Men and women's brains are wired differently. Really..........

[JapaneseMargaret]

BBC article here.

Anyone know where a more in-depth article might be, so that I can come to my own conclusions?

They do say brain connections are not set, and can change throughout life. But absolutely no mention is made of the affects of society and nurture over nature. Both of which have a fundamental impact, surely...?

I do, obviously, totally agree with you it's pretty unhelpful to talk about male-type and female-type brains. I don't think anyone seriously disagrees really.

Having reread the thread I think you're right LRD that I was a bit quick and and wrong to brush my criticisms so widely. I do think though that the research article is being wrongly surmised by some as saying there are male and female-type brains whereas in fact it says there are on average some differences in the structure of the brain between the sexes. They aren't the same thing.

Thanks for saying that - I hope I didn't come across as aggressive, I just didn't see it the same way.

The thing is, I do think the article is actually pretty dodgy. I mean, the second sentence is 'Males have better motor and spatial abilities, whereas females have superior memory and social cognition skills.'

No caveats. No 'It has been suggested', not even a footnote (though elsewhere they do explain their studies into that. They really are pretty definite. They then soften it a bit (not much) with this:

'The observations suggest that male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes.'

The terminology here does, I know, show that they are aware you could act against the structure - 'designed to facilitate' suggests much more plasticity than 'hardwired'. But I can't see how you can read that and not think they are talking about 'male brains'. There's no qualifying 'on average' or anything like that, and most studies do put in the qualifiers rigorously, so far as I've seen.

I know they (the scientists) must be aware their results are not clear-cut, but they are stating them as if they were extremely clear-cut, and that's my issue with it.

Interesting links. The study and the reporting of it are pretty depressing.

I see someone's already linked Cordelia Fine's response. I came across some more rebuttals:

Tom Stafford (psychologist/cognitive scientist) in the Conversation

Dean Burnett (neuroscientist) in the Guardian

Sophie Scott (UCL neuroscience dept)

I couldn't read the full text of the article (no subscription to PNAS) but the abstract alone had steam coming out my ears - they actually talk about male and female brains being "designed" differently - how the hell could that make it into a serious, peer-reviewed science journal?

But Stafford answers one of the questions I'd have tried to pose had I had the full text: how does the difference between means for the two populations (male and female) compare with the variance within each population (a crucial number if you're going to decide whether this matters)? According to Stafford, the authors haven't even attempted to answer this question. (In case you're wondering why this matters - it comes down to this: take purported sex-difference A. If more men than women do A, it probably is of interest if this is a case of "only 35% of women can do A, compared to 50% of men", but it isn't of interest if "only 49% of women can do A, compared to 50% of men". This is different from statistical significance - give me a big enough sample and a difference of 1% could still be statistically significant at the 95% level, but it still wouldn't be interesting!).

Lurcio:

"they actually talk about male and female brains being "designed" differently - how the hell could that make it into a serious, peer-reviewed science journal?"

YY

Also "wiring". Goddammit, is that in the study, or how it is reported? Because it is a bad analogy that begs the question (in the proper sense). Networks of wires do not alter themselves according to the influences that act upon them as they are used. So using the word "wire" is pernicious. And in nature (brains are natural organic things so it is not surprising that nature is a better source of analogies) there are many examples of pathways that change under use and influence, like river beds, or the paths in vegetations made by animals.

Wiring is not in the study so far as I can see. That was the Guardian who do have a bit of a soft spot for crap science writing.

I haven't got the original article, but just read this in the Indepenent:

What we've identified is that, when looked at in groups, there are connections in the brain that are hardwired differently in men and women. Functional tests have already shown than when they carry out certain tasks, men and women engage different parts of the brain,” Professor Verma said. This is one of the authors. So even though hardwire might not have been used in the article itself, this is cearly what they are driving at. Hardwire is such an unfortunate term, implying 'from birth' and unchangeable.

IN fact, Verma is the last author but she's a radiologist (ha, not a real scientist!!!). Just from the abstract, I'm surprised that sort of wording got past the referees: this is PNAS - a good journal.

Oh, wow, that's a really depressing quotation.

I don't know enough about science publishing - but am I right they basically have to put loads of people in as 'authors' after the first couple who did most of the work, just because it's the etiquette? I mean, I wonder if she's maybe not actually that important in it. Not thatit makes it better.

I have the 2nd name on a science paper - there were 5 names but only 2 of us did the actual work. The rest were bosses and chatted to us a bit about it.

Normally first author is the main worker/writer and corresponding author is usually first, the last is usually the overarching boss type - for example, the prof supervisor of a PhD, at least from my days in science now a distant memory.

We always do alphabetical order ... (Mathsy rather than sciency though.)

This made me laugh: the-mouth.co.uk/female-brains-just-scribbled-multicoloured-mess-reveals-science-study/

I definitely am attracted to men because of their bodies as opposed to women's bodies. Something about a male chest. For me it's not to do with personality and I find some of the "male thinking patterns" frustrating but more because I feel like they come from a place of privilege rather than being inherently "male" and/or different.

But then I do identify as bisexual (although I have a preference for men and have never been in a relationship with a woman) but I'm not sure if that's just me saying I don't see much of a difference between thinking patterns etc or if there is something "genderless" I see. Not sure.

I love that shira.

I'm a writer, over the past year I have developed a keen interest in technology, because I am often asked to write about it, as my interest develops so I read more about the subject and buy the latest gadgets.

I grew up avoiding typically male subjects, because my dad steered me away from them Now I realise that interests are down to conditioning and expectations of others and the brain is elastic

Well quite, devilinside.

It's such a shame that so many children aren't given a range of options and left to find what inspires them, what they have an aptitude for, what they enjoy. Both boys and girls.