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Mythbusters take on gender issues

Travis

Misanthrope of the Mountains
Travis
Joined
Mar 31, 2007
Messages
24,133
So Mythbusters took on some gender related stereotypes and put them to the test.....or as much as they could through their show.

Some of the results:

Men are marginally better at driving on a controlled course at low speed.
Men are slightly better at giving driving directions.
Women are a bit better at reading faces for emotion.
And both genders seem to suck at packing stuff into a car but men get it done quicker.

And now I expect them to be drowned in angry emails.
 
Totally unrelated but: As I read this (2 minutes after you wrote it) , I was watching a show on Black Holes - and the thread above this on the opening forum page was Black Holes. Hopefully this does not portend the Mythbusters falling into a Black Hole. Or you or I doing that, for that matter. Or energy, or dark matter. You know what I mean!!!
 
Men are marginally better at driving on a controlled course at low speed.
Men are slightly better at giving driving directions.
Click to expand...

This will only surprise me if there was a control for "miles subject has driven".

And both genders seem to suck at packing stuff into a car but men get it done quicker.
Click to expand...

That's still better, right?

Can you elaborate on how people suck at it?

I'd imagine people tend to be bad at packing things safely (heavy stuff at the bottom) and packing things as to maximize capacity.
 
Rasmus said:
Can you elaborate on how people suck at it?
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They pack haphazardly.

They forget to pack important things (like a baby!!!)

They put delicate things (like a baby!!!) on the bottom of a pile, with a bunch of crap on top. (Granted, the baby wasn't on the list of things they were told was breakable...but, come on. It's a freakin' BABY!)

The ride in the haphazardly packed car was uncomfortable, or in some cases, dangerous.
 
Rasmus said:
This will only surprise me if there was a control for "miles subject has driven".



That's still better, right?

Can you elaborate on how people suck at it?

I'd imagine people tend to be bad at packing things safely (heavy stuff at the bottom) and packing things as to maximize capacity.
Click to expand...

It seemed like every test subject either failed to pack everything into the car or broke the fragile stuff.

Resume said:
How about the grilling? I saw that in the previews.
Click to expand...

I honestly forget the results of the grilling thing. I remember them joking that some of the cooks seem to be spiteful vegetarians considering how they ruined the steaks.
 
Travis said:
Men are slightly better at giving driving directions.
Click to expand...

The explanation I've heard for this is interesting. The spatial awareness part of the brain in men tends to be in the hemisphere of the brain opposite the speech center. In women, they are both in the same hemisphere. That means that women can't simultaneously give directions and think about where they are going. They have to make constant context switches.

As with any other tendency in brain construction, I'm sure there are many exceptions.
 
aggle-rithm said:
They pack haphazardly.

They forget to pack important things (like a baby!!!)

They put delicate things (like a baby!!!) on the bottom of a pile, with a bunch of crap on top. (Granted, the baby wasn't on the list of things they were told was breakable...but, come on. It's a freakin' BABY!)
Click to expand...

Was it a real baby, or a dummy?
I can see how you could easiyl forget that the dummy was supposed to be real for the duration of the experiment.

At least, this is how I rationalize how anyone could pile stuff up on top of a baby.
 
It was a dummy baby.....in a car seat. Sometimes they would take it out of the car seat and just squish it in any old place.
 
Travis said:
It was a dummy baby.....in a car seat. Sometimes they would take it out of the car seat and just squish it in any old place.
Click to expand...

Yeah ... I would say they just forgot to keep pretending the baby was real for a moment. It's funny for sure, but it certainly doesn't suggest that real babys are routinely treated like that.
 
I suspect that with many of these inter group comparisons, the difference withIN each group is larger than the difference BETWEEN groups.

A studier would need enough subjects to build two bell curves, then compare the two.

Mythbusters is a TV show. EVERYTHING on tv is entertainment- Fox News, or Nature. TV Science is secondary to entertainment.
 
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Rasmus said:
Yeah ... I would say they just forgot to keep pretending the baby was real for a moment. It's funny for sure, but it certainly doesn't suggest that real babys are routinely treated like that.
Click to expand...

Well summer is almost here. We can await the news broadcasts on babies being left in cars.
 
casebro said:
I suspect that with many of these inter group comparisons, the difference withIN each group is larger than the difference BETWEEN groups.

A studier would need enough subjects to build two bell curves, then compare the two.

Mythbusters is a TV show. EVERYTHING on tv is entertainment- Fox News, or Nature. TV Science is secondary to entertainment.
Click to expand...
Thank you. The only episodes I've seen that struck me as having any validity, were when they were verifying basic physics, like the bullet drop...
 
I didn't think it was a very good episode. There are certain things the MB's can test and be pretty definitive...i.e. shooting someone's cowboy hat off with a bullet. However, the kinds of things they tested in this episode, would need a much much larger sample to have any statistical relevance.

They should stick to blowing things up. :)
 
Travis said:
So Mythbusters took on some gender related stereotypes and put them to the test.....or as much as they could through their show.

Some of the results:

Men are marginally better at driving on a controlled course at low speed.
Men are slightly better at giving driving directions.
Women are a bit better at reading faces for emotion.
And both genders seem to suck at packing stuff into a car but men get it done quicker.

And now I expect them to be drowned in angry emails.
Click to expand...

My direction hypothesis I wish they had tested:

Men don't ask for directions so much because they don't get out of being blamed when they follow someone else's bad directions.
 
Pffffffffftttt.... women!



AMIRITE, GUYS? YEAH! HOW ABOUT A HIGH FIVE FROM MY MEN!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Did they test the theory that a woman's menstruation attracts bears? I have a camping trip with my girlfriend coming up, so any information would be appreciated.
 
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