From: Peter C. McCluskey (pcm@rahul.net)
Date: Sun Jan 12 1997 - 21:44:37 MST
david@kumo.com (David McFadzean) writes:
>Causal Factors. There are both social and biological reasons for these
>differences. At the social level there are both subtle and overt
>differences between the experiences, expectations, and gender roles of
>females and males. Relevant environmental differences appear soon after
>birth. They range from the gender-differentiated toys that children
>So if de Garis defines genius narrowly to mathematical or scientific
>genius (which I would personally disagree with), then this report seems
>to support his claim to some extent. However I suspect that other factors
>such as social barriers to entry in scientific fields, and possible
>genetic predispositions away from status-seeking endeavors like
>academic ladder climbing have at least as much to do with the phenomenon.
It's possible to find some deeper evolutionary reasons.
Irwin Silverman and Marion Eals, in a paper in _The Adapted Mind_ (ed.
by Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby), assumed that the differences in cognitive
abilities between the sexes were a result of specializations for hunting
in men and foraging in women. They were able to use this hypothesis to
construct a test of cognitive spatial abilities on which women scored
significantly higher than men (it emphasized memorizing the locations
of a large number of different objects).
So it appears that we can create a definition of genius for which a
majority of geniuses are female. But it isn't obvious that what such a
definition captures is as valuable as what the standard definition
captures.
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter McCluskey | | "Don't blame me. I voted pcm@rahul.net | http://www.rahul.net/pcm | for Kodos." - Homer Simpson pcm@quote.com | http://www.quote.com |
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