Statistical Distributions

Recent remarks by Harvard University President, Lawrence H. Summers have touched off an angry response from many Harvard professors, including members of a committee on women's issues, when he mentioned one possible hypothesis explaining the paucity of women in science.

Professor Nancy Hopkins of MIT, an attendee of the lecture, told the Boston Globe (and the New York Times, The Today Show, and anyone else who would listen) that she had to leave Summers' lecture because if she didn't, she would have "either blacked out or thrown up."

In an email exchange with The Crimson here, Johnston Professor of Psychology, Steven Pinker, attempts to explain the hypothesis & how every one of Summers' critics have misunderstood it . According to Pinker, Summers never said all men are better @ quantitative abilities than all women, although the firestorm surrounding the remarks might lead one to believe that he did.

In fact, the scientific consensus is that there are innate cognitive differences between men and women — as groups. Individual men and women can be geniuses or morons (though the data suggest that men tend to produce more of both than women).

My favorite quote from Professor Pinker came when The Crimson asked him if he personally found President Summers' remarks to be offensive, and Pinker replied, "Look, the truth cannot be offensive. Perhaps the hypothesis is wrong, but how would we ever find out whether it is wrong if it is “offensive” even to consider it? People who storm out of a meeting at the mention of a hypothesis, or declare it taboo or offensive without providing arguments or evidence, don’t get the concept of a university or free inquiry."

Professor Hopkins' emotional response to the lecture does make her appear incapable of rational, scientific analysis. In fact, she single-handedly does more to enhance the stereotype of the hysterical woman than any intellectual study, whether scientifically rigorous or not, could do in a month of Sundays.

Hopkins' views harken back to the Victorian era when women got the vapors at the drop of a hat & had to retire to their beds. Sticking your fingers in your ears & childishly refusing to listen to opposing viewpoints is equally ridiculous & hardly my idea of a modern day professor who should be able to marshall data & formulate arguments to bolster his or her position. Perhaps a refresher course in statistical distributions would help Professor Hopkins reign in her emotions and gather her thoughts.

The larger point here, and one that Professor Pinker does a good job of elucidating, is that left leaning, political correctness has no business intimidating intellectual curiousity in academia, and most especially not in the sciences.