[quote]vroom wrote:
Right, in the case of the male monkeys, they duct taped the plastic cars to them, and the female monkeys recieved electric shocks until they picked up the dolls. Come on vroom, where are you going with this?
Monkeys aren’t stupid.
Let me guess what toy the male brought to the monkeys and what toy the females brought to the monkeys.
For fuck sakes, unless I was forced, I wouldn’t be carrying the damned barbie doll to the monkey cage (even if the protocol said I should), would you?
So, unless they were very careful (and they might have been) the monkeys would just reflect our bias. I’m not saying their aren’t any differences.
[/quote]
My bet is that they just put the shit in a fucking box and let the damned monkeys pick what they wanted to play with.
Holy fuck vroom - you are in rare form today. And that is NOT a compliment.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
vroom wrote:
Right, in the case of the male monkeys, they duct taped the plastic cars to them, and the female monkeys recieved electric shocks until they picked up the dolls. Come on vroom, where are you going with this?
Monkeys aren’t stupid.
Let me guess what toy the male brought to the monkeys and what toy the females brought to the monkeys.
For fuck sakes, unless I was forced, I wouldn’t be carrying the damned barbie doll to the monkey cage (even if the protocol said I should), would you?
So, unless they were very careful (and they might have been) the monkeys would just reflect our bias. I’m not saying their aren’t any differences.
My bet is that they just put the shit in a fucking box and let the damned monkeys pick what they wanted to play with.
Holy fuck vroom - you are in rare form today. And that is NOT a compliment.
[/quote]
“Only the mediocre are always at their best.” Jean Giraudoux
[quote]orion wrote:
“Only the mediocre are always at their best.” Jean Giraudoux
Strong words…[/quote]
Rare is not the same as best, Oreo. Your little quote is misplaced. But even then, I don’t know how much stock to put in a frenchie’s idea of anything surpassing that of an out and out coward. But that’s just me.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
orion wrote:
“Only the mediocre are always at their best.” Jean Giraudoux
Strong words…
Rare is not the same as best, Oreo. Your little quote is misplaced. But even then, I don’t know how much stock to put in a frenchie’s idea of anything surpassing that of an out and out coward. But that’s just me. [/quote]
what I was trying to say was that even vroom can have a bad day every now and then…
Plus, cowards are not necessarily stupid, they can hardly afford to be slow…
And, food for thought, Napoleon was french, Lafayette was french, Robespierre, Diderot, D?Alembert, Montesquieu, all french, all great men in their own way…
French bashing seems to be tres chic in the US right now, but it is oh so mindnumbingly boring…
Your perception of the world changes once you have a daughter. I have a daughter. When I help her with homework I make sure that I emphasize the importance of math and science. She plays with girl toys. I’d be worried if she didn’t. Is her personality different than that of boys? Of course. I would hope it would be. However, if someone ever tells her that she can’t be a doctor, scientist, or engineer because “she is a girl,” they WILL get their ass kicked. Fuck the monkey studies.
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
Your perception of the world changes once you have a daughter. I have a daughter. When I help her with homework I make sure that I emphasize the importance of math and science. She plays with girl toys. I’d be worried if she didn’t. Is her personality different than that of boys? Of course. I would hope it would be. However, if someone ever tells her that she can’t be a doctor, scientist, or engineer because “she is a girl,” they WILL get their ass kicked. Fuck the monkey studies.[/quote]
Mike,
I think you took that one off on a little detour… How did you go from “boys and girls have genetic differences in how their brains work” to “people will try to tell my daughter that she can’t be a scientist because in general boys and girls are different”?
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
MikeTheBear wrote:
Your perception of the world changes once you have a daughter. I have a daughter. When I help her with homework I make sure that I emphasize the importance of math and science. She plays with girl toys. I’d be worried if she didn’t. Is her personality different than that of boys? Of course. I would hope it would be. However, if someone ever tells her that she can’t be a doctor, scientist, or engineer because “she is a girl,” they WILL get their ass kicked. Fuck the monkey studies.
Mike,
I think you took that one off on a little detour… How did you go from “boys and girls have genetic differences in how their brains work” to “people will try to tell my daughter that she can’t be a scientist because in general boys and girls are different”?[/quote]
Because people have at least implied this. Some of them the presidents of very prestigious universities. Although that whole deal was grossly exagerrated and taken somewhat out of context.
Biologically it is almost (and perhaps completely) impossible to tell whether a human brain is male or female. Interestingly, the study done that showed differences in the hypothalmus was originally done to PROVE that sex reassignment should NOT be done on infant boys with ambiguous genetalia. It is STILL standard, believe it or not, to change infant males with very small penises into females and raise them as such.
Anyway, the evolutionary argument is that human males are technically intelligent because of sexual selection-females select technically intelligent males, but the same genes that make males smart, make females smart as well. Also, girls as a group tend to be superior in ALL academic areas up until beginning around 7th or 8th grade at which point, males start to catch up and overall exceed females in technical intelligence by age 16-17.
ALSO, it has been demonstrated very clearly that statistically, females perceive themselves as being less able to control or change their “environment” while males tend to believe that they are in control and can affect the course of their lives more. This has to be largely social.
I have also seen studies that girls in all female math classes continue to learn math at the level of males, showing some social effect. Unfortunatly, males tend to do slightly better in mixed sex classes.
Girls ARE asked different kinds of questions by teachers in classes, and treated differently when they respond. I saw one study that showed that (within the study limitations of course) teachers tended to respond to correct answers from girls by saying “that’s correct” and to boys by saying “that’s an intelligent answer”.
My opinion is that girls and boys intellectual capacity are equal but different. They tend to get steared differently by social and biological factors, but there may be an inborn tendancy to be steared in one direction or the other.
Didn’t mean to jump on your case as we generally agree on stuff to an extend. I have found, however, that unless I included at least one instance of the word “fuck” in my posts on politics, no one replies.
JSBrook is right. These types of studies just fuel the whole girls don’t belong in technical fields argument for those who wish to make it. You’re right in that I may have overreacted. After all, it is 2006, most engineers that I know are very openminded freethinking types.
There is also another accusation made against women who are good in math and science - they must be lesbians. This is sad.
As people have mentioned, I believe there is a real question as to whether math and science ability is determined by genetics, environment, or both. I’m sure it’s both. But the need to accumulate shoes and clothes is definitely genetic and totally independent of math/science ability. My wife studied computer science in college. She has way too many shoes. Point proven.
I think perhaps what Vroom was getting at is that the researchers may likely have different opinions as to which toys the monkeys “should” pick, and even if they keep those thoughts concealed to the extent that a human would not pick up on them, that doesn’t mean an animal might. Perhaps a male researcher prefers racecars to dolls, and the chimp reads this in his body language, then copies that sentiment.
[quote]LoneLobo wrote:
I think perhaps what Vroom was getting at is that the researchers may likely have different opinions as to which toys the monkeys “should” pick, and even if they keep those thoughts concealed to the extent that a human would not pick up on them, that doesn’t mean an animal might. Perhaps a male researcher prefers racecars to dolls, and the chimp reads this in his body language, then copies that sentiment.
Seems like a reasonable objection to me.[/quote]
There was a study done with human babies that was similar to the monkey studies with similar findings where there were allegations of researcher bias, i.e., that the researchers, because of their preconceived notions of what types of toys boys and girls should play with, unintentionally encouraged the kids to pick the “right” gender toy, and then concluded that certain male-female characteristics were hardwired in our brains.
Hard to say whether this report was a product of that “liberal media” or whether the bias was actually there.
In any event, I think vroom made an excellent point that using monkeys produced meaningless data. To a monkey, human toys are all basically just “strange things” that don’t really mean a damn thing to them let alone have gender stereotypes attached to them.
Last time I checked, there was not a family of monkeys living in our neighborhood with the Dad monkey going off to work every morning and the Mom monkey staying home to make sure the little monkeys played with gender appropriate toys. However, I think a family like that would be an interesting addition to my neighborhood.
She’s just trying to conform to the stereotype… ;)[/quote]
Computer scientists have too many shoes?
But seriously vroom, I don’t know what your personal issues with barbie dolls may be, but I’ve go no problem handing dolls to a monkey. Especially if it pays the bills. And as Moriarty pointed out, the subjects, at best, recognized a simian morphology in the dolls vs. shiny metal cylinders vs. colored rolling object, and it would’ve taken a lot of influence on the part of the researchers to bias these monkeys like you’re suggesting. So to say the researchers biased the study is rather crass and accusatory.
And some of this is the reporters fault as well. The title is over-simplistic. The big issue that is being put forth is that human gender roles fit other species that have no idea what those gender roles are. So, society alone can’t be to blame. My only concern is that 88 vervets doesn’t extrapolate well to 3.2 billion humans and untold numbers of other primates.
I’m also surprised at you because you should know about things like perinatal testosterone levels and its effects on gender roles and developmental psych. Unless you want to assert that those data are biased and that perinatal testosterone has no effect or is the result of societal influence as well.
You are taking my statements further than I sent them.
I am just skeptical that the ease with which human opinions could be telegraphed was properly taken into account.
I do however know and agree that there are differences between genders. I am also very aware that upon birth we treat the genders differently based on our perceptions of gender, socializing them into the standard accepted roles.
Just as depressed people show different brain chemistry, developing interests in different areas of life could provide differences in brain neuron firing patterns, as that is what the brain does, process patterns through pathways. The pathways that are established appear to be the easier course of thought to follow.
There is a lot we don’t know… and I’m not claiming to know it!
