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.
--
Lawrence H. Summers (14 Jan. 2005)
9 years ago, Lawrence
(“Larry”) Summers, President of Harvard University, openly wondered whether the
underrepresentation of women in the sciences could be explained, in part, by
differences in ability between the sexes.
The immediate reaction
to his remarks was fierce. Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the New
York Times, "When he started talking about innate differences in
aptitude between men and women, I just couldn't breathe because this kind of
bias makes me physically ill.”
Others came
to Summers’ defense. When asked by the Harvard
Crimson whether then-President Summers’ comments were “within the pale of
legitimate academic discourse,” Harvard Professor Steven Pinker (a former
professor of mine) replied,
“Good grief, shouldn’t
everything be within the pale of legitimate academic discourse, as long as it
is presented with some degree of rigor? That’s the difference between a
university and a madrassa.”
Summers, who had endured a
series of smaller disputes with faculty during his short tenure at the helm of
America’s oldest university, would eventually resign the Presidency, in
February 2006.
8 years later, stories of
“innate differences” between the sexes continue to stoke controversy. Just this
week, two stories—one a 60 Minutes feature
on how drugs affect men and women, the other a feature in the Times Magazine concerning whether
egalitarian marriages have less sex—once again placed sex differences from and
center.
As CBS
reported, the FDA recently cut the recommended dose of the popular sleep drug Ambien in
half for women because men and women metabolize Ambien very differently,
leaving women with more of the drug in their bodies the next morning, and
therefore at a greater risk of impaired driving.
Physicians interviewed for the 60 Minutes piece hypothesized that drug
studies ignored or failed to even consider gender differences because, in the
past, “women’s health” was confined to reproductive issues and breast cancer.
I think this explanation misses the boat.
Instead, let me suggest another, more insidious explanation: that in the latter quarter of the 20th
century in America (and perhaps the first decade of the 21st), it
was unacceptable to even consider the idea that men and women had
innate differences. The fear,
unspoken but real, was that if studies showed that men and women were different
on one metric, what was to keep science from identifying differences between
the sexes that made us uncomfortable—that suggested that tendencies typically
ascribed to socialization and patriarchy were, in fact, rooted in biology.
This political correctness was so deeply
entrenched that what appears common sense in retrospect—the need to study the
effect of drugs on both men and women—wasn’t
even considered. As Doris Taylor, a leading stem cell expert at Texas Heart Institute in
Houston told 60 Minutes, “I am embarrassed to admit
that, as a woman, it had never really occurred to me that doing the experiment
in male versus female animals would give completely different results.”
The
Times story suggests that the
decades-long effort to eliminate gender discrimination and make relationships
more egalitarian—laudable as it is—may have unintentional negative consequences
on the sex lives of heterosexual couples. As Esther Perel, a couples therapist,
told the Times, “[T]he values that
make for good social relationships are not necessarily the same ones that drive
lust…[M]ost of us get turned on at night by the very things that we’ll
demonstrate against during the day.”
What Summers’ demise showed and what these
latest stories once again raise, is the danger of ideology, in science and in
politics. Ideology, as I am defining it, is not
the belief in certain goals. Rather, ideology is a rigid adherence to a means to an end—an unyielding belief,
for instance, that doing right by the poor means lowering taxes on the
super-rich, evidence be damned. To the ideologue, truth is irrelevant. In fact,
even a free and earnest search for the truth is viewed as a threat to be
condemned.
The truth, however, is precisely what we
should seek in determining the course of action best tailored to reach the
goals motivating our professions—whether curing disease in medicine, creating
wealth in economics, or improving public policy in government. To that end, we
must seek out leaders who are willing to change their mind about the best way
to achieve our collective goals, rather than shunning these individuals as “flip-floppers” or
worse.
As Pinker stated,
[T]he truth cannot be offensive. Perhaps the hypothesis is
wrong, but how would we ever find out whether it is wrong if it is “offensive”
even to consider it? People who storm out of a meeting at the mention of a
hypothesis, or declare it taboo or offensive without providing arguments or
evidence, don’t get the concept of a university or free inquiry.
That radical
concept—free inquiry—must remain at the heart of the American Experience, not
only on our campuses and our labs, but also in our Town Halls, Statehouses, and
the hallowed halls of Congress.
