Hey -- I just got a copy of Dr. Tatiana. Is on the reading pile.
At the end of this piece I noted the bit about male birds (and butterflies) having the pair of Z chromosomes (like women having two X's) and couldn't help but think about how my beloved green guy is male and beautiful. In his breed (parrotlet) which unlike many breeds of parrot is sexually dimorphic the males are the decorated ones. Interesting stuff.
And no regurgitation, thanks. Although green guy does regurge for me at times (is a mating ritual). Mmmm.
You know, even though everything she says is true, she's missing the point of what pissed people off about the Larry Summers thing (given that there doesn't seem to be a transcript, so I don't know what he said exactly, I don't know if he deserves it or not.).
The leftist/feminist/blank-slater who believes that there can't possibly be biological differences in intellectual endowment between men and women is pretty rare. What I believe, and what seems to be the state of current hard scientific knowledge, is that there is at this time no hard evidence that connects measurable biological or genetic differences between men and women to measurable differences in intellectual potential or atttainment between men and women.
The dopey argument that makes feminists/leftists/whatever-you-want-to-call-people-who-agree-with-me-on-this-one angry goes something like this: "Obviously there are significant differences in intellectual accomplishment between men and women. While some of that was historically explained by social factors, I really can't see how all of it, especially anything that's still happening now, could be explained by social factors. Therefore, I'm going to regard a genetic/biological explanation as either proven or all-but-proven, despite the fact that I have no hard evidence for preferring that explanation to an environmental explanation, and I will call you a Luddite denier of scientific fact if you want to see some actual data."
I don't know that Summers' remarks actually pegged him as making this argument, but I am pretty sure that those in the audience who reacted strongly were reacting because they believed him to be making this argument, not because they were offended at the suggestion that research into biological causes for intellectual differences between the sexes might be fruitful.
LizardBreath, no, the people in the audience who were angered by his statements reacted that way because they're women, and all emotional and stuff. Plus maybe they were just on the rag, you know how ladies are.
Right. I forget these things sometimes -- it's the pitifully stunted ring fingers holding me back.