-----Original Message----- From: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) digest <[email protected]> To: tips digest recipients <[email protected]> Sent: Sat, Nov 6, 2010 4:00 am Subject: tips digest: November 05, 2010 Subject: tips digest: November 05, 2010 From: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) digest" <[email protected]> Reply-To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <[email protected]> Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2010 00:00:01 -0400 TIPS Digest for Friday, November 05, 2010. 1. Happy Guy Fawkes Day! 2. Re: Frog ethology 3. RE: Happy Guy Fawkes Day! 4. Re: Happy Guy Fawkes Day! 5. Re: Happy Guy Fawkes Day! 6. Re: Frog ethology 7. re: Happy Guy Fawkes Day! 8. Retinal Implants 9. Big news on the Larry Summers front 10. Re: Big news on the Larry Summers front 11. Re: Big news on the Larry Summers front 12. Re: Big news on the Larry Summers front --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected] To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13076.897dfc4f20f0edf00528e4c6f4ad2c5b&n=T&l=tips&o=6265 or send a blank email to leave-6265-13076.897dfc4f20f0edf00528e4c6f4ad2...@fsulist.frostburg.edu Attached Message From: Christopher D. Green <[email protected]> Subject: Happy Guy Fawkes Day! Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2010 08:46:52 -0400 Americans have Independence Day, where fireworks represent theartillery of revolutionary battle. Canadians have Canada Day, where fireworks represent... the signing apeacefully negotiated charter? The English have Guy Fawkes day, which celebrates there NOT having beena big explosion at Parliament? :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== Attached Message From: michael sylvester <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Frog ethology Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 19:39:30 -0200 Thanks Max and Kathy for the input.Orne' had an article in a work edited by Rosenthal and Rosnow "Artifacts in Behavioral research".One argument that I have heard against the claims of hypnosis is that the purported age regression could not be real because the subject still maintains adult speech when the subject has apparently regressed to the age of six. Btw,didn't one of Wundt's alleged experiments dealt with muscle twitching? Michael "omnicentric" Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida Attached Message From: Marc Carter <[email protected]> Subject: RE: Happy Guy Fawkes Day! Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 08:20:40 -0500 Shoot. I forgot my costume. I wonder if the English celebrate by not having fireworks? -- Marc Carter, PhD Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology College of Arts & Sciences Baker University -- ------------------------------------------------------------ From: Christopher D. Green [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 7:47 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Happy Guy Fawkes Day! Americans have Independence Day, where fireworks represent the artillery of revolutionary battle. Canadians have Canada Day, where fireworks represent... the signing a peacefully negotiated charter? The English have Guy Fawkes day, which celebrates there NOT having been a big explosion at Parliament? :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13029.76c7c563b32ad9d8d09c72a2d17c90e1&n=T&l=tips&o=6247 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-6247-13029.76c7c563b32ad9d8d09c72a2d17c9...@fsulist.frostburg.edu ------------------------------------------------------------ The information contained in this e-mail and any attachments thereto ("e-mail") is sent by Baker University ("BU") and is intended to be confidential and for the use of only the individual or entity named above. The information may be protected by federal and state privacy and disclosures acts or other legal rules. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are notified that retention, dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error please immediately notify Baker University by email reply and immediately and permanently delete this e-mail message and any attachments thereto. Thank you. Attached Message From: [email protected] Subject: Re: Happy Guy Fawkes Day! Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2010 09:21:24 -0400 ------------------------------------------------------------ On 5 Nov 2010 at 8:46, Christopher D. Green wrote: > Americans have Independence Day, where fireworks represent the artillery of revolutionary battle. Canadians have Canada Day, where fireworks represent... the signing a peacefully negotiated charter? The English have Guy Fawkes day, which celebrates there NOT having been a big explosion at Parliament? :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes ...which doesn't necessarily mean that the British commemorate a kinder, gentler event. According to the Wikipedia entry: "Each of the condemned would be drawn backwards to his death, by a horse, his head near the ground. They were to be "put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both". Their genitals would be cut off and burnt before their eyes, and their bowels and hearts removed. They would then be decapitated, and the dismembered parts of their bodies displayed so that they might become "prey for the fowls of the air". Nowadays, even in America they treat terrorists better than that. Stephen -------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada e-mail: sblack at ubishops.ca --------------------------------------------- Attached Message From: michael sylvester <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Happy Guy Fawkes Day! Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 12:05:04 -0200 Is Guy Fawkes day celebrated in Commonwealth countries? Australia,New Zealand maybe? As one having Afro-British root s I do not remember any celebration in St.Lucia. I guess our current Guy Fawkes is the destruction brought about by Hurricane Tomas. Michael "omnicentric" Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida Attached Message From: Maxwell Gwynn <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Frog ethology Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2010 11:39:44 -0400 Yes, Michael, individuals purportedly regressed in age still may exhibit non-age-consistent behavior, an argument against the veridicality of age regression (although hypnotic proponents (e.g., Orne) may say that this is an example of "Trance logic"). Hypnotic regression to the womb and to past lives is where it goes from the ridiculous to the sublime, in my opinion. -Max >>> "michael sylvester" <[email protected]> 11/4/2010 5:39 PM >>> One argument that I have heard against the claims of hypnosis is that the purported age regression could not be real because the subject still maintains adult speech when the subject has apparently regressed to the age of six. Attached Message From: Mike Palij <[email protected]> Subject: re: Happy Guy Fawkes Day! Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 13:50:21 -0400 On Fri, 05 Nov 2010 05:44:25 -0700, Christopher D. Green wrote: >Americans have Independence Day, where fireworks represent the artillery >of revolutionary battle. >Canadians have Canada Day, where fireworks represent... the signing a >peacefully negotiated charter? >The English have Guy Fawkes day, which celebrates there NOT having been >a big explosion at Parliament? :-) > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the graphic novel or film "V for Vendetta" in which the persona of Guy Fawkes plays a major role; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_%28film%29 In celebration of Guy Fawkes day I would suggest setting a barnfire or blowing something up but, given the recent U.S. midterm elections, perhaps it would be better to just watch "V for Vendetta" on DVD or on demand/streaming. You won't lose any fingers that way, well, not if you are careful while snacking. ;-) -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] Attached Message From: Rick Stevens <[email protected]> Subject: Retinal Implants Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 14:09:52 -0500 A bit of science news about retinal implants. http://tinyurl.com/29qrwlx -- Rick Stevens Psychology Department University of Louisiana at Monroe [email protected] SL - Evert Snook Attached Message From: [email protected] Subject: Big news on the Larry Summers front Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:17:26 -0400 What, you thought maybe I was gonna talk about politics? This is a psychology list! Dr. Summers was rash enough to speculate, while President of some obscure place called Havahd, about the finding that few women are to be found among the highest reaches of the hard sciences, such as in the Department of Mathematics at Harvard. One of his speculations was that there was more innate aptitude at the high end of the bell curve for men than women. We all know what happened next. But if you missed it, a concise summary can be found here: http://media.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/?p=145 The point was that while there may not have been a difference in average ability, there was in variability (at both tails). As the Swarthmore essay notes, a well-known researcher, Janet Hyde "partially" confirmed Summers. Not any more, she doesn't. Here's the abstract from Psychological Bulletin, just published. Lindberg, Sara M.; Hyde, Janet Shibley; Petersen, Jennifer L.; Linn, Marcia C. New trends in gender and mathematics performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, Vol 136(6), Nov 2010, 1123-1135. Abstract In this article, we use meta-analysis to analyze gender differences in recent studies of mathematics performance. First, we meta-analyzed data from 242 studies published between 1990 and 2007, representing the testing of 1,286,350 people. Overall, d = 0.05, indicating no gender difference, and variance ratio = 1.08, indicating nearly equal male and female variances. Second, we analyzed data from large data sets based on probability sampling of U.S. adolescents over the past 20 years: the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, the Longitudinal Study of American Youth, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Effect sizes for the gender difference ranged between -0.15 and +0.22. Variance ratios ranged from 0.88 to 1.34. Taken together, these findings support the view that males and females perform similarly in mathematics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) And just when Summers thought it might be safe to go back to Harvard. Stephen -------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada e-mail: sblack at ubishops.ca --------------------------------------------- Attached Message From: Paul Brandon <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Big news on the Larry Summers front Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 19:43:42 -0500 As I recall, what Summers actually said was that it was an hypothesis worth investigating. He did not say that he favored one outcome or the other. Paul Brandon Emeritus Professor of Psychology Minnesota State University, Mankato [email protected] On Nov 5, 2010, at 7:17 PM, <[email protected]> <[email protected]> wrote: > What, you thought maybe I was gonna talk about politics? This > is a psychology list! > > Dr. Summers was rash enough to speculate, while President of > some obscure place called Havahd, about the finding that few > women are to be found among the highest reaches of the hard > sciences, such as in the Department of Mathematics at Harvard. > > One of his speculations was that there was more innate aptitude > at the high end of the bell curve for men than women. We all > know what happened next. But if you missed it, a concise > summary can be found here: > http://media.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/?p=145 Attached Message From: Jim Clark <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Big news on the Larry Summers front Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2010 21:45:38 -0500 Hi Going just on Stephen's summary, some people just do not appear to understand the impact of tiny differences on extreme scores for very large numbers of people. The following SPSS program generates 500,000 female scores from a population with mu = 0, and sigma = 1, and 500,000 male scores from a population with mu = .05, and sigma = 1.04 (square root of 1.08). These represent data consistent with Stephen's description below. *simulation of 2010 Hyde result: d = .05, vratio = 1.08. input program. loop i = 1 to 1000000. compute gend = mod(i - 1,2) + 1. if gend = 1 v = rv.norm(.05,1.04). if gend = 2 v = rv.norm(.0,1.0). end case. end loop. end file. end input program. I then selected cases for various degrees of selectivity. Of the top 10,000 scores, 5973 (59.73%) were for males and 4027 (40.27%) for females. Of the top 5,000 scores, 3058 (61.2%) were males and 1942 (38.8%) were females. Of the top 1,000 scores 663 (66.3%) were males and 337 (33.7%) were females. Of the top 100 scores, 69 (69%) were male and 31 (31%) were female. So even with the very modest values reported, it is possible to get substantial gender imbalances. One would have to guess that the percentage of the population with PhDs in mathematics or theoretical physics would be tiny, that is a very select group, and perhaps even smaller than my 100 out of 1,000,000 observations above. Another issue someone may know the answer to is how discriminating the tests are at the upper end of the distribution. That too would influence how one should interpret the reported differences. Take care Jim James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax [email protected] >>> <[email protected]> 05-Nov-10 7:17:26 PM >>> What, you thought maybe I was gonna talk about politics? This is a psychology list! Dr. Summers was rash enough to speculate, while President of some obscure place called Havahd, about the finding that few women are to be found among the highest reaches of the hard sciences, such as in the Department of Mathematics at Harvard. One of his speculations was that there was more innate aptitude at the high end of the bell curve for men than women. We all know what happened next. But if you missed it, a concise summary can be found here: http://media.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/?p=145 The point was that while there may not have been a difference in average ability, there was in variability (at both tails). As the Swarthmore essay notes, a well-known researcher, Janet Hyde "partially" confirmed Summers. Not any more, she doesn't. Here's the abstract from Psychological Bulletin, just published. Lindberg, Sara M.; Hyde, Janet Shibley; Petersen, Jennifer L.; Linn, Marcia C. New trends in gender and mathematics performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, Vol 136(6), Nov 2010, 1123-1135. Abstract In this article, we use meta-analysis to analyze gender differences in recent studies of mathematics performance. First, we meta-analyzed data from 242 studies published between 1990 and 2007, representing the testing of 1,286,350 people. Overall, d = 0.05, indicating no gender difference, and variance ratio = 1.08, indicating nearly equal male and female variances. Second, we analyzed data from large data sets based on probability sampling of U.S. adolescents over the past 20 years: the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, the Longitudinal Study of American Youth, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Effect sizes for the gender difference ranged between -0.15 and +0.22. Variance ratios ranged from 0.88 to 1.34. Taken together, these findings support the view that males and females perform similarly in mathematics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) And just when Summers thought it might be safe to go back to Harvard. Stephen -------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada e-mail: sblack at ubishops.ca --------------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13251.645f86b5cec4da0a56ffea7a891720c9&n=T&l=tips&o=6259 or send a blank email to leave-6259-13251.645f86b5cec4da0a56ffea7a89172...@fsulist.frostburg.edu Attached Message From: [email protected] Subject: Re: Big news on the Larry Summers front Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2010 23:39:47 -0400 On 5 Nov 2010 at 22:45, Jim Clark wrote: > Going just on Stephen's summary, some people just do not appear to understand the impact of tiny differences > on extreme scores for very large numbers of people. The following SPSS program generates <snip> > So even with the very modest values reported, it is possible to get substantial gender imbalances. One would have to guess that the percentage of the population with PhDs in mathematics or theoretical physics would be tiny, that is a very select group, and perhaps even smaller than my 100 out of 1,000,000 observations above. > > This is a clever and very interesting analysis of Jim's. It prompted me to take a look at the article itself, something I really didn't want to do. As I anticipated, it was something less than transparently clear, especially to a statistics-challenged person such as myself. Here's essentially all that the authors said about the variance issue: "Sixth, do males display greater variance in scores and, if so, by how much? The overall VR in Study 1 was 1.07. That is, males displayed a somewhat larger variance, but the VR was not far from 1.0 or equal variances. In Study 2, the average VR was 1.09, again not far from 1.0. In addition, the NELS:88 data (see Table 3) show several VRs that are 1.0, indicating that greater male variability is not ubiquitous. VRs less than 1.0 have also been found in some national and international data sets (Hyde et al., 2008; Hyde & Mertz, 2009). " This seems strikingly non-quantitative to me ("somewhat larger variance, but not far from 1.0"; "again, not far") in a paper which claims to be quantitative in the extreme. How far is "not far".? Perhaps I'm showing some of my promised statistical ignorance, but couldn't they have tested whether a VR of 1.07 was significantly different from a VR of !.00 (i.e. equality)? Second, if one looks at the VRs they reported in Study 2 for the four (I think) major studies used in the analysis, one can see that the VR ratios as a function of year of testing are all over the map. In particular the VRs for the LSAY (Longitudinal Studies of American Youth) give results for each of 6 years between 1987 and 1992 ranging from 1.14 to 1.34. These indicate a substantial variance ratio by anyone's criterion. I'm not sure that lumping this study with three others not showing such large efffects is any way to resolve the issue, even if this is standard meta-analysis technique. Why are the results of this study so different? Finally, if the authors are correct, and there is no difference in variance in these newer studies, one might expect that the future looks bright for these math whiz women to start showing up at Harvard. I'd imagine it should have just about started happening now. Unless of course, discrimination is the real reason they haven't been there all along. For what it's worth, the hypothesis that seems most likely to me is the self-selection one. Women may just not find full professorship at Harvard in mathematics one of the most fulfilling things they can do with their lives. That, of course, and innate ability at the very, very high end. Stephen -------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada e-mail: sblack at ubishops.ca --------------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=6267 or send a blank email to leave-6267-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
