Men are better at Science

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by spuriousmonkey, Jan 18, 2005.

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  1. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

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    Interesting. I've always considered science odd because there doesn't seem to be clear male domination.
    There seems to be as many ladies in white coats as men. At least a lot of ladies.
    It's not like sports where men are so much better that women get their own little leagues out of pity which no one pays attention to.

    But then, I'm just thinking of the lower scientists, people fiddling around with test tubes analysing cells. I think thats a pretty even field gender wise.
    But yeah, all the outstanding scientists that made a real difference and will live forever in human history were male I suppose.
    Women are better than men at popping infants out of their vaginas in my opinion. I truely believe that to be the case.
    Also better at cleaning.... actually, men probably would be better at cleaning if they could stand to degrade themselves down to that demoralising level.
    They're better at cooking... hmmm, no, this is another case of being the only ones who will do it, men are actually better at cooking in the purest sense.
    Ummm women are better at getting fucked by dicks, and massaging men.
    Being looked at.... not-fighting ... ahhhummm.... did I say getting fucked by dicks?
    They're good at alot of things when you think about it.
    They're good at doing what men don't want to do.

    You know, I like to understand animals by understanding the demands in their ancestry.
    What have men needed to do in order to be sexually successfull? Alot. They've needed to stand out from the crowd with superior hunting abilities and fighting abilities, they've needed to be strong willed, determined, courageous, ingenius, creative....
    Men have been tested by women through the ages.
    Women have needed to put out. They've needed to look good. They've needed to be desirable in ways which really didn't assist them in becoming more competent or self reliant animals. They're like flowers, they've evolved to be appealing, to lure bees over to dip their fat abdomens into them.

    The sexual dimorphism in humans has really been one of function vs form, rather than big vs small, or hunter vs fighter.
    Women have evolved to look good, men have evolved to function well.

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  3. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    I know this will open me up for attack, but after Lou's post, I feel pretty safe saying this.
    Thanks, Lou.

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    People will always argue chicken or egg, but this is what I believe.
    There is ample evidence of matriarchal communities in our distant past.

    Women are better at the things they have evolved to be better at.
    They are better caregivers.
    As I said earlier, they are better leaders.
    Men hunted and gathered, women took care of the young and managed the social aspects of inter-familial relations.
    When the men were off doing the "masculine things" women stayed back, cooked, cleaned took care of the kids and handled diplomatic relations with the other women.

    The more aggressive and strong men were the better off they were.
    The better women were at being diplomatic, the better off they were.
    Men had to win the favor of women by many means (such as being string enough to bring food home) and had to make them feel secure.
    Eventually the males (testosterone and all) became too aggressive for their own good and subdued the women.
    They began to devalue the contributions the women made and realized that women could be controlled by use of their superior strength.
    Women lost the power they had (men realized that they didn't have to win their favor, when they could simply control and rape them, essentially) and men began to rule.
    Men, being the testosterone pumps that they needed to be to survive the wars and hunts, had no sense of diplomacy and when they usurped the power of the women warring became the new diplomacy.

    Now we are here.
    We are just beginning to realize that there is no place for war in a civilized society because it offers no security (especially with the advent of weapons systems in the last century), and men are still the ruling elite and still enslave women (only with women's consent now).
    After all these centuries of constant warfare forcing us backward in social evolution, we are almost at the beginning again where women started.
    The question is where we go next.

    Yeah, I know, I went off on a wide tangent again.
    I'll shut up now.
     
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  5. Thersites Registered Senior Member

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    The statement has been inaccurately expressed. If he had said: "Statistically it appears that more men than women show the qualities required for scientific research." no-one would object. However, to use the assumption that a randomly chosen man is going to be "better suited for science" than a randomly chosen woman as a means of awarding scholarships or appointing people to jobs would be absurd.
     
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  7. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    Now THAT is the pathetic, closed-minded, reactionary crap that keeps science from progressing.
    How could she possibly judge this person and what he had to say if she wouldn;t even listen?
    And why didn't she listen?
    What he was saying was not politically correct.
    That's the kind of crap that makes me sick and has NO PLACE in science!
     
  8. guthrie paradox generator Registered Senior Member

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    Unfortunately, it seems the speech was given extemporaneously, so there are no notes extant of what was said. Which is annoying.

    One raven:
    "Now THAT is the pathetic, closed-minded, reactionary crap that keeps science from progressing.
    How could she possibly judge this person and what he had to say if she wouldn;t even listen?
    And why didn't she listen?
    What he was saying was not politically correct.
    That's the kind of crap that makes me sick and has NO PLACE in science!"

    Except she wasnt walking out because it was politically incorrect, but because she disagreed graetly with it. Obviously she did listen to enough of it, but given it was a speech rather than a scientific paper, and that all he apparently said was it was supported by evidence, its not exactly a situation where you can do any science.

    Thersites- you are a voice of reason in an otherwise rather silly thread.

    Apendrapew:
    "Sports. Mainstream sports show that men are faster, stronger, tougher, more coordinated, have better perception of the four dimensions, and have better focus than their counterpart. That is why men do not play against women. If the best professional female basketball team played the worst professional male basketball team, the men would destroy the women. No contest. Also another thing to consider: testosterone makes men competitive. Even if men and women had the same strength, speed and all that, men would want to win more and thus be more inclined to win."

    And outside sports women are better at surviving, they burn less energy than men in staying alive, and are good at working for long hours, whereas men more easily burn out after a shorter time.


    Apendrapew:
    "Ask yourself this. How do you think the qualities that make men superior in competitive events translate in the real world?

    I'm not saying men are better than women. Not at all. I'm saying men are better than women at almost everything. Why can't you see this?"

    Because your statement is ludicrously shallow. You have listed only things that are valued by yourself. This leaves out all the things valued by women and other people that are not valued by yourself and at which the "average" woman is better than the "average" man. Would you include Bingo and knitting in this, given that they are "feminine" areas of expertise?

    Repoman and one_raven have pointed out the more nuanced and more reasonable way of looking at this, which is not the same as your short sighted claim that men are better than women at most things.

    Perhaps we could steer this thread onto what actual differences there are between the sexes, and I mean actual statistically important ones that have been checked out against cultural factors as well, since cultural factors were the number one reason why there were so few femal scientists a hundred years ago. Now that pressure has lessened somewhat, but its still there.

    For example, the whole spatial ability thing. As far as I understand it, many men are actually worse than a lot of women at it. Does that mean they arent men? Or merely that we have identified a selection of traits, plotted them on a line, and because their distribution in the population is slightly sex specific, (eg. nurturing) said "That one is masculine, and that one is feminine". Can you all not see the limitations in that approach, when you are trying to look at ensuring most people manage to do what they are best at and have a good life?
     
  9. apendrapew Oral defecator Registered Senior Member

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    You seem to think I don't understand that men and women have different strengths and weaknesses. Men are better at math, women are better at language, men are better at logic, women are better at perceiving emotions, men are left hemispherical, women are right hemispherical, blah blah. Trust me, I understand that. But it doesn't change anything.

    Strength, agility, toughness, spatial perception and coordination have no bearing in the outcome of a person's success? Those are characteristics valued only by apendrapew? Really...

    You brought up a good point. When I said that men are better than women at virtually everything, I meant everything that matters. Who gives a shit about Bingo? Really.
     
  10. Thersites Registered Senior Member

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    Who decides what matters?
    ...or american football?
     
  11. apendrapew Oral defecator Registered Senior Member

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    Society. Capitalism.

    Hundreds of millions.
     
  12. guthrie paradox generator Registered Senior Member

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    You dont seem to understand that saying "Men are better at maths" would get you killed by the numerous women I know who are probably better at maths than you are (university level and above). Simply saying that "men are better at maths ignores individual differences, and it is these that count in individual "success".


    Success at what?

    Matters to whom? Bingo matters to the people who play it and the people who sell it.
     
  13. apendrapew Oral defecator Registered Senior Member

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    We're talking about men and women. Not individuals. I know I would get killed by many women *you* know at math. Even if I were good at it.

    Social success, economic success, success at procreating. You know, the normal things.

    Yes. Not many people in the grand sheme of things.
     
  14. Bohemian Nightmare I am better than you Registered Senior Member

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  15. Thersites Registered Senior Member

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    If research showed that all males showed superior spacial intelligence to all females and that superior spacial intelligence was the prime requirement for scientific skills this would be useful. It doesn't.
    An interesting- but unscientific, i agree- example of male superior skills being socially induced is the Polgar sisters. Chess, like mathematics and science- was thought of as an area where male skills were inherently greatly superior. Their father trained the Polgars to be very good chess players; one, Judit, was among the best ten in the world at one time. Perhaps males are more likely to have the qualities that make people able to acquire the qualities needed to be good at science and/or the desire to work intensively at it. How far those qualities are acquired or inherited is another matter.
     
  16. Thersites Registered Senior Member

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    ...and they decide otherwise when it suits them.



    . Hardly. how many countries play american football? How many people live in those countries? How many people in those countries are interested? Globally, far more people are interested- and actively interested- in bingo.
     
  17. Bohemian Nightmare I am better than you Registered Senior Member

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    I don't think any of the research is meant to prove that all males have superior spatial intelligence to females, just that they generally do. And spatial intelligence is the basic form of thinking used in core sciences like physics and chemistry. Biologically, women on average will not be as good as men in fields like engineering and architecture. However, women have superior intuitive, reading and verbal skills, making them better at a whole host of things. It's just a matter of brain wiring.
     
  18. Jaybee from his cast Banned Banned

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    There is a very good reason that the vast majority of racecar drivers are male, and the vast majority of translators are female.

    One thing women are generally good at is talking, in particular about feelings, 'he said/she said', and lipstick tint.

    What women lack is the honest to goodness testosterone-fuelled urge to compete and BEAT that almost all men possess. That, along with their inherent disadvantage in any subject not related to gossip, fashion style etc are pretty much the only things holding them back from earning equality.

    Which moves me nicely on...women want equal treatment, but this would be foolish, because they are NOT equal. As someone here already said, if they want equality, I will look the other way the next time some female is being shoved in an alleyway by a man much smaller than myself. Hey, she could be a Karate expert, how would I know she isn't lulling her mark into a false sense of security?

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    You can guess I'm being a tad tongue-in-cheek about all this, but you get the gist; until you start injecting female foetuses with Testosterone and subtly stimulating the area of their brains responsible for spatial co-ordination, you will NEVER achieve parity in any field between men and women.

    One more thing...UK schoolboys WHIP UK schoolgirls at Physics and Chemistry. Biology pass marks for boys are also higher, but this is a tad more even...not surprising, girls have less trouble because of the less abstract subject matter.

    Jaybee.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2005
  19. Thersites Registered Senior Member

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    The question is not of "parity in the field" but of whether "men are better at science than women". An absolute and unqualified claim applying to all men and all women. How far science has been defined and determined by the fact that ist is a "male" area studied in allegedly male ways and how far women are "womanly" because they're encouraged to be are other matters, but the statement itself isn't true.
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2005
  20. Jaybee from his cast Banned Banned

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    What an Ivory Tower answer. You want a true statement?

    Most women in Scandinavia - a bastion of 'equal' rights if ever there was one - gravitate regardless to the talky-feely subjects and lines of work because their brains are structured to handle the same. They're not discouraged from becoming Physicists; they just can't handle, in the main, PHYSICS.

    The only 'ologies' that most women are good for are Sociology, Psychology, and Child Caring- OLOGY.

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    Jaybee.
     
  21. Thersites Registered Senior Member

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    Ivory Tower? You think "ivory tower" is a suitable description to apply to exactness and precision? Your "statement" isn't true actually:
    Accepting, purely for the sake of argument, that women in Scandinavia "gravitate to the talky-feely subjects" there are a great many possible explanations. Asserting, without evidence, that this is because "their brains are structured to handle the same" is not a logical assessment of the situation. Most people, men or women, "can't handle, in the main, PHYSICS" [or, for that matter, physics]. However, assuming that no-one can do it is a mistake.
    Which is more than most men are good for if, in fact, it is true.
     
  22. Huwy Secular Humanist Registered Senior Member

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    Most women are great at science! Take the science of astrology/horoscopes as the main example!! (joke)

    A lot of women probably don't find science as interesting because for them it provides intellectual stimulation rather than emotional stimulation.

    The women whoever that are in studying in my science (psychology/neuroscience)degree outnumber the men in the psych subjects and are intelligent and logical, so I have great respect for them.

    Women who dig science and computers rock and thank truth for them.
    They'll hold my attention far longer than some bimbo with a "magazine" with "horoscopes" in it.

    "Hey what's your star sign?"
    "As a man of science I am offended by your blasphemy."
     
  23. Thersites Registered Senior Member

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    Equally true of a lot of men, including- interestingly- men who believe [rather than think] unqualifiedly that men are better than women at science.

    Not if you were Isaac Newton, though, who didn't think believing in star signs was blasphemy.
     
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