Other Crap

Boys not really better at math than girls

I reckon that this study was done by a woman. You know how I know that? The math is wrong!

General benchmark: "Girls scored on average two per cent less than boys, the findings published today in the journal Science show."

"But when the researchers compared the results with international standards on access to education and equality, they found they were closely linked. In Britain, girls fared 'only slightly less well' than male classmates, with female pupils scoring an average of 0.7 per cent less."

So two percent is the monstrous and highly significant "gender gap" to begin with, but .7 percent is "only slightly less well?" If two percent is a lot, seven tenths of a percent is still pretty freakin' big, isn't it? If one concedes that the Empire State Building is tall, one cannot call a 30-story building a level plain. To word the UK results without spin: two thirds of the difference between the genders disappears, but the other third remains.

"In Scandavian countries there was ALMOST no difference in test scores." I added the stress, to highlight that there was still a difference. You also must look at what is left unsaid. If the small remaining difference were statistically insignificant, the summary would be worded that way, but it is not, so I assume that the difference WAS statistically significant, despite the "almost no" qualifier. To word it without spin: the study could not identify any geographic regions where women performed as well as men or better. No matter how equal the opportunity, there is always some small difference, even in Scandinavia.

This, to me, is mysterious and unexpected. I would have guessed that completely equal education, coupled with completely equal cultural expectations and predispositions, would produce completely equal scores between the genders. If it does not, THAT VERY FACT is the real story - pretty much the oppposite of what the headline says!

“The so-called gender gap in maths skills seems to be at least partially correlated to environmental factors.” There is no de-spinning necessary on that statement, because it is a truism. We already knew before the study that differences in performance must be "at least partially" attributable to differences in education. If you needed a study to tell you that, I would like to sell you some nice residential property about halfway between Naples and Miami.