For a lay-audience-directed essay, this is very well done. It's in remarkable contrast to all those kneejerk attacks on Summers from the mindless communitarian Left (in contrast to the reasoning communitarian Left)--from the "women and men are alike in all respects except for those in which women are superior" crowd.
FC On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Gerry Orkin wrote: > > By NATALIE ANGIER and KENNETH CHANG > > When Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard, suggested this month > that one factor in women's lagging progress in science and mathematics might > be innate differences between the sexes, he slapped a bit of brimstone into > a debate that has simmered for decades. And though his comments elicited so > many fierce reactions that he quickly apologized, many were left to wonder: > Did he have a point? > > Has science found compelling evidence of inherent sex disparities in the > relevant skills, or perhaps in the drive to succeed at all costs, that could > help account for the persistent paucity of women in science generally, and > at the upper tiers of the profession in particular? > > Researchers who have explored the subject of sex differences from every > conceivable angle and organ say that yes, there are a host of discrepancies > between men and women - in their average scores on tests of quantitative > skills, in their attitudes toward math and science, in the architecture of > their brains, in the way they metabolize medications, including those that > affect the brain. > > Yet despite the desire for tidy and definitive answers to complex questions, > researchers warn that the mere finding of a difference in form does not mean > a difference in function or output inevitably follows. > > "We can't get anywhere denying that there are neurological and hormonal > differences between males and females, because there clearly are," said > Virginia Valian, a psychology professor at Hunter College who wrote the 1998 > book "Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women." "The trouble we have as > scientists is in assessing their significance to real-life performance." > > For example, neuroscientists have shown that women's brains are about 10 > percent smaller than men's, on average, even after accounting for women's > comparatively smaller body size. > > But throughout history, people have cited anatomical distinctions in support > of overarching hypotheses that turn out merely to reflect the societal and > cultural prejudices of the time. > > A century ago, the French scientist Gustav Le Bon pointed to the smaller > brains of women - closer in size to gorillas', he said - and said that > explained the "fickleness, inconstancy, absence of thought and logic, and > incapacity to reason" in women. > > Overall size aside, some evidence suggests that female brains are relatively > more endowed with gray matter - the prized neurons thought to do the bulk of > the brain's thinking - while men's brains are packed with more white matter, > the tissue between neurons. > > To further complicate the portrait of cerebral diversity, new brain imaging > studies from the University of California, Irvine, suggest that men and > women with equal I.Q. scores use different proportions of their gray and > white matter when solving problems like those on intelligence tests. > > Men, they said, appear to devote 6.5 times as much of their gray matter to > intelligence-related tasks as do women, while women rely far more heavily on > white matter to pull them through a ponder. > > What such discrepancies may or may not mean is anyone's conjecture. > > "It is cognition that counts, not the physical matter that does the > cognition," argued Nancy Kanwisher, a professor of neuroscience at the > Massachusetts Institute of Technology. > > When they do study sheer cognitive prowess, many researchers have been > impressed with how similarly young boys and girls master new tasks. > > "We adults may think very different things about boys and girls, and treat > them accordingly, but when we measure their capacities, they're remarkably > alike," said Elizabeth Spelke, a professor of psychology at Harvard. She and > her colleagues study basic spatial, quantitative and numerical abilities in > children ranging from 5 months through 7 years. > > "In that age span, you see a considerable number of the pieces of our mature > capacities for spatial and numerical reasoning coming together," Dr. Spelke > said. "But while we always test for gender differences in our studies, we > never find them." > > In adolescence, though, some differences in aptitude begin to emerge, > especially when it comes to performance on standardized tests like the SAT. > While average verbal scores are very similar, boys have outscored girls on > the math half of the dreaded exam by about 30 to 35 points for the past > three decades or so. > > Nor is the masculine edge in math unique to the United States. In an > international standardized test administered in 2003 by the international > research group Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to > 250,000 15-year-olds in 41 countries, boys did moderately better on the math > portion in just over half the nations. For nearly all the other countries, > there were no significant sex differences. > > But average scores varied wildly from place to place and from one > subcategory of math to the next. Japanese girls, for example, were on par > with Japanese boys on every math section save that of "uncertainty," which > measures probabilistic skills, and Japanese girls scored higher over all > than did the boys of many other nations, including the United States. > > In Iceland, girls broke the mold completely and outshone Icelandic boys by a > significant margin on all parts of the test, as they habitually do on their > national math exams. "We have no idea why this should be so," said Almar > Midvik Halldorsson, project manager for the Educational Testing Institute in > Iceland. > > Interestingly, in Iceland and everywhere else, girls participating in the > survey expressed far more negative attitudes toward math. > > The modest size and regional variability of the sex differences in math > scores, as well as an attitudinal handicap that girls apparently pack into > their No. 2 pencil case, convince many researchers that neither sex has a > monopoly on basic math ability, and that culture rather than chromosomes > explains findings like the gap in math SAT scores. > > Yet Dr. Summers, who said he intended his remarks to be provocative, and > other scientists have observed that while average math skillfulness may be > remarkably analogous between the sexes, men tend to display comparatively > greater range in aptitude. Males are much likelier than females to be found > on the tail ends of the bell curve, among the superhigh scorers and the very > bottom performers. > > Among college-bound seniors who took the math SAT's in 2001, for example, > nearly twice as many boys as girls scored over 700, and the ratio skews ever > more male the closer one gets to the top tally of 800. Boys are also > likelier than girls to get nearly all the answers wrong. > > For Dr. Summers and others, the overwhelmingly male tails of the bell curve > may be telling. Such results, taken together with assorted other > neuro-curiosities like the comparatively greater number of boys with > learning disorders, autism and attention deficit disorder, suggest to them > that the male brain is a delicate object, inherently prone to extremes, both > of incompetence and of genius. > > But few researchers who have analyzed the data believe that men's greater > representation among the high-tail scores can explain more than a small > fraction of the sex disparities in career success among scientists. > > For one thing, said Kimberlee A. Shauman, a sociologist at the University of > California, Davis, getting a high score on a math aptitude test turns out to > be a poor predictor of who opts for a scientific career, but it is an > especially poor gauge for girls. Catherine Weinberger, an economist at the > University of California, Santa Barbara, has found that top-scoring girls > are only about 60 percent as likely as top-scoring boys to pursue science or > engineering careers, for reasons that remain unclear. > > Moreover, men seem perfectly capable of becoming scientists without a math > board score of 790. Surveying a representative population of working > scientists and engineers, Dr. Weinberger has discovered that the women were > likelier than the men to have very high test scores. "Women are more > cautious about entering these professions unless they have very high scores > to begin with," she said. > > And this remains true even though a given score on standardized math tests > is less significant for women than for men. Dr. Valian, of Hunter, observes > that among women and men taking the same advanced math courses in college, > women with somewhat lower SAT scores often do better than men with higher > scores. "The SAT's turn out to underpredict female and overpredict male > performance," she said. Again, the reasons remain mysterious. > > Dr. Summers also proposed that perhaps women did not go into science because > they found it too abstract and cold-blooded, offering as anecdotal evidence > the fact that his young daughter, when given toy trucks, had treated them as > dolls, naming them "Daddy truck" and "baby truck." > > But critics dryly observed that men had a longstanding tradition of naming > their vehicles, and babying them as though they were humans. > > Yu Xie, a sociologist at the University of Michigan and a co-author with Dr. > Shauman of "Women in Science: Career Processes and Outcomes" (2003), said he > wished there was less emphasis on biological explanations for success or > failure, and more on effort and hard work. > > Among Asians, he said, people rarely talk about having a gift or a knack or > a gene for math or anything else. If a student comes home with a poor grade > in math, he said, the parents push the child to work harder. > > "There is good survey data showing that this disbelief in innate ability, > and the conviction that math achievement can be improved through practice," > Dr. Xie said, "is a tremendous cultural asset in Asian society and among > Asian-Americans." > > In many formerly male-dominated fields like medicine and law, women have > already reached parity, at least at the entry levels. At the undergraduate > level, women outnumber men in some sciences like biology. > > Thus, many argue that it is unnecessary to invoke "innate differences" to > explain the gap that persists in fields like physics, engineering, > mathematics and chemistry. Might scientists just be slower in letting go of > baseless sexism? > > C. Megan Urry, a professor of physics and astronomy at Yale who led the > American delegation to an international conference on women in physics in > 2002, said there was clear evidence that societal and cultural factors still > hindered women in science. > > Dr. Urry cited a 1983 study in which 360 people - half men, half women - > rated mathematics papers on a five-point scale. On average, the men rated > them a full point higher when the author was "John T. McKay" than when the > author was "Joan T. McKay." There was a similar, but smaller disparity in > the scores the women gave. > > Dr. Spelke, of Harvard, said, "It's hard for me to get excited about small > differences in biology when the evidence shows that women in science are > still discriminated against every stage of the way." > > A recent experiment showed that when Princeton students were asked to > evaluate two highly qualified candidates for an engineering job - one with > more education, the other with more work experience - they picked the more > educated candidate 75 percent of the time. But when the candidates were > designated as male or female, and the educated candidate bore a female name, > suddenly she was preferred only 48 percent of the time. > > The debate is sure to go on. > > Sandra F. Witelson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences > at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, said biology might yet be found > to play some role in women's careers in the sciences. > > "People have to have an open mind," Dr. Witelson said. > > Copyright 2005�The New York Times > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/S.QlOD/3MnJAA/Zx0JAA/pyIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/boysed/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
