So then, will you agree that this study constitutes less than a thorough debunking of the greater male variance hypothesis, despite the authors lofty claims?
I guess it's your turn again for a read-fail, because the authors make no such claim.
These findings are inconsistent with the greater male variability hypothesis.
Our findings are consistent with the gender stratified hypothesis, but not with the greater male variability
In support of the genderstratified hypothesis, we show here that greater male variability and gender gap in mathematics performance, when present, are both largely artifacts of a complex variety of sociocultural factors rather than intrinsic differences, co-educational schooling, or specific religious following per se.
There is no support in their study for the idea that greater male variability is "largely an artifact of sociocultural factors". For all we know, it's largely a result of biology, with sociocultural factors (along with sampling problems) causing the tails of the VR distribution to vary from a mean that is greater than 1.0. As you have stated, the author's did not estimate what a natural VR would be. They did not perform any regression analysis to determine what factors were at play in the VR measurements they obtained. They simply skipped all that and labeled this as "largely an artifact of sociocultural factors". It's an unsupported assertion. Thus my "lofty" claims objection.
