The Summers of Their Discontent

Somewhere Larry Summers is... well, maybe not smiling exactly. But he's gotta be wondering what all the fuss was about. He was, as you'll recall, kicked out of Harvard a couple years back for merely "suggesting... the possibility that many factors outside of socialization could explain why there were more men than women in high-end science and engineering positions", and "suggest[ing] one such possible reason could be men's higher variance in relevant innate abilities or innate preference." This, of course, set off a conflagration among all of the various frauds, charlatans, hacks, "activists", and various hangers-on that Harvard seems so blessed with these days. Well, now it turns out, according to an article in Science, that "girls in the United States perform just as well as boys on standardized tests in math". This finding could, in fact, be the only good thing to come out of the No Child Left Behind Act, since it was the testing mandated by that act that contributed to the conclusion.

Now, I admit, the first thing that occurred to me on reading this was, "Sure, that's because the boys have gotten worse and the girls have stayed the same. And that's because the guys spend all their time in the basement playing video games." Unfortunately, the findings did not include data that speak to this point. But in any case, the researcher said that "there is no difference in innate ability that can explain why women are so under-represented in math and science careers." In other words, Summers' speculation was without foundation, and they were right to ride him out of Cambridge on a rail. But at the time he made his suggestion, these data were not available -- or if they were, they were submerged somewhere in the quicksand of peer review.

So then the question arises, if it's not a matter of innate ability, and it's not manifested in test scores or high school courses taken, or undergraduate degrees earned, where does this parting of the ways occur? Clearly, in selection of graduate school programs which lead to careers. Now, the last time I checked, graduate program selection and career choice were matters generally left up to the individual -- i.e. by the time you're at that point, you're no longer treated as a ward of the state, the way you are up through high school and, to a significant degree, in college. So if it's a matter of free choice, and the results we get are the result of free choice and not "discrimination"... and if innate ability has been taken off the board as a contributing factor (but too late to save Larry Summers' job), why is anybody worried about it? Well, because the fairest, most non-discriminatory outcome in the world, if merely based on the free choices of individuals, still constitutes rank "unfairness" if it does not properly reflect "diversity" -- as defined, needless to say, by the various Ministries of Diversity now found at all levels of government. It's like the contest that is waged morning, noon, and night between consumer choice and the FDA: The FDA wins every time. Ask someone who's perfectly willing to take a job that OSHA says is too dangerous. Ask a farmer who wants to plant a non-DA-approved crop. Ask someone who wants to start a radio or TV station! The government works tirelessly to limit, squelch, and cramp the free choices of entrepreneurs, workers, consumers, and -- yes -- students and teachers, all for their own good, of course. And the Summers flap was no exception. He gave his talk at a confab of something called a "Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research". Well, right away, whenever you see that word "diversifying" you know you're in trouble. What it means is that some social worker with a pistol hanging from their belt is going to march in and tell you you'd better start diversifying damn fast, or suffer the consequences. And of course their mission is not to give anyone what they want, but to accrue power and feather their own nest. And of course they have allies all over academics and the media, i.e. in the halls of power of the "agents of change" who couldn't care less what people really want. So Larry Summers had his day with these people, but the new study does seem to (read: ought to) take the wind out of the sails of the diversity mongers to some extent. At least they'll have to come up with some new arguments for the next round of coercion.