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Comment by psyopsy | Hacker News Reader

When you say, "not well support by evidence," you're either wrong, anti-science, or lying. Numerous studies absolutely show very large average differences in interests based on sex. And those carry over into occupation preferences. Just one more recent study:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016726812...

Plus: Jon never said it's the "primary" factor, as you claim. He said it's a large factor, that doesn't apply at the individual level, but on average. Which is entirely factual and supported by copious amounts of research.

Just because people like you want to be offended by science, doesn't make it wrong, or controversial.

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This study confirms that there is a gender difference but it doesn't explain why. I didn't claim that there were not differences, but that they were not well explained by biology.

Sex is the strongest single predictor of vocational interest orientation we’ve found. Nothing else comes close. If that’s not ‘explained by biology,’ you need to tell me what would be. Otherwise you’re operating on faith.

It's hard to control for social conditioning. I don't need to be able to tell you what the alternative is to be able to tell you that there are many confounding factors.

Knowing what does not explain something, doesn't tell you what does explain it.

They did try to account for social conditioning: parents' education and jobs, local labor markets, school performance, the whole bit. The gap still didn't move much. If socialization were the main driver, you'd expect the most egalitarian countries to have the smallest gaps. They don't. In a lot of cases it's the opposite. Sweden, for example, shows bigger differences in occupational preferences than places like Pakistan.

So at that point you're not pointing to a specific confounder, you're basically saying "maybe there's something else." Sure, logically you can always say that. But if the evidence keeps stacking up in one direction and the only reply is "could be something," that's just refusing to update your view.

You can't control for the social conditioning of gender. This is so fundamentally obvious I don't think you are taking the science seriously.

Congrats! You've made your position unfalsifiable.

When the data consistently shows gaps widening as social strictures loosen, and your response is to blame an invisible, unmeasurable "conditioning," you aren't doing science at all. But you are insulating your belief from any possible counter-evidence.

No I'm just clear that the current state of science makes it impossible to draw the conclusion that you are.

Note that this outcome goes both ways. We can neither confirm that biology is the main driver nor confirm that it isn't. Life is not as certain as you want it to be.

You started with “not well explained by biology.”

All of the evidence is solidly on one side, so you’ve retreated to “we can neither confirm nor deny.”

I guess that’s progress?

Again, those statements are not contradictory.

They're not contradictory in a vacuum. But in this sequence, they show you're backpedaling. You opened with a firm claim, and when confronted with actual data, you retreated to 'we can't know.' Pretending that perfect certainty is required here is just a dodge.

Well, no, you're the one that is "wrong, anti-science, or lying".

The very first sentence of the article you linked to says, "Occupational choices remain strongly segregated by gender, for reasons not yet fully understood."

So claiming that its for biological reasons is bullshit. You have no idea whether it is or not. And neither does Blow.

AFAIK there are differences established on many psychological axes that are more basic than "occupational choice", such as competitiveness, neuroticism, interest in things vs human relations, and others. I don't understand these deeply but you can research for yourself, so there is certainly no shortage of possible explanations based on those.

> AFAIK there are differences established

Well, you "haven't read literature on the topic"[1] so maybe leave the speculation at the door or go out and read some literature to cite rather than presenting "ideas [you]'ve picked up that [you] can agree with" as "established"?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46315540

I've been very clear that I'm a layman, such as certainly most of the commenters here. I qualified using "AFAIK" and I've heard this on different occasions by people who have actual experience in the field. You can find similar claims on this page, partly backed by links. For example, I too have heard about studies evidencing that gender differences are more stark in developed countries with well functioning social systems, where people are freeer to choose their profession based on personal interest rather than for example economic aspects.

LOL. You're going to dismiss the study because of the justification for doing the study. Here, let me help you understand:

"not fully understood" -> "so we studied it" -> "here's what we found"

Besides that obvious point, the sentence you quoted says "not yet fully understood," not "we have no idea." Those aren't the same thing. We actually have substantial evidence pointing in a clear direction.

- The most egalitarian countries show the largest gaps, not the smallest. - Women exposed to elevated androgens in utero become more things-oriented despite being raised normally as girls. - Male and female monkeys show the same toy preferences we do. Nobody's socializing rhesus monkeys into gender roles. - A 1.28 standard deviation gap in every culture that emerges in infancy and grows as societies get freer is not what socialization looks like.

You're treating "not fully understood" as "both hypotheses are equally supported."

They aren't.

The evidence overwhelmingly favors a substantial biological component. Just because you don't like the implications of that, doesn't make it false.

Seethe harder.

> Male and female monkeys show the same toy preferences we do. Nobody's socializing rhesus monkeys into gender roles.

You may believe that, but: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9898904/

Little bro read the paper title and no further.

That study found that when you test 14 monkeys alone in cages where they can’t actually move the toys, you don’t see the same sex differences as when 135 monkeys are tested in social groups with freely movable toys.

The authors themselves say the social context may be necessary for expression. That’s not evidence against biological contribution, but evidence that behavior requires context to manifest.

You don’t disprove hunger by noting that people don’t eat when there’s no food available.

I didn't dismiss the study; I agree with it. Not fully understood.

Think harder kid.

Gravity isn’t fully understood either. Guess we can’t say things fall down.

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