Joho the Blog
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February 17, 2005
Pres. L. Summers has at last posted a transcript of his comments from a couple of weeks ago. So, now maybe (maybe) we can get a sense of the sense of his remarks. (Ironically, we learned about this at the Berkman Thursday blogging meeting which was discussing what's on and off the record.) Posted
by D. Weinberger at February 17, 2005 08:14 PM
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Comments
Ach! To take a set of diverse examples, the data will, I am confident, reveal that Catholics are substantially underrepresented in investment banking, which is an enormously high-paying profession in our society; that white men are very substantially underrepresented in the National Basketball Association; and that Jews are very substantially underrepresented in farming and in agriculture. These are all phenomena in which one observes underrepresentation, and I think it's important to try to think systematically and clinically about the reasons for underrepresentation.
Posted by: Cassford | February 18, 2005 08:40 AM
The social question too was complex!
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Posted by: yutao | February 18, 2005 09:59 PM
Cassford - I'm thinking very hard about why northern europeans were underreepresented as cargo in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. So far I haven't come up with much. Maybe you can help me out.
Posted by: fp | February 18, 2005 11:11 PM
David, I'm sorry to ask this, but all I see are snide remarks here and in the previous thread. Now that we have the transcript, in 3 sentences, what is objectionable about what he said? To me, it looks entirely reasonable, both in the questions layed out and the potential answers posited. Conservative blogs are saying the Left blew up over this because it was a direct challenge to the goal of diversity. I'd like to think there was a better reason. I just don't see it. Help me out :-).
Posted by: Brad Hutchings | February 19, 2005 06:31 AM
Brad, I hadn't read the transcript when I made this post. Thus, I didn't comment on it. I have read it now, and am about to post a long-ish commentary on it. But lunch with friends is about to intervene...
Posted by: David Weinberger | February 19, 2005 12:11 PM
Feminists get their panties in a bunch over some remarks which look to me to be fairly innocuous. The typical woman doesn't want to go into science. It's boring to them. You don't see mags in supermarket checkout lines pushing the new 400 cu. in. hemi block for pontiac. Maybe if we could dress up the electrons in pretty outfits or something.
Posted by: John Denton | February 26, 2005 10:30 AM
wrt John: Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait.
Here are my comments after reading the transcript:
http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/003714.html
Posted by: David Weinberger | February 26, 2005 12:27 PM
He's not a bigot.
He just should have known better.
I read his actual comments just yesterday on the Harvard website.
Here's my rant.
If you are going to make a controversial point, make it known upfront.
Second, make it actionable.
So, if there are so many fewer women with high end scientific aptitiude 4 standard deviations higher than normal, what does that mean for diversity which is the topic of discussion here today?
Last, make your point in 6th grade reading level.
Sorry, but the guy in front of me at McDonald's does not know a standard deviation from a hole in the wall.
Posted by: Laurel Gerdine | March 2, 2005 12:35 AM