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Comment by rmc | Hacker News Reader

Remember things like this when people talk about biological differences between men and women's brains. Studies sometimes find tiny differences, and then some people claim that's why 19 out of 20 board members are men. It's not bias, it's science!

But if people can live missing massive chunks of their brain, is it really believable that tiny differences can cause such massive societal outcomes?

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> But if people can live missing massive chunks of their brain, is it really believable that tiny differences can cause such massive societal outcomes?

Congratulations, you are today's demonstration of 'proving too much': you have also just proven that things like lesions and scars cannot affect cognition, warp personalities, create agnosias and aphasias, and result in bizarre conditions like those Oliver Sacks has so memorably documented, because lesions're so tiny and such small parts of the brain - 'if people can live missing massive chunks of their brain, is it really believable that tiny differences can cause such massive societal outcomes?'

The OP was not talking about the magnitude of the differences, but the nature of them.

Do you believe that neuroplasticity remains constant throughout a person's lifetime? Unless you believe that, your statement is incoherent.

Lesions and scars are acute changes in the brain that happen after birth. That's different from starting out missing massive chunk of your brain.

OP: "Look at that person who was born with no arms due to a birth defect. They're able to live a fairly normal, happy life. Maybe arms aren't essential to human happiness."

You: "So you're saying if you got your hand mutilated in a garbage disposal, that wouldn't make you unhappy? A hand is much less than a whole arm."

(I'll leave what this makes you a demonstration of as an exercise for the reader.)

> The OP was not talking about the magnitude of the differences, but the nature of them.

And what, pray tell, are the 'nature' of disorders like Cotard's syndrome?

> OP: "Look at that person who was born with no arms due to a birth defect. They're able to live a fairly normal, happy life. Maybe arms aren't essential to human happiness."

Try going back and reading what was said. Your paraphrase is incorrect. Here's a correct paraphrase:

"OP: look at that person born with no legs. They're able to lead a somewhat normal life. This shows that anyone claiming that there might be differences between the fingered and the fingerless such as in fine motor control is a moron - because a leg is so much larger than a finger!"

> I'll leave what this makes you a demonstration of as an exercise for the reader.

Well, it demonstrates you can't paraphrase or follow the logical structure of an argument. I'm not sure what I'm demonstrating; hopefully something good.

What a large chip you must have on your shoulder. This is not even in the same ballpark of discussing gender differences in how brains function. This article is saying that even with certain portions of the brain missing, that other portions can compensate. What you are talking about is the different way that things are processed (if any) between male and female.

But good job on sticking it to THE MAN. I'm sure that your social media activism is revolutionizing the world.

Please don't make posts like this on HN. Your sarcasm made the post overwhelmingly negative, and contributed nothing to the conversation. This would have been a much better post had you removed the first sentence and the last two.

Thanks for the redlines on my writing. I'll make sure to incorporate these nifty tips into future correspondence.

However, I think you can agree that you are being a bit extreme by saying that my post "contributed nothing to the conversation". Just because you happen to dislike what I said or how I made the point doesn't invalidate it.

I'm sorry that you find my post distasteful, but given the initial post I think that it was fully appropriate.

you should probably re-read my post. your negativity contributed nothing to the conversation. your post would have been a great post without it. That was the point my gp post was trying to make.

This is probably why you got downvotes here. HN doesn't tolerate this negativity. Please keep it where it belongs, on Reddit or 4chan. thanks.

> is it really believable that tiny differences can cause such massive societal outcomes?

Yes it is believable, as evidenced by numerous people that work on, get funding for, and continue to do research on a large slew of topics that contain "tiny differences", such as <insert any sort of engineering>.

EDIT: (Hint: "tiny differences" is fundamental to the notion of calculus.)

To add to other excellent comments refuting this line of reasoning - brains are not rocks, they are very complex systems, and the more complex something gets the more delicate it is, i.e. even a tiny chance has a chance to alter behavior of the system in significant ways.

As an illustration, think of your computer. If you open it up and remove one RAM die, it will most likely run fine, albeit slower. Were you to introduce a "tiny difference", say, swap two pins on a die, you risk getting everything from machine not booting up, to crashing constantly, to running fine but spewing out nonsense and corrupting data every now and then. Were you to introduce a little bigger change - say, saw the die in half, you'll likely fry the whole machine.

It's so amusing how intelligent people can come to such ignorant conclusions. I have no doubt I do it myself from time to time.

You took it in the exact opposite direction of logical.

She's missing a huge portion of her brain and managed fairly well. Wouldn't that lead you to believe that it would take quite a bit of structural difference to cause noticeable societal outcomes?

Indeed. You'd think that just a normal life of experiencing variance between humans would dispel that notion, but people are irrationally wedded to their prejudices.

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