
There is no such thing as a male or female brain - Geekette
https://www.fastcompany.com/40441920/everything-you-believe-is-wrong-there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-male-or-female-brain
======
Cozumel
Why do uneducated people persist in perpetuating this nonsense? As a simple
counter point: 'Human subcortical brain asymmetries in 15,847 people worldwide
reveal effects of age and sex' (
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11682-016-9629-...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11682-016-9629-z)
)

Sexual dimorphism is a well known biological fact. Men and women _are_
functionally and structurally different, whether that's caused solely by
genetics or by culture or a combination doesn't really change anything.

That does _not_ mean either is inferior or superior, just different. Why can't
people get that? People _are_ different but all should be treated equally.

~~~
Geekette
I view it not as a denial of difference but outlining that regardless of
physiological differences of male and female human bodies, most brains are a
composite of traits/features associated with males and females.

 _" Neuroscientist Daphna Joel and her team examined the brains of 1,400
individuals ... They repeatedly find that some individual, small sections of
the brain indeed show patterns that are more typical of males or more typical
of females (although millions of sections show no difference at all). However,
when they look at all the sections together instead of just a small snapshot,
they find only about 3% of people have a brain that is fully “male” or fully
“female.” In other words, it is extremely rare to find a consistently pink
brain or blue brain. The other 97% of people have brains that are a mosaic of
pink and blue. Almost all of us have features common in men and features
common in women. Even neuroscientists can’t tell if an individual brain
belongs to a man or woman."_

If possible, it would have been so interesting to see whether/how cultural
conditioning (around gender, etc) affects pattern of brain growth, since such
conditioning starts from birth.

------
cocktailpeanuts
A lot of "science research" are biased because of the researcher's own
"unconscious bias".

When we talk about scientific method, it involves coming up with a hypothesis,
and devising a controlled experiment that validates or invalidates the
hypothesis.

This is a hard problem even for objectively observable science such as
physics, and I think it's extremely hard for social science. It's really hard
to be NOT biased if you're a part of the hypothesis you're trying to prove. I
think there should be a fundamentally different approach to doing these social
science experiments.

When I see these people parrot some "science research paper" to push their
agenda, I shake my head, especially when the real world statistics is opposite
of the research.

For example, I see people say "research says diversity brings creativity, and
if you're working on an early stage startup, you should make your team as
diverse as possible, because the research says so." I won't go into my own
opinion on this because I realize opinions are subjective.

However I would like to ask, if you look at actual real world stats, how many
extremely successful tech companies started out with a "diverse" team? Turns
out most tech startups started out with like-minded people working tightly
knitted together. (Again, I'm not making value judgment, this IS the reality).
So as someone who's starting to work on a startup company, should you try so
hard to create a diverse team because some lab research with controlled
environment of 20 people sample size said so? Or would you rather follow the
hard fact?

I honestly think these diversity consultants are harmful for the society, NOT
because of what they are claiming to try to do (I DO believe diversity is
important in the long term, I'm just talking about how weak their "research"
evidence is compared to what really happens in the real world), but because of
what they are actually doing, without even realizing their own "unconscious
bias".

~~~
Geekette
_" I think it's extremely hard for social science. It's really hard to be NOT
biased if you're a part of the hypothesis you're trying to prove."_

That's why mechanisms such as control groups and blind analyses exist. It also
bears saying that researchers consist of all types, not necessarily part of
the demographic affected and some study results (including those on diversity)
were invalidations of their hypotheses, with some studies having been repeated
elsewhere with similar results.

 _" However I would like to ask, if you look at actual real world stats..."_

The studies I've seen showing positive effects of diversity have also been
based on actual statistics and many assessed several sectors, not just tech.
That many startups in a specific region are similar based on demographics
doesn't invalidate benefits of diversity.

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
> The studies I've seen showing positive effects of diversity have also been
> based on actual statistics and many assessed several sectors, not just tech.
> That many startups in a specific region are similar based on demographics
> doesn't invalidate benefits of diversity.

I was specifically talking about the startup context. I think it's simply
wrong for these diversity consultants to abuse their PC power to spread false
information.

And going further, my point was that these people use controlled research
results to make their point when the real world demonstrates plenty of
evidence showing that it doesn't work that way. Think of any successful
company (not just tech but historically) and see how many of them won over
their competition in their early days because they worried about creating a
diverse team when they were 5 people bootstrapping. You won't see many. Most
businesses succeed by building or providing products/services people want.
That's the most important thing as an entrepreneur. Nowadays I see
entrepreneurs and VCs bragging on social media how their firm has "achieved
diversity" because they have 50% women and 50% black, etc. That's the last
thing you should be worried about during your early days in startup journey.

