# Quote — Steve Stewart Williams, A Billion Years of Sex Differences

> According to an old joke, everyone knows that men and women are different… except social scientists. Plenty of research reveals the truth in the jest. One study, for example, found that social scientists are more likely than civilians to chalk up sex differences to nurture rather than nature, and that this even extends to differences between hens and roosters. As we’ll see later, even when it comes to humans, the evidence sides with the civilians, making this one area where laypeople have a firmer grasp on reality than many alleged experts – and one area where academia seems to impair people’s understanding of the world rather than improving it.

- Author: [Steve Stewart Williams](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-stewart-williams.md)
- Book: [A Billion Years of Sex Differences](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-stewart-williams/a-billion-years-of-sex-differences.md)
- Page: 17
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Stewart-Williams#A_Billion_Years_of_Sex_Differences:_How_Evolution_Shaped_the_Minds_of_Men_and_Women_(2026)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-stewart-williams/a-billion-years-of-sex-differences/according-to-an-old

## More from this book

> In some frog species, females fake their own deaths to escape unwanted male attention; males, on the other hand, never fake theirs to escape female attention.

p. 139 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-stewart-williams/a-billion-years-of-sex-differences/in-some-frog.md)

> We often view sexual victimization and partner abuse as women’s problems, rather than more-women-than-men problems. In doing so, however, we once again treat a statistical sex difference as a Mars-and-Venus difference. Ironically, the tendency to polarize sex differences in this domain is particularly common among gender-role progressives, who usually downplay female-male differences.

p. 249 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-stewart-williams/a-billion-years-of-sex-differences/we-often-view.md)

> I once spotted an article in The Daily Mail with the rather striking headline: “How did I raise such a girly girl? Feminist mother cringes at her three-year-old daughter’s love of princesses, frills and pink – and wishes she was into toy cars instead.” I remember thinking how strange it is that people who wish their daughters were less girly, and more like boys, are viewed as pro-female, rather than anti.

p. 253 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-stewart-williams/a-billion-years-of-sex-differences/i-once-spotted.md)