Gender-diverse teams produce more novel, higher-impact scientific discoveries, study shows:
The number of medical science publications by mixed-gender teams has grown rapidly over the past two decades, but remains underrepresented compared to what would be expected by chance.
New research from the University of Notre Dame examines about 6.6 million papers published across the medical sciences since 2000 and reveals that a team's gender balance is an under-recognized, yet powerful indicator of novel and impactful scientific discoveries.
[...] "We find the publications of mixed-gender teams are substantially more novel and impactful than the publications of same-gender teams of equal size," said Yang, who also studies how social networks and gender affect individuals' success. "And the greater a team's gender balance, the better the performance."
The team finds that advantages of gender-diverse teams hold for small and large teams, all 45 subfields of medicine and women- or men-led teams, and generalize to published papers in all science fields over the last 20 years.
"Our findings reveal potentially new gender and teamwork synergies that correlate with scientific discoveries and inform diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives," Yang said.
The study states, "Laboratory experiments suggest that women on a team improve information-sharing processes on teams, such as turn taking. It might also be that women provide a perspective on research questions that men do not possess and vice versa."
Journal Reference:
Yang Yang, Tanya Y. Tian, et al., Gender-diverse teams produce more novel and higher-impact scientific ideas [open], PNAS, 119, 2022. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2200841119
(Score: 2, Troll) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday September 14 2022, @10:47AM (7 children)
a story about scientific teams made up of people who think they're on a gender spectrum, or have no gender, or think they're trapped into another gender's body, or have several personalities with different genders, and give you their pronouns that you have to use on pain of getting an earful about respect.
But no: it's just teams with men and women. Almost boring by today's standards...
(Score: 5, Informative) by MostCynical on Wednesday September 14 2022, @11:40AM (1 child)
It's okay, "the greater a team's gender balance, the better the performance", so, in a team of five people, you need one who is half/half..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday September 14 2022, @05:31PM
Maybe they (gender-)reassign that role from time to time, like a project lead.
(Score: 5, Funny) by canopic jug on Wednesday September 14 2022, @11:58AM (1 child)
So of course they're going to perform better. The women are going to be working as hard as they can, with meticulous attention to detail, to compensate for having to be around the men and avoid their criticism. The men are going to be working all-out to show off for the women. So with both parts of the team focusing hard on the tasks and putting in extra effort, it is obvious that the results would be better than homogeneous teams.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday September 14 2022, @05:28PM
It's true! I saw it in a video in health class [youtu.be]!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Wednesday September 14 2022, @08:49PM (2 children)
WTF?
The study is talking about men and women as is explicitly in TFS:
This is about having more women on scientific teams, not whatever bug you have up your ass about the 0.3% of people in the US who don't strictly use man/woman in describing themselves [cnn.com]
What's wrong with you? Why do you even care? More importantly, why are you injecting this ridiculous "culture war" trope into the discussion?
Geez Louise!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2022, @11:49PM (1 child)
Maybe because it's in the title? Gender-diverse is a queer term, in and of itself.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday September 15 2022, @12:10AM
Is it? I mean it is inclusive of such things, but its usage is much more common as male/female ratios rather than the incredibly tiny group of non-binary folks.
As is expressed here [wikipedia.org]:
I'd point out that said tiny minority of folks would likely be less vocal about their non-binary identity if they weren't assailed by asshole "culture warriors" at every turn.
Why should anyone, other than those who identify as non-binary, even care?
That's beyond me. Want to identify as male, female, agender or the ever-popular "attack helicopter"? Have at it. It has no impact on me, you or anyone else other than those taking on those identities.
Anyone complaining about it is just a busybody. And we have an excellent phrase to be used for those folks:
Mind your own fucking business!
But don't mind me. Please do go on with your misconceptions about language and culture.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 14 2022, @01:25PM
>remains underrepresented compared to what would be expected by chance.
What's your basis for "by chance"?
In the 99.999% male dominated hierarchy of science for the past 500 years, I think there are a tremendous number of female researchers publishing today.
If you're looking for 50/50, you're going to be looking for a long, long time. Female interest in STEM is already at parity during school age, participation in STEM education programs is nearly 50-50, up until childbearing comes into the picture. Longer term, female participation in STEM careers drops off just about co-incidentally with childbirth, but, you know: if your mom was the exception and continued working at the chemical plant through the eighth month of her pregnancy with you, I understand...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 14 2022, @01:28PM
>potentially new gender and teamwork synergies that correlate with scientific discoveries
This isn't true for gender alone. Diverse backgrounds, cross-field studies: medical doctors working in electrical engineering, software engineers working in genetics, chemical engineers working in childcare... all come up with novel ideas at a much higher rate than the traditionally educated in their fields.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2022, @02:33PM
I hope they factored in the modern practice of adding about a dozen extra authors to every piece of work. Back scratching, favors for friends, h-index hacking, all the usual human bullshit that science used to provide some relief from. I don't think women and minorities are worse in this regard, but certainly if Leadership wants to See more Progress in Diversity then *poof* all of a sudden black trans lesbians become very in demand as co-authors.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Spamalope on Wednesday September 14 2022, @02:45PM (7 children)
In the past, minorities were added to bids etc to meet gov't requirements.
There isn't a reason for that to have changed. New requirements are for inclusion etc.
ZOMG - most new papers are gaming the system; this must proof the system is fantastic! Genius!
Publishing is highly correlated with employment prospects and grants.
Grants are mostly gov't, so subject to current gov't bias.
Publishing depends on research funded by gov't grants, subjecting them to similar bias.
Behold, results match the tick box requirements; tick box people interpret that as validating the list. Additional breaking news, water wet; Up next, you'll never guess what color the White House was repainted!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2022, @02:56PM
The irony is of course that in the USA I was the only white guy in a department consisting of 35 Chinese males and an Iranian.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2022, @03:13PM
I haven't even powered on the ACME BullShitometer, but the needle is sitting just above 1000%.
Gaming the system? I wonder how much of this story was written in Las Vegas . . .
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2022, @03:37PM
Guess which color your skin is.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 14 2022, @04:59PM (1 child)
I can't help but notice that there's no possible way in your worldview for "minorities" or women to have actually contributed meaningfully to either government project bids or research papers. Which sure seems unlikely, given that there are more women then men in the world, and more "minorities" than white people in the world, and just on sheer percentages some of those not-white people and women are bound to be smart and capable.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Wednesday September 21 2022, @12:38PM
Re-read my post. It only speaks to gaming the system bids, a defect of the policies enacted.
At no point does it contemplate race based merit. But I see you are.
A grifter offering to include themselves on a bid for a percentage to make the bid tick box qualify is not advancing the aims of the tick-box, unless the real aim is to enable corruption. That was actually occurring in practice when I had direct knowledge of local gov't bidding. Race is only relevant if the tick-box is race.
If you can avoid racial knee jerking, you'll be able to see the point is 'tick-box requirements result in tick-box behavior by participants; a study canvasing tick-box activity is confirmation bias'. The nature of the tick-box, it being your sacred cow or other reason doesn't make that point invalid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2022, @08:54PM (1 child)
At least in the US, we (i.e., every voting-age American) are the government.
As such, what's the problem?
Don't like how the government gives research grants? Look in the mirror.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 14 2022, @11:24PM
Or one three hundred millionth of a mirror anyway for those living in the US.
(Score: 2) by HammeredGlass on Wednesday September 14 2022, @03:28PM
Who am I kidding, the Mengeles have temporarily prevented us from thinking rationally.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday September 14 2022, @07:39PM
Men are from Vulcan, women are from Venus:
my wife, for example, isn't always a logical person but she does have some interesting perspectives that make me think.
Men can be one minded; women can be thousand minded which makes the 'two heads are better' thing weird, but often good.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Informative) by legont on Wednesday September 14 2022, @11:29PM
Off course man and wife is the best type of team; as opposed to any rainbow crap.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.