"Similarly, the "mommy truck" anecdote is just total BS."
Yeah, this one made me laugh. When my son was one and a half or two, he went through a phase where he would pick up two different sized versions of the same class of item (eg, a bigger potato chip and a smaller potato chip) and say, "A Mommy. And a baby." So maybe he's gay. And maybe I shouldn't have been feeding him potato chips.
But precisely because he's a boy, I suspect many people would interpret his act not as the expression of an immutable drive toward nurturing, but rather in terms of the development of spatial reasoning. Look, he's figuring out big and little, and making analogies between one set of relations and another. What a little scientist...
Kieran Healy had a very good post, back in the day, about the role of our preconceptions in inquiring and interpreting behavior in terms of gender.
Before the discussion really gets rolling, might I suggest that people distinguish between defending Summers from inaccurate charges, and defending Summers on the merits of what he said?
Much to say here, of course, but one quick point. I know that LS's three opening examples undermine his genetic claim-- I'm not supporting them as evidence that Summers is right (as when I write "So Summers has brought to mind cases that undermine his genetic point, which is a bit odd"). I'm citing them in order to say that I don't think they warrant the offense that BPhD takes when, for example, she says
These are not neutral remarks. Allow me to strip this crap of the semi-respectable academic phrasing.
The point of the post was more of an ad hominem against BPhD's post, which I found unconvincing, yet which seems to have met with approval in some corners of our fair goutosphere.
Alameida, I am SO GLAD you're here.
Labs, my dear, with all due respect, I'm gonna play the identity card here: girls are better attuned to sexism than boys are.
Ah, there's the rub, isn't it? You say your perceptual mechanisms are more finely-tuned; someone else says that they're giving false positives. Where does the epistemology go from here?
Well, if I weren't exhausted from arguing about it, I'd say that the responsible thing to do is not to pull the identity card, but to point out where and why I'm getting what I got from his speech (and Alameida too). I did that in the comments to that post, more calmly. Basically my point is that rhetoric matters. On the surface, Summers is (mostly, but not entirely) expressing concern; but the framing (including the blacks and basketball thing, which is *such* a hackneyed argument pulled by the "reverse-racism" crowd that I refuse to admit that it is a neutral statement)--and the larger context in which the issue exists--make it far from neutral.
I mean, basically, saying that Summers wasn't being sexist at all implies that all the women who are irate about this (it's not just me, you know) are, as you say, giving "false positives." Are you really so sure of your ear on these issues that you're willing to say that?
Yes, that's much better than the identity card, which, obviously, I find manifestly unhelpful. I have no real interest in any particular evaluation of Summers' character; I'm happy to admit that he's being extremely insensitive by making these remarks after presiding over Harvard's loss of senior women, etc. (My suspicion is that he enjoys the provocative role a bit too much.) The question of how to distinguish sexism from other (related) failures of character is surely an interesting one, but it will have to wait for another time.
If the problem is not just what Summers said, but the context, his past leadership, and so on, fine. If the problem is that the data just are not there, also fine. But I thought your original post mischaracterized and oversimplified his claims, in ways I've tried to explain.
As for the race thing, I remain puzzled. I took him just to be pointing out a case where, obviously, one group is overrepresented. There are, after all, a lot of black NBA players. Did I miss him saying something about why this is so? I thought it was pretty clear that his explanations (the three you find objectionable) were explanations of the "women in sciences at top universities" problem, not for various other phenomena. So the imputations of racism seem problematic to me.
Well, my post was admittedly polemicla and ad hominem. I certainly had no idea that it would get picked up by everyone in the world including Brad DeLong.
But the thing is, a lot of us *do* take it personally when men in very, very powerful positions say that gender inequity is our "choice." I know I take sexism, deliberate or not, personally. Notwithstanding my rhetoric, however, my real point isn't that Summers is a dick (come on, that's so clearly just polemic....) but that what he is saying is sexist.
Also, there's the whole problem (that happens all the time) of men hypothesizing about gender issues without, apparently, having done a lot of reading of feminist theory or research. That, too, contributes to the sense that, at bottom, both the speech and Summers aren't as serious on the issue as he claims (thinks?) he is.
Now I am going to bed. I won't say what I was doing today, but gawd it was exhausting. And I have to do it tomorrow, too.
"ranking it above socialization and bias in search/hiring, on the basis of, um, nothing"
begging the question.
"Finally, let's consider two possible worlds [...]"
The argument from this point (if it is directed at Summers) ignores that he claims the leading cause of disparities is exactly "who wants a high-powered job".
I have no way of knowing whether we're living in a 5-1 innate talent world (or a n+m-1 innate talent+obsessiveness world or ...) or not, and I wouldn't venture to rank the secondary effects at the outlier level (knowing only a few Nobel Prize winning sorts), but I'm willing to give Summers the benefit of the doubt regarding his caveats on his ranking and his stated dislike of them. That many criticizing him are not willing to make this grant suggests to me that they are conflating what Summers said with a set of noxious societal attitudes; and I think those attitudes should be directly addressed, not through proxy.
Great post, A. I've been distracted and missed some of the intermediary polemics on Summers (sorry B, I'll check out the vitriol soon).
I think it is interesting to think about the non-Harvards of the academic world, as an emory mathematician on Brad's site commented. First, because it's possible to succeed at these places with less than 80 hrs/week. Second, because while these places are rife with subtle bias still, some are at least in the process of addressing them.
At the less than elite levels, I get the feeling that there's a mix of approaches - some that are at least in motion towards time t. In my department, all the spousal hires we've considered this year have all been men following women. It's a complicated picture because almost everyone in my group (men and women) has kids and a spouse that does not work or works adjunct in a less permanent track. A few top performers in these settings will pop up to the elite faculties of tomorrow.
There's other departments that haven't changed much in 20 years and they're scary little pockets of history. I've visited a couple private schools recently, and I get the feeling that they still tend to be boys clubs more than public institutions, where I've spent most of my time since undergrad. I get the feeling that this is especially true at elite departments, where there is less turnover once people make tenure so they change even more slowly.
I'm not saying that Summers shouldn't be taken to task for dumb comments and things he's done to make Harvard less friendly to women and minorities. But that the last place we'll see changes in the deep structures that bring about the unbalanced representation in academia will be schools like Harvard.
I'm willing to give Summers the benefit of the doubt regarding his caveats on his ranking and his stated dislike of them. That many criticizing him are not willing to make this grant suggests to me that they are conflating what Summers said with a set of noxious societal attitudes; and I think those attitudes should be directly addressed, not through proxy.
That's precisely what I'm saying.
1. Women are not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, because we can't afford to. It's a nice intellectual exercise when it's not your career that's being batted about.
2. What Summers said *was said within the context of* "noxious social attitudes." He drew directly on the language of those attitudes ("choice"). What, he's not supposed to know that?
3. Many of the women who are pissed at Summers *are* trying to address those noxious attitudes directly--through work, through teaching, through writing. When someone in Summers' position endorses those attitudes or says something that sure *sounds* like endorsing them, women are rightly gonna say "hold up, buddy." That *is* part of addressing attitudes like that directly--not letting people get away with them.
I can't see how it's noxious for Summers to say the major reason for disparities at Harvard is the societal construction of a tenure system unfriendly to women given the socialization of both sexes regarding family life. Brad DeLong attests that this is a welcome progressive attitude on the part of a president of a major university.
And then Summers says that unfortunately innate differences may matter for people at the 4 sigma level in some fields [which is what one would naively expect given the genotypic and brain-utilization differences] - that that's what the available data suggests to him, but that much more work needs to be done and he'd be happy to be proved wrong.
And then Summers says of course there's discrimination too.
And he's saying all this in a private session to an informed audience allowed to ask him questions afterwards.
This debate should in my view be focussed more on why [from a comment at Mark Kleiman's site] "[m]ales score about 10 pts higher at the mean on SAT V (which measures verbal reasoning), and outscore females on the SAT V four to one at the top end of the tail; this compares to a larger male advantage at the mean on the SAT Q measuring quantitative reasoning, and a 13 to one advantage for males on the SAT Q at the right tail." Summers thinks there are fewer 4-sigma female mathematicians - the average person on the street probably thinks there aren't many women who can do math at all.
(The following is overstated for clarity -- if I work on being polite and giving Summers the benefit of the doubt, I believe people will have trouble following my statement.)
My problem with Summers is that he lied to support his sexist remarks. Did you catch the comment about the revolution in behavioral genetics in the last fifteen years that has proven that many behaviors we thought might be environmentally determined are genetic? Do you know what research he was talking about? Me neither -- there isn't any, at least not any that fits his description. He pulled the "Yes, I hate it as much as all of you, but research is inescapably leading us to the realization that there will inevitably always be more male scholars in math and physics than female," trick, based on references to research that doesn't exist. Whether he knew there was no research supporting his point, or he didn't know one way or the other but didn't care, he's dishonest, and someone who's willing to be dishonest to support his belief that women are genetically less likely to succeed in math is someone who is strongly attached to that belief.
(Does the fact that I knew instantly who Almedia was mean that I spend too much time reading blogs?)
(Note: Like Almedia, I'm not saying that it's impossible like research like that which Summers describes could exist, or that it may exist in the future. He said that research had been done showing that all sorts of personal qualities that used to be considered socially determined were in fact genetic. That's a lie. If I were Nancy Hopkins, that would have been the line that made me walk out.)
But, but, WHY hasn't anyone pointed out that Larry Summers is fat and ugly?
The following is overstated for clarity -- if I work on being polite and giving LizardBreath the benefit of the doubt, I believe people will have trouble following - nah, never mind, not my turf, no reason to start a flame war.
From the Summers transcript:
"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."
From the Simpsons:
Edna: Seymour, you have to think of the children's future.
Seymour: Oh, Edna. We all know that these children HAVE no future.
[Everyone stops and stares at Seymour.]
Seymour: Prove me wrong children. Prove me wrong.
This isn't to say that Summers meant what he said in the way Skinner meant what he said - only that a lot of the criticism of Summers seems to stem from the fact that his' comments could be understood in that way.
Come on, rilke. I could have said "Larry Summers said something about the state of current research which was demonstrably untrue, and by relying on something that was untrue as support for his stated belief that genetic differences were a more important cause of the underrepresentation of women in academia he indicates that his preconceptions were sufficiently strong to lead him into at least a lack of caution about verifying his facts." And then there could have been a very dull conversation about how we can possibly tell the difference between an innocent error and a lie -- doing a search and replace on any conversation about WMD's would work.
I don't care if he misrepresents research because he's dishonest or because he's ignorant -- if he stands up on his hind legs and says, falsely, that research exists supporting the idea that group differences are likelier to be genetically than socially caused, everything he says in the future should be considered in light of the fact that he's either a liar or a moron, and I for one don't care which.
But Summers did not say something about the state of research that was demonstrably untrue. Here's what he said:
There are two other hypotheses that are all over. One is socialization. Somehow little girls are all socialized towards nursing and little boys are socialized towards building bridges. No doubt there is some truth in that. I would be hesitant about assigning too much weight to that hypothesis for two reasons. First, most of what we've learned from empirical psychology in the last fifteen years has been that people naturally attribute things to socialization that are in fact not attributable to socialization. We've been astounded by the results of separated twins studies. The confident assertions that autism was a reflection of parental characteristics that were absolutely supported and that people knew from years of observational evidence have now been proven to be wrong. And so, the human mind has a tendency to grab to the socialization hypothesis when you can see it, and it often turns out not to be true.
I would not characterize this as "misrepresentation of research."
Point me toward the research from the past fifteen years that shows that people naturally attribute things to socialization that are in fact not attributable to socialization. That autism was wrongly thought to be produced by bad parenting doesn't qualify because (a) that's been known to be false since long before 1990 and (b) it says nothing about a general human tendency to overvalue the effects of socialization.
If you come up with some links that I agree support Summers' statement, I'll apologize, but this is an area I'm interested in, and I have a version of this discussion fairly often, and I can't imagine what research he thinks he's talking about -- I've never seen anyone cite to credible research that shows any such thing.
Can you show me the research from the last fifteen years (or at all, I'm not being a hard-ass about this) that tells us that people naturally attribute things to socialization that are in fact not attribtable to socialization? If you can't (or rather, if such research does not exist), than Larry Summers is either a liar or doesn't know what he is talking about.
Again, here's Summers:
Yeah, look anything could be social, ultimately in all of that. I think that if you look at the literature on behavioral genetics and you look at the impact, the changed view as to what difference parenting makes, the evidence is really quite striking and amazing. I mean, just read Judith Rich Harris's book. It is just very striking that people's-and her book is probably wrong and its probably more than she says it is, and I know there are thirteen critiques and you can argue about it and I am not certainly a leading expert on that-but there is a lot there. And I think what it surely establishes is that human intuition tends to substantially overestimate the role-just like teachers overestimate their impact on their students relative to fellow students on other students-I think we all have a tendency with our intuitions to do it. So, you may be right, but my guess is that there are some very deep forces here that are going to be with us for a long time.
Again, I don't think this is properly characterized as a) lying, b) not knowing what one is talking about, or c) "saying things about the research that are demonstrably untrue.
Welcome back, baa. May your tan lines not be too funny.
I don't want to get into this, but a couple of quick points. Meghan O'Rourke does a nice job of explaining why Summers is talking about the wrong kind of socialization.
Summers seemed to have an impoverished definition of socialization, or the cultural biases that affect individual performance. For Summers, "socialization" basically comes down to how much parents shape a child's identity, which is why he cited identical twin studies (which appear to show that parenting has less influence on factors like intelligence than we once thought it did) and invoked the example of his twin daughters "who found themselves saying to each other, look, daddy truck is carrying the baby truck" despite Summers' (self-described) gender-neutral parenting.
But the form of socialization that shapes performance in math and science has less to do with parenting than it does with the impact of collective beliefs on our identities—that is, how implicit and unconscious cultural attitudes mold an individual's sense of self. As a host of studies have shown, this shaping is powerful and begins remarkably early in our lives.
I think a lot of his critics feel that, no matter how earnest he is about addressing the issue, it's enormously frustrating to have to refight battles that they believe are long-settled.
Finally, it seems pretty clear that Summers is getting the Al Capone treatment, where you nab the guy, not for the egregious things he's done, but for the charge you can make stick. That's unfortunate, insofar as saying things like this will be made to seem a firing offense, but I don't feel too bad for Summers, because those are the rules of public life.
I don't want to get into this, but a couple of quick points.
Shorter ogged: here's my say, I won't bother reading yours.
I guess it does sound like that, cw, but what I meant was: against my better judgment, I can't help but jump into this.
Thanks Ogged. I'm a bronzed Apollo.
Beneath that tan, color me deeply unimpresed by O'Rourke. Most of what she faults Summers for not doing ("giv[ing] very little credit to the notion that a woman who "wants" to do "high-powered intense work" faces a slew of obstacles that men don't) he in fact does do. And as for his allegedly truncated view of socialization -- this just seems like reaching. True, we have no twin studies in which one twin got sent to the island of Themiscyra. So I guess we just can't say anything about socialization playing less of a role in gender difference than we might have imgained.
[[That said, I think your diagnosis of the Summers backlash is exactly correct.]]
baa-
Are you familiar with the Harris book (the Nurture Assumption is, I assume, what Summers was talking about.)? Admittedly, I've only read reviews, rather than the book itself, but my understanding is that its thesis is that peers, rather than parents, have a larger effect on the socialization of children. It doesn't support (or relate to) what Summers appears to have using it for, that genetic differences have a larger effect than socialization. This accords with ogged's point, or rather with his report of O'Rourke's point.
FL-
(a) I realize you haven't claimed to have any such particular data ("x is genetically/biologically explainable where intuition would suggest that it was socially explainable"), but I don't think there is much, and I'd need to see some to be convinced that it rendered Summers' remarks defensible. What I can think of that might fall into that category are disorders like autism or mental illness -- not, in any case of which I am aware, normal variation.
(b) Even if there were a lot of such data, Summers was in context making the claim that recent research has shown that people systematically overvalue the effects of socialization, and that we should therefore be suspicious of our intuition that any given effect is caused by socialization. Listing errors of the form you describe doesn't show Summers' claim to be true in the absence of an analysis of errors of the reverse form (i.e., the early 20th century belief, based on IQ testing, that eastern European Jews were genetically less intelligent than Americans of northwestern European ancestry.). Only if you can come up with more, and more severe, errors relating to overvaluing the effects of socialization than errors undervaluing the effects of socialization do you have support for Summers' statement.
Lastly, ogged --
I can see why you made the Al Capone remark, but I don't think it's applicable -- I'm not busting Summers on a peripheral offense, I think this goes to the core of the controversy. Summers' position is that the controversial remarks he made were in the service of openminded scientific inquiry. Once he makes shit up (either stuff he knows to be false, or stuff he does not know to be true) in defense of his position, he loses that defense, and it is fair to treat him as an advocate for the position that innate differences explain a significant portion of the lesser representation of women at the highest levels of math and science. Openmindedly saying "we should do the research into this -- we don't know how it will come out" and making up facts to support the statement "research indicates that we are likely to find that innate differences explain most of this" are two very different things -- the first is entirely inoffensive, the second marks Summers as sexist and dishonest.
we have no twin studies in which one twin got sent to the island of Themiscyra. So I guess we just can't say anything about socialization playing less of a role in gender difference than we might have imgained.
In fact, I think that's exactly right. Here's what I emailed to a friend a few days ago:
The fact is, we have no idea what we're even measuring, and even if we did know, no way to control for socialization, so the only sensible course is to act as if there are no differences. Sounds funny to say, but in the real world, even talking about this stuff is sexist.
Labs, yeah, it would suck for all sorts of reasons if he resigned over this. It's also clear that much of the faculty hates him. Best case: they make a deal for him to stay another year and leave "on his own terms."
I agree about the probable cultural effect of his resigning, and it worries me. Then again, saying he ought not to resign in order not to give the far right more ammunition for their anti-academic prejudices amounts, in my mind, to saying, "ladies up front." Again. There is a long, long history of leftist arguments that women should backburner their interests until the "larger" war is won.
Point 1: I think LB and ogged are raising the evidentiary demands of discourse way too high. Men are underrepresented among taxi drivers, and are overrepresented in prison. Lacking definitive data, can we simply not say anything about what we think the relative weighting of genetics and socialization are in these cases? Or must we only exercise caution when asserting that socialization is less important than genetics?
Point 2: I have no idea what the Harris books say, but I do not read Summers as purporting that ironclad case scientific case exists. But to describe Summers comments as "making up facts" is simply a prejudicial description of his comments.
Oh, and for the record, I am not sure what I think on the resignation question. If the result of this is that he gets serious about gender issues at Harvard--which imho would mean delegating a lot of authority over this question to other people, with better credentials on the question--then I think that would be a positive outcome.
Ok, god willing, I'm going offline for the rest of the day, but baa, I think we don't even know what we mean by "aptitude for math" (which is quite different from "does well on math tests"), and that, aside from a very few diseases that have a clear genetic cause or component, we certainly don't begin to understand the interplay of genes and environment so I'm quite serious that we shouldn't talk about it at all (at least in terms of public policy; I certainly support research).
I'm quite serious that we shouldn't talk about it at all /em>
I'm confused by this. Given that there are vast differences in outcomes for women in academic sciences, and that we don't have an inkling how genetic differences play into them, but we have substantial testimony that overt and subtle bias play into them, you think the best course of action is.... silence? Am I over-generalizing your comment? Maybe you mean don't talk about genetic sources of difference but address systemic problems for women? I hope.
One final note. As with all fields, it is far from the truth in academia that the smartest person wins. In my informal sample of grad school experience, many of the smartest folks dropped out.
There's a whole range of skills that come to bear in succeeding with a research agenda, along with an almost asperger's like focus on one narrow question with high potential impact. When you start talking about the complementary skills that are vital to a successful academic career, it just seems laughable that women aren't at the top because they aren't capable. Especially once you recognize how important social networks, and the related referals and assessment information that flow through them.
Especially once you recognize how important social networks, and the related referals and assessment information that flow through them.
What I meant by this was that these networks suffer from a wide variety of cognitive and social filtering biases that will influence outcomes. Quite possibly in ways that adversely impact women in the career.
Lacking definitive data, can we simply not say anything about what we think the relative weighting of genetics and socialization are in these cases?
Summers said that he believed that innate differences explained a larger portion of women's underrepresentation in academia than discrimination. He has no (not "no definitive" but no) research based evidence for this. As someone who is responsible for faculty hiring, damn straight he shouldn't say crap like that without any evidence. You keep on saying he's being held to too high a standard here: Show me any research that supports his above stated belief. Any. Any at all.
You don't know what the Harris book says? Google a couple of reviews -- they'll tell you. The thesis isn't about innate or genetic differences in children, it's about peer influence. It doesn't support Summers' point. He says it did. He was making up facts. If you think I'm being unfair to Summers, read the Harris book, or a review of it, and figure out some way that it supports his point. If you can't, he was making up facts.
(And like everyone else here, I don't want him fired, I just want his remarks recognized for the dishonest and unsupported nonsense they are.)
LB, your point (2) sounds right, with some qualifications about the relevant range of cases and times (for example, if in the past our intuitions skewed toward nature, and now toward nurture...)
And also just to clarify, I'm not saying anything about the resignation question. I do want to note some distaste for (a) the idea that the content of Summers' remarks, by itself, is sufficient to justify demanding his resignation; and (b) the idea that the controversy itself is grounds for his resignation. Fire him for his refusal to get along, or for his general mishandling of diversity issues. But forcing him out over this issue really does confirm a widely-held belief that there are some things we just can't talk about in academe.
Labs, I don't agree that firing him confirms a widely-held belief that there are some things we can't talk about. Yes, it would be *said* to confirm that. But that doesn't make it so. Firing him could also be said to confirm the idea that the president of an institution has a duty not to say things that undermine his workers' trust in his equity. Or that a prominent academic figure has a duty not to spout bad pseudoscience.
We don't have to buy into the inevitable right-hand spin, just because we know it's going to happen.
Here's an argument from ignorance that goes too far:
1. We don't even have a good way of defining math aptitude
2. Discriminaiton exists
3. Therefore, discrimination is more important than aptitude for gender imbalance in the hard sciences.
This argument won't fly, right?
---
I think, LB that comparing your gloss on Summer's use of Harris with Summers actual use of Harris is decisive
LB: "You don't know what the Harris book says? Google a couple of reviews -- they'll tell you. The thesis isn't about innate or genetic differences in children, it's about peer influence. It doesn't support Summers' point. He says it did. He was making up facts. If you think I'm being unfair to Summers, read the Harris book, or a review of it, and figure out some way that it supports his point. If you can't, he was making up facts."
LHS: "Yeah, look anything could be social, ultimately in all of that. I think that if you look at the literature on behavioral genetics and you look at the impact, the changed view as to what difference parenting makes, the evidence is really quite striking and amazing. I mean, just read Judith Rich Harris's book. It is just very striking that people's-and her book is probably wrong and its probably more than she says it is, and I know there are thirteen critiques and you can argue about it and I am not certainly a leading expert on that-but there is a lot there. And I think what it surely establishes is that human intuition tends to substantially overestimate the role-just like teachers overestimate their impact on their students relative to fellow students on other students-I think we all have a tendency with our intuitions to do it. So, you may be right, but my guess is that there are some very deep forces here that are going to be with us for a long time."
Specifically, I think it's decisive that you are reading Summers uncharitably, accusing him of "making up facts" "lying" and a whole bill of goods, when in fact all he has done is adduce a case which was intended to be analogous not directly on point, and done so in a appropriately caveated way. He dealt with discrimination for approximately three paragraphs. His claims were qualified. It wasn't the way you would give a talk at lab meeting, or in an economics seminar, but he referenced data that, while by no means decisive, were not unsupported or irrelevant. The history of the Kibbutz movement, twin studies, etc. I am sympthetic to the idea that a President of Harvard should just never give "provoking" speeches. If that's your position, fine. But if you think Summers comments are dishonest, sexist, or outside the norms of scholarly discussion, I think you are simply wrong.
To chime in briefly here. Tweedlegirl and I were talking about it this weekend. We both agree that it would have been perfectly fine if LHS were merely a professor. But as a president directly involved in tenure...
That said, it would be a shame if he were fired. But what happens if he denies a woman for tenure, because there was a better man for the job? Do we kick and scream and complain prejudice? So while I don't think he should be fired, I think his time at H is for Honors will be rather short-lived.
baa--
There is a presumption that when one raises evidence in support of an argument, that that evidence is relevant to the argument.
Now:
(1) The thesis of The Nurture Assumption does not relate to innate differences between individuals. It holds that one social influence, peers, has a greater effect than another social influence, parents.
(2) By bringing up the book in the context that he did, a discussion which did not relate to the relative wieghts that should be given to parental and peer influence, he used it as support for the idea that social influences as a whole are systematically overvalued. It does not support that idea.
(3) Therefore if he believes that TNA does support his position, he is incompetent to report the results of other people's research. If he does not believe that it does, he has no business raising it as support.
You keep on saying that his position was appropriately caveated. It was not. An appropriate caveat would have been something like this: "It remains an open question whether there is an innate biological element explaining some or all of the differences in male and female representation at the highest academic levels. While there is as yet no research that establishes the existence of such a biological element such research should be conducted." He could even add, "Anecdotal evidence has convinced me that the existence of such a biological element is likely," which would have incited some grumbling, in that he really should have formed even a personal opinion on a matter this important based on anecdotal evidence, but wouldn't have caused. the current brouhaha. Once he makes vague, gooey references to research supporting his belief in the innate biological element, however, that is dishonest no matter how vague and gooey the references are, because the research, as he describes it, does not exist.
Cripes, I think I'm with baa here. There seem to be a lot of reasons to kick him, and a lack of awareness about the way in which his words might properly be understood (and the effect they could have) is certainly one, but the content doesn't seem to be that horrible.
BPhD, do responses to your point (and you convinced me in comment of yours on this site not a day ago) seem to divide along gender lines alone?
Err, "kick" Summers, not baa. Though probably pretty good reasons to do that, too.
1. Is there evidence that a socialization element explains some or all of the difference in representation between men and women in hard science? Or must we adopt that as our null hypothesis? If so, why?
2. For the love of mike, he brought up the Harris book as one example in a Q+A period! It was meant as an analogy! He caveated himself all the way in! You are acting like this speech was (or ought to have been) a different kind of communication than it was?
3. Do you in fact believe that there is no evidence and no increase in recent evidence for the genetic basis of behavior? Do you believe none of this research reflects on gender differences? If you do, there are scientists who disagree with you. Steve Pinker (I'm not a great fan) would be one . If Summers has said "hey, look at the literature review in the Blank Slate -- I think we need to accept that this stuff could be important" would he be off the hook, according to you?
SCMT -- Given how poorly Jews farm, I definitely should be ousted from my role as president of Texas A & M.
As for the response to the Summers kerfuffle breaking down by sex, in my circle of acquaintance at least, neither political affiliation nor gender is predictive.
1. Yes, of course there is. The evidence is that male-female ratios in academia are wildly different in other countries, and that they were wildly different in the past. Both of these facts show that social factors have a large effect on the representation of the sexes in academia. Furthermore, there are contemporaneous reports of social effects on the representation of the sexes in academia (discrimination, differing social pressures.) If we ignore all of the current reports of social factors, it is possible that the social factors that affected the representation of the sexes in academia in the past and that affect the representation of the sexes in academia in other countries have stopped operating in present day America, but a null hypothesis is generally selected on the basis that the object of study is unremarkable. The assumption that present day America is the one time and place where social factors do not affect the representation of the sexes in academia would not qualify as such a null hypothesis.
2. Even speaking off-the-cuff, it is wrong and dishonest to assert the existence of evidence in support of your positions that does not exist. If he wants to take unsupported positions, he can identify them as unsupported. You say "It was meant as an analogy" -- if he wants to make an analogy, he can say that he's making an analogy. He didn't; he brought TNA up as if it were directly relevant to the question of innate differences. I'm picking on this issue because it's one of the few places he cited to something recognizable, rather than vaguely to exciting new research. Where he cited to something recognizable, he mischaracterized it.
3. Have you read the Blank Slate? I have. Research that shows a biological basis for behavior within a group does not speak to a biological basis for differences in behavior between groups. Pinker doesn't in that book cite to any research that identifies or strongly suggests the existence of a biological mechanism for differences in behavior between the sexes. That doesn't mean that no such mechanism exists -- this research is incredibly difficult to do because on the one side we don't understand the genetics well enough to draw any kind of connection between particular gene complexes and particular behaviors (except in certain pathological instances), and on the other side we don't have the capacity to remove people from social influences -- while we can affect social influences, it's impossible to totally control them.
I'm asserting a negative, which is an awfully weak position to be in rhetorically, but I'm very sure of my ground. If you know of research that supports the existence of a biological mechanism explaining biological differences between the sexes (research showing that the sexes do, in our society, behave differently is not relevant; nor is research showing that there are physically measureable differences between the sexes) cite to it, and I'll apologize and go away. I do not believe that you will be able to, because I do not believe that such research exists. What makes me angry about Summers' statements is that he has blithely suggested such research exists without support. Lots of people do. You apparently believe them. If there's all this research out there that establishes a biological mechanism for intellectual differences between the sexes, why will no one cite to it?
Tim, no, not strictly along gender lines. But I will say that the "let's give him the benefit of the doubt" argument really bothers me a lot. Why must men in positions of power, when making sexist remarks (and baa, I am sorry, but saying that he believes that "innate ability" or whatever the phrase was is more important than discrimination is extremely sexist, given that the predominance of evidence for the latter and the completely non-existent evidence for the former), be always given the benefit of the doubt? Why must we always bend over backwards to be "fair" to them? Fuck that. I'm tired of bending over.
It's not going to be fun at all when this hits 100.
(I hate to say something substantive, but, Labs, tenure at Harvard doesn't work like tenure at other places. The President has been known to turn down people recommended for tenure. This too.)
LB -- you believe Pinker's books says something other than he does, evidently. I really have no opinion on whether what Summers said is true. I do think what he said was more or less within the bounds of supportable discourse. Basically, I think you demand an unjustifiable greater evidence from someone who says innate > socialized behavior Y than for someone who flips the less than symbol. For example, I think your demand for a mechanism is way, way too strong. In 1400, the view that men innately possessed greater arm strength than women would have been highly supportable. And no one could've offered a mecahnism worth jack.
Further, Summers wasn't reading aloud a paper from Cell, he was giving a high level summarizing in a semi-formal setting. He gave evidence -- not conclusive, by any means! -- to support the rank ordering of hypotheses he advanced.
Here are by my count 5 related arguments advanced by Summers in that suggest support of the "innate > social" hyptohesis.
1. The gender difference in engineering and math is greater than in other fields, and persists as others fields (medicine!) even out
2. There is greater variance in males than in females across numerous mental aptitude tests
3. Men and women evidence differing tastes that persist against direct efforts to socialize agaisnt them -- c.f. the Kibbutz movement
4. There are cases where socialization was thought to have a greater effect than it did -- autism, and behaviors shown to have genetic components from twin studies.
5. The ratio of women in the commanding heights of the hard sciences has not increased proportionally to the increase in access to hard science. Many, many more woman now study chemistry and take degrees in chemistry than in the past, but the representation of woman in the "elite academic chemistry path" has not increased proportionally.
No one of these points is decisive. And even collectively, it's still clear that socialization/discrimination could play the largest role for explaining the observed phenomena. But it isn't lying, making stuff up, or sexist for Summera to conclude that innate > socialization provides the best explanation.
Focusing in on one component of the case, here's a question of fact: do men in demonstrate greater variance from the mean on math tests than women? [[And is this effect seen consistently across nations and at different ages?]] Summers (and Pinker) say so, I honestly don't know whether they have accurately summarized the literature. But let's stipulate it is true. This of course could be explained by socialization and discrimination. It could also be explalined by innate factors. Is the null hypothesis in this case that socialization > than innate factors? If so why?
Bphd -- Is it sexist to believe that innate differences are more important than socialization in explaining male over-representation in prison? If so, why?
baa, gene expression links to a bunch of papers on this. (I think that's the right site. I looked at it from home a few days ago, but it's not loading now, so I can't check.) From what I recall, m/f math variance varies by age, but all the stuff I looked at seemed to be from the US.
Increasingly, this brouhaha reminds me of the Yglesias "(I'm Jewish)" post. Yglesias noted that it wasn't clear that Israeli and US interests in the Middle East were coextensive. What was funny about it was the extent to which Yglesias went. What was interesting about it was that he felt that he needed to to immunize himself in making the post. But of course he needed to immunize himself - there are people who wonder about the motivations of people in favor of not-pro-Israeli positions. And given the tragic history of Jewish and Israeli interests, such wondering seems reasonable to me.
The Summers thing seems the same way - not a perfect analogy, but similar. Summers said non-crazy things, but given the topic and the history of gender discrimination, reasonable people might wonder at his motivations (all the more important for his position). Which side the weight of that wondering should fall on - I have no idea, but I wondered whether men might be missing daily bits of incremental evidence that most women in academics put up with. Which is why I asked BPhD about the breakdown in responses.
In any case, I'm not sure this is a resolvable argument - judging people's intentions is tough (especially when they're Dems). But to the extent these arguments get down to brass tacks, they seem to miss each other somehow. I'm not sure there is a specificly wrong act here.
Man, this is why this argument is maddening -- it's impossible to get people to accept that 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 still only = 0
1. That gender differences in math and science exist is not evidence either for an innate or for a social explanation of those differences. That gender differences have changed more in other fields is not evidence either way. Secretaries used to mostly be male -- now they're mostly female. What light does that shed on the cause of gender differences in math and sciences? None. This isn't weak evidence for innateness, it's no evidence for innateness.
2. That the expressed gender difference in math aptitudes is one of variance rather than mean on tests is not evidence that the difference is innate. Try to spell it out: A difference in mean might be the result of social effects, but a difference in variance is less likely to be because ?????. Without something to fill in that gap, this, again, is no evidence that the difference in math aptitudes is innate. Not weak evidence -- it simply isn't evidence at all.
3. This is, I think, your best evidence, and it's still pretty useless. Most obviously, it's not directly relevant to math. Next most obviously: kibbutznik kids fell back into pretty much exactly the sex roles that were familiar to their parents -- unless we're going to assume that gendered differences in tastes aren't socially determined at all, the social expectations were getting in there somehow. If the kibbutzes were really free of social pressure to conform to expected gender roles, wouldn't you expect a clear pattern of some gender differences going away, because they were socially constructed, and the truly innate differences persisting persisting? Instead, none of them went away to any great extent.
4. I dealt with this above -- evidence that people have made a type of mistake in the past is not evidence that they are particularly prone to making that type of mistake in the absence of an analysis of incidences of the reverse type of mistake. Do you want me to start rattling off examples of people assuming that gender (or other inter-group) differences were innate that turned out to be wrong, showing that people overvalue, rather than undervalue, the effects of innate differences?
5. You're double-counting: this is the same as your point 1, and gets the same response. (And isn't chemistry an odd example? Maybe I'm thinking of but I thought that chem was a science where women were fairly well represented.)
Socialization is the more reasonable null hypothesis because we know that social influences have a large effect in this area -- things have been very different in the past, and are very different in other countries with respect to human beings genetically identical to modern-day Americans, so social influences must explain the differences. We don't know in the same way that innate differences with respect to intellectual capacity exist at all. They may, and research should be done, but none of the evidence you put forth justifies a belief that they do exist. At most, it justifies a belief (that I hold) that innate differences between the sexes with regard to intellectual capacity may exist, and that it's a fruitful field for research going forward. Summers' stated belief is that innate differences do exist, and he overstated the amount and quality of evidence that supports that belief.
(By the way, you disagree with my characterization of Pinker's work. Pinker has supported Summers in that he has said that his remarks were not inappropriate. However, I don't believe that he anywhere says that there is positive evidence that differences in mental attainment between the sexes are (not "might possibly be" but "are") explained by genetic differences.)
Kieran Healy has a good response to a good defense of Summers.
Jesus christ, we're citing Gene Expressions as a source of scientific information now?
What b said. There are some fucked-up people there.
One minor factual correction; if I recall correctly, when pressed, even Brad admits that Summers isn't the most personable man on earth.