Nigel Short: Women's brains not chess brains

Two words   JUDIT POLGAR.

Lets talk of something else.

I once went to a chess club, I was the only woman, I felt so out of it. Never had a game and left early.

I wouldn't give Nigel Short credit for saying that there are brain differences between the sexes. But I will say he's a sexist. Everything you said is interesting:)

I'm on line with Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins and such people, David Buss for instance. There's a whole field called evolutionary psychology studying psychology from an evolutionary perspective, in which gender differences is only a small and not very interesting corner. There's not much trouble in figuring out that what the main lines would be since it's pretty obvious that women are biologically equipped for the nurturing role and men for the "kill shit, hunt and protect the flock" -role. Like most mammals. I don't even thing there are any mammals with big strong femals and small males?

The "desire" comes with the role, since for instance women would have no biological use of being able to lactate if they didnt want to give their babies milk and men would have no use of their stronger muscles if they didnt give a damn that someone murdered their wife and children. (A tiger wouldnt care for instance, male tigers excpect female tigers to fend for themselves.) And squirrels wouldnt have any use of their treeclimbing abilities if they didnt like trees. To me it's just weird that people always want to separate desires and biology.

I got bored with the stuff though, so I wouldnt know if anything important changed the last 10 years or so though.

For any individual person gender differences doesnt matter, even though your "group" is statistically underequipped you just might be special and succeed anyway.

Women are definitely smarter than men, that is why they live longer.

One word: statistics.

It's difficult for me to see where you're going? You've kind of gotten to the point where differences in individuals, instead of sexes, are what matters. And I agree with you there:)

Amd there are clams that can be 3-400 years old. Smart little suckers!

9 words: Statistics don't tell us why fewer women play chess.

True, but:

I searched FIDE and they have 442 842 rated males and 62 165 rated females. With that ratio there should be 6 women rated 2700+, since there are 43 such men. However, there are none.

There are more than 109 male players rated 2650+. Statistically, there should be 15 women with that rating. There are only 2.

Yes, that is interesting. I wonder if it has anything to do with the types of competition they play. Do all those women in the FIDE database play in the same competitions as the men or do they play mainly in women's competitions? Do those competitions confer less points? 

I disagree. I believe in the case of piloting airplanes and playing chess it is a matter of the individual and social circumstances, and not based on some difference in the female brain:)

Wrong. Female animals are usually larger, sometimes much larger, than males, for obvious reasons. Even in mammals is common (take whales for example). Larger males came usually as a result of competition between them for the access to females in a system of harems (e.g. lions, great apes, bulls). This was happening in our line in past times (male australopithecus were almost double size than their female partners), and still remains a vestige in our species.

Still, I don't understand how is all this related to a board game.

(Yogurt #121)....male tigers excpect female tigers to fend for themselves.

'Cuz they're scaredeecats ! Lions and Tigers and Bears (Oh My !!) are suppose to be the Kings of the Forest and Dorothy knew exactly what the Cowardly Lion needed.  

Female tiger dont need no protection RAWR lol.

Dont know much about lions but I think the male doesnt do much except strut around and look kingly.

The work of Bilalic et al. to which you're referring was discredited for using faulty statistical methods. Actually, the gender gap (of about 300 points at top level) is only about 67% explained by the difference in participation rates. The remaining 33% (100 points) remains unexplained. I came to a similar conclusion when I did a statistical analysis of FIDE player ratings. Cultural pressure is one explanation, but it's something that's impossible to prove quantitatively.

I checked the hospitals. 100% of mothers are women.  

I checked the prisons. Female6.7% ; Male93.3%.

Must be something to do with brain size.

That means you have more chances of being killed by a Nigel Short than a Polgar... :)

Usually, the question of gender performance difference is centered around why there are separate tournaments and titles for women. Some argue that keeping up this practice is sexist, assuming that there are no biological differences at play. If, however, there are biological differences that can be proven to affect the respective levels at which the average man or woman plays chess, there is a more acceptable incentive to keep the separation going.

Personally, I prefer the middle ground of keeping up separate tournaments and titles only as long as there is a noticeable performance gap between the sexes. We don't know why this gap exists and persists, but we do know that without the possibility of reaching the very top of a unisex ratings pool, women won't have equal chances of getting recognition for playing chess. An absence of visible role models may in turn diminish the likelihood of new female players entering the field.

Its called constitutional vitality fyi...,nothing related to smartness:)