|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 3 OF 5 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
| Mar-31-06 | | twinlark: I'd like to contribute the following to this debate: 1. There are no women participating in this debate (correct me if I'm wrong)...and 2. Here's a bit of science that addresses the subject: http://www.psychologytoday.com/arti... The Polgars demonstrate that girls can be as good as boys at chess, if there's the right confluence of internal and external factors. One of the main external differences between men and women was amusingly and amazingly demonstrated by the sociolinguist Deborah Tannen who showed that the very language of men and women is different in social structure. Men's conversations tend to be fundamentally competitive, while women conversations tend to be more networking (viz: cooperative) than competitive. And this is where women are better than men: women are generally more able to adapt to men's competitive language habits than men are able to adapt to (or adopt) women's networking style of communication. After all, it's a lot easier (more common) for a woman to be "one of the boys" than for a man to be "one of the girls". On the subject of maths. In New South Wales (an Australian State), girls generally performed worse at maths in school than boys, to the extent that there was intervention to assist the girls. In recent years, girls have performed better than boys, which is now also worrying people. |
|
| Mar-31-06 | | Jim Bartle: "1. There are no women participating in this debate (correct me if I'm wrong)..." Well, of course not, they're way too smart for that. |
|
| Mar-31-06 | | whatthefat: <twinlark: And this is where women are better than men: women are generally more able to adapt to men's competitive language habits than men are able to adapt to (or adopt) women's networking style of communication. After all, it's a lot easier (more common) for a woman to be "one of the boys" than for a man to be "one of the girls".> Again, I'd question how objective such studies can be, but I'll let it go because I don't see the relevance to chess ability in any case. :) <On the subject of maths. In New South Wales (an Australian State), girls generally performed worse at maths in school than boys, to the extent that there was intervention to assist the girls. In recent years, girls have performed better than boys, which is now also worrying people.> Amusing you should mention this, because I'm actually from NSW and have witnessed this myself. The same is happening in physics, which is my area of expertise, and in terms of enrolment numbers, the effect seems to be at least carrying through to university honours level. |
|
| Mar-31-06 | | twinlark: <<whatthefat> Again, I'd question how objective such studies can be> Fair enough question too. All I can really do is refer you to Tannen's book, "You Really Don't Understand" (from memory) and you can judge for yourself. I think it was based on her dissertation, but I'm unsure about that. On an anecdotal level though you must admit that they're aren't too many boys who are one of the girls. :) I didn't realise about physics. Very interesting. |
|
| Mar-31-06 | | csmath: <"1. There are no women participating in this debate (correct me if I'm wrong)..."
Well, of course not, they're way too smart for that.> Yes. This place is loaded with typical chess jerks. Just browse couple of pages more often on display and you'll quickly see that. Women, in general, do not put up with jerks for long, unless they have personal relations. Internet jerks are simply irrelevant to women. That is why they are not here. And that is why they do not play chess either as much as men do. They just do not tolerate jerks nor do they have this futile "competetive" spirit that men do waste their time on. |
|
| Mar-31-06 | | twinlark: <I don't see the relevance to chess ability in any case.> A thought: it could be that boys are brought up to be more competitive than girls, and this is reflected (generally) in their respective linguistic behaviour. If Tannen's conclusions are true, then think of chess as a language, or simply as a competitive endeavour. The hothousing of the Polgars shows (based on a sample size of between one and three...) that competitive conditioning can take in girls every bit as strongly as girls. |
|
| Mar-31-06 | | twinlark: <csmath> One thing I've noticed about some boys at the club level. If they're amongst the best players in the club with ratings around say 1900 or 2000, quite a few of them become conceited about their ability and results - and it's tolerated. The few girls who are unwise enough to engage in this sort of competitive behaviour get slapped down (metaphorically speaking) so quickly it's not funny. |
|
| Apr-01-06 | | Jim Bartle: Twinlark: You see that in business as well, and in sports. The man is "hard-charging" and "take no prisoners"; the woman is an "ambitious bitch." People tolerate, and some even admire, Donald Trump. (Excuse me a moment...OK, I'm back, I'm fine.) Yet how would a female Trump be regarded? In fact, there was at least one a few years ago, and she got raked over the coals: Leona Hemsley. Of course there could never really be a female Trump: there's no way to simulate that hair. |
|
| Apr-01-06 | | csmath: You need to distinguish between business and chess. Chess is a waste of time. Jerks in chess, which is a majority of chess players, are jerks where cempetetiveness isn't anything else than what a gorilla does when beating his chest. I have never seen ordinary women engaging themselves in such a ritual though of course there must be some. Intelligence nor the "way women think" (whatever that means) have nothing to do with interest for chess, this is simply a competition without goal. In general, women do compete, you'll find them in business, but they are less inclined to do futile competition that men do. How else to explain 1800 player that has been 1800 player for decades, makes no progress and yet still behaves like a jerk. That is your typical gorilla male. |
|
| Apr-01-06 | | Jim Bartle: "How else to explain 1800 player that has been 1800 player for decades, makes no progress and yet still behaves like a jerk. That is your typical gorilla male." Hey, stop talking about me. |
|
| Apr-01-06 | | Akavall: <csmath><Jerks in chess, which is a majority of chess players> Are you saying majority of chess players are jerks? My experience has been completely different; I found people at the tournaments to be really nice. Sure, there is competition and sometimes losing hurts, but it doesn't mean one should be jerk about it--you should respect your opponent and give him/her credit for winning the game, and this is what I have seen. As far as jerks on here go, you should evaluate the nature of your comments, and this might explain why you run into "jerks" more often than others do; also, this might be a reason why you run into "jerks" at tournaments as well. |
|
Apr-01-06
 | | keypusher: I have never seen such a genius for projection. |
|
| Apr-01-06 | | twinlark: <csmath>
I've personally found most chess players in clubs and tournaments to be courteous. There's a few jerks in every crowd. I don't believe that you think <chess is a waste of time>, as otherwise you wouldn't come here and you wouldn't have posted over 3000 kibitzes in the last couple of years. Peace. |
|
| Apr-01-06 | | Akavall: <keypusher> Why do you think <csmath> deleted his post? :) |
|
Apr-02-06
| | keypusher: Re the debate above, I think it's a commonplace that IQ scores are more widely distributed in men than in women (or, crudely put, a man is more likely than a woman to be either a genius or a moron). I read somewhere that, if IQ were 20% more variably distributed among men than among women, at four standard deviations from the mean you would have something like 30,000 men for every woman. (Feel free to correct me, anyone who knows -- I am hopeless at math.) So if a very high IQ is a good proxy for chess ability, the pool of male candidates is much larger than the pool of female candidates. From a Malcolm Gladwell article:
<A useful case study is to compare the ability of men and women in math. If you give a large, representative sample of male and female students a standardized math test, their mean scores will come out pretty much the same. But if you look at the margins, at the very best and the very worst students, sharp differences emerge. In the math portion of an achievement test conducted by Project Talent-a nationwide survey of fifteen-year-olds-there were 1.3 boys for every girl in the top ten per cent, 1.5 boys for every girl in the top five per cent, and seven boys for every girl in the top one per cent. In the fifty-six-year history of the Putnam Mathematical Competition, which has been described as the Olympics of college math, all but one of the winners have been male. Conversely, if you look at people with the very lowest math ability, you'll find more boys than girls there, too. In other words, although the average math ability of boys and girls is the same, the distribution isn't: there are more males than females at the bottom of the pile, more males than females at the top of the pile, and fewer males than females in the middle. Statisticians refer to this as a difference in variability.> |
|
| Apr-02-06 | | Jim Bartle: "(or, crudely put, a man is more likely than a woman to be either a genius or a moron)" Anybody who reads chessgames doesn't needed to be convinced of that. keypusher: I subscribe to The New Yorker. Could you tell me which issue the Gladwell article was in? |
|
Apr-02-06
| | keypusher: May 19, 1997. But here is the article:
http://gladwell.com/1997/1997_05_19... |
|
| Apr-02-06 | | Jim Bartle: Thanks. In my previous post "needed" should of course be "need." |
|
| Apr-04-06 | | twinlark: Throw into this mix the likelihood that educational outcomes in maths may have more to do with nurture than nature. See <whatthefat>'s and my earllier posts about girls doing better in maths in schools in New South Wales than boys. New South Wales has nearly 7 million people. |
|
Apr-04-06
 | | Open Defence: <girls doing better in maths> mostly coz they study ... surprising how most guys think they can wing it |
|
Apr-04-06
| | keypusher: <twinlark> Yes, but you were discussing average scores. In the US girls do better on average than boys in pretty much every subject, including math. The gender distribution of college freshman is something like 58%-42%. But if New South Wales or any other place were to have more girls than boys at the extremes of the bell curve distribution of math test scores, that would indeed be news. |
|
| Apr-04-06 | | twinlark: <keypusher> I really can't answer that one without doing some research. I think that in NSW girls do better on average and at the top of the bell curve. I'll try and find out. Might take a while though. :) |
|
| Apr-04-06 | | s4life: <EmperorAtahualpa: <It's no secret that women are much more affected through adolescense by social pressure.>
<s4life> Really? What makes you think that?> It derives from the fact that women in general don't like to compete as much as men do, but rather they tend to cooperate, and social acceptance is of upmost importance... if you still don't think this is true then ask Susan Polgar. <<i.e., they are less interested in brainy stuff and even try to appear dumb-er to look cool.>That is the first time I hear this argument. Since when is it cool to be dumb? >
You got it wrong... it's all about perceptions. Have you ever heard and hip-hop artist singing about how good he's at math? |
|
| Apr-04-06 | | Jim Bartle: True, but fans have got to realize deep down that hip-hop moguls like Russell Simmons and Puffy Combs (or whatever he calls himself these days) have to understand a lot of math to run businesses the way they do. Or do they? |
|
| Apr-05-06 | | s4life: <Or do they?> I am pretty sure they have an accountant :) |
|
 |
|
|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 3 OF 5 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Kibitzing
