Blinded by Science

By: Elizabeth Crane (NG), Contributing Writer

Posted: 1/31/05

During a summer job post-high school, a coworker (let's call him Matt) told me that men were better in math and science than women. As the only woman working on a manufacturing team for a bio-tech company (and with a keen interest in biology), I balked at his suggestion. He reassured me that his wasn't a sexist remark; he was equally willing to admit that women were better than men at some things. When I asked for an example, he told me I would make a better perfume tester than he would because women have a better sense of smell than men. Well, I don't think my supposed olfactory superiority was necessary to determine that something smelled foul.

I was unpleasantly reminded of my conversation with Matt reading about President Summers' comments at a recent conference at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge. President Summers was reported to have suggested that innate differences between male and female ability in science and math may help explain why there aren't more women in those academic fields. His comments have been widely covered by major media such as NBC's "Today" show, the BBC, CNN.com and the New York Times, to name a few.

While there is a recording of Summers' comments, he will not release the tape. I spoke with conference attendee Nancy Hopkins, Professor of Biology at MIT, to get a better understanding of what he said and why. "The word I heard over and over was 'aptitude'," recalls Hopkins, who was the first to report Summers' comments to the press. Summers presented three hypotheses to explain under-representation of women and minorities in science and math academia. In order of importance, his first hypothesis was that women left academia to have children which conflicted with the 80-hour work weeks required to make tenure. The second hypothesis was that there are aptitude differences between men and women. The third, that socialization pressures and biases don't encourage women into the field. "He started his talk by defending why Harvard has such a poor record of tenured female faculty. He said something like 'We're not just hiring people who are good, not just two standard-deviations above average but three or four standard deviations and there are differences between men and women so that might be why we don't see more women at Harvard.' I thought, am I hearing this correctly? Is he saying that Harvard doesn't hire women because they aren't as good as men?" said Hopkins.

President Summers' interpretation of bell-curve studies are misleading. While there may be evidence that young girls under-perform young boys in math and science academic tests, this information is misrepresented to imply that a) ability is inherent; b) all men are better than all women at math and science; and c) men make better scientists or better mathematicians than women. Some studies on gender trends in math and science have demonstrated that the highest math scores belong to boys, but the bulk of the two populations overlap. In other words, some boys are better than some girls at math and science but there are plenty of girls who out-test boys. These over-lapping bell curves - with one just a little to the right of the other - don't mean that women just aren't good at math or science. To conclude this is akin to a 5'8" man walking up to a 5'9" woman and saying "I'm taller than you because on average, men are taller than women."

Regardless, a student's score on a high-school test does not reflect his/her ability to succeed in a chosen career path. President Summers' comment was meant to shed light on why so few women enter academia as scientists and mathematicians. (Although, as Hopkins points out, even hiring from the 3rd and 4th standard deviations of the bell curve can't explain why, in 270 years of history, there has never been one tenured female math professor at Harvard.) In that case, a more appropriate comment would be that high school test results influence students' choices of majors and subsequent career paths, but not by any stretch of the imagination that women are inherently bad at science and therefore don't go into it. Not to mention, there are lots of questions about whether or not this is an innate difference or a socialized one.

Sensationalist headlines and broad-sweeping comments from high places not only lead to misinformed people (like Matt) who may try to discourage your future daughter from a brilliant scientific career, but also discourage top students and faculty to join us in our ranks here at Harvard. In other words, comments like President Summers' that explain groups of people by genetics are damaging. "So much social science research exists that shows these attitudes have real impact," says Hopkins. "These attitudes really are powerful and affect how you make decisions and how you behave." People hear that girls aren't as good at math, or any other stereotype, and it affects their hiring decisions or their confidence levels in classes. Research has shown that boys are called on more often and generally more encouraged in science and math classes than girls. A self-fulfilling prophecy evolves - girls start to under-perform because they are told they will.

As students of business, the controversy over President Summers' remarks about science and math academia may seem somewhat far afield. Like scientific industries, however, women are also underrepresented in business. Although almost half the workforce is female, only two Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs: Andrea Jung (Avon Products, #312) and Carly Fiorina (HP, #13). (Regrettably, neither women are HBS grads - you can do it, Meg!) While there are women on every Fortune 500 board, only 10% have boards that are more than a quarter women. Why is this? I don't have the answers, but I doubt GMAT scores contain the answer. Consider instead that women (62% of HBS women grads in their "child raising years") leave the marketplace to start families, just like in academia.

With no interest in a career in perfume testing, I chose to go to a women's college because I wanted reassurance that my professors and college president took my interest - and ability - in biology seriously. I would have hoped attitudes towards women in science at universities would have changed in the twelve years since I had to make that decision. Would I have chosen Harvard after reading about President Summers' comments? Probably not. No big loss for Harvard in my case, but will Harvard's ability to recruit top female students and faculty be impaired as a result of this PR blunder? Yes. Harvard recently allocated $25 million dollars for the recruitment of minorities and women to its faculty, but they may now have trouble spending it. Professor Hopkins, who majored in molecular biology at Radcliffe, says had she heard Summers' comments, she would not have come here.

What else can we as business students learn from the past week of controversy? Something Professor Hopkins said to me hit me in the gut. "We came [to the conference] to review the trends and numbers and what we can do about it. Instead, the leader of the academic world tells us this. He's not just a person, he's a leader. You want him to lead." Don't we have a responsibility, as leaders, to encourage greatness and to question bias? Luckily, Jim Watson (the preeminent DNA scientist) did just that for Professor Hopkins (and for Harvard). He told her, "Nancy, you really have the talent to be a molecular biologist...you should do this."

President Summers apologized in an open letter to the Harvard community for his remarks and for sending an "unintended signal of discouragement to talented girls and women." But he has yet to acknowledge his view of aptitude differences as unfounded. PR fumble, over-simplified interpretation of research, outdated attitude - no matter what your mathematical aptitude, I hope you agree that President Summers' comments don't add up.

Editor's Note: Elizabeth minored in Biology at Wellesley College and is 5'11".