No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy • Hacker News Board

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#91

Post by perl4ever » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 12:02 AM UTC

belorn wrote: post #57

TheOperator wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Tend to resemble that of the gender that they identify as I hear this claim a lot but I've never actually understood what "resembles" actually means. The brain structures that transgender people have don't match typical male or female brains but how do you determine which brain transgender brains resemble the most? What is the criteria? To me to determine which brain trans brains were more similar to you would have…

As I recall from the lecture by Robert Sapolsky, researcher can look at a preserved brain and determine with a fairly good accuracy if the brain came from a woman or a man. Experiments has then show that for transgender people the same is true for the gender the brains person identified as, including for people who has not undergone any hormone treatment. I would have to rewatch those lectures to see if he gave any d…

Is the size alone enough to do that with a "fairly good accuracy"? I can't help thinking of all the deep learning tests that inadvertently found unwanted shortcuts.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#92

Post by microcolonel » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 12:03 AM UTC

zwkrt wrote: post #76

sverona wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trans woman here. I agree that the neuroscience feels kind of flimsy. I would further argue that neuroscience shouldn't be used as an argument in favor of "accept trans women as being women" because, among other things, it can just as quickly be turned around by people who seek to pull the You're Not Really Trans Unless A Doctor Says So card on other trans folks. We're women because we say we are - and that's really…

> Amazingly, it turns out that in a vacuum, the activity of programming a computer isn't actually gendered. Also mirrored by the fact that other cultures do not experience this issue so acutely.

Other cultures as in what? Far as I can tell, the best predictor of female participation in technical work is poverty. In rich countries with free women, engineering tends to sit around 90% male, and nursing tends to sit around 90% female.

The freer and richer women are, the more likely they are to be found in stereotypical fields.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#93

Post by perl4ever » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 12:04 AM UTC

seph-reed wrote: post #40

TheOperator wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Tend to resemble that of the gender that they identify as I hear this claim a lot but I've never actually understood what "resembles" actually means. The brain structures that transgender people have don't match typical male or female brains but how do you determine which brain transgender brains resemble the most? What is the criteria? To me to determine which brain trans brains were more similar to you would have…

I'm the antithesis of an expert in this. If someone has better information, I'm sure you'll let me know. What I've picked up thus far as the consistent physical differences between male and female brains are: 1. Dominant synapse connection direction. Males typically have more front to back connections than side to side. This may explain why females typically are better at multi-tasking, and males are typically more f…

"Also, twins boys have a significantly greater likelihood of homosexuality (less testosterone to go around)."

Is the theory that male homosexual=less testosterone really more accepted than male homosexual=more testosterone? I feel like the latter has been argued extensively.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#94

Post by skizm » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 12:06 AM UTC

anon1m0us wrote: post #84

It's amazing that something so sexist could have been suggested without backlash. Imagine if studies indicated that low testosterone limited or in some way hindered another desirable human capability. People have been fired for it and reputations ruined. Suggesting men are emotionally stunted. Oh that's fine.

I mean, you should be able to claim either if you have evidence. We should be looking for truth, not virtue signalling by withholding findings because it might hurt some people's feelings.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#95

Post by CathedralBorrow » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 12:08 AM UTC

partyboat1586 wrote: post #48

somebodythere wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. I'm a little concerned that if this approach is used for diagnostics that it becomes another form of gatekeeping. (i.e. someone is transgender but denied treatment because their brain scans come up as cis.)

Conversely it could help someone who is in denial and experiencing disphoria to come to terms with themselves.

That would have to be an incredibly precise test though; if someone is in denial and you tell them "This test says there's only a 5% chance you're right", they will probably stay in denial.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#96

Post by notduncansmith » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 12:08 AM UTC

blackflame7000 wrote: post #82

I think a lot more work needs to be done in quantifying "cognitive empathy" before we can begin to do studies like this. Their methodology for quantification of something so complex is extremely primitive.

I agree. At least the authors are more modest about the findings than the headline:

> “[...] it’s important to note that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We found that there is no evidence to support this effect of testosterone, but that doesn’t rule out any possible effects. From what we know, though, it seems that if testosterone does have an influence, the effect is complex, not linear. Reality is typically not that simple.”

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#97

Post by perardi » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 12:11 AM UTC

Does anyone have access to the paper, and not just the abstract?

I'm curious to see what the measured testosterone levels in the subjects' blood ended up being. Did they push their testosterone levels to the high end of "natural", something like 700 ng/dL, or did they push them into supra-physiological bodybuilder levels?

(I'd love to see a study about the cognitive effects of harder anabolic steroids, but somehow I doubt you could get an institutional review board to sanction a double-blind experiment using trenbolone.)

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#98

Post by shard972 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 12:13 AM UTC

skj wrote: post #36

belorn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sample size of that study was 16, and the measured effect was a mean change from 81% correct answer on the test down to 77%. I would not read too much into that study, especially given the result of the new larger one.

That... is not publishable, in my opinion.

The people who have been using it for years pushing their agenda's don't share the same opinion.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#99

Post by coolreader18 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 12:15 AM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #89

sverona wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trans woman here. I agree that the neuroscience feels kind of flimsy. I would further argue that neuroscience shouldn't be used as an argument in favor of "accept trans women as being women" because, among other things, it can just as quickly be turned around by people who seek to pull the You're Not Really Trans Unless A Doctor Says So card on other trans folks. We're women because we say we are - and that's really…

"We're women because we say we are - and that's really all there is to say about it." It doesn't make any sense for someone else to tell you who you are. How could they know? Of course, if you were autistic or schizophrenic, that would be different... Anyway, I remember reading an evocative description by a trans man of how testosterone made him feel like a sex crazed monster. Nobody can know for sure if they have th…

> in which case it was evidence that administering male hormones may not produce the effect of natural ones.

The goal of trans hormone therapy is to reverse the effects of the hormones of the person's biological sex, so HRT dosage of e.g. testosterone is usually more than the average cis man would produce. It's possible that that much testosterone was too much for the person you mentioned to handle, especially for his body not being used to it, or that he just got prescribed for more than he should have taken. (He could've also gotten it from the black market, in which case it would almost definitely be an incorrect dosage.)

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#100

Post by ping_pong » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 12:15 AM UTC

skizm wrote: post #94

anon1m0us wrote: post #84

It's amazing that something so sexist could have been suggested without backlash. Imagine if studies indicated that low testosterone limited or in some way hindered another desirable human capability. People have been fired for it and reputations ruined. Suggesting men are emotionally stunted. Oh that's fine.

I mean, you should be able to claim either if you have evidence. We should be looking for truth, not virtue signalling by withholding findings because it might hurt some people's feelings.

James Damore referenced scientific papers in his post and his intent got twisted, he got vilified and subsequently fired by Google. He never said women were unfit for engineering or women weren't as smart as men, he said that Google should change the nature of engineering such that the career is more appealing to a higher percentage of females.

Do you really want to be the one that endures an unfair attack and have your intent twisted and ruin your career, just to try to prove a point? You would be a stronger person than me, I would just pass at this point and move on.