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Episode 45: Rounded Brains and Balanced "Play Diets"

Very Bad Wizards

Is There a Difference Between Biology and Socialization?

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In one society, women don't want to be great scientists. Instead, they want to really succeed in other fields like education or the humanities. In another society, there's this sort of unconscious socialization that goes on in their children. But in both societies, when a man wants to go into education and a woman wanting to go into science, that there's no prejudice or there's no bias, right? Why is one of those better than the other?

A British tabloid article about kids, brains, and spatial skills somehow provokes the biggest argument ever on the podcast. Dave and Tamler get into it about gender, toys, properly rounded brains, and balanced "play diets." Is Dave a sanctimonious toe-the-line academic liberal? Is Tamler a Fox-News watching, mysoginist genetic determinist? Do they actually disagree about anything?

Plus Dave takes Tamler back after his fling with Partially Examined Life, and we discuss whether the new documentary The Unbelievers the atheist version of God is Not Dead?

Links

The Partially Examined Life podcast, and Tamler's Precognition of Ep. 93. [partiallyexaminedlife.com]
Girls and boys DO have different brains – should they have different toys? by Rachel Carlyle [express.co.uk]
The Unbelievers [unbelieversmovie.com]
My Growing Disappointment with the New Atheist Movement: A Review of the The UnBelievers. Ami Palmer. [missiontotransition.blogspot.com]
Nosek, B. A., Banaji, M. R., & Greenwald, A. G. (2002). Math= male, me= female, therefore math≠ me. Journal of personality and social psychology, 83, 44. [briannosek.com]
Cvencek, D., Meltzoff, A. N., & Greenwald, A. G. (2011). Math–gender stereotypes in elementary school children. Child development, 82, 766-779. [washington.edu]

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