Men & Womens brains ARE different. New study confirms.

[Silverhair]

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/02/14/gender.brain/index.html

Quote from article:

""Men, because we tend to compartmentalize our communication into a smaller part of the brain, we tend to be better at getting right to the issue," he said.

"The more female brain (will) gather a lot of material, gather a lot of information, feel a lot, hear a lot, sense a lot," he said.

Scientists say males have more activity in mechanical centers of the brain, whereas females show more activity in verbal and emotional centers."

For which I say, "Viva la difference"

[WindRavenX]

1. Um, this shouldn't be that mindblowing

However, this is the type of stuff that could very easily be used to say women or men are worse than the other gender at certain things- like science- when it's more of a cultural or social difference...

[bloom]

2. Seems to me

(surely there have been studies) that people develop parts of their brains - depending on how they use them.

Otherwise - why have education at all?

Also why a cultural/social difference matters.

[Igel]

3. Bing! You're both right!

Although poster #1 points out accurately that most people have no idea how to treat differences in average abilities. S/he doesn't put it that way, but that's the problem.

[JDPriestly]

7. It's not what you got, but what you do with it.

I was one of a pretty large family of girls and got the boy's toys my dad would have given a boy is he had one. When my daughters were born, I gave them the toys I had liked -- Legos, puzzles, etc and, of course, played with their toys myself. Guess what, they have the verbal ability they were born with, but they are also and particularly very gifted in math and science (one girl in math and the other in chemistry).

Give girls mostly dolls and tea sets and they will never develop spatial ability or be able to understand physics and math. Regardless of the predisposition of his brain, if a little boy is mostly encouraged to play with dolls and tea sets rather than balls and cars and mechanical toys, he will not develop mechanical ability. Girls can have it all -- verbal ability, which is innate, and mechanical and spatial ability, which can be developed at an early age. Lucky girls.

It's not what you got, but what you do with it.

[bloom]

11. We had lots of legos

and such at our house with the kids, also.

My daughter also chose the math route - she's majoring in math in college (even though she tested higher on the verbal part of the SAT) - she just likes it. And she gets the best scores in her classes. :)

[WindRavenX]

8. right

The biological differences in men and women only really relate to how a gender learns- not the capacity for knowledge. Men's brains may, on average, be bigger- but women's brains are more dense with nuerons.

[Mikimouse]

4. Mostly a social construction of reality...

people develope in ways that are consistent with their socialization. The old myth that women don't have the same types of spatial skills that men have is pure poop. Men have those spatial skills because they are exposed to activities that foster the development of those skills, while women are not.

[cally]

5. Give me a link to an actual study

and not another psychologist pontificating. Sorry, psychologists are not experts in analyzing brain scans or interpreting them. Further, what does it mean when different parts of the brain are acitivated? That will take many more studies to determine.

I know there has been several studies indicating that, on average, males and females do use different parts of the brain. There have been some studies indicating what that means but to make broad generalizations is just wrong.

[ChairOne]

6. That's about the stupidest quote I've ever seen.....

right up there with the notion that eating walnuts will make you smarter - because the brain is corrugated like a walnut shell. Of course, that idea died out circa the 14th century. Too bad people still believe in such nonsense...

Sheesh... the article's no better than the quote...

[Susang]

9. Your post is titled incorrectly

The article claims that men and women's brains work differently, an important distinction.

Also, if you didn't notice, the article quotes no new research and is entirely written to sell a psychologist's book, in a very inflammatory manner, I should add.

Pseudo-science bores me to tears.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

10. No shit?

This surprises no one who has ever been married. Someone actually had to study this?

[bloom]

12. here's another site

that goes into more detail:

http://www.singlesexschools.org/research-brain.htm

[cags]

13. I wrote a paper in college on Nature vs. Nurture and how it

applies to the differences between men and women. I began my research fully believing that Nurture played a much higher role, but after extensively studying it, and viewing the research I don't deny that nature has a more difinitive role. My professor who also was on the nurture side changed her mind after reading my paper, and kept it to use as an example for her other classes.

I really do believe we are different, not only in innate ability but in our desires and what makes us happy. I'm not saying girls can't excel in math, or boys in verbal skills. But we choose things that interest us more.
I'll use myself as an example of what I mean. I was a gifted child. Perfectly capable of choosing an engineering or science career and excelling in it. I actually started taking engineering courses because there was more money in it, but it bored me to tears. I am an artist, and thats what I enjoyed doing and thats what I decided to pursue. Of course there are exceptions but in general its true. It applies to all cultures worldwide its not only an American thing. There is no culture or society where this is not the case.

Hormones play a large role too. Men who take female hormones will get better on verbal tests than before they took them, and vice versa for women.

Now to get references for all this I'd have to dig out my paper. This is just stuff I remember from the research.

I do remember one book called "The Blank Slate: The modern denial of something, by Steven Pinker

Twin and adoption studies are also very interesting.

[Silverhair]

15. True, but it hits PC orthodoxy in the solar plexus.

PC orthodoxy claims there is no difference between Men & Women other than the obvious plumbing. Some PCers will admit to a difference in bodily strength, but only grudgingly. As you can see by some of the responses to the post, it get them upset.

But since the reality is that the brains are different, and evolution put the different architecture is there for a purpose, then there has to be differences in the way information is processed.

Really, when you thing of it in terms of hundreds of thousands of years as hunter/gatherers, the differences make sense. Women, due to the demands of children, would have stayed closer to the camp and would have developed a brain that would be better at keeping a campsite organized and reasonable harmonious. (Social skills.) Men, who would be roaming more because of hunting would develop the brain & body needed for that.

Anytime a politic stance conflicts with physical reality, reality will always win.

[sendero]

17. You are going against..

.... liberal dogma. Put on your asbestos underwear!

Here a while back some Harvard wig made a statement about men and women being different and you'd think he was a holocaust denier or something.

Scientific studies long ago proved that the sex hormones affect the function of the brain and anyone who actually knows anyone of the opposite sex gets this.

Liberals bitch about Christians wanting to dump Darwin in favor of creationism, but many of them are no better at facing realities that don't fit their unicorns and fairies view of the world.

[roguevalley]

14. so, that's how we live longer? :-D :-D

[ljm2002]

16. Oh horse crap

Sorry, this stuff just gets my dander up.

Every time one of these studies comes up, they throw the gals the sop about having better innate verbal abilities, while the guys have better innate math abilities. So what's the problem?

Well, after all of the years during which females have demonstrated better verbal abilities, why it is *never* suggested that men can't be as good at verbal careers -- e.g., becoming an author -- as women. But it is *always* suggested that woman can't expect to be as "good at" math and science careers as men. Why do you suppose that is?

Another thing they don't tell you: although men do score a little higher on IQ tests overall, it was not always so. When IQ tests first came out, females scored better on average than males. So what did the testers do? Hey, no sweat: they changed the test! Problem solved. (from Stephen Jay Gould's book, The Mismeasure of Man)