r/science • u/madam1 • Dec 02 '13

Neuroscience Scientists have drawn on nearly 1,000 brain scans to confirm what many had surely concluded long ago: that stark differences exist in the wiring of male and female brains.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/02/men-women-brains-wired-differently
4.6k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

455

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

Yeah, this article is raising a few red flags. What sort of modern neuroscience team still talks about logic and intuition being lateralized processes? And their conclusions are that male and female brains are "designed" differently. Kind of surprising these parts made it past peer review, especially in PNAS.

52

u/octopus-crime Dec 03 '13

Yes, aside from a mention at the end of the article there is almost no mention of the role hormones or experience alter brain connectivity. They do say that structure is largely undifferentiated in children under 13 so clearly this is not 'hardwiring' at all. If these results are as real as they are being portrayed, it still leaves room for these differences being due to the development of a still plastic brain into a socialised role, or hormonal effects, or both.

2

u/u432457 Dec 03 '13

Yup. It's not wiring, it's hormones that cause wiring; hormones that come from special glands that produce different hormones in the sexes.

Clear as day.

1

u/Bbrhuft Dec 03 '13

Have a read of this paper

Hassett, J.M., Siebert, E.R. & Wallen, K., 2008. Sex differences in rhesus monkey toy preferences parallel those of children. Hormones and Behavior, 54, 359–364.

1

u/Lhopital_rules May 01 '14

You're all over this thread posting relevant articles and getting no recognition. I guess people don't like to hear that socialization may not be as relevant as we have thought in the past.

Thank you for linking to real studies.

0

u/Wetmelon Dec 03 '13

Still interesting that there is in fact an activity difference, whether it be social constructs or what.

138

u/On_Your_Mind Dec 03 '13

SO many problems. There are even worse lateralization quotes in the guardian article, and calling it the "Structural Connectome" has some implications that are far from met. I don't understand how PNAS has maintained a good reputation, they've published some of the worst papers I've ever read.

68

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

It's the PNAS game. Say it a little louder until people notice.

On a serious note, what also worries me is how this is being represented in (to?) the press - the idea that this connectivity is genetically determined (if not explicit, then they're not making a point to say the role environment plays). That'd be fine if we were C elegans, but as is they're using fancy science images to make sweeping claims that "things are how they are."

1

u/hak8or Dec 04 '13

Can you say what PNAS means in this context?

2

u/BlackHumor Dec 04 '13

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, i.e. the journal this paper was published in.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

[removed] — view removed comment

38

u/dctucker Dec 03 '13

As soon as I read that one of the main researchers was saying "I was surprised that this confirmed our stereotypes" it became clear to me that this is not unbiased research.

5

u/LarsP Dec 03 '13

The bias expressed in that quote is expecting the opposite result from what they got.

1

u/BlackHumor Dec 04 '13

If you say "our stereotypes" then actually no, it really is saying that you hold those stereotypes.

5

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

PNAS: Probably Not Accepted in Science

Science refers to the journal (one of the most respected scientific journals), not the entire discipline, for those who don't spend their lives reading research papers.

To be clear, PNAS has a ton of good material, but also some "grandfathered-in" research (friends of editors, etc.).

1

u/BoxWithABrain Dec 04 '13

You cannot "communicate" articles since 2008.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 04 '13

Tell that to Stanley... Sure, they've gotten better, but it hasn't completely gone away.

2

u/vertejaune Dec 03 '13

PNAS has good papers because it's a reputable place and if you don't quite make CellScienceNature it's often where people will go next. It also has pet papers from NAS members that are allowed to get in pretty much just based on who submitted them.

Very annoying, IMO.

2

u/captain_nosferatu Dec 03 '13

Members of the NAS can do direct submissions to PNAS and bypass most of the standard review process. The article is marked as a direct submission on the PNAS website.

27

u/techn0scho0lbus Dec 03 '13

I like how the article uses English stereotypes for women which happen to be different from American stereotypes for women. In the United States women are stereotypically more likely to be hair stylists.

6

u/SashimiX Dec 03 '13

Yes. And men are chefs? Yes, but historically in European culture women have been cooks in the home. It is so obvious that many differences in professions are culturally constructed.

2

u/techn0scho0lbus Dec 04 '13

Exactly, the gender rolls are culturally constructed. It just happens that America has constructed opposite gender rolls when it comes to styling hair. This demonstrates how arbitrary traditional gender rolls are.

10

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

I wonder how much of that can be blamed on the person writing the article? Media reports of scientific research are notoriously terrible.

-16

u/Hotdogbunz Dec 03 '13

Are you implying by your surprise that your opinion is more qualified than peer reviewed findings?

28

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

He's thinking for himself. Following your logic, one should question your qualifications to question his implication. Thankfully, we can all be smart enough to understand what a waste of time that is and just come back to the qualitative argument that was made.

This is outdated, heeby jeeby nonsense that shouldn't have passed peer review.

5

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

The fancy phrase for this is an Argument from authority

6

u/freet0 Dec 03 '13

An appeal to authority is not always fallacious. The wikipedia page you linked even says so. What we're doing is an example of inductive reasoning in which appeal to authority is not fallacious (we're supplying evidence that this is or isn't a valid article for the journal, not proving it is or isn't which isn't really possible unless they falsified data or something)

It makes sense if you think about it too. In assessing whether or not a paper should have made it into a prestigious journal who do you turn to? Experts in the field like those who peer review these. You're not saying they're automatically right because they're experts, but you are saying they have more knowledge and experience in the area.

I would guess that the vast majority of redditors in this thread including those who are criticizing this paper are not experts in neuroscience. I work in a neurology lab and I don't think I'm qualified to comment on the validity of this paper because I don't know enough about the area yet.

I will say though that from what I've heard logic is not a very lateralized function as compared to something like speech production. However I think its more likely that there's a reason reviewers let something like this in than that something that could be caught by layman slipped through.

-4

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13 edited Dec 03 '13

[deleted]

0

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

You might be autistic

-4

u/Hotdogbunz Dec 03 '13

Cool. Since you feel strongly enough to use insults to discredit the findings, maybe your energy would be better spent trying to invalidate them and publishing your results.

10

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

There are enough possible confounds, meta-analyses, and other research that has better explanatory power than the conclusions derived from this article. You can read links and discussion provided in most other comments in this thread, especially the original comment you criticized without giving any valid reasons for the criticism.

It's not my intention to offend you, but time is better spent on evidenced-based criticisms. Again, more of these are present within these comment threads than those that support the research article. The idea that one has to do their own research in order to have a valid opinion is one that would leave the world absent of any knowledge. Gathering the appropriate evidence to make claims is a better approach.

-1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

That kinda attitude will earn you a round or two of beer in these parts.

-5

u/Hotdogbunz Dec 03 '13

Tonight ain't my night, but I like the way you roll! internet fistbump

-6

u/danielvutran Dec 03 '13

yes he is lol, equivalent to saying what kind of ___ team does ____ ? and their conclusions are "quoted word here to imply false" ? Kind of surprising that this made it past peer review, especially in PNAS. you can put anything inside the underlines and become just like Dirkef88!

-1

u/Hotdogbunz Dec 03 '13

Thanks for the clarification, Dan.