This is too much fun. I can't wait the promised 24 hours!

lol! The article. This article. Not the Hyde study itself of course, but an article - because you haven't read the study. That article spins the study pretty heavily. Too bad you didn't read this article, which is also eminently clear and reports whole story. I suspect that you wont read that one either. Must. Keep. Out. Contradictory. Thoughts.

Since you're quoting Hyde, I might mention that her curriculum vita makes it abundantly clear that she is not a neutral observer here. Fortunately, she does have academic integrity, and the actual study includes the truth, which I'm happy to keep posting over and over again, each time you give me an opening. But when she conducts an interview, she's spinning it or the reporters are spinning it or both. That's why somebody has to be willing to go look at the data. Good thing I'm here, eh! And good thing you brought me out of lurk mode my refusing to accept my rebuke about ad homs!

Sure I do, and you know what Ken, I'm never too busy to repost actual data from an actual scientific study. It smells like ...victory. On a side note, look at what I did in the sentence you're responding to there - I made a concession and admitted my own limitation. I'm able to do that because I'm not emotionally invested in this. I'm honest because I'm not holding on for to dear life to a conviction that my way is the moral and ethical One True Way.

But anyway, here's the evidence again, straight from the Hyde study: They found a greater variance in scores among boys than among girls. The variance was always greater for males, and showed no particular trend. The maximum ratio of male variance to female variance was in the 8th grade, where the ratio was 1.21. It was lower among 9th graders, went up in the 10th grade, and down again in the 11th. The Hyde study 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. So in other words, based on the predictions of their study, 33% of PhDs should be female. (in fact, only 15% are. This would be where discrimination, if any, lies)

The fact that twice as many males *should be* is quite significant. I also put the central significant point in bold because you're probably not reading this sentence. But if you are, think carefully about the part after the comma in the bolded sentence. See if you can figure out what that means for environmental factors (hint: think about lead poisoning)

She's right - about averages. As her study shows, there is no difference in average performance. That's the part she wants to talk about, or journalists want to talk about. But as her study shows, there is a difference in the variances. More males tend to excel or flunk. Wow, good thing one of us had the bright idea to read the study, huh?

oh. Yes, that's true. Good point. There's a lag of perhaps six years. So, six years from now we should expect to see twice as many male PhD candidates as female. Today, only 15% are women, but in six years or so, that number should have climbed to 33%.

And this is predicted by the greater variance in math scores among males.

Well, consider the following:
1. the Hyde study (I've heard this one got a lot of press), which found a consistent difference in variance between males and females.
2. the PISA study, which found that variance to persist across cultures (that is, not a cultural artifact)
3. the Hedges study, which also shows a difference in variance, and which I feel is much more rigorous, and lacks much of the bias of Hyde.

You mean like the environment of planet Earth? Because I've posted the PISA study that covered a couple of dozen countries. What else can you possibly mean by controlling for environment, beyond what the PISA study did?

I'm all in favor of sending a control group of math majors to Mars, if that's what you mean.

Nope. The PISA study showed that the difference in average performance disappears, but the difference in variance remains. There's even a cool graph that shows this. If you missed it, no problem, I'm happy to post it again!



Admittedly though, this study did not have a control group on Mars.


Oh, this next point is so rich I can almost taste it! Ken believes that differences in performance here in the US are due to environmental factors like discrimination. I found a country where women outperform men, and with tongue planted firmly in cheek, I parodied his own argument by saying: I wonder if they've achieved this by discouraging boys to pursue math. Ken, oblivious to this because he's in knee-jerk, disagree-with-everything mode, responds (to his own line of reasoning):
Me too, buddy. Me too. This is turning into the MoonMan thread of gender issues.

Actually, I was doing you a favor. Since you haven't read the Hyde study, you don't know which states the data came from, so you can't possibly know why that's a dumb question. And you know what, I'm not going to tell you unless you bring it up again. Now you have a choice to make, you can let curiosity get the better of you, and open yourself up to more ridicule over the hilarious fact that you're arguing without having armed yourself with any facts. Or you can take the safe route, let it go, and forever feel that little needle down in your gut, knowing that you surrendered.

I assure you, you are nowhere within site of common sense.