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2024-11-11

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Slight male navigational advantage likely due to cultural differences, researchers find (phys.org)

submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

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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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[–] Zeth0s@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (15 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

[–] bouh@lemmy.world -4 points 10 months ago (4 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 10 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 10 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

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