If Thought Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Thoughts* & **

In a Boston Globe op-ed, John Hennessey, Susan Hockfield and Shirley Tilghman declare their opposition to even asking questions:

Speculation that "innate differences" may be a significant cause for the under-representation of women in science and engineering may rejuvenate old myths and reinforce negative stereotypes and biases.

Hennessey is President of Stanford, Hochfield of MIT, and Tilghman of Princeton. How much more explicit can they be: Thou shalt ask no unPC questions.

The odd thing for the presidents of three of the most prestigious research universities in the world to neglect to say: There is already solid research to show that the issue raised by Larry Summers of Harvard has already been addressed, and settled. They don't say that. They don't imply that. They simply say that the issue mustn't be raised, and that it therefore cannot be researched. They do say:

Extensive research on the abilities and representation of males and females in science and mathematics has identified the need to address important cultural and societal factors.

But Summers didn't dispute that. In fact he agreed with it.

Galileo challenged unscientific orthodoxy, and we know he was forced to recant. Of course, he turned out to be right, but the PCers of the day didn't care. They had their dogma and would brook no questioning of it.

Some of the early reporting in the NYT on the Larry Summers Affair quoted Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist at Imperial College in London, on sex-based differences.

The interesting questions are, is there an average intrinsic difference? And how extensive is the variation? I would love to know if the averages are the same but the underlying variation is different - with members of one sex tending to be either superb or dreadful at particular sorts of thinking while members of the other are pretty good but rarely exceptional

The three presidents are scientists acting like politicians. Olivia Judson is a scientist acting like a scientist. Who should be running major research institutions?

The New Thought Police undercut their very own opposition to research with:

Much has already been learned from research in the classroom and from recent experience on our campuses about how we can encourage top performance from our students. For example, recent research shows that different teaching methods can lead to comparable performance for males and females in high school mathematics.

What are they implying here if not: "Men and women respond well to different teaching methods"?

Remember: Summers did not claim there are innate sex-based differences in ability. He said there are clear differences in distribution results of tests, and suggested several avenues for research, including socialization and innate differences.

He made it clear that highly qualified ppl of either sex should should not have to deal with discrimination.

So, given that Larry Summers is highly unpopular with significant parts of the Harvard faculty and their colleagues elsewhere, and given that he was asked to make provocative remarks at what he was told would be an off-the-record session (but obviously wasn't), another question comes to mind: Was Larry Summers set up?

Click here: Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Women and science: the real issue

*A non-bumper sticker, from "My Career in Bumper Stickers" By SPARROW and ART CHANTRY in today's NYTimes Click here: The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Art: My Career in Bumper Stickers

** UPDATE: If you are interested in the Summers brouhaha, the following is by far the best roundup on it. PDF format, & you'' need to use the enlarger icon to read it.

Click here: http://faculty.ccc.edu/khope/The MF debate.pdf

http://faculty.ccc.edu/khope/The%20MF%20debate.pdf