Plum Crazy

but I'm not sure this study really explains why. My main issue with the study is that it focused on adults and, discovering differences in how adults process data, attributed the cause to genetics. The problem is, by the time you're adults, any effects of socialization would be in full swing, so how could you reasonably be sure that the differences were not socialized as opposed to genetic? Are we so damn sure that we don't unconsciously teach boys and girls different methods of problem-solving?

I'm not just talking about the differences in how much "white matter" vs. "grey matter" was used, since I don't think we really understand how "white matter" vs. "grey matter" plays into cognitive skills. We might think we do, but many things about "genetic differences" we thought we understood with "scientific certainty" have later been proved wrong or at least suspect. That does not necessarily make this one of them, but considering historical human propensities to fit science to preconceived notions, we should be more than a little careful about how our biases affect our interpretations of results.

A more telling study, IMO, is this one, which indicates no gender differences in cognition when children are tested. It also points to studies of adolescents where differences in nationality, as well as gender, affected mathematical scores. Interestingly, Japanese girls scored higher on math skills than American and European boys. Unless we're all prepared to concede that the Japanese are just genetically superior to Americans and Europeans, which I don't think we are, the results are likely attributable to socialization. Furthermore, in only half the countries where adolescents were tested did boys perform better than girls in math.

I realize that for some the key difference appears to be the greater range in variability. Thus, in the U.S., we find that boys tend to be more gathered around the tails of the normal distribution of math skills than girls. Yet again, I ask how we can be certain this outcome is genetic rather than socialized? Furthermore, even if it is genetic, how much of the gender gap in science does it really explain? Are male scientists only those who scored 4 or more standard deviations away from the mean? Because, if not, then the "variance from the mean" theory doesn't really hold a lot of water in terms of the overall gender gap.

People, in general, are much more complex than these studies of averages would lead you to believe. Speaking purely anecdotally and using a sample size that in no way could lead to any statistically significant result, although I can't read a map worth a damn, I have excellent math skills. I work in accounting and finance, which are math-related fields. Nonetheless, my standardized test results tended to vary based upon what I was studying at any given time. For my SATs, on which I scored a 1320, I scored higher on verbal than math. A lot of my high school curriculum was focused on english and social studies courses.

My GREs, though, told a different story. I scored a 680 on verbal, a 720 on math, and an 800 on analytics. A lot of my curriculum at New College was focused on economics, which required using high-level math and statistics. I did take a fair amount of history, but very little literature.

My GMATs, taken after I had been out of school for a long time, reflected scores reminiscent of my SATs. I scored a 700 overall, but my scores were skewed higher towards verbal than math. Although accounting and finance are math-related fields, they don't use the type of math tested for on the GMATs. Being out of practice on geometry and data-sufficiency and being one to read a lot, my scores reflected what I was doing at that time.

Again, it is anecdotal and an insufficient sample size from which to draw any statistically significant conclusions, but if my standardized test scores are clearly affected by courses of study, how can we be sure that socialization does not have a large role to play in the results of these broader studies?

Studies found via Ilyka Damen and Protein Wisdom.