snjoseph's Journal: Shitty Science Sez: Women Shitty at Science

UK Independent: Harvard president claims that women and science don't mix

During his tenure as president, Larry Summers has overseen a stunning decline in hiring of women faculty, repeated clashes with the Black faculty, and a handful of major plagiarism scandals. Although, in fairness, Harvard remains one of the nation's top schools in terms of how much you have to pay to go there.

With this fine record of success, naturally President Summers is qualified to speak on issues about which he knows nothing, or indeed less than nothing.

Dr. Summers...made a three-hour speech in which he said one reason for the shortage of women in senior posts were [sic] to do with the reluctance of women to work long hours because of their child-minding responsibilities.

Sure. It's hard work at the top. Why, Dr. Summers had to work over three hours that very day.

And furthermore:

He then argued that boys outperform girls on maths and science due to genetic difference rather than socialisation. He gave the conference an example from his own experience: a story of giving his daughter two trucks, which she treated like dolls, calling them mummy and daddy trucks.

Observe how Dr. Summers uses his innately masculine scientific predisposition to derive scientific theories from one anecdotal example. A woman would have probably needed a large statistical sample with strict controls and double-blind observation to reach the same sweeping conclusions. What waste!

What's interesting here is that in other countries, women comprise a much greater proportion of scientists and engineers than in the US. In Iraq, for example, women accounted for 50% of all engineering graduates. This was before Bush brought "democracy," though, so maybe it's gone back down to it's "natural" level.

My own thesis is that American males are so intellectually superb that it is unnecessary for American females to evolve much analytical capacity. I would enjoy having a luxuriant research grant to pursue this exciting line of inquiry.

Harvard tenure, here I come!