Sexual dimorphism of brain structure in the 1-month infant | Hacker News Reader

Sexual dimorphism of brain structure in the 1-month infant

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19 pointsmkempe18 comments

"Similar to volumetric comparisons during infancy and adolescence, after correcting for total brain volume, males had approximately 8.4% more white matter volume compared to females. Subcortical brain region volumes also differed between males and females."

So the only question that remains is which is the social construct:

(a) MRIs

(b) subcortical gray and white matter

(d) 1 month old infants

Or maybe (e) All of the above.

Do you want to get burned at the stake?

'Cause that's how you get burned at the stake.

Are you alluding to "gender is a social construct"? In which case I want to point out that this paper is about sexual dimorphism and the study subjects are likely too young to have a gender yet (or any other kind of social role, really). IIRC, children tend to start to care intensively about gender-appropriateness around age 3.

You forgot:

(x) assigning infants to the female vs male groups

(y) distinguishing brain matter by color

More seriously, I've always subscribed to the idea that nurture had a somewhat greater hand than nature in gender differences, e.g. when an adult keeps talking over my 3y-old daughter saying "you're so cute" and not listening to what she is trying to say; or complimenting her on her hair or clothing, never on the quality of her speech or actions.

I believe several studies have bounded the lower limit of nature vs nurture at about 50% nature, though studies have gone as low at 40% and as high as 80%.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/16/non-shared-environment-...

I strongly believe that the fundamentals of our personality and human nature are hardcoded and we only really fill in the details when we grow up or put them into context of something else...

Everything I Don't Like Is A Social Construct - A Sociologists Guide To Arguing On The Internet

Just add one line: (e) the scientific method.

Then answer (e)

This solves all these questions, for now and forever. Theory, proof, fact and figures pale in the shining light of emotion and feeling in this new age of irrationality.

This is called postmodernism. If things aren't the way I like, it must be a conspiracy, if necessary by the entire world.

Disappointed to see HN still ignoring the fact that sex and gender are two different things. No matter how correlated, the coefficient is still less than one.

Sex is a biological expression (and exists on a spectrum with the vast majority of the population at one of two poles) and gender is a social construct, i.e., anyone can decide what their gender is and they have the inalienable right, by the same liberty that we all enjoy, to do so.

Reminder that Sperm whales have 18 lb brains (humans: 3 lbs) and Ravens and crows outperform chimps on certain cognitive tasks with much smaller brains.

The size of a brain usually doesn't mean much, it sets a baseline, somewhat, but the overall structure is much more important compared to volume/size/weight. A difference in brain volume of humans doesn't necessarily imply a huge difference in performance, just that the structure is different. Of course a difference in performance can still occur depending on the differences in the structure.

The only cognitive task that I'm aware of where there is a difference in performance is mental rotation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_rotation#Gender

And this difference can be corrected by training. There should probably be a voluntary course in mental rotation for fields where spatial awareness is important (e.g. mechanical engineering). And I want to stress that recommendation for such a course should be based strictly on current ability, not gender. (I mention this because many projects of that kind only aim to decrease differences between recognized categories, instead of simply helping people who need it.)

> for such a course should be based strictly on current ability, not gender

But many times it's been shown that people get really upset explicitly BECAUSE this is done. Why ? Because basing it on current ability will of course result in a rather pronounced and visible gender imbalance in the actual class.

Well, the alternatives are to make it compulsory and waste the time of everyone who is already good at mental rotation, or to focus on only one gender, which will likely upset the same amount of people (although different ones I guess) without optimally addressing the actual problem, which is that some people are worse at mental rotation than others (some of which are male and won't benefit from a gender-segregated class).

So politicians have a choice:

1) waste everyone's time and don't solve the problem (but appear to) but not be personally subject to criticism of sexism

2) actually solve the problem but open yourself up to criticism that you're "racist" (sexist really)

We all know how this is going to go, don't we ?

It's also a question of inputs, practice and body structure. I'm sure ravens massively outperform even the smartest of humans on landing after a jump, and their sense of what the air pressure is around them, even including localized changes that neither us nor them can see should be impeccable, despite using less and worse sensors, and much less processing capacity to do this with. But for humans there's very rarely any reason to do it at all, and so we suck at it.

So this is not any stranger than the fact that most Chinese suck at writing German poetry, and vice versa.

Is brain hypermasulinity still a theoretical cause of autism?

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