Well, it's interesting that you're happy to link to popular magazines (and label them 'excellent') while waving away academic papers because their discipline is 'soft'. Except academic papers that appear to support your current viewpoint at whatever time.
Yes, i called an article "excellent" because that was my opinion of it. There are countless articles out there, most bad, but some good, and a few even "excellent".
Articles generally report on news, summarize events, offer analysis, or present an argument, and that was how it was presented. It was not presented as settled science.
You of course are free to differ on your opinion of the article.
I'd suggest that same course of action should also be applied to research & academic papers. There are many bad ones, and a few good ones. I'm absolutely going to judge them on the merits as i see them, and if a scientific study has low sample sizes, poor methodology and questionable interpretations of the data than that's more than enough reason to label it a "joke" IMO.
Are you suggesting that people should accept every research paper as the gospel truth?
This is the President of Harvard University speculating that women are innately worse at STEM subjects. He was in a position of power and responsibility. His statement directly falls within the sphere of responsibility that his position conveyed. It is likely to offend and/or influence current and prospective students. It is likely to bring his institution into disrepute. Worse still, the fact that he is speculating removes any possible compelling reason for him to be saying these things.
You're presenting things out of context, and in this case context if very important. Here's a reasonable summary from wiki (emphasis mine) :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers#Differences_between_the_sexes
In January 2005, at a Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Summers sparked controversy with his discussion of why women may have been underrepresented "in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions".
Summers had prefaced his talk, saying he was adopting an "entirely positive, rather than normative approach" and that his remarks were intended to be an "attempt at provocation."[29]
Summers then began by identifying three hypotheses for the higher proportion of men in high-end science and engineering positions:
The high-powered job hypothesis
Different availability of aptitude at the high end
Different socialization and patterns of discrimination in a search[29]
The second hypothesis, the generally greater variability among men (compared to women) in tests of cognitive abilities,[30][31][32] leading to proportionally more males than females at both the lower and upper tails of the test score distributions, caused the most controversy. In his discussion of this hypothesis, Summers said that "even small differences in the standard deviation [between genders] will translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out [from the mean]".[29] Summers referenced research that implied differences between the standard deviations of males and females in the top 5% of twelfth graders under various tests. He then went on to argue that, if this research were to be accepted, then "whatever the set of attributes... that are precisely defined to correlate with being an aeronautical engineer at MIT or being a chemist at Berkeley... are probably different in their standard deviations as well".[29]
Summers then concluded his discussion of the three hypotheses by saying:
So my best guess, to provoke you, of what's behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them.[29]
Summers then went on to discuss approaches to remedying the shortage of women in high-end science and engineering positions.
This lunch-time talk drew accusations of sexism and careless scholarship, and an intense negative response followed, both nationally and at Harvard.[33] Summers apologized repeatedly.[34] Nevertheless, the controversy is speculated to have contributed to his resigning his position as president of Harvard University the following year, as well as costing Summers the job of Treasury Secretary in Obama's administration.[35]
Summers's protégée Sheryl Sandberg has defended him saying that "Larry has been a true advocate for women throughout his career" at the World Bank and Treasury. Sandberg described of the lunch talk "What few seem to note is that it is remarkable that he was giving the speech in the first place – that he cared enough about women's careers and their trajectory in the fields of math and science to proactively analyze the issues and talk about what was going wrong".[36]
So to be clear, he was offering
3 different hypothesis for why women are underrepresented in STEM at tenured positions at top universities (of which Harvard would surely be one). The "innate ability" hypothesis was not presented as settled science, only that there is research that supports the theory and it would be up to us if one accepts it, and he also offered the 3rd hypothesis that it's because of social structures (which no one had a problem with, even though the science on that hypothesis is certainly not settled either).
His best guess was the largest factor was "the high powered job hypothesis", and
NOT innate ability, and he also suggested that he would liked to be proven wrong because it would be an easier problem to fix.
Steve, who does accounts wouldn't lose his job for saying stuff like this. His views on genetics don't affect company accounts, but everyone probably thinks he is an asshole. But do you seriously not see the problem with the President of a University speculating that low female uptake in STEM is rooted in innate ability?
yes, i seriously
DO NOT see a problem with it. As the president he was actively trying to create a discourse on why women are under represented in STEM, and more importantly how to improve those numbers at his institution. That seems will with in the responsibilities of his post.
are you
seriously suggesting that we should try to solve problems without first trying to understand
why these problems occur? Should we ignore reasons simply because some may be offended by them, even if the intent is to ultimately improve the situation?
Steven Pinker had a brilliant quote about this incident that perfectly applies to this argument :
Influential psychologist Steven Pinker defended the legitimacy of Summers's January lecture. When asked if Summers's talk was "within the pale of legitimate academic discourse," Pinker responded "Good grief, shouldn't everything be within the pale of legitimate academic discourse, as long as it is presented with some degree of rigor? That's the difference between a university and a madrassa. There is certainly enough evidence for the hypothesis to be taken seriously."[37]
