Diversity
Via Mick Hartley comes news from the University of California:
“After a group of UC Davis women faculty began circulating a petition, UC regents rescinded an invitation to Larry Summers, the controversial former president of Harvard University, to speak at a board dinner Wednesday night in Sacramento. Summers gained notoriety for saying that innate differences between men and women could be a reason for under-representation of women in science, math and engineering.
UCD professor Maureen Stanton, one of the petition organisers, was delighted by news of the change, saying it’s ‘a move in the right direction’. ‘UC has an enormous historical commitment to diversity within its faculty ranks, but still has a long way to go before our faculty adequately represent the diversity of our constituency, the people of California,’ said Stanton.
When Stanton heard about the initial invitation to Summers, she was ‘stunned’. ‘I was appalled that someone articulating that point of view would be invited,’ she said. ‘This is a symbolic invitation and a symbolic measure that I believe sends the wrong message about the University of California and its cultural principles.’ ‘None of us go looking for a fight,’ Stanton said. ‘We were just deeply offended.’”
Yes, diversity in all things. Except, of course, in thought. Presumably, Professor Stanton is also “stunned”, “appalled” and “deeply offended” by the over-representation of, say, gay people in the spheres of arts and drama, or of women in the caring professions, or of Indian employees in Indian restaurants. Perhaps some recalibration of those industries is also in order, to ensure suitable diversity.
Meanwhile, in Ohio:
“The Office of University Housing at Ohio State, a public university, maintains a Diversity Statement that severely restricts what students in Ohio State’s residence halls can and cannot say. Students are instructed: ‘Do not joke about differences related to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, ability, socioeconomic background, etc. When in doubt about the impact of your words and actions, simply ask.’”
It’s interesting to note that the University’s Diversity Statement aims to foster learning “from a wide array of human similarities and differences in an increasingly diverse world” and plans to achieve this blossoming of awareness by inhibiting any careless reference to those same differences.
Related. (H/T. Stephen Hicks.)
David:
“You can’t simply lay claim to some supposed “default” position of exact numerical parity, conveniently excused from evidential support, while dismissing dissent as some kind of caveman recidivism.”
That’s going a trifle far. It’s my own default position, not some “natural” one–a kind of “as-if.” Let’s proceed, say I, on the assumption that men and women are fundamentally equal in ability, and that under-representation of women in certain “male” disciplines is a complex product of socialization, systemic bias and so on. Then bring on the neurological evidence–and I assure you, I shall weigh it honestly. I think that’s a defensible start position, and I cannot understand why you are taking such exception to it. I’m proceeding under a falsifiable hypothesis. What’s wrong with that?
Thin Man:
I had no idea that Rummy had serious academic credentials. He has, as I understand it, an undergraduate degree and was a law school dropout. I wonder if Jeff and his cohorts got remotely upset about the Chemerinsky scandal? Or the Finkelstein tenure farce? Or the current persecution of the authors of “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy”? I do note, however, that there is general outrage and bluster in that quarter about the visit of Ahmedinejad to Columbia. Goldstein’s picking and choosing is arrant hypocrisy.
Dr Dawg,
“That’s going a trifle far.”
No it isn’t. The gender bias, if any, of a mathematics department isn’t determined simply by whether or not it employs an equal number of men and women in positions of comparable status. If there are other, dispositional, variables to consider in who pursues the subject to advanced levels, or other factors regarding the availability of suitable female candidates or their persistence in the field, then a gender parity of employed mathematicians might just as plausibly indicate an anomaly, a lowering of standards or a bias in favour of women. To assume that, magically stripped of all external influences, the male and female population “should” be perfectly symmetrical in interests, skills and dispositions is just that – an assumption. A prejudice, if you will.
As I said, I haven’t heard of vast numbers of disaffected female would-be mathematicians, all grumbling about exclusion because of sexism and male patriarchy. What matters is that those women who do have talent and drive in the discipline are able to compete for positions on an equal footing. No-one here would argue with that. But whether that fair footing leads to a 50/50 gender split or not is entirely beside the point. And to imply, as Stanton does, that *more* women “ought” to be interested in advanced mathematics as a career seems absurd; as does the claim that if relatively few women choose this career, then there must be some kind of systemic gender bias or “oppression” taking place. And attempting to engineer some supposed “correction” of who is interested in what is to skate on perilously thin ice.
I’m late to the discussion, but it seems to me that someone has done a remarkable job at derailing the actual discussion. What should be discussed here is whether an academic should be allowed to speak at a school function if his views, right or wrong, are in disagreement with the majority of those faculty on campus.
That’s it. Nothing more.
Any discussion of the rightness or wrongness of his views is simply beside the point here. There is nothing so utterly dangerous that it cannot be talked about. Invite a “flat-earther” to speak? Why not. A holocaust denier? Sorry, but there are plenty of them around already.
The university is exactly the place where every point of view should be debated. Hiding from things you don’t want to hear is a exactly the opposite of what we expect from academics.
Dawg:
“I had no idea that Rummy had serious academic credentials….I do note, however, that there is general outrage and bluster in that quarter about the visit of Ahmedinejad to Columbia.”
What academic credentials does Ahmedinejad have? Beside holocaust denial.
And do you not see any difference between Rumsfeld and Ahmedinejad?
Tom,
The fact that a discussion of this kind might, as Dr Dawg suggested earlier, be deemed insensitive in many academic environments highlights a creeping unrealism and inhibition of ideas. Especially those that diverge from self-serving and politically fashionable beliefs. If even this exchange is likely to prompt gasps of impropriety, that suggests a marked ideological bias among many academics. (And that bias isn’t aimed at excluding women; quite the reverse.)
The degree to which certain questions are deemed inadmissible indicates just how politicised and dogmatic large areas of academia have become. It also highlights why so many of us look on those areas with sadness or contempt. The tendency toward compliance with political fashion, often censorious and irrational political fashion, is a betrayal of what an education is supposed to be.
Tom:
“And do you not see any difference between Rumsfeld and Ahmedinejad?”
A rather obvious one–the latter isn’t being offered a university appointment.
David:
I won’t respond the the last except to re-iterate my earlier question: if Mr. Summers was to speak about the innate deficiency in IQ of Blacks, would you have invited him to dinner? I get the feeling that this question is being studiously ducked, but it might just be the lateness of the hour.
Dr Dawg,
“If Mr. Summers was to speak about the innate deficiency in IQ of Blacks, would you have invited him to dinner? I get the feeling that this question is being studiously ducked.”
I’ve addressed this point twice already (14:43, 15:33.), so it’s hardly been ducked, studiously or otherwise. And, as I explained earlier, your attempt to imply some equivalence between what Summers actually said regarding gender differences – which is thoughtful, particular, questioning and polite – with a hypothetical speech about “innate deficiency in IQ” among black people is misleading and disingenuous.
But, yes, it’s late. Hammock time.
When studying failure-mode problems, it’s always a good idea to have some good example failures to work with. That’s why when discussing the failure modes of universities, we can finally find an argument for the utility of Dr. Dawg.
David:
I of course read your earlier responses, and re-read them with great care. What I divined from the second one, at least, was that no topic should be off-limits–inquiry being key. You state: “I suppose my reaction would depend largely on the arguments and evidence presented.”
Quite. I read Summers’ notes on women in the hard sciences, math and angineering with care as well, and can quite see how his mode of presenting his ideas might have created a reaction. As I noted earlier, though, that reaction is really part of the debate as well. So here is the nub of the thing: Professor Stanton didn’t like that earlier address, and circulated a petition, and Summers’ dinner-invitation was rescinded. That generated its own response, including your own. I joined in, as did others. Summers is still alive and kicking, and no doubt speaking and publishing.
But I’ve pushed this about as far as I dare. Personally, I think it would have been better to attend the bun-fight and argue with the man, rather than rob him of his rubber chicken. but I still maintain that his position is intellectually slovenly. And coming from the head of a prestigious university, the effects of his off-hand remarks on young women who might have considered a career in the hard sciences, etc., are not to be lightly dismissed.
Vitruvius:
I would put my academic and employment record up against yours anytime–since, bluntly speaking, you appear to be interested in a dick-measuring contest. Show me yours, then, and I’ll show you mine.
Dawg:
“A rather obvious one–the latter isn’t being offered a university appointment.”
How about Summers and Ahmedinejad?
And for the record, could you point out precisely what Summers said that is so controversial?
Tom:
I thought I had done so earlier in this thread.
Here is his speech about (inter alia) “Mommy trucks” and “Daddy trucks.”
http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html
I believe it was this address that offended Professor Stanton.
Not at all, Dawg. I just think that the style of fraud that you and your fellow SSHRC travelers perpetrate is exactly the sort of failure mode that threatens to become endemic in universities, not just in the silly-studies departments as it now is, but even in the parts that heretofore worked, like science, medicine, and engineering, upon which our high standard of living depends. Our high standard of living is not dependent on what you do. It is dependent on what I do. Note that that doesn’t say anything special about me, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
When prioritizing what one would fight against doing without, I would first fight against doing without oxygen for more than a couple minutes. Then water. Food and shelter are three and four, but the temporal order may be reversed depending on the current weather. And so we work down the list, in some order, fuel, sanitary waste disposal, medicine, transportation, and so on. Art? Sure, but everyone can do art. On the other hand, we can do without academic poseurs inventing faux-problems for personal power-struggle games and then putting words in other persons mouths when the examination of reality turns against them.
SSHRC? We going back fifteen years now, Tony?
You’re a software developer with intellectual pretensions. You haven’t put a crumb of food in anyone’s mouth other than what your salary purchases.
I have contributed to the raising of quite a few people’s standard of living, if not in a way of which you might approve. But your approval means very little to me or, I suspect, most other people. You’re a pretentious fraud, Tony, and it’s about time someone called you on it.
Yes Dawg, I know. However I asked what PRECISELY it was that offended. Please give us the passage that makes Dr. Summers and his ideas so dangerous.
The prosecution rests. Unless the defence would like to re-cross, we now, if I’m not mistaken, go to the jury. So it’s over to you, dear readers.
Tom:
I think the notion, over-all, that women are innately less capable than men in the hard sciences, math and engineering. But that’s just a wild guess. And possibly the gratuitous Mommy and Daddy truck nonsense. But perhaps the women involved should speak, not me:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/17/summers_remarks_on_women_draw_fire/
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/19/harvard_womens_group_rips_summers/
In the second reference, the quite valid point is made (at least, from where I sit) that such remarks from the leader of an institution might have a chilling effect on recruitment. But I’ve shot my bolt on this.
Summers did not say that females are innately less capable than males in any way. He said there may be some interesting phenomenon at play in the extremes of some distributions. If we’re going to talk about what he said, shouldn’t we talk about what he said?
Vitruvius made an excellent point about Asperger Syndrome. That’s a phenomenon that can be measured somewhat: it DOES predominate in males and it DOES predispose one to the harder sciences.
I am a female who has a mild case of Asperger’s, and I know another woman who was a fully fledged Asperger’s case. Both of us are into the Humanities, but we also have an affinity for technology. I, for example, am a technical writer, and I find that I’m good at learning how things work quickly, moreso than my “neurotypical” colleagues.
Asperger’s is the result of the way the brain is organized in utero and therefore has a profound impact on one’s abilities and predilections. I experience this every day as I excel at some things others struggle with and utterly cannot do other things that are second nature to most people.
Dr Dawg, to imply a parallel between race and gender is to make a false analogy. The physiological differences between the “races” has to do with the amount of pigmentation in the skin. It’s cosmetic. It affects your vulnerability to skin cancer. But skin pigmentation has no effect on brain development. The only people who imply that there are further types of differences between the races were using junk science (phrenology and other speculation before the advent of brain scanning technology), junk philosophy (white supremacism), or junk morality. Anyone who continues to do so in this day and age does so without an ounce of scientific proof.
Gender, on the other hand, is a whole different matter. The two sexes are created by powerful hormones that change the shape of the body and have a strong hand at organizing the brain. The differences have been observed in brain scans and in controlled experimentation.
You will of course notice that male and female mammals have highly differing habits, dispositions, and behaviors, and that their sex hormones are the same as ours. For example, if testosterone makes bulls and stags and stallions sexually aggressive, is it any wonder that it does so in humans?
Furthermore, while there is no proof that there are significant IQ differences between the sexes, the call of biology often leads women to choose to raise children rather than pursue a career. Our emotional needs are different from a man’s because our brains are different. That a woman chooses to listen to her biology rather than her peers is no scandal.
It seems strange to me that modern feminists would demand that women abandon what they want to do in order to fulfill some arbitrary quota that people like Stanton think should exist. Wasn’t this all about choice to begin with?
So to answer your question: “If Mr. Summers was [were] to speak about the innate deficiency in IQ of Blacks, would you have invited him to dinner?” the answer is NO, I would not, unless I felt I had the chance to persuade him differently.
One more thing, Dr Dawg. You asked if David were fussed about the Chemerinsky thing. I don’t know about David, but I do know that Hugh Hewitt pitched a fit on the air for two days straight, and may have been largely responsible for the current state of affairs.
Chemerinsky said on Hewitt’s show, obviously moved, that he had received a flood of supportive e-mails from Hugh’s listeners, saying “I don’t agree with your politics, but I do agree with academic freedom, so I support your appointment.”
Hugh says of Chemerinsky that he’s dead wrong about everything, but man, what a Constitutional scholar. Mind like a steel trap, and that he’d make an ideal dean or whatever of the new law school. No animosity, no condescension (the part about him being dead wrong is more trash talk and good-natured ribbing than anything), and a dedication to principle over ideology that is rarely seen on the Left, I’m afraid.
Since Larry Summers has apparently committed a crime against women, we might as well quote from the incendiary speech that got him into so much trouble:
“…if one is talking about physicists at a top twenty-five research university, one is not even talking about people who are two standard deviations above the mean…it’s talking about people who are three and a half, four standard deviations above the mean in the one in 5,000, one in 10,000 class. Even small differences in the standard deviation will translate into very large differences in the available pool…”
And from that same outrageous speech:
“Surely there is (overt discrimination)…No one who’s been in a university department or who has been involved in personnel process can deny that this…does go on, and it is something that happens, and it is something that absolutely, vigorously needs to be combated.”
That’s the sort of talk that simply does not belong on any campus.
Dawg, TomB asked you to give the passage that makes Summers and his ideas so dangerous; I think at this point we’re all curious about that.
Here’s the speech, have at ‘er:
http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html
Morning all. Heavens, the wagon rumbles on.
Dr Dawg,
“I read Summers’ notes on women in the hard sciences… and can quite see how his mode of presenting his ideas might have created a reaction.”
But you still, even now, haven’t shown *why* that reaction was justified or credible. It seems much more obvious that the vehemence and censoriousness of the protest (and the curious lack of specifics) reflects on those protesting and their dogmatic stance, not on Summers’ speech.
“But I still maintain that his position is intellectually slovenly.”
But, again, you’ve yet to show that it is. Nothing you’ve said thus far demonstrates a remotely credible reason for such pronounced umbrage. Instead, it suggests a grossly unprofessional prickliness and intolerance among parts of the faculty. (The word “blasphemy” springs to mind, and possibly “apostate”.)
To argue that Summers’ comments might “discourage recruitment” sidesteps completely the issue of whether what he actually said is intellectually legitimate and deserving of discussion. And favouring the hypothetical hypersensitivity of hypothetical female candidates over an attempt to determine truth speaks volumes.
Dawg, you seem to have a comprehension problem. So I’ll spell it out for you. Summers made a speech. Something in that speech was so verbotten that he was let go from Harvard. Please post THE WORDS that he spoke that were so egregious that he had to be let go.
So many comments–so little time. 🙂
dicentra (and hello, by the way):
I’m aware that some principled conservatives stood up for Chermerinski. Even David Horowitz wavered a bit before reverting to type. It was a truly egregious, indefensible case. But last I heard, Norman Finkelstein is still looking for work, as is a colleague who stood up for him, and John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt are having appearances cancelled out from under them. And Daniel Pipes’ national snitch line is going full-bore.
For the record, I suspect that David is entirely consistent on academic freedom, and I don’t believe I have ever suggested otherwise. Others out there in the wide world have been–less so.
But to your other post for a moment. I am not unaware that there are specific diseases and syndromes that are gender- (and also ethnic-)related. I am thinking of androgenized female fetuses, for example, the resulting female children having a pronounced tendency to lesbianism. So I don’t want my position in this debate to be caricatured. I’m not arguing against all evidence that there is no difference between the genders when it comes to neural information-processing. Rather, I am arguing for caution.
I mentioned earlier that the Engineering faculty at McGill, when I attended many years ago, had exactly one woman enrolled in engineering. The numbers have obviously shot up since, and in math and science too. We aren’t at parity; but we are so far ahead of where we were earlier that one has to wonder whether hypotheses of “innate” this or that might be less sustainable than social hypotheses.
On the question of race, we are in essential agreement. But there are those who still argue that it’s more than skin colour, and they’re in universities, too; for example, Kevin McDonald, who thinks that Jews are genetically programmed to destroy white Christian culture, or Phillippe Rushton, who (amongst other things) raises penis size in a “racial” context as an inverse correlate of intelligence (which, by his own logic, should make gorillas the rulers of us all, but no matter). So I raised the construct of race as an analogy because it works as one in culture wars where both are salient.
My bottom line? I suspect that much of gender is a construct as well, but sexual dimorphism is an obvious fact of our species, and it may well be that some aptitudes and modes of thinking are innate. Assumptions in that respect, though, keep getting shattered. More women than men attend Canadian universities today. Fifty years ago, who’d a thunk it?
Back, then, to caution. We shouldn’t imagine that Summers was speaking as an academic, because his speech wasn’t delivered in that context, and besides, his expertise is in economics. He was speaking as a university president: he was wondering aloud whether the under-enrollment of women in engineering, science and math might have something to do with innate capacity. In that context, it was a political speech, and produced a political reaction. I think that university presidents, as public and hence political figures, should take a little more care. Summers is not a tactful man. It can be wounding to a young girl considering math as a career to have such pronouncements made by public leaders of academe. The authority of his office is an important consideration.
EBD:
I had already–twice–posted a link to that speech. It is delivered in academese, and is not composed of inflammatory rhetoric. But let me offer three examples of comments I think some women might be concerned about:
“So my sense is that the unfortunate truth-I would far prefer to believe something else, because it would be easier to address what is surely a serious social problem if something else were true-is that the combination of the high-powered job hypothesis and the differing variances probably explains a fair amount of this problem.”
“I guess my experience with my two and a half year old twin daughters who were not given dolls and who were given trucks, and found themselves saying to each other, look, daddy truck is carrying the baby truck, tells me something. And I think it’s just something that you probably have to recognize. There are two other hypotheses that are all over. One is socialization. Somehow little girls are all socialized towards nursing and little boys are socialized towards building bridges. No doubt there is some truth in that. I would be hesitant about assigning too much weight to that hypothesis… First, most of what we’ve learned from empirical psychology in the last fifteen years has been that people naturally attribute things to socialization that are in fact not attributable to socialization….”
[It’s really been the reverse over the past three or four decades. Things believed to be innate turn out to be socialization. Yup, women can thrive in the trades and make fine doctors. Yup, Blacks can be university professors.]
“If it was really the case that everybody was discriminating, there would be very substantial opportunities for a limited number of people who were not prepared to discriminate to assemble remarkable departments of high quality people at relatively limited cost simply by the act of their not discriminating, because of what it would mean for the pool that was available.”
[This is the free market argument: I’ve seen it made in other contexts to “prove” that widespread employment discrimination is a myth. What Summers is ignoring, besides the fact that a free market as such doesn not exist and never has, is the two-fold nature of discrimination. On the one hand, those with power, such as employers, can discriminate. On the other, those in groups that have suffered historical discrimination can internalize that discrimination and see themselves as inferior or incapable. The same thing is true in non-gender and non-racial contexts: the barriers, for example, to working-class university attendance are not solely financial. This is a long side-discussion, though.]
David:
I’ve made some of my points above. But I would hold to my characterization of Summers’ speech. He notes, for example, that enrollments of women in the disciplines under discussion have risen substantially; in the next breath, he doubts that socialization (and discrimination) have anything to do with current under-enrollments. How did such enrollemtns ever rise in the first place? (Yes, he offers handwaves to the effect that discrimination exists, but in the context of his speech, that seems to be merely tactical.) So it’s as though discrimination passed the baton to innate characteristics when enrollments allegedly peaked. (What evidence is there, by the way, in the long term, that enrollments have indeed peaked at 25% or so?)
As for the free market argument, why not apply it to the employment of Blacks say fifty years ago? If we assume that there are a lot of bright, capable Blacks around, and that there always have been, how did the market fail them so utterly? Why did it take civil rights marches and legislation?
But let me re-iterate a point that might have been lost in all this. I understand very much the indignation of academic women who have probably fought the hard fight against discrimination to get where they were, in a lot of cases. No one should be surprised by it. To be upset by the passion of some women in this case seems odd to me. I still think, however, that arguing with Summers beats driving him from the dinner-table.
Dr Dawg,
“I’ve made some of my points above.”
And how we gasped at the damning evidence of his wickedness.
Despite all this time and effort, you’ve unearthed nothing remotely offensive or “slovenly” in Summers’ speech. He basically says that recent developments in a number of fields suggest that the argument for social conditioning, so beloved of the left, has, in some cases, been overstated. This seems to be a fairly unremarkable observation – one that’s supported by my own experience and that of several friends. Clearly, you don’t *like* what he said. But even if one disagrees with particular points he makes, or implications thereof, one couldn’t in good faith claim to be “offended” or “outraged” by anything he said. In order to construe Summers’ comments as “offensive” or grossly ignorant, or maliciously intended, one would have to have a dogmatic, quasi-religious belief in social conditioning as the sole explanation for differences in aptitude and gender performance. Such a position, however modish or obligatory, would itself be hugely tendentious, unrealistic and absurd.
“I think that university presidents, as public and hence political figures, should take a little more care.”
A comforting sentiment, I’m sure.
“It can be wounding to a young girl considering math as a career to have such pronouncements made by public leaders of academe… To be upset by the passion of some women in this case seems odd to me.”
It’s reassuring to know that your disregard for classical liberal values is, once again, in the service of some poor, defenceless underdog who will, no doubt, be “wounded”. How soft and helpless those would-be mathematicians must be. What seems odd to me, suspicious even, is that supposedly intelligent women – tenured, statusful professors – should resort to such dishonest and authoritarian measures in order to silence a viewpoint and punish the man who voiced it, rather than testing those ideas in open debate. In my naïveté I’d assumed that a place of supposed intellectual excellence would be more interested in the open testing of ideas than in dogma, censorship and the pretentious cosseting of designated victim groups. My, how far we’ve come. Those ladies must be proud. What a credit to womanhood.
In case anyone missed it, here’s Camille Paglia’s commentary on the sorry episode:
http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/005941.html
David:
Given your propensity for accusing me of erecting straw men in th past, it seems to me that you might, in this instance, want to look in the mirror. I have never argued that Summers was “wicked,” nor that his remarks were “malicious” in intent. I am not “outraged” easily, either. Nor, as I have pointed out more than once in this very thread, do I take the absolutist position that *only* social conditioning defines behaviour. So let’s torch this beast and move on.
Why judging the effects of the pronouncements of powerful authority figures makes me illiberal is anyone’s guess. I think it’s a matter of simple observation. The women who have expressed passionate objection to Summers have, I suspect, engaged in precisely the debates that you favour all of their professional lives. Perhaps they’re a little tired of them by now, when uttered as pronouncements by university presidents in public settings. It’s not as though Summers said anything new, after all. In other words, these women are simply pissed off. This appears to surprise and shock you. So be it.
Do you think that the notion of power relations in society is a mere invention arising from the febrile brains of feminists and post-modernists? Do you think that Summers’ position of authority had nothing to do with the reaction to, and possibly the effect of, his remarks? I don’t believe in being “protective” of anyone in this context, but being respectful is another matter. And a young woman looking for a career in mathematics might think twice about applying to an institution that holds that underrepresentation of women in the mathematics department there is genetic in origin.
Dr Dawg,
The terms I quoted are those used by Stanton and other protestors. It’s your willingness to defend their shameful and unprofessional behaviour, based on little substance we can see, that is in question. That, and your readiness to make allusions to “male authority” and to repeatedly describe Summers as a “powerful authority figure”, while not acknowledging the overtly coercive and dishonest use of status and authority by those protesting. Clearly, they were far from helpless. How righteous they must feel.
David:
I think we’re talking past each other. People are more than the sum of their professional qualifications and their abilities to engage in the civil debate that you champion. Sometimes they’re just human, and react viscerally when provoked–as do you and I on occasion, I suspect. That’s also part of life on campus, and off.
“I think we’re talking past each other.”
Let’s let the viewers at home decide. Push the red button now.
Some music, perhaps. http://fp.ignatz.plus.com/japsong.mp3
Shorter David: Feminists strove for years to chip away at the orthodoxy that “women can’t” do thus and so because of their soft brains and dispositions. But now that they’ve been able to establish their own orthodoxy of social constructionism, they’re just as obtuse and protective as those they sought to depose and use the same odious tactics to enforce that orthodoxy as their predecessors.
Shorter Dr Dawg: They ought to have behaved thus because what Summers said is beyond the pale. The orthodoxy is correct, and challenges thereto are not worthy of consideration.
Well, with respect, that’s rather *too* short, to the point of inaccuracy. I don’t buy into “orthodox” anything. I have already stated how I would have handled the Summers dinner that wasn’t. And I simply pointed out that I’m not surprised that Summers elicited this kind of reaction from people who’ve been hearing this sort of stuff for years (there was, to repeat, absolutely nothing new in Summers’ remarks), and who have fought hard to get where they were despite it.
It seems that some people would rather caricature my arguments than actually *read* them. Maybe they’ll run out of straw eventually.
This may not be fun, in the usual sense, but it sure is compelling.
Dawg, earlier in the thread you stated that you have a “problem” with any suggestion that particular abilities might be “unequally distributed” by gender.
Later in the thread you wrote, in an exasperated-ish tone suggesting you’ve been clear on the matter all along, that you “do not take the absolutist position that only social conditioning defines behaviour.”
I’m going to assume — just for a moment, it’ll pass — that the most recent statement is in fact your position. Question: If social conditioning is *not* the only factor in determining aptitudes and abilities, what might the other factor(s) be?
My position, EBD, is that I have a problem simply *assuming* that particular abilities–and in these discussions it’s always the ones we happen to prize–are unequally distributed by gender (or race). That doesn’t mean that I necessarily assume that there are no differences of neural processing or of behaviour between the genders. There may well be. In fact there almost certainly are–simply saying “no, there aren’t,” which I sensed some were accusing me of saying, or implying, is dogmatic. Just show me, is all. And when you have, show me how such differences translate into differing *abilities.* (The distinction between behaviours and abilities seems to be getting lost in here as well.)
Those assumptions were more commonplace 50 years ago. Differences in performance had nothing to do with socialization, etc.–they were just how people *were.* I’m wary of making the same mistake over and over again. Since that time, women have found their way, in increasing numbers, into “male” professions. We (and by that I mean some of us) have come to realize that socialization plays a significant role in observed behaviour and ability.
So: while I assent to the possibility that the genders are different, with respect to neural processing and so on, I remain highly sceptical of claims to this effect being used to rationalize differing rates of success in the professions (for example). (*Sceptical,* I said, which some people here manage to translate as “politicially correct/orthodox.”) If you want to make a case to the contrary–prove it. Summers, with his silly talk of Mommy trucks and Daddy trucks, did no such thing. Neither, back in the day, did Donald Hebb, who stated that McGill had so few women in the faculty because McGill was a “research-oriented university,” a pretty good example of petitio principii, and the sort of nonsense of which Stanton and the others have obviously had a bellyful.
Sometimes, when analysis paralysis sets in, it can be useful to revisit the undergirding issues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCIyzNISw1Q
While it would certainly be interesting to see what effect, if any, biological and psychological variables have on various types of gender performance disparity, a definitive answer isn’t necessary for the purposes of this particular discussion. Nor, I think, is it necessary as a basis for a staffing policy based on merit.
As I said earlier, to presume some ‘natural’ 1:1 gender ratio would itself be a prejudice, albeit a modish one. It would, for instance, be bizarre to assume that quotas or “affirmative action” are required to “correct” an “unrepresentative” ratio of men to women in elite chess tournaments. The unequal number of male and female chess grandmasters cannot, in itself, be taken as evidence of some unfair systemic bias. (There *may* be unfair discrimination, of course, and any number of cultural variables; but my point is that unfair discrimination can’t be determined just from the ratio of top-rate male and female players, which is something like 100:1.)
What matters – the only thing that really matters – is that men and women of comparable skill and motivation compete fairly for employment (or in chess championships). Whether or not meritocratic selection has been achieved cannot be determined by whether or not gender parity results, since we have no solid basis on which to say that gender parity should be the meritocratic outcome. Whether fair competition based on ability leads to 1:1 gender parity, or a ratio of 100 male chess grandmasters for every female one, is surely beside the point?
David:
“Whether or not meritocratic selection has been achieved cannot be determined by whether or not gender parity results.”
Which of course is a key issue. But as someone who has actively studied the notion of “merit” in the Canadian public service, I can assure you that this is not an unproblematic notion in itself. Judgments about “merit” in that forum include “personal suitability” as a selection factor. Will the candidate fit in? You can see the dangers.
No doubt the merit principle was in full operation back in the days when women in the hard sciences were a rarity. And no doubt it’s in full swing now, when there are more women than men enrolled at university (if not in the senior ranks of tenured faculty).
“Merit” is anything but an objective set of criteria, objectively applied. You are right, though, to assert that the fairness of the process cannot be simply judged by its outcomes. But one’s suspicions can still be aroused, particularly over a lengthy period of time in which the same notion of “merit” has presumably been in place, but women are making an increasing mark in the hard sciences, mathematics and engineering, with vastly increased enrollments and much larger numbers of academic faculty. We really only have two explanations to choose from in the light of that observation: either the genetic inheritance of women has somehow improved in the past thirty years, or some social filter was at play earlier.
So when I see a supposedly “objective” selection system result in significantly different outcomes for gender (or “race”), I might want to look at the thing more closely. By itself, I agree it isn’t *proof* of anything: but it does arouse my suspicions. One doesn’t need to insist on a 50/50 outcome from the start to poke around to see if there are systemic biases at work. There obviously were some in academe in the 1950s and 1960s.
“Will the candidate fit in? You can see the dangers.”
Very much so. (See our discussion re Carolyn Guertin.) That’s why I mentioned elite chess, where a pronounced gender difference exists, but where criteria and performance are much easier to determine.
“You are right, though, to assert that the fairness of the process cannot be simply judged by its outcomes… One doesn’t need to insist on a 50/50 outcome from the start to poke around to see if there are systemic biases at work.”
Sweet mother of God. I do believe we’ve agreed on something. Free cake for everyone.
The way I see it, the icing on the cake is that everyone here has consistently agreed that no person should be denied the opportunity to pursue any legal direction, objective, or goal of theirs by any mechanism or methodology of institutional bias based on gender or race. We also all agree, I think, that statistics do not prejudge individuals.
Furthermore, everyone but one here agrees, if I’m not mistaken, with Summers’ observation that it is reasonable to conjecture that there may be some genetically correlated statistical observations that can be made about some kinds of behaviour in some cases.
Using Shannon’s definition of information, the interesting thing about this discussion is therefore the one exception. Why is there this exception?
Sir Wilfrid Laurier (Canada’s best historic prime minister so far) once said, “Experience has established that institutions, which at the outset were useful, often end by becoming intolerable abuses owing to the simple fact that everything around them has changed […] and they have not”.
Last June, Thomas Sowell wrote, “The sad and tragic fact is that the civil rights movement, despite its honorable and courageous past, has over the years degenerated into a demagogic hustle, promoting the mindless racism they once fought against”.
I think the reason for the singular exception to the norm here is its institutional relationship to (if I may paraphrase Mr. Sowell), the sad and tragic fact that the womens’ rights movement, despite its honorable and courageous past, has over the years degenerated into a demagogic hustle, promoting the mindless sexism they once fought against.
The above gentrified and selective re-statement of what Summers said–and the rather obvious sidestepping of the institutional context in which he said it–is another reason one should avoid serious discussions with some folks. Thankfully, Tony appears to be a “singular exception” here.
Who is this Tony you keep referring to, Dr. Dawg? No one has commented here as Tony, or been referenced in any link as Tony.
Very well, if you would prefer not to be called by your name, that’s fine by me. Get your facts straight about the SSHRCC and my long-ago association with it, and we’ll call it even.
Given that you comment as Dr. Dawg, I would assume that you also wish to use the cloak of anonymity to avoid being called by your name. I respect that. But given that I know your name, and have never divulged it on the web, I consider your behaviour above to be hypocritical.
Meanwhile, if you wish to critique my long-ago associations with, say, the IEEE or the ACM, go ahead. I will address them as they arise. I will not withdraw my criticism of the agenda of the SSHRC and those who promulgate similar snake-oil.
I would have no problem with your using my real name. “Dr.Dawg” is a nom de plume, not a disguise. I use it to try to avoid taking myself too seriously. You might consider something similar.
You have no idea what the SSHRCC is, do you? For the rest of you: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is merely a government granting agency, not a cabal. It doesn’t even make public or academic policy. Dirigisme is a dirty word in those quarters. No agenda; no conspiracy. Move along, nothing to see here. Ignore the long-haired fellow raving outside the building. 🙂
For sure, watch out for that long hair, ladies and gentlemen, just don’t tell Leonardo da Vinci: http://tinyurl.com/yth6ho
Oh, and while you’re at it, you might also not want to mention it to Dimitriy Ivanovich Mendeleyev: http://tinyurl.com/2cvgzf
And don’t forget, as Don Ho sings (as I believe it’s sung in these parts) “The Hammock Calls”, it’s “merely a government granting agency”. No risk there, eh what?
I’m guessing you guys have, um, history.
Perhaps this is a good time to remind patrons of the house rules. No spitting. No biting. No heavy petting. If anyone is caught dealing drugs, the house takes 20%. Scratch that. 30%.
And now some music. http://fp.ignatz.plus.com/marple.mp3
Roger that. Actually, the only history is what I’ve read on this here intarweb thingy. Anyway, thanks for being such a gracious host, David, and for the cake and music. Vitruvius out.
I’ve spent all day recovering from your “heavy petting” notion. In fact I may need another day.
Sorry, David, but it seems to me that you’re trying to have it both ways. You serve cake, and you act like you’re trying to calm down a volatile situation, but then you crank up a song clearly meant to incite violence.
Who *are* you?