From Victorian scientists measuring skull volumes to contemporary brain imagers using machine learning (ML), the widely publicized study by Ryali et al. (1) is merely the latest in a long history of attempts to identify the “real,” or categorical brain differences between women and men. However, their actual findings are neither as novel nor definitive as stated. 

 

Lockhart, Jeffrey W., Agustín Fuentes, Gina Rippon, and Lise Eliot. (2025). “Who Authors Social Science? Demographics and the Production of Knowledge.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 122(2)):e2411917121.