Summers' Remarks Supported by Some Experts

AP ^ | 2/27/05 | MATT CRENSON

[mathprof]

Harvard University president Lawrence Summers has suffered acrimonious condemnation, and may have jeopardized his job, for suggesting that the underrepresentation of women in engineering and some scientific fields may be due in part to inherent differences in the intellectual abilities of the sexes. But Summers could be right.

Some scholars who are in the know about the differences between mens' and womens' brains believe his remarks have merit.

"Among people who do the research, it's not so controversial. There are lots and lots of studies that show that mens' and womens' brains are different," says Richard J. Haier, a professor of psychology in the pediatrics department of the University of California Los Angeles medical school.

Academia has been bitterly divided in recent years by the nature vs. nurture debate, and the Harvard president's comments last month at a National Bureau of Economic Research symposium squarely address aspects of that dispute that are so controversial the opposing sides almost never discuss them.

On one side are those who believe the sexes are equal enough in their intellectual abilities that any biological difference between them is vastly outweighed by social pressures and discrimination that discourage girls and women from pursuing science and engineering.

"When people hear 'biology' they think there's nothing you can do about it," says Joshua Aronson, a professor of applied psychology at New York University. "It's in that context that Summers' remarks are not helpful."

On the other side are those who believe that biological differences between men and women really can account for at least some of the underrepresentation of women in engineering and some fields of science.

[HangnJudge]

"what a choice of words. "Hysterical" means a womanly insanity - hence, Hysterectomy"

Hippocrates was one of the first to identify this disorder. He noticed that hysteria was common in women and thought it was caused by a displaced uterus. The word hysteria comes from hystera, the Greek word for uterus.
He believed that the myriad symptoms of abdominal pain, palpitations, chest pain, diarrhea, shortness of breath, were caused by the uterus breaking loose and wandering through the body; a condition best treated by giving the uterus it's proper job, getting pregnant.

[bboop]

We have been researching colleges for our son. My husband said Univ of Virginia/ Charlottesville is good and conservative.

[Chode]

is it just me, or are the same people that are all for ward churchill the SAME ones that are baying for Summers head???

[brittmac]

If it did, can I be compensated?

Just kidding. No. It did not happen to me, at least that I noticed. But then again, I'm not bitterly searching for a reason to fail. I did it because I have a (slight) natural propensity for science, and I knew it would eventually be more lucrative for me than would a career in sociology or psych or English.

[freespirited]

Aronson and his colleagues have shown that many of the performance differences between men and women, and also between different races, can be erased with minor adjustments that influence test takers' confidence.

Their work is bizarre. The ETS (the SAT people) tried to replicate it twice and couldn't.

Aronson did the work when he was studying with Claude Steele at Stanford. Steele had a negative version of the same study which he conveniently never bothered to publish and never mentions.