Why wouldn't they be scientific? Aren't they based on a straightforward reading of the data?

But I think I understand your confusion. If the variation between individuals is mostly genetic (your assumption, BTW, but I'll accept it provisionally), then how can the variation between groups of individuals (male vs. female) be anything but?

It can. Ken explained how rather well a while ago:

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

If it was a straightforward reading of the data- I would say it was scientific,

I'm not seeing it as one.

You kind of answered your own question here...

You and KenG have both now claimed that you are not ignoring genetic and innate abilities.
But up til this point- it seemed that way.
If you are not doing so- then you are being scientific- if you are doing so- then ignoring factors is just not scientific- (contributing factors-not negligible factors.)

I think I can clarify that neither I, nor Disinfo Agent, are ignoring the importance of genetic factors in determining various individual traits, including aptitudes. The sole question of the OP is, once you average the genetic variances over a large population that has some chosen genetic differential, like the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, does the variance average out in that large population comparison, leaving only the common environmental agents as causal of the population differences?

That question cannot be answered by looking at brain physiology, nor even exam scores, by themselves. It can only be answered, on a trait-by-trait basis, by looking at data that is properly controlled for environmental agents. When one does that with gender and math aptitude, one finds no convincing evidence there is an innate difference-- and plenty of evidence that there is not, such as the OP and the study mentioned by parejkoj. All of that evidence is purely scientific-- none of it is based on "PC" preconceptions. This is what DA and I have been saying consistently throughout.

Yes, that would indeed represent a more careful way to state a similar conclusion. But the conclusion can be slightly stronger-- we further know that when environmental factors disappear, so does the differential, so there can't be much signal there "to drown out" in the first place.

You have so little faith in the influence of genetics that you deny the possibility of measuring aptitude with environment taken into account. This to me suggests that genetics as a variable in psychology and achievement falls under the category of "null value" in your mind.

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What a mess...

I don't know about the rest of you- But Im not longer clear who is saying what anymore...

Let's try a recap:
-Genetic factors determine our limits of potential.
-Environmental factors determine how far we reach within our potential.
-There is no supporting evidence that Gender or genetics defining gender is a contributing factor in our development or ability.
-There is supporting evidence that environmental factors can cause a differential in how separate genders perform academically.
-There is supporting evidence that hormonal changes can effect academics in either gender.

I can agree with all of the above statements. Does anyone disagree?

Do those statements refer to math ability?

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

For staying with the OP- yes.
I think it can be a bit more general than that.

You see, that's one of the problems I've had in this thread. You guys are assuming that "the influence of genetics" can be compared with "the influence of the environment" in a broad, general way, identical for all human intellectual features. That's an unproven assumption which I see no reason to accept.

In the first few pages of this thread, some studies that mentioned empathy were brought to the table by Ilya. It may well happen that there are innate, largely genetic, differences between men and women in what regards empathy, but that, in what concerns mathematical ability, no genetic differences between men and women exist.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

It would appear that this statement in itself is an assumption on your part.
You zeroed right in and applied specifics to my general statement.


Do You Disagree or agree with what I recapped?
If you disagree- what with and why?

Not at all. By assuming that you can speak about "the importance of the environment versus the importance of genetics" in general, it is you who are assuming a (perfect) correlation between all human (intellectual) features.

But how do we know that such a correlation exists? I prefer not to assume one. (In correlation studies, the null hypothesis is "No correlation" until proven otherwise.)

Plus, I know that Down's syndrome is 100% genetic, but native language is 100% environmental. Clearly, the contribution of genetics to a particular human intellectual ability varies with the ability in question. It's not homogeneous. Thus any attempt to compare genetics with environment in abstract is unrealistic, meaningless.

I prefer to address this issue first, before dealing with your recap, because I feel that it is this misconception which lies at the heart of the disagreement in this thread.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

I have no idea how you arrive at the conclusion that that requires me to assume a perfect correlation.
I disagree.- It does not. Nor am I assuming a perfect correlation.

You zeroed right in - again.

Do You Disagree or agree with what I recapped?
If you disagree- what with and why?

I've tried to explain: you're assuming that the effect of genetics is the same for math ability as it is for any other intellectual skill. I argue that this can be described as assuming a correlation, and that the assumed correlation is unproven. I don't know how else to explain.

I've also explained why I prefer to delay my reply to your recap. Did you miss it?

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

You are assuming that I am.
I am doing no such thing.

Also, explain to me WHY you think that I must be.

I must have, indeed, missed it. Because I didn't see it.
All I saw was you zeroing in on one line at a time.

What I said was that I am applying it to Math as per the OP- but I think it's a BIT more General.

That does NOT mean that I'm slathering it all across the board. I am well aware of what I think and you're wrong about your assumption of what I think.

Wonderful.

Here:
But, since you say that this is not the case, let's move on.

I can go with that. The discussion in this thread was about ability (which is measurable), not about potential (which isn't). But if you wish to define "potential" as "all that is innate", I can accept that definition.

I would agree to the following:

There is no evidence that the differences in math ability between males and females which have been observed in the past are primarily explained by genetic differences between the sexes.

Agreed. Environmental, cultural factors.

What do you mean by academics? Are you still talking about math ability, or some other subject? If math ability, I must have missed the study that established the existence of differences caused by hormonal changes.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Apologies. I did indeed miss something up there. Problem is, you seemed to misunderstand my position and frankly it was frustrating me.
So agreed in moving along...

Agreed.

Agreed.

Sticking with Math.
See Publius' Posts on that topic. I may scroll up and look it up and come back with an edit.

ETA: Here's one of them : No Gender Differences In Math Performance

I'm afraid I cannot follow a logical thread running through that statement well enough to falsify it.

I think my position on this is the same as Disinfo Agent's-- I can agree with that recap in regard to math aptitude, but I wouldn't necessarily extend it to other areas that were not the focus of the thread and may involve a completely different set of evidential findings. (In other words, if I say I agree with point #3 in some categorical sense, I can guess who might then pipe in to point out that I'm somehow claiming women are no more able to breast-feed than men... you see the problem.)

Actually, yes.

I put some thought into this one during the day and I can see how that problem might arise.

So let's stick to math. Realistically, although I don't think math is the only topic that could fall in htere, it would have to be discussed as an individual case by case and there's already enough misunderstanding and arguing in this thread.

Wow, you decided that instead of BSing your way out of contradictory statements that you've made, you'd go ahead and ignore it entirely this time.

I think that's actually an improvement. Keep it up.

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Thank you for the link. I took a look at Publius' posts on that page, but I'm afraid I remain unconvinced of any differences in math ability caused by hormonal factors.

Interestingly, right in the second paragraph of that article, the authors admit:

Don't these facts severely put into question any claim that such differences are innate?

They do list observed cognitive differences between the genders, but the summary does not seem to have been based on studies that controlled for environmental factors. This does not excuse us in jumping to the conclusion that the differences must be innate. So, gender differences can be found across cultures--guess what, so can discrimination against women.

And look at the "fine print":

"It seems inevitable"...?! Translation: they have no evidence, they're just assuming.

Is there a Bad Cognitive Science forum I can join?

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Why any evidence is ignored and no matter how much piles up will always be considered sexist and the research flawed.

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There's no good evidence of innate (environment-independent) gender differences in math ability, but cartoons can carry the argument anyway. Interesting.

To end the thread on a more scientifically useful note, I just saw a presentation by Eric Mazur the physics professor who found that there was a small "gender gap" in the performance of his female students, but that gap disappeared when a different teaching method was used. When cooperative peer learning was used, it turned out that the women did just as well as the men. Perhaps they found a peer-instruction environment more accessible and less intimidating than the "lecture by male professor" model, I don't know. But it's a pretty clear example of an environmental control that allowed women to reach the same potential for achievement as men. I say "male professor" because Mazur found little gender gap in places where female professors are common. The results are based on his own experiences, but it's real data anyway.

Umm, you're willing to accept anecdotal evidence in this case as "real" data but nothing short of double-blind, oft-repeated datasets for something that shows genetic difference?

What is your standard for judging "real" data exactly? Is "real" that which matches the hypothesis that you are trying to put forward?

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When I said it was "real data", I implied, and meant, it was not anecdotal. This is research into the gender gap in physics. However, the dataset is of a limited size, and would need to be followed up on a larger scale. Yes, I do accept such data-- because it exhibits controls, exactly what is lacking in all the data you have quoted.
Simple: controlled to actually test a hypothesis. If the gender gap was innate, it should be insensitive to the learning environment, being, as you claim, a difference in basic aptitude. Such was not the finding.

Bumped into this:

'...just a handful of genes show much sign of influencing intelligence, and yet each one accounts at best for a fraction of one percent of the variation in test scores.'

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Everyone knows there are no innate differences between women and men whatsoever. None at all. And they're both practically genetically identical. (runs)

(runs by again) Don't you think equality of opportunity should be based on a stronger premise than exact equality of innate characteristics? IMO, that's what's motivating all this. We've unfortunately chosen some bad foundations on which to rest our justification of equality of rights and mutual respect, and now we're getting defensive when nature won't play ball.

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

<looks down>

<looks down at ASEI>

<walks away laughing>

You're Right...

Actually, that isn't motivating any of this. What is motivating this (see, e.g., the OP) is a scientific question: what evidence exists that there is any innate difference in mathematical ability based on the presence or absence of a y chromosome? So far, I'd say this thread makes it pretty clear, when you see the data that does exist and how the differences in math aptitude completely disappear when environmental factors are controlled, that there is no significant innate difference. Is that not a perfectly accurate description of every bit of evidence mentioned in this thread that actually related to this issue (and not all the extraneous factors that were brought in to make some phantom case against some imagined influence of political correctness)? The scientific evidence speaks for itself.

You are correct that this thread is not solely a "men are identical to women! Submit!" witchhunt.

It is a * very * common theme in political correctness though, as I've demonstrated earlier in this thread. To suggest that the moon is gray/white as seen from Earth and the sun is yellow/white, and those are two forms of celestial bodies, is acceptable. To suggest that a woman is a woman, and a man is a man, and they are two different colors but both of the species "human," is not allowed.

The feminist movement wants exact unequivocal equality (as in, "No difference exists! It's all in your head.") not what the founding fathers were actually going for, equality of opportunity, which is the most that any diverse peoples can hope for.

Bold inserted by myself, not part of original quote.

That you cannot see bias and enmity in the influence of the political correctness movement is hilarious to me after the myriad of negative examples presented to you. You justified every single one of them, no matter how egregious.

If the PC movement had a leader with boots to lick, you would.

Then why, I wonder, do you find it so necessary to interpret it for everyone else? That's you speaking, not the science.

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