Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!mcnc!ecsvax!jeff%aiva.edinburgh.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK
From: jeff%aiva.edinburgh.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Logic and Language
Message-ID: <5798@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Date: 9 Nov 88 17:57:08 GMT
Sender: skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu
Lines: 27
Approved: skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Moderator -- Trish Roberts)
Comments-to: comp-women-request@cs.purdue.edu
Submissions-to: comp-women@cs.purdue.edu


>> I recently heard of a study 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.

There is a long history of claims that real or illusory anatomical
differences between males and females account for behavioral differences.
This one might be construed as showing that females have the advantage,
but in the past to opposite has generally been the case: it was claimed
that such anatomical differences showed that men were inherently
superior.  More recently, (late 70's, say), there were claims that
differences in brain lateralization showed why women were better at
secretarial skills while men were better at factory work (or something
of that sort).  There may have been a few "surprises" -- some tasks
normally associatyed with men at which women ought to be better --
but most current gender roles were supposedly confirmed.

Within the last week or so, I read somewhere (probably in the Guardian)
that there were more men at the extremes of intelligence while women
were grouped closer to the average.  An obvious conclusion to draw is
that this explains why most great accomplishments are accomplished by
men.

On closer examination, such conclusions have generally been found
to be unjustified.  All such reports should be taken with numerous
grains of salt.