Peter Wood has an interesting commentary in the Chronicle today. At least, it starts out well, but by the end it turns into a bit of a train wreck. The good part is a discussion of a growing deficiency in science and math training in the US. The usual ignorant reaction to this problem is to flog the students and demand more drill-and-practice in the classroom, more testing, incentives and punishments for the schools … the familiar Republican litany of No Child Left Behind, which treats the problem as a superficial one that can be corrected with more multiple-choice tests, or by marshaling market forces to make that engineering job in adulthood more attractive to 8 year olds. That’s not the answer.
The precipitous drop in American science students has been visible for years. In 1998 the House released a national science-policy report, “Unlocking Our Future,” that fussily described “a serious incongruity between the perceived utility of a degree in science and engineering by potential students and the present and future need for those with training.”
Let me offer a different explanation. Students respond more profoundly to cultural imperatives than to market forces. In the United States, students are insulated from the commercial market’s demand for their knowledge and skills. That market lies a long way off — often too far to see. But they are not insulated one bit from the worldview promoted by their teachers, textbooks, and entertainment. From those sources, students pick up attitudes, motivations, and a lively sense of what life is about. School has always been as much about learning the ropes as it is about learning the rotes. We do, however, have some new ropes, and they aren’t very science-friendly. Rather, they lead students who look upon the difficulties of pursuing science to ask, “Why bother?”
Those of us who are scientists did not go into this field because we calculated the economic benefit (we’d need to be profoundly innumerate for the answer to that one to come up positive), nor was it because our middle school teachers gave us lots of tests. It’s because we were inspired by the dream of learning more about the world around us, and we were motivated in spite of the difficulties of the subject.
Right now, this is an anti-intellectual country in which the media and politics constantly bombard us with the message that science is uncool, the domain of geeks and nerds, and instead of bringing out the power of science in our schools, the emphasis is always on the boring minutiae. It’s important to master the tedious mechanics, of course, but we also need to put the excitement front and center. And we also have to challenge students, rather than putting them on coasters and letting them slide to graduation.
At least on the emotional level, contemporary American education sides with the obstacles. It begins by treating children as psychologically fragile beings who will fail to learn — and worse, fail to develop as “whole persons” — if not constantly praised. The self-esteem movement may have its merits, but preparing students for arduous intellectual ascents aren’t among them. What the movement most commonly yields is a surfeit of college freshmen who “feel good” about themselves for no discernible reason and who grossly overrate their meager attainments.
The intellectual lassitude we breed in students, their unearned and inflated self-confidence, undercuts both the self-discipline and the intellectual modesty that is needed for the apprentice years in the sciences. Modesty? Yes, for while talented scientists are often proud of their talent and accomplishments, they universally subscribe to the humbling need to prove themselves against the most-unyielding standards of inquiry. That willingness to play by nature’s rules runs in contrast to the make-it-up-as-you-go-along insouciance that characterizes so many variants of postmodernism and that flatters itself as being a higher form of pragmatism.
That’s the good part, but unfortunately the rest is a cranky tirade against diversity, especially those darned women who are asking for special privileges to break into the domains that properly belong to men.
The science “problems” we now ask students to think about aren’t really science problems at all. Instead we have the National Science Foundation vexed about the need for more women and minorities in the sciences. President Lawrence H. Summers was pushed out of Harvard University for speculating (in league with a great deal of neurological evidence) that innate difference might have something to do with the disparity in numbers of men and women at the highest levels of those fields. In 2006 the National Academy of Sciences issued a report, “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering.” Officials of the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education are looking to use Title IX to force science graduate programs to admit more women. The big problem? As of 2001, 80 percent of engineering degrees and 72 percent of computer-science degrees have gone to men.
A society that worries itself about which chromosomes scientists have isn’t a society that takes science education seriously. In 1900 the mathematician David Hilbert famously drew up a list of 23 unsolved problems in mathematics; 18 have now been solved. Hilbert has also bequeathed us a way of thinking about mathematics and the sciences as a to-do list of intellectual challenges. Notably, Hilbert didn’t write down problem No. 24: “Make sure half the preceding 23 problems are solved by female mathematicians.”
Grrrr. Summers was not speculating in league with neurological evidence — he was babbling about the anecdotal evidence from preferred toys in his children to justify patterns of discrimination against women. Women are entirely capable of doing science and math as well as men, but cultural forces and the pressure to conform to anti-science norms — the very level Wood is saying we need to work at to improve science participation in the first half of his essay — conspire to discourage women from working at the highest levels of their fields, and encourage men to discriminate against them. The title of the essay is “How we keep students out of science”…maybe he should open his eyes and notice that the question of “How we keep women out of science” might very well have the same answers.
What if we treated his initial description of the problem as prescriptive: we have a science-gap in American students, therefore we should take this as evidence that Americans are inherently more stupid than others, and therefore should give up on trying to teach them more science? The answer, then, is to invest less in education and more in importing Chinese. Ridiculous, I know, yet that is what he is proposing with women: they are less capable by assertion, therefore don’t worry that that part of the science labor pool might be underutilized.
It seems to me that working to improve science education for a significant segment of the population that is not being inspired to pursue science and technology careers is a good strategy for working out solutions for the whole population. If our educational system has shortcomings in bringing up enough scientists, I’m all for working on the part of the problem that has the same shortcomings times two — we’ll get the biggest boost there.
As for the Hilbert story — he also didn’t impose the restriction that the 23 problems should only be solved by men.
Perhaps part of the problem of motivation in the sciences is that the so-called big issues are supposedly not to be answered by science.
Religion, philosophy, psychology (which has varying degrees of science), and the humanities are supposed to deal with “the soul” and whatever is “deep”.
That’s pretty much bull. Science at its best is not divorced from psychology, philosophy, or the humanities–it supplies what’s otherwise missing from them, like evidence and causality. Any proper answer to almost anything human involves science.
Yes, it’s sort of the old academic divide–and the sense that science is just facts. Not really, it’s everything.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
…the familiar Republican litany of No Child Left Behind, which treats the problem as a superficial one that can be corrected with more multiple-choice tests, or by marshaling market forces to make that engineering job in adulthood more attractive to 8 year olds. That’s not the answer.
Right on. Here’s the thing, though: Lots of things differentiate education in unsciency America from much-more sciencey countries in Europe and Asia and that’s this: They’re not afraid to Leave Some Children Behind. Virtually every school district in the U.S. spends GOBS of money–usually quite without results–on ‘special education’ for children with below-average academic abilities. Some school districts use ‘mainstreaming’; keeping all children in a particular grade together, regardless of ability.
This does not work. Good students’ abilities just do not rub off on their peers. I know, you’d think they would, but they don’t. And no, it doesn’t work to ‘make good students into teachers’ by having them actively take a hand in helping their peers. Mostly it seems to distract good students from becoming even better.
I think we need to be less afraid of letting good students race ahead and, quite frankly, letting bad students off at the side of the road.
Sheesh, that bias makes it sounds like a religious problem, doesn’t it? And having worked in K-12 education for 13 years, I can attest to the number of xtians working in those grades…could it be a correlation?
The behavior changes called for by Wood HAVE TO evolve. But first it would be helpful for all who work with these learners to begin this change by acknowledging EVOLUTION then teach evolution adequately to the learners beginning in the primary grades.
My partner is Latino, he was very interested in science because he grew up watching Star Trek (a not uncommon story from what I hear). He became interested in astronomy and after a lot of hard work and assistance from programs like Trio, he got into college.
When he arrived at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he was one of the very few people of color in his astronomy classes. People constantly made fun of him under their breath: “looks like someone’s here because of affirmative action, der der der…”
He had such a miserable time he quit and pursued art and sociology instead.
The name of the act should be “no bureaucrat left behind.”
Why did I leave a career in science? I didn’t want to spend six years of my life working 60-plus hours a week in grad school for no money only to have little guarantee of a good job afterward.
It’s problematic that there’s little room for a career for people who are interested in science but don’t want to 1) spend their lives being unappreciated lab monkeys or 2) knuckle under to a thesis advisor for years with the hope of maybe getting a post-doc when they’re 30. (Option three, being a pharmaceutical rep until your looks fade, isn’t very appealing either.) Sure, I’m oversimplifying things somewhat, but those are the options presented to your average undergrad.
A science structure that offered people more opportunities to learn and expand their careers as they progressed would be more appealing, especially to people who are older or need to work to support themselves and their families. (This is true for most other types of graduate school as well.)
I think the U.S. science culture is poorly served by its emphasis on dues-paying and boot-licking. Obviously you want qualified, informed people. But I don’t think a class of Brahmins is necessary.
You’re right. He really started off well, and then ugh, what an ass. I definitely agree with his that we need to change our education standards, here in Canada too. I’m not even 30 yet and even I see how kids today have it so much easier in school than I did. I think there are too many rules these days that teachers need to follow, and this prevents them from telling some kids that they aren’t doing a good enough job and then making sure that thay do. The converse is also true, that those kids who are really bright maybe aren’t getting the attention they need to realize that and to then attain to higher acheivments. This idea to have all kids feel like they are on a level ground with each other does nothing to help the kids who aren’t doing so well, and also only places the ‘smart kids’ at too much of a comfortable place.
I see it even in some of the undergrads that come through my lab (I write as I secretly block my computer screen from the undergrads). They have such a sense of entightlement, and feel that their A to A+ average (which is also bullshit, might I add. That was alot tougher to obtain back in my day) should be enough to get them any Grad school position they like, any scholarship, etc… and hey, their work ethic doesn’t match up with their makrs or their expectations. They just don’t go above and beyond and really try to be creative and independent. It’s quite sad, really.
Not only has science been branded as uncool culturally, it is often openly ridiculed and ignored for political and/or religious “reasons”.
In the global warming “debate”, scientists who support changes to energy policy to combat the problem are called idiots, trouble-makers, fear-mongers, etc. In churches, scientists are painted as idiots because scientific conclusions don’t match their fairy-tales.
Why would any kid want to become a scientist when they constantly get the message that “scientists don’t know what they’re talking about”?
The bottom line is that we’re an anti-intellectual society because we keep letting the stupid people be in charge. I think that candidates for office should be required to score above some decent level on an IQ test. That would weed out the George W’s from office. Unfortunately, IQ tests are generally culturally biased, so that would be an issue. I’m just tired of listening to poltical-speak–most of them sound (and frequently are) dumber than a bag of rocks…
That whole Republican thing about “praising children” seems contradictory, doesn’t it? We don’t work our children enough – we praise them too much! So let’s take things away from them! Such silly thinking is typical of your Republican educational wonk, and a way for them to poke financial holes into a traditionally liberal establishment. Show me one science teacher who’s actively letting kids coast – or one principal who would allow it, considering how schools are rated and graded these days. It’s true there’s corruption, but I don’t think there’s that much.
Those of us who work in public schools have a better answer: infuse money into the system earmarked specifically for technology and math/science. It’s stupid to think we can inspire children in this day and age of high technology when public schools in central Manhattan don’t even have functioning science labs. What do they have to get inspired with? I know pop culture is “just” pop culture, but look at the TV show Smallville – we have there a female reporter, in fact several, who are talented with computers and with science, and there’s several other shows and movies with capable women – but often none of the very real resources we see rich white actresses using on television are available to our kids. There’s a disconnect between the level of technology we see on TV – or which we see in our homes – and the level of science being taught in schools.
And what materials we do have are outdated and in some cases useless (Just look at some textbooks still used in school today – some of them don’t even include evolution or Pluto! And when evolution is included it’s described in such vague terms that it makes almost no logical sense.) Modern textbooks, and online courses, are far more accurate – but take money which schools are losing because “the answer is to make kids WORK HARDER!” They already “work” eight hour days during which they’re virtually imprisoned by school and police, and force-fed unhealthy food, and forbidden to go to the bathroom. No work establishment would be allowed to get away with such behavior.
My take is that the real problem isn’t society or our culture – we are a people obsessed with science and technology and what they can do. But what teachers are told to do in the classroom – and the resources they are given with which to do it – has nothing to do with modern science or technology.
Would it be possible to build some classes around the work of science popularizers? Might create a bit more interest then the leaden prose gracing a lot of textbooks.
I know I certainly promote science and math to my nieces and nephews… I try to tie it in to anything we are doing and plan babysitting events with it in mind like building rockets and taking them to museums and engaging them in their thoughts on the exhibits…ad they are very responsive! I know I certainly would like to return to University and further my education in both math and science.
J@#2: I have no problem with paying more taxes to support more advanced classes for the “smart” kids. I don’t mind a few divisions by talent and interests being made available. I probably could have benefited from such. There is already a bus stop for those who aren’t going to excel in academics. It’s called high school graduation. Having more options available for good students is a good idea, having more vocational training available is a good idea, but closing off options any earlier than that would rob many students of opportunities that are scarce enough already.
Well, shame on the fail of the teachers to
motivate their students.
Anyway, why a life goal must be to make
money ?
As scientists we follow something more
valuable: Knowlenge.
The humanity as a whole improves on
the research of scientists, not money
makers.
My life as a meaning, in fact i feel like
my existence its more valuable as more
i pursue the real knowlenge about the world,
through science.
This feeling its barely compared to anything else,
its addictive, i couldnt live without it.
Peter Wood is not part of any solution involving a pro-science culture.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/wood200508090808.asp
Apparently, he wants “Evolution” to be taught as some fairy tale that scientists take on Faith on par with Creationism. He does make some quiet allowances for “evolution” (note the little “e”) being central to biology. What a tool.
He’s an old man yearning for the good old days when students were strong enough to walk uphill both ways, barefoot, in the snow, and didn’t need to be mollycoddled. Despite the supposed toughness of his idea of the American Student of Science, he’s still apparently afraid to open science up to those pesky women and people of color.
That said, he had one thing at the end I could agree with:
“Bill Gates may not be the right person to tell us how to restore that mixture of awe, admiration, sheer ambition, delight in meeting difficulties, and stubborn curiosity — the patient exuberance — that draws students into the adventure of science. A few of our students catch it despite the preoccupations of their teachers and their textbooks.”
Hey LisaJ, your peers were doing the same stuff when you were in school. I’m in your age group (slightly older) so I can say that pretty definitively. There’s always a group that’s going to try to get as much as they can for as little work as possible. Just because you didn’t doesn’t mean others weren’t…
Anyway, I have a hard time reconciling old-crank talk about how easy the kids these days have it with the stories I see in the NYTimes about how kids these days spend 8 hours a day doing their homework.
I read an article about the women in science issue not too long ago that made me think (well, I think the article was from 2006, but I only read it recently…). It proposes that the better question is why anyone persues a career in science/acedemia and that men may be more prevalent because it’s easier for men to start a family in their mid-late 30s (or earlier 40s – whenever you get past that post-doc) than it is for women.
It goes in the other direction, really. It suggests that men are too stubborn to see how much of a crap job being a professor is (no offense PZ) and how hard it is to get to that point in the first place.
http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science
Anyway, as a new (female) master’s student I thought it was interesting.
PZ, you sound religious. Summers was asking legitimate questions. What specifically do you find “babbling” in his speech, and based on what evidence are you accusing him of trying to “justify patterns of discrimination”?
LisaJ,
I’m a 2.5th yr undergrad with a 58% avg, paid research assistant position and a conference publication…marks are a bunch of BS! Tell that to those cocky OMG-look-at-me-I-has-a-95%-avg bastards! XP
(I do realise the avg needs to go up…suck at studying though; studying science and doing science are unrelated activities, it seems…)
-Psi
Oh yeah, and as for motivating women in Science. Obviously I think he was a total ass regarding that aspect. The biggest challenges I’ve found, which I have had to work very hard at changing my thought processes on over my years in science, is the immense social pressures that are placed on us. The worst proponents of this, I’m sure in many cases, are your own family members. Even if you’re not from a strict family with obvious expectations for you, they are still there. I grew up thinking that I was supposed to get married, have a few kids, make sure I could be a devoted mother and put my kids first. Well, I’m sure this is still all attainable for me and I can accommodate kids when I like, but now I realize that I don’t have to give everything up to make a nice life for my kids and family… and I SHOULDN’T FEEL BAD ABOUT IT! Based on societal norms and just the natural female instinct, there is alot of pressure on us to be the ones to do the most sacrificing in order to have a family. The message we need to get across is that you don’t need to sacrifice everything in order to have a family, and truthfully, it is a much greater gift to your children to give them a mother that is doing what she wants with her life and is contributing in a way that is exciting to her, as opposed to feeling guilty if you’re not with them 24-7.
There is a strong common thought process among my female colleagues (at the grad school level) who feel that a career in Science is incompatible with having a family. This does not need to be the case, but I believe it’s what scares away most females from following the Science path. We need to convince not only ourselves, but also our male colleagues, that certain additive pressures are there for us, but that we can all work together (largely mentally) to make sure that this doesn’t necessitate excluding us from a Science career. Also, we need to quickly shoot down the sort of crap we see in PZ’s post here. Women are not mentally inferior as Scientists, we’re not idiots due to our genetic makeup… for crying out loud isn’t it better to have a greater variety of intelligent people working on solving important Scientific questions? To further stereotype women as inferior Scientists is an incredible disservice to the confidence of women who are interested in this avenue, as well as to scientific progress as a whole.
Psi @ #18. Ugh, I hear ya. I find, where I am anyways, that it’s often those who have coasted along and got an easy 90% average who are totally incapable of independent thought in the lab. It is annoying.
I wouldn’t try to reason with J; his post is predicated on the assumption that students in special education classes are just lazy. That degree of willful ignorance is impenetrable.
First off, I don’t by the nostalgia for an age that never existed. There are/were lots of dumb, lazy people in the older generations. See for example our commander in chief.
Part of the problem, I think, may be community/parental involvement. I’m not suggesting helicopter parenting, of course, but it is so important to have parents who encourage learning, reading and curiosity. So many parents just let their kids be ignorant. So many students just want grades without having to work for them, and have no interest in learning for the sake of learning. All that matters is job training. When I tell people what I’m studying (linguistics) they often ask “Why?” with this tone of “Why on earth are you studying that?” Because I think it’s interesting, dammit!
I was lucky. My parents, both educated people, strongly encouraged learning. They made us read books. They took us to museums. They provided lots of educational media. When we asked questions about the world around us (Why is the sky blue? What are stars? What makes rain/lightning? Why do things float?), they would find the answer and explain it to us. They took an active part in our learning and development. It’s not enough to just praise or criticize kids from afar. You have to get your hands dirty. Education should not end when the bell rings.
We have a really low opinion of education, I think. Studying is for nerds. Learning is for nerds. Damn those teachers for not being able to magically make my kids smarter. Poor teachers! It’s damn hard to give every kid the attention they need when you have a class of thirty.
Not to mention budgetary problems in poorer communities. It’s a lose-lose situation: either the school ends up strapped for cash, or property taxes go way the hell up and retirees end up having to work at Wal-Mart to stay afloat.
Really, should we be surprised that students are lazy? We’re a society of lazy consumers who take the path of least resistance. We ridicule anyone knowledgeable. We make people feel guilty for being smart and educated (not for being snotty—I hate that too, but for simply being smart). When I tell people where I’m going to school I have to be evasive so they don’t get weirded out: I say New Haven instead of Yale, and I just met a guy who says Boston instead of Harvard.
These questions have already been answered repeatedly. Go learn instead of expecting us to spoon-feed it to you on your schedule.
That or that kids who don’t perform near the median aren’t worth investing any resources.
I guess I’ll tell my little brother who throughout his entire schooling before 9th grade scored in the lowest percentile. Once some learning disabilities were identified he graduated from UNC with a 3.5, Got a masters, is working as an investment counselor making way more than I, bought a house 8 years before I did and is doing just fine.
But he was the dumb kid in school. Never did well.
Great post, Sharon. Throw in the fact that tenure-track positions seem to be a going, going, gone proposition (welcome the world of adjunct teaching), and that’s one more reason not to pursue a career in science.
Oh woe is me, I must be soooo uncool. (Like this is a big surprise.)
I have worked in journalism, and one of my favorite assignments is to be sent to talk to a researcher about something. Without fail I get an hour or more personalized lecture on some topic I may never have heard of — better than a banana split any day!
Take mycorrhizas. Do not recoil at the long word, it just means microscopic fungi which have learned to live snuggled between the cells of the tiniest rootlets of plants. Once settled in, they stick their little fungi heads out and collect nutrients from the soil, more effectively than their parent roots can, and share the goodies with their host plants.
I never heard of them (and I are a collidge grajuate, nearly). But without them, many plants do poorly. I got to sit down and see a whole slide show and lecture courtesy of a Brazilian researcher working on northern mycorrhizae and their adaptation to various crops. And the researcher was as happy to give the lecture as I was to get it. Excitement is contagious.
We have Take Your Kid To Work Day — what we should do is farm out kids to random scientists now and then. Plus it would save big bucks otherwise wasted on day care…
Noni
PZ, did you see Thomas Cech’s opinion piece in Science News a month or so back? Similar subject matter — how to encourage more young people to enter careers in the sciences. Well worth a look.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/access/id/33374/title/Thomas_Cech
As an aside, Tom’s father was a close friend of my dad when we lived in Des Moines back in the ’70’s. They both worked at the VA hospital there, and the Cech family lived only a few doors up the street from us. I didn’t know Tom personally — he’s a few years older than me — but I guess I sorta kinda knew him ‘way back when (long before the Nobel).
(And yes, I’m a shameless name dropper, on those few occasions I get the chance.)
Yep, I’m and educator in Virginia and the acronym du jour for this new initiative is called STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Apparently it’s come to someone’s attention that we don’t produce enough of these types to be competitive in the world market and as an economic issue, it has dire consequences. I’m very pessimistic about realistic solutions to this problem though. I relish the thought of mountains of money for innovative programs. Here’s a few of the problems that I think inhibit science education in my State.
Number one is the reality that elementary school teachers are, as a group, woefully unprepared to teach science at any level. Very nice people and generally good with literacy instruction and basic math, but scientific principles aren’t their strong point. That’s why most of the instruction at that level is “factoid” based. I’ve seen very few teachers present scientific methodology or invest in inquiry based methods that are engaging and that promote higher order thinking. You can’t do it if you don’t know it, and its clear to me that most of haven’t a clue and there isn’t a quick place to go for them to find one. Science is a red headed step child in elementary school and by the time a kid has done a thousand worksheets they think science is a “fill in the blank” discipline.
It’s likely that student will not have a teacher whose primary degree is science until they take a specific course in high school. Most of the middle school teachers I work with have endorsements in science, but they don’t actually have a primary degree in any scientific discipline. Content knowledge is about 1/3 of what teacher needs to be successful. ( The other thirds,,,,pedagogical skill and … compelling nature)
Problem number 2 is something I fond quite frustrating as secondary biology teacher in a rural area ( uh.. yeah, fundamentalist area) and that is having mince words and tip toe around evolution. You do have parents and kids that just refuse to engage in the conversation and claim it violates their religious beliefs and that disrupt anyone’s attempts to have a fair discourse on the topic. That happens in earth science and all the biological series of classes. The point is, the community only gets the rigor that it wants and such pressures can easily permeate a community to the extent that school divisions and teachers just don’t push for great science too hard. Unfortunately, I think it is the pervasive attitude in our country.
You can ramp up math and engineering, but biology is hornets nest.
Problem 3 is that if you want good people with great qualifications, you gotta pay’m. My son is a computer science and math major who enjoys the intellectual challenge of both disciplines but expects to make significantly more than the $38,000 a year that new teacher would make. Basically the pool of really qualified people go where they can make a good living. I’ve worked in a major research hospital and I’ve taught public school. There’s a huge difference between the former and the later in terms of intellectual preparedness and I wish we had a few more teachers whose education was as extensive as those I worked with at the hospital. Heck, I just wish all the teachers I work with could correctly average their grades. (It’s pitiful, but we all know few like that.)
Better preparation, better pay for highly qualified people are problems that can be addressed. Cultural and religious problems are a little tougher.
“Women are entirely capable of doing science and math as well as men, but cultural forces and the pressure to conform to anti-science norms — the very level Wood is saying we need to work at to improve science participation in the first half of his essay — conspire to discourage women from working at the highest levels of their fields, and encourage men to discriminate against them.”
Really. Is there any solid evidence for this claim, or are you just mindlessly repeating politically correct dogma?
I’ll grant you that women are being discouraged by society as a whole, and discriminated against in many places. But what makes you think that this is the sole, or even the main cause of women’s lack of interest and success in scientific endeavors?
You’re a biologist, PZ. You know better than most of us that there are important physical differences between human males and females. You also know that there are important neurological differences between the males and females of many species. While human males and females are obviously very similar, isn’t it likely that the male and female brains work in slightly different ways? And isn’t it possible that these differences include something that gives males an advantage in scientific research?
NCLB is jokingly (graveyard humor) referred to by St. Paul teachers as “No Public School Left Standing.” The system requires a certain percentage of “improvement” every year. This is impossible in the long term: try to improve 3% every year starting at 60% — you exceed 100% in 18 years. The better you are to start with, the sooner you reach the limit above which you can’t go. So, the whole thing is cynically designed to discredit public education (the most effective and efficient economic development program ever devised) and pave the way to private school vouchers.
Lisa @#19. I agree that a career in ‘Science’ in general is far from unobtainable for a woman scientist who has, or hopes to have, a family. I’m not sure this applies across the board to academic positions, though, particularly not to tenure-track professorships at research universities. I’m sure there are exceptions, but of all of the women scientists I know personally in tenure track positions (N=~20) who have kids grade-school age or younger, every one of them has either a partner who is a stay-at-home, huge amounts of family support (i.e. local, involved, sometimes live-in grandparents) OR a partner who is also in academia and thus able to coordinate teaching schedules, etc. For many of those of us who don’t have those options, the academic track is frankly too daunting to contemplate, hence the trend toward seeking either ‘permadoc’-type positions, or pursuing ‘non-traditional’ (i.e. non-academic) career paths.
@Tim, #10: It could work for younger kids, but by grade 7 or 8 it’s too late, I think. My biology teacher last year (9th grade) was great for a few reasons. We spent the first month doing critical thinking/skepticism, and our first major project was picking a pseudoscience and dissecting it. He also tried to follow the style of science popularizers in how he presented things. He tried to give it that same sort of feeling of “wow, that’s AWESOME!” He was fairly good at it, too.
Unfortunately, it was lost on most of the kids. I was the only one who was really interested in skepticism. A few others at least understood it, but the interest wasn’t there. The same was true of the science itself. Very few of them had any real interest in the material, and only one or two had that “Oh, wow, THIS is science?” moment. The others enjoyed the class, but not for the science. Most were too set in the “science is stupid” mindset already.
The other problem was that it took time away from dealing specifically with biology. Taking the time to cover scientific thinking and the scientific method meant that we had a lot less time than other classes to learn the material immediately at hand. Earlier in education, the classes have time to spend much more time on that sort of thing than high school classes.
We were learning science, which is more important than learning the facts of any specific field, but the school system and the test makers don’t agree, and so it had to be crammed in around other material, and compete for time. The time just wasn’t there to really look at things and show just how incredible they are, and I think it’s a huge loss. That’s the best thing to convince people of just how great science is, and it’s the first thing that “has to” get cut in the interest of time.
And, it’s working already. Just today they announced that Minnesota’s list of schools “not making adequate yearly progress” has increased year on year. Minnesota’s schools consistently score at the top of the nation. What problem is NCLB meant to correct? Oh yeah, wealthy folks can’t get a rebate from the government for opting-out of the public school system.
Oh man. This is exactly the crisis that the proposed Minnesota Planetarium and Space Discovery Center is aimed at alleviating. Unfortunately the planetarium is stuck in limbo with an apathetic public partner. This article published yesterday summarizes the recent history and challenges of building a flagship regional S.T.E.M. educational asset. I hope the many MN and regional science educators and enthusiasts that read Pharyngula are somewhat aware of and supportive of the vision for this facility, but I’m not sure. MPlanetarium.org for more information.
Bill Hicks had a line about the government losing the War on Drugs, and what that meant. “It means that there’s a war. . . and people on drugs are winning it!”
I get a similar feeling when I hear someone bloviating about Larry Summers. Aw, the poor man got pushed out of his cushy job at Harvard? Well, then he was too weak for academia. Go stick a G.I. Joe action figure in your Tonka truck and get back in the fucking sandbox where you belong, you big baby!
The Federal Government has no business dictating to local school systems under any stretch of the imagination. Since when has our national government done anything efficiently? They steal our money, squander half of it to pay their friends and relatives to do unnecessary jobs and then what’s left is used to bribe educators to do things that they would never do under any other conditions.
I am a working engineer (male) and I know plenty of good women engineers. The percentage of engineering students we had when I was in school was less than 10%. It seems to have changed little. When I describe my work to almost any woman I know, they all go, “yuck, I’d never want to do that.” I also note that there is always a shortage of science and math teachers: the person interested in a teaching career and the person interested in math and science are rarely the same person.
So, I think there are systemic reasons for women’s lack of interest in science/math. I think some of it is genetic and some of it is cultural. What are the proportions? I don’t know.
I agree with PZ’s comment that if we can find ways to get young women and girls excited about science, we will go a long way to solved the whole science brain-drain. If you punt on half the population, you’re terribly handicapping yourself. I think special work is needed to turn this around — it has a lot of momentum. If it takes single-sex public schools, etc., (though not public funds for private schools — unless they are contracted to the public school district and have to follow the same rules and standards — and accept all comers) then I’m for those things.
“It proposes that the better question is why anyone persues a career in science/acedemia and that men may be more prevalent because it’s easier for men to start a family in their mid-late 30s (or earlier 40s – whenever you get past that post-doc) than it is for women.”
Word. Wordy McWord-Word. A point of anecdotal evidence: when I was in grad school (Master’s in Computer Science, 2003, in a program that had an astonishingly high 25% women), it wasn’t uncommon for the men to have very young families (i.e. infants and toddlers). Number of women with very young children? Zero. None of us women had kids at all, in fact, except for a couple of reentry students who had teenaged kids.
WHY this was so is a complicated question, of course, but it seems pretty clear to me that women, even very educated women–the guys’ wives/girlfriends/partners were invariably smart, and frequently in grad school themselves–still expect or are expected to do most or all child-raising… and that’s just not compatible with the demands of academia. Sure, some women can do it (my best friend’s mom gave birth to my best friend a week before taking her bar exam), but it adds a side order of hard to an already steep challenge.
Another observation: the women in grad school with me were exceptionally talented women*, who were frequently just as good in “girlier” subjects as they were in math and science. I was no exception; I even minored in English. Think the counselors/professors/people in our lives all said, “Wow, with your mighty mathematical brain, you should major in the hard sciences!” Or think we were pretty much all encouraged, subtly or no, to switch into softer majors?
* I snuck in when no one was looking.
Janus @ #29: “While human males and females are obviously very similar, isn’t it likely that the male and female brains work in slightly different ways? And isn’t it possible that these differences include something that gives males an advantage in scientific research?”
Yes, it is possible that the male and female brain works slightly differently in some respects. But why does this need to mean that males are better researchers? From my experience this means that you have a greater variety of thought processes working together to solve a scientific problem. It’s only an asset to have males and females working together in Science, in my experience anyway. I know that your assertion that males may be better researchers because of their brain type is not generally correct, because I am a female grad student and I feel I’m doing pretty well, in reference to both male and female grad students around me. I don’t feel incapacitated in any way because I have a girl’s brain. I know lots of other female Scientists who would say the same thing.
Danio @ #31: I do agree that a woman in Science who wants a family definitely does will have a tougher time than a man in balancing family and work. I myself know that I want to keep pursuing Science and stay on this track, but it’s because I want kids that I am unsure if I’ll set my sights on a permanent academic position or something more along the lines of a ‘premanent post-doc’ position, as you noted. So yeah, I do still feel limited, and I’m still trying to figure out what would be the best career option for me, however I know that a career in Science in some respect is totally doable. It’s definitely frustrating, and I think we need to work on making it easier for women to balance an academic position as well as a family. I have no idea what the answer to that is though!
Hey PZ, A couple of comments.
Test do inspire scientists! I am a pscyhometrician/statistician in Psychology and Education.
Secondly, there is nothing wrong with multiple choice tests- examining the evidence in the field shows they can assess higher order thinking as well as constructed response items. The problem is using tests for more than what they purport to be and thinking that because we test that will induce change. I hate NCLB, and I am in the testing field.
As for more women in science: I think you should listen to what Stephen Pinker has to say on the topic http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html .One argument that makes sense and is scientific has to do with the fact that men have more variability (but same means as women) in their distributions, causing a wider difference in the upper (and lower) tails, and this difference becomes prominent at the extreme ends, which is where the people at the highest levels of their fields are. What Summers had to say was probably correct, (I did not hear about the toy preference thing you mentioned and am not sure where it comes from) but what he had to say was based on some evidence. I am all for women in science and I am ok with putting extra-funds to try and inspire them more so than males but I do not think the issue is as “environmental” (the social conforming) as you make it out to be. I am not saying women are not discriminated against I am sure some(or most) are nor am I saying that their isn’t a large portion of the problem due to the conforming pressure placed on them. I just think this issue may be more ‘nature’ than most think.
Lastly, I want to agree with you that inspiration is needed and the drull, boring rote methods used to teach science are not helping. -Also Great blog man.
About the only part of this essay that I can say I agree with is the initial definition of the problem: we need more scientists, and society is not bearing a scientist-healthy attitude.
I completely disagree that boosting self esteem is detracting from the scientific community. A hugely inflated ego going into college is exactly what a good scientist needs. Good ideas are only useful so long as they are heard; if every scientist was so modest about their ideas that they were afraid to put them up for review, science would not advance at all, let alone flourish. Scientific advance comes through collaboration, yes, but the definition of science as a search for truth necessitates that such collaboration be abrasive and egotistical if it is to be successful. If the heights to which we stoke the self-esteem of pubescents is too high, so be it; if their pride is unfounded, it will quickly be cut to size in college. Not to mention, self esteem problems can be cited as a reason of low female presence in the scientific community!
Who was it that said that the limits of the human intellect can only be found by passing them? If your goal is scientific advancement, modest scientists do not make for effective implements.
I’m sure there are examples of ‘talented scientists’ that run with the grain of nature rather than against it, but these people are only extensions of the increased standardized testing and standardization the article berates! The entire existence of a hacker culture is evidence that so-called ‘talented scientists’ are not in fact line-toers modestly seeking attention. It is the hallmark of a questioning mind, paramount to the scientific method, to break the rules and to go against standards.
Yes, the cultural denegration of scientists is leading to a smaller percentage of people choosing scientific careers than is merited by the reliance of society on science, but the proposed methods of alleviating this problem lead only to scientific stagnation, a far worse fate.
Hey PZ, A couple of comments.
Test do inspire scientists! I am a pscyhometrician/statistician by training, there is nothing wrong with multiple choice tests look at the evidence in the field showing they can assess higher order thinking as well as constructed response items. The problem is using testing for more than what they are or thinking that the because we test that will induce change.
As for more women in science: I think you should listen to what Stephen Pinker has to say on the topic http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html .It has to do with men having more variability (but same means as women) causing the tails in the distributions to be different, causing a wider difference in the upper (and lower) tails of the distribution. What Summers had to say was probably correct, I am not sure where the toy preference comes from, but what he had to say was based on science. I am all for women in science and I am ok with putting extra-funds to try and inspire them more so than males but I do not think the issue is as “environmental” (the social conforming) as you make it out to be. I am not saying women are discriminated against I am sure some(or most) are. I just think this issue may be more ‘nature’ than most think.
As a non-scientist, I am trying to understand the lament, here.
Are there too few scientists for the jobs available?
Are bright youngsters with above average IQ’s opting out of science because they like fire trucks?
Is it important to have a sex-balanced team of scientist working on science?
While I enjoy science and the fruits of science, I wonder if creating more scientists will just result in having over-qualified construction laborers and waiters?
While my scientific ignorance is measurable, is it problematic?
Sorry about double post- browser messed up.
It’s “possible” but the available evidence does not support this hypothesis, and the people like yourself who want to declare the question settled in favor of it all have obvious ulterior motives.
And you’re not really trying to argue that it’s “possible,” are you?
I’m sure he thought he was being illuminating, while completeling shutting himself off from reality. Through the course of my education, I’ve run into a handful of women in mathematics and physics, but upon having met them, any illusion that famale brains are routed differently was completely tossed out the window. Perhaps during the critical phases of development, with society bombarding them with superficial garbage and constantly convincing them that the physical and to a lesser extent biological sciences are masculine territory, the awe and inquisitive nature towards the world around us is chipped away. Once the neural pathways in the brain are reinforced to believe that there are subjects that are gender biased, it’s difficult to recover from it. Hopefully, the state of education will have a paradigm shift towards increasing funding for science, improving educational tools to take full advantage of those facets that brought many of us into the fold. The application of various tools towards solving the mysteries that otherwise would remain unsolved.
Some great resources on changing science teaching to improve understanding and increase diversity can be found here: http://scientificteaching.wisc.edu/.
I participated in a NAS/HHMI Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology – well worth the time.
Lord Zero @#13: “Well, shame on the fail of the teachers to motivate their students. ”
The point is not that teachers are failing to motivate their students. The point is that teachers are not EQUIPED to motivate their students, in terms of science equipment, modern textbooks, teaching and presentation technology, class sizes, etc. Blaming the teacher is like not equiping a workman with a shovel and then blaming him for not digging a hole.
wow, I’m awesome at spelling. I, of course, meant EQUIPPED, not EQUIPED. *sigh*
@ Janus #29
Define these differences and how they impact the ability of women to understand science and math.
Go here and wonder at the bad faith:
http://sabermetricresearch.blogspot.com/2008/08/gender-blind-math-admissions-may-be.html
This post is a sadly perfectly common example of the misuse of statistical reasoning to justify discriminatory practices.
He doesn’t have to define them; he’s emotionally invested in the idea that women are inferior and in avoiding any change to the status quo, and therefore hypotheses that fit his prejudices are true by default unless his opponents can show that they’re “impossible.” If you can’t see that, you’re just blinded by Politically Correct progaganda.
This is a little off the topic of just how douchey Peter Wood sounded when he went on about Title IX, but it did make me think about my own personal experience. I’m currently an undergraduate in a geology program. When I entered my university, I originally tried to declare for the geophysics program. My undergraduate adviser put me down as a geology student in spite of my protests, and the 15 minute explanation he gave me as to why pretty much felt like it amounted to, “You womens, you don’t like the math.”
Well, after I passed Calculus III with flying colors, I came to the realization that really, I didn’t want to go further into mathematics than that. I pretty much proved to myself that while I can do math, and do it well, I really, really hate it. This lead to a lot of agonizing on my part, because if you are a woman that’s good at math, it feels like there’s a lot of pressure to prove something to jackholes like the adviser I had at the time. So I felt like I was somehow letting down the team by even considering dropping back to a much less math intensive major. My boyfriend (who got his masters in mathematics) finally had to sit me down and have a long talk; as the normal victim of my math induced, frustrated tantrums, all he could really say was, “Look, we all know you can do this. But it’s just as obvious that you don’t enjoy it, and you don’t *want* to.”
I guess it just strikes me as another unpleasant aspect of this problem. If you’re a woman and you do go in to the sciences, there can be this huge personal burden of stress because you feel obligated to prove something to people like Mr. Wood. Not that it will ever make a difference to them.
As a side note, I’ve noticed at least my geology program is approaching a fairly even split, though we women are still outnumbered. Still, it’s a real contrast to the absolute sausage-fest in the physics building next door.
Azkyroth:
Go buy yourself an inflatable doll. If you want to link to PZ’s actual argument on this topic, fine. But a Google page with a bunch of search results? Shove that up your USB port.
#40
See this recent article in Science for a rebuttal of the Pinkeresque view:
DIVERSITY: Gender Similarities Characterize Math Performance
Janet S. Hyde, Sara M. Lindberg, Marcia C. Linn, Amy B. Ellis, and Caroline C. Williams. Science 25 July 2008 321: 494-495
JBlilie @ #37: ” I think some of it is genetic and some of it is cultural. ”
Seriously? You were goin’ along great and then BAM, you let Summers take over your brain for a while. Show me a study showing an ability gap that controls for cultural differences in the ways that boys and girls are raised before you fall in line with that “genetic differences” crap.
This is a really touchy subject for me right now. I’m teaching in a girls’ science camp this week. The local paper did a nice little story. In the online version, there was one comment on it that said it was sexist to let only girls in. I wrote and posted a reply comment explaining how women have been historically been disadvantaged in science, added a few references to journal articles on the subject as well as a link to AWIS, and wrote that as a teacher in the camp, our goals are to provide positive role models in science for the girls as societal pressures still push girls out of hard science fields.
My comment got deleted.
I emailed the paper’s online division to find out why; I’m interested to see what they say.
Um, no.
1. Science, engineering and technical careers do not just draw from the upper tail of any putative skill distribution.
2. Reducing a multifaceted thing like mathematical ability to a single dimension is a crime against reason.
3. In some countries, girls have a larger variance than boys.
4. Arguments about the “upper tail” are completely beside the point, anyway, when we’re talking about building the scientific literacy of the general citizen body. Science classes aren’t just for the kids who grow up to be scientists.
I still think single-gender learning environments are a huge mistake, especially in the long run, both because they don’t really get at the root of the problem and because they would interfere with, for instance, a lot of the friendships I developed and valued growing up.
‘improving self-esteem’ in my neck of the woods entails:
-letting children pass even though they do not fulfill the requirements for a pass because failing them would be ‘bad for their self esteem’ [what is worse: having to repeat grade 4 because your reading skills suck, or being pushed through each year, sub-par, until you graduate high school semi-literate?]
-banning the use of ‘star charts’ because one child’s plethora of gold stars will hurt the other childrens’ feelings and thus be ‘bad for their self esteem’ [how is competition bad for a child’s self esteem?]
-ensuring that no one child is singled out as ‘gifted’ lest the others feel inferior.
-giving out ridiculous numbers of A and A+ for ‘effort’ rather than ‘result’ and inflating overall class marks to a ridiculous degree.
But that is the case where I am. I am certain there are better ways to ‘improve self-esteem’ than the nanny-state crap that surrounds me.
Darn I’m gonna be one of those pesky women he’s talking about since I just got my associates degree in Computer Engineering in June. I guess I’ll just have to stick it to the “man”.(no pun intended)
Off-topic: Dawkins’s new TV show is available on the video tubes. And boy, Matt Nisbet is going to be pissed.
Blakey, Blakey, Blakey – when are you going to learn? These points don’t fit with the pre-existing conviction that women are inferior and the status quo is fine. Obviously none of that is true, and it certainly can’t possibly be anything other than “Politically Correct propaganda.”
Clare, was that the one that showed that actually among american-born asians, women have higher variability in ability, whereas among whites men have higher variability? That was a rather hillarious counter-example to that particular version of “women are biologically dumber!!!1!!” bullshit. Not that there was that much of a difference in either case, even if there was no counter-example.
I was in fast-track math during middle and high school. In middle school, the classes were split pretty evenly, gender-wise, as were the test scores and grades (we did the math to determine that once, in fact, as a class exercise.) For my first two years of high school, it was the same. Then, because only two years of math were required to graduate (as opposed to four years of English), a lot of the girls left the math classes, because they were “boring” or “don’t have anything to do with what I want to do” NOT because “they’re hard.” So the whole genetics argument is pretty silly. I think the easiest way to fix this would be to require more math/science courses for high school graduation.
In college, I participated in talks with high school advisors on the topic of getting more females into math/science, and the most compelling theory I heard was that girls don’t have enough female roll models in the sciences, so it doesn’t even occur to them to enter them later. And if you don’t even consider entering a math-based field, it’s true that a lot of upper level math in high school isn’t going to be beneficial, and that’s part of why girls drop out of math classes. Then if they’re interested in math later, they feel stupid because the college students who took higher level math already are ahead.
There are, but that would require educators to be intelligent enough to tell the difference between “your worth as a human being is not a function of whether you score well” (the message we should be giving kids) and “scoring poorly will have no practical consequences whatsoever” (the message of the policies you describe above).
Scott @ #43 wrote
some areas of the field are competitive, but I think the ‘lament’ is, more generally, for what the decline in science literacy bodes for our culture.
Many of them are not given the opportunity to engage or become interested in careers in science in the first place, due to the quality of science teaching and the overall diminished perception of science as a valuable endeavor.
Only to the extent that no one should be discouraged from pursuing their interests based on gender, as has been the case historically.
where you see disgruntled workers in an over-competitive field, I see an upsurge in citizens who can understand and appreciate scientific issues. ;) Optimistically, if more people were trained not only in science, but in science appreciation, there would likely be more jobs available to which one could apply science training.
For you as an individual? I can’t say. But the reality of a nation of science illiterates, people who are not only ignorant but who have never been shown the value of learning, understanding, or thinking about science, strikes me as exceedingly problematic.
Clare, #55
The article agrees with what Pinker says that male variance is greater than female variance across the board, although its not large. The article says, that PhD’s in the occupation should be awarded 67% to men 33% to women, their is the difference I was talking about. Now what the study found, only 15% to women, so there is something that is affecting them but this article completely backs up what I am saying.
Carlie,
I attended a ‘girls in science’ conference-type program that also involved job shadowing when I was in grade 8 (a million years ago). I was ecstatic about going, thinking that I would be able to choose from a huge variety of careers to job shadow. I was hideously disappointed. The choices were remarkably ‘stereotypically female’: I could shadow a veterinarian, a nurse, a marine biologist, a zookeeper, or a science teacher. No math, no engineering, no physics, no chemistry, no fancy astronomy, no genetics, nothing. I chose the marine biologist because it was the closest thing to a laboratory experience I could find in the bunch. I spent the day feeding fish to seals.
No offence to any female who pursues veterinary medicine or marine biology–you are scientists, no doubt about it. I was just so choked that I couldn’t shadow a chemist or a geneticist or a geophysicist. All of my options were certainly ‘science’, but not one of them exposed me to research, to scientific design and experimental processes, or to math, computers, cladistics, genes, cell biology…
Thank goodness that was a million years ago and now the programs are more widely representative of science in general.
I’m really interested to hear their excuse for punting your comment from the site.
Reality check. Women make up roughly 50% of med school and law school classes. IIRC, way more than 50% of vet school classes. A high proportion of biology type grad students although I’m too busy to look up the numbers. Of course some are quite capable of doing state of the art post grad. work. They are already doing so.
As to why they are underrepresented in some fields. Who knows but for academic and private sector scientists, career paths are very shakey these days and one can expect to have a series of jobs, be unemployed here and there, and get laid off a lot while job hopping ahead of the RIFs.
It could just be that they are smart enough to choose a field where they can make a decent living without endless drama interspersed with periods of total insanity.
IIRC, the age of first grant in the biosciences is now somewhere in the mid 30’s while NIH grant approval rates are around 20%, way below historical norms. This sucks and why should very intelligent hard working capable people put up with it? That is what foreigners are for.
Blake Stacey (also Azkyroth)
I completely agree with your first point. I am NOT talking about all science and technical careers, and I made that clear. I was addressing is only the highest of those professions not the whole field which would take them from the upper tail.
Secondly, reducing math ability to a single dimension. Actually broad based math assessments have been shown to be unideminsional just read the IRT literature.
Again addressing your last point I was specifically NOT talking about building the scientific literacy of a population, I was only talking about a specific circumstances so do not take my points out of context.
I’m in a biology program where half the staff, if not more, are women. ( strong showings too, in chem, physics, and math as well.) The student segment is not so evenly balanced.
But the most common complaint I hear when science is discussed is that “It’s so rational and boring! Ghosts and gods and crop circles are so much more entertaining! science is hard. Math sucks. Science takes the fun out of everything.”
People seem to want their spooks and gods. They want science to explain what they want to hear, not what is. Even if you share science in an interesting manner, and even entertaining, they just don’t care. Science is the bad guy. Technology is the bad guy. “The two brought on all the evils in the world so why trust science anymore?” these same people say.
They’ve lost faith in science due to falsified or squashed data, and corrupt studies, boring science classes, and I’ve heard enough wild tales of the conspiracies we scientists get up to, to write a book.
I wonder if there’s just a huge anti-intellectual mentality being fostered, that a moneymaker degree is more important than slaving in science.
I have met a fair number of women who just don’t see science as a “women’s thing.” More often than not I heard girls in my bio lecture complaining that “plant science never helped anyone” and spent the time in lecture shopping online on their laptop.
Even I had family and friends ask “isn’t it hard, we didn’t know you were such a science nerd, and why so many science classes in a biology degree, why not do nursing?”
It doesn’t say that anything “should” be awarded that way, it’s talking about a hypothetical situation:
If a particular specialty required mathematical skills at the 99th percentile, and the gender ratio is 2.0, we would expect 67% men in the occupation and 33% women. Yet today, for example, Ph.D. programs in engineering average only about 15% women
Wendy,
Thanks for pointing out my mistake, I read it fairly quickly. Either way it still makes the point I was expressing.
Had me fooled.Gosh you mean theres jobs in “science”. As a dual major of molecular biology/biochemistry I couldn’t find a thing. When I went to the Career services they said “we don’t ever really see jobs that involve that kind of stuff”.
Go look at Monster. If there are two entry level jobs posted in the United States today I would be suprised. So unless you have a PhD and 5 years experience you might just as well study business since that is what you are going to use anyway.
Hot damn, I love this post. And also science. And educationalists everywhere. I’m feeling anecdotal pangs from my own school experience when, being equally high-achieving in sciences and humanities, I made the jump to humanities when the time came to decide – and it makes me sad to think of that decision as part of a culturally-influenced rush of girls from the hard subjects.
bigjohn756 #36
As one who spent over 20 years working for the federal government, I extend a hardy fuck you to the above comment. Along with almost every government employee I knew, I did my job professionally and efficiently. I object to some trash-talking jerk claiming that the federal government never does anything efficiently.
Is there waste, fraud and abuse in the government? Yes. Is there waste, fraud and abuse in the private sector? You better believe it. Enron, WorldCom, Sunbeam, and Arthur Andersen are just the tip of the iceberg.
Psalm 11
For the leader. Of David. In the LORD I take refuge; how can you say to me, “Flee like a bird to the mountains!
See how the wicked string their bows, fit their arrows to the string to shoot from the shadows at the upright.
When foundations are being destroyed, what can the upright do?”
The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD’S throne is in heaven. God’s eyes keep careful watch; they test all peoples.
The LORD tests the good and the bad, hates those who love violence,
And rains upon the wicked fiery coals and brimstone, a scorching wind their allotted cup.
The LORD is just and loves just deeds; the upright shall see his face.
Did I miss something here? As a female grad student, I have never once felt any pressure or discrimination or felt any different about being a woman in science from parents, teachers, friends, colleges, internships, or grad schools. Am I just lucky? Or oblivious?
I’ve always been a science nerd starting way back in elementary school. I’m not sure how I got that way, I’m thinking maybe it had a lot to do with all the good sciencey shows on PBS in the 70’s.
Got my BS, and I worked for 15 years in molecular biology. Never did get my PhD, but I also never felt that I *couldn’t*. I just preferred benchwork to writing grants. I worked in academia, but I made a good living, and if I felt like making more money, I could just move over to biotech, where a PhD is not really necessary to make plenty if you’re good at what you do.
I think also, a lot of women in science end up going to medical school.
Now I’m out of science and home just being mom. I shudder when I look at my local elementary school’s science scores. Horrible. I try to get my kids involved in science and observing and asking questions as much as I can. I feel like I have a lot to make up for their school’s shortcomings. I wish I didn’t have to.
Danio:
Word. Or, as said so colorfully above, “Wordy McWord-Word.” A few months ago, I or someone else on another of the Scienceblogs posted a link to this study:
http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/imagingthebody/Handouts/alexander_2002.pdf
Possibly the most comical piece of gender research ever to darken the pages of an academic journal. The reply from many of the commenters was “You’re just afraid to accept that research is proving these innate differences!” People who think fucking vervets fucking cook using modern implements. There are no words.
LisaJ:
I hope you realize that what you wrote is a logical fallacy and a kind of thinking a scientist must avoid. You are a sample of size one. And even the most adamant proponents of biological difference conjecture would probably agree that 99% (or so) of men are lousy researchers. You are asserting a refutation (“I know… is not generally correct”) but you provide no grounds for it.
Unless you are assuming that the assertion is that all men are better at research than all women, but that absurd statement would be a straw man. No sane person is saying anything even remotely similar to that.
“As one who spent over 20 years working for the federal government, I extend a hardy fuck you to the above comment. Along with almost every government employee I knew, I did my job professionally and efficiently. I object to some trash-talking jerk claiming that the federal government never does anything efficiently”.
That may be, but was THE JOB you did even necessary? Or was it parasitical?
And your co-workers?
And your department?
Did you produce anything of value?
It might also help if post-secondary education didn’t cost an arm, a leg, and your firstborn child. Aside from all the obvious things already pointed out, it’s becoming less feasible for people to have the money required for a good Masters or Doctorate (hell, even a Bachelor’s) degree. And if you have to get a loan because you don’t qualify for financial aid and can’t get a scholarship – that means you ransom out 10 years of your post-graduate life paying ridiculous money to pay it back plus interest! I think we might just have more people interested in getting a degree for what they really *want* to do (ie – Science, History, Math…) if they thought it was realistically obtainable in a financial sense.
Or, you may even have to wait to be employed by a company who will pay for your degree. But only if you take a company-related curriculum. Which usually means a Business Admin. degree or Liberal Arts with an emphasis on business related courses. Obviously it’s hard to blame a company for that restriction. I’m just sayin’.
The LORD… hates those who love violence,
And rains upon the wicked fiery coals and brimstone – Psalm Pilot
Wow! That LORD, he’s certainly the biggest and bestest hypocrite you could ever imagine, eh?
Women are entirely capable of doing science and math as well as men, but cultural forces and the pressure to conform to anti-science norms
Well said, PZ. I cannot count the number of women I have met who told me they were happy about getting Bs in math classes because they were told at some point that “girls just aren’t good at math” at some point in their educations. These aren’t intellectually lazy women; they wouldn’t accept anything less than an A in other classes. Cultural biases are deeply ingrained, and too many people cannot step outside the box to see that.
I haven’t finished reading the article nor its comments yet. No doubt I will have more to say after I do.
However, I do want to mention that one of the people who contributed a large amount to the solution of Hilbert’s tenth problem, was of the female persuasion. Her name was Julia Robinson and you can find out more about her at the URL below.
http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/robinson.htm
Turnabout’s fair play. You are asserting your view that women are intellectually inferior, providing no grounds for it, and then demanding that we disprove it. That loud rumble in the distance was my irony meter exploding.
No sane person would declare the issue settled based on what we know, but you are transparently trying to do exactly that.
We’re feeling the same pressures in the related field of computer and information science, too. A few years ago, we had the “dot com meltdown”, and people decided that getting computer science degrees was pointless… So we now have fewer graduates. However, the demand never fell for computer programmers. You should hear about some of the interviews we have.
I work for government too, and the salaries for incoming employees are such a joke that I would actively discourage anyone under 30 from signing on. I blame most of this on our clueless/spineless union, which I just quit. I just turned 50, and the way we’re getting treated now, if I was 35, I’d look somewhere else. Now that I’m vested in our retirement system, it’s not worth leaving.
I think all these science fields are suffering. I would strongly encourage college students to find a science-related major that encourages creativity. Programming computers is not mundane; you really have to think in an abstract and creative way. The “What if…” moments made famous in those old ads really do happen, and it’s my favorite part of the job. I do some of my best thinking while I’m riding a bike.
#77, I really agree with you. I worked in private for 5 years before joining government, and more-or-less predicted the end of the company I left because of their incredibly wasteful development techniques. In a nutshell, our CEO refused to move to Windows, because he hated Microsoft. I learned a good lesson right there… Never let your personal feelings dictate your business practices. Fine, our CEO hated Windows, but guess what? Hundreds of millions of users LOVE it.
No one ever heard of the OS my now-defunct ex-company produced. So, instead of $10,000/workstation, which is what they charged, our former customer base turned to $500/workstation software (and they were gonna buy the workstation anyway, so it really was $10,000 vs. $500).
This CEO tried to run for president, by the way. He spent tens of millions of dollars, and got a few thousand votes in New Hampshire, and dropped out. And he was a Republican.
That company failed because of an idiot Republican, and the very creative talent who got fed up with him and who all moved on to better things.
Scott from Oregon #83
I was in the military. You can argue either way as to whether my job was necessary or parasitical.
My mom is a special education teacher and so because the district won’t even hire one special ed teacher for each grade let alone one for each subject (my mom can and does teach two different grade levels and subjects in the same room at the same time). Since I’m more up to date on science than she is I’ve been helping her come up with ways to make science approachable for her students because it’s something she is receiving absolutely no guidance or support from the school about even what science topics she should be covering and forget money for equipment or new books. This is part of the problem, we have teachers who want to teach science well to kids but are given little to go on.
Azkyroth:
If you like telling transparent lies, go work for the McCain campaign and spare us your moronic posts.
Bullfighter, your original post was as follows:
Apparently I got your post confused with another, and you aren’t actually asserting that directly, so for that I owe you an apology. However, if you are in fact defending the viewpoint that women probably aren’t well-represented in science because their brains can’t handle it or that they’re programmed to like other things, as Summers was – or if you’re disingenuously claiming this is a hypothesis that is reasonable to assume given the available evidence, while running from the stigma of actually making this assertion positively – and yet are not motivated first and last by a desire to preserve the status quo and a personal conviction that women are inferior, you are the first such person I have ever encountered.
Yes! And it’s something unions have been trying to address.* It makes me angry when people talk about how graduate students and academics who support unions are so ridiculous because they’re all really part of the “elite.” To the extent that this is true (and it wasn’t in my case), it’s precisely what unions are trying to remedy. And GA/adjunct unions typically support daycare and reproductive coverage to make graduate work a more realistic possibility for women. No, not a panacea, and not always effective, but an important piece of the puzzle.
*There is also activism on the grant/loan front, which is key.
Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?
“Nationally, women now comprise fully 77 percent of students in veterinary schools, compared with 8 percent in the 1960s.
[W]omen are now earning 24 percent of the Ph.D.’s in the physical sciences–way up from the 4 percent of the 1960s, but still far behind the rate they are winning doctorates in other fields.
In a recent survey of faculty attitudes on social issues, sociologists Neil Gross of Harvard and Solon Simmons of George Mason University asked 1,417 professors what accounts for the relative scarcity of female professors in math, science, and engineering. Just 1 percent of respondents attributed the scarcity to women’s lack of ability, 24 percent to sexist discrimination, and 74 percent to differences in what characteristically interests men and women.”
Wood and Summers should pay a visit to their local science fair, science bowl or robotics tournament. They would be quite surprised at the number of smart, enthusiastic girls who are in the process of growing up to become the next generation of American scientists and engineers.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/gender-equity.html
Posted by: Qwerty | August 6, 2008 2:12 PM
The name of the act should be “no bureaucrat left behind.”
Re this post (#5) … Why cannot we leave ALL bureaucrats behind?
BWAHWHAHAHAHA!! Peter Wood is provost of a college espousing a “Biblical Worldview” and ONE “science” class called “Scientific Reasoning.” ROFLOL!!!
http://www.tkc.edu/abouttkc/
#96
That’s what’s called ‘selection bias’.
Bullfighter at #82. OK, I admit that I could have worded that statment better, and upon looking it over it doesn’t come across as I wanted it to. However, I followed that statement up with saying that I know many other female Scientists who feel this way, so I was not attempting to base my conclusion on only myself. I apologize for not stating this more clearly.
I interact with alot of Scientists on a daily basis. Both male and female. Most of them are good Scientists and are very productive, and I really do not see a trend emerging that all of the male Scientists I know are better and more productive than the females. The converse doesn’t appear to be true either. Sure, we may approach problems differently, but even that isn’t a strictly defined variable. So I just want to assert that from my observations males and females can both do the job. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and where these fall aren’t totally limited to the male/female divide either.
At my small commuter university, during the time when I was attending as an undergrad, female math majors greatly outnumbered men. My upper-level math classes always had more women than men, and as far as I could tell, the women usually did better than the men. Last semester I took an upper-level math class that was entirely made up of women (aside from the professor).
I just thought it was interesting. My school does have an atypical student body, being more of a commuter school.
And I’m pretty sure more men who graduate with math degrees from my school go on to grad school than women.
I have read the comments and I agree with a lot of what is said here. However, I think that I agree the most with the article quoted by Sharon at #18.
Were I asked for career advice today by an 18 year old with science or mathematical talent, here is what I would say:
“If you desperately love science or mathematics and you can’t picture living your life without them, then major in what you love, go to graduate school and devote your life to it. (I would probably say the same thing to anyone who desperately loved literature, the arts, music or social science.)
But….
If you only like science and mathematics and are thinking about other courses, then go to business school to get an MBA. Then you will be able to get a great salary and probably will end up supervising some of those people who chose to follow their hearts rather than cold, hard facts.”
The above advice has nothing to do with gender stereotypes. It has a lot to do with the fact that America does not realize that science and mathematics are difficult subjects that deserve a lot more respect than they get with a culture that tends to reward the business bureaucrats and bean counters.
Oops. The above should say
“Sharon at #16”
Sorry.
Good students’ abilities just do not rub off on their peers.
They don’t when teachers make sure they don’t.
In my high school algebra class, I didn’t want to pay attention in class, because the teacher was boring. Instead I’d do problems from the book, trying to see how little of the book I could read and still do all the problems correctly, and playing games with how fast I could do problems and how much I could do in my head. It was a far more entertaining way of getting through the hour than listening to Madame Boring drone on.
I had study hall each day before algebra class. Since I’d already done all the problems, it’d take me 5 minutes at the most to copy down the ones to hand in, and I’d spend the rest of the time teaching my classmates how to do algebra. It worked out pretty well for everyone.
Until the teacher intervened.
She didn’t want me doing problems in class. She wanted me to listen to her instead, despite the fact that I was doing fine without her. First she took away my notebook, so I did problems in my head, lightly penciled the answers in the book, and erased them later after I wrote out my homework to hand in. So then she took away my pencil. I spent class time doing problems in my head from the book. Then she took away my book. I spent class staring out the window. I now spent study hall either doing the homework or not bothering and reading a novel instead, and since I was no longer teaching them an hour a day, my classmates started doing a lot worse.
Funny, that.
Isn’t one of he reasons for this lack of motivation the glorification of mediocrity? As a society we constantly look down on the “smarter” individual- indeed, it is uncool to be Geeky, it is silly to know, it is stupid to want to study Science.I come across this in the “how much longer do you have to be in school” questions. It is not wrong to want to learn more. It is not wrong to want a PhD- nor to learn Math, or do well in Statistics. But it is perceived as such. Science is typically seen as “hard” ” boring” all despite how wonderfully fascinating it is. Mediocrity, downright stupidity is a bad.
“Ignorance is a premeditated crime.”
SC,
I have delicious union-loving cookies for you today :)
On that note, one of the problems our GA union has run into is the stagnant state funding. There is very little money in the U. budget to give us raises (or benefits, or child-care, etc). Additionally the administration thinks that GAs who make $550-1200/mo. are taking out student loans for “lifestyle” reasons. It couldn’t possibly be the $1100-$1500 we’re expected to cough up each semester to pay “fees” that aren’t covered by tuition waivers combined with skyrocketing gasoline (in an area where public transport is negligible), and rising costs of food and electricity/natural gas. But no, we need student loans for that vacation to Hawai’i and the newest Prada shoes.
Programming computers can be terrific fun, but you have to be pretty lucky to land a job that gives full vent to your muse: a lot of programming jobs are mundane shit-shoveling.
Originally, I wrote a long rant about software jobs, then thought better of it, but I’ll say this: if s/he were an average career-oriented individual, I wouldn’t wish climbing the greasy pole in a software shop on my worst enemy.
If recent trends are to be believed, the next generation of American scientists and engineers are in the process of growing up in India and China.
:o)
Here are some things about Peter Wood and the National Association of Scholars funded by Olin and Scaife among others.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/wood200508090808.asp
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=16210
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Scholars
Peter W. Wood is Executive Director of the National Association of Scholars. He is the author of A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now (Encounter Books, 2007) and of Diversity: The Invention of a Concept (Encounter Books, 2003) which won the Caldwell Award for Leadership in Higher Education from the John Locke Foundation. He is a graduate of Haverford College, Rutgers University, and the University of Rochester, from which he received a Ph.D. in anthropology in 1987. He previously served as provost of The King’s College in new York City, and as associate provost and the president’s chief of staff at Boston University, where he was also a tenured member of the anthropology department. His essays on American culture have appeared in The National Review Online, Partisan Review, Frontpage Magazine, Minding the Campus, The Claremont Review of Books, The American Conservative, Society and other journals.
…by marshaling market forces to make that engineering job in adulthood more attractive to 8 year olds. That’s not the answer.
I’m not sure I agree.
There are gobs of people who go unquestioningly into law or medicine because of the money and prestige, often with no real idea what the job involves or why they’re really going into it. The income of a field is something that effects the attitude of adults, and this attitude filters down to kids. The attitude of society in general is influenced by the income of the work.
It’s gratifying to feel you’re doing important work for the greater good of humanity, but going into science is a financially stupid move. You simply cannot deny that the poor pay drives people to more lucrative fields.
Maybe people driven at least in part by monetary reward are not “our kind of people”, but there’s no reason to think they’d do poorer work. We need more people in science and teaching, if only to provide more competition. To achieve that, greater pay would undoubtedly help.
I am one who is currently training to teach science – after intentionally leaving it until I’d put in a decade in a better paying field of work. When I have spent the years necessary to complete my degree and diploma, get through my probationary period, get a real job, and work for another ten years to get to the top of the pay scale, I’ll be earning about half of what I earn right now.
This is not helpful motivation. I’m doing it for the love, and I’m going the be a bloody good teacher, but you really can’t expect a lot of people to make a decision like that.
Science education is weird. I just got a B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Michigan, and now looking back, it seems like I made some mistakes. First off, the vast majority of my peers in the same major were all pre-med and had no interest in science. Second, I had a bad habit of skipping classes (especially humanities courses) to work in the lab, or I’d ignore the history professor while she was lecturing to read Current Opinion Journals articles. And though I had some terrific courses and great teachers, I did not feel as though the science education was really teaching me how to be a scientist, but rather just wanting me to memorize facts and regurgitate classical experiments. So I didn’t do well on exams, and I graduated with a B- average. The required courses in mechanical and quantum physics certainly didn’t help this, but neither did the endless list of proteins to memorize in Cell Biology. So now I feel like I’m trapped with a bad GPA but high ambitions, wanting badly to go to grad school and do really cool research but feeling like I won’t even be considered for admission in spite of my passion. So is there any advice for this kind of situation?
On the other hand, however, there is the advantage to me of few of my peers going into doing science: less competition for me. And as the tenured professors, who seem to be disproportionately near retirement age, fade out, new positions will open and perhaps be less politically competitive.
I have a friend who teaches graphic design at a community college in NC. She laments that she often has to teach students something as simple as how to use a ruler!
Ouch!
I go to a big school. Everyone here seems to agree science is the place to be. EVERYONE wants to be a doctor or a pharmacist or cure cancer or something. I kind of think we need to slow down and make sure the market has the capacity to deal with all of us, actually. I don’t buy the “science as dying art” thing for a second.
As for the inflated self-esteem of undergrads…ah, generalizations. :) In a class of several thousand, there are many kinds.
That Chronicle article was pretentious crap from top to bottom. Reads like someone shat a thesaurus all over it.
Ease up on the trigger finger. Bullfighter hasn’t claimed much of anything yet, but some of the hypotheses about greater variance in men or statistical differences in “interests” haven’t at least been falsified yet. I think it’s more productive to point out that such effects, if they exist, do not in any way exclude the role of a structural bias against women.
Has everyone heard of the “scissor diagram”? Most of us in academia would probably agree that it’s not just a case of the cream inevitably rising to the top ;) The data don’t seem to fit the interest hypothesis very well either, unless many women are so slow that it takes them about 10 years to notice that they weren’t that interested in science after all.
1) If money is considered the only thing worthy of respect, then people will behave accordingly. If people can’t expect either respect, or money, or security from a job, then the number of people who will do it are likely to be small.
2) In chemistry, it seems that larger companies are outsourcing either to smaller companies (likely with either lower salaries and benefits or with longer working hours or both) or to other countries. If the jobs don’t exist on graduation (or force one to choose between family and career), there will be fewer people doing them – which means fewer people will likely go to graduate school to provide the labor that enables the development of tools for people to use, and fewer people to teach others afterwards. Our preeminence in science is partly based on our research system, which won’t exist if neither jobs nor respect exist for those who might participate in it.
#110: I don’t think they will be American scientists – at some point, when jobs here move there, they won’t have to leave home to work. If there’s no one here to do research (or not enough people, anyway), they won’t have to leave to go to school and do research, either. Training your competitors is rather short-sighted, but we’re good at that.
I did not feel as though the science education was really teaching me how to be a scientist, but rather just wanting me to memorize facts and regurgitate classical experiments.
for the most part, that is the case for undergraduate education. There is a huge body of theory that must be covered first, before one can get a good idea where the next step in research lies for any given field, and have the tools necessary to be able to even begin to think about doing research on a specific topic.
Sometimes you can find individual instructors or special courses that will teach things like field methods and experimental design, but those are relatively few.
That said, there are always individual opportunities to learn available, even as an undergrad, if one invests the time and energy necessary to seek them out.
I had some great experiences with several professors and researchers at my undergrad alma mater, but I had to search them out and engage them on a specific topic, first.
That said, it’s been my experience that most training to actually BE a scientist comes when you become a graduate student.
Be careful, though, if you decide to continue your education, you might find yourself actually missing the simplicity of just having to memorize information.
;)
Maybe people driven at least in part by monetary reward are not “our kind of people”, but there’s no reason to think they’d do poorer work. We need more people in science and teaching, if only to provide more competition. To achieve that, greater pay would undoubtedly help.
exactly.
many of my early college level instructors used to say the exact same thing when we discussed this issue over 25 years ago.
Not arguing in any way, Ichthyic, but I do want to point out something that’s often overlooked in discussions of gender bias. What’s in play in a lot of cases is that men are offered opportunities that women aren’t. So it’s harder to point to negative treatment of women, because the bias takes the form of positive
What’s in play in a lot of cases is that men are offered opportunities that women aren’t. So it’s harder to point to negative treatment of women, because the bias takes the form of positive
Oh, I don’t disagree.
I was specifically addressing that person’s comment re: training to be a scientist as an undergrad.
Icthyic: for the most part, that is the case for undergraduate education. There is a huge body of theory that must be covered first, before one can get a good idea where the next step in research lies for any given field, and have the tools necessary to be able to even begin to think about doing research on a specific topic.
I think that’s primarily a problem in biology, because of it’s role as a proxy for pre-med education. It’s not the case in the soft sciences, and it’s not the case in engineering. In both, you are doing pretty hefty projects before they’ll let you out with a BS or a BA.
I even find biology graduate educations are starting to trend that way. It’s the “produce technicians” mindset. A doctor (in general) is not a scientist — she is a highly-respected, highly trained technician. The training for a career as a scientist should be completely different. It’s particularly funny, because engineers are technicians, but they are often trained with a much more scientific mindset than the putative future biologists, not too mention the oh-so-disdained sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists.
People do have to accumulate data. But there are a hell of a lot of little problems that could be done by a junior or senior, if they can think.
I think one of the main downfalls of science education is, as has been stated by many others, a lack of inspirational and excited teachers instilling the wonders of this reality in our children.
And I think the root cause of this dearth of inspirational teachers is the simple fact that teaching is not considered by our society as “the most noble” profession. They are severely underpaid, with the exception of in the more progressive school districts.
And the root cause of this societal mentality surrounding teachers and science education seems to be simple anti-intellectualism and the pervasiveness of religion.
No idea what happened there.
…advantages for men that aren’t offered to women – mentorships, encouragement, etc. In looking at gender/”race” bias, we shouldn’t underestimate these, largely unnoticed, advantages given to certain people even when others are worthy of them or actively seeking them out. It’s easier to point to active discrimination than to recognize these hidden advantages.
Toaster: So now I feel like I’m trapped with a bad GPA but high ambitions, wanting badly to go to grad school and do really cool research but feeling like I won’t even be considered for admission in spite of my passion. So is there any advice for this kind of situation?
Apply to a second tier school, and look for a good mentor. The distribution of good mentors is quite unrelated to the quality of the institution. Convince them in the interview process that you’re a good risk — that you “love” science”.
The reason to go to a tier one institution is to a) have a much easier time with the bureaucracy b) make connections. You’ll just have to put up with idiots running the paperwork for a), and make your connections by choosing a good mentor. Look now for people whose papers interested you. Contact people. Show your interest and your quality.
Everyone knows that there are lots of 4.0 GPAs that aren’t worth a damn, and a lot of young people who can shine when they find their spots. Just don’t try to apply for a spot in a Nobel laureates lab at Harvard; good odds it wouldn’t do you any good, anyhow. If anything, good odds that such a lab is trapped in the dogmas they created, with a bunch of post-docs who just want you out of their way.
@ #122
Think? Think!? But that would require effort!
So many cases of my peers not wanting to think about anything beyond the diagrams on the Powerpoint lectures, not wishing to even ken what they might mean or imply. So many times that I found myself explaining the statistics of PCR when someone finally bumped up against the whole “but there’s Taq in all the mix, and it could work on any of the DNA in the reaction, so why doesn’t it amplify everything?”.
But that’s the root of the problem, isn’t it? Thinking. Our school systems are constructed series of hoops to jump through by memorizing Equation X and using it in Prescribed Situation Y. The Why Z is ignored. Students are not taught to think, they are taught to perform. And critical thinking and knowledge synthesis? Nonexistent save for the rare gifted education program or real advanced placement course.
Daniel #123,
Yep. The message on TV is this: being thick/ignorant is cool, being smart/knowledgeable is uncool.
Teachers are no longer respected members of the community, they are now a sort of service staff: within a few years of my B.Eng., I was easily out-earning my mother, a career teacher at the top of the pay scale. Sad, but true.
Hey Scott, I work for the government. We do great stuff, actually. Lots of ladies here; I would say we have more female chemists in our branch than male. Many of them are able to balance work and family life through flextime, and there is a childcare facility literally a couple of yards away from the complex. All the mothers I’ve talked to have cited the flexibility and accomodating nature of government work as factors in their decision to stay here. They are able to function as parents and scientists. And they work DAMN hard, pulling overtime and coming in on weekends to check on runs. Some of them have supplanted sexist bosses and are now supervising the misogynistic asshats who used to give them a hard time. ;)
I’d just like to add that enthusiastic, competent science education in K-12 schooling is of critical importance. It’s not simple a matter of inspiring kids to go on with science, though that’s a factor. Much greater is the effect it has on the community at large. Kids who never go beyond their mandatory science classes can still be given a strong respect for what science is, how it works, and what it can do. A better grounding could shift the general public’s view of science in the long term, and that helps all of us.
In the absence of specific critical-thinking, logic and philosophy classes, science in K-12 can give people the tools they need to be good citizens.
One thing I used to do as a tutor was a 5 minute mini-class at the start, focusing on, for example, how to identify advertising claims that don’t actually say anything (“can help to fight the 7 signs of aging”, for example), or the problem of induction (which kids can get their head around), or just something from science that’s incredibly cool, even if unrelated to our subject. Often, it can be a correction to a popular misunderstanding of science (eg antioxidants – a great one for correlation vs causation, and for feeling smug that you know something that the population in general doesn’t), or a look at how our human minds mess with us (eg. if girls keep hearing that they are supposed to be bad at maths, then…).
Science education should give you new eyes to view the world with. Kids love to feel they have a power that others don’t – whether that’s the ability to scoff at misleading advertising to which you are now immune, or esoteric snippets of knowledge they can share with their families.
Basic critical thinking – which is the very essence of science – seems to be something that is dangerously lacking in the world, and that’s a bigger issue than science recruitment.
Summary: give me more money.
SC: In looking at gender/”race” bias, we shouldn’t underestimate these, largely unnoticed, advantages given to certain people even when others are worthy of them or actively seeking them out. It’s easier to point to active discrimination than to recognize these hidden advantages.
It’s almost impossible for people who haven’t experienced it to recognize it. It’s all those little things, the little choices that are never enough to accuse anyone of bias, but which are a pattern of bias. Those who don’t experience the pattern will always dismiss it as “oversensitivity”. It doesn’t take that much over the decades to make a huge difference in career trajectories.
But since those who dismiss it haven’t experienced it, it’s usually just narcissism on their part. I don’t see much that can be done about it, other than women and minority scientists putting out an effort to bring in more people like themselves, and waiting it out over time.
Fortunately, science really does have less bias than most other careers. It already is so internationally diverse, that the wall are really lower, people are really less biased and obnoxious (in general). Much easier to be a female scientist than a female engineer, or a black scientist than a black manager on Wall Street.
Well, just from the title of this one it seems plain that sexism still reigns within the hallowed expectations of western culture.
A parenthetical thought with the word ‘and,’ such as: “Motivating students (and motivating women) to pursue science careers.” Yeah, we all know women can’t be students, especially of the sciences because it takes a man’s mind to understand the male thought process, which, with many exceptions, has dominated scientific thought.
By the post’s title alone it is suggested that ‘students’ and ‘women’ pursuing science careers are different entities. Maybe that’s the point, I don’t know, but it’s time for me to vacuum now and make dinner.
G
Hey frog,
YOU—WAVELENGTH—ME
Fortunately, science really does have less bias than most other careers. It already is so internationally diverse, that the wall are really lower, people are really less biased and obnoxious (in general). Much easier to be a female scientist than a female engineer, or a black scientist than a black manager on Wall Street.
That’s good to know, FWIW. Still a lot of work to be done, though.
Toaster @ #113:
So now I feel like I’m trapped with a bad GPA but high ambitions, wanting badly to go to grad school and do really cool research but feeling like I won’t even be considered for admission in spite of my passion. So is there any advice for this kind of situation?
I feel your pain. My GPA was a bit higher than yours, but still on the low side for all those admissions requirements webpages.
Here’s what I’ve found out so far:
1. Always always always ALWAYS contact professors directly. Find some that are doing research you love (and are looking for students). Give them a synopsis of your education and talk up any lab work or independent research you’ve done. Get the manager of whatever lab you worked at (or the advisor for any independent research) to write you a recommendation. If the professor wants you, they will tell the admissions committee to accept you.
2. Don’t apply for a PhD program now, go for the Masters. A lot of the current PhDs I’ve talked to recommend that anyway – they said only crazy people go straight to the PhD. Admissions for Masters students aren’t as competitive as for PhD students. And if you’re really (crazy) good and really want to skip the Master’s you can probably upgrade once you’re accepted.
3. Take the Biology subject GRE. It’s a huge pain, but a good GRE score can compensate for a low GPA to an admissions committee.
4. This worked well for me: I got a year-long internship in a lab that wasn’t exactly what I was interested in but was close. The experience there + some guided research + a good recommendation letter from my boss helped me a lot, I think.
You’re Cell & Molecular so I don’t know if you’ll find something close to what you want here, but I found my internship with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service through the Student Conservation Association: http://www.thesca.org/
5. Seriously, persevere. Rejections suck, but you’ll probably have to wade through a lot before you get good news. Don’t give up.
I think that’s primarily a problem in biology, because of it’s role as a proxy for pre-med education.
I can see that relating, but still, even if one eliminates the pre-med issues, there is still a ton of theory that needs to be learned before one has a sufficient grasp of the field to be able to really consider productive research directions.
I’d say those issues are common to many fields of scientific endeavor, for that matter. An undergrad typically only has 4 years to get a bunch of information under their belts.
Moreover, from what I understand, much of Medical School itself involves an even larger amount of rote memorization.
But there are a hell of a lot of little problems that could be done by a junior or senior, if they can think.
well, sure, and that’s exactly what I meant about any given undergrad seeking out opportunities to do so, but how can one really consider appropriate solutions without understanding the relevant variables, first? How can one construct effective experimental designs without understanding statistics, for example?
I do recall all of my grad student friends and faculty advisers when I was an undergrad constantly reminding me not to disregard my classwork for my fieldwork experiments, or likely I would end up missing crucial information.
case in point:
At one time, I spent a few years working with a shark research foundation in Santa Cruz, that was originally started by a former commercial fisherman who had decided to become a conservationist.
well, this person was extremely knowledgeable (based on experience) with where and when any specific species of shark could be found for us to observe, but was totally clueless in interpreting what the observations of the sharks themselves really meant. He wouldn’t have a clue about what a sex ratio bias in a specific population might imply, for example, or how to go about constructing an experiment to test various hypotheses regarding it.
It wasn’t that he was dumb, it was simply a case of never having had the education in behavior and ecology to begin with, so he couldn’t even begin to fathom what the implications were.
I do recall my major professor lamenting the fact from time to time that many of the graduate students he had received over the years had NOT gotten sufficient undergrad educations in basic theory to be able to efficiently pursue their graduate studies.
remedial learning at the graduate level is a tough thing.
It’s the “produce technicians” mindset.
…or teachers?
Yes, I tend to agree that there have been cases where I have seen professors try to push strict (and short) limits on how long a graduate student can take for their PhD, even if their thesis involves mostly field work (for those that know, field work involves a tremendous number of uncontrollable variables, like the weather).
I think much of that attitude might be generated by pressure by administrations to admit more students into any given lab.
Regardless of the cause, it’s a noticeable enough trend in some places, and it’s tending to leave even graduate students a bit short on the training needed to really be a complete scientist.
My only recommendation to students seeking to pursue a career in science is to pick your school, topic, and adviser very carefully.
A doctor (in general) is not a scientist — she is a highly-respected, highly trained technician.
I’ve often wondered if that trend is at the root of why there are so many physicians these days that have such poor diagnostic skills.
It’s not the case in the soft sciences, and it’s not the case in engineering.
From the engineering students I’ve spoken with, there seems little intent to provide a foundation for diagnostic skills or experimental design (like with a physicist), but rather a focus on more applied technical skillsets (how to build stuff).
I could see a plausible comparison to a pre-med student, but when comparing to undergrad studies intended to prepare one for a career as a researcher, it’s not the same thing, really.
The CHE featured a great essay by Sherry Turkle a few months ago on this topic. A Passion for Objects: How science is fueled by an attachment to things. (http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i38/38b01101.htm) Well worth the read.
they said only crazy people go straight to the PhD.
My experiences would tend to support that.
Unless you are DEAD sure exactly what topic you want to pursue for a thesis, and you could do it pretty much even without any help from your adviser, and you have already locked down all your funding…
If you’ve got all that going for you, by all means go straight for the PhD.
otherwise, getting a Master’s first REALLY helps solidify training, garners a ton of needed experience, and really helps clarify exactly where one’s science career interests might really lie.
Toaster @ #113. I totally agree with Sharon’s post above. I also went through a time when I felt that my grades wouldn’t be good enough to get me into grad school, at least not in a good lab, or to get scholarships, and all that jazz. Being on the inside now I can definitely say that most PIs I know are more impressed by a student who shows initiative and a true interest in research than someone who just has a huge GPA. Definitely keep contacting people, and just persevere. I really believe that if research is something you really want to do, and you show that to the right people, then you will make some great opportunities for yourself. Good luck!
“””Hey Scott, I work for the government. We do great stuff, actually.”””
Well, I am glad to hear that!
After spending 1/8th of everything created in America to make it “safe” here and being done in by boxcutters, I am in a mood to hear of some “great stuff” done by the government to warrant skimming 40% every year out of the private sector which, as we all know, never did anything great…
The distribution of good mentors is quite unrelated to the quality of the institution.
That is just so completely correct.
It seems obvious when one understands how hard it is to get tenure track positions to begin with, but I had to learn that particular lesson the hard way myself.
Moreover, it’s often the case that some of the best minds choose positions with small universities specifically in order to have more time for research or smaller class sizes for better teaching experiences.
another general tip:
If you are studying to be an experimental researcher, typically sticking yourself in the lab of a young up-and-comer is more beneficial than being in the lab of a well-established, but near retirement, researcher.
you’ll get a lot more attention from the younger prof, typically, and they haven’t forgotten what it’s like to be a current grad student, since they were one recently enough.
Go to Europe. Unless things have changed in the last few years, nobody cares much about your GPA when applying for grad school. A lot of universities have brand new Master’s Degree programs.
Oh yeah, and I totally agree with Ichthyic above and others who have promoted getting your MSc first. I did this, and now I’ve switched labs for my PhD, and I think it was the best thing I could have done. I know alot of people will say that it’s a waste of time and all that to do your MSc and PhD separately, but trust me, you’ll come out so much more well rounded and with a much better sense of where your real interests lie.
I also wanted to comment on what Allytude said at #106 about people who give you the ‘how much longer are you going to be in school?’ line. That drives me absolutely up the wall. It’s a terrible and very ignorant thing to say to someone who is seriously trying to find their passion and achieve their goals. Especially when it comes from your closest family members, as in my case. It’s this pervasive attitude that sends the very wrong message to young people that getting a better education makes you a loser who just can’t figure your life out. I just want to turn around to these people and say “how much longer are you going to live an unfulfilled life in that job that you hate?” Seriously. For those of you who get this line from people, feel good in knowing that you really are doing the right thing by pursuing your interests and trying to find your passion in life. This is what life should be about! It’s quite sad that most everyone else hasn’t figured this out.
Sorry for the multiple posts, but I have to second what Ichthyic said above about how it’s beneficial to find a mentor who is young and just starting out. This is a wonderful piece of advice. I did my MSc with a brand new investigator who started his lab the day that I started with him. He was a wonderful mentor, and really still is to me. For those thinking about entering grad school, you will likely get much more attention and hands on training going with a newer investigator. They are trying to make a name for themself and are probably still really involved in the hands on lab work, so there’s likely to be alot of excitement there. My current lab is headed by a more established Scientist and she definitely isn’t able to give us all the attention I used to get. This is fine for me since I have alot of training under my belt already at this point, but I can see how it’s a tougher scenario for some of the newer MSc students. So this is definitely something to keep in mind when looking for a lab. Even now I make sure to collaborate or at least communicate with newer investigators at my institution, because they’re just great secondary mentors to have around. Definitely try to make these sorts of contacts when you get into a lab too.
Soft science? Show me so that I can throw my crystals at the heathens — along with my jade — and fumigate their immediate surroundings with burning sage.
You are not informed unless you carry a protractor every day, and actually use it.
That is all.
Icthyic:
@frog: A doctor (in general) is not a scientist — she is a highly-respected, highly trained technician.
I’ve often wondered if that trend is at the root of why there are so many physicians these days that have such poor diagnostic skills.
If you worked in a medical school, you’d know why — it’s how they’re being trained. They teach “case management” today, which in short means memorize an algorithm for giving out pharmaceuticals, then stop changing it if they appear to stop getting worse. I’ve had more than one old-school doctor tell me that retirement beckoned because of that mindset.
@frog: It’s not the case in the soft sciences, and it’s not the case in engineering.
From the engineering students I’ve spoken with, there seems little intent to provide a foundation for diagnostic skills or experimental design (like with a physicist), but rather a focus on more applied technical skillsets (how to build stuff).
Well, at the undergraduate level they are almost identical, if you’re being taught to build new stuff. My experience was of the latter — you were given really minimal design specs and were left on your own to fulfill it. The projects were pretty open-ended once you got past the first two years, which were much closer to research than what I saw in biology, where from day 1 to graduation you were memorizing or doing closed technical work in a lab (“How do you pipette… How do you run an NMR…”). Basically, it was all like chem lab, over and over again.
I could see a plausible comparison to a pre-med student, but when comparing to undergrad studies intended to prepare one for a career as a researcher, it’s not the same thing, really.
Being an engineer, you have to build your own equipment. Being a researcher, you are to some extent inventing your own equipment as you go — if you don’t develop new techniques, you’re not going to get new results. Being pre-med is nothing like being a researcher. MDs don’t invent techniques (other than a few clinical researchers). The reproduce what others have shown works, and applying it. Techs.
If you are studying to be an experimental researcher, typically sticking yourself in the lab of a young up-and-comer is more beneficial than being in the lab of a well-established, but near retirement, researcher.
I wouldn’t be too hasty there. As a first-approximation, it’s good. Avoid people in the middle of their career, most definitely. But there are quite a few old scientists who are no longer focused on advancing, have small labs, and are working on exactly what they wished they could have been working on all along, but were limited by the pressure of getting tenure, then keeping the grants coming in to increase salaries, fighting for lab spaces and post-docs, and so on. My best mentors have been guys nearing retirement who are doing the best science of their lives.
My best mentors have been guys nearing retirement who are doing the best science of their lives.
I’d have to say your experiences and mine differ quite radically in that particular respect.
:)
I didn’t realize how true this was until I read Jay Gordon’s comments on Respectful Insolence recently. He’s an experienced physician who doesn’t have the most basic understanding of science. Scary.
Yea…wait, what?
There’s many kinds of engineers. Civil engineers do a lot of building stuff. Chemical engineers make stuff and many of them find new ways to make stuff or ways to make new stuff. Mechanical and electrical engineers mainly operate and maintain stuff.
I was a nuclear engineer. I operated and maintained reactor plants, but I also had to have a good understanding of certain types of physics and chemistry. That’s so if there was a problem I could understand what exactly was going wrong, why it was going wrong, and what could be done to fix it. For instance, two byproducts of nuclear fission are xenon-135 (135Xe) and samarium-149 (149Sm). These two isotopes build up in the reactor core and are both “nuclear poisons.” That means they absorb neutrons and can have an impact on the reactivity. If a reactor is run at high power for too long, the core can be poisoned enough that the chain reaction is stopped. BTW, the operators’ attempts to overcome 135Xe poisoning may have been one of the causes of the Chernobyl disaster.
There’s research that shows giving students “clickers” so they can answer questions throughout a math or physics lecture, ANONYMOUSLY, virtually eliminates the difference between male and female scores (reference here, Ohio State University (2008, July 18). Students Who Use ‘Clickers’ Score Better On Physics Tests. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 6, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/07/080717092033.htm).
Monado,
Very interesting. Thanks for the link.
I must point out that I am a woman and tried being a Biology major and loved it- up until the math classes came along. I am an A & B student… I do not slack and I like to consider myself smart. I’m on the dean’s list. I failed basic high school algebra. I simply cannot tackle math, even with tutoring for homework, I still bombed the tests. I went back into something I am good at- art. I hope to combine science and art by doing scientific illustration or kids books about nature and science.
I hate to perpetuate stereotypes but.. I just so happen to be one of them in this case. I know there are women who are amazing with math. Not all of us are though! Not all men are, either.
Monado: #148
Posted by: Monado | August 6, 2008 9:34 PM
There’s research that shows giving students “clickers” so they can answer questions throughout a math or physics lecture, ANONYMOUSLY, virtually eliminates the difference between male and female scores
Yeah, differences in aggressiveness is a real problem — and the solutions are often wrong. I see a lot of “coddling” of females, because the aggressiveness of some scientific discussions drives them away.
What they need is more training by aggressive female scientists in aggressive contexts, but without men. They need training in pushing right-back at that bearded, bald alpha-male in a fairly safe environment, rather than going soft on them, and then being surprised as they move forward that they don’t know how to shout down the department chair who thinks he can bully you.
When I was still working in retail, I had to approve discounts on merchandise once in a while. Once I told the cashier, a high school senior, to take 10% off the price ($19.98). “How do you do that?” she asked me. I think I gawked at her for almost a minute before giving her the answer. Then she didn’t know how to subtract the $1.99 from the ticket price, either. “I’m failing math,” was her response. No, really? Yet, there she was running a till at a busy Walmart — just the kind of cashier people want. If it wasn’t for the machine telling her how much cash to pay out, she’d be flummoxed.
Yes, crappy teachers complicate matters when they can’t entice their students into getting excited about the world around them but you can’t just say we need more encouragement in science and math — we need more literacy, too. Increased reading comprehension in general would help get kids interested. The sheer volume of books available for learning about science is overwhelming, let alone everything available on the web. Encourage more reading about topics of interest in the science fields, support knowledge safaris into the strange and wonderful worlds of space and microbes. Get them to sample some biographies and read about the people who’ve changed the world with a thought. Get through to their “gimme gimme” mentalities that some things are worth working hard for and the reward for doing well might not need a dollar sign in front of it to make it valuable and worth being proud of.
That’s all from me.
I suspect everyone knows about this already, but just in case:
http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/01/0212/7b.shtml
(article itself – “Orchestrating Impartiality” – also can be downloaded)
When I was still working in retail, I had to approve discounts on merchandise once in a while. Once I told the cashier, a high school senior, to take 10% off the price ($19.98). “How do you do that?” she asked me. I think I gawked at her for almost a minute before giving her the answer. Then she didn’t know how to subtract the $1.99 from the ticket price, either. “I’m failing math,” was her response. No, really? Yet, there she was running a till at a busy Walmart — just the kind of cashier people want. If it wasn’t for the machine telling her how much cash to pay out, she’d be flummoxed.
Yes, crappy teachers complicate matters when they can’t entice their students into getting excited about the world around them but you can’t just say we need more encouragement in science and math — we need more literacy, too. Increased reading comprehension in general would help get kids interested. The sheer volume of books available for learning about science is overwhelming, let alone everything available on the web. Encourage more reading about topics of interest in the science fields, support knowledge safaris into the strange and wonderful worlds of space and microbes. Get them to sample some biographies and read about the people who’ve changed the world with a thought. Get through to their “gimme gimme” mentalities somehow and show them that some things are worth working hard for. Show them that the reward for doing well might not need a dollar sign in front of it to make it valuable and worth being proud of.
That’s all from me.
eek! twice posted. Sorry!
SC:
@frog: It’s particularly funny, because engineers are technicians, but they are often trained with a much more scientific mindset than the putative future biologists, not too mention the oh-so-disdained sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists.
Yea…wait, what?
Re-reading that, I wasn’t too clear there. I meant that the scientific training, in terms of “thinking like a scientists” is often much better for anthropologists, sociologists, even advanced academic PR than for biologists. They do actual projects — little projects, but actually apply the material. Their statistics are often better (particulary PR!).
Some disdain them as a softer science (purity index), but since they don’t have these giant pre-med classes all the way up through graduation, but usually do their last two years with a few small group seminar classes focused on an area of interest to the faculty member, they get a much clearer view of scientific thinking.
I really think that the pre-med mindset is terrible for future biologists. They need fewer textbooks, and more journal papers; fewer labs, and more internships; fewer tests, and more extended papers.
I hate to perpetuate stereotypes but.. I just so happen to be one of them in this case.
And I was the best student my math teachers/professors had had in all of their years of teaching, or so they told me and wrote in my recs. So this gets us where? Gah.
Re: Olly @ #6
Better that people like this don’t end up scientists. Let them scrabble for earthly possessions elsewhere.
Related: The greats — scientific and otherwise — of yesterday and today have all taken great gambles. Statistically speaking, Newton, Darwin, etc., might have looked around at the success/failure ratio of history and concluded that a new theory had “little guarantee” of being correct and instead have become business-people or whatever. Seems to me that female humans are significantly less risk averse than male humans…
Re-reading that, I wasn’t too clear there…
Ah. Yes, I read the opposite of what you intended wrt social sciences/studies. Perhaps I was distracted by So You Think You Can Dance. :) Thanks for clarifying.
Seems to me that female humans are significantly less risk averse than male humans…
And the simplistic, essentialist assertions continue…
(assuming you meant the opposite of what you actually said)
Qquiscula: I failed basic high school algebra. I simply cannot tackle math, even with tutoring for homework, I still bombed the tests.
Half the people who I see that aren’t “good at math”, aren’t actually bad at math. They just never got the trick — they try to memorize, since they’ve been trained to memorize, and never figure out that you can’t do math that way.
You have to do it like you do music (or art). You look for the patterns. You learn to do proofs, so you can derive from a handful of equations anything you’d ever want to do.
There’s only three equations for Newtonian physics (mostly). There’s only two equations for calculus, plus a set of transforms. HS Algebra only had one equation to learn! There’s a bit of a curve on applying it, but if you focus on that, instead of “memorizing for the test”, I’d bet that many, many people would be “good at math”.
I remember taking econ 101, and watching the other students memorize all the equations the lecturer’s equations. The entire course consisted of finding the intersection of two curves! You could do the course in one afternoon if you just recognized that simple fact.
Half the people who I see that aren’t “good at math”, aren’t actually bad at math. They just never got the trick — they try to memorize, since they’ve been trained to memorize, and never figure out that you can’t do math that way.
frog – Nice (kinder than my response, to be sure). I’ve actually been putting together an art/architectural history for math people / math for art historians course in my mind for several years now. It would be super fun to teach, and I think do a lot to bridge the gulf.
@ Azkyroth # 52
Oh I can see it. But I would be remiss if I didn’t give him and his obviously superior male brain the opportunity to show me exactly what these differences are. If you give someone enough rope and the opportunity they will usually hang themselves and save me the trouble.
;p
There’s a lot of training women not to be assertive, never mind to be aggressive, from the punishment for not obeying _cheerfully_ enough to the time the little boys in class figure out that if they discourage the girls they’ll get more computer time (which I read happened in some places) to the “I’d listen to your argument if you said it nicely” to not teaching them team sports where breaking rules is a calculated risk in some situations, it’s a lot of baggage to haul.
frog quoth: Half the people who I see that aren’t “good at math”, aren’t actually bad at math. They just never got the trick — they try to memorize, since they’ve been trained to memorize, and never figure out that you can’t do math that way.
I was exactly that kid. I couldn’t memorize worth a damn – I passed my high school calculus by working everything from first principles – unfortunately taking way longer to ‘work the answer’ than the kids who memorized. Still got an A though.
My challenge was math in college – in the UK at that time there were no ‘open book’ tests – so there was a shit-load of memorization. I could do all of he ‘class work’ with fewer errors (and often more understanding) than the majority of my peers (including the Math majors). But the only grade that mattered was the one at the end of the year! I barely scraped by for three years.
I was a comp sci major – I led seminars in data structures and algorithms to folks two years ahead of me – but in the end I had to drop out because I couldn’t memorize enough math. I failed one paper in my third year math too many times and was required to leave without the sheepskin. My department had no clout, because math & CS just didn’t get along (they were purists, we were technicians) and you needed the agreement of the department administering the exam (Math) to support an appeal. I essentially completed my CS classes through my final project (as a favor from my dept) but couldn’t satisfy the Math requirement. The third retry was too disillusioning, and I simply gave up and went into industry as a programmer.
GAH! I still *know* more math than almost anyone else I know. And I *still* need books for the shortcuts (standard integrals, Number Theory Axioms, and whatnot.)
Not that I’m bitter. :/
(and sorry for the rant)
On topic: Around 40% of my freshman class in CS were women. Around 80% of them graduated. Fewer than 50% of the men graduated. (For the arithmetic challenged: 80 freshmen: 32 women. 25 graduates. 48 men. 22 graduates) But of those only ten (8 guys two gals) went on to doctorates.
Better that people like this don’t end up scientists. Let them scrabble for earthly possessions elsewhere.
I guess we’ll never know, will we.
I am in Australia so the problem may be slightly different and probably less severe but the main issue i see here is in early schooling.
For background (not bragging…okay a little bragging) i’ll tell you that i have always been a gifted student. in Grade 3 i located (on my own) a year 8 maths book and proceded to work through that because the maths we were doing was so BORING. i pretty much got A’s all the way through school (except in classes i hated) and yet i was never allowed to skip ahead a year. Apparently it would have been bad for my social development although being a complete nerd was putting a bit of a cramp on it anyway. They wouldn’t even allow me to do advanced work in class as that would but too much pressure on that teacher (who i was already ahead of) so my time at school was mostly wasted.
By a complete fluke I am now at university studying engineering. I happened to come to an open day in my final year of highschool and met an extremely enthusiastic lecturer who told me that enrolling in Mining Engineering brought the possibility of being allowed to play with explosives. I still sometimes feel like im making up for time lost in school.
The point im trying to get to in an extremely long winded and roundabout way is that if you want to get intelligent students into science you must give them something intelligent to work on.
In primary school we did an experiment that studied the effects of salinity…sort of. what we ACTUALLY did was put salt water in a jar and wait for the water to evaporate and then look at the salt left behind. Even my little 9 yr old brain knew that that was not studying salinity. That was barely studying evaporation. It was stupid and redundant and a lot of school is like this. If you teach to appeal to the stupidest kid in the class no one is going to learn anything, but if you teach to the highest level you can then every one learns, and the stupid kids have a chance to catch up.
As number165 said, there is far to much memorising facts.
In geography you memorise capital cities, but you dont LEARN about the places or cultures. In history you memorise dates and battles but you don’t learn how affect the present.
You should teach as much as you can, as fast as you can because there is a whole world full of knowledge out there.
Teachers should not waste time telling children that they’re special. Thats what parents are for.
PZ said we study science ‘because we were inspired by the dream of learning more about the world around us, and we were motivated in spite of the difficulties of the subject.’ I study engineering BECAUSE of the difficulties. And im sure theres many children out there today who would too.
To summarise; Education should be difficult. It should involve lots of new and complex ideas. It should bring the world into the classroom. Children WANT to learn, it’s what they are designed for.
Education should not involve pandering to the childs ego.
A ‘No child left behind’ policy actually means no child gets ahead.
Being a woman in engineering i really can’t see what all the fuss is about. Yes, 90%of engineers are men, but maybe more men WANT to be engineers?
Someone mentioned that there’s a cultural pressure on women to start popping out the young-uns in their mid twenties – if there is i’ve never seen it. I grew up with the idea that you went to primary school, highschool, university, got a job and THEN thought about a family. Maybe my family was more supportive than others who want their daughters to be good house wives, i don’t know.
Though i hestitate to do this, i happen to agree with peter wood’s stance on trying to push women into science. I’m not complaining because it happens to benefit me but it is unfair and sexist. Why would a woman NEED special incentives to go into science? i didn’t. I’m here cuz i wanna be.
Out of 60 engineers in my year there are 3 girls, but i have never once felt discriminated against of belittled at all. Maybe i just have nice guys around.
I think sometimes men feel compelled to defend the preferential treatment of women in the same way that whites sometimes feel compelled to defend the preferential treatment of blacks (I refuse to use 7 syllables when one do). But it is still discrimination, even when it favours the minority, and it is still wrong.
Pyrette,
I don’t believe it’s necessarily societal pressure to have children, but the basic understanding of biology. In a program like anthropology you can expect to be in school until you are 30 when you’re after a PhD. Then you’re in the post-doc or (hopefully) the tenure track position. By the time you’re in a position where you aren’t working 60 hrs/wk, your fertility might already be suffering. It’s not about having kids early; it’s about not missing your fertile years. This isn’t an issue for men.
I am in Australia
Someone mentioned that there’s a cultural pressure on women to start popping out the young-uns in their mid twenties – if there is i’ve never seen it.
Honestly, as you said, you’re in Australia where the average age at first birth is 30.7 years. Here in the US the average age at first birth is only 25.1. There’s obviously a cultural difference there. I’m only 27, but many of my friends already have children, and they put a lot of pressure on me to have one too.
Not to be a downer or anything, but realistically you (as a woman) only have until 40 or so to have kids, especially if you’re from a family like mine where women tend to go through menopause in their early 40’s. This is a big problem in academia where the system is set up by males. One of the biggest topics among the female grad students I know is how to combine an academic career with having children. Most of the women I know in academia either have very dedicated spouses who help in child-rearing or they are constantly stressed. There aren’t many good options here in the US, especially if the on-site day care doesn’t reserve spaces for faculty members’ children.
When I was a child I consistently tested in the 90th percentile and above in both math and verbal skills. I actually tested quite a bit higher, more like the 97th, in math. Math came effortlessly to me, and I openly described the joy I found in “getting” a concept and finding the answers to problems.
I spent middle school in a small town in Kansas and I would watch the boys be promoted to advanced math classes, while I was told what an excellent writer I could one day be. In high school in Maine I was placed more appropriately, but still, even as I took AP science and advanced math, never was it suggested I might enjoy a career in the fields.
Even my mother, who made a fuss at spelling bees over the use of male pronouns in referring to the contestant, would tell me what a great writer, artist, poet, lawyer, etc. I could become.
Recently I realized, while considering a change to a biology based field, that while I was congratulated on the math scores and science accomplishments, no one ever said “you could be such a great scientist or engineer, or computer programmer some day.”
Don’t tell me there’s not a social element to the gender bias in the fields.
All this time and nobody’s posted the classic xkcd yet?
http://xkcd.com/385/
Story of my life. I attribute my BSc with physics hons (1st class) to my extreme stubbornness and blindness to all social deterrents as a teenager. And my dropping out of *3* PhD programs to a combination of stupidity, stubbornness, and my gradual growing awareness of the insanity of the whole thing.
You do realise that a PhD student needs mentoring, right? And that was the exact point for me & my peers back in the 1980s when the social differences in treatment finally started mattering. While I was doing exams, I was the straight A+ student. Teachers saying stupid sexist stuff didn’t matter as long as they marked fairly.
When the social stuff started to become relevant, it was all downhill. Why did some students get asked to co-author papers, and go to conferences, and do part time summer lab or editing jobs, and others get left alone to fend for themselves? Why were all the former boys and all the latter girls? I finally started getting suspicious around that point. And now I’m in IT, and I write about food.
Just to throw in my two cents as a long time reader of this wonderful blog –
I’m an Aussie and was educated in a K-12 private anglican girls’ school. Yup, gender separation AND religion!
However – aside from weekly chapel services and ‘beliefs and values’ class being taught by annoyingly religious chaplains, the curriculum was nicely balanced, generally well-taught and streamed so that the academically minded people went where they needed to and the less inclined did a different curriculum entirely and went into something that pretty much equalled apprenticeships as high school graduation equivalency.
We were taught genetic progressions, LOTS on evolution, hereditary genetic traits, went on biology excursions and even those in our classes who were religious didn’t bat an eyelid. And this was an anglican school – eucharist in the weekly chapel services and everything. Our science education was pretty wonderful and really interested a lot of kids in the class. Talking to people who went to public schools, I find that our educations really didn’t differ much at all, though they had no religious stuff and both sexes attended the same classes. Even our elective subjects weren’t necessarily that ‘feminine’, I took woodwork and electronics as two of my favourites, though the ever-present ‘home economics’ was also fun, considering all we ever did was cook. :)
Just a look inside my own education as a comparison for anyone who’d like to see a system that, in my humble opinion, works.
Uh… excuse the terrible wording, I may be an atheist and scientifically minded but I’m not exactly the brightest tool in the proverbial shed :)
All this time and nobody’s posted the classic xkcd yet?
Perfect.
I’m amazed at the low expectations of my students. Last semester I taught intro bio for majors. NOBODY in the class had an average above 85, and there were plenty of opportunities for extra credit. When I asked students why they thought they were doing badly, they replied “I’m not doing that bad, I have a B”. This is a community college, folks, where a B can’t compete with an A from Harvard.
I don’t understand why they think so little of themselves.
SG
frog:
What they need is more training by aggressive female scientists in aggressive contexts, but without men.
Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than that. Some recent work, looking at the role of gender in negotiations, has found that aggressiveness/assertiveness, which generally has positive results for men, can work against women because it violates gender stereotypes:
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/11.08/01-gender.html
It’s all very annoying.
PZ, I could hug the heck out of you for this post. As a woman who studied and trained as a microbiologist and ended up following a different career due to constant limitations set upon me and my career by my male supervisors, I can attest that it’s largely cultural limitations rather than biology that limit what women are capable of.
But who knows, maybe I’ll go back for a doctorate in biology and kick some ass in the near future. I’m certainly getting the academic bug again!
Yes, 90%of engineers are men, but maybe more men WANT to be engineers?
Speaking as one who has hired engineers on several occasions, I’ll point out that female applicants were few and far between. In my career, I have yet to encounter any manager who would dismiss a female applicant out of hand.
-jcr
Well, my take on it all? First, I come at this from a couple of backgrounds. I did four years of graduate research in organic synthesis and then decided to go to medical school, and after 20 years in medicine, decided to quit and try my hand at teaching at the local comm college.
It seems to me whether science or math ability is innately the same for both genders in equal distribution (and I’m not convinced it is) is not the main issue. As Pinker suggests, there is undoubtedly a difference in interests. I don’t believe this difference is purely cultural, any more than I believe the gender difference in the number of duck hunters is entirely cultural. Many people are interested in the facts of science, but I think there is a gender difference in the number of people who want to DO science.
I have seen a big shift in the ratio of female medical students….students clearly academically qualified…who have brought a welcome change to the status quo in medicine. Medicine brings with it people oriented work. It’s no secret that women tend to go into primary care. Would these capable women have been just as happy building bridges or studying fungi in a lab? I doubt it. But I don’t think that would have been too much of a leap for more of the males.
As far as research goes, in the chem lab I think it was a disadvantage for some of the women that they did not grow up doing the male “thing” of putting stuff together and tearing it apart to see how it works, fixing cars, playing with bugs, building log bridges across streams, whatever. Seemed to hinder their confidence. On paper they did fine however. Female interests are just different on average…and I don’t think it’s all cultural tinkering with the blank slate. Could be different now…if boys don’t get the chance to do “boy” things, the confidence margin may be narrowing.
Steps back to avoid thrown objects…
I don’t understand why they think so little of themselves.
Probably because they grew up in considerable comfort, compared to the previous generation. That tends to take the edge off of ambition.
The best students to be found are usually either those who are the first in their family to go to college, or foreign students for whom college in the United States is a tremendous opportunity. Middle-class kids who are just there to get their ticket punched really can’t be bothered to work for top marks.
-jcr
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2008/08/women_part_1.php
Steps back to avoid thrown objects…
I, for one, wouldn’t even bother. Your comment was nothing but a typical, boring series of generalizations and unsupported assertions based on nothing but your own anecdotal experience interpreted through the lens of your personal biases.
SC@181,
He’s a “libertarian” – what can you expect?
You and your readers may want to look into progressive education.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_education
My elementary school-age children go to a charter school that generally follows these principles. The curriculum varies, is not predetermined, and is emergent based on what the students collectively decide to do in each classroom. Large multi-week projects at the classroom (or even grade level) come out of questions the students ask.
The students don’t do tests, except government-mandated ones, and the school averages better than its partner public school district.
The students love the school, love learning, and manage to come up with some really engaging work and are guided by the teachers, rather than drilled by them in rote memorization.
He’s a “libertarian”
Still bitter over the name-theft. The people I studied, who were activists a century ago, were still calling themselves libertarios. It’s now almost impossible to translate without confusing people, so I had to leave it untranslated. *grumble*
“Why would a woman NEED special incentives to go into science? […]
Out of 60 engineers in my year there are 3 girls…”
Read this again. And again. And again. Men make up 50% of humanity, but 95% of your engineering class. In elementary school, boys and girls are equally interested in and do equally well in math and science–so it’s probably not a question of innate talent or interests. It’s only in middle school and high school that that girls quit math and science, and the end result is a school like yours (and mine), where 90% of the girls have quit.
Doesn’t that strike you as pretty astonishing? Think there might be some social programming at work here? I don’t know about you, but *I*, growing up in San Jose and heir to a long line of geeks, was stunned at the revelation–at sixteen–that I could have a career in computer science. It had honestly never occurred to me. I may have missed the “girls are bad at math” thing (my sister got it, though, and she’s the gold medalist in the family), but I’d certainly gotten the “girls don’t do technology” programming (har!), not to mention the “girls are modest and wait for people to notice their achievements rather than advertising them” programming, which has made my professional life rather more difficult than it had to have been.
SC, I love ERV’s stuff. I’ve recommended her site to my students…the best of which have been foreign females, by the way.
What was it that struck a nerve? That I applauded females in medicine? That I said someone who has never turned a screwdriver might not feel ready to build a scientific apparatus? That I insinuated that girls don’t build pipe bombs at ten years of age like I did because they aren’t interested in that?
More power to women. They should have every cultural encouragement to do whatever they want. Just don’t try to tell me that when that happens you expect to see a 50/50 ratio in all lines of work. Gender differences matter in the choices we make.
Thuktun,
You might be interested in the Modern School (rationalist education) movement, founded by Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia around the turn of the 20th century:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesc_Ferrer_i_Gu%C3%A0rdia
(There’s a book about the movement in the US by Paul Avrich.)
Sam,
I think I stated quite clearly in my comment @ #181 what the problem is with your lame, tired contentions.
More power to women.
Oh, shove it.
What was it that struck a nerve? – Sam
Maybe the sneering condescension, repeated here? Just can’t help yourself, can you?
Then why are a half or a majority of biology students women, in most places? Are they too stupid to realize that they hate fungi until they’ve spent about 10 years doing biology, or could there be some other explanations for the “leaky pipeline”?
Besides, if this all stems from our hunter-gatherer past or some such thing, wouldn’t you expect women to be really into fungi? :P
“Better that people like this don’t end up scientists. Let them scrabble for earthly possessions elsewhere.”
Well, that’s exactly the type of condescending scientific exceptionalism that turns people off. “Scrabble for earthly possessions?” Does your family subsist on the leavings of your lab bench?
People who are otherwise qualified to become good scientists often realize that it’s in their rational best interest to choose a different career, particularly if they enjoy science but aren’t zealots about living in the lab. But by all means, extol the purity of the scientific enterprise. That’ll expand the size of your flock.
Like I said above – my major was CS, and I started my career as a programmer.
Warning: Anecdotal evidence follows
The best programmers/delevopers I’ve encountered have been 50/50 male/female. However, in general, the most diligent at determining the requirement, and delivering on the requirement first time, have been women at an absurdly high ratio. Conversely, the ones who could take a ‘napkin’ requirement and turn it into a deliverable have been predominantly male.
I’ve often pondered why that is.
All I can think of is that guys are ego-boosted by being ‘guru hakorz’ so they typically produce what *they* want to produce, and are often found to ‘interpret’ requirements to make them ‘better’ by their own definition of better.
The majority of women programmers I’ve encountered have less ego invested in the process. They know what to do, how to do it well, and deliver what they need to deliver (and generally solicit more input on requirements until they really get it).
In other words: Most guys deliver with ego. Most women just deliver.
Don’t know if this is in any way a truism, if this is founded in real gender differences, or is due to an imposed cultural bias. But it’s a consistent observation over twenty-plus years in the IT business.
Not to say this is an absolute – I’ve had egotistic female hakorz, and genuinely solid and reliable male developers. But it is a very visible trend. So much so that I’ve built teams around this bias to ensure success (hakorz/male where requirements are fuzzy and I need ego; reliable/female where requirements *should be* solid and I simply need a solid competent product)
I wish it were otherwise, ‘cos there are way too many hakorz.
Pyrette: Out of 60 engineers in my year there are 3 girls, but i have never once felt discriminated against of belittled at all. Maybe i just have nice guys around.
Well, we’d have to see the hours worked, the salary composition and the promotion rates.
I’m sure they’re nice guys. But do you go with the guys to the strip bar? They do go, you know — it’s a young male engineer universal.
Once you have an imbalance like that, it’s inevitable that the “outsider” is going to have a tougher row to hoe. It’s not malevolence on anybody’s part (often) — but simple cultural incompatibility. Unless you’re more male than the guys, or whiter than than the whites, or more anglo than the anglos — there’s going to be missed opportunities.
Windy, thanks for putting forth a point, as opposed to assuming that I’m sneering at people. First it IS great to see so many women now studying the sciences at the college level. Attitudes have changed in the last 40 years. I probably would have been an art student if attitudes had been different then. And I probably would have stayed in chemistry if the attitude had not been “You need to make more money than that”. So, we all have had crosses to bear…and maybe regrets.
Maybe times have changed, but no matter who was in a bio or chem class, 80% were premed…and they didn’t want to do science for a living. How does that match up with your class? With the worsening of male performance in colleges, I’m not surprised at the increasing female ratios. Females are in greater proportions in the top GPA’s at many schools. Which, I guess, begs the opposite question. Why are men failing….culture or choice…or discrimination?
And Windy, I’m not saying women can’t be interested in fungi or do a good job studying them. It’s just my feeling that if you polled the population, more men would like the idea of studying fungi. That’s all I’m saying.
SC, you don’t mind if I continue to encourage my female students to strive for more, do you? I had a couple this year who would be grad school/med school material. They just wanted to be nursing assistants. Or I could just shove it.
SC: Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than that. Some recent work, looking at the role of gender in negotiations, has found that aggressiveness/assertiveness, which generally has positive results for men, can work against women because it violates gender stereotypes:
Yes, it’s a vicious loop. Goes (in inverse) for minorities. Hispanics and blacks are expected to be aggressive and emotional (female mind in male body), and so any justified aggression or emotionality is over-interpreted as a sign of craziness, while for WASPs it’s treated as reasonable.
Crazy, crazy, crazy.
It’s just my feeling that…
Yes, you’re very long on feelings and personal anecdotes, very short on sociological knowledge and substantiation.
SC, you don’t mind if I continue to encourage my female students to strive for more, do you? I had a couple this year who would be grad school/med school material. They just wanted to be nursing assistants. Or I could just shove it.
Not mutually exclusive: Continue to encourage them, and shove it.
Just wanted to share my grad school experience as a woman. A few points that stand out in my mind.
1) My program director told me that if I got pregnant I’d have to get an abortion. Female scientists can’t have families and work the hours necessary to get ahead, let alone take care of their children once they have them. I never had plans to have children at that point in my life, but it was made clear that I shouldn’t whether I wanted to or not. A married student had a baby and was not treated the same afterwards, and another was forced out of the program after having her baby. She can’t keep a postdoc because of the time her family vs lab requires; though she works 40 hours a week, it’s not enough. She had to switch to a monotonous industry job.
2)I had a few great professors, and then others who told me I was just a student and didn’t matter. Anything I wanted from them my advisor would have to talk to them about. So I had to adjust part of my dissertation to not use their equipment as my advisor wanted, because he couldn’t “babysit” me in the other lab.
3) A social life was not possible, but I was constantly told that it was expected, since I was a girl I must be on the hunt for a man and it’s best to do it as a grad student so I wouldn’t have to waste the time as a postdoc. Really, do we live in the dark ages?
4)There is little funding, this is a problem across the board. There are fewer postdoc positions available then students graduating, and the pool is getting deeper. My lab lost funding twice during my 4.5 years in the PhD program. It’s hard to take on a job when you don’t know if you’ll be able to afford to eat, regardless of how much you love it.
It’s a bit different where I’m from (N Europe), there’s no official “pre-med” track but some people do go into biology because they aren’t sure, or because they didn’t get into the med track and want to try again later. There were a few people like that in my class, but we assimilated most of them :) (=they became biologists)
But ignore the pre med students and the general population – of those who go to or remain in biology, with the intention of studying fungi*, at least a slight majority are still women in many universities. (Both in studying fungi as in mycology, and studying fungi as in model organisms of molecular biology) How do you square that with your expectation of greater male interest in fungi?
*actually very few bio students know from the start that they want to study fungi, so I don’t think there are any statistics about this. But mycology is usually affiliated with botany for historical reasons, and the sex ratio of aspiring botanists is in my experience somewhat in favor of women.
SC, alright it’s shoved already.
We’re talking opinions and anecdotes regarding the disparity of men and women in science. I think it’s due to culture, choice, and discrimination. Just in case I missed it, can you point me to the “sociological knowledge” I lack that would predict a 50/50 ratio of men and women in sciences at the top level.
Sam: I think it’s due to culture, choice, and discrimination.
You do realize that #1, #2, and #3 are the same damn things, right? That you can’t distinguish them in practice?
Culture is at the collective level, choice is the facet seen when looking at individuals, and “discrimination” is the word we use when we don’t like it. They’re all being driven by the same phenomena, and by choosing the word you’re simply choosing which objects to study the phenomena through?
It’s those libertarian arbitrary divisions that are then naturalized that just piss me off. Either stupid or malevolent. Being a benign sort of person, I assume the former.
Scott:
Here’s some of what we do:
http://www.epa.gov/SW-846/main.htm
I’m not sure who said the private sector never did anything great? You seem a bit paranoid.
We’re talking opinions and anecdotes regarding the disparity of men and women in science. I think it’s due to culture, choice, and discrimination. Just in case I missed it, can you point me to the “sociological knowledge” I lack that would predict a 50/50 ratio of men and women in sciences at the top level.
“We” aren’t talking anything. You are making unsupported claims based upon your own experience (as interpreted by you) and personal prejudices. I, as a sociologist, find this tiresome and irritating. While gender isn’t one of my subfields of expertise (I have taught Sociology of Work, in which these questions have come into play), I know what constitutes evidence and I understand how individual choices and careers are shaped and constrained by sociocultural forces. Your response to windy shows that you do not. I suggest that you take a course or two in this area, or at least go to Amazon and do a search for “women science” and try some reading.
“But ignore the pre med students and the general population – of those who go to or remain in biology, with the intention of studying fungi*, at least a slight majority are still women in many universities. (Both in studying fungi as in mycology, and studying fungi as in model organisms of molecular biology) How do you square that with your expectation of greater male interest in fungi?”
Well, all we have to do is explain why not everyone ends up doing what they would like to for a living. Tough task. But that’s what we’ve been talking about, isn’t it? Many factors and only anecdotal evidence. I lack the “sociological knowledge” to explain northern Europe’s preponderance of female mycologists. What do you think?
I Googled my name, which is a fairly rare German name, and once, a female German PhD specializing in algae showed up. Never thought that little piece of information might come back to me…but here it is.
Maybe times have changed, but no matter who was in a bio or chem class, 80% were premed…and they didn’t want to do science for a living. How does that match up with your class?
See, this is exactly the problem. The plural of anecdote is not data. Here’s some statistical information for you to chew on:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/sex.htm
Well, all we have to do is explain why not everyone ends up doing what they would like to for a living. Tough task. But that’s what we’ve been talking about, isn’t it? Many factors and only anecdotal evidence. I lack the “sociological knowledge” to explain northern Europe’s preponderance of female mycologists. What do you think?
That you’re an ignorant twit who’s fond of the argumentum ex culo and apparently incapable of approaching a problem sociologically. And, specifically, that you don’t understand the significance of spatio-temporal variation to this question because you’re so tied to your essentialist presuppositions.
No, the dominance of female undergraduates in biology (not pre-meds) in N Europe is an easily discoverable fact, your guess of men being more interested in fungi is not even an anecdote.
Sam said,
If women aren’t doing as well as men it’s innate differences, but if men aren’t doing as well as women it’s a cultural/sociological problem?
Gee, I think the explanation for men failing is that they’re just not as smart as women. It’s a biological thing. After all, everyone knows that women have larger brain to body size ratios. /sarcasm
If women aren’t doing as well as men it’s innate differences, but if men aren’t doing as well as women it’s a cultural/sociological problem?
But of course! Anything to cling to the essentialist beliefs. I’m calling it Cooking Vervet Syndrome.
Frog: “They’re all being driven by the same phenomena, and by choosing the word you’re simply choosing which objects to study the phenomena through?”
The study of your “phenomena” doesn’t seem to have produced theories that would predict a 50/50 ratio of men and women in science, personal interest, or the variable expression of discrimination. Is Windy just a product of this phenomena?
SC: “I know what constitutes evidence and I understand how individual choices and careers are shaped and constrained by sociocultural forces.”
Sorry, didn’t mean to tread on another’s niche. Maybe you can tell me why I gave up medicine and started teaching when it was clearly not in most of my interest to do so? Opps, there’s that “interest” word again.
By the way, what are my prejudices? That I think little boys like to play with trucks?
Is Windy just a product of this phenomena?
Umm, what? O_o
From the NSF:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/figd-1.htm
Probably higher now.
Sorry, didn’t mean to tread on another’s niche. Maybe you can tell me why I gave up medicine and started teaching when it was clearly not in most of my interest to do so? Opps, there’s that “interest” word again.
By the way, what are my prejudices? That I think little boys like to play with trucks?
Is it possible that Sam is moving even further away from a sociological perspective as this discussion progresses? Right, Sam. Boys like to play with trucks, girls with dolls. The vervets have shown us that this goes far back in our evolutionary history. This essential difference is of course at the root of gender discrepancies in scientific representation at the graduate and professional levels, despite any evidence to the contrary.
This looks like a good time for a little C. Wright Mills (but then, when isn’t?):
http://www.lclark.edu/~goldman/socimagination.html
SC,
Thanks for the stats.
Thanks SC, looks like it’s not only a freakish Northern European thing ;)
“Summers was not speculating in league with neurological evidence — he was babbling about the anecdotal evidence from preferred toys in his children to justify patterns of discrimination against women.”
Wrong.
I mean downright, utterly, wrong.
I’m no fan of Larry Summers, less so after the servile cowardice he displayed in the face of the PC lynch mob, but he neither said nor implied any such thing in his comments.
Here’s a good, brief piece on the matter by Will Saletan in Slate.com…
http://www.slate.com/id/2112570/#
The text of Summers’ remarks…
http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html
Also from Harvard (the Crimson online) are these remarks from Steven Pinker…
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=505366
This is an especially choice bit from Pinker…
“Incidentally, another sign that we are dealing with a taboo is that when it comes to this issue, ordinarily intelligent scientists suddenly lose their ability to think quantitatively and warp statistical hypotheses into crude dichotomies.”
My, my. Just like Myers’ above-quoted strawman misrepresentation of Summers’ statements.
I’ve said it before (re the Cracker Affair) and I’ll say it again here: I respect PZ Myers’ intelligence and expertise and his forthright defense of science and secularism but sometimes ideology gets the better of him.
“By 2005, women earned 45% of S&E and 61% of non-S&E doctoral degrees to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, up from 8% and 18%, respectively, in 1966.”
I give up, ladies. This twit is impressed with the changes in numbers over the years and I may have to rethink my “prejudices”, at least for the interests of the college crowd. Besides, if gender differences in career interest aren’t real, it appears that men are being discriminated against now in the non-S&E fields. Psychology must be a real nest of male hate. Hey, just kidding.
I give up, ladies. This twit is impressed with the changes in numbers over the years and I may have to rethink my “prejudices”, at least for the interests of the college crowd.
FWIW, Sam, I’m very impressed by this. Sorry if I was a bit rough – I can be something of an internet thug at times.
Hey, just kidding.
I should hope so. :) (By the way, psychology is considered by the NSF to be an S&E field.) I really do encourage you to pursue these questions in more detail, but I guess that would be expected of a sociologist.
best way to figure out if a phd is for you, and get the critical letter of reccomendation (seriously, the most important thing in your application) is to be a tech/research assistant in a real proper academic lab for 2 years.
boston, san fran, san diego, chicago, the nih, new york, or any big med school.
it’s so hard to find good techs! they’re pure gold.
Azkyroth:
Apology accepted. Mistakes happen.
As for my own views, I am open-minded, as is Summers (or at least as his much-maligned speech was). Summers never expressed the viewpoint you seem to be ascribing to him. In fact, the only factor he positively asserted was contributing to inequality is discrimination. But he outlined some reasonable questions that should be answered using scientific methods, in order to be able to evaluate the success in eliminating discrimination. I find that entirely reasonable, and I would describe the reasoning of his detractors as faith-based.
LisaJ:
I really don’t think that anyone is asserting that a typical (current) male scientist is more productive than a typical (current) female scientist. The questions that stir controversy are: (1) Why are there so many more male scientists? (That’s only the case in physical sciences, not in biological sciences.) (2) Why are there so few women tenured science professors at the most elite universities? And a corollary: if the numbers in (1) and (2) were equalized, would there be a gender difference in productivity? (Or, to put it in less contentious terms, would there be an inefficient allocation of intellectual work across genders and disciplines?) There is, of course, a corollary to the corollary, because if the answer is “no”, then the answer to the inefficiency question in the current situation is “yes”.
SC, no problem. As Sam Harris says, the definition of being rational is that we can be convinced by the evidence. I hold very few “prejudices” dearly and thinking that males may hold science in more esteem than females is not something I was wed to. Fixing cars may be something different…otherwise we still have a real problem with discrimination against female mechanics! What I am wed to however, is that the female and male minds are not blank slates that we can expect to show equal interest in EVERYTHING. All we can, and should, provide is equal access.
At the risk of derailing the thread, I am very interested in hearing more about why the pursuit of a Master’s (non-terminal) is a smart idea before tackling a doctorate program. I’m entering my senior year and looking at a lot of grad programs in my field, but it looks like Ph.,D. applications are preferred, there are fewer M.S. spots, and I actually had one prof tell me that a master’s in our field looks bad (people get kicked out of Ph.,D, and leave with an M.S.). My e-mail address is biochemikerin@gmail.com. Thanks so much!
I guess you mean this ironically, but yes we do, apparently.
Windy, OK, OK….I guess I’m left with shoe shopping…now don’t tell me men and women are the same. HE HEEE
Argh. I can’t let these go unanswered. You seem to have a confused understanding of the sociological approach. You think that it’s a matter of individual choice or preference that then encounters discrimination, broadly understood. What others are trying to get at is that our interests and choices are themselves very much shaped by cultural and institutional structures and processes to begin with.
When you asked above “Can you tell me why I…?” you misunderstood the sociological project. What I would be likely to do is, say, interview you and 100 other people about your career trajectories, asking about your interests and the “choices” you’ve made, how you understood them, and the circumstances of your life surrounding these decisions. From this, supplemented with other data concerning structural conditions in your field(s), I could draw provisional conclusions concerning the factors that influence individual choices and career trajectories. I know people who have done very good work in exactly these areas. It’s not that we as people don’t undertand any of the influences acting upon us, but our recognition of them is often very fuzzy. That’s why the “sociological imagination” is so empowering.
Blank, shmank. We’ve discussed the variation across space and over time. We should assume that any individual – regardless of “race,” class, or gender – is potentially interested in and capable of pursuing a scientific career. Then, in order to provide equal access, we need to recognize the cultural and institutional factors that may be leading some to do so (and to be able to do so) and others not. The OP gets at this very well.
Here the discussion seems to be about women in science, but in the original article Peter Wood also slammed moves to teach about social justice (apparently equating that with socialism?) and sustainability (apparently indicating that as the opposite of progress!?).
>…we have foregrounded the redistributional dreams of
>”social justice” over heroic aspirations to discover,
invent, and thereby create new wealth; and we have
>endlessly extolled the virtue of “sustainability”
>against the ravages of “progress.”
Sheesh.
It all became a lot clearer when I discovered that he also wrote a little article for the National Review on how evolution and intelligent design should coexist, full of lies like “We also don’t have any really convincing explanation of why nature split so many organisms into two sexes.” and “evolutionary theory hits a wall in trying to explain what happened with the emergence of fully modern humans about 150,000 years ago.” I see Pharyngula even had a bit of a mention of that article some time ago, http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/print/2713/
Double-sheesh.
Joolya,
On a related note, I’d say that the best way to know if you’re cut out to be an engineer is to work in an engineering environment. There’s a vast difference between the classroom and the job, and way too many people get the sheepskin and then discover that they hate the job.
-jcr
The point i was making before is that a strong minded woman who really wants to be a scientist or an engineer will be a scientist or engineer regardless of scholarships, support, or cultural bias.
I really have no sympathy or respect for a person who was interested in science but took a hairdressing job instead because it was expected of them.
There is nothing to fear but fear itself and there is no cultural bias but the one in your head (WAIT! Don’t tie me to a stake yet! i am going somewhere with this…) If people are not doing what they want to be doing because of a perception of a cultural expectation then they’re pretty stupid. I for one have never cared very much at all about what waas expected of me and have consistantly done whatever the hell i felt like.
In my highschool class the girls gereally did better than the boys at class work, but most of the girls ended up in the hospitality industry while at the same time many of the boys ended up staying and working on their parents farms. There is no lack of ability, there is a lack of ambition and it’s a huge problem. These people (and the women who don’t go into S&E) either don’t know what they want or don’t care enough to try to get it, and are they really qualities you would look for in a scientist or engineer?
I’m saying there isn’t really any legitimate, outright discimination against women once they attempt science and engineering that i’ve ever seen, and that the problem (if there is one) lies in the women themselves.
Thankyou, now you may resume setting me on fire.
About gender differences… You might have missed this article:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/320/5880/1164
makes me feel less bitter about my family advising me to study a “softer” major. It wasn’t their fault, after all…
So when Swedish researchers found that women needed to be twice as productive as men to have equal chances of getting a particular grant, that was the women’s fault. Gotcha.
SC, Windy, and others,
I would simply like to appologize for my previous posts. I’ve had a chance to think about how they would be taken by a woman, and especially a female scientist, many of whom can probably run rings around me in lab. I DID make some shamefull generalizations on an anecdotal memory, and I can see why it was offensive. Thank you for raising my consciousness. Luckily that old meme in my head has not kept me from encouraging my female students to excel in the sciences.
Y’know, maybe one of the reasons that “things were so much better in the old days” was that, basically, only a small minority of the population ever even finished highschool.
My own father was rather smart, yet after grade 10 he transferred out of highschool to go to “Special Commercial” school – because he knew he wasn’t going to be an academic, his parents being poor and it being the Great Depression, so the best he was going to do was to get a book-keeping job somewhere. And after my mother finished grade 8 she was out of school and into the workforce.
Nowadays, not only is every kid expected to finish grade 12, even if all they’re ever going to do is flip burgers, but we’re requiring everyone to think about higher education – instead of going into the trades, for example.
Maybe the capitalists are partly responsible for this – after all, there’s been insane qualification creep going on for the past few decades. The job I do, I had to get a college diploma for, while the guy next to me just had an architectural drafting certificate when he was hired 30 years ago. And this is work that I could have done after taking grade 12 electronics class. I should have been hired out of highschool – since after all, I’m not using any of the knowledge (Fourier transformations, MacLaurin series, digital circuit design, microwave waveguide design etc) that I learned in college.
And yes, the “self-esteem” teaching style seems a little silly: if 15% of all people have an IQ of 85 or lower, they should probably expect to fail the odd grade. If they AREN’T failing, that must mean we’re teaching to the 85 IQ crowd. But, at the same time, some good field studies have demonstrated that a kid with historically poor marks can do well in school when you trick the teacher into thinking this kid is one of the bright ones.
But still, the problem might just be that we’re expecting everyone to do well in highschool when, historically, you never saw the majority of kids FINISH highschool. Heck, 200 years ago, nobody got more than a reading-and-writing education unless they were born into relative wealth. Maybe it’s very ethical to want to eliminate education-related barriers to upward mobility, and maybe it’s unethical to stream students into a “worker caste” and an “academic caste” – but, then again, maybe that’s just plain more fair.
After all, if there are anti-intellectual sentiments in mass society today, maybe it’s because the majority have never had any need for intellectualism, and we simply haven’t evolved culturally to the point where everybody appreciates the benefit of education?
We weren’t more pro-intellectual back in the days of Voltaire and Twain and Kant… the small literate minority was pro-intellectual, but the vast majority of people didn’t give a damn about any of that crap. That is something to keep in mind – just because the literate upper class thought something, doesn’t mean it was so for everyone.
Sam:
Thanks Sam! I wasn’t offended but simply trying to point out where you were wrong :) For the record, I don’t think that we should necessarily expect men and women to be exactly equally interested in every field, either. But the rapid changes in sex ratios in many fields suggest that we should be careful of making any definite conclusions based on the current situation.
In addition any possible “innate” difference in interest (or even ability) is a reaction to a particular environment (for the most part of our history, either there were no scientists, or you could argue that everyone was a scientist to some extent.)
Windy,
Hey, I deserved a slapdown. Your last statement still leaves me thinking though:
“In addition any possible “innate” difference in interest (or even ability) is a reaction to a particular environment”
Can that really be true. When I hear, “Women are better at multi-tasking.” How do you argue that that is environment, and not genetic brain wiring?
well, I don’t know if that statement is true, but assuming it is. Any such statement is only about a statistical likelihood (some men are better at multi-tasking than some women). Even the most genetically “wired” traits are contingent on the environment – although it’s a joke, this Onion story has a point. Are women better at multi-tasking in all possible environments (for example, an environment where they are almost never required to do so?)
If you’re interested, in The Extended Phenotype by Richard Dawkins there is a good examination of what “genetically determined” means, and how it’s usually much less deterministic than people assume.
Like food and shelter, for instance?
I sympathize with the frustration with avarice, but expecting people to simply forego everything but minimal subsistence and maybe even that is so unrealistic the moral issues aren’t even worth debating. (The phrase “purity troll” comes to mind, though).
I’m working as a technician while pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering and my job mostly consists of designing new stuff to be built.
Windy – LOVE the dolphin article! That’s exactly how I feel… my powers are be limited to the water environment! I wish I would have seen the article back in 2006.
The most sickening line of the Wood crap was the “verbal shrug” that “asian students are just better at science.” The next make-me-sick line was about “ginning up STEM programs.” Pharyngula’s totally right about the title should be along the lines of “all the ways women are discriminated against” – because the patriarchy doesn’t think we are competent (unless we are in the kitchen baking them a cake like a dolphin in the water) and the patriarchy thinks Asians are better than Americans. Great. just great.
I’ve been away, and just saw Sam’s comment @ #230. Apology accepted, and most appreciated. Very noble of you.
What concerns me is this perspective that there are no good science jobs available. Certainly if you are to believe your professors at University, the only safe route is to continue in academia. However, once I ventured off that path I found many entry-level opportunities for science majors in a booming market.
Location may have much to do with that, I live in the San Francisco Bay area, but the message is that if you are willing to relocate then there are certainly diverse options and a place for you to work in the sciences.
So now, how to get that message across to interested high school or college students?