if these patterns hold through multiple age groups and cultural gender systems, that would be interesting, but if all or the majority of samples are adults from a Eurocentric culture, we might just be seeing what brains raised in that fashion look like.

There are real differences. If there differences among adult brains raised in a European-descended culture are real, whatever their origins, then they'll have consequences.

The consequences can't be just wished out of existence.

Rather like a study reported in the pop press a few weeks back that looked at economic stress at various points in a child's development. It found significant (which may not be "important," of course) differences in things like emotional inhibition which had consequences for the adults when they were 24 years old. This was taken as explanation for why poverty is so bad and so necessary to fight. On the other hand, those differences, if large enough to affect behavior and choices, would have consequences that can't be wished away either and provide a basis for possible lower academic achievement and financial security.

In the latter case, it's a slam-dunk that the changes are entirely developmental. But it's like saying flipper-babies' deformities were developmental. Once the change is in place, it's there and needs to be considered.


On the other hand--and it's still not completely ruled out that to some extent there isn't some "nurture" involved--things like mental 3D manipulation of objects is not only demonstrated cross-culturally but also found to be tightly correlated to sex hormone concentrations and things like sexual orientation. Gay men are statistically more like women and gay women are statistically more like men.