“This evidence that human brains cannot be categorised into two distinct classes is new, convincing, and somehow radical,” says Anelis Kaiser at the University of Bern, Switzerland.Adjust your bullshit, accordingly.
The idea that people have either a “female” or “male” brain is an old one, says Daphna Joel at Tel Aviv University in Israel. “The theory goes that once a fetus develops testicles, they secrete testosterone which masculinises the brain,” she says. “If that were true, there would be two types of brain.”
December 1, 2015
"But there is no such thing as a female or male brain, according to the first search for sex differences across the entire human brain."
"It reveals that most people have a mix of male and female brain features. And it also supports the idea that gender is non-binary, and that gender classifications in many situations are meaningless."
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The spelling "masculinises" seems girly to me.
Girls and boys brains are the same. But once the women start doing their procreation dance, all bets are off. The women are then at the heart of human life.
...all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding...
There are no differences in what you rubes still designate as "men and women" other than the random assignment of penises and vaginas which is determined by a cosmic coin flip. Everybody knows that.
LOL. This is what "science" has become. In order to assert that your moral system is science based, the science must bend to accommodate whatever your particular moral precepts may be. This is as old as Galileo.
“If that were true, there would be two types of brain.”
To test the theory, Joel and her colleagues looked for differences in brain scans taken from 1400 people aged between 13 and 85. The team looked for variations in the size of brain regions as well as the connections between them. In total, the group identified 29 brain regions that generally seem to be different sizes in self-identified males and females. These include the hippocampus, which is involved in memory, and the inferior frontal gyrus, which is thought to play a role in risk aversion.
When the group looked at each individual brain scan, however, they found that very few people had all of the brain features they might be expected to have, based on their sex.
What do these people think? That biological processes are perfect and that brains are stamped out like so many microchips?
I don't doubt that gender is not 100% binary. But this is like the comments we see from time to time that "race doesn't exist." You load enough qualifications into your premises, then sure, you can assert just about anything you want. Taxonomy is notoriously political.
The best I think you can draw from this is support that people exist who do not fit into the broader classifications that apply to the vast vast majority of us.
Funny how the bodies differ so much at the other end of the torso. Maybe they can fix that, now, in light of these new findings.
Am I being an ass or is an acceptable response something like, "Duh. Of course there is no male or female brain. It's the hormones, stupid." Men and women both have "crossover" hormones - see testosterone and estrogen, for example. They simply exist in different ratios and mixes. Perhaps it's their influence on the brain that creates sterotypical male or female behaviors? Of course, environment has to be thrown into the mix, but yeah...
Although the team only looked at brain structure, and not function, their findings suggest that we all lie along a continuum of what are traditionally viewed as male and female characteristics.
I'm more skeptical of the increasingly popular assertion that there's no such thing as a male penis.
Another and dangerous half-truth/half-lie.
A sense of humor is a social construction.
“Across all kinds of spatial skills, we find very, very few that are sensitive to sex,” says Hausmann. “We have also identified spatial problems where women outperform men – the black-and-white idea of a male or female brain is clearly too simple.”
So "mumble mumble" areas were men might possibly be better probably due to random chance, I guess, but we have clear indications that there are areas where women outperform men!
Althouse's rule applies again.
No, I think I'll leave my bullshit right where it is. Little girls and little boys are two entirely different animals and it isn't because of society. All this study does is show we don't yet have the knowledge or equipment to see the difference in the brain chemistry. It does not mean they aren't there.
A little humility would do these people some good.
"But there is no such thing as a female or male brain..."
Then:
"It reveals that most people have a mix of male and female brain features.."
I'm having trouble reconciling these two statements.
If a brain had entirely male "features" wouldn't that seem to make that brain "male"?
Angels on the head of the pin: I count fourteen.
I am Laslo.
I am Laslo.
"Although the team only looked at brain structure, and not function.."
Adjusted bullshit indeed.
Bu I have a sudden urge to buy shoes..
"Although the team only looked at brain structure, and not function, their findings suggest that we all lie along a continuum of what are traditionally viewed as male and female characteristics."
There are other studies that show that brain function is different between males and females. This study is the same as saying, "There are differences between male hands and female hands, but very few people have completely male or female hands, most of us lie on a spectrum."
Science(!).
When it fits it is Gospel.
When it doesn't, it is crap.
Dunno about this one. But I'm always leery of reporting on science, reporters being dunces by and large. I'm also leery of results that fit so very nicely into political memes.
Did they consider the influence of Mr. Johnson's brain?
Well!
This is going to have profound implications for my brains in jars collection.
What else might it meaningfully apply to?
My wife, a pediatrician of over 20 years, laughed when I told her about this. She said it has been common knowledge in developmental medicine for decades that there is no binary distinction between male and female brains, and that the testosterone masculinization of fetal brains results in a wide spectrum of possibilities.
So this revolutionary new idea has that going for it, which is nice.
I should note, "...very few people had all of the brain..." features Identified as male or female. All? All!
OK then, the bar is pretty low here. Analogy time:
- SOME women have larger muscles than some men.
- Some women have distinct hair on their upper lip.
- Some women experience heart attacks at a relative early age.
No men's bodies and women's bodies!
Having read the article I find that the scientist doing the research has found that some men are more masculine than others. A fact that anyone who has seen both Robert Mitchum and Pauley Shore can deduce.
Carol said...
Funny how the bodies differ so much at the other end of the torso. Maybe they can fix that, now, in light of these new findings.
As the British feminists say*, If it ain't bloke, don't fix it.
*actually I have no idea if British feminists say this. If they don't, they should.
That article sounds like prime, grade A bullshit right there.
If there is no male and female brains, there can't be male and female minds, can there? The idea that there is some generic, sexless mind that gender overlays is a variation of the old Manichaean heresy. Our spirits are pure, but have been corrupted by being placed inside corrupt, sexual bodies.
Ignore reality. "Science" will tell you the real truth.
And people wonder why less educated folks are less and less enamored with science. It takes a lot of schooling for people to become stupid enough to buy this bullshit.
So if 29 brain regions were M/F and penis/vagina = M/F and these features were handed out by random chance, the odds that any individual would pull a figurative straight flush on this is 1 in 1,073,741,824, that means that there would be about 7 of these freaks walking the planet. The odds that any of them ended up in the study of 1400 people is vanishingly small, and the odds that more than one ended up in the study is not worth thinking about.
I wonder if these people know they are in a cult?
We are mammals and as far as I know, among all mammals males and females act differently.
Even if the brains were the same I wouldn't trust a woman with a cock.
I mean that in both ways "I wouldn't trust a woman with a cock" can be parsed.
Meaning One: the woman in question has a cock. I don't trust her.
Meaning Two: I wouldn't trust a woman with the responsibilities of cock ownership.
I am layers.
I am Laslo.
A half-truth is a truth that's been modified to climb over obstacles.
They had a preconceived bias to reach just such a conclusion. So much junk science. Like climate "change".
The study seems to say the opposite of what the article is trying to claim. They did find differences in the statistics of male and female brains, apparently a lot of differences. Only, things are a mix, and there's a lot of overlap.
Yet a PET scan readily shows a difference between male and female brains processing information, differences that allow a doctor to quickly guess the gender of the patient being observed.
Laslo Spatula: "But there is no such thing as a female or male brain..."
Then:
"It reveals that most people have a mix of male and female brain features.."
I'm having trouble reconciling these two statements"
If you are having trouble reconciling these two statements then perhaps a consciousness raising session/re-education session is called for in your case.
Which is where the left inevitably heads in all cases everywhere leftism reigns supreme.
"And it also supports the idea that gender is non-binary, and that gender classifications in many situations are meaningless."
This is the political purpose of the study. It will now be referenced ad nauseum by the gender-benders to justify their crackpot theories about transgenderism and that you get to pick one based on your feelings.
So far, the main adjustment is recognition of the lack of need to make any adjustment.
Noted.
Except this isn't true. We don't see much in the way of structural differences, although there are some, but there are very strong differences in the way "male" brains process information and sensory input versus the way "female" brains do.
Just one example:
http://www.livescience.com/22894-men-and-women-see-things-differently.html
There are also clear differences in the way that men and women are hardwired to process certain types of data:
http://web.missouri.edu/~gearyd/Geary%26DeSoto.pdf
By no means has that been debunked. Interestingly, most of these are primitive functions and quite a few seem to be linked to differences in the hypothalamus.
Adjust what? My belief that male and female brains are structurally different? The way male and female sex organs are?
Talk about a strawman.
So far, the main adjustment is recognition of the lack of need to make any adjustment.
Simply put, the article is a political restatement, with glaring omissions, of things that have been known as long as anybody has cared to think about it.
“If that were true, there would be two types of brain." Does that make any sense? Who thinks that? It is a stupid statement.
"the black-and-white idea of a male or female brain is clearly too simple.”"
So it is about knocking down straw men then. "We know there are these other people who commit crimethink about sexual differences and we need to make absolutely clear to these others, these simpletons, these people we have made up in our heads, that they are wrong!"
The vast majority of male brains are predominately, overwhelmingly male, Please note that "overwhelmingly" does not mean 100%, nor does "vast majority." Female brains are similar. It keeps us creating new generations.
I am certain that these people, in the back of their minds, believe in a fair and caring God who shares their values and would never be so crass as to create men and women differently and with different strengths. Being an atheist is hard. Evolution is about unfairness at its very foundations.
In total, the group identified 29 brain regions that generally seem to be different sizes in self-identified males and females.
"Generally seem" = "are", and "self-identified" = useless Newspeak.
gender isn’t binary
Sex is binary, however, barring rare genetic errors.
Apparently they're misusing the word "gender" to mean "secondary sexual characteristics", and by the same logic, "there’s no such thing as a ‘male’ or ‘female’ body" because some women are taller/hairier/whatever than some men, etc., and therefore, again, "gender isn’t binary", meaning there's an overlapping distribution of secondary sex characteristics. Which everyone already knew.
As an endocrinologist I call bullshit.
rhhardin said...
A half-truth is a truth that's been modified to climb over obstacles.
! A remote control would be good, too.
Ann Althouse: "So far, the main adjustment is recognition of the lack of need to make any adjustment."
Actually, there is some hesitation for many to simply accept, based on this study alone, that the "science" on this question is "settled".
For those less skeptical, perhaps less demanding of more rigorous studies and for whom the results of this "study" align with other preconceived notions, that might be difficult to accept.
Actually, the traditional theory is human with an orientation dependent on a binary sex. Stated in cultural terms, men and women are equal and complementary. It's not a paradox. There is no dark matter to compensate for lack of evidence or speculation outside of the scientific domain. There is, however, an implicit acknowledgement that we are incapable of distinguishing between origin and expression. Social "scientists" have yet to discover the a-tom.
Imagine building an aircraft with this quality of analysis and expecting people to get on it and fly. The good news would be that there would be little danger of crashing because the engines would never start in the first place.
If you are a materialist, what we call mind is a series of states of the neurons that make up the brain. Each state is determined by the previous state and external input. There is no 'male' or 'female', anymore than billiard balls banging into each other and rebounding is male or female. Sheesh.
Instead of driving out human beings with male seeming brains that wear tacky shirts when talking about science type stuff on TV, can we start running these folks out of town on a rail?
And when I say these folks, I mean the human beings with female seeming brains, even though we know no such thing exists now, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Blogger Darrell said...
Yet a PET scan readily shows a difference between male and female brains processing information, differences that allow a doctor to quickly guess the gender of the patient being observed.
---
Suggesting the continued validity of that longstanding neurology maxim "Never judge a book by its cover"
The idea that people have either a “female” or “male” brain is an old one, says Daphna Joel at Tel Aviv University in Israel. “The theory goes that once a fetus develops testicles, they secrete testosterone which masculinises the brain,” she says. “If that were true, there would be two types of brain.”
The level of intentional delusion is awe inspiring. Lets focus entirely on the form and lets entirely ignore the function. Woman and men have the same muscles so surely they have the same muscle strength. Let's ignore that very few women can perform as well as men when it comes to muscle capacity in occupations such as firefighting. Believe the bullshit and ignore your lying eyes.
If there's no such thing as a woman's brain, as opposed to a man's brain, then what exactly makes Caitlyn Jenner a woman, as opposed to a man?
I thought the idea was that, living things developed pretty much uniformly & assignment of gender before birth was one of the last things to develop. Being the "old idea" that anyone considered when thinking about differences in sex. ..& that the brain was like a car being driven, the difference depending upon the driver (hormones, testosterone, etc.).
Ahhh. The art of politically correct science:
1. Construct a straw man hypothesis, e.g., A "male brain' or a "female brain" is defined as a brain structure that has ONLY male/female characteristics.
2. When brain scans show (as in virtually all statistically measurable biological traits) some admixture in the middle part of the respective bell curves,
3. Declare that the straw man hypothesis has been completely disproven.
Close reading of the piece shows how misleading the PC headlining is:
"very few people had all of the brain features they might be expected to have, based on their sex. Across the sample, between 0 and 8 per cent of people had “all-male” or “all-female” brains, depending on the definition. “Most people are in the middle,” says Joel.
This means that, averaged across many people, sex differences in brain structure do exist, but an individual brain is likely to be just that: individual, with a mix of features."
I propose the acid test: Give 100 really good pathologists 200 brains each to identify without being told the sex (without doing a chromosome ID or DNA). If they successfully identify the sex 95%+ (we still need to allow for the odd cases) percent of the time based on the structure alone, then there are male brains and female brains. If they don't, we're the jury is still out.
Of course. The difference is hormones and their effect on the brain. It's amusing to see all the pushback from the male commenters. Hormones also affect the fetal brain and its development. Fetal brains with an imbalance in either estrogen or testosterone at some point in development are implicated in sexual identity. Hormones rule humans. Your male brain is no different than a female's, without the hormonal influences.
Men and women are different. Adjust your bullshit, accordingly.
When a brain is studied in autopsy it's already been influenced by a lifetime of hormones.
Global warming, meet your partner!
"If a neuroscientist was given someone’s brain without their body or any additional information, they would still probably be able to guess if it had belonged to a man or a woman. Men’s brains are larger, for example, and are likely to have a larger number of “male” features overall."
Yeah..so..wait..what was the point of all this?
Oh yeah..
Joel envisions a future in which individuals are not so routinely classified based on gender alone. “We separate girls and boys, men and women all the time,” she says. “It’s wrong, not just politically, but scientifically – everyone is different.”
"Fetal brains with an imbalance in either estrogen or testosterone at some point in development are implicated in sexual identity."
And georgie is making up her own reality once again. There is no biological test -- none -- that can determine 'sexual identity'. The 'fetal testosterone' business is a canard.
Georgie said...
When a brain is studied in autopsy it's already been influenced by a lifetime of hormones.
So, they're different.
See if you can identify the flaw:
Georgie: "Of course. The difference is hormones and their effect on the brain"
From the article:
snip: "The idea that people have either a “female” or “male” brain is an old one, says Daphna Joel at Tel Aviv University in Israel. “The theory goes that once a fetus develops testicles, they secrete testosterone which masculinises the brain,” she says. “If that were true, there would be two types of brain.”
But the political....er scientific researchers assert that there really aren't two types of brains. Certainly not "politically".
And we thought we were done with Lysenkoism!
“If that were true, there would be two types of brain.”
What would be genuinely interesting is if Joel defined "type" for us.
cross the sample, between 0 and 8 per cent of people had “all-male” or “all-female” brains, depending on the definition.
This is some profound stuff! Play with the definitions get new conclusions that are pretty much meaningless outside of the rhetoric of politics, which is what this "scientific" study is designed to support.
But I am sure lots of people find this convincing because it is wrapped in the trappings of science and supports their pre-conceived ideas. They also throw that word "prove" around pretty lightly.
It's amusing to see all the pushback from the male commenters.
Is there any commenter here who suggests that brain differences are not hormonally determined? I am just curious. Because if you can't find one, it would almost... almost.. look as if you are propping up a straw man to knock down.... Naaah!
traditionalguy said...
Girls and boys brains are the same.
Sure, right. That's why little girls play with dolls, and little boys forced to play with dolls turn them into guns.
I bet $10 that, given their data, I could use machine learning to get an algorithm that would correctly identify male or female 90%+ of the time.
To put it in terms that even a leftist could understand if she wanted to: men have more upper body strength, pound for pound, than do women. Think you could define a "male arm" and a "female arm", such that most arms would be 100% one or the other? No? Does that mean men don't have better upper body strength than women?
No.
This "research" is crap.
Obligatory disclaimer: I used to teach neuroanatomy at an Ivy League medical school. There is precisely nothing radical or surprising in these findings. It is fine that these researchers have catalogued a collection of characteristics that tend in one direction or another across a population, but the general principle has been well established for many decades, as has been the notion that there is no clear, completely foolproof way of saying whether a human brain is male or female, aside from examining chromosomes.
The only thing radical or surprising is the ability of some biologists to hype data and political winds of the moment to garner headlines and lay the groundwork for stuff like unisex bathrooms (i.e. "supports the idea that gender is non-binary, and that gender classifications in many situations are meaningless.)" To extrapolate from these specific microscopic differences to specific, complex behavioral phenomena is irresponsible, but it sure is politically correct.
Estrogen poisoning.
Gregg: "This "research" is crap"
Wrong.
Very very wrong.
Scientifically, the "research" is "crap".
Politically, the "research" is magnificent and must be accepted as "truth" forthwith.
For garage: "forthwith" means immediately.
You're welcome.
Biff: "The only thing radical or surprising is the ability of some biologists to hype data and political winds of the moment to garner headlines and lay the groundwork for stuff like unisex bathrooms (i.e. "supports the idea that gender is non-binary, and that gender classifications in many situations are meaningless.)" To extrapolate from these specific microscopic differences to specific, complex behavioral phenomena is irresponsible, but it sure is politically correct."
Careful Biff, you are veering dangerously close to Gender-meaninglessness Denialism.
Needless to say, No Soup For You! (and God help you if you were wearing an inappropriate shirt as you were typing that previous remark).
"It's amusing to see all the pushback from the male commenters. Your male brain is no different than a female's, without the hormonal influences."
Ignoring the tone of superiority.... ignoring the fact that the referenced story says the opposite....
1) Conclusion without evidence, and
2) we all have "hormonal influences" so you seem to concede male and female brains are different.
Is "scattered" one of the 29 items?
I bet $10 that, given their data, I could use machine learning to get an algorithm that would correctly identify male or female 90%+ of the time.
BUT NOT 100 PERCENT! So case proven.
It's like they think nobody has ever heard of a normal distribution, A.K.A. bell curves.
Gender-Specific Gene Expression in Post-Mortem Human Brain: Localization to Sex Chromosomes
...
We have focused our study of gender differences in gene expression on the set of genes found on the sex chromosomes. We found differences in gene expression between genders in human brain for six sex chromosome genes (DBY, SMCY, UTY, RPS4Y, USP9Y, XIST). These six genes were also validated with real-time PCR. Interestingly, four of the six genes were localized in neurons (SMCY, UTY, RPS4Y, XIST) as determined with in situ hybridization histochemistry. The roles of these neuronal genes in neurobiology will be of interest, especially since it appears that subsets of neurons express these gender-specific genes.
tim in vermont said...
Is there any commenter here who suggests that brain differences are not hormonally determined?
Yup. See the "Gender-Specific Gene Expression" post/article.
Ann: So far, the main adjustment is recognition of the lack of need to make any adjustment.
No, actually there is no adjustment to be made in any sense whatsoever.
Anyone who takes a single scientific study by itself and decides that this changes everything is a proven fool. Recent history has shown much ballyhooed results that cannot be replicated, unverifiable results, bias of all sorts, small sample sizes of dubious value, and outright fraud for a variety of motivations among other things, compounded by a scientifically illiterate media that misreports, oversimplifies, or simply interprets through whatever the narrative is this week, or in more egregious situations simply reprints the press release without even an attempt at investigation. This phenomenon was well known back in the early 1990s with examples going back to the early days of science as a thing. New examples appear regularly if you care to look. When these results have been well tested and verified through non-politicized debate, then and only then will I bother to consider the ramifications of this. I don't have time for the "scientific" flavor of the week.
Or do you still believe in Piltdown Man?
The best way to read these studies is to read the data gathered and methodology and ignore the "conclusions" because that is where the "scientists" become unmoored from the scientific method.
Documentary proof that male brains are fundamentally different than female brains:
The following video is a bunch of male brains having at it.
Disclaimers:
Not safe for work. May cause males to experience painful muscle spasms. May cause other males to laugh hard enough to be in pain.
As for females - it's just a "WHAT?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB51ooHaq74
If male and female brains are not different then why do the activity maps differ between the genders when presented with identical stimuli?
@Althouse, adjust your bullshit, please.
Your male brain is no different than a female's, without the hormonal influences.
I had to comment because this made me laugh. Thanks for the laugh, Georgie.
Also note: Male arms are no different than female arms, except for the muscle mass.
Or the female reproductive system is no different than the male reproductive system, without the womb.
Well done, Georgie!
Jeezum MOM, I didn't need to see that. I guess simply lighting a fart doesn't cut it in the era of YouTube.
"The theory goes that once a fetus develops testicles, they secrete testosterone which masculinises the brain,”...
Doesn't this have it backwards? My understanding is that during the embryonic stage, the internal sex organs are bipotential and sex is determined by the abundance or relative lack of testosterone (in other words, whether or not the sperm carried a y chromosome). Testicles develop because of the already present high levels of testosterone. How can that not have some effect on the brain?
Socialization is simply not an adequate explanation for why throughout human history, the vast majority of renowned scientists and artists have been men. There would be many more women gravitating towards the STEM fields if more women had either the interest in or the aptitude for those fields. Some things do not come "naturally" to the average woman just as some things do not come "naturally" to the average man.
I am amazed by the number of so-called scientists who consider themselves Darwinists and yet would deny significant physiological differences between male and female.
Daphna Joel's bullshit receives an adjustment from Greg Cochran (no butt-rockets were used, however):
Sex and the Brain
If there is no male or female brain, the whole argument that transgenders have the brain of the opposite sex is, in fact, bullshit.
And gender may be non binary, (whatever that means) but sex is not. People who are born women ARE WOMEN. If they think otherwise they have faulty thought processes.
now, the whole study may be baseless in and of itself, as many studies are. But if true, the group hardest hit is the left that have said that gender is a social construct, which in effect determines the sex you claim to be.
Because, AGAIN, there is really no such thing as a female brain. Or a male brain.
But there is a male SEX and a female sex.
Note, just because I said male and female brain are not mnoticeably different, it doesn't mean that men and boys don't differ. Maybe though, such differences are not due Specifically to different brains.
"traditionalguy said...
Girls and boys brains are the same.
Sure, right. That's why little girls play with dolls, and little boys forced to play with dolls turn them into guns.
I bet $10 that, given their data, I could use machine learning to get an algorithm that would correctly identify male or female 90%+ of the time.
To put it in terms that even a leftist could understand if she wanted to: men have more upper body strength, pound for pound, than do women. Think you could define a "male arm" and a "female arm", such that most arms would be 100% one or the other? No? Does that mean men don't have better upper body strength than women?
No.
This "research" is crap.
I think the problem is those asserting that we have different brains are assuming that they can show why males and females are different based on a simple test. But it's far more complex than we can probably explain.
It is true that men and women are different, and seem to behave differently. It's just that those saying it is due to male brains, are making a simplistic argument.
I've heard that male brains are bigger and heavier, on average, and have some slight differences, (like the hippocampus might be larger, or sow thing to that effect). But that is a generalization based on averages. Some men have brains that are the same weight as women's. And no one can really look at a brain and say "aha, that is a woman's brain!" Based on some defining characteristic.
Hormones probably have a lot to do with it.
But, if you give a man estrogen or a woman testosterone it doesn't change them into a different sex. Beciase men and women already have both.
If there are differences in brains, it's not something we can easily recognize.
I'll wait until it shows up in something more reputable than the New Scientist, aka, Nude Socialist.
If I put onions in while cooking a steak, I get one thing. But if I put in Worcestershire sauce I get a different thing.
You can't run different hormones through a brain and expect it to be the same.
It's written in the Koran, somewhere, I'm sure of it...
"I just noticed an new article in PNAS – research by Daphna Joel a behavioral neuroscientist at Tel Aviv University. Using MRI, she concludes that the brains of men and women aren’t really different. She suggests that the notion that men and women behave differently may be a myth.
She is, of course, utterly full of shit. It’s fountaining out of every pore: her hair will never go gray. We know of many sex differences in the brain – not just volume, not just the fraction of gray matter vs white matter, not just big differences in the incidences of neuropsychiatric disorders like autism and anorexia nervosa. In a few cases (like CAH, or androgen sensitivity, or maybe Turner’s syndrome) we know something about the developmental mechanisms involved. We see analogous differences in animal models: and no, it’s not culture.
If you want to determine a brain’s sex from MRI data (without cheating by looking at the Y chromosome) you build a statistical discriminator – you don’t create a continuum of “femaleness” to “maleness,” for the entire brain and score every individual region-by-region to find out where they fall on that male-to-female continuum."
...
Sex and the Brain
Coupe: "It's written in the Koran, somewhere, I'm sure of it..."
Well played sir.
You've found the penultimate pre-defense for anything you might utter.
The ultimate pre-defense is, of course, self-identifying as a transgendered person of color democrat.
"It reveals that most people have a mix of male and female brain features. And it also supports the idea that gender is non-binary, and that gender classifications in many situations are meaningless."
I'm not sure how there can be a "mix of male and female brain features", if there are no such features to mix.
I continue to be amused by how much the public accepts at face value anything that shows up in the media when it's labeled as science. Society has basically exchanged the religious priesthood with a book accessible to most literate people for a priesthood of PhDs writing papers and theses accessible to mostly themselves.
At the very least, studies should be replicated and vigorously scrutinized before people go jumping to conclusions. Remember how vaccines cause autism, because one study said so and did the 20th century version of going viral thanks to media before said study was able to be debunked?
"Even so, Joel’s findings can be used to help many people understand the non-binary nature of gender, says Barker. After all, some people don’t identify as either male or female, and others feel their gender identity shift over time. “It’s a shame that people’s experience alone isn’t enough for us to recognise as a society that non-binary gender is legitimate.”
Just because brains are not discernible it doesn't mean that gender is not binary. Transgendered have been saying they are the wrong gender. If gender were not binary they are wrong when they think they are the wrong gender because their brain is wired differently.
But sex determines gender. You have biological sex. That is your gender. Where is he getting the notion that because we can't differentiate brains that somehow it means gender/sex is not binary. Sex characteristics make it binary. It just doesn't manifest itself as a "male" brain or a "female" brain that we can easily distinguish between.
I have nothing to add to the comments here. Well said, gang.
I smell fertilizer. The straw man claim is that all human brains have all the sex-associated brain traits associated with one sex, and none of those associated with the other sex.
So that's not true. The implied assertion is that the distribution of allegedly sex-associated brain traits is actually random.
Suppose there are 10 sex-linked brain traits, and that each trait is 80% consistent with overall sex. Then there will be a "continuum", in that there will be individuals with all 11 possible counts, from 10F/OM to 0F/10M, and less than 10% will be 10F or 10M, apparently satisfying the researchers' claim.
But about 85% will be at least 8F or 8M. Less than 1% will have a mix that is "inverted", i.e. male with 6F/4M.
IOW, nearly all brains will be clearly identifiable as male or female.
I think the real situation is similar, and that the researchers' implied conclusion is a deception.
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