The Larry Summers flap bores me. He said something that reasonable people can disagree about, so unreasonable people shouted both sides down. Time to go watch a DVD.
But Sharon Begley's column in Friday's Wall Street Journal finally got to me. Ms. Begley writes quite good columns on science (gasp: I think she even reads journal articles), and she brings a lot to bear on this issue. All of it against Summers' contention that men and women may differ biologically in their aptitude towards science.
My problem is that the position of Summers' opponents (who may yet be proven right) is that it does not satisfy Occam's razor. It is very hard to get people to admit that it is even possible that we observe differences in science outcomes by sex because the inputs are different. Yet, this is the simplest explanation.
If this troubles you, then you also need to come up with a trendy 21st-century sensitive reason for why men are so much better at working at industrial pig farms than women. From personal experience, I know that the Occam's razor principle explains the case of the most recent man I know who worked at an industrial pig farm (and couldn't even hold that job).
It's interesting. As I write this comment, the ad for Sowell's "Vision of the Anointed" is over to the right. And so what more is there to say really?
The "Red-Blue" divide is just a symptom of the seemingly unbridgeable philosophical gap that we experience now. I guess we're lucky to be in the US.
At least those of us of the "constrained" outlook are still numerous enough here to push back occasionally.
Europe, the UK, and Canada may already be lost.
Posted by: Craig | January 29, 2005 at 06:23 PM
I'll weigh in and say that the perception of a difference that any biological differnece disfavours women, even if small, would be incredibly damaging to the prospect of women in science. It would be a fig leaf around predjudice.
Posted by: Factory | January 31, 2005 at 02:24 AM
Honestly, I can't dismiss the necessity of a little white lie in situations like this.
In any event, I might be wrong about there being a difference - it just seems most plausible.
Posted by: Dave Tufte | January 31, 2005 at 05:03 PM