Lighten Up, Sweet Cheeks: Larry's in trouble over at Harvard. Here's a snip:

The president of Harvard University prompted criticism for suggesting that innate differences between the sexes could help explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers.

Lawrence H. Summers, speaking Friday at an economic conference, also questioned how great a role discrimination plays in keeping female scientists and engineers from advancing at elite universities.

The remarks prompted Massachusetts Institute of Technology biologist Nancy Hopkins — a Harvard graduate — to walk out on Summers' talk, The Boston Globe reported.

(Love that "-- a Harvard graduate --" parenthetical to describe Mme. Hopkins. Is that to excuse? To explain.) So, interested? Go read the rest. I'll be here.

Done?

You know, there is a certain kind of person (and they tend to appear on the left -- sorry, Razor) who, though nominally educated and open minded (soi disant, anyway), will stand for only so much of the obvious before storming out in a huff. Or pinning her ears shut and shouting, "I can't hear you. La la la la la la la la la." And this is at Harvard, too. I'll be sure to archive this link for the next time someone needs to make a snide comment about creationist educators in Kansas. Because, let me tell you, over yonder Harvard-way, there are folks who (honestly) believe (really and truly believe) that the only differences that exist between boys and girls are socially constructed. (Of course, this same type of person is apt to get weepy and all Pulitzer/Oscar nuts over movies or books in which a boy/girl raised as a girl/boy fights his/her social assignment to live as she/he pleases. Go figger.) In other words, Larry Summers is not in trouble for being a sexist pig, though that is what it seems like madame is having corset strangulation over. No, Larry's backpedaling because he said that not everything about men and women is socially constructed, which to the elite womyn of Harvard's feel-good-about-having-ovaries police is the same thing.

There is work being done right now, some of which I have seen first hand, on this very issue (i.e., Why do fewer women become scientists and engineers?). If you can't take it seriously enough to look at all the possibilities (including the possibility that, yes, men -- on average -- perform better spatially and mathematically) you don't deserve to get upset about it. Here's a small tip to some of Harvard's so-called scientists. Rejecting theories because of how they make you feel is not science. Demanding that the answer to an investigation of cause and effect necessarily be non-threatening to your worldview is not science. It's religion. And it's just as kooky as the flat-earthers, faith healers, UFOlogists, creationist schoolteachers, and every other dogmatic yutz with a "scientific" interest in protecting his or her little psychological coccoon.