A few posts back I pointed out how the ACLU has some problems grasping the concept of scientific theory and how they seemed to be claiming that Evolution was a fact rather than a theory, which seemed rather religious. Unfortunately it seems they are not alone in apparently mistaking science for religion. The President of Harvard, Larry Summers, has landed himself in hot water by daring to suggest that the reason why there are less women at the top of Academe is that they are less willing to sacrifice their personal lives to get there and possibly are less intelligent.
"I deeply regret the impact of my comments and apologize for not having weighed them more carefully," Summers said in a letter to the Harvard community posted on his Web site (link via Gene Xpression) and dated Wednesday. "I was wrong to have spoken in a way that has resulted in an unintended signal of discouragement to talented girls and women."
Earlier this week, a Harvard faculty committee told Summers he may have damaged the school's efforts to attract more top female scholars with his suggestion that innate differences between the sexes may help explain why fewer women succeed in math and science careers.
In his most recent statement -- the third in as many days -- the former Treasury secretary said the human potential to excel in science is not dictated by gender, as evidenced by the distinguished careers of many women scientists
Of course, despite the protestations of the priestesses, in fact there is in fact a good deal of evidence to show that IQ, particularly the sorts of IQ that seems to be required for Maths and Science, is not spread equally between the sexes. As Prof Stepher Pinker (link via Jonah Goldberg)explains:
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.
Second, the hypothesis is that differences in abilities might be one out of several factors that explain differences in the statistical representation of men and women in various professions. It does not mean that it is the only factor. Still, if it is one factor, we cannot reflexively assume that different statistical representation of men and women in science and engineering is itself proof of discrimination. Incidentally, another sign that we are dealing with a taboo is that when it comes to this issue, ordinarily intelligent scientists suddenly lose their ability to think quantitatively and warp statistical hypotheses into crude dichotomies.
As far as the evidence is concerned, I’m not sure what “ample” means, but there is certainly enough evidence for the hypothesis to be taken seriously.
For example, quantitative and spatial skills vary within a gender according to levels of sex hormones. And in samples of gifted students who are given every conceivable encouragement to excel in science and math, far more men than women expressed an interest in pursuing science and math.
The reaction of one of the priestesses is instructive:
"When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill," Dr. Hopkins said. "Let's not forget that people used to say that women couldn't drive an automobile."
(of course in Saudi Arabia people still say women can't drive an automobile) This is the sort of illogic that seems to be proving President Summers' point. Although there seems to be no transcript of what was actually said what he appears to have said is that genetic differences may be one reason. Given Pinker's summary of research above, and the obvious physical differences between the sexes, this doesn't sound like the sort of thing that should make a real scientist ill. Surely a real scientist, and Dr Hopkins purports to be a biologist, should be figuring out if the difference it 5% or 50% (or 0%) and crunching the numbers to show that that means that while 1000 mean have the brains to be a preofessor at Harvard only 500 women do too (numbers plucked out of thin air). It reminds me a lot of the hullabaloo about the "Bell Curve" book which, again was widely misunderstood, despite being based on some solid numbers.
Over a year ago Eric Raymond had a couple of very interestingposts discussing the possible reasons why some populations seem smarted than others and what this means. The one thing that it means which the priestesses seem incapble of understanding is that statistics talks about the 50% or the 90% of the population but say nothing about particular individuals. Top athletes, scientists etc are generally outliers on the bell curve and their capabilities say nothing about the capabilities of others. On the other hand since university scientific research is now a big business employing thousands we should expect that statistics are now becoming important again. If, to reuse my invented numbers above, 1000 men and 500 women have the capability to be a professor at Harvard then it should be no surprise that 66% of the professors are male however if 90% are male then there must be a different reason. My understanding of Summers' speech is that he was suggesting precisely that sort of research. I.e. figuring out what the proportions should be statistically based on IQ etc. and comparing them with the observed proportions.
Complaining about how this proposal upsets the idea that women and men are equal is what dogmatic religious people do - the sorts who claim that the bible is 100% correct for example - not what scientists do. Update: Jane Galt has an excellent post, I hate when I somehow miss one of my blogrolled sites saying stuff I want to post about