Comment by Kaya | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Kaya | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately the article does not mention the standard deviation of the distribution of mathematical ability after controlling for other factors. As mentioned here: http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math.htm, Larry Summers got in a lot of trouble at Harvard for making this assertion:

"It does appear that on many, many different human attributes-height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability-there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means-which can be debated-there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population. And that is true with respect to attributes that are and are not plausibly, culturally determined."

Is that assertion backed up by evidence? And, if true, is making this distinction useful in informing public policy and shaping our culture? In a fight between naturalistic and moral fallacies, which wins?

The article doesn't say a darn thing about methodology. For all we know, they could have done anything from comparing means to measuring the overlap of various confidence intervals to arcane statistical methods that predict the accuracy of classification based on the data.

Darn paywalls around scientific journals. I really wish more would go the route of http://www.plos.org/

I, too, was under the impression that this was pretty well accepted, at least as far as mathematical skills relating to the ability to handle spatial models.

Rephrasing your quotation, if you draw out the curves so that ability is on the X axis, and number of individuals having that ability is on the Y axis, then the curve for females will be taller and narrower than that for men.

That means that if you've got in mind a brilliant geometer, that person is more likely male than female. On the other hand, if you've got in mind an extremely bad geometer, that person is also more likely male than female.

Discussion of this that I've read have hypothesized that we've evolved this way because humans back a zillion years tended to have the males go out hunting while women took care of babies and domestic chores; and tracking and stalking prey demanded more of a person's spatial skills.

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