Essay On Summers Comments On Women In Science

In January of 2005, Harvard President Lawrence Summers delivered a
speech where he speculated about the causes of the disparity in
professional achievements between men and women in
science/engineering. The speech provoked a firestorm of critical
comments, particularly in academia, but also in the general media.

I have written an essay in response to Summers' critics. The gist of
the essay is not to take a stand on Summers' hypotheses, but rather to
support and promote the free expression of ideas in general.

The essay can be found at
http://www.spyingonthecollegeofyourchoice.com/Essays.shtml

Fair Disclosure: The site is a partly commercial site which promotes
my book, Spying On The College Of Your Choice. However, the content
of the essay is "on topic" in terms of addressing the ethical issues
behind both Summers' speech and the response it received.

I would welcome feedback from readers. You can find my e-mail address
by poking around the Web site.

Steve O.


"Spying On The College Of Your Choice" -- How to pick the college that is the Best Match for a high school student's needs.
http://www.SpyingOnTheCollegeOfYourChoice.com

 

The guy was right. They got all over him because he insulted many
people before. (This time, he touched on one of the ortodoxies of the
academic lefties and Harvard is full of them.) But he is a poor
politician and a presidency at a big uni is mostly politics with a bit
of administration. If he was just a prof, he would be free to say a
provocative stuff.

that is the Best Match for a high school student's needs.

 

In general, I think the statements that are half true tend to generate the
greatest amount of controversy. Those that are obviously wrong get dismissed
out of hand. For example: "All women are incredibly stupid."

People also dismiss statements that are true, if they are believed to be
true. "The world is round." is not going attract as much today as it would
six centuries ago.

"Women are no good at math." is half true. Most men are no good at it
either, but that is another story.

My personal experience has been that average women do not take up their
hobbies or work as passionately as average men do. For example, very few
women get obsessed by computers even though many women do work with
computers. If they do, it is more likely to be with a use of computers, such
as chatting, rather than with the technology itself. This unwillingness to
be obsessive about such things is probably a good thing--but it is
different.

Bill

 

Yes, a significant step in the "advancement" of Western academic
intelligentsia towards, what was the phrase, the "ashheap of history".

I read it. Couldn't agree more, I give it two thumbs up. Bah, in case
you're following, you may be interested.

Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
| chances are he is doing just the same"

 

http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html

Given finite resources, should you invest them in improving the small
number of best candidates who will vie for a smaller number of top
postions? Or should you invest those finite resources in a much
larger number of second rate candidates to compete for those same few
positions, and simultaneously overtly screw the intrinsically
qualified cohort?

Really hot lamproite or kimberlite diamond ore is a mere 1 ppm wt-%
diamond (5 carats/tonne will make you astoundingly wealthy). Cornell
University backs onto a kimberlite dike! Follow the service road from
the Snee Hall parking area to its intersection with College Ave. The
kimberlite dike crosses Cascadilla gorge just upstream from the
College Ave. bridge. It cuts through the Devonian siltstones beneath
Snee Hall. Look just upstream from an abandoned flight of stairs that
led from College Town to the creek. Diamonds strongly bond to grease
boards. It is not overmuch difficult to pan for them.

Oops! Cornell kimberlite is not diamondiferous. How much money will
you spend mining Cornell kibmerlite before you find diamonds?

Dumping literal annual tens of $billions into unqualifed women,
Blacks, Browns, Reds, queers, morons, and every other *privileged*
disadvantaged group in the expectation of them performing like
out-of-the-box qualified people is utter madness. How much money will
you spend mining Cornell kimberlite before you find diamonds?

 

Ahh, you're not up with modern social ideas. Objective competence is
so not in. And it is all just a social construct anyway. We'll
declare the second raters to be first raters, and once we'll do so,
they'll become so

"I can't give you a brain, but I'll give you a diploma" (from the
Wizard 0f Oz).

Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
| chances are he is doing just the same"

 

What is interesting is that if you counter a stupid generalization with
another, arguments can get really heated.
So when it comes to seeing stupid generalization about woman, simply
counter with equally stupid generalization of men, and vice verse.
The whole point of the OP's point was to troll and cause strife, not to
further the feminist agenda.
As a troll it was a beauty!

 

The essay can be found at

case
you're following, you may be interested. <<


I give it two thumbs up also, being as how it makes the daring and
breathless assertion that academia should have as priority the search
for truth (for its own sake-- gasp) and political considerations be
damned.

Why, this kind of thing is almost *Emersonian* in its credo. By which I
mean it'll be a long before YOU are invited back to Harvard to speak.
And forget about getting to be president there.

If you keep going down this road, you'll eventually get to Voltaire and
then Spinoza, and finally even Socrates. And then down the rabbit hole.
So stop now, before you succeed in becoming a true autodidact, and
eventually start to need glasses. And finally come to believe that our
modern educational institutions are full of pompous fools who got where
they are by performing an act which requires less brains than
chapstick.


SBH

 

I'll take scholarship over indoctrination any day. People should be able to
talk about this stuff, especially in universities. They're supposed to be
looking for the truth, not spouting dogma.

 

I'll take scholarship over indoctrination any day. People should be
able to
talk about this stuff, especially in universities. They're supposed to
be
looking for the truth, not spouting dogma. <<

You're in trouble already, young man. Mandatory women's studies and
sensitivity training for you, followed by expulsion.

 

Summers wasn't engaging in scholarship. He was speculating, off the cuff,
at best. That is more akin to what people people do at a bar, over a
beer.

That men are superior to women was, and many cases still is, the most
accepted dogma. Summers wasn't stating some truth, he was the one who
attempted to use a handful of questionable observations which ended up
reiterating dogma that is thousands of years old.

Last I looked, no matriarchies (oppressive to men or otherwise) have
formed in the tiny handful of years that women have had the vote and the
right to birth control, so all this angst to "protect" Summers from his
shoddy "scholarship" seems sadly misplaced.

Sure, people should be able to talk about unpleasant things. And it is
only right and proper that people should be able to get angry about
questionable "truths" that have been used in the past as rationale to
curb their rights.

Your sarcasm is misplaced. Summers' took a piece of statistical
information (the comparative width of scores from "standardized" IQ tests
between genders) and ran too far with it. Considering the mountain of
evidence showing that the legacy of patriarchal dominance (feel free to
contest that history - it'd be amusing) lingers on, to claim it was no
longer a factor worth considering in his analysis really showed Summers
to be, at best, naive. It certainly wasn't very "academic".

The use of IQ curves to demonstrate anything is misguided, since I seem
to recall that among other failings, they need to be renormalized every
few years (indicating they aren't quite measuring intrinsic ability) and
external factors _do_ change the curves:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/95/950802Arc5122.html
http://www.skeptic.com/04.3.siano-bellcurve.html

 

First, he said explicitly that he's going to speculate. Second, his
"speculations" were based on existing observations.

There is little questionable about the observations that the standard
deviations for the distributions of various cognitive abilieties
(probably not only cognitive) are a tad larger for men than for women.

Straight from a PC manual, this one.

Too far? He pointed that such difference amounts to a lot when you
get to, say, 4 standard deviations away from center. Takes an idiot
to say that a statement to this effect is "too far".

But he didn't say anything like this. He did say, in fact, that
social and cultural factors may have influence and even open bias may
exist. Only, he added that there may be intrinsic factors, as well.
So now you crossed the boundary from spewing PC gibberish to plain
lying. Which is about what could've been expected.

Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
| chances are he is doing just the same"

 

Yep. Another mess to take care of.

Okay. I'll take a hike to the library.

/BAH

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

 

Sigh! You do need to get out more. Who do you think did the
work so can play with the toys you have today?

<snip>

/BAH

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

 

Wonderful. Let us waste yet more money on proving there are
differences between men and women. Even preschoolers know this
is a fact. How about putting that money into paying for the
outrageous prices of getting through grad school. Oh, GASP!!
There I go again..combining common sense and financing in the
same breath.

Or, perhaps, the premise is a myth. I don't know what the guy
used for his data. If it's these idiotic entranace exams, one
should note that the final scores are not a good metric anymore.
My nephew has taken these tests at least three times and will
choose which score gets sent to colleges.

The Liberals love this kind of smoke and mirrors. It helps to
ensure a dumbing down of the public. One should note which
state Harvard occupies. This state is in the throes of trying
to measure teaching and learning based on performance rather
than birthing circumstances.

I give him an E for including a gender bias in the real question
which should have been about why Americans aren't choosing
science and math. The current ads by one of the teachers'
unions is bitching about how they have to teach math and
English instead of art.

/BAH


/BAH

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

 

As far as I am concerned, the statements on this thread in support
of Summers have been about as well-informed as the above.

Educated European opinion six centuries ago was that the earth is
round.

--
Mostly economics: <http://www.dreamscape.com/rvien/#PublicationsForFun>
r c
v s a Whether strength of body or of mind, or wisdom, or
i m p virtue, are found in proportion to the power or wealth
e a e of a man is a question fit perhaps to be discussed by
n e . slaves in the hearing of their masters, but highly
@ r c m unbecoming to reasonable and free men in search of
d o the truth. -- Rousseau

 

Summers did not seem to want to bother familiarizing himself with the
scholarship on his topic, as any academic should before talking to
the experts in the field. He has a history of arrogance, and that has
something to do with the reaction of the Harvard faculty.

Summers was not engaging in scholarship. He is not an academic. He
is an administrator. He was making ill-informed comments to justify
Harvard's failings.

Which has nothing to with nature versus nurture debates, or what is
intrinsic and what is socialization.

The above is not rational argument. No rational reason has been
given to reject the statement that Summers was "reiterating dogma
that is thousands of years old."

Which has nothing to with nature versus nurture debates.

The above is stupid. We have no reason to know that any
misrepresentation is deliberate.

Summers ranked the factors. He did not merely "add... that there may
be intrinsic factors, as well." Is Mati lying by omission?

--
Mostly economics: <http://www.dreamscape.com/rvien/#PublicationsForFun>
r c
v s a Whether strength of body or of mind, or wisdom, or
i m p virtue, are found in proportion to the power or wealth
e a e of a man is a question fit perhaps to be discussed by
n e . slaves in the hearing of their masters, but highly
@ r c m unbecoming to reasonable and free men in search of
d o the truth. -- Rousseau

 

Some types of scholarship ARE speculations! Working out a new theory or
approach is a speculation because success is not guaranteed. What you
are complaining about is the Summers' speculation was not rigorous
enough for you, are worked out well enough in the detail.

A proper study of the matter should reveal whether there are intrinsic
differences in the way females think as compared to males and if there
are such differences what are they.

The lack of female theoretricians in physics and mathematics (say) could
be explained in sociological or psychological terms or -maybe-, just
-maybe- there is a genetic factor (gasp!). Of course the Liberals will
greet such a finding with the same hostility that greeted -The Bell
Curve-. There are certain quesiton which Should Never Be Raise,
according to some kinds of Liberal thinking.

From a practical point of view, Summers should have thought the matter
out and worked up his position in such a way that it could be defended
logically and perhaps with relevent work in genetics, sociology and
psychology, further backed up with statistics. The Liberals would still
go boo! hiss! but with appropriate backup they simply could not dismiss
the position out of hand.

I give Summers an A for raising a reasonable question and a D for
picking the wrong venue to raise it.

Bob Kolker

 

The fact that Summers allowed even for the -possibility- of intrinsic
genetic differences in the way femaies think as compared to males is the
Harvard equivalent to yelling Nigger, Nigger out loud. The authors of
-The Bell Curve- met the same kind of reaction.

Bob Kolker

 

My personal belief, filtered through my plethora of biases, has been
that average men do not take up their their hobbies or work as
passionately as average women do. Let me give an example so I don't
seem like a dickhead. Very few men have an obsession for poetry or
other literary artforms even though many men do work with words. (This
is a clear observation, free from any slant by me of course.) If they
do, it is more likely to be with a use of words, such as filling out
forms or loudly asserting macho statements, rather than any art. This
unwillingness to be obsessive about such things (and general lack of
imagination) is probably a good thing, (after all, someone has to fill
out all those damn forms), but it is obviously different from being
truly creative and intelligent.