Women in science: "innate" gender differences or not?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>This MIT-educated Stanford prof seems to think not, but one wonders what lessons to draw from his/her personal experiences:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=vn20060717092533245C904324%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=vn20060717092533245C904324&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>If anyone's interested in reading the original piece in Nature, I placed the pdf in my webspace [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/mollieb/Public/PDFs/Interesting%20Papers/barres%20nature%20gender%20in%20science.pdf%5Dhere%5B/url"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/mollieb/Public/PDFs/Interesting%20Papers/barres%20nature%20gender%20in%20science.pdf]here[/url&lt;/a&gt;].&lt;/p>

3

<p>Byerly's suggesting that women are inferior!</p>

<p>Rabble</a> rabble rabble rabble!</p>

4

<p>I don't think one can infer anything about innate differences between men and women's abilities to do science from one person's experiences. One can, however, conclude that women in sciences have been discriminated.
This is reminiscent of musical auditions where women were often told they did not have the strength to produce as big a sound as men. When performers did their auditions behind curtains, the number of women admitted into orchestras rose pretty dramatically.</p>

5

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<p>princeton's president on this topic, in today's wall street journal:</p>

<p>WSJ: You were outspoken in your criticism of Mr. Summers's comments about women in the sciences. Why did you speak out?</p>

<p>Ms. Tilghman: There are 25 years of good social science that demonstrate the many cultural practices that act collectively to discourage women from entering and continuing careers in science and engineering. The research is overwhelming, and it is there for anybody to see. On the other hand, the data that would suggest there are innate differences in the abilities of men and women to succeed in the natural sciences are nonexistent.</p>

6

<p>I sense may subsequent posters didn't see it, and took the topic more seriously than I intended at this point:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/health/15054093.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/health/15054093.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

7

<p>Rabble rabble rabble rabble!</p>

<p>:D</p>