News from the PWN Pipeline:
This week, we are featuring several commentaries on the recent controversial UPenn study reporting sex differences in brain structural connectivity.
"Biological determinism at its silly, trivial worst."
An interesting and skeptical commentary by Britain's Science Writer of the Year, Robin McKie, on the speculation of how these structural differences affect various skill sets in men and women. The criticisms of other national and international researchers regarding the study design and interpretation are cited.
"I am a girl whose mushy head is 'hardwired' for girly things."
The Guardian's Suzanne Moore turns a critical eye on the neuroscience tools and interpretations used to examine sex differences, and also describes how 'neurosexism' may be reinforcing gender stereotypes in our culture.
"We don't need this deterministic fairy-tale."
A brief editorial by Professors Rae Langton and John Dupre suggesting that the UPenn study findings simply reflect an already-known scientific truism-- that neural differences exist between men and women. They suggest, however, that these differences does not mean that the brain is designed or hard-wired for promoting inevitable strengths or weaknesses.
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