Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:
The difference chesswise is probably a lot smaller in chess than in say weightlifting or boxing and such. Doesn' mean it isn't there.
It doesn't mean it exists either.
Why are women not as successful as men in chess?
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batgirl wrote:
Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:
batgirl wrote:
Many men are more successful in chess than almost all women... but some women are more successful in chess than many, many men. How can that be?
For the same reason many men are more successfull weightlifters almost all women, and that some women can lift more than some men.
Not really. Physical limitations play into weightlifting. Chess has no such inherent limitations.
The brain is also physical. This is so basic i am always surprised why it should even have to be pointed out.
There is no escape from physical reality, there is no freefloating genderless spirit that exists outside the body.
Chessplayers should BTW be some of the first people to realize the brain is physical?
batgirl wrote:
Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:
The difference chesswise is probably a lot smaller in chess than in say weightlifting or boxing and such. Doesn' mean it isn't there.
It doesn't mean it exists either.
It seems it does though. Because there is no other explanation that can explain the "gender" gap in chess. You'd have to find a social factor that is somehow barring women from getting good at chess, and which exists in completely different social contexts, Norway, China, Japan, USA, India. There is no such common factor pertaining in these locations.
Dec 19, 2015
0
#1086
Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:
batgirl wrote:
Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:
The difference chesswise is probably a lot smaller in chess than in say weightlifting or boxing and such. Doesn' mean it isn't there.
It doesn't mean it exists either.
It seems it does though. Because there is no other explanation that can explain the "gender" gap in chess. You'd have to find a social factor that is somehow barring women from getting good at chess, and which exists in completely different social contexts, Norway, China, Japan, USA, India. There is no such common factor pertaining in these locations.
There are all sorts of explanations. Success lies in numbers. Social factors don't have to prevent, just not appeal. Is there anything keeping men from buying lipstick? Yet few do. Why? Men are phyically capable of applying and wearing lipstick. How many GMs hail from Japan... is it because of some intellectual inferiority? There are reasons, I'm sure, but not the most convenient or superficial ones.
Brains are indeed physical. Do you know that brain size itself has no correlation with intelligence, but the ratio of brain size to body weight does? Men generally have about 10% larger brains, but weigh what, about 30% more than women on the average? One might then assume men have lower intelligence. But that would be a foolish assumption because brains are more complex than that. They are so complex that no one, other than forum posters, really understands all the implications of the physical variances.
stuzzicadenti wrote:
women are limited because they are physically smaller than men on average therefore they have smaller sized brains.
Einstein's brain size was average. Brain size does not determine intelligence. You can forget the dinosaurs with walnut-sized brains stories you grew up with. Whales and elephants have much larger brains than humans. An elephant's brain is largely used up just in controlling its trunk movements...
https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/ask-neuroscientist-does-bigger-brain-make-you-smarter
batgirl wrote:
Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:
batgirl wrote:
Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:
The difference chesswise is probably a lot smaller in chess than in say weightlifting or boxing and such. Doesn' mean it isn't there.
It doesn't mean it exists either.
It seems it does though. Because there is no other explanation that can explain the "gender" gap in chess. You'd have to find a social factor that is somehow barring women from getting good at chess, and which exists in completely different social contexts, Norway, China, Japan, USA, India. There is no such common factor pertaining in these locations.
There are all sorts of explanations. Success lies in numbers. Social factors don't have to prevent, just not appeal. Is there anything keeping men from buying lipstick? Yet few do. Why? Men are phyically capable of applying and wearing lipstick. How many GMs hail from Japan... is it because of some intellectual inferiority? There are reasons, I'm sure, but not the most convenient or superficial ones.
Brains are indeed physical. Do you know that brain size itself has no correlation with intelligence, but the ratio of brain size to body weight does? Men generally have about 10% larger brains, but weigh what, about 30% more than women on the average? One might then assume men have lower intelligence. But that would be a foolish assumption because brains are more complex than that. They are so complex that no one, other than forum posters, really understands all the implications of the physical variances.
Brain size means nothing. Intelligence is also way to vague also to be able to describe gender differences, it's a mix of different abilities, with some of them being not-so-relevant to chess.
The deal with chess is that men is mostly reported to have better spatial abilities and women, and women better linguistical, on the average, (meaning there are overlaps). Chess seem to be about spatial ability, so that's a good candidate for the gender gap in chess.
The reward system is probably another important factor.
The "it's so complex" argument means nothing. The body is also "so complex" and we don't understands how it works; this prevents nobody from nothing that men and women have different bodies. It's not always a barrier that we don't understand a lot of details.
batgirl wrote:
Many men are more successful in chess than almost all women... but some women are more successful in chess than many, many men. How can that be?
Because there is no guaranteed path you can get just from gender. All the variables might line up in a way that makes a Judit Polgar. It doesn't mean that there isn't something about the world that makes the trend the way it is. You can't only look at Judit Polgar and make her represent all women, nor can you ignore her. There is clearly some kind of trend associated with females, and it's also clear that such a trend is not totally binding. But the trend is strong and not easy to attribute to just one particular factor, because the trend is so extremely strong.
I think that people too often assume either that a trend means that there can't be individuals that break the trend, or that one individual that breaks the trend means that there isn't a trend. You don't have to deny either. There is no denying Judit Polgar. And there is no denying a trend that Judit Polgar happens to be an exception to. It seems rather biased to only consider one or the other; they're both a clear feature of this world. It's like if I just closed my right eye and assumed only the things I can see with my left eye exist.
Dec 19, 2015
0
#1090
Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:
stuzzicadenti wrote:
yeah it sound like a excuse!!
It is. Anti-sexists are mosly perfectly happy with admitting physical gender differences in various performances at peak level, for instance wwightlifting, for double reasons; the first one being that that it's very very hard to work around those, you have to make a LOT of silly ad-hod excused to make that fly, and secondly, because physical prowess doesn't rank so high on their value scale of abilities so they are able to concede that one and accept the "loss" since it is minor.
But mental abilities they rank high, and, strangely, chess is ranked so highly that they don't want no matter what to accept that biology has an influence on peak chess performance.
So then they have to deny that biology influences chess, and then the ad-hoccing and excuses start.
They have to deny (by implication) that the brain is part of the body and somehow magically sealed off from biological influences, hormones for instance; this they can get away with because they mostly are completely ignorant of biology.
The brain is just an organ like lungs or liver, it's inside the body and is made up of cells and tissue. It's not made of magical fairy dust. The brain is a biological organ, and since men and women have different biology (hormonewise for instance) we will be different for many things. Sometimes women brains are better at a task, sometimes men brains. Sometimes we are the same.
It doesn't matter one whiff though for any individual if his/hers genders brain is on the average worse than the other gender. You can compensate by training better and also if you are invidually especially gifted.
They THINK that if you say "men's brains are on average better at learnng chess than women brains", than you have to ban women from chess or scorn them or whatever it is they imagine. It's just nonsense. Nobody prevents women from doing, say, long distance running because men on the average are better at it. It's not a problem the genders are different.
The difference chesswise is probably a lot smaller in chess than in say weightlifting or boxing and such. Doesn' mean it isn't there.
And thus, my underground devils advocate experiment was a complete success.
People like you prooved me right.
Here's how it played:
I took on the position that I in fact agree little with; because, like you, I too believe that there are certain structural brain differences that may influence how men may accelerate faster than women in chess.
You see, weeks ago, when I expressed the opinion that gay men may not be "as successful" as straight men in chess (more accurately, I said gay men don't generally accelerate at it as fast), already, people jump to certain conclusions about me "being political" or "extrapolating research"; that "little has shown any actual difference between brain strutures that could apply to chess-thinking ability." People were all down my throat about how my "hastefully-formed" opinion about gay vs. straight men was groundless. I think some of them even tried to accuse me of some form of "homophobia".
I then wondered: would people feel the same if I bring up neurological differences between (hetero) men and women? Because, after alll, they do exist. (And, you admit to it, too.) They didn't sound so sure of themselves regarding their "extrapolating research" rebuttal anymore. It got me thinking. Thus, the experiment was born.
People in general seem to mind a whole lot less when we talk about brain differences between men and women in chess versus such difference between heterosexual men and homosexual men in chess. Again, my loose undergound experiment prooved just this with how, already in less than a few hours, two members (one being you) flagrantly oppposed my "strawman" argument about women being no different in chess; however sarcastic and nonsensical.
Already, you associated me with the "non-sexist" group, and little people seem ready to oppose you on that. All the same, people weren't ready to validate my bringing up the difference between gay and straight men; and almost labeled me homophobic.
See? I was right.
Here was my original assertion about gay vs. straight men in chess:
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/i-am-gay-so-are-there-any-other-gay-chess-players-like-me?page=3 (post #41)
Here were some of the responses I received:
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/i-am-gay-so-are-there-any-other-gay-chess-players-like-me?page=4 (posts #66 and 68 by MorraMeister)
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/i-am-gay-so-are-there-any-other-gay-chess-players-like-me?page=26 (post #511 by YureeSystem: "I'm not sure where you got your information from..."; Yuree's bringing up his personal experience with strong gay chess players in a more benign manner made his post more likeeable, but nevertheless, he too wasn't ready to see validity in my point about gay people; surely, however, my bringing up strong women chess players was a part of my "strawman"? But see, no one confronted Yuree on his "strawman". See?)
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/i-am-gay-so-are-there-any-other-gay-chess-players-like-me?page=27 (post #521; this member, in fact, took on the position of the "anti-sexists" as I was doing in my experiment here!)
BattleChessGN18 wrote:
if you haven't already gotten that my quite sarcastic and nonsensical sexist argument was simply meant to mock the original question, which was equally sexist and unjustified; since women can and do succeed in chess.
I didn't think it was that obvious, to be honest, given that people often do make those sorts of arguments. I just think it's convenient to say something that's self-righteous and then after that say it was just a joke. And then on top of that, when someone calls you out on it, to go on to mock the person's intelligence because they "aren't smart enough to get your internet humor." You can first do something and then say sorry for it or that you didn't mean it, but it's more considerate to not do that thing in the first place.
batgirl wrote:
Not really. Physical limitations play into weightlifting. Chess has no such inherent limitations.
Men are more 'natural' killers, we go for the throat, the juguler. Women will also, but not as fast. In nature women are more likely to flight vs fight. It is nothing to be ashamed of, it is just a matter of prospective. Women are more tender hearted, and the human race wouldn't be here, if it wasn't for the nurturing nature of the woman(it just isn't a nature that 'makes for' a better killer on the chess board).
There is ZERO room in the game of chess for nurture. Right? I mean, I could be wrong, that good ole "lull em to their death with love" strategy?
BattleChessGN18 wrote:
We don't even know if women "aren't as successful", because there's also evidence that more women, for a multitude of reasons that may or may not relate directly to being a woman, don't care about chess.
Ok, but this just shows the potential dishonesty. To say that it's bad to speculate about men being better at chess (because we don't have proof) as a person who himself likes to speculate about how much a woman/man cares about chess, which is also a very vague idea.
It would be easier to get behind you if you didn't yourself speculate. If you said, "I don't know how much men or women care about chess, and I don't think you should speculate about men/women's intelligence either." Then I could say, wow, this guy really cares about evidence. But as it stands, this person is lecturing about evidence, when he himself likes to talk about things without concrete evidence.
"My IQ is 3 points higher than Kasparov's IQ...so, then, I should have studied chess all my life because I would have ended up better than he did if I put the time in?"
Nope, but more importantly, now we know how awesome your IQ is. And really, that was what the OP was getting at, right? btickler's IQ. :)
Dec 19, 2015
0
#1095
Elubas wrote:
BattleChessGN18 wrote:
We don't even know if women "aren't as successful", because there's also evidence that more women, for a multitude of reasons that may or may not relate directly to being a woman, don't care about chess.
Ok, but this just shows the potential dishonesty. To say that it's bad to speculate about men being better at chess (because we don't have proof) as a person who himself likes to speculate about how much a woman/man cares about chess, which is also a very vague idea.
It would be easier to get behind you if you didn't yourself speculate. If you said, "I don't know how much men or women care about chess, and I don't think you should speculate about men/women's intelligence either." Then I could say, wow, this guy really cares about evidence. But as it stands, this person is lecturing about evidence, when he himself likes to talk about things without concrete evidence.
You're right, and I agree with you.
Again, my experiment was a success.
You quickly pointed out my alleged dishonesty here in the men vs women in chess subject in just a matter of minutes. However, no one did THIS in response to anyone who was "dishonest" with their rebuttal against my support for the notion that gay men don't play as well as straight men.
This isn't directed towards you specifically, but it goes to show just how people differ so vastly between the two similar subjects: men vs. women in chess, and gay men vs. straight men in chess. Rather, how quickly people are ready to defend one of these over the other.
Idiots. What else can be said except for idiots are allowed to play chess?
Valid opinions?.. get out the white out, large size
Oh stop whip... ur way smarter than most. Sometimes these asinine comments get my goat.
I should never say "idiot". It us too subjective a word.
Does moron work?
How about nitwit?
Yep... that's it
Whip_Kitten wrote:
Hmm. If we're going to go by stereotypes, the last thing I think of when I think of a typical male chess player is a natural born killer who goes for the jugular. lol
It's kind of tricky though. I think that many chess players, for example, are really competitive people (it's hard not to be), at least in activities in which they're interested. But they might be quite passive in real life, not so likely to engage in a physical confrontation. Although I think that's a pretty good combo. Be passionate about your ideas, but not need to hurt your opponent in real life to express them. But yeah I just think it's interesting how chess can be used to express your fierceness in a way that doesn't actually hurt anyone.
yeah it sound like a excuse!!
It is. Anti-sexists are mosly perfectly happy with admitting physical gender differences in various performances at peak level, for instance wwightlifting, for double reasons; the first one being that that it's very very hard to work around those, you have to make a LOT of silly ad-hod excused to make that fly, and secondly, because physical prowess doesn't rank so high on their value scale of abilities so they are able to concede that one and accept the "loss" since it is minor.
But mental abilities they rank high, and, strangely, chess is ranked so highly that they don't want no matter what to accept that biology has an influence on peak chess performance.
So then they have to deny that biology influences chess, and then the ad-hoccing and excuses start.
They have to deny (by implication) that the brain is part of the body and somehow magically sealed off from biological influences, hormones for instance; this they can get away with because they mostly are completely ignorant of biology.
The brain is just an organ like lungs or liver, it's inside the body and is made up of cells and tissue. It's not made of magical fairy dust. The brain is a biological organ, and since men and women have different biology (hormonewise for instance) we will be different for many things. Sometimes women brains are better at a task, sometimes men brains. Sometimes we are the same.
It doesn't matter one whiff though for any individual if his/hers genders brain is on the average worse than the other gender. You can compensate by training better and also if you are invidually especially gifted.
They THINK that if you say "men's brains are on average better at learnng chess than women brains", than you have to ban women from chess or scorn them or whatever it is they imagine. It's just nonsense. Nobody prevents women from doing, say, long distance running because men on the average are better at it. It's not a problem the genders are different.
The difference chesswise is probably a lot smaller in chess than in say weightlifting or boxing and such. Doesn' mean it isn't there.