Mountains vs. Molehills in Cambridge

Harvard President Larry Summers' intellectual honesty has gotten him into trouble with the PC police again. Apparently, Summers -- speaking last week at an off-the-record conference on "Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce: Women, Underrepresented minorities, and their S&E Careers" sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research -- had the temerity to discuss several possible causes of the numerical underrepresentation of women in a talk on a possible "research agenda" to study the issue.

According to a report in the NYT by Sam Dillion, Summers cited several possible causes for women's underrepresentation, including the conflict between child rearing and the time demands of an academic career and a possible biological link between differences in men's and women's test scores in standardized math tests. It was this latter hypothesis that prompted Prof. Nancy Hopkins of MIT to walk out. Here was how Hopkins explained her actions to the NYT:

When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill.

Hopkins, who apparently has made something of career in advancing the cause of faculty diversity, is co-head of MIT's Council on Faculty Diversity, one of the founding members of MIT's Committee on Women Faculty, and a member of MIT's Academic Council, which serves as the President of MIT's cabinet. As a scientist, she should understand the difference between raising a hypothesis to guide further research and making an argument for a specific conclusion. As an adult, she should also learn to take a deep breath and remain calm. Surely raising the question that there may be some link between biology and sex-based differences in test scores is no reason to walk out of an academic discussion.

Yesterday, Summers issued a statement clarifying his position on the issue saying, in part:

I am deeply committed to the advancement of women in science, and all of us have a crucial stake in accelerating progress toward that end. In the spirit of academic inquiry, my aim at the conference was to underscore that the situation is likely the product of a variety of factors, and that further research can help us better understand their interplay. I do not presume to have confident answers, only the conviction that the harder we work to research and understand the situation, the better the prospects for long-term success.

Fortunately for Harvard, Summers is too self-confident and bull-headed to allow this kind of bogus furore to influence him. Semper fi, Larry.