chabot@amber.DEC (Lisa Chabot) (05/15/84)
The following exercise is a rewriting of a letter by William Hughes
with sex substituted for race; it is an exercise and it does not
represent my opinions (or of Mr. Hughes' about race, either).
--------------------------------------------------------------
Why is it that it is taken for granted that all observed racial
differences other than the gross physical ones are assumed to
be due entirely to social conditioning. The evidence is by no
means clear on this subject.
If a scientist were to do a study which tended to show there
were structural differences among the races which helped to
explain the domination of Caucasians in math and physics, this scientist
would be immediately branded sexist. No matter if his [sic --lsc] research
methods were impeccable. No matter if he judges his collegues
and students soley on the basis of their work. He has come
up with a conclusion which is philisophically wrong and thus
cannot be valid.
I am certian that there will be those who will attack me
for saying whites are inherently better at math than blacks. I have
said no such thing nor do I hold this opinion. There is simply
insufficient evidence to do so. However, I do not hold the
opinion that the observed differences are due to "*training*".
There is insufficient evidence to support this conclusion.
A friend of mine (Tracy Tims sometime contributer to this
forum) agrees, but says that if (repeat if! (emphasis mine))
such differences exist it would be a bad idea to prove this
as society is unlikely to react to such information in a mature
manner. I do not agree. The knowledge would in fact be
dangerous knowledge, but dangerous knowledge should be faced
not ignored.
With regard to people equality does not imply identity.
There are observed differnces between the races. Let us
study these differences with open minds.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
End of paraphrasing.
These days you have a hard time getting away with publicly arguing that
racial influence on technical ability should be investigated.
Why in the world would any knowledge of differences in ability between the
sexes be dangerous knowledge? I don't see any sort of societal upheaval or
reaffirmation of any status quo in store. If it's determined that women are
better space shuttle pilots because of their better small motor reactions
(it's selective breeding--all those generations of needlework :-) ), then are
men really not going to be space shuttle pilots? If we decide that there have
been more known male mathematical geniuses, then are we going to say little
girls can't study calculus? I think there may very well be differences, but
they are so insignificant as to be not worth spending the time on.
In my own direct experience, in my observations, environment has been an
overwhelming factor, both in issues of difference between the sexes and
differences among races. Let me quote again:
> No matter if his research methods were impeccable.
A big problem here is deciding how impeccable are research methods: what sort
of standards do we apply? Count brain-cells with "math" printed on them?
IQ tests? we've read enough about the social-class influence on IQ tests.
We can't expect to take a human mind as a clean slate, write some math on it
and see how well it sticks.
Dave Martindale asks about the relevance of the topic of his letter to this
newsgroup, but his first paragraph struck me as being wonderfully appropriate
right here, right after Mr. Hughes's letter:
> ...Take a person and put them in an environment where they are treated as
> low-class nobodies, and they will probably behave as expected. Put the same
> person in an environment where they are challenged to do the best they can,
> and rewarded for doing so, and you may find a very capable person.
So let's take a classroom of bright young minds and teach them geometry.
The bell rings, school ends, and all those bright young minds go home. Now
what happens to those slates? *** I'm sorry, I just can't talk rationally
about this *** hang on a minute ***
My heart is breaking, again. In memory. For my old gang. Half of us were
bright, we had the ability. We all had educated parents (even most of the
mothers went to college and some of them worked (teachers, nurses)), middle
class family incomes (except mine, it was lower). But how come their brothers
went to good colleges and they went to the junior colleges--my friends were
good like their brothers. What is it like to grow up in a large family which
everybody knows but doesn't really say out loud is so big because they kept
having kids until they got a boy--what are the daughters supposed to think of
themselves: as chaff? as mistakes? No, darling, of course we love you, but we
love your brother more. What is it like to come home knowing that your
parents care that you stay out of trouble in school but they don't encourage
YOU to excel, they don't expect YOU to excel except maybe in HomeEc.
I apologize, you can't be held to understand my emotional outburst. I loved
my friends, and their parents told them they were second-rate in so many
oh-so-subtle ways, and some told them they were nobodies. It was a fine,
clear, ringing, unexpected pleasure to be able to silence one mother who NEVER
mentioned her daughter, who ALWAYS talked about her sons' college prospects,
when I was able to make her choke by my casual outdistancing of her asinine
best son (he was, too, poor guy, raised on such a diet of flattery that his
mother fed him, he probably didn't have a chance to be mature. but I don't
feel too bad for him because he was fed (flattery). and he's still alive);
but it was an empty pleasure too, because I could never change her heart
about her daughter.
Next morning, bell rings, class begins again, which kids have done their
homework. Which kids have been raised to have the confidence in themselves
to know their own work is worthwhile. What's wrong with that kid who acts as
though the assignments aren't always worth completing, talks and smiles in
class, with that surprising vein of bitterness that occasionally shows when
you try to emphasize the importance of applying yourself in school to its
tasks; what's wrong with this kid is that this kid has been beaten down and
accepted that what this kid does in geometry has no relevance to this kid's
adult life: this kid is going to be a homemaker, this kid is going steal cars.
Geometry isn't relevant to ring-around-the-collar, geometry isn't relevant
to getting out of a knife fight.
How in the world can we isolate the human from the environment?
*******************************************************************
Most little girls play with dolls, little boys build things. My parents
probably made a bizarre mistake when they gave us Tonka trucks.
L S Chabot
UUCP: ...{ decvax | allegra | ucbvax }!decwrl!rhea!amber!chabot
ARPA: ...decwrl!rhea!amber!chabot@{ Berkeley | SU-Shasta }
USFail: DEC, MR03-1/K20, 2 Iron Way, Marlboro, MA 01752
shadow: ...{ decvax | allegra | ucbvax }!decwrl!rhea!avalon!chabotsmann@ihu1g.UUCP (Sherry Mann) (05/16/84)
L S Chabot, Thank you for sharing your feelings. You said so strongly what so many of us have tried to express with rhetoric. Sherry Mann
mario@astrovax.UUCP (Mario Vietri) (05/17/84)
William Hughes has posted an article , where he claimed that there is no evidence to either prove or disprove the claim that women are less talented in math than men, and protesting the attitude of the people who refuse to consider the issue in a strictly technical sense (i.e. as a 'scientific' issue, where the weight of the argument should have precedence on the social, political etc. implications of the results). He also resented that the danger of the conclusions should be used as an argument to dismiss the importance of such studies . Lisa Chabot has replied to him that , whatever the findings of the study, they should be irrelevant for the single individual, who , be she/he a woman or a man, should be entitled to all the encouragement, the support, the stimulation and, above all, all the consideration he deserves, independently of which group (the more talented or the less talented one) she/he belongs to . I would also like to make the following remarks : 1) W.H. assumes that the answer to the question 'who is more math-talented, men or women ?' exists. Who says so ? Psychologists have troubles defining what an IQ test should look like, and we should believe that such questions as above admit of an answer ? Maybe I might suggest to whoever is interested the reading of 'The mismeasure of man' by J. Gould, a book where some of the distortions by which the 'objective tests' of someone's superiority have been plagued are documented . In any case, I don't believe for a moment that anything like 'natural talent' can be disentangled from the plethora of social conditionings which L.C. has illustrated so vividly.And, if a question cannot be answered, where is its scientific value ? 2) Is it not peculiar that, from time to time, we should run into these objective tests that tell us that an oppressed minority of some kind is actually oppressed because it actually is inferior ? We have found them all the time : were not Blacks supposed to be less intelligent than whites ? And non-arians than arians ? And how about Lombroso, who within his own society, could distinguish the criminal from the non-criminal from the sizes of the skulls? The point I am trying to make is this: in times of tension between two social groups, there is always one,the dominating one, which uses the so-called 'objectivity' of science to justify its oppression of the other one. What I question is not only this use of science , but above all the fact that SCIENCE IS NOT OBJECTIVE AT ALL IN THESE STUDIES . What I question is whether questions as the above-mentioned one can be asked at all within a scientific context, and , since most scientists' answer is NO, who is benefited by posing the question in such terms . Let me finish by summing up : L.C. has rejected the importance of the studies because they should have no saying on the behaviour of the individual . I reject it too, also (!!) because i) the question cannot be answered on a strictly scientific basis, and ii) if so, it obviously can only be used to reaffirm the superiority of a ruling social group (in this case men, earlier in our history whites, Nazis, etc) over another one. Thus there are both scientific and political reasons to reject the argument . Mario Vietri Princeton University, Astrophysics
mario@astrovax.UUCP (Mario Vietri) (05/17/84)
Sorry, I forgot to include my address :
Mario Vietri
Princeton University, Astrophysics
{allegra,akgua,cbosgd,ihnp4,princeton}!astrovax!mariomartillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Martillo) (05/17/84)
Obviously, the test of math ability (actually ability to visualize spatial relations) are useful insofar as they predict performance on the job. If such a test truly predicted future performance on the job, then it would be a useful predictor of what proportion a given group should be represented at a given job. Otherwise, there would be no objective indicator whether a given employer were discriminating.
amigo@iwpba.UUCP (amigo) (05/17/84)
Regarding IQ tests: I remember seeing a program in PBS' NOVA series some years ago on this subject. The one thing that sticks in my mind was a brief interview with a James Watson who had been told by his high school guidance counselor that since his IQ (measured by the Stanford-Binet test) was 105, he should reconsider his decision to become a scientist. They then cut from this to a newsreel shot of Watson receiving his Nobel Prize for his part in the discovery of the structure of DNA. John Hobson AT&T Bell Labs--Naperville, IL ihnp4!iwpba!amigo
martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Martillo) (05/17/84)
Unlike Crick, Watson has done almost no serious work in biochemistry since the discovery of the double helix. Watson's main contribution by his own admission was stealing data from Rosalind Franklin. After Crick learned of the theft, he refused to speak to Watson. Watson justified his theft with a massive display of sexual chauvinism in The Double Helix. I have heard that nowadays he is a decent administrator at Sands Point (?) in Long Island, but I would not want to be a woman working for him.
csc@watmath.UUCP (Computer Sci Club) (05/17/84)
Mario Vietri attacks my article on several grounds, my replies:
I do not feel that there is no evidence one way or another but that
there is insufficient evidence to draw a conclusion. This is an
important distinction and one that has been missed by several people.
Mario Vietri states that the question of what causes the observed
differences in mathematical preformance between men and women is not answerable by scientific means. He produces no evidence for this
conclusion. Assume that different hormone concentrations cause the
brain to develop in different ways such that the male brain is
better adapted to mathematical problems (an assumption for which
there is absolutely no evidence and a hypothesis I do not find
very likely), there is every reason to believe that such facts
could be uncovered by scientific research. If the causes are
purely social then the problem is much more difficult, but there
is every reason to believe that strong evidence as to how some of
the major factors operate is obtainable by scientific means. I
agree that the problem is one of staggering complexity. I do
not agree that solving it should not be attempted.
In any case, as I have said before, whatever the results they should
have no bearing on individuals. Judge a mathematician by the way
that mathematician preforms mathematics; nothing more, nothing less.
Mario Vietri states that the results of such a study could only be
used to try and prove some type of "superiority". I agree that the
results might be (incorrectly) used in such a manner (this is the immature
attitude referred to in my original article). I do not feel that this is the
only way such results could be used. If the difference turns out
to be structural then we may have important insights into the
working of the human brain. If the difference is social, a better
understanding of the mechanisms involved would help in correcting
them (with the very happy result of a dramatic increase in the number
of top flight mathematicians). In any case the value of research for
the sake of research has been proven many times in the past.
William Hughesmario@astrovax.UUCP (Mario Vietri) (05/18/84)
Brief summary :
William Hughes considered the possibility that the large male
numerical supremacy in the mathematical sciences might be due
to intrinsic (i.e. genetic) differences between men and women.
Lisa Chabot countered the argument by stating that social
differences are far more important than genetic ones in determinig
the fate of talented young children. I added that the question
of how natural (i.e. genetic) is gender superiority,cannot be answered
within the bounds of modern science; thus posing it is useful only
in discriminating against women.
I add here a few comments:
1) The reason why this question cannot be answered by modern
science is that there is no way to quantify what is meant by
talent for .... Also, it is not immediately possible to disentangle
social and intrinsic factors . There is one simple parallel
which can be drawn : how do the IQ tests depend on race ?
This debate is well known and much publicized : it is carefully
reviewed in the book 'The mismeasure of man' by J. Gould .
In any case, one might ask himself : if this question can be
answered, what is the evidence in any case, as of now? Now let me
ask : where is the evidence ? Who is investigating this question ?
How come psychologists apply themselves to such abstract
categories as Intelligence, Perception of Space, Orientation,
and so on ? Why not dwelve into something so much more promising
as the question suggested by W.H.? In a follow up article,W.H.
suggested that it might be that such differences are due to hormonal
differences between men and women : well, if you were a psychologist,
and you suspected something like this, and thought it could be
proved, would you not jump at the opportunity and study this phenomenon? Imagine : for the first time ever , a direct link is established
between one of man's superior intellective properties (mathematical,
logical ability) and one of his biochemical components ! It's
never been done before ! Why not now ? May I suggest that this is
so because there is no way to do it ? Because no psychologist
in the world thinks it can be done ?
And , notice, the situation is not going to improve in the future:
in fact , children have been raised in very many different ways for
centuries, and they presumably will be for all the foreseeable future.
So the disentangling one needs to do is the same , no matter what
extraordinary developments you expect of future psychology and
neuropsychology. There might be just one way out, one might think:
that neuroscience identifies the exact site responsible for the
different abilities of man's abstract thought. You might be tempted
to suggest a more modern version of this, where an enzyme takes the
place of a specific place, or maybe a protein or what not: but, look,
this is exactly what the scientists of the Middle Ages believed, a long
abondoned presumption . So what is one left with ?
2) Now let me raise another question: why was math singled out ?
There are many fields where prominent women are far less numerous than
men : politics, philosophy, history, etc. etc. . There are fewer
anchorwomen than anchormen, or fewer corporation chairwomen than
chairmen . So why single out mathematics ? I may offer two suggestions:
i) mathematical talent seems to be more amenable to
quantitative verification : a few simple problems can discern
the talented from the untalented. The ability to solve problems
seems to be valued more than any other single faculty in these
tests.
I will not argue to show how this is not independent of social
conditioning : Lisa Chabot has done that already, so much better
than I could. But I will add another thought: there are
talents that are necessary in order to be a successful
mathematician : how about the ability to choose a problem?
von Neumann worked outside the main stream of mathematics during
most of his life , and he THUS managed to invent a large number
of subfields. And, even if you work within the mainstream of
your field , you must be able to choose the problem that
now, with your talents and technical resources,can be solved.
Which test measures this? And which test measures your ability
to interact with your colleagues, which plays such an important
role in persuading them that you do have solved a problem,and
that such a problem is important?
There seems to be a strange fascination,in reactionaries of all
kinds, with the quantitative aspects of one's intelligence,
something to be weighted, heavy, massive,tangible: something
one may hold in his hands , show to his inferior , and say :
look,you fool, can't you see how much better than you I am ?
Maybe I might suggest
for reading at this point a funny, but not superficial at all,
short essay by Roland Barthes: 'Einstein's brain' in
'Mythologies'. He makes exactly this point.
2) There are a large number of myths which the western
civilization relinquished :
racial superiority,technical superiority,scientific superiority,
intellectual superiority in general.
(Such a judgement is always abstracted from time : it does not
matter that , at different times, the Indians,the Chinese,or
the Egyptians,Babylonians, or in more recent times the Arabs
were far ahead of us in all the above-mentioned categories. The
only thing that matters is that now the West is better, and this
concept is analytically continued to infinity).
Some of these myths had to be abandoned : rights had to be
shared , independence had to be granted, technical ability had
to be recognized . But abstract thought has always been the
property of white, rich males, in Florence as in Paris, in
London as in New York . It seems to be the most closely
guarded property of mankind. I believe it is time we share it.
Brief Summary : I simply clarify some points of my previous letter.
Mario Vietri
Princeton University Observatory
{allegra,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,kpno,princeton}!astrovax!mariomazur@inmet.UUCP (05/19/84)
#R:decwrl:-15800:inmet:10900076:000:617
inmet!mazur May 17 23:26:00 1984
< I know I don't need this >
Obviously, the test of math ability (actually ability to visualize
spatial relations) are useful insofar as they predict performance
on the job.
If such a test truly predicted future performance on the job, then
it would be a useful predictor of what proportion a given group should
be represented at a given job.
Actually, this might be useful if your company hired test-takers instead of
programmers or mathemeticians. That's about all tests can predict: how well
a person can take tests, especially if the tests are slanted.
Beth Mazur
{ihnp4,ima,harpo}!inmet!mazurmartillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Martillo) (05/20/84)
I suppose the Putnams predict only how well a person takes tests. If a women came out in the top 5. It would merit an article in the NY Times.
mazur@inmet.UUCP (05/22/84)
#R:ihuxt:-50900:inmet:10900077:000:352
inmet!mazur May 21 17:21:00 1984
< put in just for grins and giggles >
If a women came out in the top 5. It would merit an article in
the NY Times.
Well, Mr. Martillo, you're right about that. At least for the first woman.
Maybe even for the second woman. Soon though it will merit just an article
in the test-taker's home town paper.
Beth Mazur
{ihnp4,ima,harpo}!inmet!mazur