Summers' Blunder
What Summers' did wrong was substitute a conclusion for a hypothesis. This happens all the time in the social-sciences. Summers is an economist (I believe) and all they *have* are hypothesis so who can blame him for just repeating the intellectual guano he's been trained to shovel.
Are women innately worse than men in math and science. Don't know. But it's a hypothesis (to answer the question 'how come there are way more men than women in engineering/math/physics'). If you stop at the hypothesis - and its a quick fix - then you'd be able to share your conlusion with your bar buddies but not with scientists and the rare intellectual.
Summers should have said 'Are the centuries-old prejudices true? Are women worse at math than men? I sure hope not, but if not we need to find a compelling reason why my Physics department has 10 men to 1 woman, etc etc).
And another point; speaking as a non-math dude; why is it an insult to suggest that women are worse than men at math? I am a verbal whiz and a math sloth and I am quite happy with that arrangement. The fact that people are angry at the suggestion means that they have incorporated the real prejudice - that because men ruled the culture, they (we) claimed that whatever we were good at was the right and superior set of skills. Anything non-masculine became sub-standard.
Thinking that math skills are inherently better than verbal skills is something that only a math-oriented person would say - or someone immersed in a male values dominated culture.
Ironically, the biggest display of chauvenism in this whole mess comes from Summers' critics who cling to the hierarchical prejudices of an arachaic system.
Are women innately worse than men in math and science. Don't know. But it's a hypothesis (to answer the question 'how come there are way more men than women in engineering/math/physics'). If you stop at the hypothesis - and its a quick fix - then you'd be able to share your conlusion with your bar buddies but not with scientists and the rare intellectual.
Summers should have said 'Are the centuries-old prejudices true? Are women worse at math than men? I sure hope not, but if not we need to find a compelling reason why my Physics department has 10 men to 1 woman, etc etc).
And another point; speaking as a non-math dude; why is it an insult to suggest that women are worse than men at math? I am a verbal whiz and a math sloth and I am quite happy with that arrangement. The fact that people are angry at the suggestion means that they have incorporated the real prejudice - that because men ruled the culture, they (we) claimed that whatever we were good at was the right and superior set of skills. Anything non-masculine became sub-standard.
Thinking that math skills are inherently better than verbal skills is something that only a math-oriented person would say - or someone immersed in a male values dominated culture.
Ironically, the biggest display of chauvenism in this whole mess comes from Summers' critics who cling to the hierarchical prejudices of an arachaic system.
This entry was posted
on Friday, February 18, 2005 at 2/18/2005 01:32:00 AM.
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