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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
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> 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)