adm@cbneb.UUCP (05/15/84)
#R:bolton:-19100:cbnap:28400001:000:1116 cbnap!cmv May 15 11:39:00 1984 [ Do not read this blank line message ] Isn't it that people are different not genders? Isn't it also true that generalities about ANY group can be made? So if I was to say that women are physically weaker than men, I would be making a generality about a group which may or may not be true about the group, but not about any particular individual in that group. My point is that valid generalizations CAN be made about groups (especially from a scientific point of view) because the characteristics of all the people in that group make up the generalization, but that has little meaning if you try to apply it to one of the individuals in the group since their characteristics are dwarfed by the magnitude of the others that make up the group. Following all this (if you have to this point) I find it supressive that valid studies that come up with generalizations about groups (for whatever value they may have) are discredited because some people take offense to them. For what its worth... Craig Votava AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus ...ihnp4!cbnap!cmv
jbf@ccieng5.UUCP (Jens Bernhard Fiederer) (05/16/84)
If a difference among two groups is perceived, it is very difficult to say, with certainty: "All the difference is due to environment." I could argue convincingly that girls are brought up to play with dolls that wet themselves, and change their diapers, and I never was. This lack of preparation might explain the scarcity of guys that get pregnant. The fact that SOME training is involved obviously does not mean that ONLY training is responsible for differences. It only contradicts the hypothesis that ONLY genetic factors are responsible for the difference. I would agree that, in the case of women and mathematics, the cause of the difference is not yet determined. I know some excellent female mathematicians, but far more women who are brilliant otherwise, but reluctant to even consider a formal proof. I am not brash enough to claim to understand the basis of this phenomenon completely. While, regardless of the performance of the group, individuals should not be fettered, the possibility of actual differences DOES make "quota" controls potentially hazardous: if only 45% of the females surpassed the average male in mathematics, and you enforced a 50/50 division of labor in the field, the women would, on the average, end up as poorer performers, being burdened by their substandard 5%. If only the women above a certain level of competence, and only the men above a certain level of competence were admitted, this bias would disappear (but possibly leave a numeric imbalance). The Man of Fifty Years -- "Some people are eccentric, but I am just plain odd" Reachable as ....allegra![rayssd,rlgvax]!ccieng5!jbf