Centerfield

Sorry Rick, but you are yet another victim of the "common sense" of differences in cognitive capabilities between genders. This is the result of a great deal of bad research over-emphasizing these differences. I believed the same nonsense for most of my life as well, but I've reviewed the research and have found the reality is that men and women are nearly the same cognitively.

Unfortunately it is this attitude that prevents women from entering the Sciences. My Engineering Professor in College announced at the beginning of each semester that Women were incapable of passing his class. My mother was told the same thing by her Chemistry Professor.

Dr. Summers' background is in Economics, not sociology or any other Science, so it's understandable that he would cite "common sense" without providing citations. Modern research does not support his statements.

This article is a good place to start for rebuttals to these misconceptions:

Men Are From Earth, and So Are Women

Posted by: Ryan Somma at January 18, 2005 07:27 PM

Dr. Summers' background is in Economics, not sociology or any other Science...

Sorry, but I'm laughing too hard at someone calling sociology "Science" while sneering at economics as "not Science" to formulate a more coherent commentary.

Posted by: Tully at January 18, 2005 08:17 PM

You're correct, Economics is a science. I should have worded that differently. The field the President of Harvard's background is in is incompatible with what he was speaking about, which was sociology and psychology. From his summary of his own statements, I don't have a problem with much of what he said. Where I disagree is on the archaic ideas that studies clearly distinguish the cognitive apptitudes of men and women in the Sciences.

Nice choice of words by the way, "sneering." I was not sneering at Economics, although I admit my wording was very poor. I think the reason you are incapable of forming a coherent statement is because you are too busy trying to mischaracterize me and my intentions. While I have no qualms with the field of Economics, I have at this moment a very low impression of you.

Posted by: Ryan Somma at January 18, 2005 09:06 PM

Ryan,

I denounce any professor who would say that no woman could pass his class. As the article you cited article suggests, there is a great deal over overlap between men and women. Indeed, the intra-group differences almost certainly exceed the inter-group difference. That is the old-fashioned discrimination we need to abolish, but we should not replace it with with an indiscriminate egalitariansim that glosses over the details.

My favorite study suggests a biological basis for gender differences in cognition is this one which shows that female to male transsexuals show improved spatial ability and decreased verbal fluency after being administered male hormones as part of their gender reassignment.

Activating effects of androgens on cognitive performance: causal evidence in a group of female-to-male transsexuals. Neuropsychologia. 1994 Oct;32(10):1153-7. Van Goozen SH, Cohen-Kettenis PT, Gooren LJ, Frijda NH, Van de Poll NE. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Hospital Utrecht, The Netherlands. Abstract: It is still unclear whether sex differences in cognitive functioning are mainly due to perinatal organizing effects of sex hormones on the brain, or to activating effects in adulthood. In a group of 22 female-to-male transsexuals a battery of visuospatial and verbal ability tests was administered twice: shortly before and 3 months after the start of androgen treatment. The administering of androgens was clearly associated with an increase in spatial ability performance. In contrast, it had a deteriorating effect on verbal fluency tasks. This study offers preliminary evidence that androgens directly and quickly affect cognitive performance in females.

I agree that the message pushed by Gray is unhelpful, as it suggests there is little or no overlap. On the other hand, my wife swears by Tannen, who is an academic and is more careful than Gray. She finds her analysis of different communication styles to be precisely what she has experienced.

I'm not persuaded of precise equality by the study of schoolchildren cited in the article. It covers far too broad a range to be applicable to Ph.D. level work. One of the theories is that male intelligence is more variable, with more at the high end, and more at the low end. I won't go into the details of why that could be true, but if it is true, it could mean that the study is correct--no difference when all kids are meansured--and yet there is a difference when only the brighted 10% are measured.

My key point, however is that whether there really are fine grain differences between men or women, there is no "right" to biological equality. We are what we are. And Summers has the right to present his view and even be mistaken about it.

Though I don't have a Ph.D. in anything, I know a decent amount about this because of research I did for my genetic engineering novel, Smart Genes, which unfortunately remains unpublished.

Posted by: rickheller at January 18, 2005 09:12 PM

Thanks for that very intelligent response Rick. I was browsing Google Scholar on this issue and I believe I was reacting to what I percieve as many people over-emphasizing the gender differences, which are apparently narrowing over time. I do believe some biological difference exists.

I wish there was a transcript of Summers' speech, because I believe he was partially advocating a change in the way we approach teaching science to make it more open to women. Although studies indicate the same cognitive discrepancies exist between races, no one suggests its genetics, but rather everyone works on the way tests are written to close the gaps between races on intelligence tests. I believe the same principle would work here, but many people seem to accept the idea that males and females are simply wired differently.

Side Note: You're the one who wrote "Smart Genes," which used to be an open source novel! The net is a smaller place than I realized, and I just realized the link to your novel on my own site is now bad. Good luck with getting it published. I'm trying to get my own novel published this year also, different genre of sci-fi, I'm Computer Science. I thought the open-source novel was a great and novel idea.

Posted by: Ryan Somma at January 18, 2005 09:34 PM

Maybe the only honest answer is, "we still don't really know yet".

I find this story interesting for all the wrong reasons.

Why is it not ok to pose the question? Especially among an audience of science minded academic leaders, who more than anyone in society should be able to discuss these things openly and dispassionately?

What kind of academic vitality does an institution have when its president is demonized by peers for simply presenting questions and ideas, and a female biology prof storms out saying she had to leave to avoid "passing out"? Shameful. Perhaps the goal is to replace the free exchange of ideas with a climate of fear, so that no one has to hear or consider the controversial and uncomfortable questions.

Science doesn't begin and end with controlled studies. A key part of the process is sharing speculative ideas and yes even anecdotal experience to come up with topics for future rigorous study.

Posted by: Susan at January 18, 2005 09:38 PM

Cool!

Thanks, Ryan.

I didn't get much participation on the open source novel, so I let the domain name expire. The text is offline now. My main literary focus is now a memoir, which I'm pitching to agents. I'm hoping that if an agent bites, then perhaps I can dig Smart Genes out of my archive.

Posted by: rickheller at January 18, 2005 09:43 PM

Better read it again, RS. It was a sneering statement as you constructed it. For the phrasing used, "snooty" would have also been a proper description. If you phrased it poorly, that's not my bad. But I still think it's funny as written. A physicist would laugh his ass off at either one being called a science. If I was going to intentionally mischaracterize you I'd do it thoroughly--but I really was laughing too hard to type much, and had to run.

I did get your gist, though, that Summers was speaking out of his field without a rope handy. I'd like to see a transcript myself. Before knocking Summers for what he said, I'd like to know what he said.

Personally I'd simply note that whatever statistical differences there are in aggregate gender populations, individuals are not aggregate populations. The use of individuals as example for anecdotal rebuttal of statements about aggregates is not valid, and vice versa. There are obvious general physical differences between men and women considered in aggregate (not to mention the obvious definitive ones). I'd love to hear more about good empirical research on inherent and socialized cognitive differences. I suspect there are a few subtle genetic cognitive differences, but I doubt they're nearly as great as the popular cant makes them out to be. And I know better than to judge individual abilities by genetic group membership.

Posted by: Tully at January 18, 2005 11:07 PM

Where kind of cognitive skills produced this?

"Summers is, of course, Clinton's former Treasury Secretary. So he's not right of center,..."

Umm, Clinton is right of center in many people's opinions -- which are, as opinions, as correct as rickhellers. Then we would have to know where Summers stood relative to Clinton, to his left or right, and how far, to know if Summers was left or right of center. Since there is no real measure of any of this, starting off a discussion about the meaning, purpose, context, science, understanding and misunderstanding about Summers' comments by referring to his "position" on some totally unmeasurable spectrum is a bad way to start and suggests there is something other at work than curiosity, investigation and discovery.

Posted by: wkirkland at January 19, 2005 01:44 AM

I'd like to see a transcript myself.

Ahh, this is where the irony kicks in:

"Summers arrived after a morning session and addressed a working lunch, speaking without notes. No transcript was made because the conference was designed to be off-the-record so that participants could speak candidly without fear of public misunderstanding or disclosure later."

Posted by: David Fleck at January 19, 2005 08:36 AM

Tully,

No major qualms with your post, but I would appreciate it if you could define what your criteria for establishing what is Science and what is not. You say a Physicist would laugh at me considering Economics and Sociology Science, but don't explain why.

My definition of Science includes any field where empirical observations are made, experiments are conducted, hypotheses are formed, and theories are established. Sociology and Economics fit these criteria. What additional trait does Physics have that distinguishes it from these two fields to elevate it to Science in your view?

Posted by: Ryan Somma at January 19, 2005 11:34 AM

Ryan, I think they're all sciences to the point where they're empirical and replicable and honestly pursued, and I'm not a physicist. He'd laugh at me too, because I pretty much agree with your definition. The acceptance of and reliance on the scientific method to pursue expanded knowledge in a field is the determinant of scientific study. But a "hard" science person like a physicist has a reflexive disdain for anything that isn't written in unalterable replicability in the physical fabric of the universe. Sociology and Economics are both (in essence) the systematic study of human behavior, both aggregate and individual. Without being too metaphysical, predicting how human beings will behave in any given situation under any given stimulus is not a matter of deterministic certainty.

You've been around campus, so you either know exactly what I mean, or you haven't talked to enough physicists.

Posted by: Tully at January 19, 2005 12:05 PM

I 2nd the points made by susan and David.

I also 2nd Rick's wife in giving thumbs up to Tannen. I believe it's Deborah Tannen, right?

True story: while in graduate school, I had occasion to loan a text I had studied previously for another class, (Tannen'sSex Differences in Cognitive Abilities) to a very intelligent and thoughful lesbian classmate who was nevertheless sneeringly disdainful of the possibility that the book could be worthy of anything other than debunking. Weeks later, she was effusive in her gratitude and apologetic about her earlier dismissiveness. She found Tannen's book informative and enlightening, and most of all, very fair and honest. Imagine that.

Here's the point. The differences are there. Our chemistry differs, and we function and perform and respond differently in some instances. It's worth a hell of a lot more to understand these differences than it is to insist that we must deny them because those who are ignorant might get the wrong idea. None of these differences suggest one gender is better, or smarter, or that one gender is unsuited to any fields or disciplines.

Yglesias is encouraging people to take Summers out of context and be ignorant babies about the whole thing. Shame on him. And in other coverage, I've seen condemnations of Summers that focus on the special role he plays in his powerful position which somehow requires that he be both more careful and powerfully anticipatory that his words could do damage when taken out of context. I despise the idea that people retain responsibility for decontextualized meaning of their words, instead of blaming the editors and writers who are doing the decontextualizing.

Posted by: bk at January 19, 2005 03:33 PM

I read the news story about the Summer's comment and found it interesting for two reasons: 1) Men and women are different in many ways , why not learning style 2) Even discussing that will get you in trouble.

We seem to have such a hard time discussing differences between groups when the conventional wisdom is that one group is "down" and the other is "up" When someone in the "up" group suggests a difference in the "down" group we too easily suggest there is bias/prejudice.

A recent medical case in point; some researchers found that a certain combination of medicines worked well in Black patients with hear failure, maybe even more so than the standard recommended therapy. Among the reactions were suggesting that this was a racially motivated study.

Can't we honestly discuss our differences an not infer "better" and "worse"?

Posted by: chris at January 19, 2005 07:18 PM

that should be "heart failure" not "hear failure"

Posted by: Chris at January 19, 2005 07:18 PM

I agree with Susan in condemning condemns the ridiculous political correctness being exhibited by the sanctimonious left-wing academics. The idea that Lawrence Summers somehow considers women inferior or wants to subjugate them is laughable to anyone except a left-wing academic. And where is this wonderful open discourse that academics are always extolling except when someone says something they don't like.

As I understand, there is some scientific support for gender differences in a variety of areas. See, EG, "The New Humanists" by John Brockman. I don't pretend to understand the literature or anything else. But it's not necessarily sexist to suggest that men and women may have different cognitive abilities in different areas. I seriously doubt that Summers was suggesting that women can't "do" science or that they are inferior. He was making a point that I think is valid--part of the reason that women are less represented in sciences and math may be that, ON AVERAGE, they show less interest and aptitude in those fields than men. That obviously doesn't mean that many women are not just as interested and just as capable of doing advanced math and science as men--clearly, there are and have been many brilliant women scientists. He was essentially suggesting that, maybe discrimination and sexism is not the only reason (although he mentioned discrimination as a possible reason). But, of course, that is not a politically acceptable idea. The ideas, first, that there may be actual physiological differences between men and women that create social differences and, second, that there may be some reason beyond discrimination that explains some differences, are beyond the pale for left-wing academics. And I love the righteous indignation of "scholars" who are quick to defend "open" discourse--except when it involves some idea they don't like.

As for what is a science, what I have seen of sociology suggests that,while it may have been a valid social "science" at one time, it has been so politicized that it is largely nothing but agitprop today.

BK, you are absolutely right. These people seem to be saying that Summers, as president of Harvard, now has no right to take any action that may be somehow interpreted, even if wrongly, as being politically "retrograde"--defined, of course, by the academic elite.

Posted by: MWS at January 19, 2005 07:40 PM

I couldn't help but notice that while there are several people ready to acknowledge the cognitive differences between men and women, no one was willing to comment on my statement about racial differences. Do the same principles apply? Are there physiological differences between african americans and caucasians that explain their well-researched and documented differences in kinesthetic and academic intelligences?

Tully,

On our campus it was the Computer Science majors who demanded an exclusive definition of the word "Science", but we both know the personality type. : )

Posted by: Ryan Somma at January 19, 2005 08:20 PM

There are many sociologists doing serious and valid work. They may not be the darlings of the academic Left, but they're out there. Thus my qualification of what I consider a "science."

I think they're all sciences to the point where they're empirical and replicable and honestly pursued...the acceptance of and reliance on the scientific method to pursue expanded knowledge in a field is the determinant of scientific study.

As in all "soft" science fields, there are those who are much less than scientists and much more concerned with cloaking their politics and agendas and prejudices in scientific garb, while claiming academic authority. This is why all academic studies should be considered very carefully as to construction bias and interpretative validity.

And no, I won't try to estimate what the ratio of real scientists to academic propagandists is in any given field. Your only defense is to learn enough about study construction to spot the turkeys. A fall-back is to examine the disclaimers of study authors. Those concerned with doing valid work will be very clear about the inherent holes and boundaries in the research, and cautious in their conclusions.

Posted by: Tully at January 19, 2005 08:26 PM

What can I say, Ryan? When I first went to college we programmed on punch cards (don't shuffle the deck!) and Fortran was only Threetran, so the Comp Science people weren't too cocky yet. The physicists, however....

Posted by: Tully at January 19, 2005 09:24 PM

Ryan,

Regarding gender, there are 23 pairs of chromosomes, of which 22 can be identical between men and women, as far as I know. The one difference is of course the XX vs XY. It is known that damage to the X chromosome can lead to retardation, as in Fragile X syndrome. As I understand it, men are more at risk because, having only one X, if that chromosome has a defect, there is no backup on the other chromosome. This could also conceivably lead to superior performance in the male, if the single X contained a positive variation. In women, the two X's can contribute to protein production, and there is a mechanism which regulates which X is active in which cell.

Regarding race, it's a difficult topic to talk about, and our assumption should be that there are no differences unless there is strong evidence to the contrary. Genes affect skin pigmentation, hair color, eye color, eye shape and other characteristics that vary among those descended from Europe, Asia, and Africa. There is no reason at this time to think that any of those features would affect intelligence. My pet theory is that some of the differences on tests is due to the impoverished prenatal environment of teenage mothers, which affects the wiring of the brain at a critical moment in its development.

Posted by: rickheller at January 19, 2005 11:52 PM

It seems likely to me that there ARE some genetic differences between races that might manifest themselves in real life. The questions are, what are they and how do they work.

Look, if someone looks very different, there are bound to be chemical bases for these differences. If we want, we can assume that the differences are entirely or prmarily superficial. We're going to find out more about such things as time passes, and we should be willing to face whatever is discovered, even if we are extremely cautious about interpretation.

Posted by: bk at January 20, 2005 09:38 AM

I would just caution once again that while there may be (are!) physical and cognitive differences between the races or the sexes that show up as aggregate statistical population variances, they almost always mean pretty much diddly squat when applied either descriptively or presumptively to individuals.

Posted by: Tully at January 20, 2005 11:13 AM

Right,Tully, that's a hugely important point. the way I like to think about such comparisons is by visualizing them. You might take aptitude scores and graph the genders or races as separate bell-shaped curves. When you do, there's way more overlap than anything else.

Such comparisons might show you that some tests suggest that, say the most math-proficient man scored higher than the most math-proficient woman. Or that the most verbal-proficient woman scored higher than the most verbal-proficient man. But you're still on extremely thin ice in assuming that therefore a randomly chosen man has better math skills than a randomly chosen woman, etc.

Averages don't tell you much of anything about individuals...

Posted by: bk at January 20, 2005 12:08 PM

BK pretty much hit the nail on the head. It is only at the percentile extremes that the differences exhibit themselves.

Regarding racial differences, there may be a larger picture to be considered. What is to be gained from delving into the cognitive and physical differences, aside from those of medical import, between the races?

Knowledge for its own sake is obvioulsly not a bad thing, but raising it to a level that overshadows other considerations, even politcal ones, can be.

Such explorations of racial differences may do more harm than good to mankind. Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but it is.

Posted by: WHQ at January 20, 2005 12:32 PM

An arguement extolling the virtues of ignorance? We just might find a position for you on the Inquisitorial Synod ;)

Seriously, knowledge is never a bad thing... it's what one decides to do with that knowledge that can be bad. Asking questions is what academics should be all about. Unfortunately, as Susan pointed out, today's self-styled academics seem to only want to allow for questions they like.... as soon as some-one strays from that course...it's time to break out the torches and get the stakes ready for the heritic.

Posted by: Cengel at January 20, 2005 01:15 PM

Here's a big one, off the top of my head (OTTOMH?)
Delving into both racial and gender differences in cognitive abilities is likely to help us better understand any link between genetics and brain chemistry.

The vanguard in medical treatments that extend life and remedy a variety of physical deficiescies and mental lilnesses is bound to center around the long process of slowly unraveling chains of chemical causation that probably must start in many cases with the first one, the creation of your unique DNA spiral.

Posted by: bk at January 20, 2005 01:25 PM

bk, please see the clause "aside from those of medical import" in my post.

Cengel, I had no intention of extolling the virtues of ignorance. I think you were kidding me, but I wanted to be clear on that point.

As an aside, I am an electrical engineer, so science in and of itself does not scare me. I often wish I had majored in Physics instead.

Posted by: WHQ at January 20, 2005 02:09 PM

WHQ,

Yeah, I pretty much was...but I'm a sucker for any opportunity to work the phrase "Inquisitorial Synod" into a conversation ;)

No one expects the Inquisition!

Posted by: Cengel at January 20, 2005 04:02 PM

Amazing how the inquisition came down so hard on Summers. And here we see individuals lobbying for the preservation of ignorance, who claim to be scientists. Simply amazing.

You know, when science and mathematics are taken over by the enemies of science and mathematics, you know that civilization has taken a wrong turn at some point, perhaps Albuquerque.

Posted by: RQS at January 23, 2005 06:55 PM

RQS,

I'm not sure if "And here we see individuals lobbying for the preservation of ignorance, who claim to be scientists." was directed at me.

Assuming that it was, keep in mind that I made no definitive assertions, but proposed another viewpoint and raised a question. Are we condemning others for suppressing questions while doing the same ourselves here, or are we only interested in protecting strictly scientific questioning?

I have always held the view that the truth is the truth and people should simply have to deal with it. After all, what is the alternative?

I then decided to play devil's advocate with myself (which has very different results from simply playing with one's self, though they both can get messy) and try to find what could be a justification for the point of view of those who would defer exploration of the truth indefinitely in observance of this or that group's sensitivities. I did this about five minutes before my original post.

Aside from asserting that civilization has taken a wrong turn, without much explanation, how would you respond to the very idea that there may be considerations beyond those of scientific advancement that may cause one to avoid a particlar scientific endeavor?

Keep in mind also that such avoidances do not necessarily result in a diminishment in scientific advancement. There are an infinite number of possible scientific endeavors, but a finite number of scientists available to explore them. There would always be another direction in which science could advance were a particular subject deemed "off limits" for some reason(s).

You may wish to avoid starting an inquisition of your own if you choose to respond.

Posted by: WHQ at January 27, 2005 03:33 PM