Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site h-sc1.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!h-sc1!friedman From: friedman@h-sc1.UUCP (dawn friedman) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: Income Disparities Based On Sex(rather long!) Message-ID: <438@h-sc1.UUCP> Date: Thu, 11-Jul-85 15:54:17 EDT Article-I.D.: h-sc1.438 Posted: Thu Jul 11 15:54:17 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 15-Jul-85 07:09:45 EDT References: <327@kontron.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center Lines: 123 > I haven't been accused of sexism yet (just racism), so I figure it's > time to give some of reason to hate me even more. > O.K. I like to start off on a defensive note myself. > The article is titled "What Einstein's brain teaches us", and along with > an interesting description of recent research into brain function, the > article says that Professor Marian Diamond and her husband, UCLA > psychiatrist Arnold Scheibel, while teaching a course at UC Irvine > Extension, indicated that "studies of brain tissue continue to bear > out the notion that men and women do think fundamentally differently". > In more detail, "Male and female minds really are different. Men > typically have more highly developed cells in the right half of the > brain controlling visual and spatial function, while such dominance > isn't marked in women. 'This isn't to say that either is better,' > Diamond says. 'By studying the brain, I've been able to understand > men better.'" > > [end of quotations, opinion on] > ******************************************************************* > > Unfortunately, the article doesn't say if this difference is acquired, > or in-born, or if that subject has been studied. (What do you expect, > it's a *feature* article.) Still, before we get too carried away > assuming that engineering's shortage of women is the result of > discrimination, let's consider the possibility that there might, in > fact, be a difference in brain characteristics. After all, it is > traditionally believed that ability with spatial relationships are > related to engineering and "hard" sciences abilities. > > (various sensible qualifications on broadness of statement follow) (and now the usual "amateur anthropologist"'s explanation of this often surmised difference: need for extra ability with spatial relations in male hunters/warriors (( compared with the lesser need for such in mere berry-picking, or perhaps just the less serious disadvantages of missing a whole gnu as opposed to just one banana? :-) )) ) (and here I thought I would be more concise! Sorry!) (and a final bout of flame-retardant spraying, and that's all) All right, down to business. I'm not a flamer anyway. In fact, what I want to say might be interpreted as an attempt to hold down the heat. Or maybe not. In any case, I recommend caution. Let's not be in a great big hurry to deal with this study and its conclusions. First of all, I disagree with the chain of reasoning so lightly linked by the researchers. 1) Is it clear that spatial relations are the function of the cells or cell groups mentioned? I doubt that we have so good a map of such high level functions: we have a decent idea of where tastes are processed, and we know a good bit about heartbeat, but what can we say about something like memory, which seems to be all over the place? 2) The extent of differences between the hemispheres in general is just at the beginning of what looks to be a long debate. A lot of simplistic conclusions based on preliminary studies (the severed corpus callosum, of course) are being challenged, either with regard to their own conclusions about the subjects or (especially) about their application to people in whom the connection between the hemispheres is healthy and operative. It is certainly known that the hemispheres can and will take over for each other if one is damaged -- although perhaps not in all cases or functions. MORE DATA IS NEEDED! 3) In fact, how much do we know about the relationship of relative (let's not even think about absolute) differences in size OR number of brain cells to differing powers or functions? It's not my area, but I think we're a long way from quantitative analysis here. 4) Do we (or at least males) have better spatial abilities than our cousins who still eat (mostly) fruit? Are our spatial relations cells (if such things really exist) larger? What about our possible REDUCTION in need for (3D) spatial relations abilities since giving up the trees? (These last points apply to the "anthropologist" argument, but it is such a familiar argument that it might as well be addressed here.) I think I'll give it a rest around here, though I could certainly continue, and end by mentioning what I think may be the most important point in regard to this and other studies which purport to find a social/political/psychological conjecture verified by biology: Science is done by human beings. Human beings have hopes, fears, and beliefs which are very important to them. And all scientific data must pass at least once through a human mind. I am NOT making any accusations, criticisms or complaints about the people who did this particular study. I'm certainly no more objective than anyone else picked at random. But it is simply amazing what the ideas in someone's mind can do to the data that pass through it. I've seen it in my own field (theoretical chemistry) and in my own mind, but an example that may be more relevant here (as being from anthropology as well) is the way that scientists who wanted to believe in Piltdown Man managed to see things that weren't there to make it more plausible. Brilliant and respected men saw human characteristics in the jaw later proved to be an orangutan's, and described the skull as 'the most simian in character ever seen' when it was a perfectly modern human skull (how insulting to the ex-owner!) I'm following Stephen Jay Gould's discussion for this one (I think it's in _Ever Since Darwin_). So, anyway, let's not get all het up until a LOT more is known about some of the aspects of brain structure, the human mind, and human evolution that I've mentioned? It's not worth the trouble. dsf (Dina Ansieri, the Long-Winded) p.s. All right, ONE more point: how important is some indefinite difference which may exist between the average (or median, better) male and the median female? I'm against any censorship of scientific research, but who needs to know? No one is going to hire the median female for some job; all you need to know is whether that PERSON is qualified. As for the argument that this difference may explain differences in employment in engineering, etc. : get serious! There are only about ten factors which have already been implicated, every one of them on the basis of stronger and more plentiful data. I'll worry about a differential average ability in spatial relations when those have been eliminated, and the lag time run as well -- about 50 to 100 years from now, with hard work and good luck! dsf (Shacharah, the Only Flamer)