chabot@amber.DEC (Lisa Chabot) (05/24/84)
To begin I will quote from two letters by Mr. Hughes: > Path: decwrl!decvax!watmath!csc > Subject: Re: ET sex roles, request for clarification > Posted: Sun May 13 11:41:13 1984 > ... If a scientist were to do a study which tended to show there were > structural differences between the sexes which helped to explain the > domination of men in math and physics, this scientist would be immediately > branded sexist. No matter if his research methods were impeccable. No > matter if he judges his colleagues and students solely on the basis of > their work. He has come up with a conclusion which is philosophically > wrong and thus cannot be valid. > Path: decwrl!decvax!harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!csc > Subject: Re: sexual differences, (Hormone effects?) > Posted: Sun May 20 10:16:17 1984 > ... It is true that the study of anything like mathematical ability is > extremely complicated. ... it is possible to do studies that help to > distinguish between environmental and genetic effects. These studies are > however, difficult, time consuming, and very expensive. (So much so that > in the past scientists have found it easier to fake the results than do the > study :-) ) I believe there is a partial answer to Mr. Hughes assertion that studies delineating differences due to sex in brain function are always discredited in the latter letter: namely, we can discredit a great deal of past research due to improper methods, and improper methods, once uncovered as being improper can never prove that any differences are not due to training, since their lack of propriety show only differences due to research. This field has become disreputable, and so any research is usually approached skeptically. This is the way the scientific community reacts. The reason that a research showing a correlation between the male sex and math achievement would get labeled sexist is that it would support the status quo, which is sexist. The conclusions of such a study would be philosophically correct in most circles other than ones such as this newsgroup. Mr. Hughes own first letter on this matter implied sexism in this research with phrases like "the domination of men" and referring to the scientist as "he" and to "his" research. The choice of the word "domination" rather than some more passive wording such as "preponderance" is unfortunate: it leads us to read between the lines "the submission of women" or "the subjugation of women", which leaves me with an awful and yet not necessarily incorrect interpretation along the lines of women being intimidated or forced or beaten into something unpleasant and constricting. The "he"/"his" issue is not just and issue of style--I could easily and smoothly rearrange the wording to remove references to the sex of the scientist (and in fact I had no preconceptions about it until I ran up against the glaring "his"); this then becomes a declaration that only men would do this kind of research, and this declaration is blatant sexism: as if women are afraid to explore this area in case it might prove themselves inferior, as if women finding results proving any such inferiority would hush it up, as if there are no women capable of doing this research. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- It comes home daily that we participants in net newsgroups must be careful in our choice of words. Everyone has at sometime sent in some innocent little sarcastic comment or obviously funny remark which seems to cause all manner of hurt feelings and misinterpretation. Balance your words carefully! And listen to the feedback--someone sensitive to your unconscious prejudices may be able to reveal them to you, even if that person is unconscious of such a revelation. --Lisa S. Chabot UUCP: ...{ decvax | allegra | ucbvax }!decwrl!rhea!amber!Chabot USFail: DEC, MR03-1/K20, 2 Iron Way, Marlborough, MA 01752 shadow: ...{ decvax | allegra | ucbvax }!decwrl!rhea!avalon!Chabot
slag@charm.UUCP (Peter Rosenthal) (05/25/84)
eatthis. I don't see how we could ever write a test that measures IQ, mathematical ability or anything that would separate upbringing from phenotype. To show that environment has no contribution to innate mathematical ability we would need a pool of people who were raised in a nondiscriminatory society. I've never seen this. In my own family, my sister was the one with the sharpest mathematical skills and aptitude, yet she chose not to enter a mathematical field. She copped out and went to med school :-). She knew she was good at math, and she loved physics more that anything else she studied, but something inside always turned her away from it. She will be a great doctor, but I wonder how free her decisions really were.