Harvard Row Over Sex And Science

[Stormig]

Solaris, I, too, like you. Will you take Anileve and myself out on a double date while some wishful thinkers suffering from sun-stroke look on?

[DominO123]

Solaris, I, too, like you. Will you take Anileve and myself out on a double date while some wishful thinkers suffering from sun-stroke look on? 

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Who told you that person was a he. If he/she is a she, I would have to be the one asking that question.

[Solaris]

Solaris, I, too, like you. Will you take Anileve and myself out on a double date while some wishful thinkers suffering from sun-stroke look on? 

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Who told you that person was a he. If he/she is a she, I would have to be the one asking that question. 

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Hey guys,

 

QueBeceR, you finally asked that question! Yes, I'll be delighted to meet Stormig and Anileve, but that would be a hen-party rather than a date, while wishful thinkers suffering from sun-stroke will look on even more…

 

I realized, at some point, that almost everybody had simply assumed I was a he. I didn't do it on purpose, but, considering the nature of the thread, just kept silent to see how things would evolve that way.

 

In a word, I'm a gal, and, what is even worse, a blonde… So consider me as a valuable reinforcement to the forum's already mighty girl power!

[Armen]

wishful thinkers suffering from sun-stroke look on? 

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Considering that you ...

 

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=10...ndpost&p=136107

 

... I would be in the group of lookers on or else I could receive a heart-stroke as well

[DominO123]

QueBeceR, you finally asked that question!

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Which one? The one asking you to get me out for a date?

[Nané]

OK, this is old but it may be of interest to some.

 

Psychology Today, Nov 1985 v19 p50(7)

 

Male brain, female brain: the hidden difference; gender does affect how our brains work - but in surprising ways.

 

Doreen Kimura

 

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1985 Sussex Publishers, Inc.

 

 

 

The idea that male and female brains are organized differently has been around for a long time. After all, since men and women are dissimilar in size, appearance and sexual role, why shouldn't their brain organization differ too? Research has documented in the past 25 years that there are intellectual differences in the way the two sexes solve problems: On average, women do better in certain verbal skills and men in spatial and mathematical skills. The notion that men's and women's brains are differently organized began to take hold in earnest as a result of experiments spanning the 1960s and 1970s. It began with the work of psychologist Herbert Lansdell, who studied neurosurgical patients. Others before him had found that, in general, removing the brain's left temporal lobe interfered with verbal skill, while removing the right impaired nonverbal skills. Lansdell found that although such injuries caused a similar overall pattern of impairment in women and men, women were less severely affected than men.

 

These preliminary findings were confirmed and given support by people working in my laboratory and in other laboratories. Studies of both brain-damaged and normal people revealed that wile men and women tend to use one himisphere more than the other for certain verbal tasks, such as recognizing spoken or seen words, women seem to rely less strongly on a single hemisphere than men do. Particularly striking was a finding by psychologist Jeanette McGlone, then a graduate student in my laboratory, that damage to the left hemisphere (the one usually dominant for language) caused less aphasia (language disorder) in women than in men.

 

These findings led to what seemed to be an obvious conclusion: Certain thinking skills are more lateralized--more dependent on one hemisphere--in the male brain than in the female. Or, putting the comparison the other way, women's brains are more diffusely organized than men's.

 

A number of explanations were offered for this apparent sex difference: Women were more verbal, meaning that both their hemispheres were given up to speech; women developed more quickly and lateralization required slower development; women were just as lateralized as men but used verbal strategies more often; connections between the hemispheres were stronger in women and, therefore, the asymmetrical organization of their brain was less detectable. And so on.

 

Anatomical studies began to suggest that there were structural differences between men's and women's brains, but results were inconsistent regarding the question of men's greater lateralization. After neurologist Norman Geschwind and coworker Walter Levitsky at Harvard Medical School had found that a verbal part of the brain was generally larger on the left than the right side (see "Of Hemispheres, Handedness and More," this issue), neuroscientist Juhn Wada reported that these anatomical differences were smaller in women. In addition, biologist Christine de Lacoste-Utamsing, working with anthropologist Ralph Holloway at Columbia University, claimed that part of the corpus callosum, the major connection between the hemispheres, was slightly larger in women.

 

The problem with viewing men's brains as more lateralized than women's was that it left a lot of questions unanswered. Why, for example, are women more often right-handed than men? Even among right-handers, more women are purely right-handed, suggesting that, if anything, women rely more on one hemisphere than do men. And why was there no evidence that speech disorders occur more often in women following right-hemisphere brain damage, as one would expect if they, unlike men, depended on both hemispheres for speech?

 

In the course of looking at how damage to specific regions of one hemisphere affects speech and related functions, I came across some unexpected findings that, I believe, help to clarify some of these issues. One of the difficulties in doing research on neurological patients is finding enough people with various kinds of brain damage to study--enough women, for example, with damage limited to particular regions of one hemisphere. It took me 10 years to gather enough data on brain-damaged patients to make meaningful comparisons. But an important and surprising sex difference emerged.

 

I was looking at people whose brain damage was restricted to either the front (anterior) or back (posterior) sections of the brain. I found that left-hemisphere damage could cause aphasia in both men and women, but different sites within theat hemisphere were involved in the two sexes. Men were equally likely to have a severe speech disorder with anterior or posterior damage, in keeping with the classical picture of "speech areas" in the left hemisphere. Women, however, were much less likely than men to become aphasic after restricted posterior damage, and so far, in all women with damage to the posterior area, the left temporal lobe was affected. No woman has lost her capacity for speech because of damage to the left parietal lobe, but several men have.

 

This seemed to suggest that the brain area involved in women's speech is, if anything, more localized than in men, at least in the left hemisphere. This idea was so radical that it took me some time to accept it. After all, according to the prevailing wisdom, speech was supposed to be more broadly represented in the female brain than in the male. But there was support for this idea from another type of research evidence: a study of how speech is affected when the cortex is electrically stimulated in awake patients during brain surgery.

 

Since the brain itself cannot feel pain, patients do not need a general anesthetic during brain surgery; local anesthesia to the scalp and skull will suffice. Catherine Mateer, a neuropsychologist who worked with neurosurgeon George Ojemann at the University of Seattle, found that electrical stimualtion in the brain area near the Sylvian fissure interfered with a picture-naming task, but the particular brain areas responsible for such interference differed in men and women. In men, stimulation almost anywhere in the vicinity of the Sylvian fissure resulted in naming difficulties, while in women the pattern was more restricted. In particular, posterior parietal stimulation in women did not result in any naming problems, while it did in men. Thus, both my own data on brain damage and Mateer's on stimulation suggested that speech was not, as believed, more diffusely organized in women's left hemisphere than in men's.

 

What's more, the right hemisphere does not seem to contribute to speech any more in women than in men. Reviewing our own series of right-handed cases with damage restricted to the right hemisphere, we found that aphasic disorders after such damage are very rare (1 to 2 percent of cases), and there is absolutely no difference between men and women in this respect. So we are left with the very strong probability that speech is organized differently within women's left hemisphere compared with men's. It looks as though in women's brains--but not men's--speech favors anterior systems and avoids the parietal region.

 

Why, then, is aphasia less common after left-hemisphere damage in women? Presumably, it's just a matter of odds: If speech is localized in a more restricted area of women's left hemisphere, and we look at a random series of patients with left-hemisphere damage, the speech systems are simply less likely to be hurt in women and aphasia is less likely to occur.

 

The different representations of speech functions within the left hemisphere might also partially explain why normal women are slightly less dependent on a single hemisphere than men in dichotic listening tests (see "Listening in to the Hemispheres" box). (In the 1970s psychologists Richard Harshman and Philip Bryden found independently that women have a less pronounced advantage in the right ear, that is, in the left hemisphere, on these tests.) In women, the left auditory cortex may be less directly connected to the speech centers than it is in men because the speech areas are differently located. It's also possible that by having a greater number of fibers in the corpus callosum, women have more effective transmission from the less-favored left ear to the left hemisphere.

 

Whatever the explanation, our findings that basic speech functions are quite focally organized in women mean that we have to give up the idea that women's brains are generally more diffusely organized than men's. But this could still be true, if not for speech, at least for other functions.

 

We have, in fact, found some verbal functions more related to abstract verbal ability than to speech production, such as defining words and using them appropriately, that do seem to be more bilaterally organized in women than in men, as several people had earlier suggested.

 

In particular, Harshman and I found, on analyzing data from people with damage to only one hemisphere, that regardless of which hemisphere was injured, women's vocabulary--the ability to define words--was impaired. I then found this was true whether I looked at anterior or posterior damage in either hemisphere, suggesting that defining words is a function of the whole brain in women. Men had problems in defining words only after left-hemisphere damage. So for this kind of thinking at least, women's brains do indeed seem to be more diffusely organized.

 

I found different patterns of brain organization using other verbal tests, ones in which people were asked either to generate words beginning with a certain letter or to describe what they should do in various social situations. Other people have found that damage to the left anterior part of the brain causes the most difficulty in performing such tasks. I found this to be true for both men and women. So for this task, men's and women's brains were quite similarly organized.

 

In short, we are finding that, depending on the particular intellectual function we're studying, women's brains may be more, less or equally diffusely organized compared with men's. No single rule holds for all aspects of thinking. When it comes to speaking and making hand movements that contribute to motor skill, the brain seems to be very focally organized in women compared with men. This may relate to the fact that girls generally speak earlier, articulate better and also have better fine motor control of the hands. Also, a larger proportion of women than men are right-handed, and unequivocally so. But when it comes to certain, more-abstract tasks, such as defining words, women's brains are more diffusely organized than men's, although men and women don't differ in overall vocabulary ability.

 

I have been describing the average state of affairs. But there is reason to believe that there is a lot of variation in brain organization from person to person. We know, for example, that the brains of left-handers and right-handers are organized somewhat differently, yet on average they function quite similarly.

 

In addition to individual variations, there are some interesting combined effects. Harshman and his colleagues at the University of Western Ontario found, for example, when they looked separately at people with above-average reasoning ability that sex and hand preference interacted. Left-handed men with above-average reasoning ability showed poorer scores on certain spatial tests, as well as other tests, than did right-handed men; but left-handed women were better at these tests than were right-handed women. When Harshman and coworkers looked at people with below-average reasoning ability, just the opposite happened: Now the left-handed men performed better than right-handed men on spatial tasks, but left-handed women did worse than the right-handed women.

 

What does this confusion suggest? It must mean that brain organization for such problem-solving abilities is related not only to sex and hand preference but also to overall intelligence level. And more to the point, it indicates that we have probably not one or two types of brain organization but several.

 

How are these different patterns of brain organization determined? There have been several suggestions in recent years that they may be related to the organism's rate of development both before and after birth. Biopsychologist Jerre Levy of the University of Chicago suggested some time ago that the two halves of the body, including the brain hemispheres, might grow at different rates in boys and girls, even before birth. The left hemisphere may develop more quickly in girls, and the right hemisphere in boys, thus favoring verbal skills in girls and spatial skills in boys. This idea has persisted in modified form in much of the literature on sex differences.

 

A recent report by biologist Ernest Nordeen and psychobiologist Pauline Yahr of the University of California at Irvine on the effect of injecting hormones into the brain of newborn rats suggested that even the hypothalamus, a very basic regulating system, is asymmetrically organized for sexual behavior; injections on the left or right side affected sex-typical behavior differently. So although it may seem a bit farfetched at first, there do appear to be basic asymmetries in the developing organism and these asymmetries may well have far-reaching repercussions for later differences between the sexes.

 

Functions such as speech and spatial ability traditionally have been thought to depend primarily on the cerebral cortex. Although we should not dismiss the idea that deeper brain structures contribute something to these abilities as well, it would be particularly interesting if there were sex-related differences in the structure of the cortex.

 

Neuropsychologist Marian Diamond of the University of California at Berkeley, comparing cortical thickness in male and female rats, did find that the right cortex is thicker in males at most ages, while the left cortex is thicker in females but only at some ages (see "A Love Affair with the brain," Psychology Today, November 1984). Also very suggestive is her finding that, when ovaries are removed at birth, the female rat develops a pattern of hemispheric dominance more like that of the male.

 

These studies on anatomical asymmetries in the brain are in a very early stage, of course, but they indicate quite strongly that the biological sex differences in brain organization are probably dynamic, rather than a crystallized pattern that is laid down entirely by the genes. At various periods in life, different brain structures may be undergoing more- or less-rapid growth, and patterns of brain organization will vary from time to time as a result. This may very well go on throughout a person's life, in fact, since hormonal environments are in lifelong flux.

 

The role of sex hormones in prenatal development is quite dramatic and profound (see "What Are Little Boys and Girls Made of?" box). It may also be appreciable in adult life, even affecting cognitive abilities in men and in women. While hormonal changes occur in both sexes over a variety of short and long cycles, the changes in women during stages of the menstrual cycle have been most thoroughly studied. For example, there is some evidence that spatial ability in women may vary monthly as natural levels of sex hormones in the bloodstream change; it may be best during the phase when the level of the female sex hormone estrogen is lowest.

 

In contrast to these findings, Elizabeth Hampson, one of my graduate students, has found that women perform best on tests of motor skill when their female sex hormones are at their highest level. So, as in brain organization, the pattern we see may very well depend on the particular function that we study.

 

What do all these findings tell us about the inherent capabilities of the two sexes? And what can we, as a result, deduce about the abilities of an individual man or woman? The fact seems inescapable that men and women do differ genetically, physiologically and in many important ways psychologically. This should not be surprising to us, since as a species we have a long biological history of having two sexual forms and have had a sexual division of labor dating back perhaps several million years. Men and women probably have been evolving different advantages for a wide range of activities for at least hundreds of thousands of years. In short, given two genetically different sexes, we can expect differing behavioral capabilities extending even beyond directly sexual roles.

 

But having said all that, I also have a number of important caveats. First, biological sex itself has turned out to be much more variable and dynamic than we ever imagined. And brain-organization patterns are even more variable from person to person, and probably even within the same person at different times. Further, on most tests of cognitive ability there is enormous overlap of men and women. We strain to look for differences and, of course, tend to emphasize the few we find.

 

Given these facts, it follows that while genital sex is related to our mental capabilities, it is going to be a very poor screening device for intellectual assessment. Numerous environmental events interact with our genetic heritage from prenatal development onward, and the human brain is extraordinarily malleable and variable. Thus, we can predict very little about an individual's mental capabilities based on his or her sex. A number of men and women can and do excel in activities that, on average, favor the other sex. There may be no inherent characteristics unique to the brains of either sex that necessarily limit the intellectual achievements of individual men or women.

Edited February 9, 2005 by Sulamita

[Anonymouse]

It appears 'girl power' has some mind altering effect. Edited February 9, 2005 by Anonymouse

[Nané]

Here's another one.

 

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, June 1998 v38 n11-12 p1009(15)

 

Gender differences in spatial abilities and spatial ability among university students in an egalitarian educational system.

 

Hilmar Nordvik; Benjamin Amponsah

 

Author's Abstract: COPYRIGHT 1998 Plenum Publishing Corporation

 

Gender differences in the spatial ability categories of mental rotation, spatial visualization, spatial perception, and relationships between measures of spatial abilities and measures of spatial activity participation were investigated among white, Norwegian-born, technology (N = 161) and social science (N = 293) students. In these groups educational background and vocational preferences are to a large extent controlled. Nevertheless, gender differences in favor of men were found in all the spatial ability categories within both student groups, and the size effects corresponded with previous research results. No support was found for the hypothesis that gender differences in spatial abilities are decreasing in modern societies because the differences were as large as previously found in other countries. Gender-typed spatial activity participations were found; but questionnaire measures of these activities could not explain differences in ability scores. Implications of the results for occupational performance are tentatively discussed.

 

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1998 Plenum Publishing Corporation

 

Meta-analyses of research results leave no doubt that gender differences in favor of males in spatial abilities exist (Linn & Petersen, 1985; Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995). Additional questions concerning variability of performance within the gender groups, stability of gender differences across population cohorts, and the explanation of gender differences have been raised. In a review of previous studies Feingold (1992) concluded that males were more variable than females in several ability categories, including spatial abilities. Feingold (1988) claimed that cognitive gender differences are getting smaller, whereas Voyer et al. (1995), reviewing studies using subjects born form the year 1902 to 1970, found the evidence for this claim highly questionable. For the test examined by Feingold, i.e., the Spatial Relations subtest of the DAT, they found no change in the gender difference, for some other tests there were small but significant decreases in the differences, and in the Mental Rotation test there was a significant increase in the gender difference over the time span.

 

Biological as well as environmental and experiential explanations of the female lag in spatial performance have been proposed. Biological theories emphasize brain lateralization (e.g., Geschwind & Galaburda, 1987; Levy, 1976), x-linked genetic theory (e.g., Harris, 1978), and pubertal processes (e.g., Waber, 1976). Environmental models emphasize the cumulative effects of sex-linked experiences and socialization processes (e.g., Sherman, 1967; Levy, 1989). If gender differences in spatial performance are experientially determined, one would expect that the differences decrease as gender equality in roles, career options, and other societal opportunities increases, one would expect that spatial performance is trainable, and one might expect females to profit more from training than males because men are already closer to their asymptotic performance level. McGee (1978) found no evidence for differential gender responses to practice on the Mental Rotation test. Baenninger and Newcombe (1989) concluded that spatial training had to be very specific in order to increase spatial test performance. Also, Krekling and Nordvik (1992) found that observational training had to be closely related to the test task in order to increase female students performance on a water-level task.

 

Geary (1985, 1996) has proposed an evolutionary explanation of gender differences in spatial and mathematical abilities, suggesting that the differences reflects "greater elaboration of the neurocognitive systems that have evolved for navigating and tracking movement in three-dimensional universe of males than females" (Geary, 1985, p. 289) as a result of division of labor. Geary's theory has been criticized on several levels and the empirical justification of its biological and experiential aspects are by no means resolved (see open peer commentary in Geary, 1996).

 

Both the nature and the nurture hypothesis of individual differences in cognitive abilities predict positive relationships between spatial abilities and participation in spatial activities. Although they reach statistical significance due to large n when studies are aggregated in meta-analysis, the correlations between measures of spatial activity and spatial abilities have been found to be very low (Baenninger & Newcombe, 1989).

 

The present study addresses the question about the effect size of gender differences in spatial abilities and the relationship between spatial activity participation and spatial abilities among Norwegian university students. The gender-egalitarian ideology has been strong in Norway for several decades, and substantial efforts have been made to lay the ground for equality between men and women in participation at all societal levels, especially in the labor market and the educational system (e.g., Nordvik, 1991; Undheim & Nordvik, 1992). Regrettably, we have no data bearing directly on the possible change in gender differences because there has been no previous study of the topic. However, to study gender differences in comparable samples of males and females from this country may throw light on the robustness of the gender differences in spatial abilities and the gender typing of spatial activity, as well as the interrelations between abilities and activity. Logically, if the size of the gender difference is comparable to the results from other nations, and if there has been a decrease in the difference due to the egalitarian policy, the gender difference must have been especially large in our country before the onset of this policy. This hypothesis does not sound reasonable.

 

METHOD

 

Samples

 

The subjects were white Norwegian-born students form the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, one group of technology students (N = 161, 94 males and 67 females), and another group of social science students (N = 293, 68 males and 225 females). The mean and standard deviation of age in years were as follows: Male technology students: 20.3 and 1.1; female technology students: 19.8 and .9; male social science students: 22.2 and 3.5; female social science students: 22.0 and 4.7.

 

The males and females within these groups are studying the same subjects. The technology students also have a common background from senior high school with mathematics and physics as main subjects; the social science students have passed the senior high school examinations but no specific main subjects are required.

 

The selection of subjects was performed by asking student groups who attended common lectures to participate in the study. They were informed about the purpose of the study and very few refused to participate.

 

Instruments and Procedure

 

Spatial abilities were measured by four tests and spatial activity participation was measured by a questionnaire constructed for that purpose. The ability tests were the Spatial Relations test (20 multiple choice items) from Thurstone and Thurstone's (1947) primary mental abilities, in which subjects have to perform mental rotation of two-dimensional figures in two dimensions; the Vandenberg Mental Rotation test (20 multiple choice items; Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978), in which configurations of cubes are mentally rotated in three dimensions; the Surface Development test; and the Water Level test. The Surface Development test had 20 multiple choice items, which were selected from the General Aptitude Test Battery, Part H (United State Employment Service). The Water Level test had 6 multiple choice items, each item having nine response alternatives, i.e., the correct response (horizontal water line) and eight distractors. Figure 1 shows how the items were drawn. The vessel tilt was always 30; in 3 items the tilt was to the left and in 3 items to the right. Three vessel forms were used, one with the opening narrower than the bottom (shown in [iLLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]), another with the opening wider than the bottom, and the third with walls vertical to the bottom. The indicated surfaces of the water in the vessels were as shown in Fig. 1 for all items; however, the location on the sheet of the various distractors and the correct response varied from item to item.

 

These tests were selected to represent measures of the spatial ability categories described by Linn and Petersen (1985), i.e., mental rotation (the Spatial Relations and Mental Rotation test), spatial visualization (the Surface Development test), and spatial perception (the Water Level test).

 

The Spatial Activity Questionnaire (SAQ) was constructed in the following way: Forty psychology students participating in a course on psychometric methods were instructed to propose kinds of spatial activities and to classify the activities as either masculine, when they considered the activity to be more typical for males than females, as feminine, when the activity was considered as more typical for females, and as neutral, when the activity was considered equally popular among males and females. The students first worked in groups and then met in two plenary sessions in which consensus about the items and the item classification were discussed and decided upon. In this way 38 items were selected and included in the SAQ that was given to the male and female samples. The subjects were instructed to respond to each item on a 7-point scale from 0 (never participated in the activity) to 6 (participated very often).

 

Item analysis was performed in two steps. First the correlations between sex (males were scored 0 and females 1) and the item scores were computed. According to these correlations a few neutral items were reclassified as either masculine or feminine, and a few sex-typed items were reclassified as neutral. The criterion used were correlation coefficients .20 and above, between .20 and -.20, and -.20 and below for feminine, neutral, and masculine items, respectively. No items were reclassified from masculine to feminine and vice versa. In the second step the coefficient alpha was computed separately for the three item categories, and a few items were skipped because they did not contribute positively to the coefficient alpha. Thus a masculine scale (SAQ-M), a feminine scale (SAQ-F), and a sex-neutral scale (SAQ-N) were finally obtained. The number of items in the scales were 12, 13, and 10 respectively. The total SAQ was the sum of the masculine, feminine, and neutral scales, and had 35 items. The coefficient alpha for all the instruments are reported in Table I.

 

The items of the SAQ were highly comparable to questionnaires used in previous research (see Newcombe, Bandura, & Taylor, 1983; Signorella, Krupa, Jamison, & Lyons, 1986). However, there were some differences, e.g., neither baseball nor basketball are popular among Norwegian youths, whereas ski-jumping is.

 

The data were collected in group testing sessions.

 

[TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE I OMITTED]

 

RESULTS

 

Correlations Between Age and Test Scores

 

Within the groups age correlated from -.11 to .20 with the ability and activity variables, and none of the coefficients were significantly different from zero. Therefore, age could be disregarded when group differences were analyzed.

 

Sex Differences in Means and Score Variances

 

Table I shows mean scores and standard deviations for male and female subjects separately for the two student groups and effect sizes (d) of gender within the student groups. Multivariate analysis of variance testified that there were significant coverall main effects of gender and student group and no interaction effects on the dependent variables. Subsequent two-way univariate analyses showed significant main effects of both the independent variables on all the spatial ability tests. For the effect of student group on the Water Level test the result was F(1,450) = 5.1, p [less than] .05. All the other main effects gave F-values greater than 10 and p values below .001. All these effects were in favor of men and the technology students. Analysis of variance showed no significant interaction effects. Because the Water Level score distributions were neither normal nor homogeneous, the interaction effect in this scores was also analyzed by the chi-square test and found to be significant beyond .01 - i.e., the gender difference was larger among technology students than among social science students. Thus, the effect sizes did not indicate smaller sex difference among the technology students than among the social science students. The male technology students scored highest and the female social science students scored lowest on all the spatial ability tests. The male social science students scored significantly higher than the female technology students on the Mental Rotation test, t(133) = 2.58, p [less than] .01, and the Water Level test, t(133) = 2.08, p [less than] .05, which means that the effect of gender was greater than the effect of study group for these variables.

 

Among the spatial activity questionnaires, females scored significantly higher than males on SAQ-F, F(1,450) = 337.0, p [less than] .001, and males cored higher on SAQ-M, F(1,459) = 247.8, p [less than] .001. Of all variables, SAQ-F and SAQ-M showed the greatest effect size of gender in both student groups (Table I), testifying that highly gender-typed activities were measured by these instruments. Student group had significant effect neither on these variables nor on SAQ-N and the total SAQ, and there were no significant interaction effects between gender and student group on any of the SAQ measure.

 

By Levene's test for equality of variances, which was used because the distributions of the Water Level scores clearly deviated from normality (Howell, 1992), it was found that among social science students males had significantly greater variance than females in the Mental Rotation test, i.e., F(1,291) = 10.0, p [less than] .01, and females had greater variance in the Water Level test, i.e., F(1,291) = 18.3, p [less than] .01. Among technology students the variance difference was significant only for the Water Level test, in which females varied more than males, i.e., F(1,159) = 108.6, p [less than] .01. The greater variability of females' scores on the Water Level test was due to the fact that more men than women reached the ceiling of this test and obtained a perfect score. Otherwise, there was no evidence for systematic gender differences in variability of the spatial ability scores.

 

In the spatial activity measures, males in both groups varied more than females in their scores on SAQ-M, and females varied more in their SAQ-F scores, although the differences among social science students were not significant.

 

Correlations Between Spatial Ability Scores

 

Correlations between the spatial ability tests were computed separately in the two student groups and separately for males and females. Because the differences between the coefficients in the student groups for the same sex were small and statistically insignificant, these groups were collapsed and the common correlations within the gender groups are shown in Table II. All the correlation coefficients between the spatial ability tests were positive and statistically significant (p [less than] .01). Also, for all the tests the correlations for male students were higher than the corresponding correlations for female students. For none of the tests was the difference between the male and female correlations statistically significant when tested by applying Fisher's z-transformation of correlation coefficients. However, the probability of getting six out of six differences in the same direction if the population differences are random is .016 (the Sign test). Thus, the correct conclusion may be that correlations between spatial ability tests were higher among male students than among female students, but the size of the effect was small.

 

Relationships Between Spatial Activity and Spatial Abilities

 

Both the selection hypothesis, i.e., people tend to select activity in accordance with their abilities, and the fostering hypothesis, i.e., experience from activity fosters abilities (Baenninger & Newcombe, 1989), predict positive correlation between spatial activity participation and spatial abilities. Table III shows that in the total sample all the correlations between SAQ-F and the spatial ability tests were negative, and all the correlations with SAQ-M and SAQ-N were positive, and all these coefficients, except the correlation between SAQ-N and the Surface Development test, were statistically significant.

 

Table II. Correlations Between Spatial Ability Scores; Male Students

Above and Female Students Below the Diagonal

Spatial Mental Water Surface

Relations Rotation Level Development

Spatial Relations .54 .25 .46

Mental Rotation .43 .25 .45

Water Level .20 .15 .46

Surface Development .45 .40 .26

 

When correlation coefficients were computed separately for males and females, all negative correlations and to a large extent also positive correlations vanished (Table IV). Only four coefficients were statistically significant, two for males and two for females.

 

To investigate if range restriction in spatial activity could account for the low correlations between the activity and the ability measures within the sex groups, these coefficients were corrected for range restriction by the formula given by Murphy and Davidshofer (1994). It was found that the correlation of -.03 between SAQ-F and the Mental Rotation test in the female sample, when corrected, increased to -.04, whereas the corresponding coefficient in the total sample was -.33. The correlation of .12 for females between SAQ-M and the Mental Rotation test increased to .18 when corrected; the correlation for males between the same variables increased from .17 to .18 when corrected, whereas the correlation in the total sample was .41. Similar results were found for the other correlations. There was no support for the hypothesis that the low correlations between the spatial activity and ability measures in the gender groups could be explained by restricted range in the activity measures in these groups. Rather, gender itself was the variable that explained the correlations found in the total sample, because the positive as well as the negative correlations tended to vanish when gender was held constant.

 

Correlations Between Spatial Activity Items and Spatial Abilities

 

Correlations between every item in the SAQ and the spatial ability tests were also computed. In accordance with the scale correlations in Table IV, [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE III OMITTED] [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE IV OMITTED] the correlations between items and the ability tests were also low within the gender groups, and there were no systematic differences between the correlations for the items in the masculine, feminine, and neutral SAQ. Only four corresponding correlations were significantly different from zero in both groups. "Football," which was an item in SAQ-M, correlated -.26 (p [less than] .01) with Surface Development among males and -.14 (p [less than] .05) among females. "Computer games," also in SAQ-M, correlated .23 (p [less than] .01) with Mental Rotation among males and .12 (p [less than] .05) among females. Two items in SAQ-F correlated significantly with Spatial Relations; for "Knitting" the correlations was .17 (p [less than] .05) among males and .20 (p [less than] .01) among females, and "Jig-saw puzzle" correlated .24 (p [less than] .01) among males and .18 (p [less than] .01) among females.

 

Although it is an insight after the fact, it is easy to see that "Knitting," "Jig-saw puzzle," and "Computer games" had the most specific spatial content of the items in the SAQ. Also, it is understandable that physical activities like "Dancing," "Ice-hockey," and "Mountaineering" are more loaded by other factors than spatial abilities. Besides "Football," these activities correlated close to zero or slightly negatively with the spatial ability tests.

 

Obviously, technology as an academic subject is more spatial than social science. Therefore, the most significant spatial activity "item" might be the criterion that distinguished between the two student groups. Table IV shows that this was correct. All the correlations between student group (technology was scored 1 and social science 0) and the spatial ability tests were positive and significant at the .01-level, and these correlations did not decrease as much as the questionnaire correlations when gender was held constant.

 

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

 

Although the student groups used as samples in the present study were not representative for the general population, there was no reason why the groups should be skewed in a way that would increase the gender difference in spatial abilities. Contrarily, female technology students could be expected to be selected in terms of spatial abilities. The results also showed that these female students scored higher on the spatial ability tests than the female social science students, but they did not exceed the male social science students, and the gender differences were about the same among the technology and the social science students. Furthermore, the effect size of these differences were as large as previously found in other countries, and the relative magnitude of the effect sizes for the three categories of spatial abilities were also similar to previous results, with largest d for mental rotation and smallest d for spatial visualization (Linn & Petersen, 1985; Voyer et al., 1995). Because of the strong gender-egalitarian ideology and policy in Norway in the last decades, which have had some effect on educational and occupational choices among males as well as females, we would expect differences in comparable gender groups to be relatively small. This was not the case and our data therefore failed to support the hypothesis that gender differences are decreasing.

 

It was a most surprising observation that as much as 37% of the female technology students had a score below 4 on the Water Level test, which indicated that they did not know that still water is always horizontal, regardless of the tilt of the vessel. The corresponding number among female social science students was 40%. Among male technology and social science students these numbers were 6% and 21%, respectively. For all groups the score distribution on the Water Level test was bimodal with zero and 6 as highest frequencies. This indicates that the subjects either knew the water level concept and got a perfect score or had another concept and consequently avoided the correct response. Inspection of the responses showed that noncorrect responders most often believed that water climbs in the same direction as the tilt of the vessel.

 

Our data did not support Feingold's (1992) claim that males are more variable than females in intellectual abilities. This may be due to our data being more selected than the population test norms, which Feingold analyzed.

 

Although gender-typed spatial activities were distinctly found, these activities did not explain the gender differences in spatial abilities. If participating in masculine spatial activities stimulates or develops spatial activities or is an expression of high spatial abilities, one would expect positive correlations between participation in these activities and spatial abilities both among males and females. Correspondingly, one might expect negative correlations between feminine spatial activities and abilities. None of these tendencies were found, neither among males nor among females. Therefore, our conclusion is that sex-typed spatial activities as defined in the present study, which are similar to the measures used in previous studies (Newcombe et al, 1983; Baenninger & Newcombe, 1989), are not related to the sex differences in spatial abilities.

 

To conclude that spatial abilities are not correlated with participation in spatial activities, as our data may suggest, is probably misleading. We tend to believe the "spatiality" in the items in our spatial activity scales as well as in other similar scales is too general to produce correlations with spatial ability. Analogously, one may think of listening to music and seeing movies as "hearing" and "seeing" activities, respectively. Although "abilities" to hear and see are necessary in these activities, there are probably no correlations between how often people listen to music or see movies and auditory and visual acuity within the normal range of those "abilities." Although the activities used as items in our questionnaire are spatial in the sense that spatial movements and spatial manipulations are involved, the level of spatial ability required in most of the items may be below the range of spatial ability where this ability is critical for participation in the activity. According to this reasoning playing football successfully and with enjoyment may be more dependent on body strength and motor coordination than on individual differences in spatial abilities. Contrarily, in solving jig-saw puzzles, the critical aspect is to recognize the two-dimensional spatial pattern, and not the movements necessary to put the puzzle bits into their correct places. In knitting as well as in computer games, spatial activity, finger dexterity, and motor coordination may be critical. Thus, the correlations between specific items and spatial abilities found may give some clues about what kinds of spatial activities may be expected to correlate with spatial ability. The crucial point may not be that the activity is spatial in a broad sense, but that the spatial aspects are critical in the activity variance, which means that ability factors have loadings on the activity.

 

The spatial activity items used in our study as well as in the scales described by Newcombe et al. (1983) pertain to leisure activities, sports, and hobbies. It may be easier to find significant spatial differences in academic and occupational activities. Technological work and studies are clearly more spatially loaded than social work and studies, and accordingly we found higher correlations with the spatial ability tests for student group than for the spatial activities measured by the questionnaire. However, the fact remains that the gender differences in spatial abilities were equally large within the student groups, and the female technology students did not exceed the male social science students in spatial abilities. It also remains that in the SAQ scores the female technology students were no less gender typed than the female social science students. Evidently it is females with relatively high spatial abilities who obey the societal forces to enter a male-dominated activity domain as technological studies; however, when it comes to leisure and recreational activities, these women are no less gender typed in their preferences than other women. These activities are neither as loaded with spatial abilities nor as focused in the egalitarian policy as are occupational and academic activities. Gender typing may be more acceptable in leisure activities than in education and work.

 

In the long run, the gender-egalitarian ideology has to face basic questions about gender differences. In sports basic physical gender differences have been acknowledged; nobody has proposed common contests of men and women in Olympic games. According to Geary's (1985) hypothesis the gender difference in spatial ability may have evolved in the same process that created the gender difference in physical fitness, i.e., the male role as hunter and fighter required both strong muscles and spatial ability. In the modern world of work, however, males and females are expected to participate and compete on equal grounds. In sports, physical capabilities are self-evidently critical, and gender differences in these capabilities are also evident, and this is the unquestionable reason why contests for males and females are kept separated. It is an inherent assumption behind the egalitarian education and labor market ideology that gender differences that apply to sport competitions do not apply or need not be taken into consideration in education and work. A reason for this assumption may be that the world of work in modern societies do not rely much on physical strength, but on mental abilities, in which no sex differences are assumed to exist. If this assumption is not correct for spatial abilities, then females who enter educations and occupations highly loaded with spatial abilities may, depending on the effect size of gender in spatial abilities compared with the effect size of gender in physical abilities, set themselves in the same situation as if they were to compete with men in physical sports.

 

REFERENCES

 

Baenninger, M., & Newcombe, N. (1989). The role of experience in spatial test performance: A meta-analysis. Sex Roles, 20, 327-344.

 

Feingold, A. (1988). Cognitive gender differences are disappearing. American Psychologist, 43, 95-103.

 

Feingold, A. (1992). Sex differences in variability in intellectual abilities: A new look at an old controversy. Review of Educational Research, 62, 61-84.

 

Geary, D. C. (1985). Sexual selection and sex differences in spatial cognition. Learning and Individual Differences, 4, 289-304.

 

Geary, D. C. (1996). Sexual selection and sex differences in mathematical abilities. Behavioral and Brain Science, 19, 229-284.

 

Geschwind, N., & Galaburda, A. M. (1987). Cerebral lateralization: Biological mechanisms, associations, and pathology, Cambridge, MA: Bradford.

 

Harris, L. J. (1978). Sex differences in spatial ability: Possible environmental, genetic, and neurological factors. In M. Kinsbourne (Ed.), Symmetrical function, of the brain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Howell, D. C. (1992). Statistical method, for psychology. Belmont, CA: Duxbury Press.

 

Kreekling, S., & Nordvik, H. (1992). Observational training improves adult women's performance on Piaget's water-level task. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 33, 117-124.

 

Levy, G. D. (1989). Relations among aspects of children's social environments, gender schematization, gender role knowledge, and flexibility. Sex Roles, 21, 803-823.

 

Levy, J. (1976). Cerebral lateralization and spatial abilities. Behavior Genetics, 6, 171-188.

 

Linn, M. C., & Petersen, A. C. (1985). Emergence and characterization of sex differences in spatial ability: A meta-analysis. Child Development, 56, 1479-1498.

 

McGee, M. G. (1978). Effects of training and practice on sex differences in mental rotation test scores. The Journal of Psychology, 100, 87-90.

 

Murphy, K. R., & Davidshofer, C. O. (1994). Psychological testing. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

 

Newcombe, N., Bandura, M. M., & Taylor, D. G. (1983). Sex differences in spatial ability and spatial activities. Sex Roles, 9, 377-386.

 

Nordvik, H. (1991). Sex differences in vocational preferences. How great are they, and how fast do they change? Tidsskrift for Norsk Psykologforening 28, 981-988.

 

Signorella, M. L., Krupa, M. H., Jamison, W., & Lyons, N. (1986). A short version of a Spatial Activity Questionnaire. Sex Roles, 14, 475-479.

 

Thurstone, L. L., & Thurstone, T. G. (1947). Primary mental abilities. Chicago, IL: Science Research Associates.

 

Undheim, J. O., & Nordvik, H. (1992). Socio-economic factors and sex differences in an egalitarian educational system: Academic achievement in 16-year-old Norwegian students. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 36, 87-98.

 

Vandenberg, S. G., & Kuse, A. R. (1978). Mental Rotations: A group test of three-dimensional spatial visualization. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 47, 599-604.

 

Voyer, D., Voyer, S., & Bryden, M. P. (1995). Magnitude of sex differences in spatial abilities: A meta-analysis and consideration of critical variables. Psychological Bulletin; 117, 250-270.

 

Waber, D. P. (1976). Sex differences in cognition: A function of maturational rate? Science, 192, 572-574.

 

Sherman, J. A. (1967). Problems of sex differences in space perception and aspects of intellectual functioning. Psychological Review, 74, 290-299.

Edited February 9, 2005 by Sulamita

[Anoushik]

I realized, at some point, that almost everybody had simply assumed I was a he. I didn't do it on purpose, but, considering the nature of the thread, just kept silent to see how things would evolve that way.   

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I never doubted that you were a "she". The only male so far that had insightfully and accurately argued about this issue had been Domino (Quebecer) and I didn't think that we would get another male arguing this matter objectively so soon. The truth is that in real life very few men believe that women are not inferior to men, let alone in an internet discussion board

[Solaris]

These are not "typical patterns of discrimination." My point is completely logical. I am not going to repeat myself anymore. This is exactly what I have been talking about. If I say that I believe white men have excelled more than the other two, you will automatically file my opinion under discrimination because people who have discriminated have had the same opinion. That is crap and I am tired of everyone saying the same nonsense to me in different words. Anyway, discrimination is not the opinion but acting condescendingly because of that opinion. You are saying that my opinion would mean that I am a racist. That would mean that I feel a particular race is better. Well, you know, I do feel that white people are, for the most, more intelligent because all of the "subspecies" of humans have had, throughout history, the same opportunities to grow intellectually. But I am not saying that I feel it is anything beyond a general tendency or that intelligence is a final measure like everyone here feels it is. I do not feel white people are better. And I do not feel men are better. I said this a thousand goddamn times and I have also shown that my position is logical because, if you read what I had written, I was not trying to convince people of the opinion I adopted as a result of my observations but only to show that it is not unreasonable. This is the last time I type "illustration of oppression is not proof of potential" because if the unmitigated logic behind those words has not sunk in yet it never will. Just because an idea is unsettling does not mean it is impossible or unreasonable or illogical or racist or misogynistic. I do not care if it makes you or anyone else feel uncomfortable, it is the way it is.

 

I am through with all of this. It is a boring circus.

Oh, and the original "Solaris" is one of my favorites.

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If you're really through with this "boring circus", I'll try to be brief. Your apparently well-constructed phrase failed to impress those users, myself included, because the "illustration” (I’d rather use the word “evidence”) - of oppression in effect was never meant to be a “proof of potential". It is merely one possible explanation of the women’s under-representation, and, by the virtue of the good old Occam’s razor, deemed to be the most plausible one.

 

As for your facile assumptions that human “subspecies have had, throughout history, same opportunities to grow intellectually", they are simply wrong and ill-informed, and apparently come from your unfamiliarity with the basics of anthropology. One simply cannot make such assumptions without taking into account the powerful impact that the host of interlocking factors – from climatic conditions to religious, social, economic, legal, and political institutions – have had on the shaping and development of modern societies. I think this is basically what Domino was trying to explain you, apparently to no avail.

Edited February 9, 2005 by Solaris

[Solaris]

I never doubted that you were a "she". The only male so far that had insightfully and accurately argued about this issue had been Domino (Quebecer) and I didn't think that we would get another male arguing this matter objectively so soon. The truth is that in real life very few men believe that women are not inferior to men, let alone in an internet discussion board

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Sad enough... True, it's for women to champion the cause of women's rights, it's for black people to fight for their "civil rights", it's for gay folk to fight for gay rights... et cetera.

 

I already said in some post that regarding women and minorities as inferior is comforting for some and convenient for many, and not only for psychological reasons quoted above, but for purely practical ones as well (for saving on women’s pay, to bring just one popular example)…

Edited February 9, 2005 by Solaris

[Azat]

I never doubted that you were a "she". The only male so far that had insightfully and accurately argued about this issue had been Domino (Quebecer) and I didn't think that we would get another male arguing this matter objectively so soon. The truth is that in real life very few men believe that women are not inferior to men, let alone in an internet discussion board

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HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY... just because we have not argued does not mean that we dont believe...

[DominO123]

As for your facile assumptions that human “subspecies have had, throughout history, same  opportunities to grow intellectually", they are simply wrong and ill-informed, and apparently come from your unfamiliarity with the basics of anthropology. One simply cannot make such assumptions without taking into account the powerful impact that the host of interlocking factors – from climatic conditions to religious, social, economic, legal, and political institutions – have had on the shaping and development of modern societies. I think this is basically what Domino was trying to explain you, apparently to no avail.

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The reason why I havn't answered his newest post was because I have answered the so-called race issue in the other forum some times ago where he reside, and showed that there is no such thing as "races" in humans, and it isn't anything other than a social construct.

 

Wait them call me an "egalitarian."

 

Well, havn't much time now, I am called to fight some genocide revisionists. I feel like Zoro. (I imagine MosJan reading this line, and saying, oh no, he will soon ask me to change his alias again ) After kicking some apologists butts, I will be back on the service of women.

[DominO123]

HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY... just because we have not argued does not mean that we dont believe...

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It's true Anoushik, Azat, and many silent men on this board don't buy mouses bullcrap either.

[Anoushik]

It's true Anoushik, Azat, and many silent men on this board don't buy mouses bullcrap either.

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Then why not state that? No need to write lengthy arguments, just saying that one does not buy that "bullcrap" either.

[Arvestaked]

If you're really through with this "boring circus", I'll try to be brief. Your apparently well-constructed phrase failed to impress those users, myself included, because the "illustration” (I’d rather use the word “evidence”) - of oppression in effect was never meant to be a “proof of potential". It is merely one possible explanation of the women’s under-representation, and, by the virtue of the good old Occam’s razor, deemed to be the most plausible one.

 

As for your facile assumptions that human “subspecies have had, throughout history, same  opportunities to grow intellectually", they are simply wrong and ill-informed, and apparently come from your unfamiliarity with the basics of anthropology. One simply cannot make such assumptions without taking into account the powerful impact that the host of interlocking factors – from climatic conditions to religious, social, economic, legal, and political institutions – have had on the shaping and development of modern societies. I think this is basically what Domino was trying to explain you, apparently to no avail.

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You are misusing the idea of Occam's Razor. It is actually funny that you mention it because it does more to support the position you are arguing against. That is why...

 

It is a possible explanation that holds no weight whatsoever and that was always my point. Possible explanation? So is the idea of variation in potential. So is the idea that this is all a dream. So what?

 

I am not unfamiliar with the basics of anthropology.

 

Explain to me? That is laughable. Domino made no plausible arguements. Half the time he was not even addressing my points and the other half was entirely illogical. It is easy to gain support of an audience when you hold popular ground, ignore someones responses, and reply with rhetoric and red herrings. Such a powerful legion you have!

 

"Oh no! Someone is skeptical about a socially accepted idea revolving around gender! He must be illinformed and just plain terrible! Tar and feather him." Seriously, that is my biggest problem: the fact that someone who holds a politically correct, popular belief is, by default, smarter and cooler than the ignorant skeptic who deserves to be attacked when there is not a preponderance of evidence to support either position. It is a narrow-minded "my team is better" mentality. Why is your team better? "Because it's my team!" Oh crap. Sorry. That makes sense. Summers is quite obviously a cornhole but nobody addressed his lack of tact or choice as a forum for expressing the idea, et cetera. They just made these comments to the effect of "How dare he question such a thing! What an idiot!"

Edited February 9, 2005 by dusken

[Anileve]

This is where Mouse gets his inspiration from. In fact many other prominent minds of the Austrian School of economics are slaves to this pompous and “disinformed” belief. Ironically they also admire Ayn Rand who happens to be an advocate of individualism and who is farm from a domesticated creature. Where is the prevailing male logic some of you boast about?

This massive shift from motherhood and the domestic arts to the tedium of offices and time clocks has been interpreted by our dominant liberal culture as a glorious triumph of feminism in [p. 18] liberating women from the drudgery of being housewives so that they can develop their personalities in a fulfilling career. While this may be true for some occupations, one still hears on every side, once again, that the "reason I went to work is because we could no longer afford to live on one salary."

 

Again, since there is no way to quantify subjective motivations, we can't measure this factor, but I suspect that the great bulk of working women, i.e. those in non-glamorous careers, are only working to keep the family income from falling steeply. Given their druthers, I suspect they would happily return to the much-maligned "Ozzie and Harriet" family of the Neanderthal era.

 

http://www.mises.org/econsense/ch1.asp

[Stormig]

Considering that you ...

 

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=10...ndpost&p=136107

 

... I would be in the group of lookers on or else I could receive a heart-stroke as well

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Gee, you sure pick up on who I'm talking about. If only yer articulations were as intelligible.

[Stormig]

Hey guys,

 

QueBeceR, you finally asked that question! Yes, I'll be delighted to meet Stormig and Anileve, but that would be a hen-party rather than a date, while  wishful thinkers suffering from sun-stroke will look on even more…

 

I realized, at some point, that almost everybody had simply assumed I was a he. I didn't do it on purpose, but, considering the nature of the thread, just kept silent to see how things would evolve that way.   

 

In a word, I'm a gal, and, what is even worse, a blonde… So consider me as a valuable reinforcement to the forum's already mighty girl power!   

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Dear me, you had me fooled, though not on purpose, I'm sure. Not entirely sure I'd decide to broaden my horizons re: my preferences, so hen party it is.

[Armen]

Gee, you sure pick up on who I'm talking about. If only yer articulations were as intelligible.

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Apply some brain power.

[Arvestaked]

This is where Mouse gets his inspiration from. In fact many other prominent minds of the Austrian School of economics are slaves to this pompous and “disinformed” belief. Ironically they also admire Ayn Rand who happens to be an advocate of individualism and who is farm from a domesticated creature. Where is the prevailing male logic some of you boast about?

http://www.mises.org/econsense/ch1.asp

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He should stick to drawing conclusions about economics.

[DominO123]

You are misusing the idea of Occam's Razor. It is actually funny that you mention it because it does more to support the position you are arguing against. That is why...

 

It is a possible explanation that holds no weight whatsoever and that was always my point. Possible explanation? So is the idea of variation in potential. So is the idea that this is all a dream. So what?

 

I am not unfamiliar with the basics of anthropology.

 

Explain to me? That is laughable. Domino made no plausible arguements. Half the time he was not even addressing my points and the other half was entirely illogical. It is easy to gain support of an audience when you hold popular ground, ignore someones responses, and reply with rhetoric and red herrings. Such a powerful legion you have!

 

"Oh no! Someone is skeptical about a socially accepted idea revolving around gender! He must be illinformed and just plain terrible! Tar and feather him." Seriously, that is my biggest problem: the fact that someone who holds a politically correct, popular belief is, by default, smarter and cooler than the ignorant skeptic who deserves to be attacked when there is not a preponderance of evidence to support either position. It is a narrow-minded "my team is better" mentality. Why is your team better? "Because it's my team!" Oh crap. Sorry. That makes sense. Summers is quite obviously a cornhole but nobody addressed his lack of tact or choice as a forum for expressing the idea, et cetera. They just made these comments to the effect of "How dare he question such a thing! What an idiot!"

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It is clear that you will claim so, and this comming from the person that has displayed a total lack of logical thinking. You will always hide yourself behind your victim attitude.

 

You claim I havn't answered your points... which one? On the other hand, I have asked many questions without answers, since you are so logical, maybe you can answer what mouses has refused to answer.(about finding any cases published in any credible scientific litterature, that would compare two different things...)

 

Occam's Razor is unapplicable the way you want to use, because for you to apply it, your theses arguments should be supported by scientific standards.

 

Count yourself lucky that the author of tallarmeniantale showed up and that I have to answer him again, this way you can load your trash here and call them fact without my interuption... but once I finish the the turkish denialist, I'm comming for you.

[Arvestaked]

Oh yea. Well thought out. Astounding efficacy.

[Stormig]

wile

himisphere

but different sites within theat hemisphere

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I hope this article was OCR-ed. Regardless, both articles are interesting.

 

 

Our data did not support Feingold's (1992) claim that males are more variable than females in intellectual abilities. This may be due to our data being more selected than the population test norms, which Feingold analyzed.

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Whoah. Someone actually published a paper about that standard deviation? I thought it musta been a biased observation of mine. Now I'm not sure if I've read it or observed it and reached my own conclusions.

[DominO123]

I will just note here that I have absolutly NOTHING to gain by claiming that women and men are as intelligent.

 

A woman that claim both are as intelligent, could be accused to do that because as a women she wants that to be true.

 

A man claiming the contrary, could as well be accused to do that because as a man, he wants that to be true.

 

Why on Earth would I be advantaged in anything to claim that man are not more intelligent than woman? I could very well shut up and not get involved.

 

I answer in those threads only when I think an information is wrong, and that being wrong, it harms people.

 

 

To answer Anoushiks comment about men being silent, I will be using this post as a petition for other men that agree with me. Those that agree with me, say yes!

 

You'll see Anoushik, they are not rare.

Edited February 9, 2005 by QueBeceR