.
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Whatayaknow, variance. Thailand, Iceland, the UK, and Indonesia are outliers. I wonder if they've achieved this by discouraging boys to pursue math - hey, maybe we can do the same in the US!
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So you are saying that if a nation has greater performance by men in math, it must be due to innate differences (never mind the obvious environmental factors), but if women outperform men, it must be reverse-discriminating environmental factors! That's just amazing logic, I have to frame that.
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Let's recap the central question of this thread: what evidence exists that there is any innate difference in mathematical ability? The answer is, there a consistent difference in variance across ages and cultures. This answer is supported by (among others):
1. The Hyde study (which found this difference, in spite of flaws that would mask such a difference)
2. The PISA data (shows the difference across all cultures)
3. The Hedges study
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You left out one thing, that is actually rather important. The differences
disappear when you control for environmental factors, which is easily seen by a reducing trend in performance differences as gender equality is achieved elsewhere in the society. Of course this trend will only continue, so the contrary view will soon be gone completely, thankfully.
Furthermore, I note that you completely ducked my point about asian student math performance. Having a hard time swallowing that one, are you? Doesn't fit into your world view? But since it does fit your logical approach, you are forced to reach a far stronger conclusion about asian math aptitude.
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I'll wait about 24 hours, and then explain all of this to you again.
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By all means do, but this time, be sure to come equipped with an argument that is actually relevant to this thread, i.e.,
innate gender differences as distinguished from the
obvious environmental factors that we all know about.