Crooked Thinking About Spatial Sex Differences – Well-behaved women rarely make (scientific) history

by: Nicole Murgia

Nora S. Newcombe is the writer behind the essay titled Taking Science Seriously: Straight Thinking About Spatial Sex Differences however, in my opinion, there is no “straight thinking” behind any of the points or examples she discusses.

Newcombe constantly seems to be contradicting her own beliefs and opinions on the topic of spatial reasoning abilities in men and women. It almost seemed like she was having an argument with herself throughout the essay. Newcombe brings up Lawrence Summers, the former president of Harvard University, who stated in a presentation that there is indeed a difference found in men and women regarding spatial ability that favors men and is most prevalent at the higher ends of distribution. The comments made by Summers have been discussed previously in the book Why Aren’t More Women in Science? by other authors, and from what I have read about him, his speech was completely irrational and unsupported, as other authors have pointed out and backed up with research and examples. Newcombe however, chooses to not take a clear stance on Summer’s points when she answers both no and yes to the question “…was Summers correct in speculating that women may be held back from success in science partly because they lack the cognitive prerequisites?” (Newcombe 70). This point is both indecisive and confusing to the reader, which is a red flag already within the first few paragraphs of her essay.

Newcombe presented one assumption in the next section of her essay on causation that I partially agreed with. She concluded that the higher cognitive ability of some boys can be contributed from an environmental factor, in this case access to experiences that enhance spatial ability (computer games, puzzles, etc.), “sex differences in two spatial tasks… were not observed in young elementary school children from low-income backgrounds, although we saw sex differences in middle-and high-income groups (Newcombe 71). I found this very interesting, as there is a similar debate regarding SAT test scores between students high and low income families. Throughout the years, there have been results that support the statement that students from higher income environments score better than low income (Zumbrun 1). Although there is information that support this fact, “Within each income category, of course, is a tremendous amount of variation. There are students from wealthy families who do very badly and students from poor families who do very well. Having wealthy parents gives a leg up. But parental income is not destiny” (Zumbrun 1). I think that the same conclusion can be made for Newcombe’s take on elementary students and their cognitive abilities. Although access to tools and toys can enhance spatial ability, there are always exceptions.

After Newcombe presented that somewhat relevant point, she completely lost me for the rest of that article after her examples on the “Man the Hunter” and the “Man Who Gets Around”. The “Man the Hunter” example explains that because hunting requires spatial skills, men have the upper hand with spatial skills (Newcombe 72). However, once again, she contradicts herself by also including the “Women the Gatherer” example that explains how women also have good cognitive skills because of their experience basket weaving, making pottery, etc. (Newcombe 72). Last but certainly not least, was the “Man Who Gets Around” example. This point stated that men gain spatial skills navigating by navigating around their territories finding women to make sexual partners (Newcombe 72-73).

In conclusion, Newcombe’s essay was filled with strange examples and unbacked evidence. And even after reading her article multiple times, I still was not able to detect a clear stance on sex differences within spatial ability or an overall underlying purpose of her essay.

Works Cited

Zumbrun, Josh. “SAT Scores and Income Inequality: How Wealthier Kids Rank Higher.” Real Time Economics RSS. N.p., 7 Oct. 2014. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/10/07/sat-scores-and-income-inequality-how-wealthier-kids-rank-higher/

Newcombe, Nora “Taking Science Seriously: Straight Thinking About Spatial Sex Differences”

Gabrielle Bennetti says:

September 19, 2015 at 4:12 pm

I think you made a great connection with the article about SAT scores and income inequality. This is just like her study with spatial skills and varying income backgrounds just on a larger scale. I think she made a compelling argument here with the environmental influence on spatial skills. I was not sure if she was contradicting herself for the evolutionary basis for spatial skills or if she was trying to present it from both sides and it was just implied that the latter was what she was actually arguing. I can see the confusion here since she really did go back and forth.

Shivani Patel says:

September 20, 2015 at 12:00 am

In my opinion, I think it is valubale that you highlighted the fact that Newcombe’s essay was hard to follow and seemed to be contradicting itself. I had to read and re-read the essay a couple of times before it made sense to me. Once I understood what Newcombe was trying to do, it made sense, but I do agree that there was probably a better way to go about it. I also agree with you when you talk about the confusing examples like “Man the Hunter.” I think that if she was going to write an essay about the biological basis for the differences, then she should have used a more scientific rather than theoretical approach.

Charlotte says:

September 20, 2015 at 1:13 am

I agree with the fact that this chapter is rather confusing. The way she constructs her “argument” is not convincing at all. After reading her essay, I still couldn’t figure out her exact stand on this issue. She mentions “data” but doesn’t clarify where she found them. One of the example would be the idea of hunter and gatherer. She doesn’t say where or how she comes up with that “theory” and to me, as much as I want to think she’s right, it just doesn’t have enough credibility.

Olivia Taylor says:

September 20, 2015 at 4:00 pm

Hi! I thought the evidence you brought in regarding wealth versus success on test scores was interesting, and really added to your essay. Although, when i read this part of Newcombe’s essay, i was wondering what that had to do with women’s success in the sciences anyway. Is the fact that lower-income boys perform worse than higher income boys relevant to the issue of women and spatial ability? I didn’t think so until i realized that the fact that this ability can be environmentally influenced means that what skills you are born with are not fixed and unchanging – they can be improved or crushed, depending on the circumstances. This means that women have just as much of a chance as anyone!

Ying Wu says:

September 20, 2015 at 4:24 pm

I just have same thoughts with you. I think some of the points in Chapter 5 are very confusing. If the sex difference is not caused by biological difference and we can improve it by effort, we can definitely get convergence in this ability. But from her words, we can see that the ability difference is hard to be eliminated. So there must have some other reasons and causes which are not based on biology to the spatial difference in sex. However, she just talks about the facts she found from the statistics but doesn’t show any thoughts about the other reasons which caused this sex difference.