Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!csdev!ll1a!spl1!laidbak!att!rutgers!mcnc!ecsvax!rsp@pbhyf.PacBell.COM
From: rsp@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Steve Price)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Logic and Language
Message-ID: <8730@spl1.UUCP>
Date: 2 Nov 88 17:32:38 GMT
References: <5688@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> <5715@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> <5719@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Sender: news@spl1.UUCP
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Lines: 52
Approved: skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Moderator -- Trish Roberts)
Comments-to: comp-women-request@cs.purdue.edu
Submissions-to: comp-women@cs.purdue.edu


In article <5719@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> djk@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Doris J. Karlson) writes:
>I recently heard of a study (I heard this form a couple of sources,
>one of which was the SF Chronicle) where the brains of males and
>females were disected and compared.  They found that the bundle of
>fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain is consistantly
>and significantly thicker in females than in males.  Since the left
>brain supposedly controls the language and logical functions and the
>right side supposedly controls the emotions, they theorized that this
>greater connectivity enables women to combine the two realms of
>thought more than men.

I would really like to know the exact sources of this information so
I could read it for myself.  I am sceptical of such claims -- claims 
that purport to show gross mechanical underpinnings for subtle behavioral 
characteristics of people.

There is an implied assertion beneath the claim:  Human emotional and 
mental states are the direct result of given biomedical, chemical and 
physical, biological subsystems.  This is the mechanistic scientific
model derived from Newtonian classical physics and Cartesian dualism,
which posits a split between "mind" and "body".

Increasingly the mechanical model is being revised and challenged.
Those interested in the topic should read "The Turning Point: Science,
Society and the Rising Culture" by Fritjof Capra (A Bantam New Age Book).

I do have some questions about the claim that male and females have different
brain "wiring":

1) Why has this never been noticed before?  Has no one looked for male/female
   brain differences?

2) Are these differences so pronounced as to be predictive?  That is, can I 
   be confident that my wife's hemispherical connections are greater than 
   mine?  

3) What controls were used?  Are the cadavers sampled of same race, weight,
   age, height, social/economic class, nutritional background, etc?  In other 
   words, how sure can we be that any differences are GENDER differences?

4) If there are differences are they differences that make a difference?
   How can we assert that a given size of hemispherical connections in a 
   brain result in given emotional/logical patterns?

5) What has been done in this experiment to avoid reductionism -- attributing
   subtle and complex effects to simple causes? (We can at least pretend
   that science does not proceed like a presidental campaign.)

Steve Price
pacbell!pbody!rsp
(415)823-1951