I'm kind of baffled by this ridiculous statement. If differences in brain structure DIDN'T result in differences in behavior, then why are the brain structures different? Evolution clearly engineered the differences, which would be pointless if they didn't change behavior at all. I'm sure you can see the flaw in the logic here. These differences begin appearing during the fetal incubation period and develop consistently throughout childhood. This is not due to environmental factors.
I mean, first of all it's just ridiculous on it's face. Of course differently structured brains would have different aptitudes and capabilities.
First of all, it's not actually clear that the brain structures are different to an especially significant degree. That is the finding of most of the studies I linked in my previous post. For instance, your last post claimed that women have a thicker corpus callosum, which is something that has been re-examined in recent years:
(source re-linked)
Large studies have been conducted on sex differences in verbal abilities within the normal population, and a careful reading of the results suggests that differences in language proficiency do not exist. Early differences in language acquisition show a slight advantage for girls, but this gradually disappears. A difference in language lateralization of brain structure and function in adults has also been suggested, perhaps following size differences in the corpus callosum. Neither of these claims is substantiated by evidence. In addition, overall results from studies on regional grey matter distribution using voxel-based morphometry, indicate no consistent differences between males and females in language-related cortical regions. Language function in Wada tests, aphasia, and in normal ageing also fails to show sex differentiation.
Most of the studies showing differences in male and female brain structure are at best wildly speculative, assuming actual size differences are noted (in the above study, the claim that women have a thicker corpus callosum is met with a great deal of skepticism). Our idea of "brain science" is still rather questionable. Many studies are based on neuroimaging, which shows areas of the brain "lighting up." While this may look cool, if areas of the brain light up on imaging scans, it means that the areas are experiencing
more activity than they would in a resting state, not that there was previously no activity going on there. An example will illustrate my point: in an infamous study performed using a dead salmon, researchers showed the salmon emotionally charged pictures while asking it to determine the emotions that each picture represented. Using
standard statistical procedures, they found that there was significant brain activity on the dead fish's part. Obviously this result is ridiculous, and it happened because the statistical thresholds the researchers were using were too low to determine differences between the resting state and the brain state of the study's subject.
While it is true that (1) men have bigger brains, (2) there
are sex differences in the size of brain components and (3) sex-related brain differences matter, it is not true that any of these things explain behavioral differences. I could just as easily argue that men have larger brains and that women have a different ratio of gray to white matter because men tend to be larger than women on average. Behavior is something which is always observed and subject to interpretation by others. There is a real issue with researchers using their preconceived notions to interpret behavior. Women and men perform about equally on empathy tests until the women are reminded that they are stereotypically the more caring gender - then they score higher than the men.
In short, your assertions are not actually clear at all, based on the recent research. I will mention that women typically have a larger hippocampus, which is involved in processing memory, and men have a larger amygdala, which is involved in emotional processing. The problem is that we just don't know what that exactly means, because we don't know enough about the brain to begin with.
Blaming 100% of the variation on social factors doesn't follow, no matter how intellectually pleasing it is.
I don't think anyone wants to claim/is claiming that social factors explain everything. My concern is with how some people insist on using flawed studies to draw conclusions about the nature of people's innate worth.
I can't say I have proof of this. But it makes a lot of logical sense to me, especially with how it lines up with the observed differences in male vs. female aptitudes we tend to see in society today. Examining brain structures only lends further support to this. In any case, it wouldn't be logical to hold a default position that men and women have equal aptitudes.
But this is a rather flawed position to take because you have already reached a conclusion based on what you think are "observed differences in male vs. female aptitudes." There is a bit of confirmation bias going on there.
One more point that I think is really important to consider: we as a society tend to dichotomize concepts - good vs. evil, mind vs. body (in a philosophical sense), and in this case, social vs. biological. Researchers tend to operate from the viewpoint that if they cannot find a social explanation for a difference, then the difference must be biologically explainable, with all of the biological determinism that goes along with that. This is why they tend to use young children for studies, because the assumption is that they haven't been exposed to much environmental influence yet. Therefore, if young children behave in a gendered way, this must mean that their brains are gendered. This reflects a view in which individuals are passively influenced by outside genetic and environmental factors. But it is entirely possible that development is more dialectical, that brain structure is actually shaped in the process of learning - in other words, structure does not determine behavior, but behavior determines structure.
I am sure you are familiar with the history of neuroscience and how many procedures and interpretations that were regarded as reliable in Victorian times have now been consigned to the trash heap of history. Maybe lit-up blobs of brain matter in an MRI machine will eventually meet the same fate.
