<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	>
<channel>
	<title>Comments on: Friday Blogging Round-up</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.republicoft.com/2008/06/20/friday-blogging-round-up/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.republicoft.com/2008/06/20/friday-blogging-round-up/</link>
	<description>Black. Gay. Father. Vegetarian. Buddhist. Liberal.</description>
	<pubDate>Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:03:50 +0000</pubDate>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1</generator>
		<item>
		<title>By: Liz Ditz</title>
		<link>http://www.republicoft.com/2008/06/20/friday-blogging-round-up/#comment-182474</link>
		<dc:creator>Liz Ditz</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:14:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.republicoft.com/2008/06/20/friday-blogging-round-up/#comment-182474</guid>
		<description>On "thinking like a girl" -- CNN had a &lt;a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/06/17/harder.to.raise/index.html" rel="nofollow"&gt;credulous  article earlier this week&lt;/a&gt;, and Mark Liberman took two swipes at it:  &lt;a href="http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=260" rel="nofollow"&gt;sexual pseudoscience at CNN&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=261" rel="nofollow"&gt;Innate sex differences: science and public opinion&lt;/a&gt;.

In the first post, Liberman writes: "And it's crucial to keep in mind that at every age, individual differences among boys and among girls are large compared to the average differences between the groups." 

In the second post, Liberman writes: 

&lt;blockquote&gt;Scientists mostly understand the dangers of overinterpretation and the importance of replication and triangulation. The public mostly doesn't. Unfortunately, journalists and editors also mostly don't understand these issues — or at least they act as if they don't. As a result, the role of science in the marketplace of opinion is seriously degraded by popular prejudice and by lobbyists for various commercial and ideological interests. I hope that this post, aside from any intrinsic interest that the content may have, will provide some material for discussion of those points.

[snip]

I've often emphasized the importance of looking at effect size — the difference between group means expressed as a proportion of a measure of within-group variation — and its implications for statements about general properties of groups. Over and over again, we find journalists (and even some scientists) describing small effect sizes of 0.10 to 0.20 with statements like "Xs are better at Foo than Ys are", although the real prediction is only that on a test of Foo, if you pick a random X and a random Y, the X will score better than the Y.(say) 53 times out of 100, but lower than the Y 47 times out of 100.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
So-- not so much evidence for "thinking like a girl" or "thinking like a boy".</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>On &#8220;thinking like a girl&#8221; &#8212; CNN had a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/06/17/harder.to.raise/index.html" rel="nofollow">credulous  article earlier this week</a>, and Mark Liberman took two swipes at it:  <a href="http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=260" rel="nofollow">sexual pseudoscience at CNN</a> and <a href="http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=261" rel="nofollow">Innate sex differences: science and public opinion</a>.</p>
<p>In the first post, Liberman writes: &#8220;And it&#8217;s crucial to keep in mind that at every age, individual differences among boys and among girls are large compared to the average differences between the groups.&#8221; </p>
<p>In the second post, Liberman writes: </p>
<blockquote><p>Scientists mostly understand the dangers of overinterpretation and the importance of replication and triangulation. The public mostly doesn&#8217;t. Unfortunately, journalists and editors also mostly don&#8217;t understand these issues — or at least they act as if they don&#8217;t. As a result, the role of science in the marketplace of opinion is seriously degraded by popular prejudice and by lobbyists for various commercial and ideological interests. I hope that this post, aside from any intrinsic interest that the content may have, will provide some material for discussion of those points.</p>
<p>[snip]</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve often emphasized the importance of looking at effect size — the difference between group means expressed as a proportion of a measure of within-group variation — and its implications for statements about general properties of groups. Over and over again, we find journalists (and even some scientists) describing small effect sizes of 0.10 to 0.20 with statements like &#8220;Xs are better at Foo than Ys are&#8221;, although the real prediction is only that on a test of Foo, if you pick a random X and a random Y, the X will score better than the Y.(say) 53 times out of 100, but lower than the Y 47 times out of 100.
</p></blockquote>
<p>So&#8211; not so much evidence for &#8220;thinking like a girl&#8221; or &#8220;thinking like a boy&#8221;.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
</channel>
</rss>
