>>Derb basically said there have only been a few great female mathematicians.<<
I’m sure he’s right.
I’m a woman. I happen to be pretty good in math and science. (Not a great mathematician, by any means, however.) And I’m not offended when people say that women, on average aren’t good at math and science. Because it’s true. SO WHAT?!?
This is NOT a value judgment. Except in the mind of someone who perceives it as such.
“And I’m not offended when people say that women, on average aren’t good at math and science. Because it’s true.”
Actually it’s not true. “On average” women have as much ability as men. The math and science abilities of both men and women are distriubted along normal curves — just not the same curves. The distribution for men is wider than for women. That is, there are more men at the extreme ends of the distribution, than there are women. Both ends.
That was the point Larry Summers was trying (so badly) to express. The evidence shows that there are more men at the extreme ends. To be a Harvard science or math prof — you have to be at the extreme high end of ability. (Clearly, that rule doesn’t apply to their law school.) Significantly more men than women have that level of ability. Conversely, more men than women are at the extreme low end of ability.
More men than women qualify to be Harvard science profs. OTOH, the vast majority (over 99.9%) of men don’t qualify either.
In the range where most of us fall — women and men are almost equally matched. There are as many women as men, who are “good”, even “very very good” at math and science. There are just more males than females at the extreme “Harvard prof” end of the scale. (Just as there are more men that have to be kept in quite different institutions, because of their very low cognative abilities.)
(FWIW, I’m a male. Demonstrably well above average ability in math — but not Harvard science prof good.)