Interesting that the article you quote David is in the Annual Review of Psychology, which has no particular mindset or agenda. It appears that if a person is seeking publication in the "Genetics" journal as well as neurobiological journals, the goal is to find inborn neurological and genetically-based sources of behavior. This would provide an understandable incentive for researchers in these fields who wish to get published to assume whatever differences they detect in brains are inborn. But I simply don't understand why there are not a larger number of psychologists who contest the conclusions of these various publications. There should be a larger and more vociferous challenge in some format--i.e., in a APS journal. Scott Lillifield, how about it?
Joan > On Tue, 4 Apr 2006, Joan Warmbold went: > >> BTW, I'm continually baffled at why, when differences are discovered >> between adults' brains structure and chemistry, the assumption is >> almost always that this difference existed from birth? As we all >> know, literally thousands of studies have revealed the crucial role >> of early experience in sculpting our brain--i.e., brain plasticity. >> So why isn't this discussed in these publications as a viable >> alternative hypothesis? > > That's a really important point, and fortunately, it does get some > attention from the better writers on the subject. I'm pretty sure > Simon LeVay discusses it in _The Sexual Brain_. And here's Marc > Breedlove, driving the point home: > > "When does a sex difference in the CC appear? Despite an early report > that the sex difference in splenial width (favoring females) was > present in fetal brains (de Lacoste et al 1986), there have been no > replications and several failures to detect a sex difference in > children (Bell & Variend 1985, Clarke et al 1989, Allen et al 1991), > albeit with small sample sizes. Thus there is little reason to believe > the dimorphism in the CC is congenital." > > --David Epstein > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Reference: > > Breedlove SM. Sexual differentiation of the human nervous system. > Annual Review of Psychology 4. 45:389-418, 1994. > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
