I wonder. Does Miss Nancy realize what she's saying? She's leaving so she doesn't do what the quintessential Victorian maiden did when confronted with unpleasantness.

Faint and/or throw up. Really!

Why didn't she kick him the posterior or even better the fronterior?

To paraphrase: You can to science bring your daughter, but you can't make her think.

Sorry. I forgot to mention that I am of the female persuasion myself and women like Hopkins from whom I expect a lot make me madder than men like Sommers from whom I don't expect much.

Erp, your point is well taken. But isn't it just as much an issue that a scientist (err, at least I presume somebody presented as a "biologist" is in fact a "scientist") has so little understanding of statistical arguments that she's personally offended by Summer's statement?

When my wife was a girl, she wanted to follow her scientist father into geology, but he discouraged her because, he said, she'd never find a job.

When I entered engineering school in 1964, out of a class of around 4,000, there were, I believe, 2 girls.

Today, even in my little community, I know at least a dozen women engineers, most of them also CEOs or top level executives.

Dang me if I don't think socialization had something to do with that.

Yes, socialization, not aptitude.

"... innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers."

Speaking, of course, on average: Well, like, duh.

Among the parents of my acquaintance, how things are going in school is a typical conversation topic.

When specifically math/science is the point of the discussion, some of the parents complain about their kids getting the vapors when trying to get through homework.

None of the children in question are boys.

This is Larry Summers talking, right? When he says "success in science and math" he most likely means "tenure at an Ivy League department." He's not thinking of the EE that runs your power plant, or even someone that's worked their way up to VP- or C-level at a contractor, like Harry's friends. If it is the horse show we're talking about, then the numbers are sort of daunting -- above 700 on the math SAT it's something like 13 boys to each girl.

In 1952 I was the only girl in an advanced math high school class. I was pretty good, but the teacher couldn't deal with it. He was on me constantly saying girls couldn't keep up and that I was slowig down the class.

I was singled out for difficult questions, but I was answering correctly until one day, I had no idea what he was talking about, so unlike the MIT professor, I didn't faint or throw up, I said that if any of the boys could answer the question, I'd drop the course.

I stood up there and looked around. Not one of the boys spoke up. To this day, I don't know if they didn't know the answer either, or they were just gentlemen, but the harassing stopped and I got the A I earned for the course.

And no, I don't think girls can't do math or anything else they set out to do. I do think that girls may not want or like to do math and that's okay.

Why make it a contest and assign value only those things that are typically appealing to boys? Having an interest for math or biology is no more innately valuable than any other talent or knack.

"above 700 on the math SAT it's something like 13 boys to each girl: joe shropshire"

Fact SAT I 2001 College Bound Seniors -- Math

Male 700 -- 800 n = 49,088
Female 700 -- 800 n = 25,593

M/F = 1.92

erp, the discussion isn't about specific individuals, it's about group averages. And also about the tails of the bell curve. For males the tails are longer, which means that out at the extremes there are more males than females. Guess what---"genius-level" is waaaaaay out at the extreme right end of the graph. Of course, this also means that at the left end (the "dummy" end) there are also more males than females.

Why do so many people care that few women become scientists and engineers? No one ever seems to care that so few men study childhood development.

Sorry. I'd misremembered some results on gifted 13 year olds (via Gene Expression:)

The resulting proportion of males and females at age 13 at various cut-off scores on SAT-M is approximately as follows: 500 (average score of college-bound 12th-grade [18-year-old] males): 2:1; 600: 4:1; 700 (top 1 in 10,000 for 7th graders [13-year-olds]): 13:1.

As ordinary SAT results. To make it even more embarrassing, in the link cited there's a table right above this quote that says, basically, 2:1 at the 95th percentile in math. Sorry, and thanks for the correction, Robert.

Would Summers have said the
same thing about Blacks had he
been at a conference that discussed
minority issues? I think not...
he'd lose his job and have
protesters in his office.

Big Brave Harvard Men. Right.

h;

he already has--chased Cornel West away when he told him he had to do some work.