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Men make better scientists and engineers?

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Kimi
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Men make better scientists and engineers?

Post by Kimi » Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:21 pm

I must admit I do hate to admit but it does seem that it's proven not only in some researches and in our daily lives that heaps of men are better in terms of to develop things scientifically.
But then on the contrary I suppose that would or should I say should make women better in arts, languages and the like. However, then we would find heaps of the best artists such as chefs, hairdressers etc. to be men. Please do note I said heaps, not all.
So is it more cause of this planted idea in our heads that lead us to believe ourselves, whether we like it or not that men are supposed to be better in these things? Thus lead the society around us and ourselves as well to lead this belief and to behave that makes it happen which actually then just created the vicious circle...
Care to share your opinion?

The below can be a reference I suppose:
Men and women do think differently, at least where the anatomy of the brain is concerned, according to a new study.

The brain is made primarily of two different types of tissue, called gray matter and white matter. This new research reveals that men think more with their gray matter, and women think more with white. Researchers stressed that just because the two sexes think differently, this does not affect intellectual performance.

Psychology professor Richard Haier of the University of California, Irvine led the research along with colleagues from the University of New Mexico. Their findings show that in general, men have nearly 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence compared with women, whereas women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence compared to men.

"These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior," said Haier, adding that, "by pinpointing these gender-based intelligence areas, the study has the potential to aid research on dementia and other cognitive-impairment diseases in the brain."

The results are detailed in the online version of the journal NeuroImage.

In human brains, gray matter represents information processing centers, whereas white matter works to network these processing centers.

The results from this study may help explain why men and women excel at different types of tasks, said co-author and neuropsychologist Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico. For example, men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing, such as mathematics, Jung said, while women are better at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions of the brain, which aids language skills.

Scientists find it very interesting that while men and women use two very different activity centers and neurological pathways, men and women perform equally well on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as intelligence tests.

This research also gives insight to why different types of head injuries are more disastrous to one sex or the other. For example, in women 84 percent of gray matter regions and 86 percent of white matter regions involved in intellectual performance were located in the frontal lobes, whereas the percentages of these regions in a man’s frontal lobes are 45 percent and zero, respectively. This matches up well with clinical data that shows frontal lobe damage in women to be much more destructive than the same type of damage in men.

Both Haier and Jung hope that this research will someday help doctors diagnose brain disorders in men and women earlier, as well as provide help designing more effective and precise treatments for brain damage.

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Strong Eagle
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Post by Strong Eagle » Wed, 31 Aug 2005 7:01 am

Yes, there are biological differences and these define sex roles. Women lactate and give birth, men tend to be physically larger and stronger. And if the studies are to be believed, men and women think differently and have different sets of emotional tools.

What really matters is gender roles. For a large part of history our society has patriarchal and women simply have not had the opportunity to excel at things that were reserved for men (why we've had partiarchy for so long is another topic).

But, because of technological evolution, opportunities have opened up for women and patriarchy is no longer necessary. Physical power is no longer a prerequisite for many jobs. Birth control has freed women from their bodies. In the US, the tables tipped about 2 years ago... the majority of people entering college are women, and they have a significantly higher graduation rate than men.

Yes, there are less engineers and scientists that are women, and maybe this is because of sex roles but I doubt it. All men are not one way, all women are not another. There are overlaps and you will find men with brain structures that resemble women and vice versa. Being a succeddful scientist or engineer is more than numbers these days and it would be self limiting to not attack a field because of sex roles while ignoring the ever changing gender roles.

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Post by Wind In My Hair » Wed, 31 Aug 2005 9:32 am

Agree with SE that since men and women are so obviously different in physical attributes, it stands to reason that there are differences in mental abilities too, and of course this is a broad generalisation, there are overlaps and anomalies etc. This does not make any gender superior, we are just different, and we should celebrate and capitalise on those differences instead of spending time arguing that they don't exist.

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Post by banana » Wed, 31 Aug 2005 2:57 pm

Two words: Marie Curie
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Bafana
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Post by Bafana » Wed, 31 Aug 2005 3:00 pm

Men are just better lah :cool:

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Post by Guest » Wed, 31 Aug 2005 3:28 pm

banana wrote:Two words: Marie Curie
Only two words? Why not post a few hundred more such names? We'll learn a lot about some of the greatest women in history that way? Why don't you try that buddy?

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Baron Greenback
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Post by Baron Greenback » Wed, 31 Aug 2005 3:34 pm

what on earth is the above poster (& the one above that) dribbling about? In no way do your comments add to the discussion.

Yes men & women are different, you can even trace it back to babies (child of our time doc on arts central is proving to be fascinating). At school, boys tend to lean towards science subjects. However there are no hard & fast rules as banana man pointed out Curie was an incredble female scientist.

Billy Connely had a good joke about the difference between men & women. Women can hold in a fart, men cannot. Men can keep secrets, women cannot. So if you want a woman to keep a secret you have to whisper it up her @rse.
"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
Hemingway

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banana
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Post by banana » Wed, 31 Aug 2005 9:09 pm

Anonymous wrote: Only two words? Why not post a few hundred more such names? We'll learn a lot about some of the greatest women in history that way? Why don't you try that buddy?
Just for you, 4 letters: STFU. Dumbass.

Back on topic, nurture plays as large, if not larger, as nature. Socially, we have been accustomed to encouraging males into more mechanistic vocations and females into holistics ones. Naturally, the process of evolution rewires our genetic makeup to further accentuate this dichotomy. The beauty of consciousness is that awareness of this allows us to program ourselves otherwise. How beneficial this is is another question altogether.

As WIMH said, perhaps capitalising on and celebrating our differences is more (re?)productive than debating them. Which begs the question, what are you doing out of the kitchen? :P
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Post by Guest » Wed, 31 Aug 2005 10:27 pm

Bafana wrote:Men are just better lah :cool:
Utter nonsense :shock:

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Post by earthfriendly » Mon, 05 Sep 2005 2:32 pm

It is amazing that men tend to excel in many fields. Look at the number of men who rises to the top in profession like hairdresser, makeup artist, chefs.

Though I do the almost all the cooking in the home but my husband, a self-confess non-cook. makes better pancakes and thanksgiving dinner than me. It is baffling to me since he hardly gets to practice his culinary skill.

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