Jméno rektora jedné z neprestižnějších světových univezit znal až dosud mimo akademickou komunitu jen málokdo. Teď si fotografii rektora Harvardské univerzity Lawrence Summerse mohou všechny ženy (a ty přírodovědně založené zvlášť) přidat do sbírky šovinistických velikánů naší doby. Summers se totiž "proslavil" názorem, že muži jsou v přírodních vědách lepší než ženy kvůli biologickým rozdílům.

Skandál nevídaných rozměrů se rozhořel na konferenci v Cambridgi, kde Lawrence Summers přednesl svoji teorii o tom, že muži jsou lepší než ženy v matematice a dalších přírodních vědách z důvodu lepšího biologického vybavení silnějšího pohlaví.

Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who once led an investigation of sex discrimination there that led to changes in hiring and promotion, walked out midway through Dr. Summers’s remarks.

“When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn’t breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill,” Dr. Hopkins said.

This controversy is ostensibly about the ability of women to excel in math and science. But it says more about the ability of academics to engage in rational debate when confronted by views that contradict their cherished assumptions.

Summers' remarks may have failed the Hopkins Nausea Test, but they hold up better when judged by more scientific standards. Decades of testing have shown that boys and men tend to do better than girls and women on tasks that require spatial reasoning (e.g., mentally rotating objects) and advanced mathematical abilities. These differences are especially pronounced at the upper end of the distribution, where future scientists and mathematicians congregate.

...the hypothesis is that differences in abilities might be one out of several factors that explain differences in the statistical representation of men and women in various professions. It does not mean that it is the only factor. Still, if it is one factor, we cannot reflexively assume that different statistical representation of men and women in science and engineering is itself proof of discrimination. Incidentally, another sign that we are dealing with a taboo is that when it comes to this issue, ordinarily intelligent scientists suddenly lose their ability to think quantitatively and warp statistical hypotheses into crude dichotomies. (...)

People who storm out of a meeting at the mention of a hypothesis, or declare it taboo or offensive without providing arguments or evidence, don’t get the concept of a university or free inquiry.

Not very long ago an essay appeared in Professor James P. Sterba’s book, Morality and Social Justice: Point/Counterpoint (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995), pp. 115-46, by feminist philosopher Alison M. Jaggar, titled "Toward a Feminist Conception of Moral Reasoning." This piece argued with great zeal that there are serious differences between the way women and men think—have to think?—about morality. Women stress cooperation, nurturing, and conciliatory measures in human relations, whereas men promote competition, aggressiveness, scoring points and so forth.

This piece was just one of numerous writings in which the differences between men and women were laid out with firm conviction by certain feminist scholars. Deborah Tanner, for example, had written numerous popular and scholarly books—for example, Gender and Discourse, Framing Discourse, Talking Voices, The Power of Talk—in which she had argued that there are clear differences between how men and women think and talk.

When a few days ago Harvard President Lawrence Summers made reference to "innate differences" between men and women that could account for why women aren’t as well represented in some of the sciences as are men, all hell broke loose. The National Association of Women called for him to resign his presidency, while others slammed him and denounced the fact that a man with such prejudices could be leading a top educational institution in America. (...)

This appears to be a token of the type of thinking that would have it that only Jews are allowed to make jokes about Jews, only blacks may talk kid about blacks, and so forth and so on. If a man states that women differ from men in this or that respect, that’s heresy. If a bunch of women says so, it must be the result of science and analysis.

[This is not] a statement that girls are inferior at math and science: It doesn't dictate the limits of any individual, and it doesn't entail that men are on average better than women at math or science. It's a claim that the distribution of male scores is more spread out than the distribution of female scores — a greater percentage at both the bottom and the top. Nobody bats an eye at the overrepresentation of men in prison. But suggest that the excess might go both ways, and you're a pig. (...)

Already Summers is being forced to apologize, in the style of a Communist show trial, for sending "an unintended signal of discouragement to talented girls and women." But the best signal to send to talented girls and boys is that science isn't about respecting sensitivities. It's about respecting facts. The only people who don't belong in science, male or female, are those who would rather close their eyes—and yours—than see what's there.