Posted on 03/29/2005 6:46:48 AM PST by mathprof
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University hosted a conference last week entitled "Impediments to Change: Revisiting the Women in Science Question." The auditorium in Agassiz Theatre in Radcliffe Yard was packed. Dedicated in 1904, the theatre has been the site of many a spirited intellectual exchange. But on this day it was a forum not for debate but for indignation over the insult that the assembled referred to as "1/14" -- the date when Harvard President Larry Summers fatefully speculated about the possibility of inborn differences between the sexes.
The six assembled panelists, four from Harvard, two from MIT, did not challenge one another -- as scholarly panelists often do -- but basked in their shared conviction that there is only one explanation for why fewer women than men teach math and physics at Harvard or MIT: sexist bias. In fact, their only motive for "revisiting" the women-in-science question, was to give a proper burial to the hypothesis that there are significant biologically-based differences between men and women.
[snip]
Perhaps the most troubling presentation was that of Harvard psychologist Elizabeth Spelke. She declared herself a diligent researcher who cared about solid methodology and accurate results. But instead of letting the audience know that the research on sex differences is a vibrant and contentious area of science, she claimed that the thesis of innate difference had been definitively refuted. The evidence against it, she said, "is as conclusive as any case I know in science."
If these traumatized conference participants should somehow succeed in establishing "1/14" as a notable day in American academic history, then another infamous day will also deserve adverse notice: On "3/21" Radcliffe College, once synonymous with the highest standards of women's education, abandoned all pretense to intellectual seriousness.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Q. Why don't women need a watch?
A. Because there is a clock on the stove!
The "science" of psychology seems to be based in an awful lot of assumptions that could well be described as "religious". Any honest psychologist would admit how little we really do know of human psychology, making such certitude impossible.
OMG. These women need to get over themselves.
Do these loons also gather in masses and waste our nation's potential because bra ads only depict women using the product?
Can't remember where I was on 1/14, but I know my wife was in the kitchen cookin' my dinner. As I recall she was barefoot. And pregnant.
But they do not. Good thing, too.
They ought look at the role of women in astronomy, too (at Harvard, no less). Doubt they will.
A: Give that woman a shovel!
"The MIT biologist has become known as the professor who fled the room on 1/14."
She fled to go make me a chicken pot-pie.
After a single summer's exhausting study, let sickness strike such a school, and they sink and die most fearfully. Do those who are so strenuous to educate ladies as long and as severely as men must be educated for their sphere, know what mortality awaits so many after they are educated? I wish they would examine this point. "Languid and nervous, easily dispirited, instead of feeling within themselves the freshness and buoyancy of youth, what wonder that they draw back, appalled, from their new responsibilities" at marriage.
She fled to go make me a chicken pot-pie.
Hysterical reaction. But is it genetic (XX) or learned?
Inquiring minds want to know.
The root hyster- comes from the Greek word for womb. So, the psycholological disturbance termed hysteria was originally believed to be a disease of women and resulted from some disturbance in the uterus.
http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorh.htm
There is also hysteros meaning behind or later.
hence, hysteranthous and hysterogenic.
BTW, Ms.114's hysteria still could be learned,
or it could be on an autosomal gene,
or it could be a 'bad rap'.
Deconvolving THAT requires science - and these neoacademics might not be up to the challenge. ;-)
More likely than not.
As I recall she was barefoot
Probably.
And pregnant.
Not since 2001.
1-bttt - "Radcliffe College, once synonymous with the highest standards of women's education, abandoned all pretense to intellectual seriousness."
Well, there's so many kids running around our house it seems like you're pregnant constantly. But I know you were cooking and barefoot ... and that's what's important. BTW, what's for dinner tonight?
"If these traumatized conference participants..."
I smell a new psychological disease. TCP. I thought it up first; I'm cashin' in!
First "Sharing Session" is scheduled for 7pm eastern, tonight. Assemble in the cafeteria. Be prepared to hug and be hugged a lot. *Snort*
Oh, like you would know how that feels?
BTW, what's for dinner tonight?
Whatever you bring home.
;-P
I have a friend, a very religious fellow, that got his bachelor's degree in psychology from Oral Roberts U. He's now studying for his master's at an equally religious school in Oregon. Psychology is one of the few sciences (and I use the term 'science' loosely in this context) that can be studied and administered from the religious perspective.
Hmm well letssee since no men felt like they were goingot be sick after hearing the professor then this pmsing ninny just proved the profs point there are inborn differences between mens brains and womens and the alum was right she desperatly needsa phychiatrist for her own mentalwell being but that doesnt quiet go far enough she also needs these
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