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Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

medscape.com

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Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#51

Post by tnzn »

exelius wrote: post #41
daenz wrote: post #2

A quick look at Simon Baron Cohen's tweet[1] (linked from the article) shows that this topic seems extremely divisive and inflammatory to people. Is this retraction and resulting modified study seen as an important victory for people promoting that there are no differences between the "male" and "female" brains? [1] https://twitter.com/sbaroncohen/status/832490232721371136

I wouldn’t say there are no differences between the “male” and “female” brain. I do know my brain wasn’t very happy on the hormones I was born producing — and there’s promising research about how gender identity actually has a basis in physical differences in brain structure [1] which are hypothesized to form based on exposure to various hormone levels during gestation (and which have already been shown to impact gen…

There is still flaw in the reasoning though. Transitionning implies much more than just a change in hormone balance as you are aware. Plus emotionnal responses to subjective feelings and physiological cues are not free from social influence either.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#52

Post by jonnycomputer »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #49

I personally know the author of this paper who conducted these analyses. He is my office mate. He discovered his own error that then led to this retraction. The error involved under-documented statistical code which expected the coding of male and female (0,1) to be reversed when training a classifier on each group, is my understanding. He kept the coding of sex the same across both training regimes. This created err…

No doubt doing so came at a real personal cost. He is to be lauded for it.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#53

Post by naasking »

exelius wrote: post #41
daenz wrote: post #2

A quick look at Simon Baron Cohen's tweet[1] (linked from the article) shows that this topic seems extremely divisive and inflammatory to people. Is this retraction and resulting modified study seen as an important victory for people promoting that there are no differences between the "male" and "female" brains? [1] https://twitter.com/sbaroncohen/status/832490232721371136

I wouldn’t say there are no differences between the “male” and “female” brain. I do know my brain wasn’t very happy on the hormones I was born producing — and there’s promising research about how gender identity actually has a basis in physical differences in brain structure [1] which are hypothesized to form based on exposure to various hormone levels during gestation (and which have already been shown to impact gen…

> testosterone tends to cause elevated anger / aggression

And sexual interest. Hormones actually have many effects, but those are the most immediate/obvious ones.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#54

Post by opwieurposiu »

exelius wrote: post #41
daenz wrote: post #2

A quick look at Simon Baron Cohen's tweet[1] (linked from the article) shows that this topic seems extremely divisive and inflammatory to people. Is this retraction and resulting modified study seen as an important victory for people promoting that there are no differences between the "male" and "female" brains? [1] https://twitter.com/sbaroncohen/status/832490232721371136

I wouldn’t say there are no differences between the “male” and “female” brain. I do know my brain wasn’t very happy on the hormones I was born producing — and there’s promising research about how gender identity actually has a basis in physical differences in brain structure [1] which are hypothesized to form based on exposure to various hormone levels during gestation (and which have already been shown to impact gen…

This "too much overlap to draw a distinction" idea seems silly. The border between orange and yellow has overlap and can not be precisely defined, and yet we still can recognize the difference between orange and yellow. Many statistical techniques have been invented to prevent outliers from biasing correlations.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#55

Post by SubiculumCode »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #52
SubiculumCode wrote: post #49

I personally know the author of this paper who conducted these analyses. He is my office mate. He discovered his own error that then led to this retraction. The error involved under-documented statistical code which expected the coding of male and female (0,1) to be reversed when training a classifier on each group, is my understanding. He kept the coding of sex the same across both training regimes. This created err…

No doubt doing so came at a real personal cost. He is to be lauded for it.

It did indeed, and I do laud him.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#56

Post by kerbalspacepro »

cmpolis wrote: post #46
kerbalspacepro wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would a good resource for good scripting practices?

I think general programming best practices would apply, particularly code review and planning your code and breaking it up into discrete parts. I have seen many scripts for research that are 5k LOC of spaghetti that become impossible to read or adjust.

We're talking about scientists, not computer scientists. As surely as business managers and industrial engineers don't need to know the best programming practices to be good SQL monkeys, surely scientists- neuroscientists at that- don't need to know general programming practices.

There's got to be a specific set!

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#57

Post by SubiculumCode »

daenz wrote: post #2

A quick look at Simon Baron Cohen's tweet[1] (linked from the article) shows that this topic seems extremely divisive and inflammatory to people. Is this retraction and resulting modified study seen as an important victory for people promoting that there are no differences between the "male" and "female" brains? [1] https://twitter.com/sbaroncohen/status/832490232721371136

Absolutely not. In deed, it has nothing to do with Simon Cohen. See my comment below. I am office-mates with the scientist that discovered his own error.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#58

Post by exelius »

opwieurposiu wrote: post #54
exelius wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t say there are no differences between the “male” and “female” brain. I do know my brain wasn’t very happy on the hormones I was born producing — and there’s promising research about how gender identity actually has a basis in physical differences in brain structure [1] which are hypothesized to form based on exposure to various hormone levels during gestation (and which have already been shown to impact gen…

This "too much overlap to draw a distinction" idea seems silly. The border between orange and yellow has overlap and can not be precisely defined, and yet we still can recognize the difference between orange and yellow. Many statistical techniques have been invented to prevent outliers from biasing correlations.

It’s uncontroversial to say that on average, men are taller than women.

But other characteristics such as nutrition and genetics matter more: the average German woman (5’5”) is significantly taller than the average Peruvian man (5’1”).

My point here is that the difference between men and women on most metrics tends to be more heavily influenced by other external factors.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#59

Post by SubiculumCode »

sannee wrote: post #15
FakeComments wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting the actual mistake is more useful, as that sentence doesn’t actually clarify the question — it’s what they’d say if it were for political reasons, as well. > In the letter, Ecker wrote that she and her coauthors had "identified a problem with the script that was used for the prediction of biological sex in male and female individuals with ASD based on their respective neuroanatomy in our original sample." > T…

> identified a problem with the script Shitty academia code strikes again. It's sort of unfortunate that most of academic fields have turned to domain-specific software engineering, which graduates are woefully unprepared to do properly.

In this case it was not a coding error so much as the undocumented code. The code expected that the binary coding of sex would switch when training classifiers on males and females separately. My colleague left it the same, and so results were switched from what they should be.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#60

Post by boomboomsubban »

exelius wrote: post #41
daenz wrote: post #2

A quick look at Simon Baron Cohen's tweet[1] (linked from the article) shows that this topic seems extremely divisive and inflammatory to people. Is this retraction and resulting modified study seen as an important victory for people promoting that there are no differences between the "male" and "female" brains? [1] https://twitter.com/sbaroncohen/status/832490232721371136

I wouldn’t say there are no differences between the “male” and “female” brain. I do know my brain wasn’t very happy on the hormones I was born producing — and there’s promising research about how gender identity actually has a basis in physical differences in brain structure [1] which are hypothesized to form based on exposure to various hormone levels during gestation (and which have already been shown to impact gen…

>I wouldn’t say there are no differences between the “male” and “female” brain. I do know my brain wasn’t very happy on the hormones I was born producing — and there’s promising research about how gender identity actually has a basis in physical differences in brain structure

You could view this as "no difference" though, as your gender identity would not rely on a male or female phenotype.

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