On the flip side men generally tend to be better at science and mathematics.

[[citation needed]]

Nerds are notoriously known for poor communication and social skills but high intelligence. Albert Einstein for example could not speak until he was 6 years old.To me the correlation between my theory and all of the studies I've read is unquestionable![/quote]Firstly be careful with definitions - many people use "nerd" to mean someone with poor social skills, so it becomes a circular argument.

But is there an inverse correlation between maths/science skills, and social skills? Maybe, maybe not - I would be wary of media stereotyping. Remember, the kinds of people writing in the media, are the kinds of people who excel at subjects other than maths/science, and so you get people in the media bashing "geeks". Just like maths/science geeks bash arty types, but that stereotyping won't ever get into the media so prominently.

I think I mostly agree with Promit. When "regular" people attempt to take a stab at "philosophy", the whole thing looks a bit like the usual...profound statements made during stoning sessions: "Whoa, dude, what if we're all already dead and we don't know it'.

Not that I don't do it though. One thing that I ponder about sometimes with my...untrained mind is the whole "free will" issue. I don't really like thinking that our brains our merely "blind" chemical machines, and that our every action is pre-determined according to nature's laws, although this might be the case(note that most scientists believe the brain functions based on classical laws, and that QM doesn't really play a role. Penrose disagrees, but he's a minority). On the other hand, I can't even find a definition of "free will" that satisfies me. Free from what? Obviously it will have a degree of freedom from physical,mathematical laws. But other than that? Randomness isn't "free will". Is it a magical "core", the "soul", that we can know nothing about? Unsatisfactory answer. So yeah, I'm left kind of believing that humans have free will, but not really being able to define the exact meaning of those words.

Also, dudes, whoa, what if we're in the Matrix lol?!!!!!??

[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1329940583' post='4915624']
On the flip side men generally tend to be better at science and mathematics.

[[citation needed]]
[/quote]

http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/SAT-Mathemathics_Percentile_Ranks_2011.pdf

http://media.college..._Ranks_2011.pdf

The SAT is a reasoning test, not a test of mathematics (and even less, science). Although it has a so-called 'mathematics' section, it only covers middle-school algebra, and is primarily meant to test comprehension ability. Furthermore, note that the mean only differs by 30 points, and the standard deviation by 6 points - that's not enough of a margin to be statistically relevant, in the context of a single statistic.

So I'll see your pointless statistic, and raise you a peer-reviewed international study. If you don't feel like reading the whole thing:

[indent=1]"Stereotypes about female inferiority in mathematics are a distinct contrast to the actual scientific data. These results show that girls will perform at the same level as the boys when they are given the right educational tools and have visible female role models excelling in mathematics."

The SAT is a reasoning test, not a test of mathematics (and even less, science). Although it has a so-called 'mathematics' section, it only covers middle-school algebra, and is primarily meant to test comprehension ability. Furthermore, note that the mean only differs by 30 points, and the standard deviation by 6 points - that's not enough of a margin to be statistically relevant, in the context of a single statistic.

So I'll see your pointless statistic, and raise you a peer-reviewed international study. If you don't feel like reading the whole thing:


[indent=1]"Stereotypes about female inferiority in mathematics are a distinct contrast to the actual scientific data. These results show that girls will perform at the same level as the boys when they are given the right educational tools and have visible female role models excelling in mathematics."

To add to that in the UK year on year the news reports that in science and maths subjects in exams taken at 16 girls are out performing boys in their results.

(From my own experiance in the top group for maths and science at that level the girls out numbered the boys in that class. This continued to A-level exams taken at 18 where the majority of those in the maths and science classes were girls.)

[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1330011783' post='4915885']
http://media.college..._Ranks_2011.pdf

The SAT is a reasoning test, not a test of mathematics (and even less, science). Although it has a so-called 'mathematics' section, it only covers middle-school algebra, and is primarily meant to test comprehension ability. Furthermore, note that the mean only differs by 30 points, and the standard deviation by 6 points - that's not enough of a margin to be statistically relevant, in the context of a single statistic.

So I'll see your pointless statistic, and raise you a peer-reviewed international study. If you don't feel like reading the whole thing:

[indent=1]"Stereotypes about female inferiority in mathematics are a distinct contrast to the actual scientific data. These results show that girls will perform at the same level as the boys when they are given the right educational tools and have visible female role models excelling in mathematics."
[/quote]

Didn't I already explain that it was a lack of interest? I never said women are less intelligent but they simply don't have the interest. The development of their amygdala is in fact the reason they do not feel interested in the subject.

Also it is far greater than 30 points. Half the number of women scored in the 800 range as men. This is an extremely significant figure.

To add to that in the UK year on year the news reports that in science and maths subjects in exams taken at 16 girls are out performing boys in their results.

(From my own experiance in the top group for maths and science at that level the girls out numbered the boys in that class. This continued to A-level exams taken at 18 where the majority of those in the maths and science classes were girls.)

Citation please?

(From my own experiance in the top group for maths and science at that level the girls out numbered the boys in that class. This continued to A-level exams taken at 18 where the majority of those in the maths and science classes were girls.)[/quote]Citation please?[/quote]
Boys fighting to catch up in maths and sciences.

Didn't I already explain that it was a lack of interest? I never said women are less intelligent but they simply don't have the interest. The development of their amygdala is in fact the reason they do not feel interested in the subject.

You are trying to find a physiological basis for a difference in motivation. Unfortunately for that line of reasoning, the study I referenced above quite clearly states that any differences in performance are due to leftover anti-female bias in education, and a lack of strong female role models.

In general, suggesting that physiological differences are to blame for the relative success of women/blacks/asians/etc. is very dodgy ground. It was a popular view 100+ years ago, which has since been discover to be misogynistic crap, disseminated by white males in order to maintain their position of socio-economic dominance.

(see, I can armchair philosophise too)

I think I mostly agree with Promit. When "regular" people attempt to take a stab at "philosophy", the whole thing looks a bit like the usual...profound statements made during stoning sessions: "Whoa, dude, what if we're all already dead and we don't know it'.

Not that I don't do it though. One thing that I ponder about sometimes with my...untrained mind is the whole "free will" issue. I don't really like thinking that our brains our merely "blind" chemical machines, and that our every action is pre-determined according to nature's laws, although this might be the case(note that most scientists believe the brain functions based on classical laws, and that QM doesn't really play a role. Penrose disagrees, but he's a minority). On the other hand, I can't even find a definition of "free will" that satisfies me. Free from what? Obviously it will have a degree of freedom from physical,mathematical laws. But other than that? Randomness isn't "free will". Is it a magical "core", the "soul", that we can know nothing about? Unsatisfactory answer. So yeah, I'm left kind of believing that humans have free will, but not really being able to define the exact meaning of those words.

Also, dudes, whoa, what if we're in the Matrix lol?!!!!!??

I used to think that the universe behaved deterministically and I had a debate about it with my professor in philosophy of science. I claimed that the universe behaves deterministically. My professor said that Quantum Mechanics invalidates determinism. I said that QM is deterministic but we just don't have a working model which explains it accurately (appeal to ignorance fallacy). I now believe that my reasoning may be wrong, but it's nearly impossible to test whether the universe is deterministic or not. I suppose if you could recreate the big bang with the exact same state as it was in the origin of our universe and result in a few armchair philosophers debating determinism in this forum 14 billion years later, then determinism is true. But damn, considering the chaos and complexity of every atom and wave of electromagnetic energy conjoined with Heisenbergs uncertainty principle, it seems impossible to claim determinism is true. I can't explain a consistently true model to accurately predict which particle will become a radioactive decay particle... So, if at least the quantum world is non-deterministic, then we can say that a part of the universe is non-deterministic. Does the non-determinism of the quantum world feed upwards into the larger scales of the universe?

I believe we all have free will. Without free will, we couldn't truly be held accountable for our actions because they'd already be pre-determined, which would then suggest determinism is true. Every itch and every scratch would be pre-ordained from the beginning of time. The existence of free will depends on determinism being false (philosophically debatable).

I'm in agreement with Swiftcoder: Philosophy is an excellent complement to a technical degree. The foundations of mathematics and computer science come from logic (see: Mathematical Logic). I chose to minor in philosophy because I thought it would be a good counter-weight to the computer science degree I was pursuing. It's important to know the "how" and also the "why" behind what we're doing... otherwise, we run the danger of becoming mad scientists. Though, getting a 4 year degree exclusively in philosophy is probably not very prudent from an employability standpoint.

Boys fighting to catch up in maths and sciences.

This is obviously due to cultural influences. Also the figures are not loosely significant. Is there anyway you can find the actual test scores? I want to look at the bell curve.