Summers vs. The National Academy

Recently the National Academy of Sciences published a report on women in science that seemingly was a retort to the comments of Larry Summers as the then President of Harvard. In brief, Summers raise the issue that the lack of women in high level academe was due to complex issues and perhaps not largely doe to old boyism. The NAS report focussed on the issue of old boy prejudice and dismissed claims of any innate differences relevant to achievement at the high level needed to become a chair or prominent scientist.

The claim that the NAS Committee was impartial and did not see itself as contrapunctal to Summers seems to implausible. If the intent was NOT to respond to Summers or at least to promote an agenda that he somehow also addressed why was the Committee overwhelmingly female and feminist?

The tragic thing, in all this, is the lack of attention to issues he raised that should ring a bell with ANYONE.

It is foolish to argue about something as hard to test as the effects of X chromosomes on extreme mathematical ability while utterly neglecting the real fact that the lifestyles expected of most female careerists in America, as addressed well by Summers, are served very badly by our current rules. Sure, there are some women who will want to pursue male patterned, traditional career paths but doing so does mean losing real perogatives women have had.

Is it biological for women to have children outside of ones' teens and age 30? It seem unlikely, but even if women can have children later or if some women choose not to have children or even if we throw families into the lake .. the effect of our current system robs women of a right they have had and is destructive of families for the mifddle and upper classes.

So, to me, a report devoted to women's issues should have had issues of career path and day care as central.

Back at the "man"power issue, I think Summers point about women's choices has merit. At least the public media report that a much higher portion of female MDs than males choose alternative ife styles to full time careers. So, in one area, if we want enough docs and want to serve women's wishes, we simply need to turn out more docs. Is that such a bad thing?

Finally, the issue of finding people to fill the extreme jobs at a Nobelist level is a fascinating subject. While I did not read the original research in the NAS report, I find it very hard to believe anyone can provide an objective answer to the questions Summers asks about this ... nor do I think Summerca can though I admire his asking an interesting question. However, I do not think it makes sense to address the need for such folks simply by affirmative action efforts .. directed at women or at minority groups. Such an effort may be good civil rights but it is horriby inefficient. The most efficient means is immigration. The Bush laws are idiotic and need to be dumped.

Here too, however, I suspect the lifestyle issues are more relevant than biology. The debt load alone is enough to deter all but the children of the reach to pursue the extreme academic goals both the NAS and Summers describe. How few people WITH ability can affairs a debt of 100,000 while pursuing a Math PhD? If we want to compete we need to make huge changes in how we support graduate study and in providing jobs for junior faculty that do not depend on so much risk.