Was Larry Summers Right?
Posted on September 23rd, 2007 in Uncategorized | 34 Comments »
“Men are smartest and dumbest,” according to the Times of London.
Psychologists have found a justification for the male strangehold on Nobel prizes â there are twice as many men as women in the brightest 2% of the population.
But although men may win the top prizes, they cannot claim a clear-cut victory in an intellectual battle of the sexes. The study shows that men also cluster at the opposite extreme, with twice as many men as women stuck in the least intelligent 2%.
I have suggested in the past that Harvard, in some form, apologize to Cornel West. I wonder if, in the interests of fairness, there is not also some apology owed to Lawrence Summers. Not for his eventual ouster, which I think was inevitable and, at that point, necessary, and as a result of general failings in leadership styleâbut for the vilification he took for making the women-in-science remarks. At the very least, reports such as the one above suggest that, right or wrong, Summers was hardly beyond the bounds of appropriate conversation in that NBER talk….
34 Responses
9/23/2007 9:50 am
This is old news. Right after Summers’ speech the New York Times published an article which didn’t exactly defend him but made much out of the fact that male high school students have a much wider variance in SAT Math scores than female high school students, although the mean scores for both groups are pretty much equal. It’s sad that people don’t understand that this is not grounds to discriminate against the women who are in the top 2% in math.
9/23/2007 9:55 am
I’m not sure I understand the connection between your first and second sentences there.
9/23/2007 10:52 am
Richard. It is telling that amidst the serious controversy regarding Columbia’s statement that they would invite Hitler to speak you keep picking on Faust and Summers. Do you have views on what’s going on at Columbia? Do you think it’s worth discussing?
http://www.nysun.com/article/63224
9/23/2007 10:56 am
Not quite sure how this post is picking on LHS, but never mind.
I do have views about Columbia, but they’re mixed, and while I’m thinking about the issue, I’m listening to and learning from the comments made by other folks on this blog.
9/23/2007 11:10 am
Stanley Kurtz has documented how universities are involved in teaching american children biased views about the Middle East. In this article he explains how Harvard is implicated and used by Saudi’s interests.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjRhZjYwMjU4MGY5ODJmM2MzNGNhNzljMzk4ZDFiYmQ
9/23/2007 11:23 am
Stanley Kurtz? He’s a graduate of Harvard’s anthropology program as I recall. Anyone remember him?
How did he become in the middle east? I believe his work at Harvard was on family structures in traditional societies (India).
9/23/2007 11:29 am
Perhaps someone should ask Larry Summers what he thinks about Kurtz’s view that the Saudis control Centers for Middle Eastern Studies. The actions alleged by Kurtz happened during Summers Presidency.
Concidentally Summers and Coatsworth were close associates for a number of years.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=358542
9/23/2007 2:27 pm
This stuff about the higher sigma for boys (and the same mean) on certain measures is indeed old news — perfectly well known to the faculty community at the time. I’m surprised you don’t know that, Richard.
The charge levelled by experts — that Summers was talking through his hat — didn’t have to do with the basic data aspect of his talk.
I think the interesting question about Columbia is: How many OTHER Middle Eastern leaders have a nonsecret preference that Israel not appear on maps, but are welcomed with open arms all over the place because no idiot President has idiotically, in order to screen his idiosyncratic war plan, labeled them part of a specious “axis of evil”?
This right-wing noise machine is a political entity and only pretends to care about national-security interests. They’ve moved the center so far that academia is the only straw man they have left — and they have no confidence that our noble national principles will win in a fair battle of ideas (largely because they have forgotten or never knew what those principles are).
The Elephant flies above the flag for these people. No left-wing foolishness should be allowed to distract us for more than a second from contemning them.
Capische?
SE
9/23/2007 2:33 pm
Standing Eagle,
Why is it surprising that Columbia invited this guy? They did the same for Hitler years ago. See below:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=27148_Columbia_University_and_Hitler-_Then_and_Now&only
9/23/2007 2:37 pm
Standing Eagle, what are you smoking? Your reasoning is obscure, full of double negatives. Are you saying that Columbia should invite this guy or not? and if so, why?
Nevermind the right wing machine and universities. Is inviting people who advocate genocide a fair test of the extent to which Universities are committed to free speech?
9/23/2007 2:40 pm
“people don’t understand that this is not grounds to discriminate against the women who are in the top 2% in math.”
9:50, I assume you don’t think Summers was advocating discriminating against those mathematicians. He was just bemoaning the fact that there are proportionately fewer of them (for whatever reason).
If only he’d left it at bemoaning….
SE
9/23/2007 2:40 pm
Should some academics in the left and center speak up on whether someone who supports terrorism should be welcome to speak at an american university?
9/23/2007 2:46 pm
I didn’t say they SHOULD invite them, only that doing so is not an endorsement.
My point about the other Israel-haters being generally welcomed, because they fit into our own domestic politics differently, was intended to point out hypocrisy on the part of those who are shrieking at Columbia for being anti-Semites or whatever. The truth is that they’re just following the Bushie line of the moment about Iran being our new Absolute Evil.
I happen to think that inviting Ann Coulter, who traffics in hate speech too and is not the leader of a country, would be much more offensive than inviting Ahmadinejad. But that’s just me, and in the end, however much I would disagree that she’s worth hearing from, I wouldn’t protest her being allowed on campus.
As to whether Ahmadinejad is going to be scoring propaganda victories against by visiting Ground Zero, and so on: I say bring it ON. How can we be afraid of propaganda wars? We have all the ammunition, in the form of an incredibly advanced society founded on equality. Let’s FIGHT the propaganda war instead of calling for Triple Geneva Convention avoidance of it.
Weenies.
SE
9/23/2007 2:50 pm
2:40,
Your question is formally identical to the following question and has the same correct answer.
“Should some academics with American values speak up on whether someone who supports torturing terror-associate suspects should be welcome to speak at an american university?”
Into that group fall the current President and almost all the Republican candidates for President.
The correct answer of course is Yes.
Ask another one.
SE
9/23/2007 2:50 pm
Standing Eagle, your reasoning does not stand up here. To deny Ahmadinejad a forum at an american university has ample symbolic value in the propaganda war.
How do you think Al-Jazeera is going to portray his speech at Columbia? do you think they will feature those who are allowed to question or challenge him?
You need to read The Looming Tower to undersand what’s at stake here.
9/23/2007 2:56 pm
You have now totally lost it SE. George Bush is a moron and has done many things that betray american values. But you can speak up against him all you want and know he will not send people to pick you up in the middle of the night and have you killed or tortured. You know well you would not dare to speak up against Ahmadinejad in Iran, even or especially, if you were Iranian.
We agree fully on how misguided the current administration is but you can’t allow that to make you ignore the lessons of history.
9/23/2007 3:04 pm
Seems you’d like to fight the propaganda war with high-altitude bombing rather than boots on the ground.
You fail to understand that the much more powerful symbol lies in GRANTING a forum to the nutcase rather than in DENYING one.
Your failure to understand the right way to wage this long struggle against anti-Americanism is probably because you think the Constitution is first and foremost not a suicide pact.
In truth the Constitution is first and foremost an expression of faith in national values — including the faith that they are superior to other values. Superior intrinsically but also mightier.
We believe that encouraging speech is better than discouraging it — not only better in the abstract, but in actual fact.
Suppose the al-Jazeera story is Ahm. railing in the street about how the Americans have denied him a forum to speak. How does that change our image in the Middle East as a people who do not care what Middle Easterners think, or care about their welfare?
Suppose the al-Jazeera story is Ahm. talking at a podium to an audience. Does this legitimate him unduly? No; he won his country’s election, and they believe he speaks for them even when they disagree with elements of what he says. So then the question becomes: okay, he spoke; what did he say on our behalf? Did he do a good job expressing our values?
And THAT my friend is a propaganda war we can win, through tenacity and superior ideas.
We can’t win by using our control of certain arenas to silence our opponents. Doing that is precisely analogous to waging wars, instead of working with peoples to help them toward self-actualization.
“Ha ha! It’s our podium and you can’t use it!” The most Pyrrhic of all possible propaganda victories.
Read General Petraeus’s counterinsurgency manual instead of terrorism porn, and let’s try to take the long view like our President is supposedly always doing.
As to antiterrorism, by the way: I can find the guy’s name for you, can’t remember it, but the strongest case I’ve heard about what should be done was an expert speaking about national infrastructure and resilience. I find myself agreeing 100% that the best defense is a good DEFENSE. Propaganda victories come from showing strength in the face of adversity, and not peeing our pants every time a Muslim with thick soles gets on a plane.
SE
9/23/2007 3:09 pm
The fact that we have the freedom to speak against Ahm. is all the more reason that we should USE it, on behalf of those who don’t have it. It’s up to us to beat him with words since his countrypeople can’t.
What ‘lessons of history’ do you mean? Do you think speaking at Columbia made Hitler stronger in Berlin? That’s just silly.
Ahm. scores many more points by showing defiance to us than by speaking insanely to us.
SE
9/23/2007 4:06 pm
You may have a point SE, but it’s surely all very complicated. At any rate we will have soon a chance to see how it all turns out at Columbia and Al Jazeera.
9/23/2007 6:02 pm
9:50 AM, in response to 9:55 AM and 2:40 PM:
I should elaborate. The fact that men have a higher variance in IQ, math scores, (or whatever) than women but the same mean is equivalent (mathematically, in this case) to the fact that they are more likely to be in the top or bottom 2%.
I did seem to imply that Summers’ thought that there was some grounds for discrimination, didn’t I, although that actually is not what I believe and was not what I was trying to get at. My pet theory is that people are frightened of Summers’ comments because they think that if his remarks were true (and in my opinion, they most certainly are, if you haven’t guessed) that would justify discrimination. It is human nature (to some extent) to discriminate against individuals from certain groups based on the minute statistical differences among groups, and while this is totally flawed logical reasoning - If you know a woman to be superior at math, she doesn’t become worse again because women in general have a lower sigma - people cling to this fallacy out of either failure to understand of why it is wrong or fear: Because some discrimination does likely still exist in academia and people react to how horrible that is (justifiably) without thinking through the issues on purely logical grounds.
9/23/2007 6:58 pm
Alan Dershowitz is working intensely through the night today with a group of lawyers. They may have Ahmadinejad arrested at Columbia for international crimes. Bollinger and Coatsworth better think twice about whether they want their university to be the place of judicial action against this criminal.
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/iranahmadinejadcolumbianewyorkisraelfreedomspeechincitementadlhitler48092307.html
9/23/2007 7:05 pm
The Jerusalem post has a most interesting article on Columbia’s choice…
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1189411467627
9/23/2007 7:12 pm
Professor Thomas, do you have views on the Columbia controversy?
http://www.harvardmitdivest.org/petition.html
9/23/2007 8:04 pm
I’m not sure I understand who at Harvard owes Larry Summers an apology-the points that Summers made went far beyond those of IQ curve, and were, as Summers himself said later, a source of [unintentional, he says] discouragement to young women contemplating careers in science. My daughter was one of those undergraduate women concentrating in Physics at the time Summers made his reckless comments, so I know first hand that his comments were painful.
9/23/2007 8:12 pm
I’m not sure if I think an apology is necessary either, tI meant it when I used the word “wondering.” But I do think the matter has become murkier over time.
In any case, this is really a question of karma; Summers did to Cornel West (caricature him, stereotype him, etc.) in the end happened to him. So it might be useful to have apologies all ’round. This is an institution of learning, right? Hopefully not just intellectual, but also emotional.
9/23/2007 9:56 pm
Well, Professor/Mr./Ms. 7:12, I have only one view with regard to Iran, at least until Jan. 21, 2009. I don’t want Bush and Cheney to have ANY excuse, beyond the ones already out there, to do what they’re itching to do and attack Iran, which would compound terribly the calamitous state we are already in. So letting him talk and sending him home, for the purposes of that narrow but momentous end, are to me preferable to arresting himââif that’s the choice. Last word on this from me, but e-mail me if you want to talk further.
9/24/2007 7:50 am
So will Karma come back to bite brother West in the ass for the caricatures and stereotypes of Summers he’s helped encourage?
I think not.
9/24/2007 9:31 am
Juan Cole excellent today in Salon:
Sept. 24, 2007 | Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly has become a media circus. But the controversy does not stem from the reasons usually cited.
The media has focused on debating whether he should be allowed to speak at Columbia University on Monday, or whether his request to visit Ground Zero, the site of the Sept. 11 attack in lower Manhattan, should have been honored. His request was rejected, even though Iran expressed sympathy with the United States in the aftermath of those attacks and Iranians held candlelight vigils for the victims. Iran felt that it and other Shiite populations had also suffered at the hands of al-Qaida, and that there might now be an opportunity for a new opening to the United States.
Instead, the U.S. State Department denounced Ahmadinejad as himself little more than a terrorist. Critics have also cited his statements about the Holocaust or his hopes that the Israeli state will collapse. He has been depicted as a Hitler figure intent on killing Israeli Jews, even though he is not commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces, has never invaded any other country, denies he is an anti-Semite, has never called for any Israeli civilians to be killed, and allows Iran’s 20,000 Jews to have representation in Parliament.
There is, in fact, remarkably little substance to the debates now raging in the United States about Ahmadinejad. His quirky personality, penchant for outrageous one-liners, and combative populism are hardly serious concerns for foreign policy. Taking potshots at a bantam cock of a populist like Ahmadinejad is actually a way of expressing another, deeper anxiety: fear of Iran’s rising position as a regional power and its challenge to the American and Israeli status quo. The real reason his visit is controversial is that the American right has decided the United States needs to go to war against Iran. Ahmadinejad is therefore being configured as an enemy head of state.
Standing Eagle claiming vindication on the ‘domestic politics’ topic
9/24/2007 10:40 am
The topic here, as most of you seem to have forgotten, was the gender/intelligence thing. Still amuses me that specious statistics claiming to have identified the “2% most intelligent” people are accepted as a basis to argue about gender and intelligence. The whole problem with this debate is that “intelligence” is being predefined in a way that is biased toward the sort of intelligence Larry Summers possesses — which is not the only type.
As for the other debate, Standing Eagle (much as I hate to say it) is completely right.
9/24/2007 11:20 pm
The “more geniuses, more idiots” effect was one of Summers’ strongest arguments for why it made sense that men were more likely to be better scientists. However, several decades ago, Prof. Terman here at Stanford, decided to directly test this hypothesis. Do people who score in the highest IQ range go on to be more innovative, great scientists, great artists, etc? In his study, he scoured California high schools to find the 1500 brightest (IQ greater than 140) students that he could identify. He then followed their careers for several decades. What he found is that while nearly all of them went on to become successful lawyers, doctors, and other professionals, that virtually none of them showed any sign of particular innovativeness or creativity. None became National Academy of Science members and none won a Nobel Prize. In fact, several people that he tested and passed over for his study, such as William Shockley and Linus Pauling, because they had IQ’s of only 120, went on to great scientific success including in Shockley and Paulings case winning a Nobel Prize. Summers himself is an example of somebody who scored in the genius range on IQ tests but never demonstrated any particularly great scientific creativity. We do not have tests at present that can determine who will go on to be a highly successful and creative scientist or innovator.
Everyone agrees that we should treat everyone, regardless of gender, by their merit. But when the President of Harvard University claims, without any compelling evidence, that in his view men are innately more talented at science, their can be no fairness for even the very brightest women. Because they never get a fair chance to prove themselves because then many people assume they are lesser and fail to hire or promote them appropriately.
I am all for free speech. But when a Harvard President claims that a whole group of the population is less able in science and math, his comments themselves are harmful and further the oppression that women already face. As recently, reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences, there is a great deal of data that suggests that social forces are far more significant to the lower percentage of women in science rather than any innate inability.
Ben Barres
9/25/2007 9:32 am
I am glad I read all 30 comments to get to Ben’s wonderful post. I majored in engineering in college (ivyleague not Harvard) but chose not to become an engineer. I am however fascinated by the topic of men /women (and minorities) in science. I think if professor Summers had intended to just spark debate he could have prefaced those remarks (as one might do to encourage a high school debate team,) by saying , “I am going to propose something to encourage debate not because I believe it to be true..” Had he done that I would be the first to apologize for what might then have been considered an over-reaction. I don’t think he needed to leave the presidency but I don’t want to apologize either, from an anonymous staff person at Harvard.
9/25/2007 9:59 am
“I am going to propose something to encourage debate not because I believe it to be true..”
He said something very very close to this. His exact words at one point were “I am here to provoke you.”
I think the transcript might be in the Crimson archive somewhere and would be worth your time.
Standing Eagle
9/25/2007 10:51 am
Here is what he said:
“Let me just conclude by saying that I’ve given you my best guesses after a fair amount of reading the literature and a lot of talking to people. They may be all wrong. I will have served my purpose if I have provoked thought on this question and provoked the marshalling of evidence to contradict what I have said.”
9/25/2007 1:45 pm
9:32 says
” I don’t think he needed to leave the presidency”
That’s not why he left the presidency.