From PZ Myers (http://pharyngula.org):
****begin Myers quote***
I’ll tell you how much of a role discrimination plays in limiting female professors in so-called “elite” universities: 100%. There is no shortage of brilliant women scientists (or brilliant male scientists), but there is a dearth of jobs and we still have bigoted ignoramuses like Summers standing guard over the gateways.
He offered three possible explanations, in declining order of importance, for the small number of women in high-level positions in science and engineering. The first was the reluctance or inability of women who have children to work 80-hour weeks.
Point in Woman’s favor: they aren’t stupid enough to succumb to the ridiculous demands of the academic establishment.
But seriously, this isn’t a problem with women. This is a problem with the culture. We have a culture that says it is OK for the boys to shirk family responsibilities and invest time in their careers, but women who do the same are bad mothers. Women are penalized in ways that men aren’t for making a maximal effort in their careers, just as men are penalized for spending more time with their families.
Do you think Lawrence Summers looks on those high-level male scientists and engineers who are slaving away in the lab for 80+ hours a week, and wonders, “Why is that man neglecting his children?” Part of the problem is that we have administrators and peers who can gleefully apply that kind of career pressure without concern for their ability to function as well-roundedhuman beings.
The second point was that fewer girls than boys have top scores on science and math tests in late high school years. ”I said no one really understands why this is, and it’s an area of ferment in social science,” Summers said in an interview Saturday. “Research in behavioral genetics is showing that things people previously attributed to socialization weren’t” due to socialization after all.
This was the point that most angered some of the listeners, several of whom said Summers said that women do not have the same “innate ability” or “natural ability” as men in some fields.
Asked about this, Summers said, ”It’s possible I made some reference to innate differences… I did say that you have to be careful in attributing things to socialization… That’s what we would prefer to believe, but these are things that need to be studied.”
Guess what, Summers? Boys don’t have an “innate” tendency towards science and math. Leave them alone, and they don’t grow up into natural engineers: they become animals who like to eat and screw and scratch themselves. The most important contributor to that predilection for tinkering and building and learning is education. Any possible inherited differences are miniscule compared to the power of education and cultural biases.
And don’t try to pretend that socialization is minimal, when the president of Harvard can stand up and seriously suggest that many people are incapable of doing great science because they have ovaries. We don’t do research with our gonads, or our skin pigments, for that matter.
Summers said cutting-edge research has shown that genetics are more important than previously thought, compared with environment or upbringing. As an example, he mentioned autism, once believed to be a result of parenting but now widely seen to have a genetic basis.
Grrr. Apparently, congenital idiocy is not a barrier to becoming a Harvard administrator.
****end Myers quote***
And see "Chris" at <http://mixingmemory.blogspot.com/2005/01/sex-differences-and-science- careers.html> for some references to the literature, including a lucid discussion of the famous "male superiority" in mental rotation tests. He concludes:
"This brings us to the real reason why Summers deserves the harsh criticism. He is probably right that there exist real sex differences, across the entire population, in math abilities, but we know too little about the sources of these differences to be speaking definitively about them in public forums. Furthermore, what he is horribly wrong about is the role of discrimination and stereotypes in the success of women in math and science careers, or even on their performance on math and science tests. As Andrew of Universal Acid <http://universalacid.blogspot.com/2005/01/innate-differences-and- sexism.html> aptly notes, the existence of innate differences does not necessarily explain all of the differences in acheivement, and since research has shown that stereoptypes and discrimination are responsible for some acheivement differences, Summers' attempt to discount these as factors can only serve to perpetuate those differences. The effects of stereotypes are mediated, in part, by the authority of their purveyors, and when someone in Summers' position reiterates pernicious stereotypes, their negative effects can only increase."
Yglesias and various commenters weigh in at <http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/01/nature_or_nurtu.html>,
And of course there are muchos right-wing bloggers siding with Summers, but anyone interested in that crew can look them up themselves.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________ Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. -- Attr. to Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile