Re: His Brain her Brain magazine

[Guest guest]

Haven't read any other responses to this post yet - I'm a tad behind with

reading posts.

" I find that interesting because one article mentions how young monkeys show

the same " sex bias " as humans regarding toys, meaning male monkeys preferred

trucks and balls and females preferred dolls and that both showed equal

interest in " gender neutral " toys. "

Well from my own personal experience I know I often preferred trucks and balls,

etc - I am not sure if this is to do with autism?, which is sometimes referred

to the 'extreme male brain' (or something like that). Also I have viewed boys

playing with dolls and girls with what are considered traditionally male toys.

Did the first article say what the 'structural differences' were? I have heard

it said previously that generally females are meant to be better when it comes

to verbal abilities, often learning to talk quicker than males and knowing more

words compared to males - I don't know how true such is though.

" I'm no fan of the " plastic mind " theory of the brain. "

Do you believe the brain to be 'hard wired' then?

I have watched some interesting programs on the brain. One program pointed out

that if one suffers some trauma at a young age and in the example they gave they

took a chimp away from it's mother :-( that such would have a serious impact on

the person that would likely affect them the rest of their live. Also if one

suffers depression from a young age and then experiences depression again, such

is likely to become 'hard wired' making one more susceptable to re-occuring

depression.

Another program I watched pointed out how the brain supposedly forms new

pathways when we learn a new skill. For example when we learn a new skill at

first it often feels difficult and one needs to concentrate on such, then once

the brain has got it, one can do it automatically giving such little thought. It

also mentioned (and I can't remember the correct term), but it is what happens

to some golfers when they are about to strike the ball, their muscles

involuntarily twitch, which obviously affects their strike. Something similar

happened to a guitarist they showed on the program - he had been an extremely

good guitarist and then he started getting involuntary twitches that affected

his playing.

According to the program such was caused by the brain getting kind of like

'glitches' in the programing - the pathways and such had become 'hard wired',

however they were on the program attempting to correct such, by trying to force

the brain into thinking it was 're-learning' the skill. They did this by trying

to manipulate/stimulate the area of the brain supposedly known for learning new

skills and also I think they tried to inhibit the involuntary muscle twitches

too.

>

> This is an issue of Scientific American Mind magazine.

>

> Purportedly this issue was supposed to be about the differences between

> the male and female brain.

>

> The first article stated clearly that there were clear structural

> differences between male and female brains that could be physically measured

on the

> brain. However, the next several articles took the position that the

> differences meant nothing and that social pressures were what made the

> difference. They also had the common theme of beating up former President

Summers of

> Harvard, the man who dared suggest the reason why there were so few women

> in the hard sciences and mathematics was because of brain differences. He

> was forced to resign for saying that and the authors of those articles piled

> it on.

>

> I find that interesting because one article mentions how young monkeys

> show the same " sex bias " as humans regarding toys, meaning male monkeys

> preferred trucks and balls and females preferred dolls and that both showed

equal

> interest in " gender neutral " toys.

>

> I'm no fan of the " plastic mind " theory of the brain. That theory at its

> extreme holds that the mind is totally plastic with no such thing as

> instinct or inborn nature. Everything is learned through one's culture and as

> such, humans could eventually be " perfected " by the correct teaching over a

> number of generations. This was also the philosophy of Karl Marx and at least

> some of the plastic mind theorists have stated they have given up the

> scientific method in favor of Marxist principles because they believe the

> political outcomes of their " research " is more important than scientific

truth.

> The lesser adherents are nearly as bad and some of that can be seen in the

> above mentioned articles. I also question some of their methodology and

> studies.

>

> I may read some of the other articles in this one since some may have

> merit, but based on these, I could have saved the money. I should have

learned

> by now that Scientific American has a distinct bias these days that it

> didn't have when I first started reading it. It's kind of the Marxist thing

all

> over again, meaning they are presenting only articles which support their

> narrative while ignoring or mocking other points of view.

>

>

>