Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

For Women to Think Mathematically, Colleges Should Think Creatively

chronicle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 33 posts

Re: For Women to Think Mathematically, Colleges Should Think Creatively

#21

Post by rmc »

Retric wrote: post #2

Significantly more Women graduate with a BS from US collages than Men. Is that yet another gender imbalance that needs to be addressed by schools? Or is that a societal issue and having collages focusing on increasing Male admission and graduation rates a waste of resources?

Significantly more Women graduate with a BS from US collages than Men. Is that yet another gender imbalance that needs to be addressed by schools?

Perhaps. But the majority of the gender imbalances negatively affect women. So let's look at that first.

Re: For Women to Think Mathematically, Colleges Should Think Creatively

#22

Post by [deleted] »

rmc wrote: post #21
Retric wrote: post #2

Significantly more Women graduate with a BS from US collages than Men. Is that yet another gender imbalance that needs to be addressed by schools? Or is that a societal issue and having collages focusing on increasing Male admission and graduation rates a waste of resources?

Significantly more Women graduate with a BS from US collages than Men. Is that yet another gender imbalance that needs to be addressed by schools? Perhaps. But the majority of the gender imbalances negatively affect women. So let's look at that first.

[deleted]

Re: For Women to Think Mathematically, Colleges Should Think Creatively

#23

Post by robertpateii »

realitygrill wrote: post #19
robertpateii wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Significantly" is an exaggeration. The numbers i found ( http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=News_Room&... ) said that women earn 57% of all BS degrees. I imagine it'd have to get closer to 75% before people actually started worrying about men's graduation rates.

People will only start worrying when the ratio is closer to 3 women graduating per male?

Let me rephrase. Using 75% implies a certain level of authority I don't have.

"I think it will take a bigger imbalance before people start worrying about a gender imbalance in favor of men."

Re: For Women to Think Mathematically, Colleges Should Think Creatively

#24

Post by robertpateii »

crusso wrote: post #18
robertpateii wrote: post #12

Do bias, discrimination, and biological differences not drive preferences? Kids internalize the bias of the culture around them at an early age. Why is this a mystery to the authors? Referenced Quote from Article: "While bias, discrimination, and biological differences may have some secondary influence, they found, women simply prefer careers that don't involve math over careers in engineering, physics, mathematics,…

> Kids internalize the bias of the culture around them at an early age. How are you determining the weight and timing of causative factors in order to make a nurture over nature proclamation like that?

I wasn't making any sort of proclamation like that.

I'm asking why the authors think that nature and nurture is not a sufficient explanation for the preferences of college age adults.

I brought up cultural bias specifically because it's something that people are used to trying to change, as opposed to genetics.

Re: For Women to Think Mathematically, Colleges Should Think Creatively

#25

Post by true_religion »

rmc wrote: post #20
meta-coder wrote: post #3

With all due respect, I think it is in the DNA. Looking at our evolution during the past million years, may be women were dominated by men. They might not have had enough freedom to follow their curiosities until several thousand years back. So it will take more time to have their brain evolve to levels that current men's brain is at. Have we done enough comparative studies of men's and women's brains?

it will take more time to have their brain evolve to levels that current men's brain is at Wait, did you actually compare women to cave men or half monkey? Maybe that's why blacks aren't represented well in highly technical or high paying jobs, cause they only came down from the trees recently? OK I'll bite: The problem with your 'evolution theory' is that men and women aren't separate species and interbreed, a lot.…

My understanding of the summary is thus:

The variance in aptitude in men is greater than the variance in women, even though the average point for women is higher than that of men.

To put this another way (vastly simplified), there are more male geniuses and more male idiots. However if you were to grab a random woman off the street, she is likely to have greater aptitude than a random man you grab off the street.

So in US highschools where grading is bounded and the same testing is forced on everyone, we see women routinely trouncing their male counter parts in GPA scores.

Then in college, where people have a choice more men go into difficult but unprofitable majors (e.g. Physics), additionally women have a bias against certain subjects (e.g. Computer Science) due to the low-status accorded to it, and thus choose other majors like Law or Medicine.

----

Bringing it back to Genetics, that means the 'dum dum gene' (gene which causes aptitude variance) is on the Y chromosome, thus women aren't affected by it at all.

Re: For Women to Think Mathematically, Colleges Should Think Creatively

#26

Post by mustafa0x »

rmc wrote: post #20
meta-coder wrote: post #3

With all due respect, I think it is in the DNA. Looking at our evolution during the past million years, may be women were dominated by men. They might not have had enough freedom to follow their curiosities until several thousand years back. So it will take more time to have their brain evolve to levels that current men's brain is at. Have we done enough comparative studies of men's and women's brains?

it will take more time to have their brain evolve to levels that current men's brain is at Wait, did you actually compare women to cave men or half monkey? Maybe that's why blacks aren't represented well in highly technical or high paying jobs, cause they only came down from the trees recently? OK I'll bite: The problem with your 'evolution theory' is that men and women aren't separate species and interbreed, a lot.…

> Half the DNA in each women comes from a man, and half the DNA for a man comes from a woman.

See: http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm

  Recent research using DNA analysis answered this question about two years ago.
  Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men.
Will look for sources.

Re: For Women to Think Mathematically, Colleges Should Think Creatively

#27

Post by Shorel »

hjuihjigt wrote: post #8
roguecoder wrote: post #5

The article mis-states their case: women earn 52% of chemistry undergrad degrees and 41% of straight-up math degrees. The problem is not math itself but the culture surrounding Engineering, Physics and Computer Science in particular.

As far as math is concerned, not even close to 40% of advances in the field are fostered by women. In fact it seems that even though more women get Bscs in math, actual cutting edge research in math continues to be made by 10% of women at best, roughly the same ratio as a generation ago. Still not a single Fields medalist is female (despite the tremendous backstage games to change that) and that is not because of bia…

Women are good and average and safe (genetically speaking).

Men are more distributed in the extremes: both extremely bad and extremely good.

Just think of this: Why the number of people in prison is mostly males instead of half male and half female? Should we try to 'correct' this too?

This is not a problem of society, but a consequence of different reproductive strategies.

Re: For Women to Think Mathematically, Colleges Should Think Creatively

#28

Post by Mz »

Shorel wrote: post #27
hjuihjigt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as math is concerned, not even close to 40% of advances in the field are fostered by women. In fact it seems that even though more women get Bscs in math, actual cutting edge research in math continues to be made by 10% of women at best, roughly the same ratio as a generation ago. Still not a single Fields medalist is female (despite the tremendous backstage games to change that) and that is not because of bia…

Women are good and average and safe (genetically speaking). Men are more distributed in the extremes: both extremely bad and extremely good. Just think of this: Why the number of people in prison is mostly males instead of half male and half female? Should we try to 'correct' this too? This is not a problem of society, but a consequence of different reproductive strategies.

I don't know that there is any reason to think these social outcomes are rooted in genes. It looks to me like it's rooted in something else. Care to share where/why you got the idea that it is genetically determined?

Thanks.

Re: For Women to Think Mathematically, Colleges Should Think Creatively

#29

Post by barry-cotter »

Mz wrote: post #28
Shorel wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women are good and average and safe (genetically speaking). Men are more distributed in the extremes: both extremely bad and extremely good. Just think of this: Why the number of people in prison is mostly males instead of half male and half female? Should we try to 'correct' this too? This is not a problem of society, but a consequence of different reproductive strategies.

I don't know that there is any reason to think these social outcomes are rooted in genes. It looks to me like it's rooted in something else. Care to share where/why you got the idea that it is genetically determined? Thanks.

What is the maximum number of children a man can have? What is the maximum number of children a woman can have? What does this imply about the best strategy for maximising number of descendants for men and for women?

Male mating strategies exhibit far higher skew than female ones. Men have higher variance than women in every trait I know of, from heighth to IQ scores to income. Men take more risks.

Here's[0] where you'll find the most convenient counterarguments or pointers to same. Here's[1] the best book I've encountered on the general topic. The introductory chapter is excellent.

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_evolutionary_psych... [1]http://books.google.com.hk/books/about/The_Handbook_of_Evolu...

Re: For Women to Think Mathematically, Colleges Should Think Creatively

#30

Post by rmc »

true_religion wrote: post #25
rmc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it will take more time to have their brain evolve to levels that current men's brain is at Wait, did you actually compare women to cave men or half monkey? Maybe that's why blacks aren't represented well in highly technical or high paying jobs, cause they only came down from the trees recently? OK I'll bite: The problem with your 'evolution theory' is that men and women aren't separate species and interbreed, a lot.…

My understanding of the summary is thus: The variance in aptitude in men is greater than the variance in women, even though the average point for women is higher than that of men. To put this another way (vastly simplified), there are more male geniuses and more male idiots. However if you were to grab a random woman off the street, she is likely to have greater aptitude than a random man you grab off the street. So…

The variance in aptitude in men is greater than the variance in women

Yes there are several diseases that negatively affect intelligence that are much much more common in males (e.g. autism). However genetics (and evolution) is not fair. It's not a trade off, where if one subset of humanity (men) are more likely to have autism doesn't mean that Genetics will give that subset more genius genes "to make up". Evolution is blind, the universe is apathetic.

This "genetic disadvange in one area ergo must be genetic advantage in another" idea is only used to explain why people in a privileged position are "entitled" to their privileged position, and a deflection away from the main issue of privilege.

If the universe worked that way, then why are the IQ tests for (in the USA) lower on average for african americans? What genetic advantage do they get in return? If Asians are good at maths, what genetic disadvantages do they get to to counter act it? If Jews are better with money, what genetic disadvantages do they get in exchange? If this theory was true, it could have answers for these. If gay people are geneticly more inclined to mental health issues than straight people, what genetic advantages do they get in return?

Post reply on HN