Why do men dominate the technical fields so much?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Can someone post pictures of hot chicks who are good at maths?

404

[Q Classic]

Boys can count to 21 with all of their digits. Women cannot.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
That is not a necessary assumption.

Then why would the extra encouragement result in a lower average intelligence of women in physics?

[Jon Miller]

Because people are so desperate to accept them. This is probably the case because 60% (or something, been a while since I read that statistic) of graduate advisors have sex with their students.

For straight physicists this isn't a good thing.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Then why would the extra encouragement result in a lower average intelligence of women in physics?

I honestly can't believe you're having trouble following this thought through.

[Kuciwalker]

Are you saying that people from outside that population (of people who can do physics) enter the field because of it?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Because people are so desperate to accept them. This is probably the case because 60% (or something, been a while since I read that statistic) of graduate advisors have sex with their students.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Are you saying that people from outside that population (of people who can do physics) enter the field because of it?

You're drawing a hard line where one doesn't exist.

[Arrian]

Re: Re: Why do men dominate the technical fields so much?

Originally posted by Drogue
There was a really good debate between two Harvard professors of Psychology (Pionker and Spelke) about this. It's quite long, but a very thorough and interesting discussion IMHO:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/deba...e05_index.html

Thanks for posting this.

-Arrian

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Boys can count to 21 with all of their digits. Women cannot.

[Jon Miller]

Yeah, that link was good. My conclusions (I read most of it, not all the part where they were replying):

1. Discrimination (mostly not on purpose) still exists.
2. That there probably are minor biological factors, but more experimentation should be done.

This is a (small) change from my previous position (in particular 1).

JM

[Arrian]

I thought the guy argued his position well, but ultimately both of them have to agree that it's a mixture of nature and nurture... and how much of each is questionable, given the data and bias.

They both agree that there are (cognitive) gender differences.
They disagree on whether these differences are the primary driver behind the high % of high-level "hard science" people who are men.

I noticed the concept KH brought up regarding there being more variability in males, such that there are more super-geniuses and more idiots, was discussed. I don't know the science behind that, but it's an interesting idea. It dovetails a bit with the darwin-award comment regarding risk-taking too (more risk-taking + more idiots = nearly every Darwin award recipient is a guy ).

-Arrian

[Jon Miller]

The guy was arguing that it was a mix, the girl (at least at start) was arguing it was all nurture. Since most everything else isn't all nuture (that was popular in the 70s, not so much now) I don't think this is either.

The Y gene isn't as well setup a gene as the X gene.

JM

[Arrian]

Yes, that's true. He starts out by saying it's a mix (though I do believe he argues that the primary driver is biological) and she does take a pretty extreme "nuture" position.

-Arrian

[Jon Miller]

Well, he is arguing that there is a biological factor, as such he can ignore the fact that there is a nuture factor since they both agree that there is one.

JM