Harvard's Larry Summers is not a Scientist, Either.
The only reason I hate Larry Summers is because in Jan 2002, flying to Hawaii, I read an article or opinion piece in the WSJ (yes, that piece of Bush shilling shitrag) where he seemingly he thought the solution for disposing of nuclear waste was, wait for it, dumping it in developing countries (it probably read, "Third World"). I was so incensed, I started screaming at my travelling companion. Not good, but I needed to scream at fucking anything. Now Summers is an economist, and when he sprouts-off shit like that, people take him seriously. Afterall, in this consciousness of the short-term imperative, nukular-waste is simply an economic problem: We generate nukular-waste, you don't have money, we give you money and you keep our nukular-waste. Problem solved. Immoral, you can't fucking put a $ cost to shit like that.
Anyway, recently he's surfaced again because he muttered something idiotic, not on the same scale as nukular-waste idiotic, but still pretty dumb. At some diversity Indaba, he made a statement to the effect that women don't make it to the highest echelons of the Math and Science fields because, and in that order,
1) They are unwilling to put in the time needed to succeed, away from their families yadi yadi yada.
2) There is a "intrinsic aptitude" problem, i.e. general lack thereof.
3) and discrimination, "probably," he was really wanted to add.
In that fucking ludicrous order?
I won't bother going into the fact that he is an economist and bureaucrat, that is, he is not qualified to speak on the matter. The thing that struck me most was, how the fuck can he be so sure of the order of how these factors play out? How the fuck did he arrive at that? There is absolutely no evidence to corroborate this claim, no scientific evidence anyway. He should fucking know better. It may be intuitive/gut-feel , like WMD evidence, but certainly not fact.
Second thing is, hasn't he heard of the problem of the third variable? If you claim A affects B, so that B is what it is, you better fucking make sure there isn't a C, that you know or don't know about that produces these effects on B. If there is a C, you have a confounding variable and therefore your claim is not valid, not scientifically anyway. So, question to Mr Summers, "how the fuck can you claim, "intrinsic ineptitude" ==> "lack of success in Math and Science" when you can't control for "discrimination" ==> "lack of success in Math and Science"? uhhh? If you made sure discrimination was not factor, you could safely measure "intrinsic ineptitude." With discrimination I am afraid you cannot. It's like, White people claiming Black people are intrinsically stupid, when they were doing everything they could to deny Black people an education. The confounding variable in both cases is diminished educational opportunity as a consequence of discrimination. Science.
Anyway, it's ironic that Mr Summers commits a very basic scientific fallacy to draw attention to women's 'intrinsic ineptitude" to do well in Math and SCIENCE. And that's why he is an idiot this time. Somebody needs to tell him, by his own definition, he ain't no fucking scientist either.
Anyway, recently he's surfaced again because he muttered something idiotic, not on the same scale as nukular-waste idiotic, but still pretty dumb. At some diversity Indaba, he made a statement to the effect that women don't make it to the highest echelons of the Math and Science fields because, and in that order,
1) They are unwilling to put in the time needed to succeed, away from their families yadi yadi yada.
2) There is a "intrinsic aptitude" problem, i.e. general lack thereof.
3) and discrimination, "probably," he was really wanted to add.
In that fucking ludicrous order?
I won't bother going into the fact that he is an economist and bureaucrat, that is, he is not qualified to speak on the matter. The thing that struck me most was, how the fuck can he be so sure of the order of how these factors play out? How the fuck did he arrive at that? There is absolutely no evidence to corroborate this claim, no scientific evidence anyway. He should fucking know better. It may be intuitive/gut-feel , like WMD evidence, but certainly not fact.
Second thing is, hasn't he heard of the problem of the third variable? If you claim A affects B, so that B is what it is, you better fucking make sure there isn't a C, that you know or don't know about that produces these effects on B. If there is a C, you have a confounding variable and therefore your claim is not valid, not scientifically anyway. So, question to Mr Summers, "how the fuck can you claim, "intrinsic ineptitude" ==> "lack of success in Math and Science" when you can't control for "discrimination" ==> "lack of success in Math and Science"? uhhh? If you made sure discrimination was not factor, you could safely measure "intrinsic ineptitude." With discrimination I am afraid you cannot. It's like, White people claiming Black people are intrinsically stupid, when they were doing everything they could to deny Black people an education. The confounding variable in both cases is diminished educational opportunity as a consequence of discrimination. Science.
Anyway, it's ironic that Mr Summers commits a very basic scientific fallacy to draw attention to women's 'intrinsic ineptitude" to do well in Math and SCIENCE. And that's why he is an idiot this time. Somebody needs to tell him, by his own definition, he ain't no fucking scientist either.
posted by knikik at 9:31 PM
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