Chelsea Eareckson- A Confused Reader (Blog 5)
Chapter 5 in the book Why Aren’t More Women in Science? by Ceci and Williams was probably one of my least favorites. Nora Newcombe is yet another expert that attempts to define the cause for the sex discrepancy in the STEM fields. In my opinion, her argument is weak because it is not only unsupported but also uniformed and draws illogical conclusions.
Nora Newcombe assesses the validity of Larry Summers infamous statements in her essay, “Taking Science Seriously: Straight Thinking About Spatial Sex Differences.” Newcombe pinpoints Summers’ claims that “men outnumber women by especially large ratios at the highest levels of these abilities” (Newcombe 70) to launch her analysis for the source of those differences. However, Newcombe carefully identifies Larry Summers as the president of Harvard, but fails to mention that he was forced to step down. This detail would significantly decrease Summers’ credibility as a source. To add insult to injury, Summers was forced to step down for the very statements that Newcombe platforms her essay on. This puts the reader on guard and her credibility on shaky footing from the beginning of her essay, where she should be trying to win the reader over.
Newcombe starts by dismissing biology as the reason for gender discrepancies. She revives old studies that have been proved to be faulty and have gone out of use. While I saw this as unnecessary at first, I see now that it is a good strategy to see if the old (disproved) studies have any hold or influence on the current theory in use. If so, that would be a powerful tool to debate the strength of the theory in effect in the science community. She mentions the most popular theory today “concerns the effects of sex hormones, although it is not quite clear which hormones are the most relevant” (Newcombe 71). We’ve heard about this theory in multiple different essays, though in those essays it was quite clear that it is widely believed the prenatal androgens give men elevated spatial ability. This makes it seem like Newcombe is not informed on the topic, which undermines her whole section of the argument. Not identifying prenatal androgens is a key flaw in dispelling the biological theory hypothesis, because it destroys her credibility.
Newcombe then investigates the influence of evolutionary psychology on people’s willingness to believe the biological basis for sex discrepancies in the math and science fields. She portrays men in two characters: Man the Hunter and Man Who Gets Around. Newcombe claims these two abilities do not require any more spatial ability than Woman the Gatherer (the woman character) would, so there is no basis for spatial ability being heightened in men in evolution. If it was a beneficial trait in a society, both men and women should have developed it. Because there is no clear evolutionary advantage for men exclusively to have developed spatial ability that she can find, she concludes that spatial must be an accidental sex difference, like acne (Newcombe 74). Her conclusion in this section of the argument is based on an analogy, with no factual evidence to back it up. She gives the reader no reason to believe what anything she says is true, and closes her argument with a dubious claim that spatial ability is in any way correlated with acne. Again, provides no evidence or even full explanation of this closing statement, leaving the reader confused and doubtful.
This analogy interested me because I love the ideas behind evolution. As Christian Theodosius Dobzhansky once said, ““Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” Dobzhansky was a legendary evolutionary biologist, and his revolutionary support of the universality of evolution directly clashes with Newcombes logic in her analogy. She asserts that spatial ability must be an accidental trait in men, because it has not developed in women. I cannot agree with that statement, because it doesn’t make sense. Newcombe only considers three roles: Man the Hunter, Man Who Gets Around, and Woman the Gatherer. This is a huge oversimplification of early society, and there is so much evidence that spatial ability did not evolve by accident. Spatial ability is a highly advanced trait controlled by a complex hormonal system. Evolution does not complexify “accidental traits” because that would be a waste of energy that could be used on something else. Spatial ability is also very helpful in society today. It’s clear that this trait is no accident, and that evolutionary biologists just haven’t determined the cause for its development yet.
In her final part of her essay, Newcombe supports incremental theory as the key reason there should be no sex differences in science. However, though she hits all the points of incremental theory, she never mentions it by name. To the informed reader, this is a major oversight and throws even more doubt onto the legitimacy of the rest of her essay. If Newcombe was fully integrated into the field and knowledgeable on the topic, she should definitely know what incremental theory is and cite it. Her failure to do this is a huge red flag.
Newcombe formulates an, at best, confusing, at worst, uncrafted, essay in which she fails to conclude to a clear point. She began her argument saying that she agreed with Summers, and finished saying the exact opposite. I acknowledge that there are probably flaws in my assumptions and interpretations about Newcombe’s essay, because I went into reading her argument with a highly critical eye. Her omission about Summers in the very first paragraph of her essay made me very uncomfortable, and I doubted many of the things that she claimed as a result. To me, Newcombe is yelling loudly but not saying anything of much worth.
Works Cited
Ceci, Stephen J., and Wendy M. Williams. Why Aren’t More Women in Science?: Top Researchers Debate the Evidence. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2007. Print.
