It's fascinating to me to watch different online cultures debate this and watch each culture cherry-pick the studies that best support their position. Do you believe in gender differences in personality and aptitude? You can find dozens of papers to support that position. Do you believe such differences do not exist? You can find dozens of papers to support that as well. There is a deluge of research on this topic going back decades--even centuries depending on your filters.

It's like the old nature vs nurture debate. I grew up with academics constantly bringing up the questions of blank slates versus inherent human nature in my schooling. Then I started hanging out with young Ph.Ds in a wide variety of sciences. I learned from them that the debate itself is generally regarded as nonsense by many modern academics. Anyone who has deeply immersed themselves in the research knows that there is a vastly complex web of interactions between genetics and environment that is impossible to untangle with our current tools and methodologies. Anyone who tells you otherwise is merely exposing their Dunning–Kruger.

That's how I feel about this gender-differences debate flaming up all week on HN. I completely understand the passions it raises on both sides, but everyone is talking past each other because no one is understands this subject well enough to be humbled by its incredible complexity and how much we still don't know about it.