An Analysis Of "The Science Of Difference: Sex Ed.

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An Analysis of "The Science of Difference: Sex Ed." by Steven Pinker In The Science of Difference: Sex Ed., Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard and alumni faculty at MIT, argues that research from cognitive science and evolutionary biology supports Lawrence Summer’s hypothesis that innate differences between males and females can influence mathematical aptitude. Steven Pinker states that by the early ‘70s women in science was a given and there is no going back, to even talk about going back to when women weren’t would be morally wrong and scientifically disastrous. Pinker goes on to say that the way people reacted to Harvard President Lawrence Summers’s remarks was as if he had proposed that there were innate sex differences, when he just proposed the possibility. Summers was shamed into apologizing but his analysis of why there might be fewer women in mathematics and science is common. There are at least three possible explanations as to why only 20 percent of women work in science, engineering, and technology the first being discrimination, discouragement, and other barriers. A second possibility is listed as gender disparities that arise in the absence of discrimination as long as men and women differ in talents. A third explanation is listed as that child-rearing does not easily co-exist with professions that demand such large commitments of time. Pinker warns us that overestimating the extent of sex discrimination is not without cost, because you may be falsely charged with sexism. He also goes on to state that a tenure clock that conflicts with women’s biological clocks, and family-unfriendly demands like evening seminars and weekend retreats, are obvious examples. He explains that this situation is a classic confusion between the factual claim that men and women are not indistinguishable and the moral claim that we

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