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Comment by secstate | Hacker News Reader

It means that male-gendered people tend towards impulse and emotion rather than attempting to understand a situation and listen well into their 20s. Listening and empathy are really fucking hard, and it does not come as naturally to those heavy on testosterone, probably for obvious evolutionary reasons.

None of this is written in stone. Biology and human behavior are way to nuanced for that, but as a group, those of the male persuasion develop those skills at a later age, again, probably for species survival reasons.

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Source?

Neurology/psychology text books. I don't personally have any hard sources at hand.

I’m sorry, but that’s not how you provide a source. If you make a strong claim you should either prove it yourself or point to someone who does. You did neither.

This is a pretty well known “fact” and isn’t a strong claim.

Let me Google that for you:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-021-01137-9

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2006...

First one has nothing to do with what you said, in addition to that the experiments are “in rats”. The second one is about cognitive decline in the elderly, presumably according to the authors because of work stress.

I mean, if you don't bother to read the sources and understand them ... then there's not really much we can discuss.

For the first source, literally in the second sentence:

> Although neurons of the PFC are generated before birth, the differentiation of its neurons and development of synaptic connections in humans extend to the 3rd decade of life.

Yes, that's how 'well known' this fact is, that it literally doesn't need a citation or even a defense ... fwiw, the first source in a broad overview of all the literature in the _difference_ between rats/humans/primates on the differences between the development of PFC (which controls 'abstract' thought).

The second compares sexes across the entire lifetime, not just in elderly. This is all so obviously well-known that you're unlikely to find a study about it, you live this well into your 40's and literally see the effects of it all around you.

I did read them, but it seems like this won’t be productive to argue.

I’ll leave you with the knowledge that I’m a medical professional and none of what you wrote is true or widely believed in any way.

See this paper, which was written after yours, reviewing dozens of other papers, with a sample size of 1100 instead of 70: https://ftp.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/pub/articles/2009/2009_-_Fje...

Last sentence of abstract: no significant differences between the sexes.

In the introduction: points out that this is a controversial topic.

TBH just from your dogmatic and insulting tone it was clear that you’re just trying to give your opinions false justification and aren’t interested in finding the truth at all.

> TBH just from your dogmatic and insulting tone it was clear that you’re just trying to give your opinions false justification and aren’t interested in finding the truth at all.

You were very rudely asking for sources to something widely accepted since the middle ages... so... how were you expecting me to reply, exactly? I love discussing this sort of stuff, so, if we can be civil, let's discuss it!

> See this paper, which was written after yours, reviewing dozens of other papers, with a sample size of 1100 instead of 70

I'll give the paper you linked a more thorough read later on. From a cursory scan, I didn't see anything about the prefrontal cortex in the entire paper, and from what I can tell, wasn't measured. No one is saying that the brain sizes of men/women differ, only that the PFC isn't fully mature in men until later than it is for women. I don't think an MRI would show this feature, but I could be wrong (maybe myelination might be some sort of indicator?)

Like I said, I doubt there's a study specifically about this, but I could totally be wrong. I might have to call some of my neurology friends and ask weird questions lol. If you're in the medical world, you could ask too. Maybe we might both learn something new.

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