left vs right on banning books and ideas.

[Spock]

As evidenced by the Palin librarian letters-there is a strong meme out there that the right keeps wanting to ban books. I submit that most such attempts are very clums and do not go very far-ie a mom with concerns about Harry Potter at a school board.

To the contrary-I submit that the left is far more effective at limiting books and ideas that it does not like.

Examples:
1) Huckleberry Finn-Probably not required in too many schools anymore is it?

2) Lawrence Summers-Harvard guy and former Clinton official who commented that there may be innate differences in the science and math abilities of women and men-
How did that work out for him?

3) Richard Sternberg
Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg made a fateful decision a year ago.

As editor of the hitherto obscure Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Sternberg decided to publish a paper making the case for "intelligent design," a controversial theory that holds that the machinery of life is so complex as to require the hand -- subtle or not -- of an intelligent creator.

[gotribego26]

2) Lawrence Summers-Harvard guy and former Clinton official who commented that there may be innate differences in the science and math abilities of women and men-
How did that work out for him?

the interesting thing is that Summers did not say "that there may be innate differences in the science and math abilities of women and men". What he said is also not accepted by many and gets into random variation - a subject that almost all of our media is unable to understadn and coomunicate - and that few people can understand.

He speciifically stated that he does not see or even care about average abilities in the math and science abilities of men and women - but that there asppears to be a much wider spread of these abilities in men than in women. (In addition there appear to be a wider spread in many attributes between men and women - this is an observation - not a value judgment - he specifically didn't discuss causes)

Here is the actual section of his prepared remarks.

It does appear that on many, many different human attributes-height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability-there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means-which can be debated-there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population. And that is true with respect to attributes that are and are not plausibly, culturally determined. If one supposes, as I think is reasonable, that if one is talking about physicists at a top twenty-five research university, one is not talking about people who are two standard deviations above the mean. And perhaps it's not even talking about somebody who is three standard deviations above the mean. But it's talking about people who are three and a half, four standard deviations above the mean in the one in 5,000, one in 10,000 class. Even small differences in the standard deviation will translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out. I did a very crude calculation, which I'm sure was wrong and certainly was unsubtle, twenty different ways. I looked at the Xie and Shauman paper-looked at the book, rather-looked at the evidence on the sex ratios in the top 5% of twelfth graders. If you look at those-they're all over the map, depends on which test, whether it's math, or science, and so forth-but 50% women, one woman for every two men, would be a high-end estimate from their estimates. From that, you can back out a difference in the implied standard deviations that works out to be about 20%. And from that, you can work out the difference out several standard deviations. If you do that calculation-and I have no reason to think that it couldn't be refined in a hundred ways-you get five to one, at the high end. Now, it's pointed out by one of the papers at this conference that these tests are not a very good measure and are not highly predictive with respect to people's ability to do that. And that's absolutely right. But I don't think that resolves the issue at all. Because if my reading of the data is right-it's something people can argue about-that there are some systematic differences in variability in different populations, then whatever the set of attributes are that are precisely defined to correlate with being an aeronautical engineer at MIT or being a chemist at Berkeley, those are probably different in their standard deviations as well. So my sense is that the unfortunate truth-I would far prefer to believe something else, because it would be easier to address what is surely a serious social problem if something else were true-is that the combination of the high-powered job hypothesis and the differing variances probably explains a fair amount of this problem.

He did not say it, but he later added that a reasonable conclusion is that there are also more men at the edges of very low math and science abilities.

The entire remarks are here -

http://www.president.harvard.edu/speech ... /nber.html

He also never used the term "innate abilities". I think he was not treated fairly at all. You may disagree with the order of his three hyspotheses - and as a questioner asked it is entirely possible that 1 & 2 are caused by number 3.

I am raising two daughters who appear to have above average ability in math and sciences - the older one is getting to the stage (soph in HS) were socialization is pressuring her to not appear so smart - it is frightening to see this. Her male peers are frightened and intimidated by her skill - and some female peers think she spend less time honing these skills and more time being one of the girls. She feels like acheiving less will help her to fit in better. I don't have answers, other than to support her acedemic efforts, but it clearly does happen.

[mrkelley23]

Spock's is well-taken about there being plenty of intellectual fascists on both sides of the aisle. The difference seems to be in their approach to eliminating provocative ideas. Those on the "right" seem to take a frontal approach, asking that books be banned or burned or whatever. Those on the "left" practice a variation on what the Amish call "shunning." It wouldn't be PC to actually ban the book, or fire the person, or whatever, so we'll just acknowledge, oh-so-politely, that no educated person would ever think/believe/speculate on such a topic.

What bothers me is that, just as with the political campaigns of recent history, I now see each side adopting the tactics of the other, with too much success.

[gotribego26]

Doc - glad to see you added here - I agree with you totally - it is the inability to provoke and speculate that bothers me the most. I'm not a fan a dogma/orthodoxy.

As an aside - You teach high school sciences - how much of the socialization against female achievement in science do you see? Do you do any thing explicit to deal with it? You may have seen an earlier thread that I am looking to teach high school math in the next couple of years.

This is an issue that has intrgiued me - in some ways (speculation alert - I don't know this but it seems like it is true) the socialization issues seem greater today than when I was in HS thirty years ago.

[mrkelley23]

Doc - glad to see you added here - I agree with you totally - it is the inability to provoke and speculate that bothers me the most. I'm not a fan a dogma/orthodoxy.

As an aside - You teach high school sciences - how much of the socialization against female achievement in science do you see? Do you do any thing explicit to deal with it? You may have seen an earlier thread that I am looking to teach high school math in the next couple of years.

This is an issue that has intrigued me - in some ways (speculation alert - I don't know this but it seems like it is true) the socialization issues seem greater today than when I was in HS thirty years ago.

I'm in strong agreement with you -- so much so that I caught myself nodding agreement a few years ago when I read about a school system that was trying an all-girl magnet school for the maths and sciences, hoping to free the girls from some of the social pressure you describe.

I have attended conference sessions on the subject, but other than consciously NOT doing what some of the presenters pointed out as "sins," I find myself very frustrated and not able to do anything. Part of the problem is that by the time they get to me, the damage is already done -- I teach almost exclusively juniors and seniors. Also, at any given high school, the counseling staff is nearly always made up of people who not only don't have much experience at math and science, but are openly hostile to it. We're constantly fighting the battle of counselors not placing kids in science classes because "that's too hard -- why don't you concentrate on making good grades in reading and math this year, and then we'll let you take science next year."

The sins I refer to in the above paragraph are things like male teachers always or nearly always calling on male students for answers in class discussions; not waiting long enough for an answer (force yourself to count to 8 seconds -- you'll be amazed at how long that seems); and giving preferential seating to male students. All of these are unconscious or subconscious, but they're there, in nearly every classroom that I've observed.

[BigDrawMan]

As evidenced by the Palin librarian letters-there is a strong meme out there that the right keeps wanting to ban books. I submit that most such attempts are very clums and do not go very far-ie a mom with concerns about Harry Potter at a school board.

To the contrary-I submit that the left is far more effective at limiting books and ideas that it does not like.

Examples:
1) Huckleberry Finn-Probably not required in too many schools anymore is it?

2) Lawrence Summers-Harvard guy and former Clinton official who commented that there may be innate differences in the science and math abilities of women and men-
How did that work out for him?

3) Richard Sternberg
Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg made a fateful decision a year ago.

As editor of the hitherto obscure Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Sternberg decided to publish a paper making the case for "intelligent design," a controversial theory that holds that the machinery of life is so complex as to require the hand -- subtle or not -- of an intelligent creator.

I think the far left and far right wing nuts need to be humanely destroyed.

[gotribego26]

Part of the problem is that by the time they get to me, the damage is already done -- I teach almost exclusively juniors and seniors.

I can see that - the scary thing is that my younger daughter (in 6th grade) seems to have caught the bug at least 3 years ahead of her older sisiter - of course the presence of the older sister has a lot to do with that.

Do you assign seats or allow students to choose? Are your classes roughtly 50/50 or majority male?

[mrkelley23]

Part of the problem is that by the time they get to me, the damage is already done -- I teach almost exclusively juniors and seniors.

I can see that - the scary thing is that my younger daughter (in 6th grade) seems to have caught the bug at least 3 years ahead of her older sisiter - of course the presence of the older sister has a lot to do with that.

Do you assign seats or allow students to choose? Are your classes roughtly 50/50 or majority male?

I allow students to choose -- with the caveat that I reserve the right to shake it up. And I nearly always do, at least once a year.

My classes are majority male most of the time, and the higher level you go, the wider the disparity becomes. It is a rare year when I have as many females as males in my AP Physics class. This year I have 20 students in that class and 4 of them are female, which is unfortunately all too typical.

[BigDrawMan]

2) Lawrence Summers-Harvard guy and former Clinton official who commented that there may be innate differences in the science and math abilities of women and men-
How did that work out for him?

the interesting thing is that Summers did not say "that there may be innate differences in the science and math abilities of women and men". What he said is also not accepted by many and gets into random variation - a subject that almost all of our media is unable to understadn and coomunicate - and that few people can understand.

He speciifically stated that he does not see or even care about average abilities in the math and science abilities of men and women - but that there asppears to be a much wider spread of these abilities in men than in women. (In addition there appear to be a wider spread in many attributes between men and women - this is an observation - not a value judgment - he specifically didn't discuss causes)

Here is the actual section of his prepared remarks.

It does appear that on many, many different human attributes-height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability-there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means-which can be debated-there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population. And that is true with respect to attributes that are and are not plausibly, culturally determined. If one supposes, as I think is reasonable, that if one is talking about physicists at a top twenty-five research university, one is not talking about people who are two standard deviations above the mean. And perhaps it's not even talking about somebody who is three standard deviations above the mean. But it's talking about people who are three and a half, four standard deviations above the mean in the one in 5,000, one in 10,000 class. Even small differences in the standard deviation will translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out. I did a very crude calculation, which I'm sure was wrong and certainly was unsubtle, twenty different ways. I looked at the Xie and Shauman paper-looked at the book, rather-looked at the evidence on the sex ratios in the top 5% of twelfth graders. If you look at those-they're all over the map, depends on which test, whether it's math, or science, and so forth-but 50% women, one woman for every two men, would be a high-end estimate from their estimates. From that, you can back out a difference in the implied standard deviations that works out to be about 20%. And from that, you can work out the difference out several standard deviations. If you do that calculation-and I have no reason to think that it couldn't be refined in a hundred ways-you get five to one, at the high end. Now, it's pointed out by one of the papers at this conference that these tests are not a very good measure and are not highly predictive with respect to people's ability to do that. And that's absolutely right. But I don't think that resolves the issue at all. Because if my reading of the data is right-it's something people can argue about-that there are some systematic differences in variability in different populations, then whatever the set of attributes are that are precisely defined to correlate with being an aeronautical engineer at MIT or being a chemist at Berkeley, those are probably different in their standard deviations as well. So my sense is that the unfortunate truth-I would far prefer to believe something else, because it would be easier to address what is surely a serious social problem if something else were true-is that the combination of the high-powered job hypothesis and the differing variances probably explains a fair amount of this problem.

He did not say it, but he later added that a reasonable conclusion is that there are also more men at the edges of very low math and science abilities.


I watched a program a few years back that touched on something similar.A panelist, who studied the issue at a university said that black athletes in total are not faster than white athletes, but their distribution along the "speed axis" is not as mean hugging as the whites, ergo there were a lot more of them at the high(and low) ends.

As it was on PBS,a calm and rational discussion of his findings ensued.

I have observed that chicks usually hug the mean, whilst men are strung out.

[PlacentiaSoccerMom]

Maddie's Honors Biology teacher last year was awesome. Maddie is good at handling the material, but doesn't have a passion for science. Her teacher would engage her by also discussing literature or pop culture and how it related to a certain subject. The class could have been very dry in the hands of a different teacher.

Her teacher recommended her for Honors Chemistry for the 10th grade. Unfortunately our school district had massive cutbacks this year, so there were no zero period classes offered. (Maddie really needs to have seven classes each year, plus mock trial, but could only take six.) She could only have three electives and had to decide between Spanish 3 Honors, Honors Trig/Analysis, Advanced Drama, and Honors Chemistry.

She debated a long time, but decided to take Honors Chemistry as a Junior. (There was no way that I would let her give up Math and Spanish, because they are both practical classes.) Drama makes her happy and is the high point of her day, so she didn't want to give it up, either. She knows that Drama isn't a Career Choice, but feels that it's a great hobby that helps her in Mock Trial and with interview skills.

She's incredibly happy right now, but I hope that she made the right decision.

[peacock2121]

As evidenced by the Palin librarian letters-there is a strong meme out there that the right keeps wanting to ban books. I submit that most such attempts are very clums and do not go very far-ie a mom with concerns about Harry Potter at a school board.

To the contrary-I submit that the left is far more effective at limiting books and ideas that it does not like.

Examples:
1) Huckleberry Finn-Probably not required in too many schools anymore is it?

2) Lawrence Summers-Harvard guy and former Clinton official who commented that there may be innate differences in the science and math abilities of women and men-
How did that work out for him?

3) Richard Sternberg
Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg made a fateful decision a year ago.

As editor of the hitherto obscure Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Sternberg decided to publish a paper making the case for "intelligent design," a controversial theory that holds that the machinery of life is so complex as to require the hand -- subtle or not -- of an intelligent creator.

I think the far left and far right wing nuts need to be humanely destroyed.

so sweet that you think it should be done humanely.

[gotribego26]

I think the far left and far right wing nuts need to be humanely destroyed.

so sweet that you think it should be done humanely.

Have fun getting the far left and far right to agree to what constitutes humane destruction.

[MarleysGh0st]

3) Richard Sternberg
Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg made a fateful decision a year ago.

As editor of the hitherto obscure Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Sternberg decided to publish a paper making the case for "intelligent design," a controversial theory that holds that the machinery of life is so complex as to require the hand -- subtle or not -- of an intelligent creator.

You saw Ben Stein discuss this in the movie Expelled, perhaps?

Here's some disputation of the claims made therein:

http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.ph ... /sternberg

[SportsFan68]

I could weigh in here with some remarks about my (theoretical) Science PAF, but I'm gonna pass. Everybody interested in this already has the tools and skills to handle her/his own situations.

I'll just send every positive vibe I can to help Tribe help his daughters go straight ahead in math and science, like Peggy did.