Monday, January 31, 2005

Sullivan on the Summers Controversey
Recall that Summers, the president of Harvard suggested that differences between men and women in the professions could be the result of men having higher variances in intelligence than women. In other words, there would be more very very stupid and very very smart men than women. Of course, this line of logic made some feminists "physically ill" and they immediatly complained to the media. Andrew Sullivan has some thoughts on this sudden attack of nausea:

It's a hard fact to absorb that some people will never be as intelligent as some others, or as musically gifted, or as mathematically skilled. Americans in particular hate the notion that there is some natural limit on what people can and cannot achieve. But there is a distinction between moral and political equality for all - the fundament of a liberal society - and unavoidable natural inequalities between human beings and, in a few narrow areas, even between social groups. This cannot and shouldn't mean that any individual should be prejudged, or denied any viable opportunity. But it does mean that some imbalances in certain professions might not be entirely a function of prejudice or bigotry.

Read the whole thing.

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