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2024-11-11

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Slight male navigational advantage likely due to cultural differences, researchers find (phys.org)

submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

37 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A team of psychologists, social scientists, philosophers and evolutionary researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in the U.S. has found evidence suggesting that the slight advantage males have in navigation ability is likely due to differences in the ways male and female children are raised.

In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the group describes how they studied navigational skills in multiple species to find out if there might be an evolutionary basis for one gender or the other having better skills.

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[–] CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago (8 children)

Ill be that guy. The comment before yours was mostly referring to gender whereas yours refers more to sex. Two separate concepts. I’d agree with both of you that the sexes are different physically, but our gender stuff is mostly just meme perceptions and not descriptive of reality.

This claim about men’s natural sense of direction is an old myth but it’s important because it affects our ideas of gender being unequal (not sex).

[–] Zeth0s@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (7 children)

I have no idea if there is a difference in orientation abilities but if it exists, it would clearly be biological. I am happy it is a urban legend.

But nowadays too many people claim that male and female are identical with the exception of the penis. And it is pretty dangerous. Any trans person who transitioned can say how different their bodies and feelings are by just changing the amount of few hormones.

The fact that my comment has as many downvotes as upvotes demonstrated that the fact that biological differences exists are not so well known

[–] CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world -2 points 10 months ago (6 children)

The reason you were downvoted is because you conflated their comment about gender with one about sex. That’s all.

I don’t see many people conflating the sexes at all really. I just don’t think it matters much to people. Sex is mostly irrelevant unless you’re a medical or scientific professional. The only reason I’ve ever seen anyone concerned about sex differences is because they want to invalidate trans people and claim their gender must align with their sex.

[–] Zeth0s@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

We are talking of a case that, if true, would be a biological difference.

Sex is not irrelevant, and thinking that talking about biological differences is done to invalidate trans... I mean, it's a problem of the reader biases. The downvoters should think twice that the world is not made of people trying to invalidate trans people. I am fine with whatever a trans person does. Also because many trans people have biological characteristics that can be in between. Biologically, trans people are a universe of biological differences, they are not a single bucket. If I had to talk about trans people, I'd talk about trans people.

[–] null@slrpnk.net 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

We are talking of a case that, if true, would be a biological difference.

Isn't the point of this entire post that it isn't biological, but rather cultural?

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