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Пишет Journal de Chaource (![[info]](http://lj.rossia.org/img/syndicated.gif){kind=small} lj_chaource)@ 2015-07-07 22:07:00 |
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What did Larry Summers actually say back in 2005?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/0
Larry Summers, then president of Harvard University, had to resign in part because of a speech he made in a small seminar. In this speech, he somehow was perceived to be insufficiently politically correct with respect to women's rights.
Summers made several points that were heavily qualified and carefully phrased. He said that there are three factors responsible for under-representation of women in academia, and he ordered these factors in the order of their significance:
first, women tend to select jobs that are less demanding than academic jobs - women prefer occupations that do not require long hours and a constant attention to your job even while you are on vacation, women avoid occupations where even a couple of years of parental leave will destroy your career, etc.;
second, some studies indicate that the variability (i.e. standard deviation of test results) of women's scientific aptitudes is smaller than that of men, which means that there are more men who are either really bad or really outstanding than women who are really bad or outstanding at science, - and this would automatically lead to significantly more available men than women with scientific aptitude in top 0.1%, say;
third, there is still some vestige of the traditional socialization of women, i.e. people suggesting to the women what a "woman's job" is, or preferring men for certain occupations (i.e. gender discrimination), and this is still a factor in under-representation of women, - but not the main factor.
Feminists were enraged that Summers rejected the dogma that discrimination and traditional socialization are the principal factors of under-representation of women in academic science. In order to disprove his point of view, some people have presented Summers's statement about variability of aptitudes as a statement about the absolute levels of aptitude ("Summers said that women are genetically bad at science"). Quora (in my view, a very disreputable source) presents a scathing commentary to the effect that Summers wanted to say that women are genetically worse than men in science, but intentionally made his statement more mathematical and thus confusing, by talking about "variability" instead.
Summers tried to explain later that his statements were hypotheses about scientific facts, - hypotheses motivated by current data and subject to further experimental tests. This was not acceptable either: ideological dogmas cannot be subject to experimental tests. Summers said merely that the observed facts were consistent with a certain set of hypotheses. He had to apologize for that (!). He said he "regrets to have spoken that way". In other words, he regrets that he did not merely repeat the ideological dogma but instead followed the scientific method when talking about the under-representation of women in academic science!
The full transcript is here,
http://www.harvard.edu/president/speeche
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/0
Larry Summers, then president of Harvard University, had to resign in part because of a speech he made in a small seminar. In this speech, he somehow was perceived to be insufficiently politically correct with respect to women's rights.
Summers made several points that were heavily qualified and carefully phrased. He said that there are three factors responsible for under-representation of women in academia, and he ordered these factors in the order of their significance:
first, women tend to select jobs that are less demanding than academic jobs - women prefer occupations that do not require long hours and a constant attention to your job even while you are on vacation, women avoid occupations where even a couple of years of parental leave will destroy your career, etc.;
second, some studies indicate that the variability (i.e. standard deviation of test results) of women's scientific aptitudes is smaller than that of men, which means that there are more men who are either really bad or really outstanding than women who are really bad or outstanding at science, - and this would automatically lead to significantly more available men than women with scientific aptitude in top 0.1%, say;
third, there is still some vestige of the traditional socialization of women, i.e. people suggesting to the women what a "woman's job" is, or preferring men for certain occupations (i.e. gender discrimination), and this is still a factor in under-representation of women, - but not the main factor.
Feminists were enraged that Summers rejected the dogma that discrimination and traditional socialization are the principal factors of under-representation of women in academic science. In order to disprove his point of view, some people have presented Summers's statement about variability of aptitudes as a statement about the absolute levels of aptitude ("Summers said that women are genetically bad at science"). Quora (in my view, a very disreputable source) presents a scathing commentary to the effect that Summers wanted to say that women are genetically worse than men in science, but intentionally made his statement more mathematical and thus confusing, by talking about "variability" instead.
Summers tried to explain later that his statements were hypotheses about scientific facts, - hypotheses motivated by current data and subject to further experimental tests. This was not acceptable either: ideological dogmas cannot be subject to experimental tests. Summers said merely that the observed facts were consistent with a certain set of hypotheses. He had to apologize for that (!). He said he "regrets to have spoken that way". In other words, he regrets that he did not merely repeat the ideological dogma but instead followed the scientific method when talking about the under-representation of women in academic science!
The full transcript is here,
http://www.harvard.edu/president/speeche
