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New Study Concludes Math Gender Gap Is Cultural, Not Biological
New submitter germansausage writes "A new study was published today in Notices of the American Mathematical Society, looking at data from 86 countries, to test the 'greater male variability hypothesis' as the primary reason for the scarcity of outstanding women mathematicians. It concludes that cultural and not biological factors are the chief causes (PDF) of the gap in math skills between men and women."
Wearing skirts is also cultural, not biological
Men may multiply...
Women divide into two, or more.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It was done by a man and involves lots of math.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
What do you say we go back to my room and do some math: add you and me, subtract our clothes, divide your legs, and multiply.
I find it interesting how many people are apparently completely willing to accept that women's superiority in language ability is biological.
Nah. It's only better because they get lots more practice.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
My Christian Comrades,
The Lord tells us that wives should submit to their husbands, and He granted men their greater ability to do math and science to help enforce this view. All of the neo-Nazi bra-burning feminists who wish to bridge this so-called "gap" are merely trying to undermine the Christian values of our nation. This is the way things are supposed to be, so there is no "gap."
Sincerely, Jake
My Fellow Mathematicians,
:)
http://www.purplemath.com/modules/bibleval.htm (cool stuff for math history geeks!)
The Calculus tells us that The Numbers should submit to their domains, and It granted mathematicians their greater ability to do math and science to help enforce this view. All of the neo-Nazi math-burning Luddites who wish to bridge this so-called "gap" are merely trying to undermine the Mathematical values of our scientific establishment. This is the way things are supposed to be, so there is no "gap.", other than the gaps between prime numbers.
Sincerely, The Troll Feeder
PS: I was going to find something witty about the bible calling pi = 3, but then I learned something new today
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Hopefully at least your wife knows the difference between a stove and oven. Cooking is hard...
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
About the only time your average geek is not processing language at one level or another is when fingering the skin flute of visual recall, which opens the Temple Grandin floodgates to every shapely derriere and saucy come-hither freshly impressed upon the orbs of desire (or permanently engraved in the limbic arousal hall-of-fame since the eruption of first pubertal mole hair). Perhaps there are a few virtuosos of visual recall out there whose language system has languished and atrophied. For most of us, however, I suspect our downtime doesn't much impact our verbal SLA. Any day I sit in front the computer, I probably process a quarter million words, but then I put more comments in my code than most people, even if I have to read the comments 100 times each in passing before my code actually works.
There's two halves to male performance: aptitude and attitude. Since men don't have much of a chip in the reproductive game until we accomplish something, we tend to stick with the dull stuff through thick and thin.
Sure, attitude is more amenable to social modification, but I don't think this comes for free. I think society would have to consistently incent women to behave more like men, not just jigger some baseline attitudes about what men and women are good for. Now it's starting to look like an active intervention rather than a sober rebalancing, and the fairness police have a lot more explaining to do. I'm a fan of fairness in the abstract, not so much of outcome based fairness, which smacks of utopian socialism, with possibly an extremely bitter aftertaste after the sugar wears off.
I quite liked this recent episode:
Baumeister on Gender Differences and Culture
evidently, whoever is in charge of utf support for this site
was more interested in the "math is hard" sort of toys.