Are you open to the idea that bias explains less than 100% of the discrepancy? If not, why?
Yes, I'm open to it. But I truly do not think we're at the point yet where we can say, well, hey, we've absolutely done ALL we can, nothing is changing anymore, and now we can pronounce that any remaning differences are biological.
All we "can" do and all we "should" do are two entirely different questions, and depending on your perspective, neither necessarily has anything to do with biological differences. Assuming there is a natural difference in mean or variance of mathematical ability between the sexes, can we apply bias to lessen those differences? Sure. Should we? That's opinion.
Girls' and women's performance on math and science measures is in RAPID flux and is NOT by any means internationally consistent (look at the study Dude posted above), as we might expect if we were looking at a biologically constant issue.
Just because there is flux, doesn't necessarily mean we are approaching the natural, unbiased result. We may be have been moving away from it the whole time, or we may have started out moving toward it, but overshot it. Also, international consistency doesn't necessarily tell us anything about biology. I can think of numerous genetic traits that vary both in mean and variance across populations. Is anyone going to argue that eye pigmentation is not biological, since it varies in mean and variance internationally?
I read the study that was the basis of the link Dude provided. I found it less than a convincing debunking of higher male variance in mathematical ability. They actually go so far as to plot a histogram of international gender Variance Ratios (VR) that peaks at 1.16, with an inter-country variance of only 0.0054 (I calculated myself from the data. The authors claim a "large" variance without actually stating it.), and go on to argue that the natural variance ratio is 1.0, and the explanation for anything else is bias. The amusing thing is that they implicate bias in exaggerating the natural variance ratio in just about every country tested, and refuse to accept that bias could possibly diminish this ratio in the handful of countries that show a smaller ratio (which could also be caused by sampling error). Of course, they also discount the idea that different countries with different populations could have different biological variance ratios. In effect, they assume that many groups of humans are genetically similar in order to (attempt to) disprove that 2 groups of humans are genetically different.
Additionally, the study was based on knowledge tests rather than ability tests like IQ, and they make the annoyingly ubiquitous mistake of portraying correlation as causation:
maternal education and employment opportunities likely having indirect effects on learning by their offspring regardless of gender
I'm not denying it as a possibility... but I can think of numerous other possible explanations that have not been controlled for.
Their educational choices WRT the degrees they choose to pursue are also changing rapidly. There have been HUGE changes in 20 years. 20 years!! That is NOTHING. Absolutely and completely meaningless in evolutionary time.
No argument here.
Look at how fast our society is evolving. It's incredible. Our own parents would likely have laughed their heads off at the idea of a serious female contender for president. Let's continue to give it time and to give our young girls opportunity.
Is anyone arguing that we not give young girls opportunities? I hope we are giving all of our children opportunities to learn and perform, regardless of gender.
The good news is that I think they're going to take it anyway, regardless of people who are still wandering around telling them they aren't interested in engineering due to their vaginas. (My own DD won the "build the tallest thing out of these materials in X amount of time" contest at her school's engineering night last year.)
Congratulations to your DD. My DD is only three, but if you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up she'll answer either an engineer, or a teddy bear, depending on her mood. As far as I can tell, she has the aptitude for it (engineering, not being a teddy bear... if teddy bears are expected to hug strangers or family members who only visit on occasion then she has little aptitude for that).
