By Charles Simic.

Your friend has died, with whom

You roamed the streets,

At all hours, talking philosophy.

So, today you went alone,

Stopping often to change places

With your imaginary companion,

And argue back against yourself

On the subject of appearances:

The world we see in our heads

And the world we see daily,

So difficult to tell apart

When grief and sorrow bow us over.

You two often got so carried away

You found yourselves in strange neighborhoods

Lost among unfriendly folk,

Having to ask for directions

While on the verge of a supreme insight,

Repeating your question

To an old woman or a child

Both of whom may have been deaf and dumb.

What was that fragment of Heraclitus

You were trying to remember

As you stepped on the butcher’s cat?

Meantime, you yourself were lost

Between someone’s new black shoe

Left on the sidewalk

And the sudden terror and exhilaration

At the sight of a girl

Dressed up for a night of dancing

Speeding by on roller skates.

Hey, have you heard? Apparently Harvard President Lawrence Summers has made some sort of remarks about underrepresentation of women in science being attributable in part to innate cognitive differences, rather than some sort of discrimination. And it started a bit of a kerfuffle! Who would have guessed?

I mentioned the incident briefly, and others in the blogosphere have not been shy about offering their opinions: see Mark Graber, Bitch, Ph.D., Kriston, Unrequited Narcissism, Lubos Motl (don’t miss Ann Nelson’s comment), Michael Bérubé, Matthew Yglesias, Barb Mattson, Becky Stanek, Juan Non-Volokh, PZ Myers, Universal Acid, Kristy Elesko. A nice review of the actual research on cognitive differences is given by Mixing Memory. Summers has been scolded by the Harvard faculty, defended by Steven Pinker, corrected by the sociologists he quoted, and has issued a slightly more contrite apology than was originally squeezed out of him.

Perhaps more commentary isn’t really necessary. But it’s hard to miss the fact that Summers’ defenders and critics are mostly talking past each other. As one of the critics, I’m especially baffled/annoyed at the tack taken by most of the defenders. The basic line seems to be that Summers was simply offering a scientific hypothesis, one that is worth investigating, and if you are in any way offended you must be letting political correctness compromise your interest in finding the truth. This seems to miss the point entirely, so perhaps it’s worth just a little more blather on the subject.

Men and women are indeed different. I’ve noticed differences, anyway, and thank goodness. Biological differences are obvious, and I’m someone who believes that the mind is completely tied to the brain, which is part of the body, so it’s certainly possible in principle to imagine that there are innate cognitive differences. I know that some people disagree, and deny even the possibility of cognitive differences, but I think they are unreasonably extreme.

So, except for the fact that “scientific ability” is something hopelessly hard to quantify, I’m happy to contemplate the possibility that men have some tiny innate superiority to women when it comes to science. I am equally happy to contemplate the possibility that women have some tiny innate superiority to men when it comes to science. The point is that we have no strong evidence one way or another. It’s impossible, given the current state of the art, to reliably measure “innate ability” in a way that isn’t hopelessly noisy and compromised by cultural factors. It’s perfectly clear that the differences between individual people are typically much larger than the difference between some hypothetical average man and average woman, just as it is perfectly obvious that the expression of innate ability is tremendously affected by social and cultural factors.

Don’t these people read any history at all? Whenever some group is discriminated against by some other group, people inevitably suggest that the differences in situation can be traced to innate features distinguishing between the groups, and they are never right! If you would like to suggest that innate differences are responsible for some current discrepancies in people’s fortunes, the minimal burden you face is to acknowledge that such explanations have been spectacular failures in similar circumstances throughout history, and explain why we have compelling reasons to think the situation is different this time. Maybe it is, but the presumption is strongly against you.

Systematic biases against women in science are real. I’ve talked about this before, so didn’t think it was worth rehearsing, but apparently there are a lot of folks who don’t quite see it. They must not be looking. It might be better to refer to “systematic biases” rather than “discrimination,” because many of the pressures that work against women are brought to bear by men who have no idea that they are discriminating, and could even be said to have the best of intentions. The truth is that girls are dissuaded from pursuing science from almost the moment they are born, and the pressures are equally real at the university level. If the current differences in representation between men and women were due to innate differences, the U.S. wouldn’t have such low numbers compared to other countries, and the numbers wouldn’t actually be gradually but steadily increasing (as they are). There are very few role models for talented women students. There is a culture within science that stretches from offputting to downright misogynist. There are teachers in elementary and secondary schools that steer girls away from math and science. There are societal stereotypes that discourage women from pursuing scientific careers. There are many male professors who deep down just don’t think that women are cut out for the job. The list of biases goes on and on, and only someone willfully blind or extraordinarily simplistic could miss them.

Summers, of course, casually dismisses the idea that differences between the representation of men and women in science can be traced to systematic biases. His argument is based on rational markets: if there were a lot of talented women out there who were being discriminated against, a clever university could dominate the competition by hiring them all up, but this doesn’t happen. This is the kind of idea so dumb that it could only be entertained by a professional economist. By similar logic, shouldn’t smart baseball executives in the first half of the twentieth century been able to win multiple World Series by simply scooping up all of the African-American players that their racist colleagues were reluctant to hire? Somehow that didn’t happen. When the biases are widespread, subtle, and diffuse, they affect all institutions. This is especially true (and obvious) in the case of women scientists, where the pressures working against them stretch from preschool to university departments (and administrations!). No one person or institution can undo the damage, which is one of the reasons why it’s so important to acknowledge that the damage is real.

Entertaining hypotheses can, in context, be offensive. Summers’ own defense was that he was simply offering an hypothesis, and even hoped that he would be proven wrong. How can innocent scientific inquiry upset people so much? We should be devoted to the truth, right?

Okay, imagine you like to play chess, but the only person you know with a chess set is your friend (let’s call him “Larry”), so you have to play with him over and over. You believe that the two of you are evenly matched, so the games should be competitive. Except that, while you are an extremely polite and considerate player, Larry is consistently obnoxious. When it is your turn to move, Larry likes to take out his trumpet and practice scales (he’s a terrible trumpet player). Also, he tends to flick the light switch on and off while you are thinking. And he is consistently jiggling the chessboard slightly, so that the pieces are vibrating around. Occasionally, at crucial points during the game, he will poke you in the side with a sharp stick. And more than once, when it looked like you were about to win the game, he would “accidentally” spill his coffee on the board, knocking over the pieces, and declare the game a draw by forfeit.

You put up with this behavior (he does, after all, own the chess set), but you are only able to win about ten percent of the games. Eventually, in frustration, you complain that his behavior is unfair and he should cut it out. “Well,” says Larry, “let’s entertain the hypothesis that you usually lose because you just aren’t as good a chess player as I am. I suggest that you are just a sore loser with inferior cognitive capacity, although I’d love to be wrong about this.”

Perhaps he is correct — but in context, you have every right to slap him. Nobody should be against seeking the truth and exploring different hypotheses. But when systematic biases are widespread and perfectly obvious, and these biases are strongly affecting the representation of a group such as women, people have every right to be offended when the president of the most famous university in the world suggests that discrimination is imaginary, and it’s women’s own fault that there aren’t more female scientists. Of course psychologists and sociologists should continue to do research on all sorts of hypotheses, and perhaps some day we will have a playing field that is sufficiently level that any remaining differences in the numbers of working scientists can be plausibly attributed to innate capacities. But in the meantime, we should be focused on overcoming the ridiculous biases that plague our field, not in pretending that they don’t exist.

One thing on which I’m sure we can all agree: there are too many damn blogs. Even if we stick with the ones that we actually think are good, there’s no way to keep up with them all. So forget about responsibly checking, for example, blogs on the other side of the political spectrum than where one places one’s self — maybe we spot-check a few here and there, but being a regular visitor is a job best left to masochists.

Fortunately, braver souls are out there to pick out the choicest cuts from either side of the political cow. Well, with a certain imbalance, I must admit. From the Right, we have TigerHawk presenting the Carnival of the Commies. Mildly amusing label notwithstanding, he actually makes a good-faith effort to identify what he thinks are interesting trends within the lefty blogosphere. Worth checking out.

In return, the forces of progressive goodness turn to The Poor Man, who dips his finger into the righty blogosphere to come up with Wingnut Butter. Equally edifying, although somewhat less of a — how should we put it? — good-faith effort.

We will plunge headlong into the spiritual wasteland of theocrats, crypto-fascists, asexuals, militiamen, torture apologists, Millenialists, Bush idolators, racists, Randians, flat Earthers, Likudniks, hypocrites, liars, and the many other sour, brittle old harpies and doughy, bowtied chronic masturbators of the Right, and return with such victuals as can be scrounged from this unforgiving soil.

Apparently the Editors were unable to identify all that many worthwhile strands over on the right side of web-land. Maybe next week?

Last night we went to a concert by the Chicago Sinfonietta in honor of Martin Luther King Day. The Sinfonietta is not the international powerhouse that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is, but is an exciting and talented ensemble in its own right. A focus of the Sinfonietta is on diversity, both in terms of the musicians and in terms of the works performed. Last night’s program was a typical mix of new works and classics, with two pieces by contemporary composers specifically in honor of King, and two old favorites by Schubert and Tchaikovsky. My favorite was Michael Abels’ Dance for Martin’s Dream, which moved engagingly between folk melodies, African rhythms, and traditional classical structures. The whole idea of the Sinfonietta is a great way to bring classical music to audiences that don’t normally get to experience it.

The best part was the finale, which wrapped up the evening in an appropriate fashion: everyone in the audience joined hands and sang We Shall Overcome. Okay, not a professional performance, but enthusiasm counts for something; it was a very moving moment. I was at first concerned that I didn’t know the words, but it turns out that we only sang the first verse, which is not so hard:

We shall overcome

We shall overcome

We shall overcome some day

Oh, deep in my heart

I do believe

We shall overcome some day.

The University of Chicago doesn’t take the day off for Martin Luther King Day, but here at Preposterous we are an independent outfit and can take off whenever we please. So today we celebrate MLK’s legacy by just quoting from other blogs.

Pharyngula, via feministing, points to an article in the Boston Globe about the opinions of the President of the World’s Greatest University.

CAMBRIDGE — The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. Summers also questioned how much of a role discrimination plays in the dearth of female professors in science and engineering at elite universities.

Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, walked out on Summers’ talk, saying later that if she hadn’t left, ”I would’ve either blacked out or thrown up.”

Among the highly rigorous studies quoted by Summers were his own observations of his daughter, who named her toy trucks “daddy truck” and “baby truck.” That pretty much cinches the case for genetic determinism as far as I’m concerned.

Elsewhere, Wonkette fills us in on how they celebrate in Mississippi.

We are honoring Martin Luther King Day as we always do, by staying in bed until noon and starting drinking at one. In fact, we like to think of every day as Martin Luther King Day. The folks in Mississippi, on the other hand, prefer not to think about MLK day much at all! If you — as reader J. did — call the Mississippi tax commission today (601-923-7000), you’ll find that the office is closed ” in observance of Robert E Lee’s and Martin Luther King’s birthdays.” We love this. We imagine it was floated as a way to get the bigots to observe a federal holiday and avoid being targeted by Chuck D — a compromise about as meaningful as the Missouri one, really. If this is the case, we wonder what other kinds of intrastate racial tit-for-tat deals might be in the works. What about, “you can date our daughters as long as we can whip you for it after?”

NOTE: Really, no shit: That is the number of the Mississippi tax commission.

Okay. Well. Let’s give the Reverend the last word:

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Eugene Volokh points to some useful advice from Microsoft’s MapPoint: driving directions from Haugesund, Norway to Trondheim, Norway.

Total Distance: 1685.9 Miles Estimated Total Time: 47 hours, 31 minute. But the scenery is very relaxing.

Dispatches from the scientific frontiers. At Unscrewing the Inscrutable, Brent Rasmussen is blogging about the landing of the Cassini-Huygens probe on Saturn’s moon Titan. (He was liveblogging, but it’s a little too late to actually get it live, unless you have a time machine, in which case contact me. On second thought, don’t.) “Cassini” is the NASA spacecraft, “Huygens” is the ESA probe that actually went to the surface. Fantastic science, not to mention cool pictures, all for quite a bit less than the $500 billion it will cost to send people to Mars.

Meanwhile, in association with the World Year of Physics, we have something Einstein couldn’t have anticipated: Quantum Diaries (also noted by Peter Woit) is a collection of year-long blogs by particle physicists, giving you a glimpse into their sexy and exciting daily lives. They are mostly experimentalists, so those of you who hang out at blogs like this one can see how the other half lives. I will give a shout-out to Stephon Alexander, who is on record as saying that my GR book is “off the hook.”

A lot of well-meaning people want to accept the successes of science as well as the comforts of religion. There is some obvious tension here, since religions typically seem to make strong claims about the way the world works, and these claims tend to be incompatible with the lessons of science. In the face of this tension, a common strategy is to declare that science and religion simply exist in separate spheres, and cannot in principle come into conflict. This is the move made by Jesse at Pandagon, not to mention Stephen Jay Gould in Rocks of Ages. Gould even invented a clunky acronym to encompass this position: the Principle of NOMA, or Non-Overlapping Magisteria.

The problem with this position is that it is manifestly incorrect. Or at least, to make it correct, one needs to distort the definition of “religion” beyond recognition. Religion has a number of components: ethical ones, spiritual ones, social ones. But without a doubt it has a cosmological component — making certain definite claims about the nature of reality. These claims differ from religion to religion, but typically involve the existence of supernatural forces, some notion of an afterlife, a creation myth, and so on. All of these topics fall squarely under the scope of scientific investigation (and the science story never agrees with the religion story). How to wriggle out of this? By limiting “religion” to some very thin ideas about ethics and spirituality. Gould makes it through half of his book before he comes clean and gives a definition of what he means by religion, at which point we discover it is what most of us would call “moral philosophy.” At which point, why call it “religion” at all? Does anyone believe that the folks who invented these religions felt that they had nothing to say about the deep workings of the universe? That’s just a later interpretation, designed to cover up the dramatic failure of scripture to tell us anything correct about how the world really works. Why not just admit that the lessons we learn by reading the Bible are on precisely the same footing as those we learn from reading Homer or Shakespeare, and enjoy them for the messy fallible things they are, rather than insisting on some special metaphysical status?

Of course you can be both religious and scientific, plenty of people are. But if so, you should face up to those bits of both which tend to disagree. Pretending that they don’t exist is a cop-out.

We’re all done looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; apparently it was all some sort of misunderstanding. The bigger story, of course, is that CBS news has completed its investigation of the memogate scandal. If anyone’s keeping track, the (newly enaged!) Poor Man has a scorecard.

The staff here at Preposterous is holding our breath — in another month and a half, we will have successfully passed through an entire year of existence without being nominated for any blog awards of any type. (“It’s” breath? Should “staff” plural or singular? See, this is why we never get nominated for anything.) That’s okay. Our position in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is sufficiently lofty that we don’t depend on such tokens of external recognition.

But the awards can be a great idea, since let’s face it, there are a lot of blogs out there and we can’t read them all. It’s nice to be pointed to the ones that are most amusing or useful. But one problem is the weird (although diminishing) domination of the blogosphere by conservatives, who tend to walk away with awards handed out by popular vote. So the Koufax awards are aimed at the lefty faction of the blogosphere. (Sandy Koufax was a lefty, get it?) They are administered by the selfless folks over at Wampum, and are well worth checking out and participating in. (See, we end sentences with prepositions, too. Amazing we are still allowed to publish at all.)

The voting procedure is a little chaotic, and the lists of nominees in various categories are scattered around different posts. As far as I can tell, voting is now open in the categories of Most Humorous Post, Most Deserving Wider Recognition, Best Writing, Best New Blog, Best Expert, and Best Single Issue Blog. Whether you vote or not, have fun clicking on the nominees; there’s some great stuff there.