Interview with Susan Pinker, author of The Sexual Paradox

In The Sexual Paradox, Susan Pinker takes a hard look at how fundamental sex differences continue to play out in the workplace. In this interview, Pinker covers topics such as the real gender gap, the effects of biology on our behaviour, and particularly the effects of higher testosterone levels in males and females.

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[evangrogers]

whenever i look at the gender biological or environmental debate...

... i only ever hear of good research on the biological side, and I only ever hear the word "stereotype" on the environmental side....

[Iambecome]

I find all of this compelling. And for absurd reasons, these important points would be met with intemperate controversy in most areas of academia in the humanities. I'm an admirer of Susan Pinker's brother, Steven, who makes similar arguments. I would like to check out Susan's book.

[astroboomboy]

@Iambecome Yeah, I guess I'm unfair, but I just think that science should adhere to the highest standards possible when it comes to truth, and only publish findings when these have been tested several times, and have a high certainty about the claims they make. The social sciences are not precise sciences, and thus have to show the problems with the theories they pose. I see this very rarely. The field is just too complicated at the present moment!

[Iambecome]

@astroboomboy I'm just being douchey--props for the respectful reply. I think you're being a little unfair to the researchers but I take your point.

[astroboomboy]

@Iambecome I'm not against the studies and the field itself, but the results are not nearly as certain as Pinker would have it, and she never seems to mention them. I don't see why I would be borderline autistic if I don't find differences between the sexes to be interesting? I think there are much more interesting fields that can create much more interesting results, like the way memory functions, relation between language and the brain, and other more specific problems.

[astroboomboy]

@Iambecome The reason I find it a boring field is mainly because I don't really think the field is very scientific, nor are the researchers rigorous in trying to find answers. The findings that Susan Pinker quotes are extremely uncertain. It is very hard to find direct correlations between chemical substances in our bodies and our actions, the causal relations are in the billions, and most of these experiments create a wide range of conflicting results.

[Iambecome]

@astroboomboy You must be borderline autistic if you find it a boring field. Also, I come from the humanities--yes, such ideas are met with controversy. Though I'm using humanities broadly.

[astroboomboy]

There are probably some sex differences, although these are extremely hard to measure. But I don't really think it is very interesting to study the small differences between male and female. It's such a boring field, and yeah I know, why am I here. I just thought I'd see if Steven's sister might have something interesting to say, and I guess not...

[astroboomboy]

@Iambecome It's not really in the humanities it will be met with controversy. Sure, literary studies and gender studies might overlook it, but most fields in humanities don't care, like history, philosophy, etc. All the people in my field (linguistics) share this view, but then again linguistics isn't really part of humanities anymore. The fields that really react to these studies are the social sciences. But I regard Most of Susan's work as pseudoscience, much like all of social sciences.