🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct7.060429.3998@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>In article <burt.718433315@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees) writes:
>>
>>  There is another way to look at the results of programming girls out of
>>math.  That is, that it is costing us a great deal.  How?
>>  Let's assume that there _are_ sex-linked cognitive differences which show
>>up in the statistics of large populations.  (And ignore, for the moment, the
>>stupidity of trying to apply statistical data to unique individuals.)  Then
>>consider the fact that because of social and cultural factors math has,
>>purely historically, been developed almost entirely by men.  (Yes, I know
>>there have been a number of excellent female mathematicians!)  Then it is
>>reasonable to apply statistics to the large sample of all past mathematicians
>>to infer that math, _as it now exists_ contains a built in bias toward those
>>cognitive skills at which men tend to excel, leaving skills at which women
>>tend to outperform men out, or puting them down as "not real math".  I would
>>argue that this implies that current mathematics has cut itself off from
>>much that might have otherwise been discovered.
> 
>     This is very sloppy.  The existence of 'cognitive skills at which
>     men tend to excel' or alternatively 'cognitive skills at which
>     women tend to outperform men' may well invalidate the contention

     I was being sloppy as well by not making myself clear on one point.

     Just so there's no misunderstanding and overt flamage.  I firmly
     do not believe that there exist cognitive skills at which men
     innately outperform women.  I do tend to think that their innate
     socialization is somewhat different, and this may go a long way towards 
     explaining part of this 'problem'.

                                   dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926