Girls too stupid for math and science says Harvard!

[ChairOne]

Ok, folks might wanna argue about which is stupider... but here's the article:

"CAMBRIDGE, Mass -- The president of Harvard University prompted criticism for suggesting that innate differences between the sexes could help explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers.

Lawrence H. Summers, speaking Friday at an economic conference, also questioned how great a role discrimination plays in keeping female scientists and engineers from advancing at elite universities."

http://www.local6.com/education/4090001/detail.html

In addition to being sexist, it's. just. plain. false. At least in mathematics, which is where my teaching background lies. Girls are every bit as good as boys - statistically a bit better, in fact. The bottom (empirical) line seems to be: the girls tend to do what the teacher says more consistently than the boys do (homework, preferred methodologies, etc.). Hence they tend to do better on tests n crap like that.

There *are* issues concerning what goes on in the upper reaches of math - and, I assume, the rest of science. Girls, statistically, become less and less present in math classes as you go up the academic math ladder. Given how promising they are, as mentioned above, this is unfortunate.

Some folks blame this phenomenon (and it *is* a phenomenon) on 20 year old boys "boying out" in those classes, making them less attractive to girls. And there's about a jillion other conjectured explanations of the phenomenon. No serious attempt at an explanation, though, features the idea that girls are stupid. It would take a Harvard President to come up with that.

EDIT: spelling

[Burma Jones]

1. All I have to say is.........................

This is one of our greatest brains.........

http://sunnyday.mit.edu/


Oh, let's not forget Grace Hopper either..........

[ChairOne]

2. lol - don't tell me - tell the Harvard jackass! lol /eom

[apnu]

3. I posted this earlier

for more discussion on this check out: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2965956&mesg_id=2965956

[ChairOne]

4. Ack! sorry -- don't have search.... my bad... /eom

[txaslftist]

5. Girls are icky and will give you cooties, too.n/t