satt comments on Polling Thread - Less Wrong

12 Post author: Gunnar_Zarncke 22 January 2014 09:14PM

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Comment author: satt 23 January 2014 02:19:26AM 1 point [-]

I don't see how replacing biological with inate or genetic changes the question. Describe a position for which the word choice matters.

Someone might believe in the causal graph (male students implicitly expected by their peers, teachers and family to study sciences, while female students aren't) → (female students having lower science knowledge) → (fewer women in the sciences).

If one thinks about it, this causal chain implies a biological difference between male students & female students. Knowledge is stored in brains, so a difference in knowledge implies a difference in brains, which would be a biological difference. But this biological difference wouldn't necessarily be an innate or genetic difference. Were the causal graph correct and sufficiently complete, the male-female knowledge difference would be a biological but non-innate difference generated non-genetically. So someone believing in that causal graph would say "yes" if asked whether the difference were "biological", but "no" if asked whether it were "genetic" or "innate".