Gender is socially mediated, and constructed, as well as neurologically predisposed.  Innate qualities have to be qualities that do not depend on social interaction.  Consider the so called feral children known to history.  They are what people are like without social interaction or culture.  These children display natural predispositions to certain behaviors, with no cultural overlay.   Complex cultural behavior, dressing, eating with table manners, and much of what we call gender identity are unknown to them.

I am not the first to point out PhD snoobery.  This is an account from 1903 which appeared in the Harvard Monthly.


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Finally thanks to the sheriff we have some actual scientific information on this whole story.   The sheriff with the actual balloon on hand and in consultation with a professor took measurements.  The balloon could not have held the boy due to an 18 lb discrepancy in it's measured weight and the weight reported by Richard Heene.  The balloon was made of duct tape, tarps, plywood, and tinfoil.  The sheriffs department put it back together and it supported the weight of the boy.    He cited a Colorado state rule which keeps him from stating if polygraphs were administered or the results, or if confessions were obtained.  

According to ABC 7 Denver unnamed "friends" have dubbed Richard Heene a "Mad Scientist".Oh here we go again!  Then this news station reports every bad word someone can say about him, with no independent verification.    There are many many stories like this out there, all relying on the reporting of other news outlets often with no independent verification of anything. Most of the "news" out there on this topic is the same way.  The meta message of all this that I am getting is "of course he's bad he's interested in science."  Another case of the mad scientist stereotype at work.  

The "unusual", "eccentric", extraordinary Heene family.  It seems clear to me that these people have been through 24 hours of hell thanks to the cynical media.  Watching them on TV I ask myself, how would one raise children who you would be interested in science?  I think of my own family, and the families of many other scientist I have known, and heard of.  For the record I don't think this was a hoax, at worst this was a practical joke cooked up by those kids, more likely this was just a great deal of confusion.  (I still don't know who would rescue someone from a runaway balloon.  I guess if that happens your just screwed.)