WOW! Richard has a lot of references on the Women-in-Science problem, which
I have not yet had time to digest.
Speaking of references, there are a lot of "facts" used to debate
women-in-science issues that bear closer examination. I know of NO
controlled studies with statistically significant results that support the
following:
a. Women are worse at tasks requiring spatial thinking abilities than men.
b. Spatial thinking skills can't be acquired through practice.
c. Superior spatial thinking abilities are necessary in order to become
scientists or mathematicians.
d. Women's brains are structurally different than men's.
e. There is a significant difference in the structure of scientist brains
vs. non-scientist brains.
f. Larger brains = more intelligence.
g. Scientists/mathematicians use one side of their brain (left brain/right
brain) more than the other side.
h. Women use the opposite side of their brain (left brain/right brain) from
that used by most scientists/mathematicians.
As scientists, we are aware of mistakes caused by faulty assumptions.
Therefore, one must examine all assumptions carefully. Does anyone have any
references to controlled scientific studies with statistically significant
outcomes showing or disproving any of the points (a) through (h) above?
Just asking....
Also, in these debates, beware of all-too-frequent comparisons between the
set of all women with the set of male scientists. Strangely, I have never
seen the set of female scientists compared to the set of all males.
Vickie Frohne
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