>In other words, you missed the point entirely: this is more continued evidence-free speculation,
Actually it's not evidence-free, it is a simple application of evolutionary theory. The "point" of the OP's post, as he stated directly, was that there was no "evidence" supporting the theory that observed gender difference are biologically caused. Pointing out that different brain structures between male and females means different behavior that would necessarily be observable directly refutes that point.
> complete with hand-wave theorization that there has been a gender-based task division matching the dominant Western religious-driven socialization for hundreds of thousands of years
Again, application of theory. Tens of thousands of years ago, our low level of technological development necessitated specialization. A family back then would have no other option than division of tasks based on gender because, for example, someone had to stay close to camp and care for children and someone had to go out on the physically more demanding food gathering tasks. Which genders do you think would do what? If you can visualize some way it would be more efficient for the males to constant shuttle back to camp from a hunting trip to tend the baby instead of just staying out as the job required, or for the females to do the hunting with their significantly less muscular bodies and the males to tend to the infants at camp without breasts, then by all means, do. Otherwise its a fairly obvious conclusion to be drawn from simple establish facts (women are statistically less muscular, men don't have breasts.)
>It's highly likely that there are measurable differences in the capabilities between male and female brains but neuroscience is very far from being able to explain anything high-level enough to start speculating about the complex skills relevant to these discussions
Who said anything about "high-level" being the criteria? You seemed to have pulled that qualification out of thin air.
>The other major confound is that many people rely on MRI data to support claimed differences and even assuming that the technology is precise enough and the relevant brain structures well understood enough
That misses the point, we don't have to understand the brain structure to know that a physiological difference in the brain will cause behavior differences, it's functionally necessary. You don't have different brain structures without an equivalent differences in behavior. It's also not important that we can't detect less significant differences in brain physiology because MRIs aren't more precise than they are; they have a specific scanning resolution and can therefore detect features reliably that are above the minimum resolving dimensions of the MRI. Those are the features being talked about here.
And as far as the assertion that some of these brain differences are caused by nurture, there are simply some gender based brain differences that are too consistent and develop too early to be explained by anything as variable as culture or upbringing.
>Finally, "Evolution put those differences in brain structure for a reason" demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the mechanism: there are many, many examples of things which exist by accident
Actually, that is a fundamental misunderstand of evolutionary mechanisms, it is essentially impossible to have reliably observed features in a species that are not caused by evolutionary benefit. A side effect feature which you are proposing is a moot point, because side effect features are still connected to some other distinct feature that is beneficial evolutionary, and if the side effect feature is only observed in one gender then the primary-beneficial feature which causes it is still also in one gender only, and we are still in a situation where one gender is different from another via physiological brain differences.
I realize evolutionary psychology is exciting but it's also very dubious as science because it isn't predictive or falsifiable in most cases. This speculation is what you're calling "application of theory". If you want to claim scientific credibility, do some actual neuroscience with a testable experiment producing hard data quantifying the exact degree to which differences in the size of certain structures is heritable and the effects it had on high-level cognition. This is a lot harder than ret-conning sexism on the Internet and it would be worth contemplating why close to half of the scientists actually doing this work are doing so despite being female.
Regarding my point on high-level differences: "high-level" simply means anything using more than a simple circuit - walking is a high-level activity and talking is an extraordinarily high one because you have everything from motor control to language and abstract thought driving it. Any high-level activity is based on low-level functions, yes, but there are always multiple strategies to solve problems and the brain is notoriously adaptable (this is how e.g. congenitally blind people end up using the visual cortex for other tasks)
You've reduced your timeframe by an order of magnitude but are still clinging to this hunter/gatherer gender divide which is unsupported by evidence. This Disney history, not anthropology. There is considerable evidence that gender divides were less pronounced prior to the rise of agriculture - and that almost nobody got the majority of their calories from hunting; certainly many women hunted and fished as well - it's almost never about pure brute force (a better tracker is going to trump a muscular lummox every time).
Finally, remember how MRI works: it tells you where millions of neurons were using oxygen in the recent past. It doesn't tell you why, distinguish between the highly specified types of neurons, or allow you to see patterns in behavior. It's still a useful tool but you should think of it like comparing programs by dividing a CPU in quadrants and measuring the average heat in each area after running the programs for awhile.
Finally: you still ascribe purpose to evolution. If something didn't kill you before you reproduce, there's little pressure to remove it. Arthritis is common but hardly selected for.
> I realize evolutionary psychology is exciting but it's also very dubious as science because it isn't predictive or falsifiable in most cases.
All you're doing is dismissing an argument by dismissing an entire field of science. There is no scientific consensus that evolutionary psychology is "very dubious", and EP is widely respected as field in the scientific community precisely because it can be a powerful tool in making deductions about humans where other types of experiments might not be possible. There is no good science in dismissing it, and any argument against it must be won it's merits, not against the very idea of EP.
> This is a lot harder than ret-conning sexism on the Internet
"ret-conning"? Do you mean retroactive continuity? In what way does that apply to anything I wrote? Is that an accusation of sexism on the part of an argument that advocates the possibility of innate gender differences?
> Regarding my point on high-level differences: "high-level" simply means anything using more than a simple circuit
Is that the consensus of "high-level"? How many layers of abstraction exactly is it that qualifies as high-level? In addition, if you are to assert that high level human behavior is based on low-level brain activity, but the brain is "notoriously adaptable" and therefore high level brain functionality is independent of low-level functionality to some degree, you contradict your earlier argument that that type of speculation is unscientific. Scientific knowledge of the relationship between high-level functionality as derived from low-level functionality is paltry.
> (a better tracker is going to trump a muscular lummox every time)
But that's not a controlled comparison. Why compare someone who is smarter and of ambiguous strength with someone who is strong and dumb? All else being equal, more muscular strength is of enormous use when you are either hunting game, building traps, or fishing. And since there is a high cost to maintaining muscle mass in terms of energy needs, there simply must be some advantage and some reason in terms of behavior why men are statistically more muscular than women.
> This Disney history, not anthropology.
I actually expected a response like this. I'm using "males go hunting" and "females tend to the family at home" imagery so it must be a cartoonish simplification, right?. And yet, that is a scientifically common and respected belief about how at least some pre-history humans lived (especially given that there simply aren't many other options.) There are of course other survival blueprints of pre-history humans, such as fishing or lucking out and having more than enough to forage for main sustenance, but the general concept still applies: women's bodies are more adapted to caring for infants or children, and men for physical labor (Assuming intelligence benefits both jobs equally). So whether its hunting, fishing, construction, or even farming, it is unavoidably more efficient for men to do one and women the other. The physical difference between men and women is also a huge clue that men and women have actually been doing these specialized tasks for almost our entire evolutionary history, and that that's why these differences exist in the first place. And of course, males and females can switch roles if it's beneficial, but there's still the general tendency.
> You've reduced your timeframe by an order of magnitude but are still clinging to this hunter/gatherer gender divide which is unsupported by evidence.
The time-frame was not changed. First, our actual timeline of when most humans became agricultural is a bit sketchy. Second, "tens of thousands of years ago" easily includes time periods far back enough that we are at a point where there was still no widespread agricultural activity. As does "hundreds of thousands of years ago". The two overlap. No change of time-frames.
> Finally, remember how MRI works: it tells you where millions of neurons were using oxygen in the recent past. It doesn't tell you why...
Actually, that's really not how it works, what you're describing sounds more like an fMRI. But in any case you are still missing the point. My argument is that brain physiology features common to women but not men necessarily means innate gender differences. Otherwise there would be no consistent selection for those features. If there was no benefit to those features, they either wouldn't exist or wouldn't be common to only one gender. If they are selected for, that ultimately means they have benefit to human survival, and can impact either high-level or low-level behavior (there's no reason why the evolutionary process could select for one but not the other, and after all, that would be ascribing purpose to evolution.)
> Finally: you still ascribe purpose to evolution. If something didn't kill you before you reproduce, there's little pressure to remove it. Arthritis is common but hardly selected for.
There is enormous pressure, it's not like parents don't provide benefits to their children after they are born, or even after their children are grown and have their own children. It's simply a support network. Not that that has anything to do with the accusation that I ascribe purpose to evolution, of which you provided no evidence.
> > This is a lot harder than ret-conning sexism on the Internet
> "ret-conning"? Do you mean retroactive continuity? In what way does that apply to anything I wrote? Is that an accusation of sexism on the part of an argument that advocates the possibility of innate gender differences?
Evolutionary psychology is a useful thought exercise but it fails to produce many falsifiable hypotheses, mostly due to the combination of limited historical evidence and the inability to conduct experiments. What this means in practice is that you should be skeptical of claims that existing social customs exist because of biology in the absence of strong evidence that such biological differences exist, have the stated effect and are not explained by other means.
Any neuroscientist will tell you that there are differences between male and female brains (really, it's more accurately caused hormone levels which that simple gender binary doesn't accurately express); they will also tell you that there's insufficient understanding how these low-level differences affect higher level abilities (reading, logic, etc.). This doesn't mean that there aren't effects but rather that anyone who's trying to use this in support of traditional Western gender roles is significantly in advance of what the evidence supports.
> > This Disney history, not anthropology.
I actually expected a response like this. I'm using "males go hunting" and "females tend to the family at home" imagery so it must be a cartoonish simplification, right?
The fact that the remainder of your paragraph went on to accept that your original argument was, in fact, over-simplified suggests that it was. Again, nobody is arguing that men tend to be stronger but that doesn't tell you much about daily life, what the average person ate or how their children were raised. Since there are many examples of cultural differences in all of these areas, I submit that this cannot be so broadly described.
> As does "hundreds of thousands of years ago". The two overlap. No change of time-frames.
I stand by my earlier observation that 100,000 and 10,000 are an order of magnitude apart. This is actually of some significance as we have extremely little information for human life 100,000 years ago and even 10,000 years is still paltry; by the time you get into areas where we have much information about daily life (how would we be able to tell if it were common for men and women to hunt and gather together 100k years ago?), particularly at a level sufficient to shed any light at all on division of labor, socialization is already a major factor confounding any biological arguments.
> Not that that has anything to do with the accusation that I ascribe purpose to evolution, of which you provided no evidence.
See the previous paragraph, where you repeated it again. You cannot simply look at something's existence and conclude that it has been specifically selected for. It's highly likely that some minor differences might simply be due to things like different hormone levels at various points which trigger different, worthwhile changes; similarly since human brains take years to develop it's also hard to separate out the effects of practice. Adults who grew up without exposure to written text have significant differences in their brain structure which are entirely social but brain imaging can't tell you why. Going back to the topic, there are e.g. studies finding early gender preferences for colors but none of them can say how much is innate and how much is learned.
Since this has dragged on far too long, I'm going to leave a final summary of my position:
1. Our understanding of how the brain works is still quite limited, particularly when it comes to complex behaviour.
2. We have relatively little historical data beyond the last few thousand years, making general statements of any sort hard to support. We simply don't have the data.
3. Because humans are such social animals and we don't do experiments on our young, it's extremely difficult to avoid confounds due to socialization. In particular, many questions are going to have problems determining causation.
4. Scientific claims are held to a high standard: hard data, falsifiability, predictiveness, etc.
All of this means that attempts to explain complex behaviour in terms of innate biology are decades ahead of scientific support. It can be interesting to discuss and could possibly even motivate people to advance the science to answer some of these questions but it's premature to call any of it science.
Actually it's not evidence-free, it is a simple application of evolutionary theory. The "point" of the OP's post, as he stated directly, was that there was no "evidence" supporting the theory that observed gender difference are biologically caused. Pointing out that different brain structures between male and females means different behavior that would necessarily be observable directly refutes that point.
> complete with hand-wave theorization that there has been a gender-based task division matching the dominant Western religious-driven socialization for hundreds of thousands of years
Again, application of theory. Tens of thousands of years ago, our low level of technological development necessitated specialization. A family back then would have no other option than division of tasks based on gender because, for example, someone had to stay close to camp and care for children and someone had to go out on the physically more demanding food gathering tasks. Which genders do you think would do what? If you can visualize some way it would be more efficient for the males to constant shuttle back to camp from a hunting trip to tend the baby instead of just staying out as the job required, or for the females to do the hunting with their significantly less muscular bodies and the males to tend to the infants at camp without breasts, then by all means, do. Otherwise its a fairly obvious conclusion to be drawn from simple establish facts (women are statistically less muscular, men don't have breasts.)
>It's highly likely that there are measurable differences in the capabilities between male and female brains but neuroscience is very far from being able to explain anything high-level enough to start speculating about the complex skills relevant to these discussions
Who said anything about "high-level" being the criteria? You seemed to have pulled that qualification out of thin air.
>The other major confound is that many people rely on MRI data to support claimed differences and even assuming that the technology is precise enough and the relevant brain structures well understood enough
That misses the point, we don't have to understand the brain structure to know that a physiological difference in the brain will cause behavior differences, it's functionally necessary. You don't have different brain structures without an equivalent differences in behavior. It's also not important that we can't detect less significant differences in brain physiology because MRIs aren't more precise than they are; they have a specific scanning resolution and can therefore detect features reliably that are above the minimum resolving dimensions of the MRI. Those are the features being talked about here.
And as far as the assertion that some of these brain differences are caused by nurture, there are simply some gender based brain differences that are too consistent and develop too early to be explained by anything as variable as culture or upbringing.
>Finally, "Evolution put those differences in brain structure for a reason" demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the mechanism: there are many, many examples of things which exist by accident
Actually, that is a fundamental misunderstand of evolutionary mechanisms, it is essentially impossible to have reliably observed features in a species that are not caused by evolutionary benefit. A side effect feature which you are proposing is a moot point, because side effect features are still connected to some other distinct feature that is beneficial evolutionary, and if the side effect feature is only observed in one gender then the primary-beneficial feature which causes it is still also in one gender only, and we are still in a situation where one gender is different from another via physiological brain differences.