...is unscientific. Jay Schalin of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy comments:
One of the “more-women-in-science” movement’s
leading lights, Susan Rosser, the dean of Georgia Tech’s college of
arts and sciences, spoke on the topic at UNC-Chapel Hill recently.
According to Rosser and other feminist proponents of the movement, the
“real” explanations why men dominate the world of scientific inquiry
are cultural traditions, overt sexual discrimination, and unwitting
bias—not biology.
Rosser identified a number of factors that, she said, contribute to the disparities in science: women’s tendency to dislike competition, their need to feel some sort of connection with the subject they are studying, their tendency to not isolate problems without context, their desire for social relevance, and the insecurities they tend to feel in such a male-dominated world.
It almost seems as if she was saying that women are too emotional for the world of science the way it is presently constituted. If Larry Summers had dared to suggest such a thing along with his other comments, getting hounded out of his job by campus feminists would have been the least of his worries—he might have been stomped to death and dragged through the streets until there was nothing left of his lifeless body.
[...]
Most important is another established concept (it was Summers’ observations about this tendency that drew the ire of his antagonists)—that males have a greater variability in intelligence. They are more likely to have very high IQs or very low IQs, even if the averages are the same. And very high IQs are something of a prerequisite for making scientific breakthroughs and technical innovations. (Very low IQs are also a frequent contributing factor in other endeavors that men tend to excel at more than women, such as going to jail.)
[...]
Other research suggests that the differences run far deeper than Western cultural influences. One advocate of this more traditional “nature” (versus nurture) view is David Geary, a cognitive developmental psychologist at the University of Missouri who specializes in mathematical learning and in evolution. Speaking at an American Enterprise Institute forum on this very issue, he pointed out that males in the vast majority of species tend to be more competitive, a result of mating patterns in which males must compete for the attention of women. Think of male mountain sheep ramming their heads together in mating season to assert dominance—that pretty much sums up the male outlook when it comes to competition. Females of any species rarely exhibit such mind-numbing competitive streaks.
Rosser wants competition de-emphasized, to make the classroom more comfortable to females. She would also like to see less classroom focus on concepts like “right and wrong” and “black and white,” a bizarre notion to promote in a world where synapses fire neurotransmitters or they don’t, the molecules combine or they don’t, and the software compiles or it doesn’t.
High native intelligence and the competitive impulse are not the only things that determine the proclivity toward scientific inquiry. It is also a matter of individual preferences, according to Geary. He said, “It’s also important to consider …what you’re good at. So, what you decide to do, what you like in school, the occupations you may choose later on, is going to not only depend on what you’re good at relative to other people, but what you’re good at relative to the other skills that you have.”
He explained that quantitative reasoning, and spatial abilities are the “best skill” of 23-24 percent of men, but only “about 6 percent or so” of women. Numerical reasoning is what “9 percent or so of men” do best, but is the best skill for only “2 or 3 percent of women.”
[...]
Perhaps the key to producing more scientists in our society is not some sort of feminist Manhattan Project to produce more women scientists, but rather to promote science universally to all young students, and let those who have talent and inclinations in a given field pursue them. Let men and women contribute in the proportions that occur naturally. Despite the intentions of central planners everywhere, it is probably best if society organizes itself along such free market principles even if the results don’t match preconceived notions of political correctness. To insist that women achieve some sort of numerical parity or better in all fields of science will hurt women, science, and society.
Rosser identified a number of factors that, she said, contribute to the disparities in science: women’s tendency to dislike competition, their need to feel some sort of connection with the subject they are studying, their tendency to not isolate problems without context, their desire for social relevance, and the insecurities they tend to feel in such a male-dominated world.
It almost seems as if she was saying that women are too emotional for the world of science the way it is presently constituted. If Larry Summers had dared to suggest such a thing along with his other comments, getting hounded out of his job by campus feminists would have been the least of his worries—he might have been stomped to death and dragged through the streets until there was nothing left of his lifeless body.
[...]
Most important is another established concept (it was Summers’ observations about this tendency that drew the ire of his antagonists)—that males have a greater variability in intelligence. They are more likely to have very high IQs or very low IQs, even if the averages are the same. And very high IQs are something of a prerequisite for making scientific breakthroughs and technical innovations. (Very low IQs are also a frequent contributing factor in other endeavors that men tend to excel at more than women, such as going to jail.)
[...]
Other research suggests that the differences run far deeper than Western cultural influences. One advocate of this more traditional “nature” (versus nurture) view is David Geary, a cognitive developmental psychologist at the University of Missouri who specializes in mathematical learning and in evolution. Speaking at an American Enterprise Institute forum on this very issue, he pointed out that males in the vast majority of species tend to be more competitive, a result of mating patterns in which males must compete for the attention of women. Think of male mountain sheep ramming their heads together in mating season to assert dominance—that pretty much sums up the male outlook when it comes to competition. Females of any species rarely exhibit such mind-numbing competitive streaks.
Rosser wants competition de-emphasized, to make the classroom more comfortable to females. She would also like to see less classroom focus on concepts like “right and wrong” and “black and white,” a bizarre notion to promote in a world where synapses fire neurotransmitters or they don’t, the molecules combine or they don’t, and the software compiles or it doesn’t.
High native intelligence and the competitive impulse are not the only things that determine the proclivity toward scientific inquiry. It is also a matter of individual preferences, according to Geary. He said, “It’s also important to consider …what you’re good at. So, what you decide to do, what you like in school, the occupations you may choose later on, is going to not only depend on what you’re good at relative to other people, but what you’re good at relative to the other skills that you have.”
He explained that quantitative reasoning, and spatial abilities are the “best skill” of 23-24 percent of men, but only “about 6 percent or so” of women. Numerical reasoning is what “9 percent or so of men” do best, but is the best skill for only “2 or 3 percent of women.”
[...]
Perhaps the key to producing more scientists in our society is not some sort of feminist Manhattan Project to produce more women scientists, but rather to promote science universally to all young students, and let those who have talent and inclinations in a given field pursue them. Let men and women contribute in the proportions that occur naturally. Despite the intentions of central planners everywhere, it is probably best if society organizes itself along such free market principles even if the results don’t match preconceived notions of political correctness. To insist that women achieve some sort of numerical parity or better in all fields of science will hurt women, science, and society.
Quotas--in education, in employment, and elsewhere, dictate equal outcomes based on incidental characteristics rather than unique individual merits and attributes. This is the result when liberty succumbs to equality. When freedom of the pursuit of happiness takes a backseat to socially engineered outcomes, then the peoples' unalienable rights will have been usurped by the government. And such government can never be said to have the consent of the people, having assumed unjust and despotic power for itself.
On the other hand, with all the talk about Title IX for science, maybe we should have a distinct Women's Science program, akin to separate women's college athletic teams, and the LPGA and the WNBA.
