Monday, June 23, 2008

Genetic sex difference guff

On June 20th The Irish Independent lifted a piece from the London Times reporting on a new study investigating differential gene expression in male and female brains. The Times manages to include the caveat, from the study's authors, that 'their work needed to be followed up to examine whether any human behavioural or health differences were related to the sex-specific gene expression profiles'. This is lopped out of the Irish Independent article, leaving us only with the impression that ' Women and men may genuinely think in different ways, according to research that has found subtle genetic variations between their brains'.
The press release for the study even contains the very specific warning that 'the study does not determine whether these differences in gene expression are in any way functionally significant. Such questions remain to be answered by future studies'.

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