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Science is losing out because of the mistaken belief that "men are from Mars and women from Venus", a leading neuroscientist has claimed.
Professor Gina Rippon said it was time to debunk the myth that gender differences are hard-wired into our brains.
In reality, there was no significant difference between the brains of a girl and boy in terms of their structure and function, she stressed.
But experiences and even attitudes could change the "plastic" brain on a physical level, causing its wiring to alter.
It was this that led girls and boys from an early age to head in different directions, said Prof Rippon, from Aston University.
While girls tended to gravitate towards fields of communication, people skills and the arts, boys were more likely to become scientists and engineers.
Even when girls went into science, they mostly chose careers at the "softer" end of the subject, such as biology, psychology and sociology, rather than physics and maths.
Speaking ahead of this year's British Science Festival, taking place at the University of Birmingham next week, Prof Rippon said: "We're stuck in the 19th century model of the 'vacuum packed' brain, the idea that we're born with a brain that gives us certain skills and behaviours.
"The brain doesn't develop in a vacuum.
"What we now know is that the brain is much more affected by stereotypes in the environment and attitudes in the environment, and that doesn't just change behaviour, it changes the brain."
Last year, 5,000 boys in the UK completed Level 3 engineering apprenticeships, but only 40 girls, Prof Rippon pointed out.
Boys taking physics A level also vastly outnumbered girls.
But Prof Rippon insisted this was nothing to do with innate differences in the way the brains of girls and boys worked.
Rather, it was likely to be the result of their brains being altered by experience.
One of the most often quoted examples of gender difference is spatial ability - the ability to understand the relationships between different objects in space.
Boys are said to be naturally more spatially gifted.
But if girls aged six to eight are given the tile-matching puzzle game Tetris, their brain wiring changes and their spatial ability improves, Prof Rippon said.
She added: “It's quite clear that spatial cognition is very much involved with experience, whether or not you have experience of manipulating objects as opposed to just observing them.
"This goes back to 'toys for boys'.
"From a very early age, boys have a lot more experience with manipulating objects."
Research had shown that as women attained greater access to education and power, gender differences began to disappear.
Prof Rippon was also dismissive of evolutionary psychologists who claimed the way men and women thought was largely the result of natural selection.
"The idea that women like the colour pink because it made them better able to pick berries - it's nonsense," she said.
Ill-conceived attempts to "fix" the problem of girls not going into science were likely to backfire, Prof Rippon argued.
One infamous example of this was the European Commission's Science Is A Girl Thing video released in 2012 which was swiftly dropped "because it was so awful".
"It showed girls in lab coats testing lipstick and giggling a lot," Prof Rippon said.
She added: "Science is something everybody should engage with.
"Let's not make science girly.
"Let's make science interesting to anyone."
參考譯文：
來自英國阿斯頓大學的里彭教授說，由于被“男人來自火星，女人來自金星”的信仰所誤導，科學正蒙受損失。
吉娜·里彭（Gina Rippon）教授說，是時候揭穿性別差異在我們大腦根深蒂固的神話了。
她強調，事實上從大腦的結構和功能上看，男生和女生并無明顯差別。
但經歷甚至態度能在物理等級上改變“可塑造的”大腦，引起它的結構變化。
這就是導致男女生從早期開始向不同方向發展的因素，來自英國阿斯頓大學的教授Rippon說道。
女孩傾向于人際關系技巧和藝術所吸引的時候，男孩更傾向于成為科學家和工程師。
即便女生進入科學領域，她們更多選擇類似生物、心理學和社會學這樣“較淺顯”的學科，而非數學或物理。
今年的英國科技節將于下周在伯明翰大學舉辦，在此之前里彭教授說，“我們被19世紀‘真空包裝’的大腦模式所困，即我們在出生時大腦就有相應的技能和行為。”
“大腦并非在真空之中發展。”
“我們現在知道的是，大腦更容易被環境中的固有陳規和態度影響，它們并沒有改變行為，而是改變了大腦。”
里彭教授指出，去年完成了英國3級工程師學徒制的男生多達5000名，但女生只有40名。
取得物理學高分的男生也比女生多得多。
但里彭教授堅稱這與男女生先天的大腦工作機制差異并無關系。
相反，它更像是大腦被經歷所改變的結果。
舉一個屢見不鮮的例子，性別的差異體現在空間能力——一種理解空間中不同物體間關系的能力上。
據說男生天生就在空間能力方面有才華。
但里彭教授說，若女生在6歲時能接觸俄羅斯方塊這樣的益智拼圖游戲，她們的大腦架構將得到改變，她們的空間能力也會提高。
她還說：“很明顯空間認知和經歷是息息相關的，無論你是否有操控物體或僅僅是觀察它們的經驗。”
“這可以追溯到‘男孩的玩具’上。”
“男孩子們從很小的時候，就富有操控物體的經驗。”
研究表明隨著女生有更好的受教育和獲得權力的機會，性別差異正在消失。
里彭教授也很不屑理會那些演化心理學家，他們宣稱男性和女性思維大部分是自然選擇的結果。
“女性喜歡粉色是因為這讓她們更擅長挑選漿果，這種觀點簡直荒唐。”她說。
妄圖“修正”女生不去進入科學界的嘗試看來即將破產，里彭教授辯稱。
這里有一個聲名狼藉的例子，2012年所發布的一個視頻——歐洲委員會科學部是女人干的活，它很快就下線了，因為“它真的很糟糕。”
“視頻里的女孩們穿著實驗室的大衣測試口紅，咯咯笑個不停，”里彭教授說。
她還說：“每個人都該接觸科學。”
“別把科學變成少女。”
“要讓每個人都對科學感興趣。”
Professor Gina Rippon said it was time to debunk the myth that gender differences are hard-wired into our brains.
In reality, there was no significant difference between the brains of a girl and boy in terms of their structure and function, she stressed.
But experiences and even attitudes could change the "plastic" brain on a physical level, causing its wiring to alter.
It was this that led girls and boys from an early age to head in different directions, said Prof Rippon, from Aston University.
While girls tended to gravitate towards fields of communication, people skills and the arts, boys were more likely to become scientists and engineers.
Even when girls went into science, they mostly chose careers at the "softer" end of the subject, such as biology, psychology and sociology, rather than physics and maths.
Speaking ahead of this year's British Science Festival, taking place at the University of Birmingham next week, Prof Rippon said: "We're stuck in the 19th century model of the 'vacuum packed' brain, the idea that we're born with a brain that gives us certain skills and behaviours.
"The brain doesn't develop in a vacuum.
"What we now know is that the brain is much more affected by stereotypes in the environment and attitudes in the environment, and that doesn't just change behaviour, it changes the brain."
Last year, 5,000 boys in the UK completed Level 3 engineering apprenticeships, but only 40 girls, Prof Rippon pointed out.
Boys taking physics A level also vastly outnumbered girls.
But Prof Rippon insisted this was nothing to do with innate differences in the way the brains of girls and boys worked.
Rather, it was likely to be the result of their brains being altered by experience.
One of the most often quoted examples of gender difference is spatial ability - the ability to understand the relationships between different objects in space.
Boys are said to be naturally more spatially gifted.
But if girls aged six to eight are given the tile-matching puzzle game Tetris, their brain wiring changes and their spatial ability improves, Prof Rippon said.
She added: “It's quite clear that spatial cognition is very much involved with experience, whether or not you have experience of manipulating objects as opposed to just observing them.
"This goes back to 'toys for boys'.
"From a very early age, boys have a lot more experience with manipulating objects."
Research had shown that as women attained greater access to education and power, gender differences began to disappear.
Prof Rippon was also dismissive of evolutionary psychologists who claimed the way men and women thought was largely the result of natural selection.
"The idea that women like the colour pink because it made them better able to pick berries - it's nonsense," she said.
Ill-conceived attempts to "fix" the problem of girls not going into science were likely to backfire, Prof Rippon argued.
One infamous example of this was the European Commission's Science Is A Girl Thing video released in 2012 which was swiftly dropped "because it was so awful".
"It showed girls in lab coats testing lipstick and giggling a lot," Prof Rippon said.
She added: "Science is something everybody should engage with.
"Let's not make science girly.
"Let's make science interesting to anyone."
參考譯文：
來自英國阿斯頓大學的里彭教授說，由于被“男人來自火星，女人來自金星”的信仰所誤導，科學正蒙受損失。
吉娜·里彭（Gina Rippon）教授說，是時候揭穿性別差異在我們大腦根深蒂固的神話了。
她強調，事實上從大腦的結構和功能上看，男生和女生并無明顯差別。
但經歷甚至態度能在物理等級上改變“可塑造的”大腦，引起它的結構變化。
這就是導致男女生從早期開始向不同方向發展的因素，來自英國阿斯頓大學的教授Rippon說道。
女孩傾向于人際關系技巧和藝術所吸引的時候，男孩更傾向于成為科學家和工程師。
即便女生進入科學領域，她們更多選擇類似生物、心理學和社會學這樣“較淺顯”的學科，而非數學或物理。
今年的英國科技節將于下周在伯明翰大學舉辦，在此之前里彭教授說，“我們被19世紀‘真空包裝’的大腦模式所困，即我們在出生時大腦就有相應的技能和行為。”
“大腦并非在真空之中發展。”
“我們現在知道的是，大腦更容易被環境中的固有陳規和態度影響，它們并沒有改變行為，而是改變了大腦。”
里彭教授指出，去年完成了英國3級工程師學徒制的男生多達5000名，但女生只有40名。
取得物理學高分的男生也比女生多得多。
但里彭教授堅稱這與男女生先天的大腦工作機制差異并無關系。
相反，它更像是大腦被經歷所改變的結果。
舉一個屢見不鮮的例子，性別的差異體現在空間能力——一種理解空間中不同物體間關系的能力上。
據說男生天生就在空間能力方面有才華。
但里彭教授說，若女生在6歲時能接觸俄羅斯方塊這樣的益智拼圖游戲，她們的大腦架構將得到改變，她們的空間能力也會提高。
她還說：“很明顯空間認知和經歷是息息相關的，無論你是否有操控物體或僅僅是觀察它們的經驗。”
“這可以追溯到‘男孩的玩具’上。”
“男孩子們從很小的時候，就富有操控物體的經驗。”
研究表明隨著女生有更好的受教育和獲得權力的機會，性別差異正在消失。
里彭教授也很不屑理會那些演化心理學家，他們宣稱男性和女性思維大部分是自然選擇的結果。
“女性喜歡粉色是因為這讓她們更擅長挑選漿果，這種觀點簡直荒唐。”她說。
妄圖“修正”女生不去進入科學界的嘗試看來即將破產，里彭教授辯稱。
這里有一個聲名狼藉的例子，2012年所發布的一個視頻——歐洲委員會科學部是女人干的活，它很快就下線了，因為“它真的很糟糕。”
“視頻里的女孩們穿著實驗室的大衣測試口紅，咯咯笑個不停，”里彭教授說。
她還說：“每個人都該接觸科學。”
“別把科學變成少女。”
“要讓每個人都對科學感興趣。”
