Men Hardwired to be Better than Women at Chess

This article made the rounds yesterday and has caused a bit of a stir:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/20/nigel-short-uk-grandmaster-men-hardwired-better-chess-players-women


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After reading this response today: http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2015/apr/21/calm-down-dear-emotional-intelligence-psychology?CMP=fb_gu which argued:

While there are differences between male and female brains, there aren’t as many as most people believe, certainly not one that would be so stark and specific to mean differing aptitudes for a specific board game, no matter how classic it is.

I decided to do some knowledge-digging to double check what I had thus far taken a little for granted which was the fact that there are more male geniuses (and more male idiots) in the world when compared to women. The fact of the matter is men show a greater variance of ability than women in tests including 'all of the tests in maths, space, and science'.

This is indeed enough to make a difference to how good one is at playing an intellectual game such as chess.

Short's biggest mistake wasn't saying something which was factually wrong but for not drawing a big enough distinction between the biological factors which influence one's ability to play chess and the social factors, such as sexism, which hinder women's enthusiasm and interest in playing chess.

The reason why more women do not play the game professionally is probably much more to do with social factors discouraging them rather than on average women being necessarily worse at the game at the highest levels - even if they are.

i think in the case of chess the issue can statistically decide itself

Oh so that's why my colleague asked me yesterday whether I like chess and then exclaimed "ah, so you're kind of a boy then" when I replied in the affirmative.

I thought he was just being weird and making extremely random conversation :laugh:

V-Tog wrote: Oh so that's why my colleague asked me yesterday whether I like chess and then exclaimed "ah, so you're kind of a boy then" when I replied in the affirmative.

I thought he was just being weird and making extremely random conversation :laugh:

i think thats weird too to tell the truth

and how random can a persons response be when it is a response to a yes/no question they intentionally asked

i always see things as potentially having implications beyond the obvious, and so disregard what i say if it doesnt resonate at all but i think thats a weird thing to say to a woman in general

but besides an active imagination i also have zero understanding of english culture which may also be relevant

If you have an internal organ hanging outside your body I guess the brain spends an extra amount of time constantly assessing its position - which might lead to a sex difference in the male brain exercising its spatial processing much more then the female perhaps.
:ohmy: :S

Men also seem to be very proficient at cheating during chess tournaments - perhaps that explains the overall slightly better performance at this particular game

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/13/sport/chess-championship-cheating-in-bathroom/index.html

I'm a fairly avid chess player, so this is a topic I can speak with some confidence on. Chess is pattern recognition and spatial recognition. It's also partially ones ability to read a position, and which side has advantage. This takes a number of factors into account such as space, pins, passed pawns, and material. For whatever reason, men seem to be able to do this more consistently over hundreds of games, thus their higher statistical wins and elo. Women can do it too, usually reaching high 2600's, but the current world champ Magnus Carlsen is almost at 2900, with the skill level increasing exponentially the higher you go.

Here's a game of Magnus playing current women's world champion Hou Yifan. Magnus slowly takes control of the game with patient, consistent moves.

http://youtu.be/79XSwwXP368

Those results don't mean it's a biological thing though. This is the whole problem, men and women are stereotyped even by people not thinking they are stereotyping. There's not really a way to know whether it's biological or as a result of social conditioning or a combination of both.

Edan wrote: Those results don't mean it's a biological thing though. This is the whole problem, men and women are stereotyped even by people not thinking they are stereotyping. There's not really a way to know whether it's biological or as a result of social conditioning or a combination of both.

Laszlo Polgar believed this as well and raised his three daughters like the Russians raised their chess prodigies - from a young age. I'd suggest a quick read over the Wikipedia article. I actually had the pleasure of meeting Sofia Polgar and playing her and her husband in a simul. It was really fun.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r

Edan wrote: Those results don't mean it's a biological thing though. This is the whole problem, men and women are stereotyped even by people not thinking they are stereotyping. There's not really a way to know whether it's biological or as a result of social conditioning or a combination of both.

The argument is that if chess is a game which requires only intellect to be good at then those people with the greatest intellect at playing this particular game will do the best.

Assuming intellectual capability looks broadly the same across disciplines, and that the top 2% of people most intellectually capable are typically men, then it would seem one can draw the same conclusion that the top 2% of most capable chess players, and those in other fields, will also typically be men.

Now that being said, a much more interesting investigation would be whether or not this gender difference in IQ (where men typically dominate the top and the bottom) is a result of culture or is biologically determined.

Regarding this last question there is actually an evolutionary reason why men are at the top and bottom rather than women. This is because if nature is going to experiment with the human body then it is better to experiment with men, sometimes this experimenting will go well and other times it won't. If it goes well then, hypothetically speaking, these men will survive and pass on their genes; if this experimenting goes badly then these men will die and not pass on their genes. So why not experiment on women? Because if a woman gives birth she always passes on her genes whether they are a good experiment or a bad one.

By experimenting on men the tendency is that overall more good experiments will be passed on. That's the thinking behind it at least.

Regarding Magnus Carlson's game, one game of chess doesn't prove anything, because at some point in the future the best player in the game will probably be a woman. You need to have a discussion about trends and averages, because there will always be a few data points which lie outside of the norm.

I hope I'm not stereotypying women, and I certainly don't mean to, but just because there is evidence to suggest there are gender differences doesn't mean we should shy away from the topic and not talk about it maturely for fear of being overly politcally correct.

Just as a minor aside, women are actually faster than men in finding the right words to express themselves which is one of the reasons why women are slowly becoming (or very well might already be) the dominant gender in professions such as journalism.