… we wouldn’t expect to know about the vast majority of possible differences.
This assumes there are any innate differences; the only other difference I neglected to mention is hormone balances. Hormones, like neurotransmitters, can affect the way humans think—besides the reproductively relevant hormones, I am not familiar with any specific differences in hormone balances between sexes (as I haven’t yet studied hormones in detail).
Brain plasticity is such that experience, particularly experience during rapid brain development (birth to ~12), can effect physiological changes in the brain.
The surveys the paper you linked analyse were of men and women with varying levels of education in a Western society (America). They found that the gap widens with higher reported levels of education. The economists at GMU who wrote the paper suggest that men learn more about economics per year of education, as they have more interest in it than women.
The question the economists investigated was not “Why is it that in populations of females and males with equal levels of education in economics, females still know less than men?” Indeed, their not even subtly suggesting that is an issue among economists implies there is no economics knowledge gap between male and female economists.
The GMU economists attempted to analyse existing, previously gathered survey data from 1996.
Speculation: This data may no longer be representative of the survey population.
The question the GMU economists did analyse was: “Why is it that, in our general Western populace (of America), females do not share the same opinions as economists about the issues on which they were surveyed in 1996, to a greater degree than the males of that same survey do not share the same opinions as economists about the issues on which they were surveyed in 1996?”
Speculation: Whatever differences of interest that spurred men in 1996 to learn more about economics than females in 1996 existed, the differences were caused by cultural influences rather than innate physiological discrepancies between the sexes. Cultural differences between the sexes could potentially affect females’ and males’ cortical physiology to the degree that economics would appear more interesting to broad spectrum males than females. I think it much more likely that the Western culture in question (America) was in 1996 and earlier more accepting of male interest in economics than female interest, if only because it is a simpler explanation.
Regardless, the data is quite old when one considers the Western cultural changes brought about by the internet and various other technologies in the past sixteen years. I think we should wait for more data before overanalysing a survey from 1996.
This assumes there are any innate differences; the only other difference I neglected to mention is hormone balances. Hormones, like neurotransmitters, can affect the way humans think—besides the reproductively relevant hormones, I am not familiar with any specific differences in hormone balances between sexes (as I haven’t yet studied hormones in detail).
Brain plasticity is such that experience, particularly experience during rapid brain development (birth to ~12), can effect physiological changes in the brain.
The surveys the paper you linked analyse were of men and women with varying levels of education in a Western society (America). They found that the gap widens with higher reported levels of education. The economists at GMU who wrote the paper suggest that men learn more about economics per year of education, as they have more interest in it than women.
The question the economists investigated was not “Why is it that in populations of females and males with equal levels of education in economics, females still know less than men?” Indeed, their not even subtly suggesting that is an issue among economists implies there is no economics knowledge gap between male and female economists.
The GMU economists attempted to analyse existing, previously gathered survey data from 1996.
Speculation: This data may no longer be representative of the survey population.
The question the GMU economists did analyse was: “Why is it that, in our general Western populace (of America), females do not share the same opinions as economists about the issues on which they were surveyed in 1996, to a greater degree than the males of that same survey do not share the same opinions as economists about the issues on which they were surveyed in 1996?”
Speculation: Whatever differences of interest that spurred men in 1996 to learn more about economics than females in 1996 existed, the differences were caused by cultural influences rather than innate physiological discrepancies between the sexes. Cultural differences between the sexes could potentially affect females’ and males’ cortical physiology to the degree that economics would appear more interesting to broad spectrum males than females. I think it much more likely that the Western culture in question (America) was in 1996 and earlier more accepting of male interest in economics than female interest, if only because it is a simpler explanation.
Regardless, the data is quite old when one considers the Western cultural changes brought about by the internet and various other technologies in the past sixteen years. I think we should wait for more data before overanalysing a survey from 1996.