News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Widespread sex differences in gene expression in the human brain (2013). Parent comment

Re:Widespread sex differences in gene expression in the huma... by demallien on Tuesday February 11, 2014 @03:09PM (#7220054)
Yes. I didn't read the whole paper, just the abstract, but I would not be surprised to learn (based on previous studies) that the difference between men and women is smaller than the variance amongst men, or the variance amongst women, which is the case for nearly all non-primary sexual differences between men and women.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Widespread sex differences in gene expression in the huma... by Gracana on Tuesday February 11, 2014 @03:30PM (#7220195)
Just to add another variable to consider, studies show* that men and women perform considerably better or worse at stereotypically masculine and feminine tasks depending on how their identity is primed.

Considering individual variance and societal influence, making assumptions about an individual's capabilities based solely on their sex seems foolish and even harmful.

* Sorry to provide this without citation, I believe the studies are cited in the first section of "Delusions of Gender" if anyone is interested in the topic.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Widespread sex differences in gene expression in the huma... by im3w1l on Tuesday February 11, 2014 @04:41PM (#7220660)
I (maybe mis)interpret your comment as saying that such a difference would be negligible. I disagree with that.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Widespread sex differences in gene expression in the huma... by Dylan16807 on Tuesday February 11, 2014 @06:31PM (#7221355)
Variance inside each group is huge, so no, saying the inter-group difference is smaller is not at all calling it negligible.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Widespread sex differences in gene expression in the huma... by demallien on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @02:06PM (#7226497)
Think of it more as a Venn diagram with the two circles mostly overlapping. The radius of each circle will be bigger than the distance between the centres of the two circles... That's what I'm trying to say.
[ Parent | on HN ]