395

What would be some fact that, while true, could be told in a context or way that is misinfomating or make the other person draw incorrect conclusions?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Windex007@lemmy.world 61 points 1 year ago

Women have smaller brains than men.

I mean, yes. Women as a population are physically smaller than men as a population.

Women have smaller fingers than men. Smaller eyes. Smaller lungs. There is no "gotcha" that smaller skeletal frames with smaller skulls contain, by volume, a smaller organ.

Doesnt mean every man's brain is larger than every woman's brain either.

Doesn't mean men are smarter than women.

It's just a statistic, that while true, doesn't imply what some people think it does.

[-] ivemadeamoostake@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 year ago

There's actually some historical context for this untrue way of thinking.

France, 1873 Paul Broca, a French physician, decides to weigh some brains. And women's brains weighed less than men's brains. This is part of his research into crainiometry in which the size of the brain is used to understand a mesure of intelligence. Bigger brain weight = more smart.

We now recognize crainiometry as a pesudoscience.

Then another French academic Gustav Le Bon uses Broca's research to further engain that not only are women's brains small causing them to have the big dumb, women are in fact more similar to gorillas in brain size. Thus, women are uncivilized, akin to children, and MUST be under the care and control of men who are CLEARLY more intelligent with their big brains and, naturally, should control and run society.

Broca did not take overall body size or age of the specimens into account when originally weighing the brains. The male specimens were younger and larger to the female specimens who were smaller and older. Brains tend to shrink as we age.

So, not only was this flawed science, based in flawed measurements, thay have been readily disproved, we're still struggling to undo this as a belief.

History rant over.

Many years ago I worked as an analyst at a small VC firm. My boss, who was a raging misogynist prick and liked to date College freshmen, LOVED this fact (and any other Manosphere bullshit he could find about women being inferior to men). He was such an unbelievable stereotype, he could have stepped out of a sitcom.

[-] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago

Yeah I mean, neanderthals had bigger brains than humans, and they were no smarter than we are (as far as we know.)

Also a blue whale's brain is four times the size of a human brain and they don't even know how to drive.

[-] charlytune@mander.xyz 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

We don't really know where blue whales go a lot of the time, so I think that's a bit of an assumption there.

Their hearts are also like four times the size of the human body ...but I don't think they love us very much.

[-] Bazoogle@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

It's just more impressive that even with a bigger brain he is still a bumbling buffoon.

[-] Windex007@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

It's my pet hypothesis that people are drawn to the comfort of sitcom-level characters because they're so basic and predictable, even when they're terrible. Real life is so complicated that black-and-white thinking blasted by people like that is just so low-energy to consume.

[-] le_saucisson_masque@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Men have bigger balls is another missunderstood fact.

[-] Windex007@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Gonna need a source on that claim

this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
395 points (95.2% liked)

Asklemmy

43777 readers
1380 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS