
Daring to Discuss Women in Science - d4ft
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/science/08tier.html
======
sliverstorm
Feminists face an interesting challenge here; STEM seem to be their Waterloo
(I believe that's the right phrase). They stand upon the claim that women are
totally equal to men.

This means that for their cause to survive, they have to prove that they are
totally equal in every way, which means being proven wrong when it comes to
STEM would be disastrous. Thus they can never acknowledge the possibility, and
will likely do their best to tear down anyone who suggests it. This is, of
course, not particularly any different from anything else political, though it
seems to be more savage thus far.

I personally wish someone would just figure out a truly unbiased test and get
the answer already. I don't care what the answer is, I just want cold hard
fact to back up them claims & decisions made in regards to all this.

edit: cummon, if you're gonna downmod, please leave a reason.

edit2: I use equal in the sense of 'the same', not 'superior'/'inferior'.

~~~
SnydenBitchy
I’m not sure that’s a fair representation of mainstream feminism (“They stand
upon the claim that women are totally equal [in the sense of ‘the same’] to
men”). Obviously, biology differs between the sexes. It’s not at all
controversial, under the umbrella of feminism and gender studies, to explore
the influence of brain chemistry in the assignment and acceptance of gender
roles. Few will dispute that hormones affect the expression of, say,
aggression and empathy, _on average_ characteristic of men and women
respectively.

The more pressing and socially current matter is how these differences (rooted
in biology or not) are respected or disrespected by institutions, including
the social institutions of our prevailing cultural norms. For example: is it
fair to demand that female scientists jockey for position in academia as
ruthlessly as male scientists are accustomed to doing? Would it not benefit us
if our scientific institutions were more accepting of “non-masculine”
approaches to research, however those might be defined?

In short, the argument is for accepting diversity, not blindly insisting on
exact sameness between genders. That’s also why feminists will argue there’s
no such thing as the “truly unbiased test” you seek: testing, by attempting to
quantify the qualitative (scientific aptitude), will naturally privilege the
testmaker’s perspective to the exclusion of alternatives. I think there’s room
to argue that science would benefit from encouraging a diversity of
perspectives.

~~~
sliverstorm
I believe the difficulty is this particular topic is discussing ability rather
than characteristic. Even when they acknowledge that there are differences in
disposition, character, etc, no feminist I've met has been willing to
entertain the idea that either gender might be better at (more able to do)
something than the other (even though they are undoubtedly better at giving
birth than men! :). I think the discussion usually gets hung up on a
miscommunication though- they assume I am asking them to consider it is
impossible for all women to do a certain task, when the question is only ever,
is it possible one gender (not even necessarily males) might have greater
potential at something.

This is a valid question, no argument here.

How does one address diversity in a field whose first concerns are (or should
be, damnit) results and/or answers? IMHO you get answers/results, I don't give
a darn who or what you are- you could be a squirrel for all I care. By the
same token, if you don't, I'm not going to give you preferential treatment
just because you are diverse. Though, I realize this is a very black and white
position that probably fails to take into account some important realities.

~~~
MichaelSalib
_IMHO you get answers/results, I don't give a darn who or what you are_

You say this. And many people say it as well. But most people don't appear to
really believe this. To give one example: statistically speaking, women are
more rational when it comes to making risk-reward assessments than men. Men
are more likely to make irrational choices because they systematically
discount quantifiable risk. If our institutions were rational, that would
suggest that women would be well represented in the upper echelons of the
finance industry: there should be many women traders, hedge fund managers,
risk analysts, etc. But this is not the case, in part because Wall Street
firms have developed a culture of adolescent machismo.

Michael Lewis recounts in one of his books the story of extremely well paid
traders who would literally have a pissing contest every afternoon: they'd all
go into the bathroom and see who could piss farthest, inevitably covering
bathroom floor in urine. Is it any surprise really that these intellectual
giants fail to hire women despite their better risk/reward assessment skills?
Is it any surprise that the economy recently imploded because banks decided to
loan large sums of money without verifying any ability to repay?

~~~
yummyfajitas
_If our institutions were rational, that would suggest that women would be
well represented in the upper echelons of the finance industry: there should
be many women traders, hedge fund managers, risk analysts, etc._

Holding all else equal, you are right. But all else is not equal. Women have
the tendency to do things like not get PhDs in technical fields, vanish from
the workforce for years on end, insist on a work/life balance and not be
compulsive gamblers. This reduces their representation in finance.

By the way, women are hardly guiltless in the housing bubble:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odQ7s85bk9s>

~~~
MichaelSalib
_Women have the tendency to do things like not get PhDs in technical fields,
vanish from the workforce for years on end, insist on a work/life balance and
not be compulsive gamblers. This reduces their representation in finance._

Um, why does any of that matter when women would increase corporate profits?
If hiring lots of women traders would increase corporate profits while at the
same time decreasing the number of PhDs at a firm, why on Earth would that be
a problem? Do you think Wall St firms have a legal obligation to their
shareholders to maximize the number of PhDs on staff?

And I've never said that women were "guiltless" in the housing bubble.

~~~
yummyfajitas
An overconfident PhD trader with no social life almost certainly will make
more money than an appropriately confident mother of two just returning to the
workforce after a 5 year break.

You seem to be assuming that _rationality_ with regard to risk/reward
assessments is the only thing that matters as far as increasing profits. It
isn't. Technical ability and effort also play a major role (as does a gut
instinct, for some types of trading at least), and the institutional
incentives already mitigate much of the risk of trader overconfidence.

~~~
MichaelSalib
_An overconfident PhD trader with no social life almost certainly will make
more money than an appropriately confident mother of two just returning to the
workforce after a 5 year break._

The thing about systematically underestimating risk is that it causes you to
lose money relative to correctly assessing risk. Just like the vast majority
of casino gamblers are idiots who lose money.

By the way, most traders don't have a PhD. I can't even see how it might be
helpful.

 _institutional incentives already mitigate much of the risk of trader
overconfidence._

Apparently not in Iceland. Or the US for that matter. I'm pretty sure we had a
recent economic collapse in which several trillion dollars of value
disappeared caused in part by Wall St firms. To me, that suggests that our
institutional incentives for minimizing trader overconfidence might be, you
know, not good.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_The thing about systematically underestimating risk is that it causes you to
lose money relative to correctly assessing risk._

 _Rationally_ assessing risk and _correctly_ assessing risk are not the same
thing. The former helps one to do the latter, but it is not by any means the
only important component. Technical skill, time and effort also matter. A
rational trader, without much skill, might correctly assess her strategy as
having a 50% chance of success. An overconfident trader, with a great deal of
skill, might assess his strategy as having a 90% chance of success when it
actually has only a 70% chance of success. The skilled irrational trader will
still make more money.

To prove that hiring women would increase profits, you need to show that
female traders would make more profits than male traders, not show that they
are more rational.

As for a PhD, most trading these days is quantitative. The era of frat boys
throwing darts at a stock chart is over. Most trading strategies are designed
by quants (i.e., the PhDs, sometimes ABDs, occasionally a masters in math
finance), implemented by programmers (usually also having a heavy quant
background), and occasionally executed by compulsive gamblers who go nuts over
numbers. Most women don't fit this profile.

Also, why do you believe the financial crisis was caused by overconfidence, as
opposed to an incorrect evaluation of the facts?

~~~
MichaelSalib
_Rationally assessing risk and correctly assessing risk are not the same
thing._

Unless you have a time machine or are engaging in insider trading, rational
risk assessment is the closest one can get to correct risk assessment.

 _Technical skill, time and effort also matter._

For some reason, you seem to think I'm claiming that arbitrary untrained women
with no experience must outperform experienced male traders with graduate
degrees on account of their womanness. I believe nothing of the kind. My claim
is that other things being equal, women statistically make more rational risk
assessments than men. Of course people in finance should have training and
skill. If Wall St. were more committed to better risk management and the
profitability that results, then perhaps it would do more to ensure that more
women had the necessary training and skill sets; I understand that multi
million dollar salaries are quite effective at motivating people.

 _To prove that hiring women would increase profits, you need to show that
female traders would make more profits than male traders, not show that they
are more rational._

We don't live in a world where there are lots of women in the upper echelons
of the finance industry for comparison, so I can't show that. However, I can
show you that all other things being equal, stock investors that are male
exhibit overconfidence and trade more frequently than female investors. The
net result is that female investors outperform male investors. As in, generate
more profits. See
[http://faculty.gsm.ucdavis.edu/~bmbarber/Paper%20Folder/QJE%...](http://faculty.gsm.ucdavis.edu/~bmbarber/Paper%20Folder/QJE%20BoysWillBeBoys.pdf)

 _As for a PhD, most trading these days is quantitative._

As far as I know, most traders are not quants.

 _Also, why do you believe the financial crisis was caused by overconfidence,
as opposed to an incorrect evaluation of the facts?_

The two are closely related, are they not? Overconfident people tend to make
incorrect evaluations: their confidence makes them ignore discrepancies that
should be investigated. It also makes them shut out dissenting voices warning
of future problems. Your question seems akin to asking "why do you believe the
Challenger explosion was caused by a crappy design rather than the failure of
an o-ring seal?".

~~~
yummyfajitas
_For some reason, you seem to think I'm claiming that arbitrary untrained
women with no experience must outperform experienced male traders with
graduate degrees on account of their womanness. My claim is that other things
being equal..._

You said: _Men are more likely to make irrational choices because they
systematically discount quantifiable risk. If our institutions were rational,
[...] women would be well represented in the upper echelons of the finance
industry..._

I said: _Holding all else equal, you are right. But all else is not equal...
[mentions background, skillset, personality, effort]_

You said: _Um, why does any of that matter when women would increase corporate
profits?_

That's why I believe you are claiming "womanness" would increase corporate
profits - because you completely discounted everything besides that.

Also, your result for retail investors at a discount brokerage is irrelevant.
Average trader at financial firms >> average eTrade user.

Regarding quant traders, I admit my personal sampling may be somewhat skewed
(I'm a quant trader, formerly academic math). Tell me; what do you believe is
the typical background/skillset of a non-quant trader, and what fraction of
people with that background/skillset are women?

Also, overconfidence is not the only type of logical fallacy. I suspect that
groupthink and an unwillingness to go against the crowd played a much greater
role than overconfidence in the housing bubble.

~~~
MichaelSalib
_That's why I believe you are claiming "womanness" would increase corporate
profits - because you completely discounted everything besides that._

Ah I see. My apologies for my lack of clarity then. In the original comment, I
was assuming women traders with some level of skill and experience since I can
not fathom a world where Wall St hires people with absolutely no knowledge of
finance to run trading desks.

 _Also, your result for retail investors at a discount brokerage is
irrelevant. Average trader at financial firms >> average eTrade user._

It seems quite relevant. Does it prove beyond any doubt that Wall St should
have 100% female traders? Of course not. But it does suggest that Wall St
firms could reduce risk exposure and improve profits by hiring more women
and/or altering their culture.

 _what do you believe is the typical background/skillset of a non-quant
trader, and what fraction of people with that background/skillset are women?_

Wait a minute...you're a quant and you're asking me about traders? Don't you
already know?

~~~
yummyfajitas
_In the original comment, I was assuming women traders with some level of
skill and experience..._

I'm confused; after I described women as being less likely to get a PhD (one
common qualification for finance jobs), you said: _Um, why does any of that
matter when women would increase corporate profits? If hiring lots of women
traders would increase corporate profits while at the same time decreasing the
number of PhDs at a firm, why on Earth would that be a problem?_

It seems you were originally describing hiring women with less of the
qualifications often expected in finance (a PhD in particular), on the grounds
that their presence would increase profits. You seem to be changing your
argument quite a bit.

As for trader backgrounds, I told you the background of the traders I know.
You appeared to disagree with my characterization of traders as mostly quant
types. Since you disagree, I'm curious why - perhaps you know something I
don't, for instance fields of finance different from mine. Or perhaps you
don't.

------
frossie
_Even when you consider only members of an elite group like the top percentile
of the seventh graders on the SAT math test, someone at the 99.9 level is more
likely than someone at the 99.1 level to get a doctorate in science or to win
tenure at a top university._

This sentence is very important to the point he is trying to make but I can't
find it in the research that he quotes earlier and I have no idea where it
comes from. Moreover it is contradicted by my own personal experience; anybody
who thinks the ability to obtain a doctorate is so tightly correlated with
such fine variations in intelligence has not spent much time around PhDs.

~~~
dagw
Getting a PhD in science (or anything else really), has very little to do with
being intelligent and everything to do with really really wanting it and being
willing to put in the hard work. I know several very intelligent people who
failed to get their PhD because they found it more work than they where
willing to do, and I know several people with fairly mediocre grades who got
PhDs because it was what they really wanted and they where willing to do the
work and not give up.

~~~
jamesash
Agree. As far as the tenure debate, becoming a candidate for being science
professor at a top university requires INCREDIBLE single-minded focus, from
college through Ph.D. through postdoc. And for that, you get a _chance_ at an
academic job, because only a handful are up for grabs in any given year. It's
an incredibly high-risk proposition, with a lot of opportunity cost. Your
chances are helped immensely if you're not interested in any other activities
beyond working in your field. It's a monotonous life in many ways. Not many
people would want it to begin with - that's why the Aspbergers types are often
the only ones who make it through the filter.

~~~
dagw
In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the very highest percentiles of the maths
SAT tests is more of test for Aspbergers like single-mindedness and less of
test for actually mathematical aptitude. I doubt someone in the 97th
percentile is on the whole a significantly dumber or in any way a worse
(potential) mathematician than someone in the 99.7th percentile, but they
probably don't have the same single-minded zeal.

------
MikeTaylor
I am a publishing academic scientist. I observe that women in my particular
field take one of two paths. A certain proportion invest a lot of their time
blogging about how hard it is to be a Woman In Science. The rest get on with
doing research, presenting at conferences, writing papers, and generally being
scientists.

In most aspects, women in science (at least in my field) no longer face
significant discrimination. I am not saying it never happens, but it's much
less common now than it used to be a few decades ago. We are now, happily, at
a point where women in science can better advance their cause by doing science
than by complaining about the status quo. It's simply a better way to invest
time and energy towards making up whatever prestige gap may still exist.

To summarise: shut up and write the damned paper. (This is good advice to all
scientists, male or female, black or white.)

~~~
MichaelSalib
_women in science (at least in my field) no longer face significant
discrimination._

I wouldn't be surprised if women in your field no longer faced outright
prejudice. But discrimination involves systemic effects beyond just individual
prejudice. Do the women in your field have wives? You know what a wife is I'm
sure: the kind of spouse who spends more time with the children and doing all
the drudgery of running a house so that their science-doing spouse can spend
all their time at work doing exciting important science. Sometimes wives have
jobs, but we all know that such jobs aren't really important and must be given
up if the important science research has to move to get a better
professorship.

If your female colleagues don't have wives, do you think that might, in any
way, be connected with societal expectations for how marriages should work? I
mean, having an unpaid personal assistant is surely a boon to research
productivity, so it seems that differential assignment of said assistants to
scientists of different genders might bring about discriminatory effects. Even
in the absence of individual prejudice by any scientist in your field.

~~~
MichaelSalib
Downvoters: any particular reason for downvoting this comment?

------
jlm382
This could be optimizing on the wrong thing... sure, we want more women in
math and science, but instead of focusing on eliminating gender bias among
researchers, we should be thinking more about increasing the number of women
who _want_ to learn math and science at a younger age - and that will do far
more than any gender bias elimination ever will.

Not to mention, as a woman in computer science, this workshop just seems like
a waste of time. I wouldn't be happy if I were forced to go.

~~~
miri
Bingo. I'm female, and a comp eng student. The problem might not be the gender
bias among researchers so much, but the attitudes little girls face when
learning. If you grow up hearing that girls can't do computers, can't do math,
can't do science, cos science is a boy thing, while hearing that language is
something girls are good at, you get a lot of female language majors.
"Encouraging workshops" sounds a bit condescending to me. If they'd treat
people the same from the start and let it go on a bit so that even a parental
generation has grown up with it, it'll probably even out the numbers a bit.
Okay, so more boys than girls have good abilities in the STEM fields, but that
doesn't mean you shouldn't treat everyone the same.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>If you grow up hearing that girls can't do computers, can't do math, can't do
science, cos science is a boy thing, while hearing that language is something
girls are good at, you get a lot of female language majors.

Who says this? I've never heard it except in debates where it is levelled as
the reason why boys prefer mathematically biased subjects ("hard sciences").

Are women also worried that they are under-represented in autism figures,
something which appears to closely related to the generalised male ability
with mathematics and disability in respect of social aptitude.

>If they'd treat people the same from the start [...]

You mean ignore that people are different and want different things?

~~~
MichaelSalib
_Who says this? I've never heard it except in debates where it is levelled as
the reason why boys prefer mathematically biased subjects ("hard sciences")._

My wife's AP Physics teacher told her that (1) "women are incapable of doing a
good job in engineering and the hard sciences" and (2) "the only way you'll
get a girl as captain of the science/engineering-technology team is over my
dead body". The wonderful thing about (2) is that for many years, captaincy of
said team was based on who got the highest scores on a technical exam. That
year, my wife got the highest score. After she beat everyone else, said
teacher explained that the captain would be selected based on a combination of
technical proficiency (which my wife aced) and "leadership" (whatever the hell
that means). This was not at some podunk school in the middle of nowhere; it
was at a very well funded school which performed extremely well in national
academic competitions.

Now, I'm not saying this guy is representative of people in general. What I am
saying is that you can't claim this bullshit never happens. It does. Within
the last few years even. And if you've made it this far in life without ever
observing it yourself or hearing any first hand accounts, maybe that has more
to do with your own biases and the way you treat women than anything else.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>And if you've made it this far in life without ever observing it yourself or
hearing any first hand accounts, maybe that has more to do with your own
biases and the way you treat women than anything else.

Oh so not having observed a claimed bias that is inherently unobservable - but
still claimed as in the sibling comment (how can you tell that the teacher
graded people lower rather than them simply attaining a lower level; people
don't achieve equally in exams to their on going work) - not having made this
observation makes me a misogynist??

"the way you treat women"? Excuse me, do you even know me.

Perhaps my scientific wants mean that I require proof where others are willing
to accept hearsay and anecdote.

Approaching your anecdotal evidence as a crime, as what you claim surely is,
one might ask what the motivation of the alleged offender was - why would it
matter to a teacher what sex the student is. Are you sure that the teacher
didn't just dislike your [now] wife; you're not yourself biased? What did her
parents say, or were they complicit? Don't schools in your country care about
abuse of power? Did she bother to say "like Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace, Lise
Meitner, ..." granted I can't think of too many examples in the upper-echelons
but a clear proof that the teacher was wrong. Is it possible that the teacher
was attempting to motivate her, this sort of thing does happen.

What school was it, who was the teacher?

~~~
MichaelSalib
_Oh so not having observed a claimed bias that is inherently unobservable_

I'm not talking about inherently unobservable behavior: I'm talking about
things like publicly telling female students that women can't be good
engineers or scientists. I think public statements like that, made in front of
an entire class, are very much observable. Don't you agree?

 _not having made this observation makes me a misogynist_

I never said you were a misogynist. My working theory is that in conversation,
women might be disinclined to share stories with you about how authority
figures in their lives discouraged them from pursuing technical careers
because you sound like the kind of person who is committed to the belief that
sexism doesn't exist or is not significant. I mean, given the bizarre lengths
you go to in order to defend this particular bigot, I can't imagine you'd be
very sympathetic to such stories....

 _Perhaps my scientific wants mean that I require proof where others are
willing to accept hearsay and anecdote._

Perhaps. Your scientific wants are certainly not requiring you to write
intelligible english prose.

You seem confused so let me explain. I never suggested that the story I
presented was representative of all teachers. In fact, I explicitly said the
opposite of that. What I actually said was: it is false to claim that there
does not exist a single person who has ever told young women that women can't
do well in science and engineering. To disprove claims of that nature, all I
need is one single anecdote. That's it. And that's what I presented.

 _Approaching your anecdotal evidence as a crime, as what you claim surely is_

Huh? There was no crime here. Being an ignorant ass is not against the law.

 _one might ask what the motivation of the alleged offender was - why would it
matter to a teacher what sex the student is._

Because he was a bigot? In general, I don't expect all people to behave
rationally all the time, so the notion that some people will occasionally act
like bigots doesn't really surprise me. Do you find it surprising?

 _Are you sure that the teacher didn't just dislike your [now] wife; you're
not yourself biased?_

I suppose it is possible. But if that were true, I would have expected him to
say "even though you scored highest, you can't be captain because I don't like
you". In any event, this theory is not consistent with the fact that long
before this incident, the teacher claimed that women could not be good at
science and engineering. The simplest explanation that fits all the data is
that he really believes the statement he made about women being no good at
science and engineering and that when confronted with evidence that this
belief was false, he decided to deny reality and claim my wife was
unqualified.

 _What did her parents say, or were they complicit?_

Why would any of that matter? My point was that a real live female was
discouraged from pursuing a technical career by a bigoted authority figure.
Your comment seemed to suggest that such occurrences do not happen. Regardless
of what her parents did, this incident proves that such occurrences do happen.

 _Don't schools in your country care about abuse of power?_

Ha ha you're funny! No, they do not.

 _Did she bother to say "like Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace, Lise Meitner, ..."
granted I can't think of too many examples in the upper-echelons but a clear
proof that the teacher was wrong._

She made a number of points, but the instructor was not swayed. Which is as
you would expect: bigotry is irrational. If you really believe that women are
incapable of doing science or engineering, there is nothing that a female
student can say that will change your mind.

 _Is it possible that the teacher was attempting to motivate her, this sort of
thing does happen._

Look, I don't know why you're so desperately scrambling to defend a bigot, but
it is really creepy. Telling a woman that women can't be good engineers does
not motivate them. In general, lying to people is not a good way to motivate
them. Telling a woman that despite her superior performance, she won't be
permitted to exercise leadership, will not motivate her.

 _What school was it, who was the teacher?_

Why do you want to know?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>I'm not talking about inherently unobservable behavior: I'm talking about
things like publicly telling female students that women can't be good
engineers or scientists. I think public statements like that, made in front of
an entire class, are very much observable. Don't you agree?

To nitpick, your anecdote was a presented as a private conversation. Certainly
where I am a teacher that told a class that their subject was not for
girls/women would be severely reprimanded.

The question at hand is institutionalised sexism - a single instance of
apparent bias against a single individual doesn't show that the
scientific/engineering establishment nor even the educational establishment
[in your country, USA it seems] is biased against females from entering the
field.

>you sound like the kind of person who is committed to the belief that sexism
doesn't exist or is not significant

I practice sexism myself. I'm more inclined to hold doors for women, I'm more
inclined to assist women with traditionally male chores like fixing the car or
computer.

The only institutionalised sexism I've observed in education has been special
programmes and events put on to encourage women to do things that for whatever
reason they've chosen not to do. In business there are programmes for women
and extra financial help that isn't available to men. These things are not
removing biases they are instigating them.

>You seem confused so let me explain. I never suggested that the story I
presented was representative of all teachers. In fact, I explicitly said the
opposite of that. What I actually said was: it is false to claim that there
does not exist a single person who has ever told young women that women can't
do well in science and engineering

So your point then is that there is no institutional bias, that this one bad
thing happened to your wife and that is the reason their should now be
discrimination against boys/men wanting to do science and engineering and for
women regardless of an individuals propensities and abilities. Great.

>>What school was it, who was the teacher? >Why do you want to know? Why not,
knowledge is power.

------
snikolov
I have a feeling that the variability is at least partially modulated by
factors such as (lack of) encouragement and gender bias. Imagine a spinning
flywheel (this is a terrible analogy but I think it will illustrate my point)
with particles on it that jump off the edge at random velocities. The added
velocity of the flywheel eventually makes them end up at a certain radial
distance on the ground. Regardless of the speed at which the flywheel spins,
the average position of the particles on the ground will be at the center of
the flywheel. But if the flywheel is spinning fast, the variability will be
greater than if it is spinning slowly.

I think in a similar way, encouragement and bias -- like the speed of the
flywheel -- can account for this variability, rather than intrinsic
differences in the capacity for mathematical reasoning.

That said, it is interesting why the gap seemed to bottom out at 4 to 1
despite supposed programs to encourage young women to go into mathematics and
science.

~~~
Perceval
I can see why "encouragement and bias" might account for higher male
achievement, but not why that would _at the same_ time account for lower male
achievement.

~~~
m-photonic
Males are not a homogenous group. There's no reason why some subgroups of
males couldn't be negatively affected by social pressures just because other
subgroups are positively affected.

~~~
miri
Male nurses is probably the most glaring example of that.

------
DaniFong
I almost wrote yet another in a long series of posts bringing the evidence I
encountered on the flip side to this discussion. I thought, once again, that
doing so might have enabled a few more people to release that it's just too
darned hard to disentangle cultural effects from innate attributes, talent and
motivation, confidence and skill. I thought that I could detach the certainty
from the minds of those who wished to propound stereotypic ordinals as if they
were biological, scientific fact, and perhaps get parents to question what
sort of encouragement -- in any sense -- their children get when their first
experience upon birth is a pronouncement of their gender.

And then I realized that I tried that before, and it went nowhere. Not gonna
fan these flames.

~~~
calibraxis
Evidence is always welcome by some people, even if you happen to get downvotes
and indignant replies.

A hacker would probably view sexism institutionally. Institutions generally
have gatekeepers. When the gatekeepers believe that your race/gender is
inferior or unsuited to their workplace, then it's even harder to enter the
institution, through no fault of your own.

(For example, if you're female, they may scrutinize you extra closely to find
masculine traits like aggressiveness. Their reasoning may be that a certain
"assertiveness" is important to survive in their masculine workplace.)

This sets up a feedback loop: your teachers may be more active in dissuading
you from studying technical subjects, because they predict that gatekeepers
will require you to jump a higher bar of skill and attitudes. Even when many
of the gatekeepers relax, the news of this doesn't propagate instantly through
the system -- there may be a lag before other parts of the system catch up.

I think this means there needs to be outreach to the public about how
workplaces are wanting to improve. (If they are.)

------
yafujifide
The author argues that males have a wider intelligence distribution, and so
though they are equally as intelligent as females on average, there are more
of them at the far right end of the scale.

And for that reason, therefore men are more common in science and engineering
(STEM).

But there's a link here he never established, unless I missed it. Is it really
true that the brightest of the bright go into STEM? Because I was under the
impression that they don't; at least not more often than, say, Wall Street, or
something else.

What if we established that the intelligence of people who go into STEM is on
the right side of the distribution, but not the far right? Then there would be
as many females as males at that intelligence level. And then how to we
explain why there are fewer women than men go into STEM?

~~~
camccann
_The author argues that males have a wider intelligence distribution, and so
though they are equally as intelligent as females on average, there are more
of them at the far right end of the scale._

At both ends, actually, but that's largely irrelevant to the argument.
Actually, I think the idea is that males have higher variance on a variety of
attributes, due to higher expected utility, in an evolutionary sense, from
trying high-risk, high-reward strategies (standard disclaimer: do not
anthropomorphize evolution, do not equate evolutionary goals with conscious
goals).

 _But there's a link here he never established, unless I missed it. Is it
really true that the brightest of the bright go into STEM?_

That's not necessary--only that success in STEM fields is more strongly
correlated with intelligence than with unspecified other attributes. It
doesn't matter what very smart people in general do; only that higher
intelligence confers an advantage. Intra-field competition will take it from
there.

It is not, I think, controversial that intelligence correlates with success in
STEM fields, seeing as it correlates with success (to some degree) in almost
every area of life, but as always, the details are complicated.

 _What if we established that the intelligence of people who go into STEM is
on the right side of the distribution, but not the far right? Then there would
be as many females as males at that intelligence level._

Not necessarily--that depends on the shape of all three intelligence
distributions (both sexes, and STEM fields).

That said, though, the whole article was basically fluff--lots of raising
questions, not much in the way of relevant research, and virtually nothing in
the way of concrete predictions or testable hypotheses. Now, _as far as I
know_ , there is some established research behind the "wider variance" idea...
but to be honest the article raises all kinds of red flags; it feels like
something written by picking a conclusion, then looking for science-y-sounding
things to support it.

~~~
scotty79
> Actually, I think the idea is that males have higher variance on a variety
> of attributes, due to higher expected utility, in an evolutionary sense,
> from trying high-risk, high-reward strategies (standard disclaimer: do not
> anthropomorphize evolution, do not equate evolutionary goals with conscious
> goals).

I think if anything it can be attributed to lower evolutionary obligation of
males rather than to higher expected utility. Breeding for males is fairly
easy so you can have a kid even if your IQ is 60. Child of woman of such low
IQ would have much higher probability of dying.

Also males having single X chromosome have higher variability in traits
influenced by genes on X chromosome as the defect of some gene of X chromosome
won't be alleviated by correct gene at the other X (because there is no other
X in males).

Personally I don't care if all Einsteins and Newtons will be male but since
more and more scientific discovery rely on joint venture of tens or hundreds
of scientists I really think that you should not pass up on opportunity to
encourage half of the population to go into science just because there might
be some relevant skewing in right tail of distribution.

------
random_guy
I've collected and studied data from rubygems a while ago and I came to the
exact same conclusion. (you can find the post here ->
[http://usingimho.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/men-and-women-
on-r...](http://usingimho.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/men-and-women-on-rubygems/)
) While at the time I wasn't so sure about my thoughts, since the amount of
lynching i received in the comments, not I'm totally sure that this issue
needs serious and unbiased scientific studies.

------
pmccool
One important issue the article doesn't address: do these scores have any
meaningful correlation with success in the sciences? The ability to do
research and the ability to do well in exams are two quite different things.

On the face of it, a pretty shaky premise.

~~~
sorbus
From the second page of the article:

"Other studies have shown that these differences in extreme test scores
correlate with later achievements in science and academia. Even when you
consider only members of an elite group like the top percentile of the seventh
graders on the SAT math test, someone at the 99.9 level is more likely than
someone at the 99.1 level to get a doctorate in science or to win tenure at a
top university.

"Of course, a high score on a test is hardly the only factor important for a
successful career in science, and no one claims that the right-tail disparity
is the sole reason for the relatively low number of female professors in math-
oriented sciences. There are other potentially more important explanations,
both biological and cultural, including possible social bias against women."

