PSYB30H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Steven Pinker, Lawrence Summers, Fetus
Document Summary
In february 2005, harvard university president lawrence summers commented in a speech that the differences in men"s and women"s achievement in math and science (which have been found repeatedly) might be due to genetic factors. When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, i just couldn"t breathe, because this kind of bias makes me physically ill. Summers later apologized, but eventually was asked to leave harvard. It"s possible that hormones act on the fetus differently, affect cognitive and spatial abilities. We won"t ever know if this is true unless scientists are allowed to study it and talk about it. Children are treated differently from such an early age, we can"t ever separate the role of the environment. If we keep talking about it, girls will keep getting the message they"re not as good. Some worry that findings of sex differences might be used to support political agendas or status quo.
