Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard University, suggested last week that "innate differences in sex may explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers." NY Times.
Dr. Summers cited research showing that more high school boys than girls tend to score at very high and very low levels on standardized math tests, and that it was important to consider the possibility that such differences may stem from biological differences between the sexes.
How do I feel about being a member of the sex that's not as good at math? Not happy about it. But this wouldn't be my reaction:
Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who once led an investigation of sex discrimination there that led to changes in hiring and promotion, walked out midway through Dr. Summers's remarks.
"When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill," Dr. Hopkins said.
I don't see how getting "physically ill" makes us women look any better. Nancy is just reinforcing negative gender stereotypes that women are too emotional.
If there are innate biological differences in math aptitude, then it's wrong to suppress the truth, otherwise we'd just be whining until the end of days about sexual discrimination causing these difference where such discrimation actually doesn't exist.
Luckily for American women, math intensive work like engineering is of declining importance to our economy because such work can be exported to low wage countries like China and India.
UPDATE
Some enlightened commentary in the blogosphere: The Last Renaissance Man, Lubos Motl's Reference, Joe's Dartblog, and Balloon Juice.
9 comments:
"Luckily for American women, math intensive work like engineering is of declining importance to our economy because such work can be exported to low wage countries like China and India."
Wow. Just...wow. This statement alone gives a huge amount of insight into your intellectual capacity. Are you suggesting that you believe that women suck at math and are reveling in the fact, then, that women won't have to worry about being reminded of their math deficiencies since engineering is being outsourced?
Never have I ever, ever, in my entire life, read a statement super-saturated with ignorance! Some of the most talented engineers I know are women.
Moreoever, you obviously, PAINFULLY obviously, have absolutely no clue what it is engineers do, do you? Of course you don't. Why am I asking you?
See, what you meant to say in regards to outsourcing was software engineering jobs. Programming. You know, those boring jobs you don't want to hear about because you can't grasp the subject matter.
American engineering is pretty damn safe from outsourcing. And you can bet your non-libertarian, woefully ditzy ass that the engineering involved with missile defense, military weapons systems (aircraft, ground vehicles, ships, and their associated offensive technologies (tracking, communication, weapons)), communication systems, and effectively all of military technology (spanning the plethora of engineering disciplines including aerospace, electrical, mechanical, environmental, chemical, computer, materials, and systems) sure as hell ain't going to be outsourced to southern Asia.
Stick to writing about your love affairs. At least you don't humiliate yourself as much.
Sorry, but I have to go with [R]. I'm not sure she WAS being sarcastic.
The average SAT scores of men and women are available at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0883611.html from 1966 to 2003.
I note in this that before 1971, women scored better than men on the verbal and worse than men on math. Since 1971, women have scored slightly worse than men on both math and verbal. So does this mean that women’s verbal abilities have declined since 1971? I think not.
The SAT test results are a self-selected sample. If only the brightest students in each high school took the SAT, the average scores would be higher. The more students take the test, the lower the average score gets.
I believe that more women take the SAT than men. For example in 2002, 616,201 men and 711,630 women took the SAT (see http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdeassess/results/2002/sat02_pr.pdf). The lower average SAT scores for women are probably mostly because more women take the test than men.
However, the difference is larger for math than verbal. Is this intrinsic or does it have something to do with the way women are socialized. Are women in high school discouraged by their friends or family from doing too well in math? I am a man. I have no idea.
As a side note, my 13 year old daughter, now in 8th grade, took the SAT in December to allow her to apply to a summer program for advanced study. She scored 600 math and 590 verbal putting her around 75% of all students that took the SAT. Her comment was it is really sad that 75% of high school seniors scored lower than an 8th grader. Of course she has attended private schools.
To quote:
"I was diagnosed last year with iron-deficiency anemia, and in researching my condition I came across some studies that suggest that its the cause of women's math deficiency. Boys and girls do equally well in math up until puberty, when girls start menstrating and the resulting blood loss can lead to very low levels of anemia. Anemia impares mental functioning, and apparently math ability is especially sensitive.
So it could be all that is needed to improve female math ability is cheap iron supplements beginning in puberty."
You expect me to believe that because a woman has a menstration she can't do math?
Holy crap! I have never heard such garbage in my entire life! And if that's to be taken at it's word, I guess that means from now on, women need to hand their checkbooks over to their spouses. (Yes my last comment was sarcasm)
"Jacky" You need to get your head examined while you are having your anemia issues fixed. Either that or start eating more liver.
Dada: This is not pro-wrestling. Cease and desist sounding like a third-rate jobber(loser) at a small-time wrestling company. Thanks.
Jacqueline: When you quote me a story written by an AP staffer that's not scientific evidence. I did find the report tho, and that particular quote comes from the first page. What is also said:
"3 One of the most concerning consequences of iron
deficiency in children is the alteration of behavior
and cognitive performance. The association of iron
deficiency anemia with lower mental and motor developmental
test scores in early childhood is welldescribed
and has recently been reviewed.4–6 There
are fewer published data, however, on cognitive
achievement in iron-deficient school-aged children
and adolescents; thus, the relationship between iron
status and cognitive functioning for older children is
less clear."
You can read the article for yourself hereAnd just because 1 person has done some test case studies, even if there is evidence that does not mean beyond a shadow of a doubt, the claims are true. Intensive back up data and test MUST be performed in order to rule everything out. Period. Otherwise it's pop science and can't stand up on it's own 2 feet.
I don't think she was stating this as a definite scientific conclusion with a 99.9% probability...merely as something that was worth further thought and investigation.
photoncourier.blogspot.com
Look David,
Since she was stating that because of her "condition" and the fact that she read an article, that she made it a scientific conclusion and told us without a doubt it was true.
Most people who look at all the "facts" before stating or making any assumptions, can generally discern from her comments that she was trying to state a "truth" based on nothing scientific to back it up.
And that's all I was trying to point out.
Nobody's talking about supressing the truth (well, ok, some folks are claiming that, but do you really want to be on the same side as the guy who wrote The Bell Curve?) The big issue is that Summers threw out vague and thoughtless assertions during a conference on the underrepresentation of women in the math/physics/engineering/etc. fields - assertions that somehow tend to absolve him of any responsibility for Harvard's dramatic drop in the % of tenured job offers for women since he took office . He (as far as anyone can tell; there's no transcript, but recollections seem to generally agree) suggested three reasons in order of probability. The first was that there was a conflict between the tenure track and the mommy track (true, but the way he seems to have framed it makes it sound like it's just the woman's problem, not the result of a job model based on different social arrangements, including wives as full-time support staff. The second was the infamous inherently less ability comment - there just isn't enough info yet, and the historical fact of discrimination against women unfortunately compels us to use a higher standard of proof. The third was some economic theory that seems, to my untutored mind, to rule out the possibility of discrimination anywhere, anytime. - Given discrimination, a non-discriminating institution could gain a competitive advantage by snatching up all the high-quality x's other's were neglecting; since this doesn't seem to be happening, he said, discrimination wouldn't seem to be the major problem. Among other difficulties, I can't see how this would apply to situations of widespread systemic discrimination, which, evidence suggests
A recent experiment showed that when Princeton students were asked to evaluate two highly qualified candidates for an engineering job - one with more education, the other with more work experience - they picked the more educated candidate 75 percent of the time. But when the candidates were designated as male or female, and the educated candidate bore a female name, suddenly she was preferred only 48 percent of the time. [From a NY Times article today on sex differences and intelligence]
is unfortunately still the case (though we have made great progress). Summers' comments aren't helping, and implies he has little understanding of the problem. His anecdote, about how one of his daughters was given toy trucks in a stab at 'gender-neutral parenting,' but insisted on calling them "daddy truck" and "baby truck," suggests he also doesn't realize that this is a comon organizational framework for young children; funny as it was meant to be, it also suggests a certain framework of thought.
-Dan S.
The Bog
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