I was hoping to actually say something substantive about this, but time is precious these days (and it’s been all over the blogosphere anyway). The National Academy of Sciences has released a report, Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering. They seem to think that the relative paucity of women in science is not due to differences of innate aptitude, or even to an aversion to hard work and competitive environments, but to systematic biases within academia. Hmm, fancy that. Cornelia Dean in the NYT writes:
Women in science and engineering are hindered not by lack of ability but by bias and “outmoded institutional structures” in academia, an expert panel reported yesterday…
The panel dismissed the idea, notably advanced last year by Lawrence H. Summers, then the president of Harvard, that the relative dearth of women in the upper ranks of science might be the result of “innate” intellectual deficiencies, particularly in mathematics.
If there are cognitive differences, the report says, they are small and irrelevant. In any event, the much-studied gender gap in math performance has all but disappeared as more girls enroll in demanding classes. Even among very high achievers, the gap is narrowing, the panelists said…
The report also dismisses other commonly held beliefs — that women are uncompetitive or less productive, that they take too much time off for their families. Instead, it says, extensive previous research showed a pattern of unconscious but pervasive bias, “arbitrary and subjective” evaluation processes and a work environment in which “anyone lacking the work and family support traditionally provided by a `wife’ is at a serious disadvantage.”
As Bitch Ph.D. says, “I, personally, am expecting the apologies from Larry Summers’ apologists to start pouring in any day now.”
So I have a question. The reason why most of us were upset by Larry Summers is that he was wrong, in a spectacular and potentially damaging kind of way, and the new NAS study supports this (yet again). But, almost without exception, Summers’ supporters pretended that what got people upset was the very idea of raising the possibility of gender-based cognitive differences, and that these people were anti-free-inquiry and afraid of the truth. Steven Pinker was a dogged straw-man-constructor, but there were plenty of others. (See also Lawyers, Guns & Money.)
My question is: was there anyone who was actually upset at Summers for this reason? That is, was there any respectable academic who really came out against even asking whether there were gender-based cognitive differences? To make things precise, I’m looking for (1) actual professors or other academics, not crazy blog commenters and so on; (2) people who explicitly were against even asking the question or doing the research, not people who (quite reasonably) argue that bias and discrimination are much more important factors in explaining the current gender disparity; and (3) did so in response to Summers, not some time back in the 1970’s or whatever. I sincerely want to know, did anyone take that position? I’m sure it wasn’t the position of most of us, strawmen notwithstanding, but given the speed and efficiency with which the fairy tale was promulgated among Summers’ supporters, I can’t help but think that at least one person did say it. There are alot of crazy academics out there who say all sorts of nonsensical things, it shouldn’t be too hard to find someone.
Sorry, the thin air up here on my PC hobbyhorse makes it hard to think straight, but how would such
wankingan analysis account for the changes in such distributions in different countries and as a function of time?It doesn’t, nor was it intended to. What it accounts for is the recognition that the current huge male/female disparity in a couple highly relevant categories is exactly what one would expect from the known IQ differences, sans sexism.
Except that it doesn’t, since IQ differences are purportedly stable, and the male/female disparities are not. The “agreement” is just playing around with numbers until you get the right answer, and then patting yourself on the back. In other words, if you are honest, this is clearly not the right explanation.
Still waiting for the example requested in the post.
I don’t know if IQ diffs are stable on the relevant time scale. I do know they are not stable over ~50yrs. I don’t know about IQ time-dependence in different countries. I do know that none of that is relevant to my point, and I do know that waiting won’t help you. You’ve got to dismount. Nice chatting with you though.
I actually did come across somebody who advocated not asking any questions about intrinsic differences between the sexes, and it was definitely in response to the swirl of controversy surrounding Summers’ statements. The person in question was a professor of education, and she was very interested in improving the training of elementary school teachers. Her reasoning was that any discussion of possible sex differences would tend to erode the confidence of young girls.
In fact, I would not be surprised if a lot of people involved teacher training and directly in elementary education held similar views. When I was in school, discussion of any sex differences in the classroom was taboo, at least when the differences could somehow be construed to cast females in a negative light. Discussions casting males in a perhaps negative light were not actively suppressed in the same way, but they were kept to a minimum.
One very clear example of how information about sex differences (although not intrinsic sex differences) was handled sticks in my mind. In elementary and middle school, one point that was always mentioned in our health curriculum was that, “Since girls enter puberty before males, there is a period when girls are faster and stronger than boys.” However, I noticed that, even in the midst of the age range where this was supposed to occur, the scores on our regular P.E. tests were always worse for the girls than the boys. This puzzled me, so I dug a little deeper. (It seems a little odd now, but every student had free access to everyone else’s fitness test scores.) The best scores for the girls were better than the best scores for the boys–much, much better, in fact. This was the effect the health text books were pointing out. Yet the way the books always phrased it, the statement was actually false. All else being equal, the girls would be more physically able at that age, but all else was not equal. The girls were, on average, in significantly worse shape than the boys. The next time this subject was discussed in health class, I pointed all this out to the teacher (after class, when there was nobody else around), and I was told in no uncertain terms that the research I had done was unacceptable and this was not a fit topic to be thinking about.
I’ve gotten a bit long-winded in telling this story, but I wanted to point out there is some body of people who beleive any discussion of gender differences is harmful. I have no idea how numerous they are, but they are definitely there within our education system at several levels.
Brett, I can understand why people might not want to raise the issue of gender-based cognitive differences in elementary-school classrooms (although I’m not necessarily sympathetic). There are lots of things that we don’t bring up in elementary school. I was actually wondering whether anyone was against academics doing research into the question. I’m sure that some people are, but I’d like to see some specific non-anonymous example, to better understand what their position really is.
This person (and I must confess I have forgotten her name, so I can’t help you with the “non-anonymous” part) really felt that all research on sex differences was inappropriate. She was afraid that if any potentially negative information about females’ abilities was in currency, young girls would inevitably be exposed to some of it (though not necessarily in a classroom setting) and that this would be damaging.
“I was actually wondering whether anyone was against academics doing research into the question. I’m sure that some people are, but I’d like to see some specific non-anonymous example, to better understand what their position really is.”
The problem with ‘doing research into the question’ is that research produces results and results don’t always go the way you want.
I think there may be a lot of people who don’t actively oppose doing research but would react strongly against published results that differed from what they personally ‘knew’ to be true.
If you are against research that finds a particular result (assuming that the researchers have followed proper and honest procedures), then actually you are against research, period, and you might as well come out and say it.
Right. That would be bad, if such people existed. Any examples?
(Of course people who “react strongly against published results that differed from what they personally ‘knew’ to be true” definitely do exist; witness the folks in denial about the new NAS study or its many predecessors. But maybe that’s not what you had in mind.)
Sean, perhaps you should ask professors who are against doing such research to email you. They may not want to expose themselves to the whole world by posting here. 🙂
Maybe Sean can find us an example of a professor of Women’s Studies who has publicly stated that she or he welcomes research into gender differences?
Why? Have I set up a straw man by accusing “professors of Women’s Studies who have publicly stated that they welcome research into gender differences” of some dastardly deed?
Women’s Studies programs are full of people who study gender differences for a living. Start with Carol Gilligan and go from there.
Why are women are outperforming men at the college and highschool level in mathematics. Is this due to socialization or discrimination against male students?
To be fair, it was a straw woman. I googled for a half hour and found many articles angry at feminist critics of science…but none of them cited/identified any of these critics. I’m sure it can’t be an entire army of combat boot-wearing, Ani DiFranco-listening, short-fingernailed straw women that are being cited. Right? Because that would be paranoid.
Back to Google.
…short-fingernailed straw women
There’s nothing wrong with short fingernails. For rockclimbing or combat, short fingernails are necessary.
Regarding item (3), do you want someone who didn’t take a position on this issue before the Summers incident, and then took that position after it? Or do you just want someone who took that position after it, as well as possibly before? If the second, you could imagine someone reasonably not going through the trouble of stating their position if they had already stated it before. And I would guess Chomsky would be such an example. (Sorry to keep bringing him up.) If the first, you would hardly expect to find (m)any such professors, even if you thought lots of them were against such research.
Sean, Suppose you had a pre-determined and inflexible view on cognitive differences between the sexes, and you wanted to maintain that view despite contrary evidence. Would it be more effective to explicitly announce that you don’t care about evidence, that facts are meaningless to you? (Some have, and much more generally than on this issue.) Or would it be more effective to dismiss and divert attention away from the evidence, perhaps with scholarly, analytic pretensions?
jb, it has been widely claimed that a chorus of voices spoke out after Summers’ speech to decry the fact that he would even raise the possibility of gender differences in cognition. I would just like to find actual examples of people in that chorus. If it was powerful enough to force the president of Harvard to resign, it can’t be that hard.
I suspect that the reason that the impression is in the wind that some academics are against simply asking the question is that Sommers was pilloried for doing just that. The closest thing I can find to an assertion of fact in his remarks is:
“So my best guess, to provoke you, of what’s behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people’s legitimate family desires and employers’ current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them.”
What is this, if not a call for research?
Fellow blogger Nigel Cook has written a post on the role of women in physics that is so nice that I can only recommend it.
The real problem, and what we NEED a study on, is why ANY kind of discrimination is tolerated in the sciences. Discrimination is a social bias designed either as a cover for inferiority complex or a cover for creating social gain by inequitable means, to create a “lower class” based on some quality. Obviously its a power trip, but why it is tolerable in fields such as science or engineering or any technical field is a really Good Question.
Sean, how about this quote from Harvard psychology professor Mahzarin Banaji?
“In this day and age to believe that men and women differ in their basic competence for math and science is as insidious as believing that some people are better suited to be slaves and other masters.”
Source: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=505409
(scroll down to the last paragraph).
Now, Banaji does not say specifically that research should not be done, but clearly this is the implication. No research is necessary because the facts are already known. Anyone who thinks these facts may not yet be clearly established is to be demonized.
It took me less than 5 minutes to find this.
That’s pretty close, as she does appear to think that the facts are already known, and the slave/master analogy is somewhat hyperbolic. But thinking that we already know the answer to something isn’t quite the same as saying that a question is too “dangerous” to ask because we don’t want to know the answer. If that’s what Pinker and friends are complaining about — professional psychologists claiming that we already know there aren’t any significant gender disparities in mathematical abilities — it seems to fall somewhat short of the though police squelching freedom of inquiry. Maybe you could spend another 5 minutes?
By the way, Banaji’s Implicit Association Tests are very clever and quite eye-opening. It’s interesting to probe what attitudes we all have that we won’t admit ourselves.
“Pretty close”??!! You asked, “was there any respectable academic who really came out against even asking whether there were gender-based cognitive differences?” It seems to me that Banaji’s remark clearly satisfies this criterion. The unmistakable implication is that no one should ask whether there are gender-based cognitive differences, because we already know the answer with such absolute certainty that anyone who does not accept it is not only wrong, but beyond the pale. This goes far beyond a statement to the effect that “the evidence convinces me, and here’s why”, which is what I would expect from an honest scientist.
You seem unaware of the irony of your dismissal of Banaji’s remark. Don’t you think it might help to create a “chilly climate” for such research?
JoAnne says: “Here is a scientific report with studies and data to support its conclusions. So, reading these comments (and remembering others from previous posts on this topic), just why is it so difficult for you males to comprehend that us women might just be intellectually equal to you all? Why are you so threatened by this concept?”
I suppose that none of us participating in comments read the report. But other people did, and in today’s column in NYT one of those people John Tierney writes:
“I never thought the National Academy of Sciences was cynical enough to publish a political tract like the new report on discrimination against female scientists and engineers…” (the full text requires subscription).