Without wishing to pour gasoline on a fire, I was just wondering if I'd misinterpreted Summers' comments. My read was that he had said that men and women on average displayed the same level of success in scientific studies (maths/science) but that there was a disproporionate percentage of men at the bottom and top of the scale (i.e. greater kurtosis). He then extrapolated that this made men more suited to academic careers in scientific studies.

I'm not disagreeing with you Alexa - in fact I think you acknowledge that in your post. I more wanted to check that my read was correct.

What Summers really did was to demonstrate that he was a fuckwit of the first order. Who would have thought that you could make those comments other than an insensitive moronic economist?

Salvatori
http://moneyfactory.blogspot.com/

Alexa said, "Unless you ensure that many women and men are raised exactly alike, unencumbered by the cultural cues that steer them in one direction or another, you simply can't prove that women are genetically better equipped or worse equipped than men."

Larry Summers posited three possible reasons for the observable distribution. Was it a faux pas? Of course. Presently persons are appearing at his doorstep with pitchforks and torches, so offended are they at the suggestion that the reasons he posed might possibly be the "cause" of the real-life distribution.

But what is at issue is not the number of professorships. That can be determined by counting. What is at issue is the possible cause. Most events that are prior and post cannot be proven truly to cause and effect, including those posed by Larry Summers. So the conversation becomes one of whether Summers was silly to suggest some, when he should have known he might summarily be sworded instead of satisfied with the swift response of his sage soire. (Sorry, I couldn't think of another "S" word.)

There is a similar conversation going on regarding why women are on average paid more to start certain jobs and on others are protected more. http://tinyurl.com/4w4p2

Prof

BTW Alexa, can you posit reasons why in the upper levels of your profession there are many more women than men?

:-)

Alexa's so smart, I like Alexa.

First of all, Garrison Steelle does have the right to say, but that doesn't mean he should have said it. He should have considered his words more wisely and considered his position in the community and how his words would be received. I've hear his entire speech and he still comes off, with his presentation, as putting women down.

Isn't it strange that the disparity between women and men in math and sciences is greatest in the US and countries that give no rights to women. In Europe, the gap is very narrow where it exists. Maybe if we remove the stigma of stay at home fathers then the truth that gender and ethnicity is irrelevant in math and science.

And another thing, who teaches math and science. All but two of my high school and college math and science instructors were women, and you have to know math and science to teach it.

Just a note re Interpretation:

> "advanced three hypotheses"

In a scientific sense, true;
but in a normal English-meaning, no.

He was asked to give a speech which would start a discussion re improving female participation. He was explicitly asked to be as radical as possible. He presented a range of discussion starters, based on plausible possible interpretations of known data.

Someone could claim that in a scientific sense these are hypotheses to be proved or disproved. (Which is fair enough in that tiny tiny special-meaning sense. In the same way that a "nice law" actually means requiring extremely care and even difficulty to judge.)

But he himself wasn't advancing an Argument or a set of Beliefs: he was advancing topics for the special interest group to consider and discuss, for them to actually have their minds prodded into wakefulness rather than just parrotting the PC Received Truth.

This critical aspect of the matter was reported initially, but has not since been re-reported since it doesn't really outrage anyone, so it doesn't sell papers/attract viewers/create self-righteous outrage.
Not that I'm cynical about human beings or anything.

Alexa, are you sure you are not working undercover on some weird PhD thesis. You are one articulate escort. Made you our "Blog of the Day" again.

Alexa...I'm a Guy....yet I agree with you...if you go back to schooldays, girls are more intelligent than the boys, but SOME have different goals i.e Child bearing either by choice or thrust upon them.....So....maybe the world would be a better place if it was the Guys who had the kids??

Well done, Alexa!

You are becoming a bit political.

As the token Republican Conservative, I can tell you that Larry has no cheerleaders in our party. Everyone can meet their individual potiential. Being male or female has little to do with it. Nor does being white or black or gay or straight.

Each individual should have the right to succeed or fail on their merit, not on thier tits. And in America, they do.

Now I, a bit fat and balding, do not stand a chance of being an escort. Alexa would not want to remove viruses from computers for a living. It doesn't mean she isn't smarter the me. By her thesis, she has proven to me that she is by far more intelligent than I am but I happen to geek on fixing computers.

Larry has a lot to learn in life.

He may have a point in his arguement, but he is not correct in his assesment.

Now can I get a date, Alexa? :-P

I have trouble believing that one who is a "professional escort" is typing articulate, Harvard quoting blogs at 2am instead of giving some dude what he paid for. What escort is home at 2am? I like your blog, but I wish I believed that you were an escort.

Lane,

Why would anybody want to pose as an escort and then write a blog about it.

Keeping up with a blog is difficult enough, then trying to play like you a GFE.

It is easier to believe Alexa and her writing talents are both real.

Do you think just because you are whore, you are not intelligent? That you are no longer able to think?

I do not defend Alexa as an escort, but as a person. She is a talented writer. She gets paid to have sex, dadgumit!

She is brilliant if you ask me!!!!

Goodness, this debate is still ongoing? I must admit that I tend to turn a blind eye to furores of this nature - they strike me as being mostly trivial when compared with much else that goes on in this world. I can hardly blame everything else for paying attention though. At least it means people are interested!

Alexa, I just wanted to respond briefly to your remark: "Exactly how do you propose to determine whether genetics plays a role? When examining a 30 year old women's life, exactly how do you separate the influence of nature from nurture?"

The field of bevahioral genetics actually has a fairly good answer to this question. Behavioral geneticists study groups of identical twins (i.e., twins with the same exact genes) who are raised apart (i.e., have totally different environments in their upbringing) and also identical twins who are raised together (i.e., exactly the same environment during upbringing). Observing how identical twins raised apart differ from one another in adulthood, and relating those differences to the differences in adulthood between identical twins raised together, allows behavioral geneticists to assess, in men and in women, the relative contributions of environment versus heredity to a host of different abilities -- even the abilities of women versus men in math and science.

Jeez, Charles. I am not in fact saying that prostitutes (or as you call them "whores") are not intelligent. Just the opposite. Your question as to why someone would pose as an escort echoes my question. Why? Maybe to write an interesting and juicy blog, gain advertisers, and writing credits? Maybe boredom. Who knows? You say yourself she is a talented writer and I agree. I believe writing is her real profession, that's all. And unless you have personal experience to prove otherwise most call girls aren't up at 2am reading scholarly journals. MOST. NOT ALL. So simmer down and enjoy reading it. I am. I jsut don't think Alexa is a prostitute.

Just because a question (in this case, nature vs nurture) is hard to answer does not mean that we should not try to answer it.

the problem with the so-called scientific studies regarding human behavior is that the samples just aren't big enough. ethical constraints prevent a full scale experiment where we can consign a segment of the population as the control group. also, too many scientists are guilty of imposing their own bias on their work. not to mention that it's too easy for anyone to find what they're looking for--after all, how many scientists conveniently record the evidence that supports their hypothesis, yet studiously ignore countervailing evidence that blows their cookie cutter theory right out of the water? science applied improperly and haphazardly is nothing more than a cheap excuse to justify political orthodoxy and cultural and social prejudice. you would think we would have learned something from the nazis and the publication of that atrocious book, the bell curve.

Is this that emotional brainstate vs literal brainstate that says men exceed in literal thinking tasks as opposed to woman exceeding in leadership skills where taking in different kinds of personality types was better handled.

I'm too lazy to read all the comments and stuff.

by the way I'm blogging again. woo fucking hoo. OBEY MY DOG!!! :-p

At the risk of revealing my identity, I'm a female engineering student who is an escort. The ratio in my classes is about 70% men to 30% women, not 50/50, but not 90/10.

So the odds are good.. but the goods are odd!
Why doesn't anyone bring up the fact that there are a lot of ugly people in science and engineering? Is it an intrisic difference in ugly people versus good-looking people?
Is it nature or nurture that unfortunate-looking people feel at home in these fields and that better-looking people go into business or graphic design or journalism or leisure studies or what have you?

I'm an escort, I'm fairly goodlooking, and people express shock at the fact that not only am I a girl in engineering, but I'm not creepy. I even drink alcohol and have sex occasionally.. shocking!

Why are creepy people scientists and engineers?
I feel that there are many holes in the argument that men are intrinsically better at science and engineering than women. I want to know why I'm surrounded by uglies, men and women.

The whole point of this debate is moot in a country that is exporting engineering work as quickly as it can offshore. Forrester Research's John McCarthy predicts 830,000 technology jobs will be sent abroad by the end of 2005 - 240,000 more than he predicted 18 months ago.
In its 5th annual census, the Chinese government reported 116.9 boys were born for every 100 girls so one trend that you can predict with accuracy is that someday the business of providing U.S. escort services to Chinese men will be very large. Alexa made a wise career choice when she decided not to become an escort and not an engineer!