Larry Summers
| Mon Nov. 10, 2008 11:57 AM PST
LARRY SUMMERS....Sheryl Sandberg defends Larry Summers:
At the World Bank, he was a tireless advocate for girls' education. At Treasury, he fought for social security benefits for women working in their homes, better enforcement of child support obligations, and an expansion of child care tax credits.
....Larry has been attacked by some in the women's community for remarks he made about women's abilities. As he has acknowledged himself, this speech was a real mistake. 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. To conclude that he communicated poorly — and even insensitively — is fair. To conclude that he is opposed to progress for women overlooks the fact that improving this progress was precisely the subject he was addressing.
On the issues I know best and over which the Treasury Secretary has sway, Summers is good. Very, very good. In the last few years, he has become a persistent critic of inequality and advocate for government action to redress it. He's a true believer in health care reform, both as a way to alleviate economic insecurity and to address the country's long-term fiscal crisis. He wants major action on climate change. And he has argued for aggressive action to stimulate the economy, despite high deficits.
Larry is — in Paul Krugman's words — a "a force of nature....You can bring him up to speed on anything in fifteen minutes....If you do a piece of something for him excellently — a link in a chain, say — he will do his damnedest to make sure that all other links in that chain are done equally excellently....If he thinks you know more about something than he does, he will listen to you very patiently and then trust and act on what you have told him....Very good people want to work for Larry because he will, if he thinks you can handle it, push you forward into the limelight and give you more responsibility than you thought you could handle.
The anti-anti-Summers backlash appears to be gathering steam.
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Continued From Above
Comments
Submitted by Dan S. (not verified) on Mon Nov. 10, 2008 5:10 PM PST.
"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. "
Oh my . . . you have got to be kidding. That's up there with the fictional chutzpah-defining one about the guy on trial for killing his parents throwing himself on the mercy of the court as a poor orphan.
(It helps to remember that his conclusion: that sadly, there probably wasn't much that could be done to fix what was "going wrong" - that's just the way the world is. Ok, ok, maybe there's some special allowances universities could make for women professors, but honestly, it's such a difficult and complicated problem, nothing like the simplicity of deducing the essential nature of the male and female genders from the fact that one's twin daughters once happened to call their toy trucks "daddy truck" and "baby truck" . . .
Jerry, I beg to differ and I did read the actual paper, not just the summary I linked to. The link was a bit wonky when I went back to my original post, here it is again.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080724192258.htm
From the summary:
"To carry out its query, the team acquired math scores from state exams now mandated annually under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), along with detailed statistics on test takers, including gender, grade level and ethnicity, in 10 states. Using data from more than 7 million students, they then calculated the "effect size," a statistic that reports the degree of difference between girls' and boys' average math scores in standardized units. The effect sizes they found - ranging from 0.01 and 0.06 - were basically zero, indicating that average scores of girls and boys were the same." [The researchers did not find any differences in variability, either]
Yes, I agree that a single study should not be the only support for one's argument. I was merely citing this one study, and its summary, because it was easily accessible and I didn't have the time do anything resembling a detailed summary of the evidence.
This is clearly a complex issue, but Summers lacked even a rudimentary understanding of the research literature. For two good discussions of gender differences/similarities in science and mathematics (and in other domains), see:
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/pspi_8_1_article.pdf
http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp606581.pdf
There were other problems with Summers' statements at the conference, including his dismissive attitude toward other explanations (i.e., differential socialization, learning environment, gender discrimination and stereotypes, stereotype threat, and a variety of factors) that have been shown in numerous studies to explain as much or more variance in men's and women's mathematical ability. Finally, his grasp of behavioral genetics was naive at best. The idea that genes invariably shape our abilities and behaviors without input from environmental forces is flat wrong?they interact in complex ways. IQ, for example, which is on the high end of hereditability, is determined by genes in optimal environments and not at all in impoverished environments (Turkeimer et al., 2003, Psych Science).
Submitted by Dan S. (not verified) on Mon Nov. 10, 2008 5:10 PM PST.
"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. "
Oh my . . . you have got to be kidding. That's up there with the fictional chutzpah-defining one about the guy on trial for killing his parents throwing himself on the mercy of the court as a poor orphan.
(It helps to remember that his conclusion: that sadly, there probably wasn't much that could be done to fix what was "going wrong" - that's just the way the world is. Ok, ok, maybe there's some special allowances universities could make for women professors, but honestly, it's such a difficult and complicated problem, nothing like the simplicity of deducing the essential nature of the male and female genders from the fact that one's twin daughters once happened to call their toy trucks "daddy truck" and "baby truck" . . .
Jerry, I beg to differ and I did read the actual paper, not just the summary I linked to. The link was a bit wonky when I went back to my original post, here it is again.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080724192258.htm
From the summary:
"To carry out its query, the team acquired math scores from state exams now mandated annually under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), along with detailed statistics on test takers, including gender, grade level and ethnicity, in 10 states. Using data from more than 7 million students, they then calculated the "effect size," a statistic that reports the degree of difference between girls' and boys' average math scores in standardized units. The effect sizes they found - ranging from 0.01 and 0.06 - were basically zero, indicating that average scores of girls and boys were the same." [The researchers did not find any differences in variability, either]
Yes, I agree that a single study should not be the only support for one's argument. I was merely citing this one study, and its summary, because it was easily accessible and I didn't have the time do anything resembling a detailed summary of the evidence.
This is clearly a complex issue, but Summers lacked even a rudimentary understanding of the research literature. For two good discussions of gender differences/similarities in science and mathematics (and in other domains), see:
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/pspi_8_1_article.pdf
http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp606581.pdf
There were other problems with Summers' statements at the conference, including his dismissive attitude toward other explanations (i.e., differential socialization, learning environment, gender discrimination and stereotypes, stereotype threat, and a variety of factors) that have been shown in numerous studies to explain as much or more variance in men's and women's mathematical ability. Finally, his grasp of behavioral genetics was naive at best. The idea that genes invariably shape our abilities and behaviors without input from environmental forces is flat wrong?they interact in complex ways. IQ, for example, which is on the high end of hereditability, is determined by genes in optimal environments and not at all in impoverished environments (Turkeimer et al., 2003, Psych Science).
Very good people want to work for Larry because he will, if he thinks you can handle it, ...
That's just it - if HE thinks you can handle it. He doesn't think that women, as a group, can handle science or math. As a female scientist, who has done a lot of math in her lifetime, this is just crap. Just crap. He gets no pass from me.
Submitted by Yellow Dog (not verified) on Mon Nov. 10, 2008 12:08 PM PST.
Larry Summers is a particular and highly recognizable type of misogynistic creep.
He's intelligent and educated enough to recognize that screaming "Wumun! Bak in yer kichin!" doesn't work any more.
So he comes up with plausible "concerns" and "discussions" that sound enlightened but are really just - if you'll excuse an expression - lipstick on the sexist pig.
I've worked with these I'm-a-feminist concern trolls and each one is far, far more damaging to women's careers than a thousand "donchu wury yer purty hed" neanderthals.
Optical Weenie, I really don't remember the details, so I am sure I should just shut up and learn, but He doesn't think that women, as a group, can handle science or math doesn't seem to represent what he said.
I do know that as Kevin indicates lots of liberals will defend Summers' statements. I can't defend or attack them -- I am ignorant on this. I can note there is just huge pressure on progressive liberals to damn Summers to hell.
And as a progressive liberal, I think that pressure is interesting and remarkable, given how we like to claim that there is no such thing as "politically correct" forces.
And I'll note once more the presence of racists and sexists on Kevin's blogroll whose sole reason for being there is some claim they are progressive liberal feminists which allows us to ignore that racist, sexist, and *phobic crap they spew.
Anti-anti-Summers backlash already? But I haven't heard the case for anti-Summers made decently yet.
It's not that he's not brilliant, God knows. And it's not that he's sexist. It's that in every position he's held, he's proven himself to be politically clumsy. The next Sec of Treasury is going to have to be the face for TARP. And he's going to have to help pass a reform of Wall Street. You need smart, but you also need somebody with poliitical chops... I wish Corzine were mentioned a bit more. Or Bloomberg.
brad delong is a great guy, a solid progressive, and a brilliant economist.
he is also an old, old friend of larry summers. his defense of l.s. means very little, except that brad is a loyal friend.
summers is also a brilliant economist. however, he is absolutely hopeless at managing people and running an organization.
as wagster says, he is politically clumsy. he is also horrible with his own underlings.
he got the boot from harvard, not for the women-and-math thing, but because he was such a horrible administrator and manager that no one wanted him around--not the three women faculty members whom he'd pissed off, and not the seven zillion male faculty members who didn't give a damn about that stuff. he was fired for cause, and the cause had nothing to do with feminism, and everything to do with mismanagement.
the guy does not belong at the head of a big, complicated organization--not harvard, and not treasury.
Kevin Drum: anti-anti-Summers backlash appears to be gathering steam
Of course, because Summers is a good noblesse oblige liberal. Throw the peasants some crumbs after you've rigged the economic game against them.
Sheryl Sandberg: Larry has been attacked by some in the women's community for remarks he made about women's abilities. As he has acknowledged himself, this speech was a real mistake.
Such brilliant hindsight! What a rare gift! BTW, is he also admitting that his participation in the troika that squashed derivatives regulation was a mistake? How about his promotion of PNTR and WTO membership for China (the stuff that gave us our largest ever trade deficits and supplied the cash for the housing bubble and the current mess).
I prefer Dean Baker's take on Larry Summers: Missing the Stock Bubble and Housing Bubble Makes You Qualified to Fix the Crisis
Besides, he's fat - he'll look pretty silly next to a skinny president.
If Summers' politically incorrect statements about women at Harvard is a bar, then the Democrats' rule will be short - and deservedly so.
We have serious economic problems and need the best people possible. While Summers' economic credentials may be subject to fair - and only fair - challenge; his speech at Harvard is immaterial to whether he is or is not qualified.
Those who contend otherwise, far from stating any sort of claim, should be answerable for any adverse economic consequences that may result.
Hey Jon,
Can you explain what you mean by "creepy" baggage? Seriously, I hear the word "creepy" so misused so often, that I no longer can tell what people mean by it.
Usually on liberal blogs they are trying to place some disgusting sexual slur on the individual.
"he is also an old, old friend of larry summers. his defense of l.s. means very little, except that brad is a loyal friend."
You may be right, but DeLong can't get a break. When he said Hillary should never be in the White House, everyone used the opposite argument.
No one ever believes Brad!
Isn't that convenient.
I'm a woman, not a big fan of Summers, but my own "mavericky" (snark) tendencies make me resent the thought police on the left screaming about how horrible he is because of a) a policy memo at the World Bank he didn't write and b)the fact that geeky academics at Harvard didn't like him. Yes, he's a clod, but ably ran Treasury once before in spite of this and as with Bill Clinton, I don't really need to like him personally, just want him to do a good job.
Economists I know and respect a lot who are liberal as the day is long (well, for economists) say that he is someone who can see the forest and the trees, and that you want someone who really "gets" the financial issues at stake. And yes, btw, he did recently acknowledge in an op-ed (need to check the source) that he was wrong on deregulation stuff.
From my interaction with him, I have concluded that Larry Summers must has Asperger's, since he's utterly impossible to have a normal conversation with, and prone to introducing discomfort in what should be ordinary personal interactions. Put aside, for a moment, his impossibly stupid remarks about women -- which included references to whites in the NBA, Catholics on Wall Street, and Jews in farming and agriculture -- and consider his no-confidence vote from Harvard, which hated him less for the remarks than for the sheer difficulty of dealing with the guy and his shameful record on female tenure appointments.
Fact is, the guy isn't very good at any type of management, and wasn't very good at Treasury the first time around. Indeed, it was under his watch specifically that the Securities Modernization Act was introduced and passed in Congress, stripping CDOs, MBSs and all that good stuff of any regulation whatsoever.
I mean, seriously, what does he even bring to the table that we need? "Experience?" Henry Paulson's got that. But we're not asking him to stick around, are we?
As far as I can tell, he'd be brought on for the symbolic purpose of shouting, loud and clear, that "change" did not apply to Wall Street, with a secondary insult to feminists.
It'd be almost enough to go listen to Ralph Nader.
Almost.
Submitted by Keith M Ellis (not verified) on Mon Nov. 10, 2008 1:00 PM PST.
Summers speculated women are lagging at higher levels in math and science possibly because they aren't as adept at this kind of reasoning as men.
What's ironic is that it was only recently that a form of feminism held sway in the academy that claimed the same thing. I vividly recall young feminists deriding "reason" and the supposedly masculine nature of math and most sciences.
I've been a dedicated and outspoken feminist long enough to have watched these fads come and go. At root, each wave of feminist thought, while sometimes excessive, is an attempt to deal with the endemic barriers women face in our culture. Maybe women are held back because the culture prizes masculine characteristics, like rational analysis, in which women aren't interested. Maybe women are held back because, although just as capable at rational analysis, there are stereotypes that exist that hinder women from advancing. Both the "there is no difference between men and women" and the "there is a great deal of difference between men and women" views are attempts to come to grips with gender inequality in our culture.
Personally, I have no allegiance to either dogmatic version of these two views. I strongly suspect that there are important differences between male and female brains, but I am extremely reluctant to suppose that traditional gender roles reflect these differences. I'm ambivalent about what Summers said because, on the one hand, it does seem like we ought to consider the possibility that on a statistical basis the under-representation of women in math and the sciences might be due to inherent sex differentiation; but, on the other hand, speaking in public about such things is just stupidly providing fodder for the conservatives to justify the status quo and also, very importantly, is discouraging to young women who are interested in math and science.
I don't know enough about Summers's history to judge whether he is genuinely committed to womens' rights and equality. This famous gaffe of his might represent his hidden regressive views, and then again, it might not. It's almost certainly a mistake to judge him without putting his words into the context of his larger history.
this whole feminism thing with summers is a complete red herring.
fuck feminism. summers is just a *disaster* as a manager. as m says above, he is just impossible to work with, no matter what sex you are.
the guy is not cut out for working with other people, much less for being in charge of a lot of people.
yes, he's a good economist. so are a lot of other people. some of those other people are capable of leading an organization and communicating with others. he's not.
I strongly suspect that there are important differences between male and female brains, but I am extremely reluctant to suppose that traditional gender roles reflect these differences.
Why "extremely reluctant?" In the question of nature vs. nurture, this to me seems like a nature AND nurture solution.
Particularly when various traditional gender roles are seen to cross cultural barriers. Why did so many different cultures evolve such similar gender roles? I don't think every cultural element must be a strong function of underlying biology, but at the same time, I don't understand an extreme reluctance.
I am happy to seen traditional gender roles broken down, but I don't see why one needs to be extremely reluctant to consider these gender roles related to actual biological differences.
It's totally reasonable to be scientifically/anthropologically skeptical and ask for data.
on the other hand, speaking in public about such things is just stupidly providing fodder for the conservatives to justify the status quo and also, very importantly, is discouraging to young women who are interested in math and science.
I am extremely reluctant to think positively of groups that demand one watch what they say in public for fear of conservatives (or other bogey men). Extremely reluctant to think kindly of people who say one thing, but understand the research/speculation/literature/history suggests something entirely different.
And I suspect young women have far more that is discouraging to their aspirations than the scientifically valid comments of an academic at an academic conference.
as a few folks have pointed out, Summers seems to just awful at the inter-personal stuff...now maybe that's a bigger disqualification at an academic insitution than as secretary of the treasury, but it does seem to be a really serious handicap, no matter how brilliant one is
Once again, I find myself in complete agreement with Jerry.
If you study even a little bit how natural selection works through sexual selection in every species of critter on the planet, you'd begin at least to question the idea that the human species, only relatively recently "civilized" as it is, is the only species that's been entirely exempt from the effects of sexual selection.
As for Summers, I have no personal knowledge of him, but I have lots of personal knowledge of the Harvard faculty and administration and how spectacularly thin-skined they can be. The culture there has long been one of collegiality and mutual respect, and the faculty has a great deal of explicit power to decide things at the university.
These folks are going to take out-sized umbrage if they're spoken to brusquely or too directly by a top admin official. My dear, it just isn't done!
I have no doubt Summers can be difficult to work with, but the fact that he made Harvard nuts means very little. He may be no more difficult than your average corporate CEO, and that's all he'd have to be to have the Harvard folks running around with their hair standing on end.
Not at all meant as a slam on Harvard, just that whoever thought Summers's style could ever fit in there should have their head examined.
I've met Summers once. He *is* hyper-smart. And he *is* arrogant to match it.
I'd prefer Summers as Treasury Secretary, if only because he's had the job before and can hit the ground running.
While the NY fed chief would also be a suitable fit, I'd be concerned that with him and Bernanke as the key decision makers there'd be too much of a Fed-centric bias in the economic policy. Regardless, there should be an announcement on who the choice will be very soon.
Also, it's really hard to match the charges of misogynism with the fact that Summer's Ph.D. supervisor was Janet Yellen, Ackeroff's wife and head of the S.F. Fed, who frankly is a better economist that Summers. [Mind you, the contrast between the self-effacing Yellen and Summers is remarkable.]
Submitted by JohnL (not verified) on Mon Nov. 10, 2008 2:47 PM PST.
The problem with his speech on women in the sciences was that he was telling experts what they should be looking at. And he is not an expert in the field. The questions that he asked have all been researched. It could be this could just be an example of his arrogance, but it could also be sexist (since most of the experts are women).
Re: sexism. C'mon, it's not like anybody wants to make Summers the Secretary of Labor, or even OMB chief.
Larry Summers is quick and has outstanding technical skills. Perhaps he should be considered for head of the SEC. We need to revamp the regulatory structure and a keen and flexible analytic mind on top would help.
I am extremely reluctant to think positively of groups that demand one watch what they say in public for fear of conservatives (or other bogey men)
As president of Harvard, Summers had one overriding responsibility: increase the prestige and effectiveness of the institution. He was not free to run his mouth in ways that anyone with common sense knows would offend and alienate important sub-populations and clients. He failed Harvard -- and himself -- in his most important responsibility.
His mouth is often not connected to his brain, lowering his effective IQ to below normal levels. And, he is known to LOWER the effectiveness and motivation of many of those around him by his abusive behavior.
Ask him if he knows how to fix the economy. Listen to his advice. But, for god's sake, put someone who can get the best out of everyone in the job.
Submitted by Maynard Handley (not verified) on Mon Nov. 10, 2008 3:09 PM PST.
After 8 years of know-nothing-ism, it would be nice to believe that the Democratic party and its supporters would be rather more intelligent. The Summers reaction shows us that this is being optimistic.
Here's a hint to all anti-Summers commenters.
Do you know the difference between a MEAN and a STANDARD DEVIATION? Do you know which of these Summers was discussing? If you don't, then STFU because you don't have anything useful to add to the discussion.
I think Yellow Dog is right. It's the same old crap dressed up in academic language -- not unlike the folks who prove scientifically that the colored folks ain't as smart.
But even if he didn't mean what it sounded like he said, still, a Cabinet-level post is a political post. If he's smart about the economy, pick his brain. But keep him in a closet somewhere where he won't be pissing off half the population.
The "women can't do math" is merely one of many stupid comments Larry Summers has made during his time at Harvard.
Obama trashed MoveOn, LIED about the FISA Bill, will put his own Karl Rove (Rahm) in Whitehouse, so Obama can Politicizing the presidential office. Obama doesn't like Howard Dean either.
All together, not good signs. All of Obama's friends are nasty DLC people, corporate first - screw Americans kind of people. So far Obama is batting a zero in my book.
As president of Harvard, Summers had one overriding responsibility: increase the prestige and effectiveness of the institution.
That was Summers's understanding of his responsibilities (with an accent on "effectiveness"). What he didn't realize was that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences believed he had a different and higher responsibility: to allow them to run their own little departments however they saw fit, with priority given to faculty's ability to spend its time doing independent research and writing projects, minimal focus on teaching, and no focus whatsoever on cross-discipline cooperation with other parts of the University to create a more dynamic and effective research and educational institution. Profs focused on maximizing the value of their own personal brands didn't like being pressured to work on new cross-department programs, so they waited for Summers to slip up, and then they hung him for a dumb-sounding comment.
Harvard is, like the US government, an institution with tremendous accumulated prestige and crippling long-term weaknesses that have built up over centuries. It doesn't teach most of its students as well as other universities do, and it doesn't have the strongest programs in many areas because it's focused on short-term name-brand thinking, not long-term institution-building. Summers made the mistake of trying to do something about those weaknesses.
Signed,
A Harvard Grad
Submitted by Dan S. (not verified) on Mon Nov. 10, 2008 5:10 PM PST.
"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. "
Oh my . . . you have got to be kidding. That's up there with the fictional chutzpah-defining one about the guy on trial for killing his parents throwing himself on the mercy of the court as a poor orphan.
(It helps to remember that his conclusion: that sadly, there probably wasn't much that could be done to fix what was "going wrong" - that's just the way the world is. Ok, ok, maybe there's some special allowances universities could make for women professors, but honestly, it's such a difficult and complicated problem, nothing like the simplicity of deducing the essential nature of the male and female genders from the fact that one's twin daughters once happened to call their toy trucks "daddy truck" and "baby truck" . . .
We don't need an economist as Treasury Sec. What's the job? It's not to provide a single source of economic advice. It's not even about coordinating economic advice. IT's about leading a bureaucracy, communicating effectively to financial markets, and managing competing agendas deftly and successfully.
Based on that, I don't think Summers ranks among the best candidates. Corzine or Bloomberg or any number of genuinely accomplished CEOs would be a much better selection.
What's the story on the third world waste gaffe? Was he in support of the idea or not?
I had a friend interview at the World Bank at the time and one of their interview questions was about whether and how to defend the comment.
He doesn't strike me as a great figurehead. I'd personally put him in a position that wasn't considered the most important job in administration. If one could convince Robert Rubin I'd bring him back.
"Do you know the difference between a MEAN and a STANDARD DEVIATION?...If you don't, then STFU because you don't have anything useful to add to the discussion."
Hey idiot, yes I do.
Summers discussed some research documenting not only mean differences in quantitative ability between men and women, but also greater variability in quant. ability among men. Summers then argued that the greater variability in men's quantitative ability translates into a greater number of men at the very top (and bottom) of the distribution of quantitative ability.
One problem with this argument, you condescending asshat, is that there is no credible evidence to support this assertion. At the time, he was most likely referring to Benbow & Stanley's research (1980, Science). This research was controversial at the time of Summers talk because other studies disputed these findings. Moreover, recent research convincingly demonstrates no meaningful mean (or standard deviation) differences in quantitative ability between men/women (Hyde, 2008, Science).
(for a summary, go here http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080724192258.htm)
How you like them apples?
Submitted by capitalistimperialistpig (not verified) on Mon Nov. 10, 2008 6:57 PM PST.
All the whack jobs bashing Larry Summers just go to show that the right wing has no monopoly on nuts. What Summers is condemned for is merely suggesting the obvious - that those who wish to explain a phenomenon ought to consider all the plausible explanations instead of just those that are politically convenient. That's a hanging offense for the ideologically blinded fanatics of the left. The right, of course, makes the identical error.
Submitted by capitalistimperialistpig (not verified) on Mon Nov. 10, 2008 7:00 PM PST.
"....Larry has been attacked by some in the women's community for remarks he made about women's abilities. As he has acknowledged himself, this speech was a real mistake."
The mistake was in assuming that he was talking to scientists instead of hysterical fanatics.
B: If one could convince Robert Rubin I'd bring him back.
Rubin and Summers are Mutt and Jeff. Both members of the troika that opposed regulation of derivatives, both ignored the stock and housing bubbles, both supported the strong dollar policy, and PNTR and WTO membership for China (leading to the enormous trade deficits that supplied the cash for the housing bubble).
What exactly have either of these geniuses ever been right about? Oh, they were both SecTreas during an economic boom. Dick Cheney was SecDef when the Cold War ended, so by that logic he must be the best SecDef ever.
Get a grip. Is SecTreas supposed to be a job program for recycled but now (partly) repentant "Democrats"? Why not find somebody who was actually right about something.
foolishconsistency, you should read that summary of your paper. It doesn't seem to show what you claim it shows, and there seem to be all sorts of other problems with using that one, specific paper. I think you need some more cites....
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/370925/the_woman_greenspan_rubin_su...
I have to agree with alex, if Michael Greenberger and his boss Brooksley Born are to be believed, Summers and Rubin both should be thanked and then dismissed.
Still, the Harvard stuff? What capitalistimperialistpig sez.
Submitted by Maynard Handley (not verified) on Mon Nov. 10, 2008 8:01 PM PST.
Hmm, foolishconsistency,
(a) The URL you cite points nowhere, so I'm unable to evaluate that part of your argument.
(b) Do you deny, to take one example, that Asperger's is more common in men than in women?
The correct URL is http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080724192258.htm
Regarding Aspergers.... That's sort of part of the feminist discussion all these years. Women are different from men when the argument requires that, and identical to men when the argument requires that too.
On Fresh Air last week was a very interesting interview on migraine headaches with Neurologist Carolyn Bernstein who co-wrote "The Migraine Brain" in which she documents all the differences between brains that can get migraines and brains that can't. The book appears to address men and women alike. Dr. Bernstein also founded the Women's Headache Center, apparently because she feels the causes, treatments, etc. of migraines for women is different than that for men. To use Dr. Bernstein's own analogy, she feels that women's migraine brain is different from men's migraine brain.
Which I think is a terrifically reasonable hypothesis.
(It was a really informative interview, especially if you suffer from migraines, regardless of your sex.)
The correct URL is http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080724192258.htm
Regarding Aspergers.... That's sort of part of the feminist discussion all these years. Women are different from men when the argument requires that, and identical to men when the argument requires that too.
On Fresh Air last week was a very interesting interview on migraine headaches with Neurologist Carolyn Bernstein who co-wrote "The Migraine Brain" in which she documents all the differences between brains that can get migraines and brains that can't. The book appears to address men and women alike. Dr. Bernstein also founded the Women's Headache Center, apparently because she feels the causes, treatments, etc. of migraines for women is different than that for men. To use Dr. Bernstein's own analogy, she feels that women's migraine brain is different from men's migraine brain.
Which I think is a terrifically reasonable hypothesis.
(It was a really informative interview, especially if you suffer from migraines, regardless of your sex.)
(Posted twice in hopes of not getting modded by including (god-forbid) a link.)
Sort of apropos, and makes me laugh.
Jerry, I beg to differ and I did read the actual paper, not just the summary I linked to. The link was a bit wonky when I went back to my original post, here it is again.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080724192258.htm
From the summary:
"To carry out its query, the team acquired math scores from state exams now mandated annually under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), along with detailed statistics on test takers, including gender, grade level and ethnicity, in 10 states. Using data from more than 7 million students, they then calculated the "effect size," a statistic that reports the degree of difference between girls' and boys' average math scores in standardized units. The effect sizes they found - ranging from 0.01 and 0.06 - were basically zero, indicating that average scores of girls and boys were the same." [The researchers did not find any differences in variability, either]
Yes, I agree that a single study should not be the only support for one's argument. I was merely citing this one study, and its summary, because it was easily accessible and I didn't have the time do anything resembling a detailed summary of the evidence.
This is clearly a complex issue, but Summers lacked even a rudimentary understanding of the research literature. For two good discussions of gender differences/similarities in science and mathematics (and in other domains), see:
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/pspi_8_1_article.pdf
http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp606581.pdf
There were other problems with Summers' statements at the conference, including his dismissive attitude toward other explanations (i.e., differential socialization, learning environment, gender discrimination and stereotypes, stereotype threat, and a variety of factors) that have been shown in numerous studies to explain as much or more variance in men's and women's mathematical ability. Finally, his grasp of behavioral genetics was naive at best. The idea that genes invariably shape our abilities and behaviors without input from environmental forces is flat wrongthey interact in complex ways. IQ, for example, which is on the high end of hereditability, is determined by genes in optimal environments and not at all in impoverished environments (Turkeimer et al., 2003, Psych Science).
Submitted by Keith M Ellis (not verified) on Mon Nov. 10, 2008 8:29 PM PST.
We can see in these comments how delicate the subject of sex differentiation in human behavior really is.
Let's look at another example: the supposed "racial" differentiation in human behavior. Let's be clear on something that a lot (the vast majority?) don't realize: there is no scientific basis for the idea of "race". Yes, there is genetic differentiation among humans. And, yes, such differentiation could have resulted in easily identifiable features that correlate to relatedness. However, the main correlate in terms of the general idea of race is skin color...and skin color does not correlate to genetic relatedness across all human populations.
(Note: That latter qualification is to allow that within certain subsets of human populations, such as the US, there is a correlation between skin color and genetic relatedness..this is because most black Americans are the descendents of a somewhat related group of west Africans. In contrast, there is no correlation between all black-skinned Africans and genetic relatedness. In other words, skin color is not for all purposes a reliable indicator of genetic relatedness and this is the most important thing to understand when someone says that "there's no scientific basis for 'race'".)
With that in mind, consider the history of popular and scientific theories which rationalized the social status quo on the basis of supposed genetic differentiation as the basis of differentiated behavior between "white" and "black" humans. It's a sorry history. And it continues today with a great many people still believing that, for example, blacks are better athletes or whatever. There is no rational scientific basis for these claims because "black" skin color does not reliably tell you something about that person's genetics. People think that black skin signifies much more systemic genetic differentiation...but darkened skin coloration is an easy evolutionary branch in populations that can occur over and over again in completely unrelated populations. And it has. And it will.
As I said earlier, I'm of the opinion that sex is quite unlike race in that it's both (duh) completely biologically real and a comprehensive differentiation that of which we have a great deal of evidence to indicate that it affects the brain and thus, probably, behavior.
Because of this, there's many reasons to believe that, unlike in the case of race, we'll come to discover hard science that describes how men and women differentiate in terms of behavior. However, the history of the science and politics of race is a very good example of what we should desperately attempt to avoid; what we should avoid is to glibly rationalize social/cultural/political/economic status quos with poorly examined and unproven quasi-scientific supposition. There's a very strong tendency to do this; that's why we need to be extra vigilant against it even if, as several commenters have already mentioned, there's a lot of reason to believe that men and woman are biologically different with regard to behavior.
The example of race proves that if something is deeply satisfying to common sense then the science that supposedly supports it will not be greatly questioned and could very well be terribly flawed. People have very strong common sense notions about men and women and thus we must be extra careful when examining the science about sex differentiation in humans and we should especially question our own motivations for preferring one explanation over another.
Maynard,
a) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080724192258.htm
b)What does Asperger's have to do with this?
I survived the Hillary thing to come to THIS point with Obama? It's horribly disappointing that talk of Summers has gotten even THIS far.I thought surely clear-headed people would put him out to pasture, with a runner occasionally bringing him consulting jobs on topics he understands.
This story about Summers was very shocking when it first appeared, and I followed it to the end. There is no question he has achieved crackpot status with the best thinkers. What's wrong with the Obama people?
Submitted by Maynard Handley (not verified) on Mon Nov. 10, 2008 9:01 PM PST.
A study that is targeted at determining the behavior of average kids is going to tell us NOTHING about the behavior of exceptional kids. Once the kids peg the exam at a 100%, you're losing all information about their abilities beyond that level. I mean, christ, it's like using 1µm light to try to exam structures 10nm in size.
And pegging these sorts of standardized exams at 100% is nothing special --- I'm no math genius and I did it all the time in school and college. This study tells us that, at the level of average kids, boys and girls are the same, which Summers was not disputing.
What does Asperger's have to do with things? A substantial number (way above what you'd expect from random numbers) of the individuals in University Mathematics departments (ie, the kind of off-the-charts brilliant individuals Summer's was discussing, the one one-in-a-million level of brilliance, not one-in-a-hundred level) are Aspergers individuals. Heck, of just individuals at Cambridge studying group theory, Borcherds (Fields medal) is known to have Aspergers, while Conway and Norton both exhibit symptoms. Of course not all mathematicians have Aspergers, but it is one well-documented part of the whole thrust of Summers' argument; that the distribution is wider in men than in women.
