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Engineers Have More Sons, Nurses More Daughters
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."
Studies have shown that a mother-to-be's diet high in calcium and magnesium including milk, beans, cereals, cheese and nuts may favor a baby girl, whereas a diet high in pizza and coke apparantly favors the conception of a baby boy.
That's why they do the graduate engineering/nursing mixers!
The Raven
Repeat after me: "Correlation does not imply causality."
I think it's far more likely that it's not what job you're doing, it's what job you tend to want to do.
Just the news I need to hear in order to start my line of supersmart offspring that will form the ultimate Revenge of the Nerds. Mwuhahahahahahahha
Oh wait, according to my calculations the probability of me getting laid is 3x10^-8
Duh! It's because boys have boys and girls have girls. Oh, wait...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
More testosterone in the womb leads to boys.
What does this have to do with the father? What does this have to do with which sperm gets into the egg?
Transcend Humanity. Please.
Does it come out as a trannie?
Do you mean "comes out" as in born or "comes out" as in closet?
This really seems like an interesting ratio that popped outof some calculations, i.e., nice, but not really meaningful.
/. and other places - correlation is not necessarily causation.
I mean, how would somebodies profession really determine his/her childs' sex? I'm sure that mining other datasets would lead to similar 'interesting' ratios/facts.
As has been mentioned on
Hopefully (we dont have children yet), I'll have a healthy boy or girl, who will take great care of me AND my source code in my very old age.
...both interiorlly, and exteriorlly.
There are proponents of different techniques that supposedly let you choose the sex of your child. One interesting technique is called the Shettles Method. One family that I know swears by this method. They are four for four in getting it to work.
At any rate, perhaps different personalities or lifestyle conditions between engineers and nurses would help to explain this data - if indeed there is any credence to Shettles or similar methods.
Ha, ha! Nobody ever says Italy.
From the first link: The study did not say why this phenomenon occurred
From the second: They're very cautious about interpreting the cause of their results, and what conclusions could be drawn.
Read past the first line teaser. The meat of the article isn't nearly as bad as one would like to pretend.
Video Phone Blogs send video messages straight to the web.
Of course, the media has promptly taken things one step further and suggested that "Couples desperate to produce a son could boost their chances if one or both of them switches to a "masculine" profession such as engineering or accountancy". Perhaps this is true - but that might be reading more into the report than is good for it.
Realities just a bunch of bits.
Easy explanation: people in stereotypically male professions, except for jocks, are less able to attract an attractive mate. This sad fact leads them to disproportionately engage in sex using the "doggy" position to avoid looking at each other's ugly faces. And, as has been proven, this results in semen getting in closer to the egg where the male sperm can impregnate. Face-to-face intercourse requires sperm to swim farther, giving the advantage to the female sperm, which have greater stamina and can impregnate after all the wimpy male sperm have died out.
The actual article (Journal of Theoretical Biology, 233, p589-599 "Engineers have more sons, nurses have more daughters: an evolutionary psychological extension of Baron-Cohen's extreme male brain theory of autism" by Satoshi Kanazawa and Griet Vandermassen and available through Elsevier's Science Direct) came out in December 2004 an is available online for those whose institutions subscribe, notes the following correlations:
This is based on survey data from US professions of around 1500 people. Only some of the professions are categorized as "systemizing" and "empathizing" so presumably the sample size is much smaller than that . The sample size isn't listed directly in the article but it appears to be about 20% of the 1500 with at least one parent so categorized profession, for around 300 people or so. Most professions are neutral in the "systematizing/empathizing" continuum, apparently.
Amoung those with "systemizing occupations" had regression coefficients of
From the classification of professions:
Systemizing occupations
Empathizing occupations
Presumably other professions are regarded as neutral in this spectrum.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
Well, XX sperm would cause ill childs anyway (namely XXX womans, unlessa the egg cell has an anomaly itself).
:-)
However, solving equations of course favours Y chromosomes. That's because you always solve after X, so you have its actual value and therefore can eliminate it. Eliminating X of course doesn't affect sperms with an Y chromosome (because it doesn't have an X to eliminate), but only sperms with an X chromosome (after all, x is exactly what you eliminate).
SCNR
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Have you ever wondered why fat parents have fat children? Or why Chinese parents have Chinese children? It's no coincidence.
There is no doubt that a babies sex can be influenced by a number of criteria. Male sperm tends to be faster, but live shorter lives. Female sperm is hardier, but slow. So a women who is slightly acidic or base will tend to kill the male sperm leaving female sperm. Likewise, if traditional sex prevails (male on top) with a laying around afterwards, then male has better chance (shorter distance, as gravity helps carry the sperm further up (BTW, so does a women's orgasm). But if women on top, then sperm has further to go, so more likely that female sperm wins.
So why relevant? Nurses, teachers, etc have a healthier attitude about sex. More likely the women are on top (or at least have a varied sex life). Girl wins.
Engineers are more conservative, so more likely to be on top. Boy wins.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I already have a girl, so apparently I need to have 1.4 boys. The whole boy is gonna be fine but what am I gonna do with 40% of a boy? I mean, aside from encouraging him to be a high school social studies teacher.
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
Maybe you generate more girls if you spend a big chunk of your day standing and walking around.
Or more importantly, who is doing it.
We have two groups of children: One group has a parent who is in a "male" profession, like engineering, and the other has a parent in a "female" profession, like nursing.
What is far more likely to be true of a child with a parent who is in a female profession as opposed to a child with a parent in a male profession?
They're more likely to have a mother who works.
Seems pretty obvious to me: Working moms are more likely to have girls. Might have something to do with Y-chromosome sperm being more fragile than X-chromosome sperm. (That's been demonstrated elsewehre.)
paintball
I love this game.
Repeat after me, "I'm a bit daft, and I like to think others will repeat silly things I say from time to time."
Now, go have a beer.