Brain connections may explain why girls mature faster | Hacker News Reader

Brain connections may explain why girls mature faster

ncl.ac.uk

35 pointsgygygy44 comments

Note that only the headline says "may explain why girls mature faster". Note the use of "may". Yet within days, this research becomes:

  "Girls really do mature quicker than boys, scientists find" - The Telegraph

  "Why Girls’ Brains Mature Faster Than Boys' Brains" - Time

  "Science proves girls do mature faster than boys" - San Francisco Chronicle

There was a similar charade a few weeks back when a PNAS paper about differences in the connections between male and female subjects (concluding that males connected more strongly front to back, females more strongly laterally) turned into hundreds of front-page stories about women being better at multitasking and men better at map reading, before being roundly denounced as quite shoddy research. By then of course, the meme has stuck, because we love having our prejudices confirmed.

The main difference between male and female brains is that male brains tend to be bigger:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2013/09/25/ar...

It wasn't roundly denounced as shoddy research, unless you're referring to certain groups being angry with the study.

Posts on Jezebel, Feministe and Tumblr were angry, and they tried to spin the results inaccurately. They claimed that the results indicated that female brains were different because of culture, and they claimed we should stop acting like there are innate non-physical differences between men and women.

Unfortunately for them, the differences in brain chemistry became pronounced not during the brain's most plastic years, but rapidly during puberty during the flood of sex hormones. And the study made that clear.

I don't know why the notion of different brain chemistry is so threatening to some groups, but it is what it is.

Yes, "shoddy research" is unfair. But the scientists went way overboard with their interpretation, given how tiny the differences were.

I don't read Jezebel or Feministe, but here are a couple of less mainstream links on the subject:

http://lindeloev.net/?p=64

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/getting-in-a-tangl...

There are many interesting analyses linked from this Storify:

http://storify.com/deevybee/postpublication-peer-review-on-s...

The author of that Storify points out that much bullshit came from both camps - those who believe strongly in sexual dimorphism in the brain (the multitasking/map-reading crowd), and those who refuse to believe in any. Meanwhile we should just be looking at the data for what it is and keeping in mind how little we know about anything when it comes to this marvellous organ.

"I don't know why the notion of different brain chemistry is so threatening to some groups, but it is what it is."

Maybe because such notions have historically been and still are used to justify biases that underly sexist behavior such as that studied here: http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/6414.aspx

This is just a modern day spin on phrenology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology). Remember how scientists once looked for a link between face symmetry and criminality? Good times.

What a sexist article, everyone knows men and women are exactly the same.

Why are we so obsessed with finding genetic reasons to explain thinking differences in gender(or race) when the obvious elephant-in-the-room are social/cultural pressures that must have a huge impact?

I'd feel better about these studies if they could somehow account for these outside influences.

How about the whole idea of "boys will be boys" versus "A lady must be clean & proper". Don't we pretty much enforce responsibility & "proper adult lady" behavior in girls super early? Generally frowned upon when girls use bad language, spit in public, not sit up straight in chairs, etc. We enforce girls to act like proper, well-behaved princesses from day one. We also know that it's much easier for a woman to ruin her lady-like image[0] than for a guy to ruin his. In fact, looking at TVshows like JerseyShore and the whole gangsta-hiphop image... I can't think of any way for a man to ruin his social image short of being accused of child molestation. For boys, it's just "Go wild!" and that attitude seems to carry all the way to college for the most part, hence the whole frat-house start-up culture. The only responsibility that's really drilled into boys growing up is to just avoid doing things that'll land 'em in jail. Any other anti-social behavior(like loud burping in public & having many, many nights with random ladies) is just fine. In fact, being a responsible & well-behaved male adult makes you a wimp it seems! http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/54507/danny-tanner-wtf-o.gif

0. http://www.alternet.org/story/86736/he's_a_stud,_she's_a_slu...

Girls typical toys:

http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/x/www.dailydawdle.com/imag...

http://genderfatigue.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/girls_toy_i...

http://www.stylishtrendy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/top-...

http://www.novanatural.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/ima...

Boys typical toys:

http://cf067b.medialib.glogster.com/media/5e/5e59e3fc4e4be00...

http://themamareport.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/transfor...

http://www.mommyq.com/wp-content/uploads/Track.jpg (Also, LOL @ the photoshopped-in black boy for diversity.)

> "Why are we so obsessed with finding genetic reasons to explain thinking differences in gender(or race) when there are obvious social/cultural pressures?"

Isn't that another way of saying "Why do people care about science, when its findings might make us uncomfortable? And besides, my ideology already tells me how the world works."

I knew you'd comment on this. You seem to show up on all stories about gender & race differences.

Anyways, note the part where I say "I'd feel better about these studies if they could somehow account for these outside influences." Without accounting for those factors, these studies are at best 50/50.

EDIT: I also knew the downvote-brigade would be right there with you to destroy my reply the moment I submitted it. 3 downvotes in 10 seconds.

> downvote

Maybe it because you become personal instead of bringing arguments?

This. It creates a very unpleasant atmosphere when you comment on someone's posting history in a negative way, which is not relevant to the topic.

We should be able to debate a topic without bringing in other people's motivations or character.

I didn't downvote you.

Oh my. Project much?

Your attempt to rephrase his question to try to suit a silly ideology has nothing to do with "science", is merely your own appeal to emotion, and isn't doing a thing to advance the discussion, moldburg.

Now, do you have anything at all cogent to say about the obvious cultural and economic forces that create differences?

It is incredibly difficult to untangle the effects of culture from those of biology, especially when dealing with the measured psychological differences between men and women. But when the effects are purely biological, as in this article, a cultural explanation is extremely un-parsimonious. The burden is on the proposer if he wants me to believe that the age of brain structure maturation is determined by which toys a child plays with.

"...incredibly difficult to untangle the effects of culture from those of biology..." followed a few sentences later immediately by dismissal of consideration that "the age of brain structure maturation is determined by which toys a child plays with".

Sigh.

Honest question: do you even read what you fucking write?

change it to "incredibly difficult in general" in the first sentence to get at the poster's real meaning.

And the attitude of your post is completely out of line for HN. I'm getting really sick of people with the attitude of "I'm right so I can verbally abuse people who are wrong". You should be ashamed of yourself for writing like that.

Now, do you have anything at all cogent to say about the obvious cultural and economic forces that create differences?

Let's think about this.

We know there are differences in brain chemistry between males and females, and those difference surge around puberty when sex hormones are flooding the system (rather than appearing gradually over time as a result of playing with different toys).

That said, the fact that males and females have different brains doesn't preclude other culture differences.

But why are these differences so similar across nearly every culture?

A close relative of ours might explain this: Monkeys! Male monkeys prefer playing with traditional male toys, like trucks and balls, while female monkeys prefer playing with traditional female toys, like dolls. Predisposition to prefer certain types of stimulus is quite likely hardcoded in every one of us. The study was conducted on two different species of monkey:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13596-male-monkeys-pre...

From the study:

"Male monkeys, like boys, showed consistent and strong preferences for wheeled toys, while female monkeys, like girls, showed greater variability in preferences."

It takes pretty huge step to get from there to suggesting that human girls are genetically predisposed to liking barbies and kitchen toys.

Those differences aren't so similar across nearly every culture. Gender differences vary widely by culture. Stuff like gender differences in IQ is wholly inconsistent across different racial groups. Nearly every metric related to gender differences varies substantially across different cultures. For instance in some countries it's women who test better in math.

Of course. The full quote from the study:

-----

Sex differences in juvenile activities, such as rough and tumble play, peer preferences, and infant interest, share similarities in humans and monkeys. Thus if activity preferences shape toy preferences, male and female monkeys may show toy preferences similar to those seen in boys and girls.

We compared the interactions of 34 rhesus monkeys, living within a 135 monkey troop, with human wheeled toys and plush toys. Male monkeys, like boys, showed consistent and strong preferences for wheeled toys, while female monkeys, like girls, showed greater variability in preferences. Thus, the magnitude of preference for wheeled over plush toys differed significantly between males and females. The similarities to human findings demonstrate that such preferences can develop without explicit gendered socialization.

-----

Male monkeys preferred roughhousing and toys that developed their spatial intelligence. Compared to boys, female monkeys preferred dolls that developed other forms of intelligence.

Gender differences vary widely by culture. Stuff like gender differences in IQ is wholly inconsistent across different racial groups.

Interesting. I can't really find anything on this, and Wikipedia doesn't have anything either:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_human_psycho...

Are you referring to a study about a village where women were able to solve a puzzle faster than men?

For instance in some countries it's women who test better in math.

This would be shocking if it weren't true.

I'm curious to here what countries those are, because I suspect the countries that women test better in math will be the same countries that spend a disproportionate amount of time and money trying to improve women's math scores.

A possibly relevant example: Men and boys tend to have better spacial intelligence than women and girls. But as an Israeli (I think) study showed us, spending extra time instructing students how to pass a specific type of spatial intelligence test resulted in everyone doing well on those tests, not just the boys.

http://www.unc.edu/~nielsen/soci708/module2/Science_math_gen...

Specifically in the U.S. asian women score better in math than asian men.

"I'm curious to here what countries those are, because I suspect the countries that women test better in math will be the same countries that spend a disproportionate amount of time and money trying to improve women's math scores."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_gaps_in_mathematics_and_...

You'll note Sweden is approaching parity between men and women in math and they are consistently ranked #1 in the world in terms of gender equality. Is it really ridiculous to suggest that gender differences would be minimized in a more equal society?

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-learning-brain/20121...

Is it really ridiculous to suggest that gender differences would be minimized in a more equal society?

It depends on how we define "equal". Imagine a human society in which the physical strength of men and women are equal, and are kept equal through academic and government policy.

On one hand, that's an equal society. On the other hand, that's a tyrannical society which forcibly boosts girls and women at the expense of boys and men.

I think the Wikipedia article you linked to tends to support the theory that girls are receiving special treatment—countries in which girls are closing the gap in mathematics also tend to be the countries in which girls are extending their gap in reading.

You specifically mentioned Sweden as an example of equality. In Sweden, girls slightly outperform boys in mathematics, AND girls outperform boys in reading by a much larger margin than boys outperform girls in mathematics in any country.

Why is that touted as an example of equality?

Equality isn't about eliminating differences across different groups. When I argue for a more equal society, I'm not saying everyone should be made to be identical, I'm saying everyone should be treated equitably.

If you read the last article I linked. Pay close attention to this part:

"When participants were told that they were about to perform a working memory task (which included math operations as a kind of distractor) to get norms for student, men and women performed equally. But when the same test was given with the information that this was a test of complex mathematics in order to compare males and females, performance in female participants dropped almost 30 percent."

This suggests to me an inequitable society. A society where at a young age women are already taught that they aren't supposed to be good at math.

The top five countries where women scored better than men are Malta, Albania, Trinidad and Tobago, India, and Kyrgyzstan. Do you have any evidence of educational policies favoring women at the expense of men in these countries?

As to the reading gap, of course this is an issue. Just as much effort that is put into bringing math scores to parity should be spent on the reading gap. Sweden is an example of equality, because even though there are plenty inequitable parts of their society they actively work to make those equitable. What is your preferred model of an equitable society, or do you simply think that equality inevitably means oppressing the dominant class?

Quinnchr, I can't reply to you, so I'll reply here instead.

This suggests to me an inequitable society. A society where at a young age women are already taught that they aren't supposed to be good at math.

The article you linked had a different take—that women are more adversely affected by pressure than are men.

The article had a different take, because I don't think your hypothesis is true: And I went through the American public school system very recently. There wasn't a single year in which it wasn't drilled into our heads by predominantly female teachers how much better girls are than boys at everything. Boys were the victim of daily jabs. There wasn't a single year in which we weren't told that the only reason girls have been traditionally worse at math is because mean boys make girls think they're worse.

This article...

http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/06/do-teachers-really-discrimi...

...mentions something that I witnessed personally. Teachers tend to despise boys who act like traditional boys. Those boys are treated more harshly. Their answers are never given the benefit of the doubt. They're mad to feel like failures.

So I think the meme of "girls are taught they suck; boys are taught they're great" doesn't apply to the United States, and opposite has likely been true since the 70s or 80s.

Sweden is an example of equality, because even though there are plenty inequitable parts of their society they actively work to make those equitable

I think they spend a lot of time and money giving special treatment to girls and women, trying to close innate performance gaps. If they wanted to be truly equitable, they'd do the same for boys (and maybe they're starting to, and we'll soon see results).

But even if Sweden were to do that, what then? They've spent a lot of time pursuing equal results, as though it's a goal in and of itself. Why should it be?

If you have two people, one of whom innately excels at math and the other innately excels at editing prose, why not encourage and foster those skills instead of fighting against them? Specialization isn't a bad thing; it's necessary for real progress to be made.

Why do you make the implicit assumption that innate performance gaps (in things like math and editing prose especially) fall along gender lines? A better null hypothesis is that there is no connection between gender and these skills.

By the way, I'm sorry you felt mistreated by teachers because of your gender. That's wrong.

If it was a result of pressure why would the disparity only show when they were told it was a math test? Are you suggesting women have an innate anxiety to doing math?

I'm going to shy away from the anecdotal as that will get us nowhere, I will say though my experience was very different than yours.

As for teachers discriminating against men. This is absolutely a legitimate men's issue, but it's largely an intersectional issue. Middle class white men in general aren't the ones being discriminated against, it's largely an issue of race and to a lesser extent class.

Sweden has a ton of social programs specifically for men as well. In what ways are Swedish women receiving special treatment? Do you consider anything other than the status quo special treatment?

I'm not sure why equality isn't a legitimate goal in itself. Would you say the same thing in the 1960s about the nascent civil rights movement? I'm generally of the opinion that no class or group of people should be treated as inferior. If you still need a reason, economically speaking there is a strong positive correlation between gender equality and GDP per capita.

What purpose does proving that women/men are innately better at certain things hold? At best it's a generalization, there will always be women and men who preform better in non-standard ways. What purpose does a generalization like that serve? Of course women and men can have innate differences, but why must it depend on the biological sex? There are huge variances in hormonal levels and physiology across a single sex, do you really think there are innate characteristics common to all women?

As to the reading gap, of course this is an issue. Just as much effort that is put into bringing math scores to parity should be spent on the reading gap. Sweden is an example of equality

Sweden is an example of girls doing 20 points better relative to boys in both math and reading compared to the US. And the pattern generally holds for the other countries as well. Take the sum of the math and reading gaps, and that value is more stable (min 29, max 64), compared with the gaps for math (-15 to +32) and reading (10 to 72). If anything, this data raises the probability that I assign to the proposition that girls and boys on average have different natural aptitudes.

"On the other hand, that's a tyrannical society which forcibly boosts girls and women at the expense of boys and men."

First of all, as others have pointed out, equality does not mean forcing everyone to have equal abilities. Equality means not pre-judging anyone's abilities based on irrelevant characteristics like sex or race. Second of all, arguments like yours always clue me off that the person making the argument is operating under the default assumption that boys and men are better than women and girls in general and that assuming that they just might be equal for any given task until proven otherwise is tyranny. Let me guess: MRA?

I meant "curious to hear", not "curious to here". Editing my post seems to have no effect.

It's very interesting that you bring up toys as an example, because it turns out there is quite good evidence that gender toy preferences are partially genetic. Think about this: if toy preference is just a social construction, if we removed all social pressure regarding toy selection, would boys and girls still prefer different toys?

It turns out the answer is yes. In 2002, a (very influential) study was performed on vervet monkeys and found that male vervet monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the masculine toys (i.e. a ball and a police car), and the female vervet monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the feminine toys (a doll and a red pan). There wasn't much difference in preference for the neutral toys.

One study is not enough to show such a trend. So in 2008, the study was repeated a different species of monkey (rehesus) and a different set of toys. The authors found the same results: males preferred stereotypically male toys, and females preferred stereotypically female toys.

So we have two studies in two species of primates that found that males prefer "masculine" toys, and females prefer "feminine" toys. From this, it is fairly plausible that innate differences in toy preference will show up in humans as well.

Sources:

Vervet Study: http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(02)00107-1/fullt...

Rhesus Study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/

Summary of both studies: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundament...

>>female vervet monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the feminine toys (a picture book and a stuffed dog).

I don't know what to say about using monkeys for this kind of study, but I will say that I never thought of stuffed dogs & picture books as feminine. Those sound like male/neutral to me!

You are correct, I looked up the original study and found that the picture book and the furry dog were actually the neutral condition toys. The feminine toys were a doll and a red cooking pan. Thank you for pointing this out, I will edit my post.

Perhaps the male monkeys are brought up differently (I bet they are), and some part of the difference is the mothers rearing style (perhaps from culture or genetics).

I don't know if you're airing your thoughts on this paper specifically, or on "this type of research" in general.

If it is about this particular paper, the entirety of the paper is actually up (the link at the bottom of the article). I gave it a skim. This research isn't about "what are the root causes of differential behavoir in boys and girls", but "what are the structural changes in the human brain that occur in humans as they mature", and their data set also shows that while the same structural changes occur in both boys and girls (more or less anyways), just that they tend to occur sooner/faster in girls.

In other words, there's no attempt to look for "genetic reasons".

Now that the specific case as been addressed, I'm going to try to deal with your general concern, which I feel is certainly valid. The nature vs nurture debate is long-standing, and it certainly looks like with every stone we turn over, we just find more and more layers of interactions between nature and nurture.

The short answer for why we are looking for genetic factors, is that if we do find strong genetic factors, despite all the noise that nurture injects, that it's likely going to be a very robust effect, which circularly means that since its robust enough to not be overwhelmed by "nurture", then its pretty much guaranteed to be useful enough despite the nurture aspect.

The things you list are all to do with winding up with differences as adults. The item brought up in the article has to do with girls becoming adults earlier. Which is separate, but also important, since it is one of the facts that helps girls get into college at higher rates than boys. (A trend whose long-term impact is not yet felt.)

And earlier maturation is not simply cultural, because it is tied to the very physical maturation of hitting puberty. Which is a biological process, not a cultural one.

"Why are we so obsessed with finding genetic reasons to explain thinking differences in gender(or race) when the obvious elephant-in-the-room are social/cultural pressures that must have a huge impact?"

It lets white dudes explain away lots of things with "science."

You could probably leave off the "faster" in the headline.

tl;dr More "proof" that men are biologically superior to women.

How on earth did you get that from the article? Why does difference have to imply an ordering?

``Differences in biology'' are consistently cited as justification for sexist beliefs. (An example of a sexist belief is, ``women are better suited to careers requiring nurturing and communication over logic and leadership.'') You are correct that this article did not imply an ordering in its findings, but given that men dominate higher prestige social and professional positions globally, people are constantly searching for justifications of this that seem ``fair'' to them: biology. It is primarily men who are presidents and scientists and CEOs and leaders of families and religions. Why? Because on average, they're just better at it. Because biology. Or so they say. When small differences are desperately sought out, and vast similarities are ignored, all to justify what is arguably an inequitable situation, I'm wary. Scientific sexism and scientific racism are not new. The findings of the scientific process are not immune from the bigotries of its practitioners and the era in which they live. Science is a process, not an outcome.

``Differences in biology'' are consistently cited as justification for sexist beliefs.

And Darwinian evolution has been cited as justification for letting the poor starve. So what?

The findings of the scientific process are not immune from the bigotries of its practitioners and the era in which they live. Science is a process, not an outcome.

So anyone studying differences between men and women is motivated by a desire to oppress women and maintain the patriarchy?

"And Darwinian evolution has been cited as justification for letting the poor starve. So what?"

So that's f*cked up. Those people should not do that. And that kind of reasoning is not even good scientific reasoning, which is my point in the first place. What's yours?

Like I said: 10,000 hours for boys, 8,000 hours for girls. But the environment has been colored, offset by slavery and sexual politics.

It is inevitable that agents like 'pg' (Paul Graham) must say and show, despite personal capacity toward self-interest.

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