Panel Addresses Innate Differences

An older crowd of nearly 100 people filled the Agassiz Theater yesterday for a high-powered panel discussion on women in science.

The panel—entitled “Impediments to Change: Revisiting the Women in Science Question”—addressed the validity of claims of innate differences between men and women in the field of science, as well as societal prejudices and biases that may hinder women in their quest for tenured positions in the academic world.

The discussion came about two months after University President Lawrence H. Summers suggested in Jan. 14 remarks at a National Bureau of Economics Research conference that “issues of intrinsic aptitude” might be responsible for the underrepresentation of female scientists. The panelists jokingly referred to Summers’ comments as “one-fourteen.”

Cabot Professor of Social Ethics Mahzarin R. Banaji first performed an “implicit attitudes” test—which tests the unconscious associations people make—on the entire audience. She explained that the audience’s comparative difficulty in associating scientific words with female names reflected an unconscious bias that associated males with science.

“These biases are not only in the eye of the beholder, but in the eye of the beheld,” she said.

Professor of Psychology Elizabeth S. Spelke disputed the findings of various studies used to support arguments for innate gender differences in cognition. She directed particularly vehement criticisms at Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker, whose book The Blank Slate formed the basis for some of Summers’ remarks about “intrinsic aptitude.”

She said that even if gender-based cognitive differences exist, the genders are of “equal aptitude.”

Finally, Spelke concluded that there was evidence against innate gender differences in cognition. “There is a mountain of evidence,” she said.

MIT biologist Nancy Hopkins ’64, who helped spark the controversy about Summers remarks with her vehement criticism, said that in her experience as a woman in science, women are not treated equally.

“I applaud Summers’ apology,” she said, but “this is not about academic freedom—it’s about academic responsibility.”

Women in Science at Harvard-Radcliffe President Mariangela Lisanti ’05 said that girls need female role models.

“The ultimate goal,” she said, “is for woman to feel not like woman scientists, but like scientists.”

Hopkins added that she wonders if Title IX—the provision of the 1972 Education Amendments outlawing gender discrimination—”is not the only option.”

“We need to think about affirmative action in a different way­­—not in terms of correcting a past wrong, but as evening the playing field,” Banaji said.

Panel attendees said they enjoyed the discussion.

“It was fantastic to see such agreement on the issue, even if it was in a politicized atmosphere,” said Katherine D. Kinzler, a psychology student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

But the panelists did face a few hostile questions. One audience member took issue with the panelists’ criticisms of previous research, especially those of Pinker.

The questioner asked whether the panelists would be “ready to debate on a non-stacked panel” and complained that the panelists treated opposing evidence too cavalierly.