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Comment by pygy_ | Hacker News Reader

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pygy_·

Not necessarily. These populations may have, for genetic reasons, a smaller gendered difference in tech interest.

The "young males prefer trucks, young females prefer dolls" split is also found in chimps FWIW.

Interest drives practice and practice drives skill.

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It would truly be strange if genetic divergence over approximately 100,000 years (between these populations) ended up affecting a behavioral trait that has only been important for about 100 years in one of these populations. Well, it might not be strange if humans had the same generation time as insects. But for a species with generation time of 20 years, this is a very unlikely hypothesis IMO.

It could as well have diverged by accident. Sexual dimorphism in these kind of interest may not have any evolutional impact, but be affected by genes that were close to other genes that improve male fertility for example. The closer two genes are on a chromosome, the more likely they are to be selected together.

Your position is scientifically illiterate but I suppose it's worth pointing out why: It would require basically one gene to control these complex behavioral traits, which is implausible. Moreover, such a strong, population-specific, selective force on the human genome does not exist, which we know from population genomics studies. Therefore, what you are arguing here is factually wrong.

Ever heard of SRY ?

... and more generally homeobox genes, SRY was taken as a blatant example of a single gene that controls many different traits, both micro and macroscopic. There are plenty of others.

Even more generally, transcription factors, and the way they cascade.

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