On Nov 17, 2008, at 10:35 AM, Louis Proyect wrote (quoting Stanley
Fish):
And later when Summers speculated (at a conference) on the
possibility that the under-representation of women in the sciences
might have a genetic basis, the speculation itself (perfectly
respectable as an academic topic) was not the problem.
The problem was that it was offered by the president of Harvard and
therefore seemed to bear Harvard’s imprimatur. Had a faculty member
said the same thing (to be sure, Summers himself was a faculty
member, but that identity was overridden by his administrative
identity as long as he was in office), it might have rubbed some in
the audience the wrong way, but it wouldn’t have been news, and it
certainly would not have been the kind of news that caused many
women scientists to say (before they were asked) that they would
never set foot in Harvard Square.
The Summers comment came up in a previous thread here. There is a
misconception that Summers was idly speculating on the possible
contribution of innate limits on the performance of women at the top
percentile of scientific and mathematical activity.
Rather, he listed (admittedly in speculative fashion), in order of
priority, the contributing factors for the fact of under-
representation of women at the highest level of science/math. He
listed three possible reasons, and then, explicitly, noted that he
believed this to be the order of importance. The three factors: "high-
powered job hypothesis" (which I won't go into here), "aptitude at the
high end", "different socializations and patterns of discrimination".
So according to Summers (despite his own admitted inability to justify
this ranking), innate aptitude differences (for which there is no
causal model and little empirical verification) ranks above
discrimination and socialisation issues.
This is not "perfectly respectable" "academic speculation". This is
sloppy reasoning in aid of a disgusting premise. Here is some of
Summers' academic speculation:
So, I think, while I would prefer to believe otherwise, I guess my
experience with my two and a half year old twin daughters who were
not given dolls and who were given trucks, and found themselves
saying to each other, look, daddy truck is carrying the baby truck,
tells me something. And I think it’s just something that you
probably have to recognize.
See some thoughts at http://0sum.org/archives/11.
--ravi
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