The Dragon Stirs

"A century ago, the French scientist Gustav Le Bon pointed to the smaller brains of women - closer in size to gorillas', he said - and said that explained the "fickleness, inconstancy, absence of thought and logic, and incapacity to reason" in women.

Overall size aside, some evidence suggests that female brains are relatively more endowed with gray matter - the prized neurons thought to do the bulk of the brain's thinking - while men's brains are packed with more white matter, the tissue between neurons."

This is taken from a recent NYT article on the differences between men and women that may affect perceived aptitude.

Many of you may have heard of the comments made by Harvard president Lawrence H Summers at a recent economics conference. Summers suggested that there might be innate differences in intelligence between men and women on a genetic level, which could explain for the lack of female involvement in science and mathematics.

In Summer's defense, he certainly wasn't defending the position, just merely trying to stir up debate on the subject. However, in the politically correct world of today, he might have gone about it a better way.

However, it is still an interesting question. Is it even possible to account for all the environmental factors that could explain this discrepancy? Many women that I have talked to have felt like they were discriminated against in the (high school) classroom. Are women actively discouraged to enter the science or maths? If there were innate differences between men and women in terms of intelligence, and either party came out on top, would the other be discouraged from participating in study that requires a high level of cognition?

I think it's an interesting, but perhaps superficial debate. Shouldn't we be talking more about the wage gap than about a minor intelligence gap?

Oh, and if you don't have a Nytimes.com account and wish to see the articles I link, use

username: kargos@rocketmail.com
password: demographer