<p>ID, there's nothing in the transcript that even comes close to your mischaractarization of Summers' statement. I'm surprised to see you post something like this.</p>
<p>"He's grabbing at any "theory" he can to support his opinions. He's trotted out the "too busy having babies", the "not smart enough", and the "better at playing with dolls" rationalizations, all in one glorious fell swoop of arrrogance."</p>
<p>Chinaman, you should really read the report in the NY Times. The faculty does not view this latest issue as the primary one, but rather his intimidating, threatening, disrespectful "leadership" of the faculty. (I am not taking their position but summarizing my understanding of their complaints). Unless one is going to take the position that Summers is right and the majority of the Harvard faculty are wrong, then I think that such knee-jerk anti-"liberal" tirades as yours are just as silly as the ultra-PC ones are on the other side. As someone else said, the guy is just a lightning rod for controversy--he invites it, he seems to enjoy it, and if that is what the Harvard trustees want fine, but I suspect that you are going to see some tenured faculty departing, and attracting women in particular and outstanding faculty candidates in general is going to pose a new challenge to Harvard. </p>
<p>On the issue of the day, I was troubled by Summers ranking his reasons for the lack of women in science and saying that he thought the innate differences were the second most important. To me that says a lot about his mindset on the issue. I agree that the research being done on brain development is fascinating and may explain some differences between men and women, but I am not aware of any conclusive or even strong evidence on this that could lead to the conclusion he reached. I may be going way out on a limb here, but I would really like to see the percentages of young Asian men and women going into science and math fields. I know that in our area, the top students are usually Asian, period, and the girls are just as strong as the boys. I really think that some of what we are seeing in the maths and sciences is an American cultural phenomenon. I don't know the statistics from Asian countries as to the proportion of men to women in math and sciences--does anyone else?</p>
<p>Anyone who has met Summers knows that he ****es off most everyone he comes into contact with. He was famous for this in Washington. A recent book suggests he may have Aspergers syndrome as he has unbelievably poor social skills. He presents as arrogant beyond belief.</p>
<p>A more loveable guy might well have weathered the storms Summer finds himself in, but I think this is just going to serve to get a man out who is not a good leader in an academic setting. </p>
<p>He'll be brilliant on Wall Street and his arrogance won't even be noticed.</p>
<p>"Chinaman, you should really read the report in the NY Times."</p>
<p>Actually, you should really read the real transcript, instead of allowing the NYT set the context for you with selective quotes and personal interpretation.</p>
<p>Also, anyone who thinks the issue raised by Summers about motherhood vs. 80-hr weeks is not a real factor in this needs to turn off NPR, put down the NYT, and get out more.</p>
<p>patient:</p>
<p>I will read the article. But I still beilve that the faculy is using this to get what they want" To remove summers". Most of the faculty in Harvrad is ultra liberal. Very few faculty members are conservatives. We need a balance in life. And political coreectness is clouding everything</p>
<p>This whole furor reminds me of a comment made by William Buckley many years ago.</p>
<p>I would rather be governed by the first 200 names in the Boston phone book, than by the Harvard faculty.</p>
<p>It may be truer now than it was then.</p>
<p>Patient -</p>
<p>At the end of the NY Times article I linked to, there was a quick mention of other countries and their math performances (male/female). </p>
<p>"But average scores varied wildly from place to place and
from one subcategory of math to the next. Japanese girls,
for example, were on par with Japanese boys on every math
section save that of "uncertainty," which measures
probabilistic skills, and Japanese girls scored higher over
all than did the boys of many other nations, including the
United States. </p>
<p>In Iceland, girls broke the mold completely and outshone
Icelandic boys by a significant margin on all parts of the
test, as they habitually do on their national math exams.
"We have no idea why this should be so," said Almar Midvik
Halldorsson, project manager for the Educational Testing
Institute in Iceland. </p>
<p>Interestingly, in Iceland and everywhere else, girls
participating in the survey expressed far more negative
attitudes toward math."</p>
<p>As I said... it's hard for me to attribute this all to biology. Worse yet: </p>
<p>"Dr. Urry cited a 1983 study in which 360 people - half men,
half women - rated mathematics papers on a five-point
scale. On average, the men rated them a full point higher
when the author was "John T. McKay" than when the author
was "Joan T. McKay." There was a similar, but smaller
disparity in the scores the women gave....</p>
<p>A recent experiment showed that when Princeton students
were asked to evaluate two highly qualified candidates for
an engineering job - one with more education, the other
with more work experience - they picked the more educated
candidate 75 percent of the time. But when the candidates
were designated as male or female, and the educated
candidate bore a female name, suddenly she was preferred
only 48 percent of the time."</p>
<p>Iceland is clearly prime ground for future Harvard female faculty recruitment, but with a population of around 250,000 they may not be willing to let their math stars go so easily. But in all seriousness, Ariesathena is at least responding to Summers in the way that he encouraged....with data, counter-theories, etc. So why can't the Harvard faculty respond with similar maturity? And has anyone else read the actual Summers transcript, or are you all just relying on NYTimes drek?</p>
<p>* n Iceland, girls broke the mold completely and outshone
Icelandic boys by a significant margin on all parts of the
test, as they habitually do on their national math exams.*</p>
<p>It appears that this piece of evidence (and the others cited
in the NYT article) have to do with comparison of MEAN (average)
performance on the exams.</p>
<p>This does not address Summers' second hypothesis at all.</p>
<p>Even if women had a somewhat higher MEAN performance on the
exam, if men have a substantitally higher standard deviation, then then men
would still be overrepresented IN BOTH TAILS OF THE DISTRIBUTION,
both upper and lower.</p>
<p>He is not talking about the mean, but about the standard distribution.</p>
<p>By construction of the IQ test, by the way, the mean male and female
scores are identical. (That's because they toss out questions that would
skew the mean score in one direction or the other as "gender-biased.")</p>
<p>However, the standard deviation is higher for males than for females.</p>
<p>This means that if you take a sample of students with IQs below, say, 70,
males will be overrepresented. </p>
<p>It also means that if you take a sample of students with IQs above, say 130,
males will again be overrepresented.</p>
<p>But if you take a representative sample of the entire population, the average IQ for males and females will be the same.</p>
<p>EDIT: So, even in Iceland, where female math scores average higher than male math scores, if the males have substanially higher variability (as measured by standard deviation), one would expect that men will be overrepresented at the extreme right and left tails of the distribution.</p>
<p>
[quote]
By construction of the IQ test, by the way, the mean male and female scores are identical. (That's because they toss out questions that would skew the mean score in one direction or the other as "gender-biased.")
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That highlights a danger in the whole notion of precise standardized testing. For the sake of discussion, let's assume that the "median" girl is really "smarter" than the median boy. If you now adjust the test so that median girls and median boys score exactly the same, you have just designed a test with a male gender bias. Girls will now be penalized by the design of the test.</p>
<p>The other flaw with the whole standardized testing hypothesis is one of degree. For example, suppose Dr. Summer is correct and, at the high end, boys test statistically better than girls. By how much? I would guess that it is a very small amount, maybe a few percentage points.</p>
<p>But, Harvard's faculty is 29% female, 71% male. This is a disparity that would dwarf any statistical differences in measurable "intelligence". A difference of this magnitude in a large sample can only be explained by other factors. Logically, One would have to consider the strong possibility of an historical bias in the selection process as a primary contributor. Of course, that would not be a huge leap of logic, given that the university in question barred women from enrollment for the vast majority of its history, de facto evidence of a long-standing institutional bias.</p>
<p>Interesteddad, that's why there has been a lot of furor and controversy over the purpose of standardized testing, such as the SAT and ACT. Colleges, selective and non-selective, use these arbitrary test measures to choose which students make the cut (this practice is even more notorious at public, large universities where their admissions is numbers-driven). Women and URM minorities on average do more poorly than white males when it comes to these tests. Yet, when you interview these women and minorities in person and look at their overall academic record, they are just as capable and intelligent to do well in college. I'm not against testing, but reliance on it can be very detrimental and biased.</p>
<p>I applaud universities who place less emphasis on standardizing testing and take a holistic approach in how to view applicants: the whole package. The SAT and other tests have always been designed to benefit males. Someone's score on the SAT should not dictate they are "innately inferior" or incapable of achieving in school.</p>
<p>ID, you really need to read the real transcript. I refer you to paragraph four. His hypothesis is far more sophisticated and couched than your caricature. His observation, derived from studies by others, which he cites, deals not with statistical averages or means, but with "deviations," as Homeschoolmom has pointed out. It seems that the really amazing deviations--2,3,4 factors from the mean--both at the high levels sought by top schools and the low levels that perhaps contribute to violent crime--are mostly males. This is not saying that women can't do science, or can't commit horrible crimes. And if there is data to refute Summers' sources, the mature academic thing for a world-class tenured faculty to do would be to cite such sources. Not engage in mass petulance. But even more important, he's not throwing this out as doctrine! To the contrary, he says it's just his own best guess, and that he's quite possibly wrong. And he invites and encourages refutation. This was, you know, a "conference" of great intellectuals, who were supposedly going to engage in some give and take.</p>
<p>As to the faculty gender disparity you mention, he addresses this as well. I refer you to the pentultimate paragraph, wherein he makes extensive suggestions as to methodology for evaluating the selection process. But you really have to read the whole thing, which won't take any longer than reading some tendentious NYT article.</p>
<p>
[quote]
ID, you really need to read the real transcript.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Driver, I had already read it (twice) before commenting. I had to read it a second time because, frankly, I was stunned that the President of Harvard would make those comments, so stunned that I wanted to make sure I was reading him correctly.</p>
<p>As many here know, I am no fan of affirmative action quotas. I have no problem with a suggestion that getting to reasonable male/female balance is going to take some time for the recently all-male bastions of academe. I agree with Dr. Summers that you shouldn't compromise quality in order to drive the issue faster than it can be driven. I even buy his "too busy with babies" argument to a point, although I think it is an argument that speaks more to the quality of life issues in PhD programs for all grad students, than to women. Where is his leadership on THIS widely-recognized issue? (I also have serious doubts that many tenured Harvard professors put in 80 hours a week at the old rockpile).</p>
<p>Having said that. My overriding impression of Dr. Summers' speech is that he is a man who does not believe in his heart that women are as capable as men and he is reaching out for every justification he can find. I would be more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt if he had exhibited leadership on the issue at Harvard. But, his track record is apparently abysmal.</p>
<p>I initially applauded his questioning of the African-American studies department. While I do think that these departments tend to get a free-ride when it comes to oversight, I can't help but now question Dr. Summers' motivations. Was the "white male" arrogance displayed in his speech on women being poorly suited for high-level academic careers also the motivation for his dressing-down of Cornell West? It is troubling to ponder, but maybe this is a guy who simply believes that certain folk have their "place"? There are people who believe that.</p>
<p>Be that as it may, his real failure as a leader at Harvard is not his views, but his style. He appears to be a man who is is politically clueless in the ultimate political setting.</p>
<p>Tenisghs:</p>
<p>I am not a reacist but I am finding that liberals are bent to destory this country by playing games. Then right wingers counter it. Why not go in the middle? So that we have sense in discussing instead of destroying people's career.</p>
<p>This country is getting more and more into liberal mode. Every one is claiming to be a vicitm. Then my question is who is master? </p>
<p>You claim that SAT is wrong for URMs. What about poor people who learn how to speak English and have no previous experience. Should they be admitted to school without taking enlish requirements. Do you think my kids and I are victim of government conspiracy. I do not think so. My kids scored very high on SAT while I was taking English classes. I could not help them. Why beacuse we wanted to succeed. Who offered help to us none but people who were willing to work hard and that includes people with all kind of races.</p>
<p>To my amazement everone wants to claim that they have been harmed by system. Why kids are not satying home and reading and preparing for classes. Why waste time on mall when you know that you can study and get scholarships out. Theen the fun loving kids call these kinds of kids nerds and make fun of them. Later on being an adult, the kids who do not want to study and work hard claim to be vicitm of the sytem. Kids whose parents immigrate from Africa, they seems to be doing fine in SAT. Why these people do not claim to eliminate SATs. </p>
<p>As far as I think in 90% cases there is no victim only people who made wrong choices. By claiming that SAT discriminate you are playing again in wrong hands. There is girl in IMO olympiad who has beaten so many kids by winning IMO gold medal. She is not a victim as she is willing to work hard. </p>
<p>This guy summer has it wrong but should not be kicked out. Remeber I am not a victim and you are not a victim. We have just our choices.</p>
<p>I must have missed the "too busy with babies" statement that you have attributed to Summers here, ad nauseum. Please help me find it, or stand corrected. It's not there.</p>
<p>"although I think it is an argument that should speak more to the quality of the workplace for all employees than to women. ."</p>
<p>The intensity of the workweek at top levels for both sexes is also addressed in the transcript you say you read. At length, and with sympathy and imagination.</p>
<p>ID,</p>
<p>Check the College Board's web site. At the top 1% level, boys outscore girls 2 to 1 on SAT1 scores for whatever that is worth. I don't know think SAT1's are all that significant but a lame sexist might use that to justify in part the 71/29 split in faculty tenure positions you cite.</p>
<p>Chinaman, before I argue with you, please read these articles by Tim Wise on the SAT, cultural and educational performance and immigrants "succeeding" in America. While he refers to Asians and Asian-Americans, the same can be applied to all immigrants who come to America for opportunity and refuge. I have outlined a few paragraphs that pretty much sums up why comparing immigrants to native-born American blacks is not only a lost clause but ignores realities of racial discrimination and prejudices. </p>
<p>Not-So-Little White Lies: Education and the Myth of Black Anti-Intellectualism (11/28/02)
<a href="http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-11/26wise.cfm%5B/url%5D">http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-11/26wise.cfm</a></p>
<p>*....When kids from lower-income familieswho are disproportionately of colorcorrectly answer all math questions on a standardized test, they are no more likely to be placed in advanced or college tracks than children from upper-income families who missed a fourth of the questions, and they are 26% less likely to be placed in advanced tracks than upper-income persons with comparably perfect scores. Even the President of the College Board has acknowledged that black 8th graders with test scores comparable to whites are disproportionately placed in remedial high school classes. </p>
<p>The impact of being tracked low in school has been shown to be profound. One of the nations leading experts on tracking, Jeannie Oakes, reports that according to her own studies and those of others, being tracked low fosters reductions in student feelings of their own abilities and helps depress aspirations for the future among low-tracked students. </p>
<p>It is this context that must be considered when evaluating the tendency for some blacks to claim that getting good grades is acting white. If ones schools have repeatedly given the impression that indeed education is a white thing; that the white kids are the bright kids; that everything worth knowing about sprang out of the forehead of white Europe, and that ones own aspirations are unrealistic, it ought not be surprising that some children exposed to such racist mentalitiesand teachers who assume from the outset that not all groups are equally capable of learningmight develop a bad attitude about school. But as with most things, blaming the victims of this process will neither improve their opportunities nor alter the mechanisms by which their disempowerment is perpetuated. *</p>
<hr>
<p>Con-fusion Ethic: How Whites Use Asians to Further Anti-Black Racism (10/07/02)
<a href="http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-10/03wise.cfm%5B/url%5D">http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-10/03wise.cfm</a></p>
<p>*.....comparisons between blacks and Asian Americans overlook a number of differences between them. Whereas the African American population represents a cross-section of background and experience, the APA community is highly self-selected. Voluntary migrants from nations that are not contiguous to their country of destination tend to be those with the skills and money needed to leave their home country in the first place. As many scholars have found, Asian immigrants are largely drawn from an occupational and educational elite in their countries of origin. </p>
<p>Indeed, Asian "success" in the U.S. relative to others is largely due to immigration policies that have favored immigrants with pre-existing skills and education. As the Glass Ceiling Commission discovered in 1995, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the highly-educated APA community in the U.S. already had college degrees or were in college upon their arrival..... </p>
<p>Pre-existing educational advantages are implicated in Asian success once here; but they hardly indicate genetic or cultural superiority. After all, to claim superior Asian genes or culture as the reasons for achievement in the U.S. requires one to ignore the rampant poverty and lack of success for persons from the same genetic or cultural backgrounds in their countries of origin. There is no shortage, after all, of desperately poor Asians in the slums of Manila, Calcutta and Hong Kong: testament to the absurdity of cultural superiority claims for Asians as a group. *</p>
<hr>
<p>Failing the Test of Fairness: Institutional Racism and the SAT (08/15/02)
<a href="http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-08/12wise.cfm%5B/url%5D">http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-08/12wise.cfm</a></p>
<p>*"...In fact, whatever cultural bias the ETS has eliminated with the ban on analogies will likely be re-triggered with the addition of a writing section, whose graders no doubt will emphasize stylistically and grammatically Standard English, marking students down whose writing style employs idioms, phrases, or merely word patterns more common to communities of color. Poetic license will have no place, one suspects, on the SAT writing test. </p>
<p>Though internal cultural bias is a real phenomenon, and one that has been observed in testing for many years, the bigger issue is that supporters of the SAT presuppose that administering a standardized test to profoundly unstandardized students, from unstandardized schools, and then using results on that test to determine college placement can ever be fair..... </p>
<p>Furthermore, the announcement that Algebra II will be added to the test can only cause alarm for those concerned about the racial score gaps....As such, they wont even get around to Algebra II by the time the SAT is taken. </p>
<p>But indeed, even tracking isnt the biggest issue here. Oh sure, it matters. On the one hand it means that certain students of color will be underexposed to the kind of material found on a test like the SAT; and on the other hand it means that certain studentsespecially whites and many Asians who are presumed to be good at math early on, and thus tracked accordinglywill have an edge going in to the test......*</p>
<p>ID, I'd be interested in knowing which quotations from the Summers transcript so stunned you. Just one or two. You might also address my post #61, above. None of your remarks there can be supported by the actual Summers transcript.</p>
<p>I'd also like to hear your take on the Harvard faculty response, which I consider to be juvenile. Why wouldn't they use those brains and all that research expertise to cut Summers off at the knees intellectually, instead of just trying to kill him on the PC altar? As I said before, they are lame, lame in this "debate."</p>
<p>"Driver, I had already read it (twice) before commenting. I had to read it a second time because, frankly, I was stunned that the President of Harvard would make those comments, so stunned that I wanted to make sure I was reading him correctly."</p>
<p>Tenisghs:</p>
<p>Forget junk studies. </p>
<p>Answer me simple question "Do you think majority of URMs are victim?" Forget what happened 100 years ago? Do you think if they want to work hard, they can not move ahead as someone will try to bring thme down?</p>
<p>My answer is that american people are very generous and nice and fair as compare to most of the places outside US I have lived and that includes Europe and asia. I have no idea about Africa but will let you know the facts when my son stays in africa for a year to volunteer.</p>
<p>If this was not the case you will not find fund flowing to Tsunnami vicitms in such large quantity.</p>
<p>I have a broken english. But I would love to learn a correct and better grammar. I am not complaing then why do you care about a students whose primary responsibilty is to learn and not waste their time. Why one who will participate in the business word should not learn how to write better grammar. I wish I have chance to do so. And I am using element of style to better myself. IF I can have motivation, others can have too.</p>
<p>Chinaman--Great choice! If more people had studied "The Elements of Style" the message board world would be a better place!</p>