[lbo-talk] Re: Summers Does It Again

[arash at riseup.net]

>I think there should be a rule that people who know nothing about
>genetics (presumably including this guy) should not say anything about
>the subject. Don't ask me who would enforce it, though.

Steven Pinker used to teach the behavioral genetics course at MIT, his
comments on the Summers talk:

http://www.thecrimson.com/today/article505366.html

CRIMSON: From what psychologists know, is there ample evidence to support
the hypothesis that a difference in “innate ability” accounts for the
under-representation of women on science faculties?

PINKER: First, let’s be clear what the hypothesis is—every one of Summers’
critics has misunderstood it. The hypothesis is, first, that the
statistical distributions of men’s and women’s quantitative and spatial
abilities are not identical—that the average for men may be a bit higher
than the average for women, and that the variance for men might be a bit
higher than the variance for women (both implying that there would be a
slightly higher proportion of men at the high end of the scale). It does
not mean that all men are better at quantitative abilities than all women!
That’s why it would be immoral and illogical to discriminate against
individual women even if it were shown that some of the statistidcal
differences were innate.