Monday, January 17, 2005

Biology and Destiny

Article from the Boston Globe about comments by the President of Harvard that recently "drew ire". Has anyone noticed that the only time anyone cares what academics say is when they "draw ire"? At any rate, here goes:
"The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. Summers also questioned how much of a role discrimination plays in the dearth of female professors in science and engineering at elite universities."
So, he was musing about something and that was the problem? Academics aren't supposed to muse anymore??
"Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, walked out on Summers' talk, saying later that if she hadn't left, ''I would've either blacked out or thrown up."
You have to love a biologist who gets so deeply offended at the suggestion that biology may play a role in behavior.
"Summers said he was only putting forward hypotheses based on the scholarly work assembled for the conference, not expressing his own judgments -- in fact, he said, more research needs to be done on these issues."
At any rate, I don't buy the "biology is destiny" argument any more than the social construction is destiny argument. But, it seems a bit... hmmm, unhealthy to have an academic environment in which people draw ire for considering ideas.

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