Courtesy of Ben A. Barres
NOW AND THEN Ben A. Barres as
Barbara, age 34; and as Ben at 42.
Posted on 07/18/2006 3:28:06 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Courtesy of Ben A. Barres
NOW AND THEN Ben A. Barres as
Barbara, age 34; and as Ben at 42.
Perhaps it is inevitable that Ben A. Barres would have strong opinions on the debate over the place of women in science. Dr. Barres has a degree in biology from M.I.T., a medical degree from Dartmouth and a doctorate in neurobiology from Harvard. He is a professor of neurobiology at Stanford. And until his surgery a decade ago, his name was Barbara, and he was a woman.
Now he has taken his unusual perspective to the current issue of the journal Nature, in a commentary titled “Does Gender Matter?”
Dr. Barres (pronounced BARE-ess), 51, who grew up in West Orange, N.J., said he had been thinking about the gender issue for over a year, since Lawrence H. Summers, then the president of Harvard, gave a talk in which he suggested that one explanation for women’s relative absence at the upper ranks of science might be innate intellectual deficiencies. Assertions of innate differences by other researchers — “sexist opinions,” Dr. Barres calls them — fueled his anger, especially because they came from scientists.
Dr. Barres discussed his commentary, his career and sexism in science in a telephone interview from his home in Stanford, Calif.
Q. What’s your response to people who say you rely too much on your own experience and should take scientific hypotheses less personally?
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Q. Why do some people attribute differences in professional achievement to innate ability?
A. One of the reasons is the belief by highly successful people that they are successful because of their own innate abilities. I think as a professor at Stanford I am lucky to be here. But I think Larry Summers thinks he is successful because of his innate inner stuff.
Oh that silly Larry...thinking that any talent or ability that he was born with had ANYTHING to do with his success. His success came from watching PBS from an early age...yeah...that's it. And, if you contribute to PBS now, we'll send you this nifty umbrella.
Sewing an inflatable piece of flesh onto this person and injecting her with hormones no more makes her a man than attaching a carrot to a woman's nose makes her a witch.
This is a person who has no idea what they are...and it thinks it somehow can lecture on how wrong other people are about sexual roles or stereotypes?
Yes...I had the exact same thought. The Times thinks s/he is the ideal individual to discuss the issue, but, in fact may be the very worst to shed any light here.
In plain English, a sicko!
Call me misguided, but wouldn't the fact that a woman who excels at science felt COMPELLED to become a MAN bolster Dr. Summer's conjecture?
Yep...I had a similar thought. While genetically a woman, he's really wired as a man. But the Times would never ask this individual ANY question that goes against the conventional wisdom espoused by the gays, lesbians, transgendered and whatever else makes their hit parade of perversion.
Why is this person's point of view more valuable than a real man or woman's. She can't give us a man's point of view, because she is not one. She can't even give us a woman's point of view, because by her own admission, she never self-identified as a woman.
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