Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Engineers Have More Sons, Nurses More Daughters

Posted by Hemos on from the but-what-about-female-engineers-and-male-nurses dept.

Bifurcati writes "While it might be irrelevant for many /.ers, a recent study has shown that people in stereotypically male professions (engineering, IT, mathematics, etc) are more likely to have sons than daughters, while nurses, therapists and teachers tend to produce more girls. Based on independent survey data, engineering types produce 140 boys to every 100 girls, while nurses and the like produce 135 girls to 100 boys. The explanation is unclear, but it might have interesting long-term social implications. A more detailed summary of the journal article is available on Illuminating Science."

5 of 668 comments (clear)

  1. Irrelevant... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    because /.ers don't reproduce (because of course, that would require them to have sex). ;)

  2. Who was your statistics professor... by John+Seminal · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    Correlation can prove causation. Or at the least, it can tell us when something smells very funky.

    For example, there is a correlation that places in the USA with higher %'s of blacks and mexicans have more violent crimes. Are you going to say that the minorities are not causing the crime? Because if you are, we have lots of people in jail that don't belong there. Go to neighborhoods with ovr 85% blacks and mexicans. They are the most violent, horrible places on earth. Who made it that way? Why don't the people who live there plant flowers and make it beautiful?

    There is a correlation between IQ and income. Are you going to tell me that people with higher IQ's don't use their advantages? There is also a correlation between IQ and race. Read the Bell Curve. It pissed off so many people because it was right.

    The problem with statistic professors is they are professors. They look for proof to back up their ideas. Then when they don't like a correlation, they say it is not important because it lacks causality.

    You can't have your cake and eat it too. Colleges are trying to confuse people, by making the simple complex.

    --

    Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."

  3. Re:diet can affect gender... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    -1 misogynist and doesn't realize it

  4. Re:This "study" simply leaves more questions by gosand · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    That would actually help explain a few things. Such as why women tend towards liberalism.


    Yeah, it can't be because conservatives shit all over women and their rights.

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  5. But I *am* a script by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    So now /. requires me to prove I'm not a script?

    And that lamer blog masqerading as something more than an idiots take on something s/he doesn't understand (the essence of blogging) makes me sick.

    Hey, it is simple. The sex determinent comes from the father. So what the mother does for a living doesn't matter except as it is related to meeting and putting up with a man enough to breed with him (no mean feat in most cases ;)

    And the "article" does confuse cause and effect. Breaking down groups into catagories (empathetic vs. scientific) versus looking for corralations and then explaining them means you can disregard the whole thing as bullshit.

    If it ain't science but it acts like it is, then it is bullshit. Just ask your favorite fundi about evo-lu-shun.