If Only More People Knew – Well-behaved women rarely make (scientific) history

The fourth essay featured in the book, Why Aren’t There More Women in Science? is titled “Sex, Math, and Science” and is by Elizabeth S. Spelke and Ariel D. Grace. Spelke and Grace discuss three main points throughout their essay, sex differences in motivation, sex differences in cognition, and discrimination against men and women. The first topic, sex differences in motivation is in connection to claim that males are more inclined toward objects and mechanical relationships, while females are more inclined towards people and their emotions. After presenting this argument, the authors continue on by presenting a myriad of evidence to show that the majority of evidence (both classical and modern) disproves the initial claim. Eventually, the authors come to the conclusion that both sexes have equal disposition towards people and objects as shown by the evidence presented in that section. The next topic, sex differences in cognition, follows a similar pattern to the first section. But first, Spelke and Grace define what it means to have mathematical capabilities because math is something created by humans, so the biological basis for math ability must lie within other systems. They decide that there are 5 systems that determine whether an individual is good at math. Next, the authors state that there are no developmental differences between the sexes in regards to the 5 aspects; however, the sexes did take on different approaches to problems as they get older. Before discussing discrimination, the authors bring up the fact that the SAT-M was used to determine math skills, but in truth was underpredicting women’s abilities and that the sexes are equal in variability in regards to their skills. Lastly, when the authors discuss discrimination, they discuss the different dispositions that people have about the sexes while they are growing up and how that bias lasts into their professional lives and the impact that it has. In summary, Spelke and Grace use their essay to show that the sexes are equal in many areas, but discrimination is where the main issue stems from, rather than abilities as argued by Larry Summers.

When I initially read this essay, I was personally pleased by the fact that Spelke and Grace used a variety of evidence to prove or disprove claims. For example, the first point about sex differences in motivation was disproved using both classical evidence and more recent evidence, which made their argument more believable and decreased the amount of shortfall I could think about the argument. I think this because the use of both older and newer evidence shows that the claim being disproved was just something that did not fit in and was not actually just and old or new argument that only disagreed with some of the evidence available, rather the old and new evidence made the claim that much weaker.

However, I thought that the evidence used for the second point about sex differences in cognition was not as whole in comparison because it had more shortfalls. For example, Spelke and Grace make a large assumption by categorizing the abilities needed to be gifted at math. Also, Spelke and Grace believe that math was invented by humans because other nonhumans do not use it; however, some schools of thought believe that math was discovered from the patterns that exist in the world around us. I believe that math is a combination of invention and discovery because I was influenced by a PBS documentary I watched in my senior year math class. There is also a blog by Mario Livio that argues the same thing as the documentary. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2015/04/great-math-mystery/) The fact that the entire argument on math is built on the assumption that math is solely invented and that there is no specific biological basis for it leads me to question the second point more than the first point.

Spelke and Grace also include a unique argument about SAT-M scores and how they can be used to determine students’ math abilities. I thought that this was one of the more interesting arguments I have seen amongst the essays because Spelke and Grace argued that the tests were not accurate markers and that they were actually underpredicting girls’ abilities. Although I liked the argument, I think that Spelke and Grace did not account for the students who were not interested in math and science because they would be required to take the test, and would then not do as well and thus bring down the score. Since this data was not regarded, I cannot infer what would have happened if these students had been taken into account and the scores would have been adjusted accordingly. Despite that assumption, I think it was refreshing to see test scores used to prove something different showing that there is a lot of evidence out there that points to different things.

Lastly, the final point about discrimination is similar to other arguments in previous essays about the depiction of the sexes. It is a strong argument backed up with a variety of types of evidence, but I think that the argument could have been made stronger if Spelke and Grace compared the data collected about bias parents to data collected about parents who were not bias. Although it may seem as if that is not possible, many parents nowadays do not push genders onto their children and allow them to do what they are interested in. If they included this type of data, Spelke and Grace could have also have shown whether that lack of conformity as a child had any effect on that child when he or she was older and in the professional world.

In conclusion, I think that this essay did a good job at presenting a variety of evidence that was still relevant and useful, but there were some instances where there could have been more inclusive ways to present the ideas. In regards to the content of the essay, I liked it more than many of the other essays we have read thus far because Spelke and Grace presented information that I thought was relevant to the issue and that should be more widely known because if it was, it would have a large impact on the way that many people think.

PBS Article: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2015/04/great-math-mystery/

Ying Wu says:

September 12, 2015 at 1:03 pm

I really love the shortfalls you pointed out in the passage.I totally agree with your points about SAT-M. Actually, as for SAT-M,we don’t know the proportion of men and women who get high scores. Maybe the attendance of women is less than that of men due to the gender schema, which makes the number of women in high scores less than men. Also, women are better in solving verbal problems than solving spatial problems. So if the distribution of questions in the exam is that the number of the verbal problems is less than the number of the spatial problems, this will definitely show lower grades in women. But this doesn’t show the cognitive difference.But in your blog, I think you can try to put your summarization into your argument wich can make your argument more convincing.

Shannon Laughlin says:

September 12, 2015 at 5:42 pm

It’s good that you found the weaknesses in the argument. I also had the initial reaction of total agreement, but when you really go through and pick their paragraphs apart, you will find the sections that aren’t as strong.

Your comment about the need for a study on unbiased parents is interesting- it’s almost a disagreement with Spelke and Grace, because they state most parents have unintentional bias. And you bring up a good point that the times are changing and less parents are probably biased. I have to side with you on this one. I believe that this new wave of “girl-power” attitudes helps bring our negative perceptions to light. However, this study I found disagrees:

http://www.nber.org/papers/w20897

It says that parents act more dishonestly in front of their sons than their daughters, whether intentionally or not. What do you think about this? Also, do you think that this trend exposes daughters to more scrutiny than sons, and has anything to do with the discrimination they face?