The Yarn Spinners

[_Daniel Peterson]

Folks like Bitton, Peterson, McGuire, Juliann, sometimes base their church defenses on claims that it is not clear that we can actually "know" anything at all.

I'll let Ben and Juliann speak for themselves, but, in my case (and, I'm very nearly as confident, in the case of my late long-time friend Davis Bitton), this statement is flatly false.

I hold no such view, and never have.

[_Daniel Peterson]

You missed this one.

[_DonBradley]

Baron-Cohen is a hack in the sense that he publishes dubiously supported views in lay-forums where he omits evidence and misleads the public. It is the same sense in which someone could say 2-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling is a hack when talking about the curative properties of Vitamin C.

This logic certainly flies in the face of the argument that FARMS writers are not hacks because they sometimes publish in accepted academic journals. By the logic employed above, they are hacks in their LDS apologetic writing, since this material could not be presented in such venues.

Don

[Guest]

The claim that the study of sex differences in cognition is outside of Simon Baron-Cohen's area of expertise and peer-reviewed publication is utterly false.

I've been able to locate references to papers by Baron-Cohen (a Cambridge psychologist) that were published on the subject in the following peer-reviewed journals:

Science
Infant Behavior and Development
Social Neuroscience,
Journal of Child Neurology
Hormones and Behavior
European Journal of Endocrinology


And I didn't search a database of academic publications. I used an online search engine. The former would undoubtedly turn up many more, as would a search for Baron-Cohen's publications in his primary area of expertise, the relationship of sex and sex hormones to the development of autism. Baron-Cohen's theory, presented in the book The Essential Difference, and tested and refined by him in scores of peer reviewed journals, is that autism is a development of the brain in the normal male direction, but taken to an extreme.

Since Baron-Cohen has published on the same topic as his book in scores of academic venues, it's simply false to accuse him of presenting his case only in the popular press. His writing from the popular press merely builds on and popularizes his extensive and painstaking work in social-science academia.

Baron-Cohen isn't an idealogue. He's an empirical researcher writing in his area of expertise. On the other hand, those who insist that male-female differences in cognition are purely socially constructed, without examining the empirical data openly, they are idealogues.

by the way, why on earth would any fool insist that A Light in the Darkness is Daniel C. Peterson? Professor Peterson is a political conservative and very probably would not find it "sexist" to believe that there are cognitive differences between men and women that are not socially constructed.

ALITD sounds like a more socially liberal (and therefore typical) academic. I would surmise that he has more 'post-modern' academic influence on him, and is therefore probably more recently educated than Professor Peterson.

Don

[_Ray A]

Baron-Cohen is a hack in the sense that he publishes dubiously supported views in lay-forums where he omits evidence and misleads the public. It is the same sense in which someone could say 2-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling is a hack when talking about the curative properties of Vitamin C.

This logic certainly flies in the face of the argument that FARMS writers are not hacks because they sometimes publish in accepted academic journals. By the logic employed above, they are hacks in their LDS apologetic writing, since this material could not be presented in such venues.

Don

But if this material "could not be presented in such venues", does that make it false?

[_DonBradley]

Not at all, Ray. I'm merely pointing out that the same logic the author finds useful in debating politics would bite him in the rump in debating religion.

It's a fair observation, don't you think?

Don

[_Ray A]

Not at all, Ray. I'm merely pointing out that the same logic the author finds useful in debating politics would bite him in the rump in debating religion.

It's a fair observation, don't you think?

Don

Thanks for the clarification.

[_A Light in the Darkness]

The claim that the study of sex differences in cognition is outside of Simon Baron-Cohen's area of expertise and peer-reviewed publication is utterly false.

I've been able to locate references to papers by Baron-Cohen (a Cambridge psychologist) that were published on the subject in the following peer-reviewed journals:

Science
Infant Behavior and Development
Social Neuroscience,
Journal of Child Neurology
Hormones and Behavior
European Journal of Endocrinology


And I didn't search a database of academic publications. I used an online search engine. The former would undoubtedly turn up many more, as would a search for Baron-Cohen's publications in his primary area of expertise, the relationship of sex and sex hormones to the development of autism.

Baron-Cohen's theory, presented in the book The Essential Difference, and tested and refined by him in scores of peer reviewed journals, is that autism is a development of the brain in the normal male direction, but taken to an extreme.

This is a more serious response that requires a more serious, less flippant reply. Hopefully, I'll be able to offer one shortly. The short of it is that Baron-Cohen has two modes. His formally refereed work makes claims more limited in scope, while his pop-work, especially semi-op-ed work, does not. That's where he does things like mention one study he had published to support a general theory that differences in cognitive development mediated by sexual dimorphism explain sex differences in math testing yet fails to mention said study thus far has not been replicated and is contradicted by a host of similar studies (i.e. virtually every study on the subject). Whoops. His formal publishing is just an experimental report, a mundane affair. Even when we are talking about his more formal expertise his views are closer to the margins, if clinging to the realm of legitimate debate. For instance, the "extreme-male brain" theory of autism is not exactly in vogue among the cognitive scientists and psychologists who study autism. To say Baron-Cohen has demonstrated a broad claim like the genetic differences explaining the observed differences in gender aptitudes, preferences, and roles, such as mathematical talent, is unequivocably false. It is false in the sense that his views are representative of the state of academic research and it is false in the sense that his views are compellingly supported. And when he runs to the press to make claims that most scientists will respectfully disagree with and does so in a misleading fashion, he is not acting as a responsible scholar. Then you end up with situations where someone like Tal laps it up and uses it as a hammer to bludgeon feminists he seems to barely understand.

[_Dr. Shades]

I've been able to locate references to papers by Baron-Cohen (a Cambridge psychologist) that were published on the subject in the following peer-reviewed journals:

Science
Infant Behavior and Development
Social Neuroscience,
Journal of Child Neurology
Hormones and Behavior
European Journal of Endocrinology

. . . Baron-Cohen isn't an idealogue. He's an empirical researcher writing in his area of expertise.

HOLY COW! I had no idea Baron-Cohen was so multi-talented! Up 'till now, I thought his only claim to fame was that Borat movie.

[_DonBradley]

That's his first cousin Sacha, Dr. Shades!

Don