[yummyfajitas]

I can't see any reason why being genuinely good at math is more importnat to effective programming...

I would strongly suspect that just as math and CS ability are correlated, so would math and chemistry. Biology less so, since biology is mostly just memorizing (at least for the first 3-4 years of college).

Anyway, I cited math data mainly because it's so widely studied. I get so many downvotes when I discuss this topic with data that I'm not even going to attempt to write about stuff I have no readily available data on.

I see a different pattern that goes in mostly the reverse direction. [...] young nerds [...] are therefore undesirable to be around.

Um, that's not the reverse direction. That's the same direction as what I said: women avoid computing because they are intolerant of geeks.

Note that young nerds also often act "bizarrely" towards men and each other. I certainly did before I learned to pass. But the claim of the author of the studies I cited is that women are less tolerant of "bizarre" behavior.

[cturner]

    > I get so many downvotes when I discuss this topic with data

It's a bit like the flying spaghetti monster book where they correlate the decline of piracy with global warming. You need to present data, and then also provide a link between it and the point you're making. I dispute the strong link between math and programming.

I accept your correction in that we're making the same point about young men. What I should have said is that the way you phrase it makes it seem like it's women that initiate the pattern. I don't think that's so. Although perhaps you could go back further and ask, what made the men neurotic in the first place, was it cruel rejection or bullying by prom queens - no idea. I just found the phrasing backwards.

[yummyfajitas]

You need to present data, and then also provide a link between it and the point you're making. I dispute the strong link between math and programming.

Fair enough. I thought the link was obvious enough, but you are keeping me honest. I have no data proving this link myself.

However, I just messaged a friend of mine who occasionally dabbles in math-ed stuff. He recommends these (paywalled) papers as starting points:

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1500963&dl=ACM&col...

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1047480

And an older paper "Identification of Computer Programming Aptitude", by Alspaugh (one of the early works).

I'll asked him to give me copies next time I see him in person (I'm no longer an academic, so I can't access university libraries).

[cema]

  I would strongly suspect that 
  just as math and CS ability are correlated, 
  so would math and chemistry. 

I am not sure about that. In my experience, mathematics and chemistry were not noticeably correlated (either way). On the other hand, such ostensibly different subjects as mathematics and music were positively correlated. Experience is anecdotal but includes math classes in high school, applied math in college, and computer science in grad school.

[drumdance]

Music and computer programming are correlated as well. Once upon a time orchestras were overwhelmingly male, but now there are a lot more women in orchestras, not to mention world-class soloists. This is partly due to the blind audition process that became common ~40 years ago.

[roguecoder]

I'd assume music and CS would be more closely correlated, and there is lots of research into music too. Most relevantly, the transition to blind auditions wiping out gender disparities in orchestra makeups.

[wlievens]

> so would math and chemistry

Anecdotal evidence here: I'm pretty good at math, but failed several chemistry exams in high scool. I just didn't "get" it. Maybe I would be able now, because I'm better at thinking abstractly and systematically than when I was 16, but that would be because I'm a programmer today. For me the correlation definitely doesn't hold. Same goes (to a lesser extent) for biology for me.