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No Gap Found In Math Abilities of Girls, Boys
sciencehabit writes "For anyone who still believes that boys are better at math than girls, a massive new study published today in Science shows there's no difference. 'Among students with the highest test scores, the team did find that white boys outnumbered white girls by about two to one. Among Asians, however, that result was nearly reversed. Hyde says that suggests that cultural and social factors, not gender alone, influence how well students perform on tests.' But the researchers do note a disturbing trend towards omitting harder kinds of math questions from standardized tests."
Men do tend to be more interested in technical things. In fact, the cog. sci. department has a related hypothesis that they're currently testing. The hypothesis is that Asperger's syndrome and the autistic spectrum is just the extreme case of the male brain (literally: testosterone poisoning).
Cynical Idealist
As mentioned on 60 minutes, "Girls outperform boys in elementary school, middle school, high school, and college, and graduate school".
Does that sound very equal to you?
It goes somewhat against the grain of this report, but what this study seems to indicate is that, relative to their performance in other subject areas, girls aren't doing well in math.
When I was in public school in the 80s and 90s none of my math teachers were men. Typically, a quarter to a half of our grade would be 'homework checks' or art posters where you draw a picture of issac newton and an apple. I was never in a class that you could even pass by just being able to understand and perform math.
So in my day girls had huge advantages in math classrooms, with sypathetic teachers and rote learning and grades based on following the rules -- and guys still did better in math. I can only image how hostile the classrooms are now. Judging by your id, back in your day maybe there was a bias for men but that has long since been overcorrected for.
There are more male winners of the field's medal. This article makes a pretty convincing case that the reason is because males have a wider sigma and that there will be more male super geniuses than women. http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math.htm
Back when I was in 5th grade, there were 2-3 girls in my computer class that were much better programmers than I. Much better.
Fast forward to today. They're housewives. I'm a Software Engineer. It's sad and disheartening. I wish there were more women in my field.
It's like puberty fried their brains completely. If it weren't for that I could easily envision them being much better at what I do than I am. But something happened in the intervening years. The only thing that makes any sense is puberty. Until that point the differences between boys and girls are superficial, but prior to that they were much better at it than I was.
I'd like to see the results of this experiment re-run on the same people when they're in their late 20s or early thirties.
Question everything
"I think the human race, at least in the developed world, is selecting for intelligence."
You, sir, are outcho goddammed mind.
The intelligent people in developed countries are being outbred by the people of lower intelligence.
I know it is not science, but sheesh, haven't you seen Idiocracy?
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."