Pinker Spelke Debate

Spelke and Pinker debate's argument is that men have greater cognitive aptitude for science than women. The argument is that from birth, boys are more interested in objects and mechanics and girls are interested in people and emotions. Both Spelke and Pinker had arguments supporting their ideas - Pinker - biological and Spelke - Sociological. I feel like Spelke argument's were stronger and more justified that Pinke'rs because she herself carried out a lot of studies on children which showed that there are not a lot of gender differences during the first stage of their lives. Some of the arguments Spelke made were :

• That kids (age 2-3) start manipulating objects to see if they can get a rectangular block into a circular hole. If you look at the rates at which boys and girls figure these things out, you don't find any differences. We see equal developmental paths. This shows that both boys and girls have mechanical skills from childhood and boys don't really have more skills than girls. Therefore it shows that both boys and girls would have almost the same rate of cognitive aptitude for science in their future. 

• Male and female infants are both interested in objects and in people, and they learn about both.

• Five "core systems" at the foundations of mathematical reasoning.

- A system for representing small exact numbers of objects — the difference between one, two, and three. This system emerges in human infants at about five months of age, and it continues to be present in adults.
- A system for discriminating large, approximate numerical magnitudes — the difference between a set of about ten things and a set of about 20 things.system also emerges early in infancy, at four or five months, and continues to be present and functional in adults.
- A system of natural number concepts that we construct as children when we learn verbal counting.That construction takes place between about the ages of two and a half and four years.

• Resume study

As we see Spelke had arguments based more on research and studies that she herself had carried out which makes her arguments more valid and accurate. However Pinker had arguments that were based on research as well, I just don't think that we can say that mostly biological factors influence the women choices of men and women make.