Nigel Short: Women's brains not chess brains

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ProfessorProfesesen
ab121705 wrote:

ProfessorProfesesen wrote: blah blah blah

yes we've heard this noise for decades now Prof. grow up, get a brain, get over it.

Brown people were just as vicious way back when as white Europeans. They were raping, colonizing, pillaging, torturing each other in ways not dreamed of by whitey (look it up stupid!!). 

It's what was done back then,  by everyone!! Europeans just did it better. 

Grow up and stop living in the past. 

lol...

edit: well said...

trysts
kaynight wrote:

Trysts is one aggressive " female."

Are you just going to cry in every thread about me? It gets boring for everyone.

Elubas

"It always amazes me that some males think that females are somehow not equipped to play a board game because a small amount of males are exceptionally good at it. I'm one of many females who win males all the time in this game."

They're not talking about you, trysts -- or at least they shouldn't be. "Women" does not refer to any individual woman, such as yourself; it refers to a statistical group.

Why identify your own self based on data taken on a bunch of women (and men) who are not you?

batgirl
SmyslovFan wrote:

Thanks, Batgirl! I was wondering if it was one of her sisters who made the quote. I'll have to look it up later though.

Sophia gave her views in 2003 on the now defunct Kasparovchess under the heading:
Polgar Why Is There Only One Woman Player In The Top 100?
Sophia Polgar sounds off in our Rant! column

It may be hard to find online anymore.

trysts
Elubas wrote:

"It always amazes me that some males think that females are somehow not equipped to play a board game because a small amount of males are exceptionally good at it. I'm one of many females who win males all the time in this game."

They're not talking about you, trysts -- or at least they shouldn't be. "Women" does not refer to any individual woman, such as yourself; it refers to a statistical group.

Why identify your own self based on data taken on a bunch of women (and men) who are not you?

Good point.

ProfessorProfesesen
trysts wrote:
kaynight wrote:

Trysts is one aggressive " female."

Are you just going to cry in every thread about me? It gets boring for everyone.

You must be famous...your own personal stalker...

TitanCG
Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:
trysts wrote:
Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:
 I suspct myself that the lack of female chess grandmasters is due to the interest and reward systems more than the raw capabilities.

I agree with you there:)

Hehe.

OT i did martial arts and archery in the past.

In martial arts is was clear that the gender difference was HUGE, also in things you don't normally consider such as speed, willingness to win, resistance to punch opponents and compusure when under pressure. The girls would much more often completely loose their cool when they were overmatches whereas guys try to sort of keep something going and bite it down.

In archery on the other hand I didnt see any gender difference what so ever. The only thing was that women with big boobs had problems with the boob getting slapped by the bow string lol.

I reckon this is simply ego stroking exacerbatted by what was perceived to be a "violation" of gender roles. You might see that in threads like these in fact. It's "interesting" to note how genders handle sudden changes that violate the perceived social structure. But some people don't believe in the whole social thing so whatever. 

You're on your own with the archery mate.

trysts
ProfessorProfesesen wrote:
 

You must be famous...your own personal stalker...

Wonderful...

biteme62

NIGEL SHORT IS FULL SHIT!!!!! AND VERY SEXIST!!!!!!

biteme62

ANYONE NOT LIKING MY COMMENT CAN GO TO HELL!!!~!!

Pulpofeira

Shh! I'm riding a hangover!

Raspberry_Yoghurt
trysts wrote

I'm not bright enough nor educated in those fields enough to figure out what biological data will persuade the scientific community to recognize how hard it will be for a female to become a world chess champion. So I can only speak in a chess forum about the different social problems which may make it difficult.

And evolution theory is just wrong or what?

Raspberry_Yoghurt
TitanCG wrote:

I reckon this is simply ego stroking exacerbatted by what was perceived to be a "violation" of gender roles. You might see that in threads like these in fact. It's "interesting" to note how genders handle sudden changes that violate the perceived social structure. But some people don't believe in the whole social thing so whatever. 

You're on your own with the archery mate.

What?

Raspberry_Yoghurt
WhoIsHe17 wrote:

Typically women in western culture AREN'T VERY INTERESTED in chess. I would also argue that a woman gets less dopamine released(reward) when she wins a chess game than a man.  So it's not that women can't it's that they won't/don't.  Also a woman feels less validated by her win so maybe she is not fighting as hard unless the game had some kind of emotional value.

Agree. Plus women gets penalized much harder than men for doing unsocial things, such as being alone studying chess for many hours year after year.

TitanCG
Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:
TitanCG wrote:

I reckon this is simply ego stroking exacerbatted by what was perceived to be a "violation" of gender roles. You might see that in threads like these in fact. It's "interesting" to note how genders handle sudden changes that violate the perceived social structure. But some people don't believe in the whole social thing so whatever. 

You're on your own with the archery mate.

What?

It's pretty straight forward mate. People react differently to changes in perceived social status. But like I said some people don't accept this.

trysts
Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:
trysts wrote

I'm not bright enough nor educated in those fields enough to figure out what biological data will persuade the scientific community to recognize how hard it will be for a female to become a world chess champion. So I can only speak in a chess forum about the different social problems which may make it difficult.

And evolution theory is just wrong or what?

I don't understand you there? I'm saying that females can play chess so well that they can win the world championship. That there is nothing about our brains inherently female which make us unequipped to compete with men at the very highest levels. Therefore, in my view, I believe that only social issues, not biological issues, account for the smaller percentages of women competing for the championship presently:)

Murphy70

There is far to much sexism in chess as it is without Short sticking his oar in, even FIDE is sexist by allowing women to get titles with lower grades than men. They should compete on the same level for titles IMHO, then we can say chess is fair to everyone. 

TurboFish
trysts wrote:
 Therefore, in my view, I believe that only social issues, not biological issues, account for the smaller percentages of women competing for the championship presently:)

But biological differences can affect the *desire* to play chess.  So societal issue are definitely not the only factors explaining women's overall apparent lack of interest in chess.

scythe_makes_right
trysts wrote:

Here, lets make this easier. You're a man, I'm a woman. You read this:

"Emotional intelligence" is a typical sexist remark. In his eyes he sees it as a compliment. What he doesn't understand is it's an excluding remark. He excludes women of conceptual intelligence. He excludes men from emotional intelligence. Both sexes are capable of lacking emotional intelligence, just as both sexes are capable of a high degree of emotional intelligence. Women can also have a high degree of conceptual intelligence.

Nigel is still correct as far as *aggregate* differences go. That doesn't mean that individual men or women can't be good at things that the other sex generally excel at.

Where I do part ways with him is that his conclusion that women can't play chess at the same level of men does not follow from these differences. There are two main problems I see with this conclusion. Firstly, far fewer women play chess than men, and I think that is the single biggest factor in the performance difference. This difference in participation isn't necessarily due to sexism, as women may be less *interested* in chess because of some aggregate personality differences, but it does NOT mean that they are inherently less skilled at chess. The second problem is the one that Polgar pointed out: women and men may use different strategies/approaches to chess, but that doesn't mean that one approach will necessarily be more successful than the other.

All this being said, I don't think it's implausible that men are better at chess, but if they are, it's to a much smaller degree than the current ratings discrepancy suggests (e.g. 50 Elo points on average). Here's my reasoning:

1) Women have less physical stamina, which comes into play in the longest games (6-7 hours), as attested to by Hou Yifan.

2) The neurological differences Nigel pointed out *may* translate to a difference in chess playing ability. I think he's jumping the gun, but it shouldn't be sacreligious to say so if his claim ends up being *empirically* demonstrated down the road.

trysts
TurboFish wrote:
trysts wrote:
 Therefore, in my view, I believe that only social issues, not biological issues, account for the smaller percentages of women competing for the championship presently:)

But biological differences can affect the *desire* to play chess.  So societal issue are definitely not the only factors explaining women's overall apparent lack of interest in chess.

It's a board game. Is there actually going to be research money to find out what the biological differences are in desire to play a board game?