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Tuesday, July 19, 2005

What Lawrence Summers should have said

Sex Differences in Mathematical Aptitude:

Mathematics is a man's game. A gender gap appears early in life, blossoms with the onset of puberty and reaches full bloom by mid-adolescence. It indelibly shapes women's prospects for doing significant mathematics. In this account of cognitive sex differences, Prodigy shows how sex-differentiated ability in 15 year-olds accounts for the exiguous female representation at the highest levels of mathematical research. A female Fields Medalist is predicted to surface once every 103 years.
Read the whole thing, it is fascinating. (via Derbyshire at NRO)

2 Comments:

Blogger Greg said...

Very interesting. It makes perfect sense, though most people won't understand the concept.

It goes without saying that in the realm that most people deal with, say a mundane engineering job or a college class, the population isn't extreme enough to see much more difference than the "Oh, the women can have their pick of the men" percentages.

7/19/2005 08:07:00 PM  
Blogger Dave Justus said...

Certainly, and for most of us hard work is more signifigant than aptitude as well.

7/20/2005 07:51:00 AM  

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