Women and Mathematics • Hacker News Board

Re: Women and Mathematics

#31

Post by russell » Sun, Dec 28, 2008, 9:04 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #28

russell wrote: post #11

I would suggest that girls form study groups. My daughter and 4 of her girl friends formed one in her senior year in high school for English, Calculus, Physics, etc. My daughter got a lot from it. Two of the girls were valedictorians; all went to top schools. It succeeded because they were motivated to get into good schools and the the simple model probably doesn't scale. School sponsored pairings in science didn't w…

Why did you choose to phrase that "I would suggest that girls form study groups" and not "I would suggest that all students form study groups?" Just because you have a daughter? Because the topic of the article is about women and mathematics? Or because there is something about study groups that especially helps girls, but not boys?

The topic was women and mathematics, but I phrased it that way because of the sexual dynamics of mixed groups of teenagers. Because boys tend to be more skilled at math, they will show off and the girls will tend to become more passive. The boys' competitiveness will dominate. Of course, study groups for boys are a good thing too.

Re: Women and Mathematics

#32

Post by mistermann » Mon, Dec 29, 2008, 2:27 PM UTC

ReverendBayes wrote: post #26

DabAsteroid wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my friend, who just graduated with a PhD in astrophysics from Princeton, and is now a postdoc at Berkeley. She http://www.google.com/search?q=princeton+affirmative+action+... http://www.google.com/search?q=berkeley+affirmative+action+g... Please post your friend's relevant scores (SAT, GRE, etc.).

Because there is no way a woman could be that smart, is there? Oh... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant She must have the longest ring finger on the planet, yeah, that's it.

You're jumping to a conclusion. I think its fair to say that the the point the anti-"we are all equal" camp is trying to make is that men have higer representation on the ends of the bell curve. People at both ends (the truly brilliant and truly unable) of the bell curve are largely skewed towards men. Not entirely, but highly disproportionately. This is a perfectly viable explanation for the lack of female leaders in most any field. And freedom of academic choice and opportunities for several decades now, at least in the west, hasn't seemed to change the result, which would seem to reinforce this theory, whereas it would seem to discount the environment argument, in my opinion.

I don't think any of us have asserted that women can't be brilliant and compete head to head with men, but if you are looking at any field of expertise, with equal numbers of male and female participants, the top one to five percent of people will almost always be disproportionately men, consistently across fields, over time, and it seems to continue despite changing social and cultural norms.

I think the comment above calls into question the merit of your friends achievement, which will always be the result of affirmative action programs. It is well documented that affirmative action often (but not always) results in lesser skilled candidates from preferred disadvantaged classes (race, gender, etc) earning admission or appointments.

Re: Women and Mathematics

#33

Post by ReverendBayes » Tue, Dec 30, 2008, 1:04 AM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #32

ReverendBayes wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there is no way a woman could be that smart, is there? Oh... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant She must have the longest ring finger on the planet, yeah, that's it.

You're jumping to a conclusion. I think its fair to say that the the point the anti-"we are all equal" camp is trying to make is that men have higer representation on the ends of the bell curve. People at both ends (the truly brilliant and truly unable) of the bell curve are largely skewed towards men. Not entirely, but highly disproportionately. This is a perfectly viable explanation for the lack of female leaders i…

I think the comment above calls into question the merit of your friends achievement, which will always be the result of affirmative action programs.

How can you say that? Do you know her or what she is capable of? It seems pure idiocy to me to suggest that every woman graduating from a premier science program is never achieving it through merit.

As far as bell curves and distributions, who the hell knows? People tried to predict housing prices and stock portfolios on gaussians, and they seem to work until they don't. You cannot project your platonic ideal of how you think the world works because it seems to and then handwave on outliers.

Re: Women and Mathematics

#34

Post by DabAsteroid » Sat, Jan 03, 2009, 1:55 AM UTC

ReverendBayes wrote: post #33

mistermann wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're jumping to a conclusion. I think its fair to say that the the point the anti-"we are all equal" camp is trying to make is that men have higer representation on the ends of the bell curve. People at both ends (the truly brilliant and truly unable) of the bell curve are largely skewed towards men. Not entirely, but highly disproportionately. This is a perfectly viable explanation for the lack of female leaders i…

I think the comment above calls into question the merit of your friends achievement, which will always be the result of affirmative action programs. How can you say that? Do you know her or what she is capable of? It seems pure idiocy to me to suggest that every woman graduating from a premier science program is never achieving it through merit. As far as bell curves and distributions, who the hell knows? People trie…

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