> From an empirical standpoint, people are
> different in their physical and physiological constitution, and thus
> it is
> likely that the differences in their psychomotor, affective or
> cognitive
> functions are affected by their heredity (i.e. genetic makeup) or
> interaction between the inherited and environmental factors. Denying
> that
> borders on obscurantism and philistinism.
That may be so as a general statement, but in this particular dispute we are talking about some specific capabilities (involving the ability to do and/or understand science and/or math). These capabilities are rather different, in fact -- math is not the same thing as science, and understanding a subject is not the same thing as doing productive research in it. And despite the brave talk of some neuroscientists, we have no notion yet about how the human brain does things like math and science -- what specific mechanisms are involved in doing any intellectual work of this kind.
With this much ignorance involved, any sort of statement that suggests that women have not shown as much achievement in these fields in a specific country as men (they have certainly enjoyed more success in science and math in other countries than in the U.S.) because of their genetic differences from men is certainly very rash, and amounts to suggesting that the genes of women prohibit them from doing as well in these fields as men. In other words, it's just the old chauvinist assertion that women can't compete with men in intellectual fields (with the implication that they should stick to Kinder, Kueche, und Kirche where they belong).
The moves in this argument are as well known and as scripted as the steps in a ballet or the routes we marched from one half-time formation to another in my old high-school marching band. Everyone knows how the tune goes. Given that, I can't see that Summers was doing anything else but expressing the plaintive bleat of a certain segment of the male academic community that wants to keep women out. A German mathematician (I believe it was Hilbert, and I think it was at Goettingen, but I don't remember for sure) made what I think is the definitive comment about this position, in remarking about the controversy over whether a women should be hired by that math department: "After all, gentlemen, we are not running a bath house."
If women can do a job and want to do it, they should have an equal opportunity to do it. And if their "family responsibilities" stand in their way, the menfolk should take their share of the responsibilities. I don't see how it is more complicated than that. Whether Summers was taking a position against this, I can't quit tell from what he said, but I don't see any statement by him yet in which he comes out forthrightly for equality.
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