Nornagest comments on Rationality Quotes May 2013 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: katydee 03 May 2013 08:02PM

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Comment author: Nornagest 05 May 2013 09:55:21PM *  2 points [-]

I don't suppose you've got a cite for the central claim here? It's a decent enough example of reasoning from the bottom line whether or not it turns out to be true, but I Googled a couple different sets of keywords, and the only thing that came up besides a whole mess of birth records and obstetricians' papers was Warwick's lecture notes.

Comment author: Morendil 05 May 2013 11:12:07PM *  5 points [-]

Google turns up a source for the "women of genius" quote, a book "Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities" by D. Halpern. The book's quote is from someone named Bayertahl, and it's an indirect quotation from a 1989 article, "Sexual Dimorphism in the Human Brain: Dispelling the Myths" supposedly by a J. Janowsky. I say supposedly because looking for a fulltext leads me to a version with a similar title ("Sexual Dimorphism of the Human Brain: Myths and Realities") but is by M. A. Hofman and D. F. Swaab; it contains the Bayertahl quote in the original German and says that the primary source is this 1932 article by a Louis Bolk, "Hersenen en Cultuur" (Brains and Culture). This is also a full text, in Dutch; Google's translation seems to roughly confirm the claim as reported by Warwick (though the "women of genius" quote does not seem to appear in Bolk's article, at a first cursory glance).

Comment author: Randaly 06 May 2013 12:06:58AM 1 point [-]

This cites "Bayerthall 1911".

Comment author: lukeprog 05 May 2013 11:25:18PM *  1 point [-]

This paper is my best lead so far, but it's behind a paywall at the moment. I think it's in "Bayerthal (1911)", whatever that turns out to be.

Comment author: lukeprog 06 May 2013 04:21:32PM 1 point [-]

Bayerthal (1911) is unfortunately in German. Now I'm waiting for access to this paper.

Comment author: lukeprog 07 June 2013 01:00:50AM 0 points [-]

Got it. But see here in any case.