Dear Editor,
Your editorial on Thursday, June 4, 2009 entitled, ‘Nurture, not nature,’ was supportive of the results of a study which concluded that females were equal to males is mathematics, a surrogate for analytical sciences. It is premature to arrive at this position based on this study performed by two women, Drs Hyde and Mertz, from the University of Wisconsin. Since the 1960s, the US feminist movement headed by Betty Friedman and the more radical Gloria Steinem have sought to elevate the image of women to that of superiority over their male counterparts. That movement is still active despite the gains of women through affirmative action, work programmes, higher participation rates in institutions of higher learning, increased mentoring and support programmes such as ‘take-your-daughter-to-work day’ and TV programmes involving criminal investigations where women are promoted beyond their numbers in a male-dominated field, and funding of elite girl schools by wealthy philanthropists, Oprah Winfrey, to name one.
With all these opportunities, there is little wonder that boys are failing and girls succeeding. But when Larry Summers, President of Harvard University, pointed out in 2005 the one area that they have not succeeded at, which is maths/science, and wondered aloud whether their innate abilities were responsible, the feminists at Harvard had him removed. The message is simple.
Any remarks that degrade the abilities of women will fetch a heavy price. Dr Summers, a prominent economist, was unemployed for about a year before landing a teaching job, and more recently, was selected to be President Obama’s Director of the US National Economic Council.
Now on the heels of Dr Summer’s remark, comes a study using correlations which show no difference in maths aptitude despite the factual evidence Dr Summers referred to.
As someone who has used regression analysis to forecast outcomes, I can assure you that one can find any and everything to correlate to any and everything.
From my experience with family members, college-trained staff members who I managed for over twenty years, and colleagues at university, I have observed differences between the aptitude of males and females. Females excel in communications and subjects/topics relying on memory, whereas males excel in those relying on analytical methods. During my years in engineering school in New York, USA, I only encountered two females attending classes and in one case she did not last the entire semester.
In NY where nurturing and gender equality is not an issue, and where females are over represented at universities, they do not opt for the analytical sciences such as engineering, because they are better able to cope with other disciplines. The differences that are innate in all of us give us our strengths and weaknesses.
It makes no sense to deny these differences or to think that they can be overcome through nurturing. Instead our strengths should be exploited and combined in teamwork to achieve the goals of society.
Yours faithfully,
Louis Holder
The late anthropologist Ashley Montagu wrote a book title, “The Natural Superiority of Women.” Brian Butterworth, in his book “The Mathematical Brain,” came to the conclusion that females are just at good at maths as are males. My teaching experience has shown me the same. The point is not so much to overcome any differences, innate or cultural, through nurturing, but just let the girls have the same opportunities that the boys have and they will excel in maths just as well.
This argument about which sex or race is better of deficient at whatever never seems to make sense. Regardless of how differently we have been built, no human being ever maxes out their mental capacity during their lifetime. This is generally accepted. Some authorities believe we never even go past 10%. This suggests that ANY human being is capable of ANYTHING any other has accomplished.
Seems therefore, that it comes down to preferences and the things that make us as groups and individuals tick.
BTW M, I read your letter in Tuesday’s Chronicle and the referenced article. Sobering stuff.
That 10% figure is a street myth. Google it up and you will see.
Aha, now check this out:
http://www.neilslade.com/Papers/how.html
A sampling:
‘Such a statement that “We use all of our brain all of the time” or “It is a myth that we only use 10% of our brain” are both misleading and unhelpful uninspiring skeptical crumbs with barely a grain of truth- As well as not even being accurate statements regarding usage of the human brain.
Humans have an unlimited capacity to learn. Unlike computers, no human brain has ever said: “Hard drive full.”‘
I mean real science, not flaky off-the-wall stuff. I can smell a flaky website a light year away. Just type Do We Use Only 10% of Our Brains? in the search engine. I got these ones first:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/pdf/tenper.pdf
http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percent.asp
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=179060
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-we-really-use-only-10
Saw the off-the-wall one you referenced.
Females are just as good at maths as males are; it’s just that the culture of many societies push girls away from maths. Albert Einstein said that he would not have mastered relativity without the mathematical work of Emily Noether, a brilliant woman who was denied a university teaching position merely because she was a woman. In the days of the ancient Greeks, women mathematicians were called mathematikoi and were as adept at maths as were Pythagoras, Hero & company. I’ve known and taught females whose heads are as small as a ‘dooksie’ coconut and they have exceptional mathematical brains, outstripping the males and leaving them ‘chamming’ dust.
What about his first wife’s contribution to his Nobel Prize for Physics, photo-electric effect?
Wow. Thanks, M, and thanks to the author of this letter. Most edifying!
Yes, Mr Borapork. Thanks for the reminder. That’s why he gave the money from his Nobel Prize to her.