A team of psychologists, social scientists, philosophers and evolutionary researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in the U.S. has found evidence suggesting that the slight advantage males have in navigation ability is likely due to differences in the ways male and female children are raised.

In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the group describes how they studied navigational skills in multiple species to find out if there might be an evolutionary basis for one gender or the other having better skills.

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[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 64 points 9 months ago (20 children)

I swear almost everything in gender differences comes down to how people are raised. Parents gender train kids and that shit sticks.

[–] Zeth0s@lemmy.world 26 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

That is scientifically untrue. Male and female have very different biology, this is why diseases have different distribution, and drugs different effects. Biological differences are the vast majority, and can be easily studied statistically

There are also cultural differences. But saying that most or all differences are cultural is pretty dangerous.

Edit. Corrected wrong edit

[–] CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ill be that guy. The comment before yours was mostly referring to gender whereas yours refers more to sex. Two separate concepts. I’d agree with both of you that the sexes are different physically, but our gender stuff is mostly just meme perceptions and not descriptive of reality.

This claim about men’s natural sense of direction is an old myth but it’s important because it affects our ideas of gender being unequal (not sex).

[–] Zeth0s@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I have no idea if there is a difference in orientation abilities but if it exists, it would clearly be biological. I am happy it is a urban legend.

But nowadays too many people claim that male and female are identical with the exception of the penis. And it is pretty dangerous. Any trans person who transitioned can say how different their bodies and feelings are by just changing the amount of few hormones.

The fact that my comment has as many downvotes as upvotes demonstrated that the fact that biological differences exists are not so well known

[–] CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world -2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The reason you were downvoted is because you conflated their comment about gender with one about sex. That’s all.

I don’t see many people conflating the sexes at all really. I just don’t think it matters much to people. Sex is mostly irrelevant unless you’re a medical or scientific professional. The only reason I’ve ever seen anyone concerned about sex differences is because they want to invalidate trans people and claim their gender must align with their sex.

[–] Zeth0s@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

We are talking of a case that, if true, would be a biological difference.

Sex is not irrelevant, and thinking that talking about biological differences is done to invalidate trans... I mean, it's a problem of the reader biases. The downvoters should think twice that the world is not made of people trying to invalidate trans people. I am fine with whatever a trans person does. Also because many trans people have biological characteristics that can be in between. Biologically, trans people are a universe of biological differences, they are not a single bucket. If I had to talk about trans people, I'd talk about trans people.

[–] null@slrpnk.net 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

We are talking of a case that, if true, would be a biological difference.

Isn't the point of this entire post that it isn't biological, but rather cultural?

[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

To clarify, the comment I replied was modified. It initially mentioned that almost all male/female differences are cultural. It was modified to refer to gender. I'll leave my comment unedited because of the discussion below.

See how your comments have little pencil icons in the top-right and mine does not?

You also glossed over the words "almost everything" which initially I thought were unnecessary for obvious reasons, but thought I better add just in case some idiot comes along and starts hurdy-during.

Frankly, I'm inpressed. I didn't anticipate someone to be so full of shit, clearly. You win purely on brazen effort. I don't know what the prize is, but I don't want it.

[–] bouh@lemmy.world -4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Your comment is mostly wrong. There are differences in biology, but it comes down to Y chromosome basically. Most differences are cultural.

Cultural differences lead to huge differences in the observable statistics. That's the mistake you make in your comment: observable statistics can't make the difference between a cultural or biological origin for anything. Because behaviour (and this culture) will immensely affect the biology. Like doing sport or washing your hands or diet or whatever.

[–] SpacetimeMachine@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Saying "it comes down to y chromosome basically" is extremely reductive. The way minor genes are expressed can result in vast differences in biology.

[–] Zeth0s@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

Thanks for bringing it up, I didn't want to be "that guy"... People think as if complexity of genetics is measured in meters of DNA. When they'll find out that humans and chimps share 99% of DNA

[–] Zeth0s@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Unfortunately it is not, yours however is uninformed. One doesn't measure genetics in meters of DNA. The difference between chimps and humans is just 1% of genome, and their difference are not mostly cultural because they have almost identical DNA. Genetics is so complex that changes in a single gene can have enormous difference in the physiology of a system.

There are a lot of misconception about genetics and males/females differences, such that their differences are almost all cultural. Mainly because people confuse sexes and genders

[–] bouh@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

And this is completely beside the point.

I was talking about your assertion about statistics. It's complete bullshit because statistics don't differentiate between biology and culture by themselves.

Hopefully this shorter version is easier to understand.

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