Here It Comes
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen muses on the recently reported study arguing that Jews have a genetic basis for superior intelligence. No one got particularly upset about this study, Cohen argues. So why did Larry Summers take so much flack for suggesting that there may be innate differences in aptitude between men and women?
Key graf: "I cannot be certain that Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, has read the article. But if he did, I bet he wondered why it is possible to suggest that certain Jews are smarter than other people but not remotely possible to suggest that women might not be as brilliant in science and engineering as men. When Summers did precisely that back in January -- when he wondered out loud about such matters as "intrinsic aptitude" -- he got his head handed to him. He was not, mind you, stating this as a fact -- just throwing it out along with other factors that might account for why men outnumber women on the science, engineering and math faculties of first-rate universities. What he did not do -- and this was his mistake -- was limit the possibilities to the only politically correct one: sexual discrimination of one sort or another."
I can be certain that Larry Summers read the article. You bet your ass he did. And I'll admit, when I read of this study, I imagined Summers reading it and feeling some sense of aggrievement.
There are differences, though. Important ones.
First, the Jewish-intelligence study attributed positive characteristics to one particular group, but unlike Summers, it didn't single out any specific group as coming up short.
Second, it's possible that when it comes to genetics, people are more likely to believe such assertions about specific ethnic groups, rather than entire genders. In other words, we may believe that Jews have great intelligence as compared to some other groups, but find it hard to accept that intelligence is divisible by gender.
A corollary: this is potentially quite troubling. Cohen must surely understand that one reason people didn't make such a fuss over this survey is that it reinforces prevailing stereotypes: Jews are smart and good at business. That happens to be a positive stereotype. Perhaps if that conclusion had been phrased differently, the reaction might have been more violent.
Third—and how many friggin' times do I have to repeat this?—the greatest outrage over Summers' remarks was not his assertion of differences between men and women, but his strong suggestion that this, rather than discrimination, was the greater explanation for the paucity of women in the sciences.
What's clear is that we're just beginning to understand the relationships between genetics and intelligence...but the amount we don't understand is vastly greater than that which we do. And until that ratio changes, people have to be very careful about drawing conclusions based on pop-science and the occasional isolated study, no matter how provocative they may be. It's kind of like the blind men and the elephant. Give some people just a little knowledge, and they can draw some bizarre conclusions.
