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Nigel Short: Women's brains not chess brains

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Elubas
Elubas
May 10, 2015
0
#1401
electricpawn wrote:

When one considers the strong response to Nigel's remarks among men, and since the use of statistics has been discussed, it would be interesting to see what traits are most prominent among this subset of individuals who are so adament about women's brains not being hardwired for chess.  

For example, what percentage of women would consider these men desirable sex partners? Do these men bear a resentment toward women in general because they had domineering mothers? Absent mothers who never displayed any love or affection for them?

Are these men athletic, or were they always the last selected for dodgeball teams in gym class? I think a major university should do some research on this subject.

Well, for one thing, this gives the impression that you are looking for ways to ad hominem a certain side of the argument. That is, you are hoping you find out that a lot of these men/women are uncool or something instead of, you know, actually trying to refute their argument.

Elubas
Elubas
May 10, 2015
0
#1402
trysts wrote:
Elubas wrote:
trysts wrote:
Elubas wrote:
 

Same goes for females. There's a lot we don't know. There's a lot that we wish we knew, but don't.

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

 

Well, it's the sad truth, many people don't realize how little we know. Their normal reaction to something they don't know is to explain it by making up a story that means something to them and trick themselves into thinking they know the answer now.

So you really try to be as vague as Donald Rumsfeld on purpose?

Well, general and vague can converge, but that's how it goes. But yeah, this can apply to pretty much everything (one of the advantages of speaking in the general sense). There are people who just go purely on their observations and assume men/women are better at something, without thinking about other factors like society. They don't even think about the limitations of their thinking. There are people who think reading one psychological study on something proves something, without considering the limitations of the study. People are just so eager to spend 5 minutes on something and then say they know it.

trysts
trysts
Closed: Inactive
May 10, 2015
0
#1403
Elubas wrote:
trysts wrote:
Elubas wrote:
trysts wrote:
Elubas wrote:
 

Same goes for females. There's a lot we don't know. There's a lot that we wish we knew, but don't.

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

 

Well, it's the sad truth, many people don't realize how little we know. Their normal reaction to something they don't know is to explain it by making up a story that means something to them and trick themselves into thinking they know the answer now.

So you really try to be as vague as Donald Rumsfeld on purpose?

Well, general and vague can converge, but that's how it goes. But yeah, this can apply to pretty much everything (one of the advantages of speaking in the general sense). There are people who just go purely on their observations and assume men/women are better at something, without thinking about other factors like society. They don't even think about the limitations of their thinking. There are people who think reading one psychological study on something proves something, without considering the limitations of the study. People are just so eager to spend 5 minutes on something and then say they know it.

That was a bit clearer, thanks ElubasLaughing

Elubas
Elubas
May 10, 2015
0
#1404
Colin20G wrote:

Some guy (around 2300 FIDE) told me once: you must be aware of the fact that chess players are very arrogant...

Sadly, they can often go together. A person who likes to correct people and make it look like everything for them is easy will find a golden opportunity when they get to high levels of chess. And it's something I've encountered as my level has gotten higher, e.g., playing and discussing with higher rated players, etc. But, still, you have to keep an open mind, because you don't want to be mean to the innocent. You've got guys like Ray Robson, Gata Kamsky, who are so open about what they don't understand. Vachier Lagrave always congratulates his opponents.

Masamune314
Masamune314
May 10, 2015
0
#1405

tkbunny wrote:

Elubas wrote:

"I could tell my kids, hey, because you have autism you will never be as good at speaking as neurotypical kids, which is 100% true. So? I'm not going to put shackles on them individually. *snip*

apart from mother's day, today seems to be visual aid day ...

Yeah, Imma getting on my mama soap box today. :) Thanks. :)

Elubas
Elubas
May 10, 2015
0
#1406

Post #1875: Point certainly taken. That's a nice story.

Masamune314
Masamune314
May 10, 2015
0
#1407

Elubas wrote:

Post #1875: Point certainly taken. That's a nice story.

That's not an angry post, just a mom's day one. :)

Masamune314
Masamune314
May 10, 2015
0
#1408

Whip_Kitten wrote:

Masamune314 wrote:

 

Temple Grandin, who is arguably the most famous autistic person of our time was diagnosed with Classic autism in the 50's. Not Asperger's, but "Rainman" type autism (which is more like my own kids). 

Fwiw, Kim Peek had "agenesis of the corpus callosum," which is the absence of the corpus callosum, rather than autism.

This can explain it better than I can, even if it's Psychology Today.   https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201303/the-brain-the-real-rain-man

I know, but I tend to use that as a rough guide to distinguish from say, an Einstein.

Movie Rainman, not Kim Peek, that is.

Actually Grandin served as an autism behavior consultant for the Rainman movie.

Masamune314
Masamune314
May 10, 2015
0
#1409

OK. It's late and I'm tired of typing on this tablet keyboard. Yuck.

Masamune314
Masamune314
May 10, 2015
0
#1410

Whip_Kitten wrote:

Fair enough.  My understanding is that most people with autism don't like being defined in terms of Rainman, because, well they're not idiot savants.

But you're right, the famous people other than Temple Grandin on the ASD spectrum have Aspergers rather than autism.  Hmm.

Yes, it's not the most PC way to say it, but it's hard to explain to people the difference quickly without going into a huge lecture. I could have put up a link, but this tablet is giving me fits.

And, my kids are not idiot savants either but do have classic autism. They are verbal but are on the moderate/severe side of things.

Elubas
Elubas
May 10, 2015
0
#1411

I wish them the best.

Azukikuru
Azukikuru
May 11, 2015
0
#1412
trysts wrote:

Actually Judit Polgar was "the best" in chess at a very young age. Besting all male grandmasters and chess champions before her. That was conveniently forgotten by you now, wasn't it, Azukikiru? What YOU need is a male player better than her in the history of chess, and that only comes down to a handful of men.

What do you mean by "besting"? Did she have a positive record against each of them, or did she happen to win one game against each of them (out of who knows how many)? I realize that the attitude towards female players is such that even a single victory could be blown out of proportion. But the statistical truth is that she could even win four games out of ten against someone and still be 100 rating points below them. Again, we're not talking about a huge difference here; nobody's saying that Polgar couldn't beat a single game against the best male grandmasters. And she was good at a very young age, like I pointed out in that other thread; it's just that her development stalled as compared to the boys her age when they caught up with her in maturity:

It may very well be true that only "a handful of men" were better than her. That's how small a performance gap we're talking about. But if there were no gap (and no participation difference), we would expect to find that the best player in the world is female about 50% of the time. The lack in female participation naturally lowers this ratio, but all the way to zero?

As for Nigel Short, he's not one of the top male players. He barely broke 2700 in his prime, and he's currently rated 59th on the FIDE top 100 list, conveniently between Yifan and Polgar. If he's generalizing about the abilities of the top players of each gender, it's very doubtful that he's using himself as an example, so it's useless to point to his poor record against Polgar.

Azukikuru
Azukikuru
May 11, 2015
0
#1413
Elubas wrote:

Yeah, I sort of kept this at the back of my head. I still tend to think though, if you're trying to find an exceptionally strong person, it would be more likely in a group with the better average. It would be sort of like if you took two people, and they both were exceptional in that they devoted their whole lives to chess, they both might be very good, but the person who started with the better talent would probably be a tad better.

Last night, I thought of a way to explain this. Here's the picture of a so-called bean machine:

Balls get dropped from a hole in the exact center at the top, and they bounce left and right on an array of pegs, to land in slots at the bottom in a binomial distribtion. With a high number of dropped balls, this distribution approaches a normal (Gaussian) distribution, pictured here as a red line.

An oft-mentioned analysis of FIDE ratings shows that the peaks of the male and female ratings distributions do not coincide. This is analogous to using different-colored balls for each gender (say, blue for males and red for females) and finding that the blue balls peak more towards the right, or the "high end" of the slots. From this, we can deduce that the blue balls are being dropped from a hole that is located closer to the right as the hole from which the red balls are dropped.

It should be clear that participation rates are out of the question, i.e. the number of balls of each color doesn't affect the location of the peak. So the big question is, why are the holes separate? The two major explanations are biological and cultural issues; if it's biological, then the locations of the holes are fixed, but if it's cultural, they can move. But as long as more balls are being dropped and they conform with the distribution, it is clear that the holes are not moving very quickly.

So what's the point? Well, throw in some more balls of each color from the corresponding holes, and see where they land. You want a ball to land in the rightmost slot - which color ball do you think is more likely to make it? Intuitively, mathematically, empirically, you name it: it's most likely going to be a blue ball. In fact, if the number of pegs is limited, it may be that it's actually impossible for a red ball to make it even if it bounces right each time.

When extending this metaphor to the real world, our bean machine would of course be much, much larger. We don't know whether Magnus Carlsen and Wei Yi have bounced to the right each time, but clearly they've done so more than anyone else. Therefore, for a woman to reach their level, she would need to bounce right more times than they have, which, again, may be impossible.

This all holds true for as long as the dropping holes are separate and immobile. This is the case if the continued addition of new players to the ratings pool does not move the location of the distribution peak. As has been mentioned before, we're seeing a downward shift in both peaks over time, but this shift is actually faster in the female distribution. So, whatever is happening, the holes are not converging, and for the foreseeable future, it'll be more difficult for red balls to reach the rightmost slots.

Masamune314
Masamune314
May 11, 2015
0
#1414

bstevewander wrote:

Surely Nigel Short would be proud of a snowballing reaction to his offhand comment. Aikido and Autism already included, soon to be followed by entire Encyclopedia. Anyone to message him on a facebook?

Well, it is in an off topic thread that has been going on for weeks now. It has just evolved as all conversations do, winding this way and that. This thread reminds me more of conversations IRL than most. It was pretty much a dead thread anyway.

This is a tiny, tiny corner of a world within a world. I'm sure Short really cares about such things...

Colin20G
Colin20G
May 11, 2015
0
#1415
Azukikuru wrote:
Elubas wrote:

Yeah, I sort of kept this at the back of my head. I still tend to think though, if you're trying to find an exceptionally strong person, it would be more likely in a group with the better average. It would be sort of like if you took two people, and they both were exceptional in that they devoted their whole lives to chess, they both might be very good, but the person who started with the better talent would probably be a tad better.

Last night, I thought of a way to explain this. Here's the picture of a so-called bean machine:

 

Balls get dropped from a hole in the exact center at the top, and they bounce left and right on an array of pegs, to land in slots at the bottom in a binomial distribtion. With a high number of dropped balls, this distribution approaches a normal (Gaussian) distribution, pictured here as a red line.

An oft-mentioned analysis of FIDE ratings shows that the peaks of the male and female ratings distributions do not coincide. This is analogous to using different-colored balls for each gender (say, blue for males and red for females) and finding that the blue balls peak more towards the right, or the "high end" of the slots. From this, we can deduce that the blue balls are being dropped from a hole that is located closer to the right as the hole from which the red balls are dropped.

It should be clear that participation rates are out of the question, i.e. the number of balls of each color doesn't affect the location of the peak. So the big question is, why are the holes separate? The two major explanations are biological and cultural issues; if it's biological, then the locations of the holes are fixed, but if it's cultural, they can move. But as long as more balls are being dropped and they conform with the distribution, it is clear that the holes are not moving very quickly.

So what's the point? Well, throw in some more balls of each color from the corresponding holes, and see where they land. You want a ball to land in the rightmost slot - which color ball do you think is more likely to make it? Intuitively, mathematically, empirically, you name it: it's most likely going to be a blue ball. In fact, if the number of pegs is limited, it may be that it's actually impossible for a red ball to make it even if it bounces right each time.

When extending this metaphor to the real world, our bean machine would of course be much, much larger. We don't know whether Magnus Carlsen and Wei Yi have bounced to the right each time, but clearly they've done so more than anyone else. Therefore, for a woman to reach their level, she would need to bounce right more times than they have, which, again, may be impossible.

This all holds true for as long as the dropping holes are separate and immobile. This is the case if the continued addition of new players to the ratings pool does not move the location of the distribution peak. As has been mentioned before, we're seeing a downward shift in both peaks over time, but this shift is actually faster in the female distribution. So, whatever is happening, the holes are not converging, and for the foreseeable future, it'll be more difficult for red balls to reach the rightmost slots.

In actual data what is "the hole" (in the Galton table you decide the average value from the beginning)? Aren't the players given the same elo rating at the moment they become rated? Also the size of elo variations between rating updates is not constant (in the bean model it is).

Colin20G
Colin20G
May 11, 2015
0
#1416
power_2_the_people wrote:

and start here: free will is a fantasy, we're all bound together

I don't think this thread was about free will. Btw how to prove that free will doesn't exist?

Bonny-Rotten
Bonny-Rotten
May 11, 2015
0
#1417

If you have to put a price on it maybe.

Masamune314
Masamune314
May 11, 2015
0
#1418

power_2_the_people wrote:

and start here: free will is a fantasy, we're all bound together

There is a cause and effect web that is there. It's only philosophically significant though. Practically speaking we can only live like there is free will. That is the conclusion I have come to. The cause effect web of the world is too big for any one human to comprehend. I think it always will be.

Bonny-Rotten
Bonny-Rotten
May 11, 2015
0
#1419

to that end, the solution would be to put an end to world idiocy.

Bonny-Rotten
Bonny-Rotten
May 11, 2015
0
#1420

you appear to have misunderstood something.