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Harvard Pres Says Females Naturally Bad at Math
Man_Holmes writes "Harvard president says that women lack natural ability in math and science and this explains why fewer women succeed in math and science.
Lawrence H. Summers later said that he was discussing hypotheses based on scholarly work and that it did not necessarily represent his private views."
More of a "You can't say that." than "That isn't correct.
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We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
economists bad at genetics.
Take your pick. I know which I think is more likely.
Phil
It's because women don't stay in the technical fields due to the sexist and condecending culture found there.
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
I just wanted to chime in by saying that "have less aptitude for" does not automatically mean "all suck at".
Machine9dotNet
It doesn't matter if you have facts to back up an assertion like that, you're still going to pay a price in suffering that makes it far better to just shut the hell up.
So it is "Safer" and "easier" to "shut the hell up" about something that is politically incorect if the price is a large amount of suffering? I wonder what would have happened to the Civil Rights movement and Womens Sufferage (among other movements) if people thought that way in the 20's and 50's/60's.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Are empathy and `understanding systems' different? Surely empathy is simply a subset of `understanding systems' tiered towards the system known as the human brain.
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Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
Now, who's substantiating his comments and who isn't?
Perhaps there comes a point where a person of integrity can no longer tow the politically correct line and must call it as he sees it. Perhaps being able to retain some dignity and look oneself in the mirror as a professional academic is worth the heat he'll have to take. So I disagree entirely that it far better to just shut the hell up.
It's like... no one commentating on athletics will admit the obvious fact that black sprinters are faster than white. Because if you admit that, then you have conceded that some races may be naturally better at some things than other things, perhaps whites think better than blacks... shock, horror!
To me it is obvious that women are generally better at somethings and worse at others than men. I hope I live to see the day when we laugh at the quaint squeemishness of our age to admit what every other age and people have plainly known.
Of course, this does not mean that an individual woman may not be the best mathematician, or perhaps a white man will again win the 100 metres. (We now have a white heavy-weight boxing world champion.) Individuals are in no way subject to a statistic which generalises a population.
Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird -- Proverbs 1:17
The current doctrine that is present in most schools and society will not allow a view to exist even if it could be backed with fact.
We are too concerned with feelings compared to facts. We are willing to ingore an obvious issue simply because it might offend someone.
Fortunately this issue is relatively harmless but other issues which offend people based on the conclusions of studies are being hushed all in the name of sensitivity and political correctness.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
That "Example" is a shining example of why *anecdotal data is misleading*. Who knows what sort of other details or context might apply to such a story?
Based on TFA (I know, I know), I'd have to say the guy really is a pompous jerk who wants to believe his sexism has some actual merit, and will find ways to prop up his beliefs. It's something we all do to some extent (just recall the conversation you have with yourself when you're sleeping for 10 more minutes instead of getting up when the alarm goes off), but it has no place in public/professional comments in any academic setting.
Yes, it's true that it is AWFULLY hard to separate nature vs. nurture when it comes to behavior, preference, and aptitude across large groups. But to suggest there 'might be innate differences' (which is the best possible way you could put it) without referring to any existing studies to that effect is just wrongheaded. And again, it comes down to first having to show there IS a difference, and then having to show that it's tied to gender as opposed to childhood development. GFL.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
I once saw a documentary about turn of the century basketball.
Apparently, around the turn of the century, Jews dominated Basketball. Seriously. Not making this up. And in the press, and in the common opinion of the time, it was held that Jews had certain attributes, which were (not lying) quickness and sneakyness. which made them unbeatable on the court.
Today that seems totally ridiculous to us. We don't hold those stereotypes anymore.
Now we believe that black people have this huge innate physical sports advantage. It's not that they're statistically poorer than white people, and have few ways of going to college besides sports scholarships. It's not that, culturally, they see the easiest routes to success coming from entertainment and athletics.
It's just that black people tend to be athletic, funny, and rappers. It's genetic. No really. It is. Really.
Don't you see how stupid that is?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
This is implying "logical systems" such as a truss network on a bridge (lego) or a simple chemical reaction (baking soda + acid). Both of these things have the advantage that they both are visual (you can see the bridge, or the result of the reaction) and are easily repeated (for friends say, the good old cool factor). Young males (or all males in general) tend to be much less proficient at the less logical and more random nature of human interaction. People often don't say or do what they mean (little boy picking on a girl, doesn't quite understand the feelings he is having yet, but this is his best system of expression), results are rarely repeatable and even harder to predict.
I would say that our study of math is, in many ways, just a expression of this male-ness. We wish to explain everything in terms of equations and systems because they are usually predictable with great numerical accuracy (say with electric charges, we can easily predict the force between different charges, even if we don't quite understand totally how and why electric fields function) and are typically repeatable with similar results (definition of experiment anyone?).
The human brain may be a system, but understanding some parts of this system is simply not innate (it can be taught though). At the same time, weakness in math by girls may simply be that the entire system was derived and devised by men, with that type of thinking involved. I must say that, while I am fairly good at math (male), there are plenty girls in my engineering classes that are much better at math then I am. however, if you looked at any of my high school classes, only 1 (out of 20 or so) girls were better at math then I. It all depends on your sample really.
Medevo
Troll. But dammit, I'll bite anyway. Why is it that according to P.C. all people are equally best at everything? People are different, and if you study them and it comes out that men are better at something than women, why must it be that you are immediately misogynist?
I read a study a while back that suggested that women are better suited for field command roles because of their innate demeanor and communications skills. No one cryed "feminisim attacks!!". Why should you? Why can't you accept that different sets of people have different innate strengths?
It doesn't mean that you can't do something in math if you're a women. Far from it, and I know several brilliant women in the fields of science and math. It's just that it explains the likelyhood of a math or science major being male. It's there, why do you ignore it?
He threw in the, "it's not necessarily my personal view", because he didn't want to be labeled by people such as yourself.
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
What was actually said involved a lot of disclaimers and careful language. Summerizing the remarks as "females naturally bad at math" is just plain wrong.
One of the specific things he pointed out was the way that the work of high level math and science contributors in academia is organized requires a steep committment in time and effort that many women are unwilling to spend. In the corporate world positions have been modified to allow for multiple people to hold onto an important responsibility. There are other kinds of changes that can also be made. Part of the implication here is that the flaws are not with the women who are not reaching the top in these contexts, but with the way the offices and responsibilities themselves are structured and executed.
There is a popular article in the New York Times about this with the title "Harvard Chief Defends His Talk On Women" that goes into significant detail.Nowhere did he say that men were more likely to be good at math and science. He said that perhaps innate differences (not lack of intellectual ability) may be a factor that women do not advance or succeed in certain fields. Okay. Let's see. What are some innate differences? People keep mentioning the vagina, but let's remember a couple of other things that women have that men do not: ovaries and a uterus. While a baby is in the oven, the father can continue working, a mother often cannot. While a child is small, it is more often women than men who sacrifice work time to care for them, especially if the parents decide that breastfeeding is important to them. The first is an innate difference. The second is largely cultural (how many offices want a small child in them? How many allow breastfeeding?) Mr. Summers said his remarks were misconstrued as suggesting that women lack the ability to succeed at the highest levels of math and science, and that he "did not say that, nor do I believe it" (RTFA)
As a woman who is on the cusp of receiving her PhD and looking for a teaching position, I am faced with the reality that my potential employers are very concerned about my marital status, whether I have children now, and whether I plan to have them in the next few years, or ever. (Legal or not, that's how it is; I have been at staff meetings where someone brings it up in relation to a prospective faculty member, and the department chair had to say "it is illegal for us to consider that factor." Do you think it's not on people's minds, even after that?) I am also faced with the reality of an ad I saw recently: "Egg donors needed. Waited too long for tenure." From my perspective, poignant. Will I have to choose between a family and a career? My intellectual capacity and the body of research reflected in my CV rival that of any man I will be competing with for junior faculty positions. But I know that I want to have children. I will be getting my PhD at the age of 30, and starting a career when most of my friends have small children. Should I put off kids? Should I have them and then look for a job? Should I land a job with maternity leave and hope that I still get tenure if I use maternity leave within the first few years I am working there?
"Innate differences." Are the concerns I have due to innate, physical differences? Or our society's inability to cope with a workforce that is actively involved in reproduction? A combination, perhaps, as Mr. Summers suggests: due to innate differences, women are not advancing, and he is concerned about the role discrimination plays in keeping women from advancing at elite universities. Universities which are among the most demanding of their junior faculty. Recent PhDs, who are at an age when most women in our society have children.
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I agree with you that we should be able to study innate differences between groups of people without people crying foul if they don't like the results. However, if these studies are commissioned or are used as an excuse for someone's biases, then I have a problem.
In this situation, Harvard has low female enrollment in math disciplines. Rather than investigate whether Harvard is actively or inadvertently discouraging females from enrolling, or whether there is some social root cause for females being discouraged from math disciplines, the Harvard Pres pulls some "scholarly work" out of his ass that says women are bad at math. This is what I have a problem with. Even if, on avarage, women are worse at math, I doubt that the difference in man-woman statistics is enough to account for the lack of women in Harvard's math-centric programs.
It's just that it explains the likelyhood of a math or science major being male.
And it can also be used to explain to young women entering high school why they shouldn't be taking advanced math courses.
He threw in the, "it's not necessarily my personal view", because he didn't want to be labeled by people such as yourself.
And what sort of people are they? The kind that label middle-aged men that say "Women lack natural ability in math" as potentially having a bias against women? Sounds like common sense to me.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
Interesting this is I have a friend still in college who says these two things have happened/do happen to women teachers in Rhode Island.
First, If a woman is seen on a date by one of her students, she is fired. Also, that this happened to one of his teachers.
Second, if a woman teacher becomes pregnant she is sent on a "leave of absence" for the duration of the time that her pregnancy shows. Basically, once she starts to show, she has to leave until she has the kid. Contrast this with teachers in VA where they don't leave until sometime in the third trimester.
Don't speak against the south until you've heard some of the crazy shit the New Englanders do.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Every single week. Its usually because their children are sick or they can't find a baby sitter, or day care isn't open, or whatever.
Sounds like more of a "dad" problem than a "mom" problem.
Re-read your post and imagine that there were fathers who could step up and do *their* jobs.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
People, both male and female, should cut the crap and just act like engineers, chemists, biologists... like PROFESSIONALS.
> It's just that when a man chooses to not have kids, society doesn't label him as selfish
It does you just don't see that side.
What about a husband who wants to stay at home, and take care of the kids. Society labels him as a deadbeat. It works both ways. Society labels negatively anyone that steps out of what their percieved role should be.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
Just because some shmucks are using weak techniques to try to "improve self-esteem" - which probably don't involve changing the school environment at all, doesn't mean that it's impossible to improve educational performance by encouraging students.
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