Will the forced resignation of Lawrence Summers initiate a widepread rebellion in favor of academic freedom among today’s professoriat? Probably not, I don’t think: most of the academics I know, while fine people, are happy with the safety (and, with tenure, the security) that comes from not rocking the political/administrative boat—which, sadly, is why we see a kind of ideological homogeneity in many departments, particularly in the humanities.
So when someone breaks from that behavioral mold, it is worth celebrating—if only for its rarity and, yes, bravery. From the WSJ, “Calling All Hombres: A Harvard sage makes the case for manliness”:
“Defend yourself.” That’s the lesson Harvey Mansfield drew for Larry Summers the week before Harvard’s president was forced to resign. Mr. Mansfield, a 73-year-old government professor and conservative elder statesman of the university, went on to suggest that Mr. Summers’s capitulation to those he offended (when he said women might be biologically less inclined to succeed in the hard sciences) is not simply a craven kowtow to political correctness, but proof, also, of a character flaw. Indeed, Mr. Mansfield continued with a mischievous smile, “He has apologized so much that he looks unmanly.”
Perhaps this seems like a quaint insult, but Mr. Mansfield means something very particular by it. He would like to return the notion of manliness to the modern lexicon. His new book, “Manliness” (manfully, no subtitle), argues that the gender-neutral society created by modern feminists has been bad both for women and men, and that it is time for men to rediscover, and women to appreciate, the virtue of manliness.
[…]
[…] after more than a half-century at the university–as undergrad, grad student and professor–Mr. Mansfield seems to have settled into his role as campus gadfly. This is not to say that scholarship and teaching do not occupy his time. In the past 40 years, he has published more than a dozen books, including a translation of Tocqueville, as well as groundbreaking studies of Machiavelli and Burke.
But it is his combat with campus liberal orthodoxy that has brought him a more public profile. To drive home his crusade against grade inflation, he began giving students a real grade (what he actually thinks of their work) and an “ironic grade” (which goes to the registrar). More controversially, Mr. Mansfield argues that grade inflation is the result of the university’s affirmative-action program–admitting too many underqualified minority students and then not wanting to give them poor marks.
Of all the enemies Mr. Mansfield has made, none has he more consistently provoked than feminists. It’s been 20 years since he voted against the proposal for a women’s studies major at Harvard (the only faculty member to do so), arguing that “it is not possible to study women except in relation to men.” And he has not let up since.
“I’ve had a lifelong interest in women,” Mr. Mansfield purrs in his smooth classical-radio-announcer voice when I ask why he decided to embark on his manliness project. Joking aside, he explains that “I always wanted to write a book on the woman question, and one reason, perhaps the main reason, I see is that we are embarked on a great experiment in our society, something very radical: to make the status of men and women equal, or, better to say, the same.”
Mr. Mansfield’s contention that women and men are not the same is now widely supported by social scientists. The core of his definition of manliness–“confidence in a risky situation”–is not so far from that of biologists and sociologists, who find men to be more abstract in their thinking and aggressive in their behavior than women, who are more contextual in their thinking and conciliatory in their behavior.
Science is good for confirming what “common sense” already tells us, Mr. Mansfield allows, but beyond that, he has little use for it: “Science is a particular enemy of manliness. Manliness asserts something you can’t scientifically prove, namely the importance of human beings.” Science simply sees people as just another part of the natural world.
[…]
Achilles, though, is Mr. Mansfield’s model of a manly man. “He challenged his boss, Agamemnon, who had taken his girlfriend from him. He didn’t so much make a complaint against him as to . . . say that what Agamemnon had done was the act of an inferior person, and that only true heroes, the men of virtue like Achilles, are fit to rule.” In other words, Achilles raised the stakes and resolved to defend a cause larger than himself–the manly action par excellence.
Mr. Mansfield suggests that it is difficult to rid men of their tendency to seek out such battles. Yet he believes that the sexual revolution has been a surprisingly easy one. “Certainly,” he notes, “there has been no massive resistance like the segregationists opposed to the civil-rights movement.” He has been surprised by the extent to which men have adjusted to this current system, but believes the evidence that they will never do so completely is to be found all around us.
Take housework. Mr. Mansfield cites surveys that show that despite their now equal capacity to be hired for jobs outside the home, American women still do two-thirds of the housework. He argues that this is not simply a hangover from our former oppressive patriarchy. Rather, he writes, it is evidence of manliness. ”Men look down on women’s work . . . not because they think it is dirty or boring or insignificant, which is often true of men’s work; they look down on it because it is women’s work.”
When it comes to the subject of housework, Mr. Mansfield has a decidedly different take from that of the late Betty Friedan. He accepts her point that keeping house in the modern era need not be a full-time job, and that boredom, or “the problem that has no name,” is a natural byproduct of forcing educated women to remain in the home, even when there is not enough to keep them occupied mentally or physically. But he disapproves of her “demeaning of household work to . . . a necessary thing that you can’t take any pride in.” And though he doesn’t accuse Friedan of doing so, Mr. Mansfield suggests that more radical feminists, like Simone de Beauvoir, built upon this notion “to demean motherhood as well.”
[…]
Nine years ago, when Mr. Mansfield offered his first seminar on manliness, I barely managed to score a seat in the small classroom. So many campus feminists had crowded in that students were forced to sit on the floor. These women saw their opportunity, finally, to have it out with the conservative bogeyman.
But Mr. Mansfield got the best of them. He proceeded to talk for much of the next two hours about the ancient Greek notion of thumos, or spiritedness, an idea he believes is the precursor of modern-day manliness. The feminists were bored silly–almost none returned the following week.
Despite his statements outside the classroom, Mr. Mansfield sees his role of professor very differently from that of provocateur. His classes rarely descend into debates over current affairs. Arguments from Plato may not convince these “educated women” that he is right, but unlike Larry Summers, Mr. Mansfield has tenure.
I haven’t read any of Mr Mansfield’s work, so I can’t comment on its rigor, other than to say that it sounds provocative. But that’s not really the point, is it?
Instead, what Mr Mansfield provides is a model for what university academic work should do: it advances a classically- (as well as biologically and sociologically-)-inspired critique of a sociological narrative drawn by a particular strain of second-wave feminism—one that has had a tremendous social impact—which sought to turn the political idea of equal rights for women into the ontological idea of sexual sameness (then later deconstructed to allow for difference through social construction by way of the more malleable “gender”).
Such a process of reconfiguration of “sex” as “gender,” Mansfield realized, was simply a strategic ontological change that took the assignation of the sex role away from nature and gave it to social scientists and gender theorists, who allow themselves license to toy with it through policy initiatives and social engineering.
But again, this is hardly the point. What is important is that Mr Mansfield is raising the questions and providing the critiques, and it is through such forced dialogue between competing (legitimate and fact-based) narratives that we learn and grow.
Unfortunately, much of the modern academy is concerned with a notion of “tolerance” that has so corrupted the spirit of inquiry that to question established orthodoxies is taboo in the very venues constructed for such questioning.
Up is down. Black is white. Britney is Kevin (and vice versa). And I, for one, would like to see the university return to its roots as a place for inquiry and controversy and learning. Sadly, today—at least in the humanities—it is oftentimes nothing more than an echochamber for established orthodoxies, which in an ironic move, pulled the latter up behind them and circled the wagons after they won their first temporary victory in the narrative wars.
(h/t Terry Hastings)
Hey Jeff, there’s always Yale.
tw: How did that motherf*cker get in there?
Well we can’t fight women, it’s just not manly.
I’ve oft heard Dennis Prager say that he judges the credibility of a “study” in proportion to how much it aligns with common sense.
“Common sense” is so rare that headlines from such as Times or Newsweek that state “Study shows men and women ARE different” are offered with a straight face. Such a notion is shocking?
Not to anyone that has raised boys and girls.
Politically and ethically all individuals should be free to follow where their talents lead ‘em. But such equality of opportunity is not sameness. We are NOT the same as individuals and the sexes are not the same.
From what I’ve seen, male professors these days signal their castrato bona fides through conspicuous cheerleading for women’s sports. It’s all the rage. You can have a football team ranked among the nation’s top 10, and still the lefties among the faculty will loudly announce that they spent the weekend watching girls’ softball, or whatever. Because of the patriarchy.
On another note, some years ago our department had to sit through a “sexual harrassment” seminar. The male facutly sat there like little boys with their hands between their knees while our rather <object. So I drew the EO/AA officer out until she admitted that under university policy, it was not only unnecessary for a perp to <i>intend</i> to offend a victim (it could be entirely accidental), but it was not even necessary for the “victim” to realize they’d been sexually harrassed. In other words, I could make a comment to a female coworker who I know well and she laughs, unoffended. A third party who thought the coworker should have been offended could still legitimately report me.
I thought for sure the mostly-male faculty would perk up at that point. Not a peep out of them. They just kept covering their balls.
FWIW, I noticed the faculty undergoing serious testicle atrophy right around the time of the Clarence Thomas hearings. We lost a Dept. head during that hysteria when his innocent wife invited an exotic dancer to his office on his birthday.
America-hating, rhetorical-cover-for-terrorists-providing, multi-culti-real-racist-being leftist traitor or no, I as a male find that statement absolutely awesome.
That is all.
Crap, gonna need to find a shrink. Or maybe a priest.
Even the President of Harvard is not immune to a smear job from radical nuts.
However, with more and more evidence of extreme leftism coming out, coupled with the cost of college rising far faster than incomes, they might get a lot fewer applicants now, particularly for non career-oriented fields where most leftist professors reside.
Here is a great article on how far out of the mainstream people who hate the Patriot Act are.
I wonder if Harvard has archived Mr. Manfield’s manliness in a Mason jar on a shelf in the Peace Studies department lounge?
Five years ago after a lifetime of having lived orthodox feminism’s ideal equalized life I came to Mr. Mansfield’s conclusion when I turned fourty and recognized my entire life was built around an idea spawned in the dawn of LSD that the true way to enlightenment was to screw as many people and things as possible satisifying your true inner self pleasure.
Now in order for females to enjoy such equalized pleasure She must be void of consequences, so they ripped out our wombs and replaced it with huge siliconed breasts while castrating the dominance of manliness.
Man, sometimes I wonder if we are living in Margaret Sanger’s world.
I began to question feminism when NOW embraced a man whom they once would have labeled a male chauvinist pig but, what really changed me was having greater access to information when I purchased my first home computer and the reaction by American feminists towards oppressed females around the world. Is the plight of Eve Ensler’s vagina really more important than the practice of sewing-up a female’s clit in order to deny her pleasure?
What angers me most is that the orthodox feminist encourages young females to wait until later when it’s far more difficult to carry to term a healthy pregnacy but once these very same feminists reach the age of almost too late, they go to great lengths and expense to have a fatherless child then declare their child their greatest life achievement.
Encouraging females to believe having fatherless one-child pets later in life is not a hopeful way to sustain a society particularily when the society is under threat of extinction at the same time facing over-population of aging baby-boomers.
His quote on science is pretty good. How classical.
But this bit sounds quite feminist:
Yup. Men look down on things we identify with women. Apparently this is manly. Or needed to preserve manlyness: looking down.
From the post here one might think Larry Summers was axed for saying men and women are different. The truth is that he was forced out for sounding like he was saying women might be inferior. And that was symptomatic of his tenure at Harvard: iffy things inartfully said. To paraphrase a movie comedy, “abrasive and vulgar are no way to go through life as a ivy league president, son.”
There were also plausible charges of cronyism–too numerous and complicated to outline here.
And finally, those looking to portray Summers as a profile in courage must ask themselves how gutsy you need to be to pick on Arabists on Alan Deschowitz’s home turf.
When someone’s behavior doesn’t make sense, it’s because you don’t know enough about the “why.” Political feminism doesn’t make sense as feminism, but it does as a sort of “gender-related dominionist socialism,” a sort of “Mommy-Leninism.”
Well, Stalinism in some of the quoted cases.
In any case, certain people saw a chance to take power and have probably been surprised to find out how easy it was. Who knew all those patriarchs would bow and scrape?
It’s easier, actually, in the West, as those who refuse to bow and scrape in the Academy, the Halls of Power, and the giant corporations that seek to emulate the rest, can go elsewhere and, for now, be free to think as they wish.
When I was told that corporate policy had “evolved” to the point that no intent was required to prove harassment, I knew it had gone too far. Here’s hoping the pendulum’s return is gentle… and soon.
How do you figure that—because advanced math is superior to, say, literature?
Speak for yourself, actus. The only thing I look down on that I identify with women is my penis. That’s partly because I don’t identify you with women.
“The truth is that he was forced out for sounding like he was saying women might be inferior.”
Emphasis on “sounding like.” Emphasis on him.
I myself would be the last to postulate that synthetic a priori stuff such as math is superior to lit.
And Dr. Manly field!
Whooooosh!
For you, maybe.
For most people, “not for me” doesn’t mean “inferior”. For you, though, it apparently does.
I shouldn’t really be surprised at that. You’re a prig. Of course you would have to find someway to put down Mansfield, and of course you’d find a way that doesn’t address his position at all.
Actus:
What do you mean “we”?
We’ve already established that actus is a despicable example of a cheap namecaller.
We’ve little need to catalog the rest of the creature’s character flaws.
Boy needs to date taller women. Or women.
Interesting stuff. Quite a few years ago, I was fired from my job as an adjunt in a history deparment (which shall remain nameless) for expressing my opinon of one William Jefferson Clinton. It would be nice to think that things have changed since then. But I suspect that they haven’t.
Its funny that you think I’m putting him down when I call his position equal to that of a feminst.
“From the post here one might think Larry Summers was axed for saying men and women are different. The truth is that he was forced out for sounding like he was saying women might be inferior.”
Larry Summers wasn’t forced out for saying women might be inferior to men. He said men may have a larger statistical deviancy. Of course, for those who insist as a leap of faith that men and women are entirely the same, that’s just as much heretical.
I could expand, but why bother. It shouldn’t take an undergraduate to do the media’s fucking homework.
Sure: this guy gets people to talk, rather than repeat slogans. Good for him.
But I’m having a hard time perceiving “manliness” as something that can truly be defined–and, in particular, without resorting to simply opposing it, on the one hand, to notions of femininity on the other. And those traditinal notions of femininity are ones that a lot of women (e.g., those with initiative, those with talent in the sciences, etc.) find suffocating.
And I’m not clear on how a man looking down on tasks because they are performed by women doesn’t suggest that he perceives himself to be superior to women. Or that it does, but that isn’t offensive.
If someone is promoting a system that is hierarchical, and that hierarchy is based on the sex of the individual, isn’t he, um, advancing a cultural ideal that is, well . . . patriarchal? After all, just because the word patriarchy is overused doesn’t mean it never applies.
AND WHY, WHEN I COMMENT HERE, DOES YOUR SYSTEM INSIST THAT I “SUBMIT”?
“AND WHY, WHEN I COMMENT HERE, DOES YOUR SYSTEM INSIST THAT I “SUBMITâ€Â?”
—
You know you like it.
I have known plenty of women who wouldn’t think of doing anything under the hood of a car, even something as simple as checking the fluids, because it was a man’s job. Hell my ex-wife wouldn’t even pump her own gas at a self serve, if she was by herself she would always go to a full service station. Should I be offended by that? Other jobs around the house has been the same, any serious carpentry or home repair has been considered my job by alot of the women in my life. Personally I prefer chicks that can check their own oil and build their own shelves, but if they ask me to I’m not offended.
But he didn’t say ‘not for me.’ He said ‘look down on.’ Sure if he said something else it would mean something else.
Oh i’m into his position: part of manlyness is looking down on what we consider to be women’s work. Quite a feminist notion for our Dr. Manlyfield.
I also commend him for leaving behind that oppressive, neutering, reason of science and getting in touch with his manly feelings.
Whoooooooosh!
Yeah. Tolerance. Can’t have any of that.
Might not me “manly”.
JAYsus H. Christ in a hopped up ‘39 Chev..
Our universities are now filled with people who are nothing more than Marxists with PhDs. These are people who have no respect for our values, who can’t distinguish between sound science and left-wing propaganda masquerading as science, who claim that evolution is a fact when it is merely a theory, that globa warming is a fact when it is merely a theory, that sexual orientation is genetic, and so on and so on. It is time to bring standards back to the academy. No more NEA money for “art” that degrades our values. No more NSF money for science unless it is sound science.
Aw man.
No…because his resignation had nothing to do with a lack of “academic freedom among today’s professoriat”. He resigned because he wasn’t liked by the faculty for his management style. And again, Summers was not criticized for questioning conventional wisdom. He was criticized for saying, without evidence, that there are differences in the high end in the availability of aptitude for women versus men (a claim w/no evidence) and then saying that this was a more important factor in the gender differences in science than discrimination.
It’s a typical strategy…cry discrimination or “Marxists with PhDs” when people are criticized for saying things without evidence. For example Marianna, evolution isn’t merely a theory, or “left-wing propaganda masquerading as science”. People on the anti-evolution side of the debate are routinely pummeled in the marketplace of ideas. But instead of winning with sound theory building or evidence, the solution is to cry “Marxist hegemony” or “lack of academic freedom”, and not address the fact that the actual criticisms of evolution aren’t valid.
Yeah, but that’s what you get when you use the same word to describe both. An oversight or intentional?
The first three definitions of evolution I googled:
Seems pretty established as a theory to me.
I hope I’m not the only one that wonders whether or not actus and Carl actually read the whole piece.
Mansfield is a “gadfly” … which to most people means that he is deliberately provocative to get people to question an unexamined premise. The premise that male and female are the same and that any statistical deviations are of course the result of The Patriarchyâ„¢ is dominant on American university campuses. Certainly the college kids running around in Vagina Warrior t-shirts and parroting the line that all rape is the result of a “cultural acceptance” of Violence Against Women haven’t given much thought to the inherent biological differences between male and females, let alone how that translates from the biological to the social roles of masculinity and femininity.
True, as AG notes above, some of these roles in the past have been so narrowly defined as to trap and constrain individuals that vary from the norm within their group. Blasting away the artificial constraints that came more from a ‘protect our turf’ motive was good AND healthy. However, once those constraints are removed, once the whole pantheon of choice is laid before male and female individuals, do we honor their freely made choice or do we demand that policy and law force an egalitarianism that isn’t supported socially? IE how long do we demand that university sports budgets be exactly the same for both women’s and men’s programs when men are turned away from participating and the women’s teams go begging for participants?
Mansfield doesn’t reject science because of “reason” but because science doesn’t address
Science can describe life, but it can’t give it meaning.
BMoe,
So you’re argument against evolution being more than just a theory is….a Google search of dictionary definitions?
The established academic hierarchy is just quaking in its Marxo-feminista-dirtyhippie boots when faced with such compelling argumentation. The overthrow of academia is complete! I for one welcome our new dictionary-as-research overlords…
Mansfield doesn’t reject science because of “reason†but because science doesn’t address
the importance of human beings. Science can describe life, but it can’t give it meaning.
That is the problem with much of modern science: It attempts to usurp the role of faith in determining meaning. Mansfield is right to reject science for these reasons.
Yeah, Moe. It’s pretty ridiculous that in determining whether something is fact or theory, you’d resort to dictionary definitions of those words. Can’t you just take science on faith, man?
geez Llama
nice to see you claiming here on this thread that Summers had no evidence of aptitude difference when your previous claim (at your link) was that Summers had little/no evidence of his THREE PART examination of why there are not as many women as men in top-end hard-science/math university jobs.
Summers did a PC no-no..he didn’t pound the podium with the accepted version of why there are not an equal number of men and women in such positions… discrimination due to sex. Period. Cuz of The Patriarchyâ„¢.
Summers stuck his toe into the forbidden pool of Possible.Other.Reasons and the pirahna have been working up his leg ever since.
Nicely turned phrase, Darleen.
Yup. Men look down on things we identify with women.
Not me baby, it’s all man down there, ALL MAN!
really…I mean it…
Can’t you just take science on faith, man?
LOL. Modern science has become every bit as dogmatic as fundamentalist Islam, or the Catholic church of the inquisition period. In its zeal to secularize and colonize the areas governed by faith, it has turned a blind eye to the role of God in the universe. Future generations will look on this period as a dark age scientifically.
Would you care to specifically address how theory of evolution doesn’t fit this definition:
BMoe, you knuckle-dragging prole, what do you mean by using definitions of things while exploring semantics? Don’t you know that words are malleable commodities we can make mean whatever we want? I mean, just because the guy noticed that, gee wilikers, there’s an awful lot of XYers in mathematics and Dungeons and Dragons clubs, and not alot of XXers, while at the same time, few XYers glib well to poetry…well, that’s just because of the well-substantiated PATRIARCHY!!! that has been documented into reality.
Seriously, there is evidence of a patriarchal conspiracy at the very highest levels of government. For real, man. We’re like scientists and what not.
Back off man. I’m a scientist.
What amuses me most is how quick the howling moonbats quiet down when you start applying the tenets of evolution to mankind and our behavior- they seem to have no problem believing they can Intelligently Design the society of the future.
BMoe,
I was responding to Marianna’s comments where he said “that that evolution is a fact when it is merely a theory”. Yes, evolution is a theory, in the scientific sense of the word. (Note that I NEVER said that evolution is not a theory.) People (see Marianna) take the use of the term theory to mean that evolution is unsubstantiated, e.g. that evolution is “just a theory”.
If your point is that evolution is a “a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world”, then I agree with you and apologize for the misunderstanding. My issue is with the use of “theory” wrt evolution as a pejorative (see Marianna).
Leonidas,
So, to take evolution as an example…is the study of evolution part of the dogmatism of modern science?
Darleen,
Let me clarify. There is no evidence that the male/female ratios in science/math academia is due to innate differences between males and females. There is no evidence that innate differences in aptitude are a greater contributing factor to male/female faculty ratios in the math/sciences compared to socialization and patterns of discrimination. (That was the big statement that got him in trouble.) There is little/no evidence that there are innate differences between males and females in math/science aptitude; though this last claim is being actively studied.
Again, Summers wasn’t criticized simply because his claims were controversial. It is because his claims were controversial and he didn’t have the evidence to back it up.
So, to take evolution as an example…is the study of evolution part of the dogmatism of modern science?
No, the study is not, obviously. It is the claim that alternative explanations have no merit that is dogmatic.
But not at Harvard, by
GodGaia.Llama School, Summers was speculating on possible causes, rather than advancing one explanation as necessarily correct.
Let me clarify. There is no evidence that the male/female ratios in science/math academia is due to innate differences between males and females. There is no evidence that innate differences in aptitude are a greater contributing factor to male/female faculty ratios in the math/sciences compared to socialization and patterns of discrimination. (That was the big statement that got him in trouble.)
Except that (1) he didn’t say any such thing: the possibility of innate differences was the last thing he brought up, and came up almost as an afterthought. In no way did he claim it was a larger factor than the others he discussed. And (2) he didn’t suggest innate differences in aptitude; that is what others have projected onto what he said. He could just as easily have been referring to differences in interest.
There is little/no evidence that there are innate differences between males and females in math/science aptitude; though this last claim is being actively studied.
But there is plenty of evidence that dudes find math and science more interesting than chicks do, and therefore have different levels of motivation in pursuing careers in same. And there’s even more evidence that men have greater abilities to focus in areas of abstract reasoning (e.g., chess), which is helpful in the higher levels of math, as well as some sciences.
Again, Summers wasn’t criticized simply because his claims were controversial. It is because his claims were controversial and he didn’t have the evidence to back it up.
He didn’t make claims. He suggested possible contributing factors. And he got crucified for it. The whole thing was silly and sad.
By the way, Llama School, have you actually read Summers’ speech? Because I’d hate to think you’re aware the “claims” you’re so fond of citing weren’t actually made by Summers at all. To wit, your contention
is pretty far off base. Summers made very few claims; none of them remotely resemble your categorization. What he did do was ask questions, primarily along the lines of
Of course, those who can’t distinguish between fact vs. theory would ubdoubtedly have trouble with claim vs. question, or mistake vs. lie. But do carry on with your unoriginal display of standard progressive dogma; I’m curious to see how far you are able to stray, if at all, from the usual leftist talking points.
I’m a staunch defender of evolution as the only extant falsifiable model describing the origin of living systems. It has predictive power. There are precisely zero “alternative†models that are both falsifiable and have predictive power. As such, this whole, “theory not a fact†thing strikes me as difference without distinction. Science, by definition, is a process which can demonstrate inconsistency, but not one which can adduce “fact.†This is why we have peer review. Are we to waste our children’s time in school educating them about the “alternatives†to the heliocentric model? Theorizing neuroanatomical sex difference should not be conflated with intelligent design sophistry (lest we provide actus with more fodder for his predisposition to ad hominem.)
Llama
Summers got in trouble because he even broached the topic of possible inherent biological differences. Even Summers posited that this difference was #2 on the list of possible reasons for the disparity of male/female ratio.
Good lord, a female listening to it confessed getting sick to her stomach when her tender, virgin ears heard such blasphemy.
You admit that innate differences are being “actively” studied, but then claim that referring to such innate differences makes Summers worthy of condemnation because he has “no evidence” it has any effect on the disparity figures. However, Summers did refer to actual data he read,
Obviously Summers is qualifying his observations all over the place. He presents data as he found it, interpreted it and invites others to examine and question his hypothesis on why there is not a 50/50 split of men/women in hard science and engineering.
But that challenges the Orthodoxy and gives females stomach aches. So Summers had to go …
The Orthodoxy refuses to do more than flog the socialization/discrimination horse, even after it drops to the floor and twitches its last. So exactly who is going to challenge them when the whip will be turned on those that say “he’s kicked the bucket, shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible … “?
“Again, Summers wasn’t criticized simply because his claims were controversial. It is because his claims were controversial and he didn’t have the evidence to back it up.”
BZZZZZZZZZZZT. Summers said that some people think it is a reason that should be explored, though he personally did not think it was the answer…and then went through the mandatory feminist crap about pregnancy time and discrimination.
He’s one of yours that just happened to acknowledge that perhaps your gospel might not be all of it.
And indeed, by stressing as a matter of faith that the means of men and women are the same, and making it merely a matter of standard deviation, he was saying this would mean there are both really smart men and really dumb men.
Now, an example of a headline we will never see:
PRESIDENT OF HARVARD CLAIMS THAT A PERCENTAGE OF MEN ARE TOTAL IDIOTS.
In my campus, people who said that were in the gadly.
Yup. its a fact that evolution happens, and there is a theory of evolution that explains, well, most of biology.
But I don’t see whats so ‘merely’ about this.
Why? I mean, the claim is based on the work done for evolution. Or more generally, the work done on science.
its a fact that evolution happens
On a micro level, that is correct. You can see it in a laboratory if you study fast-reproducing bacteria. But that does not mean that is how other life forms on the planet came into being.
To cite Nietzsche, “often it isn’t the content of an opinion, but the way it is expressed, that renders it unsympathetic.”
That is Larry Summer in a nutshell, whether in Washington or Cambridge.
BTW, making Summers a martyr for free speech ignores his views on academic freedom and geopolitics, where he made like Daniel Pipes when it came to criticism of Likud policy.
Whats your micro/macro line? Its a fact that species evolve into new species. And this fact is used in the theory of evolution to explain most of biology.
I still don’t get whats so ‘mere’ about it.
In my campus, people who said that were in the gadly.
???
Gadfly. sorry. Typo.
I’m a staunch defender of evolution as the only extant falsifiable model describing the origin of living systems. It has predictive power.
Declarative statements do not substitute for evidence, malaclypse. I have not seen any persuasive evolutionary arguments to counter the “irreducible complexity” or the “lack of transitional forms” arguments made by ID proponents. And how does any predictive power evolution may have negate intelligent design?
I don’t think evolution and intelligent design are mutually exclusive; nor is it clear that these two theories are the only possible explainations for the origins of life. Claims to the contrary are simply that; and this is why we call them theories instead of facts. You might consider that for those suffering from BDS, the claim that BushLied! is a fact; and so the reason we consider them deranged.
Joe and Atilla Girl,
I did read Summers speech. In fact, here is the passage he was taken to task for:
It seems like my characterization of his comments is correct…but here’s the quote. Challenge away. And Joe….did you just say that intelligent design is a theory? Really? I wouldn’t be lecturing others on the distinction between fact and theory if you believe that…
Darleen,
Studying innate differences between sexes is fine. People study inherent biological differences between the sexes (for an example, see the debate at Harvard linked later in the comment) as an example that this is not some taboo subject. He was criticized because he stated, without evidence, that innate differences in aptitude are, in his opinion, a bigger factor in the differences in male/female faculty ratios than “different socialization and patterns of discrimination” in a search.
And again, if people get in trouble for even broaching this question, then how can multiple scientists be studying this, to such an extent that this debate has multiple studies cited by both sides?
The talk.origins faq has transitional forms. I think they also address this “Irreducible complexity.” Part of the problem is we don’t quite know what it is. Best I can guess is something so complicated we haven’t yet figured out how to fit it together.
Llama
Certainly Summers put innate differences as #2 and socialization/discrimination #3, but his #1 reason had to do with choice … that the demands of certain jobs for focus exclusive of any other activity including family, makes the biggest impact. For Summers he found #1 & #2 to make a significant impact on the available pools of talent in both sexes so that #3 was less significant.
Why was Summers pounded when the subsequent “debaters” weren’t? IMHO, because Summers was the head of Harvard, a public figure saying blasphemous things in an public forum.
Richard Dawkins has addressed irreducible complexity—but for what it’s worth, I think such a concept is faulty because it starts at the end point and tries to explain a function based on what we know of that function.
But this is an ethnocentric idea: it presumes the human eye (to take Behe’s famous example) could not have had intermediary functions that made the organisms that possessed it even in rudimentary form (say, a membrane that senses light) more likely to be chosen through natural selection.
And precisely because it sees what the eye does now as what the eye was always intended to do, it begs the scientific question—and spots an “intelligent” design that is simply a “selective” design.
Llama School, you stated “There is no evidence that innate differences in aptitude are a greater contributing factor to male/female faculty ratios in the math/sciences compared to socialization and patterns of discrimination.” Here you are essentially characterizing Summers’ as having declared as a fact that aptitude differences are a greater factor than socialization in faculty gender ratios, when it was merely a theory. (There is, furthermore, strong evidence that his theory is true.) Summers was simply theorizing that because “the discovery that a large number of things that people thought were due to socialization weren’t, and were in fact due to more intrinsic human nature, and that set of discoveries, it seemed to me, ought to influence the way one thought about other areas where there was a perception of the importance of socialization”. It’s unfortunate you don’t see the inaccuracy in your characterization – that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
As for theory … I wouldn’t presume to lecture someone on the distinction between fact and theory if I were unaware of their definitions. But please, Llama, don’t let that stop you.
Joe,
Don’t let the theory of gravity result in your flying up toward the ceiling.
Its a fact that species evolve into new species.
Give me an example involving a complex life form, a mammal say. You can’t—because it has never been observed.
So? You think mammals don’t evolve into other species?
And precisely because it sees what the eye does now as what the eye was always intended to do, it begs the scientific questionâ€â€and spots an “intelligent†design that is simply a “selective†design.
A valid criticism, Jeff. But I have not seen it’s antithesis addressed by evolutionists – what was the selective process that required developement of the intermediate functions? Where are those transitional forms in the fossil record? Which further begs the “mathematical possibility” question … on the other hand, how intelligent is the design that got us to this fucked-up mess?
And SPQR, don’t worry – I believe the theory! Although I don’t understand why the crushing weight of your stupidity hasn’t caused you to sink to the earth’s core.
I agree with you on the principle of evolution, but I think it is very important we stress that it is a theory, it has been tested, and so far it has held up. Most of the ID/evolution bruhaha would be easily solved if more people understood the scientific method. I think they should be taught together in schools as a tool to explain the scientific method. It seems to me this would make everyone happy and provide a better education for our kids.
Joe,
Your link is NOT evidence that sex differences in math/science is innate. For example, African-Americans score worse on standardized test scores (in math) than Asian-Americans. That doesn’t mean that Asian-Americans necessarily have innate math aptitude that African-Americans don’t.
Leonidas & Joe,
I really suggest you do some reading on evolution. Try the talkorigins.org archive…I’ve already sidetracked these comments a bit, and shouldn’t turn it into a full blown evolution debate. For examples re: verterbrate evolution, see the Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ.
Darleen,
Again, he was pounded for saying that #2 was a bigger factor than #3. When the President of Harvard says a controversial statement without evidence to back it up, he will be criticized. And again, if this were truly such a taboo subject, the Orthodoxy should be screaming about any research on this, correct? They should be driven out of academia, in the current climate where there is no academic freedom, pilloried for this research, correct?
I agree with you on the principle of evolution, but I think it is very important we stress that it is a theory, it has been tested, and so far it has held up.
In fact, evolution hasn’t really been tested and there are many holes in the theory. The fossil record has so many gaps in it that it is very hard to say anything conclusively about how life developed on this planet.
ID is not falsifiable. It is not science. It is metaphysics. It is theology. I don’t intend to adduce the evidence for this because it abounds on the internet. The mistake IDers make is in attempting to ascribe metaphysical intentions to evolution. Evolution is not metaphysics – it is a mechanical model. It does not obviate God.
Joe, I happen to know that SPQR is someone with whose politics you likely have much more in common than certainly actus’. His point regarding the logical implications of your parsing of the word theory was instructional and you pissed on it and him – not behavior that evinces the power of either your position or your prowess.
Aw man. Part deux.
Suffice to say that is not an example of rigorous use of language. I can only assume by “holes,” marianna means to imply that some observations (or intuitions) seem to conflict with the theory. Fine. The same can be said of quantum theory, and yet it works. Newtonian physics was commuted by Einstein’s work, and yet Newton’s physics was still useful and had predictive power. Science is iterative. Each iteration is both a transcendence and an inclusion of its antecedent.
Just like a penguin in bondage. Way over on the wet side of the bed. Enjoy your plaything, actus.
Each iteration is both a transcendence and an inclusion of its antecedent.
Well said, that’s my point to some extent. Modern science is desperately fighting the possibility that the next iteration may involve faith.
Makes sense. Because then it won’t be science anymore. It will be mythology.
What actus is so smugly – albeit accurately – suggesting is that science, by definition, can only address falsifiable claims. This precludes claims predicated upon faith. Such claims are, by definition, not falsifiable. That is why it is called faith.
Faith and falsifiability are by no means mutually exclusive. Who’s to say that in the future scientists won’t be able to test things like the efficacy of prayer on healing or the effect of a Higher Power on the development of species?
Are those things natural or supernatural?
Are those things natural or supernatural?
I don’t claim to know.
Well, I guess its not natural, because then it wouldnt’ be quite the ‘Higher power,’ So i don’t think science will get to it.
They most certainly are. Science is incapable of addressing claims that have as their predicate a noseeum. If God is ineffable, he is beyond the purview of science as we know it. The pursuit of a metaphysical explanation of life is not what evolution addresses. Evolution is a mechanical model. Its aim is the description of the processes that facilitate the diversity of life we observe. As such, it is not intrinsically at odds with any particular metaphysical or theological assertions. Is your concept of God so pedestrian that you can’t imagine that he could have used evolution as the physical mechanism for the development of life?
Regarding the ostensible efficacy of prayer vis-à-vis healing, should science ever consider such a hypothesis, it must needs be a materialistic hypothesis (ie. the brain emits some kind of RF field that produces the ameliorative effects) and not metaphysical. In other words, science, as it exists, can never address or corroborate what actus rightly calls a supernatural claim.
I realize I’m repeating myself here, but I’m doing so with the best of intentions.
Regarding the ostensible efficacy of prayer vis-à-vis healing, should science ever consider such a hypothesis, it must needs be a materialistic hypothesis (ie. the brain emits some kind of RF field that produces the ameliorative effects) and not metaphysical.
Reminds me of a short story by Zenna Henderson about the “healing properties” of blood donated by a particular group of people. The group of people claim that it is because they pray for the patient while donating. A scientist scoffed at the explaination and set about trying to find out what was different…finally getting to the point of telling a group of donors they were forbidden to pray for that particular donation. Lo and behold, the blood still cured.
Then one weeping girl comes in to confess to the scientist that she in good conscience had to pray rather then let someone die in order to help the scientist.
Apropos of nothing except I love Henderson’s stories and was reminded.
Llama School:
Obviously, the speech I heard a tape of was not the one you’re quoting. I’ll accept yours as the canonical Summers statement, but once again you’re missing the point.
Again, he was pounded for saying that #2 was a bigger factor than #3. When the President of Harvard says a controversial statement without evidence to back it up, he will be criticized.
The statement was not controversial. He said that in his opinion, the contributing factors he suggested were ordered in a particular way. As he is the person with the only real knowledge of his opinions on the subject, there wasn’t anything controversial about the subject. Unless you believe that he misstated his opinions . . .
umm, sorry all.
Summers was forced out because he was disliked for his management style, and for moving what he deemed to be the less important departments beyond the river, to the new campus.
Math/Sex was just a weapon used by identity politics junkies like the feministas to beat him up with.
His hypothesis is well supported by evidence, there are morphological and functional differences in XX and XY brains based on fMRI data, and his refs on distribution and variance are data-backed.
it is just nasty academic politics as usual.
so funnie that any brush with science turns into a war on evolution here– i imagine most of you are what the Derb would call Right Creationists–
terminology:
And would you agree that almost all of those 50,000+ years were nasty, brutal and short- survival being the only concern- and men and women may have evolved differently to fit the roles basic survival in a brutal world required of them?
Could this be considered intelligent design?
Absolutely.
As opposed to evolution, which might be termed, natural design.
Duh.
Feminists are LCs in derbspeak.
I’m cool with that, what do you call those of us who believe people evolved differently but don’t make value judgements on the differences?
Scientists.
Now where is Vercingetorix?
Shouldn’t he be showing up about now to throw himself in front of one of these Panzers?
Nahhh, I think I’ll simply just JDAM the Wehrmacht.
Quick, who believes that your free will is simply the combined result of quantum fluctuations and deterministic environmental factors?
If you answer that yes, you believe that free will doesn’t exist, that the “I” in the mind’s eye doesn’t exist, you probably also believe that evolution was just random as random could be.
Same problem, different scales, and the “yes”s are idiots in both cases (determinism over free will, stochastic evolutionary randomness vs structure).
lol. i believe in far weirder stuff than that.
ever hear of biomemes?