Life In 19x19

I think it depends on how we define intelligence. Living in different cultures I have noticed there are in fact differences in whether or not someone is considered smart.

Regardless chess and go are "Mind" sports and therefore depend entirely on the mental processes of the individuals playing. Whether or not you consider the skills required to play go equate to intelligence is irrelevant.

I'll post a link to what I wrote elsewhere: http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 64#p186464.

When speaking about the top of the scale, the mean might not be meaningful.

Usual IQ-tests (in the west) are constructed in a way that women and men share the same mean-IQ of 100. "Women are as intelligent as men by definition". However, the variance is bigger on the mens side, so that more men are hyper intelligent (and extremely low-intelligent) than women. I don't know whether the cultural context has an impact on this finding. It's certainly true in the western context. However, I wasn't able to find a good explanation why this is so.

There might be a similar thing happening for go skills: the bigger variance makes it more likely for the champ to be a man.

Some women will bubble through, I'm sure though. Some made it to the top in other fields:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryam_Mirzakhani
Apart from getting the fields medal, she scored the perfect score in the mathematical olympiads (tied with 13 men, but top it is).

bayu wrote:When speaking about the top of the scale, the mean might not be meaningful.

Usual IQ-tests (in the west) are constructed in a way that women and men share the same mean-IQ of 100. "Women are as intelligent as men by definition". However, the variance is bigger on the mens side, so that more men are hyper intelligent (and extremely low-intelligent) than women. I don't know whether the cultural context has an impact on this finding. It's certainly true in the western context. However, I wasn't able to find a good explanation why this is so.

Men have only one X chromosome, so its effects are less mitigated?

bayu wrote:However, the variance is bigger on the mens side, so that more men are hyper intelligent (and extremely low-intelligent) than women.

very interesting ... as is tapir's post about statistics:

If you take a random 10% of Go players, the top 100 of these 10% will be weaker on average than the top 100 of the rest of the population. This may not explain everything, but before diving into venus & mars or east & west type of explanation, you definitely should account for the different size of player populations first and figure out whether any significant difference to be explained remains after that.

Subotai wrote:Sorry I didn't realize this is a repost. I have been a member of this board for a few years now and have not seen any similar post.

While the video was interesting I don't really see how it directly applies to the question at hand. Are you saying that women are more likely to be praised for their intelligence while men are more likely to be praised for their effort and therefore become better players?

Sorry, I was only noting the commonness of this debate

The video was actually aimed at us, the speculators... -

Interesting.

Sabotai wrote:why is it that men and women are also on different levels when it comes to mind sports?

It would be helpful if you defined "on different levels". Do you mean
a) men are stronger (e.g. higher rated) than women on average or
b) more men than women (in absolute figures) rise to the top

If EGD coded for sex and made their dataset downloadable, we could check the validity of a) for amateurs. Is there any other data on this?
We see evidence for a) and b) on goratings.org, but it would be nice to have a more complete database. According to the main page, there should be 1600 professionals listed when there are only ~800.
Below, a short exploration of various hypotheses that have been put forth... or not.

Saxmaam wrote:I suspect that in general terms women are less likely to be interested in certain topics

I agree. But that doesn’t fit some people’s convictions. Some people just don’t like variance, it seems.

Jeromie wrote:differing social expectations for men and women

I doubt social expectations come into play when your goal is to compete for money (professional context), but maybe you can propose some way we could assess these “social expectations”, perhaps along with an explanation of why they should matter in a competition.

Bantai wrote:I honestly think that where pure intelligence is concerned, women are at least equal to men, and very likely superior.

Quality trolling. Kirby would be proud.

I think a lot of the misconceptions stem from people confusing fact and (purported) ideal. If you prefer to believe that men and women are equal (or that one sex is inherently superior), it seems logical to strive to explain away any evidence to the contrary. This sort of activity is ill-fated, as it never allows for learning experiences. You operate from a foregone conclusion. You (claim to) "already know the answer".

If you just look at the facts, you can be more productive and ask what the set of facts can tell us. This inquiry might actually lead to insights.

SaiLens wrote:I doubt social expectations come into play when your goal is to compete for money (professional context)

Except that social expectations influence unconsciously or in ways that cannot be simply eliminated because your goal doesn't make reference to social expectations. This is supported by a good deal of research, especially when it comes to stereotype threat.

It's also hard not to believe that social expectations play a role in pushing people towards or away from particular professional pursuits, especially if there is a strong social expectation that you become married and raise a family and such time investments make it hard to pursue certain professional careers that require a great deal of time and energy. The presence of such an expectation for women in certain cultures (especially, say, Japan) is hard to dispute.

I think a lot of the misconceptions stem from people confusing fact and (purported) ideal. If you prefer to believe that men and women are equal (or that one sex is inherently superior), it seems logical to strive to explain away any evidence to the contrary. This sort of activity is ill-fated, as it never allows for learning experiences. You operate from a foregone conclusion. You (claim to) "already know the answer".

Yes, as long as we bear in mind that this cuts both ways. Much of the presentation of research purporting to show inherent differences in male and female brains fails to adequately consider and eliminate alternative explanations to the innate/biological, such as cultural influences. There are just as many people eager to confirm their bias towards the notion of significant innate gender differences. And worrying that there might be other explanations than biological doesn't necessarily imply 'explaining away', unless there is a presumption that the alternative hypothesis is right.

Also, there are reasons to put the ideal first: given the difficulty of extricating cultural from biological influence in typical experimental settings, and given the lack of apparent drawbacks to presuming equality (or, if you prefer, being agnostic which implies removing any presumption of inequality - which I don't see being terribly different except where the presumption of equality is dogmatic), it seems worth presuming and seeing how things work out. Hyperpape already linked to a post that I think is relevant:

Hyperpape wrote:The evidence on this point is remarkably thin. Prior to Judit Polgar, there was no observational evidence that a woman could be top ten in the world in chess, and then there was. Until last year, there were no female Fields medalists, and then there was one.

Our social experiment of not suppressing women's talents is no more than two generations old (and not everyone is on board with the experiment). Give it a dozen generations, and we might be in a position to draw some positive conclusions that our talents are different.

Monadology wrote:

SaiLens wrote:I doubt social expectations come into play when your goal is to compete for money (professional context)

Except that social expectations influence unconsciously or in ways that cannot be simply eliminated because your goal doesn't make reference to social expectations. This is supported by a good deal of research, especially when it comes to stereotype threat.

As far as I know, "stereotype threat" studies have not been conducted in professional contexts, which is precisely the point I made. I'm not saying I doubt that schoolkids cannot be flustered, or that job interviewees can't be made nervous. I'm saying that I doubt <all> female professional players are affected by some sort of "social expectation", to a degree that it explains the difference in average playing strength between male and female professionals. Again, if you have any ideas how to assess these pressures (for men and women, please), you're very much welcome to do that.

It's also hard not to believe that social expectations play a role in pushing people towards or away from particular professional pursuits, especially if there is a strong social expectation that you become married and raise a family and such time investments make it hard to pursue certain professional careers that require a great deal of time and energy. The presence of such an expectation for women in certain cultures (especially, say, Japan) is hard to dispute.

Indeed, just as the presence of the same or similar expectations for men in certain cultures (especially, say, Japan) is hard to dispute - judging from what I've seen and experienced during my stay. Your point is? That women "suffer more" from social pressures than men do? How do you plan on corroborating that?

I think a lot of the misconceptions stem from people confusing fact and (purported) ideal. If you prefer to believe that men and women are equal (or that one sex is inherently superior), it seems logical to strive to explain away any evidence to the contrary. This sort of activity is ill-fated, as it never allows for learning experiences. You operate from a foregone conclusion. You (claim to) "already know the answer".

Yes, as long as we bear in mind that this cuts both ways. [...] And worrying that there might be other explanations than biological doesn't necessarily imply 'explaining away', unless there is a presumption that the alternative hypothesis is right.

It seems you did not read what I wrote. Try again. I emphasized the relevant bits. With respect to the latter part I underscored, let me just quote you again.

The presence of such an expectation for women in certain cultures (especially, say, Japan) is hard to dispute.

Should I mark that as you not presuming that your hypothesis is right?

being agnostic which implies removing any presumption of inequality

No, that's not what agnostic means or implies. Agnostic means you believe it is not possible to know. The word you're looking for is probably "unbiased" or "impartial". That is, only if you include removing any "presumption of equality" as well, of course. Otherwise we're back to "biased".

Also, there are reasons to put the ideal

No, you misunderstand. "The ideal" is indeed dogmatic, as you so aptly put, but it's precisely the kind of bias I urge people to avoid. Maybe that's your ideal, but it's not "the" ideal.

Hyperpape wrote:The evidence on this point is remarkably thin. Prior to Judit Polgar, there was no observational evidence that a woman could be top ten in the world in chess, and then there was. Until last year, there were no female Fields medalists, and then there was one.

Our social experiment of not suppressing women's talents is no more than two generations old (and not everyone is on board with the experiment). Give it a dozen generations, and we might be in a position to draw some positive conclusions that our talents are different.

Ah, you see, I don't care much for ideology. To you, not having a woman in the Top 10 of chess might signify suppression of women's talents. To me, not having a woman in the Top 10 of chess means not having a woman in the Top 10 of chess.

Hmm, the trouble is, if I asked most on this board how many sand particles may it take to equal the number of water molecules in one "drop" (0.05 g/cm^3) of water, it would be tricky to come up with a quick estimation of how big a beach that size be, even if if knew that it would take around 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 particles.

Because we usually have only two variables in our mind at any one time, it's hard to make a calculation many times more complex than the one above.

Even discounting that, it seems to be human nature to over-estimate the validity of a test or measurement: We've been been playing Go for so long (thousands of years), that the conditions must not be as much of a factor as it's made out to be; for example, one could say, in fact, there are "enough" other fields in which women seem take similar position that it has to be something related to nature, as nurture has been "rigorously tested"...

Similar occurs to those who tend to lean towards a different side of the debate. But you just cannot underestimate some things, whether it's difference in make or social context.
http://betterexplained.com/articles/how ... -of-scale/
Probably a bit casual, but the meaning is clear.

SaiLens wrote:

Hyperpape wrote:The evidence on this point is remarkably thin. Prior to Judit Polgar, there was no observational evidence that a woman could be top ten in the world in chess, and then there was. Until last year, there were no female Fields medalists, and then there was one.

Our social experiment of not suppressing women's talents is no more than two generations old (and not everyone is on board with the experiment). Give it a dozen generations, and we might be in a position to draw some positive conclusions that our talents are different.

Ah, you see, I don't care much for ideology. To you, not having a woman in the Top 10 of chess might signify suppression of women's talents. To me, not having a woman in the Top 10 of chess means not having a woman in the Top 10 of chess.

Read more carefully. My point is purely about the evidence: we don't have much yet. The only evidence that we have is that social pressures can radically reduce women's participation/achievement in some areas. You cannot conclude on the basis of that historical evidence that there is an intrinsic difference in ability.