{"id":4,"date":"2005-03-04T17:33:55","date_gmt":"2005-03-04T21:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/rlucastemp\/2005\/03\/04\/issues-of-intrinsic-aptitude\/"},"modified":"2005-03-04T17:33:55","modified_gmt":"2005-03-04T21:33:55","slug":"issues-of-intrinsic-aptitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/rlucastemp\/2005\/03\/04\/issues-of-intrinsic-aptitude\/","title":{"rendered":"Issues of Intrinsic Aptitude"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
This is the sentence that seems to have started it all:\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/div>\n

So my best guess, to provoke you, of what’s behind all of this is that
\nthe largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people’s
\nlegitimate family desires and employers’ current desire for high power
\nand high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly
\nof the variability of aptitude<\/span>, and that those considerations are
\nreinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization
\nand continuing discrimination.   [emphasis added.]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He never, ever says that women aren’t as smart as men, or even that
\nwomen aren’t as good at science and engineering.  He does say that
\nthere is some evidence of different levels of variability of aptitudes
\ngenerally between the sexes.  Let’s be frank: if
\nyou think that Summers is saying that men are “better” or women are
\n“worse,” you either aren’t reading closely or aren’t thinking clearly.<\/span> 
\nHe is making an argument about long tails on distributions, and his statement as no
\nbearing on any individual person’s aptitude or on the central
\ntendency.  He is positing an explanation for an observed fact
\nbased upon a theory about low-probability events on the very tip of the
\nbell curve (4 standard deviations out, he suggests).   And guess
\nwhat?  That’s fair.<\/p>\n

To be frank: it was off-the-cuff and intellectually lazy of Summers to
\nfail to prepare for A. his speech, with more hard evidence, and B. the
\npredictable brouhaha that would follow.  It may be dilettanteism
\nto
\nintroduce one’s personal “best guess” based upon watching little girls
\nplay with toy trucks.  Yes, Summers is arguably playing fast and
\nloose with
\nthe evidence.  But yet!  Folks: the name of this progressive
\ngame is progress.  We do not
\nmake progress by getting all ad hominem on someone for suggesting
\nsomething, which might be true, the implications of which make us
\nuncomfortable!  If variability in aptitudes is intrinsically
\ndifferent between the sexes, denying it is not helpful (ignoring it,
\nhowever, may indeed be helpful).<\/p>\n

Furthermore, dear reader, may I remind you of a certain split among
\npsychometricians that was highlighted a few years back with The Bell
\nCurve.  Essentially, there are proponents of g — general
\nintelligence — a monolithic index of all cognitive facilities, and then
\nthere are the multiple intelligences (MI) folks.  The MI vs g
\nargument was, many of us hoped, more than just a tactical skirmish over some
\nculture war turf — it was supposed to advance the way we think about
\npeople, giving us more dimensions, more axes on which to measure, and
\nultimately more positive ways to value individuals.  The
\nconclusions we could take away from confronting evidence of population
\ndifferences in intelligence levels with the theory of MI — that
\nintelligences are spread out all over, and measured differences in
\npopulations are as likely to be artifacts of testing or definition bias
\ntoward particular intelligences as they are to be cultural or hereditary trends — that requires giving up the silly
\nnotion of absolute equality on every axis of ability between every
\ndefinable group.  If the
\nanti-Summers campaigners force us back to g, we lose ground.  In other words: if we want to keep MI, we might
\nhave to acknowledge that some of the knobs get turned differently in
\ndifferent populations.  This is not a moral argument.<\/p>\n

But, keep in mind: the Summers point wasn’t that the female mind is
\ndulled to the science facility — merely that the standard deviation is
\nbigger, on some things, on brosephs than on brosephines.  If, like
\nme, you want to see the very best of humankind able to excel and
\nachieve, then the demographic makeup of the very best has no bearing,
\nso long as nobody is banned based upon reasons orthogonal to actual
\nindividual ability.<\/p>\n

This tempest-in-a-teapot is a good time to bring up my rules for talking about politics:<\/p>\n

1. Engage ideas in good faith as they are presented, and don’t take it (or give it!) personally.
\n2. Be clear and explicit about your goals.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Issues of Intrinsic Aptitude …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the sentence that seems to have started it all: So my best guess, to provoke you, of what’s behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people’s legitimate family desires and employers’ current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/rlucastemp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/rlucastemp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/rlucastemp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/rlucastemp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/rlucastemp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/rlucastemp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/rlucastemp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/rlucastemp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/rlucastemp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}