Abnormal Interests

Now, before you read anything else, study this graph. Ask two questions. First, when is the biggest decline in involvement of women in physics? Second, what does it mean?

The answers are simple. The biggest decline is from the end of high school to the end of college. Whatever the cause, this decline happens as a result of something going on in those years, not later. My guess is early in those years. Even if one points out that college bound boys and girls are required to take physics in high school, as one of the Carroll's commentators did, there are simply more men that finish college still involved in physics than women. Carroll concludes, correctly,

The bad news is that there is still a systematic bias turning women away from physics during the college years, and that we really do have a long way to go. While it's true that thing are likely to continue to improve, it's not because the natural tendency of things is to automatically get better, but because people keep fighting for them to do so. (Emphasis in the original)

Having studied this graph for yourself and perhaps looked at the AIP article and read Carroll's posts, can you believe that one of Carroll's commentators said the following?

College is the first moment in which the young people can make their own choice, and a smaller percentage of girls choose physics while they prefer other fields. You don't need a PhD to see that if the fraction of girls were artificially increased, the average "success rate" of the girls would decrease.

Your conclusion that you have found evidence that the brain differences don't play much role is completely unjustified. You have not found anything. Once again, you just did not do your homework correctly. (From Luboš Motl of Luboš Motl's Reference )

First, Carroll does not claim, "that the brain differences don't play much role." He claim is far more modest. He claims that sociological factors play a much bigger role than "brain differences" and that we can do something about it.

Second, on what basis does Motl think that "the fraction of girls were artificially increased" in high school any more than the fraction of boys was also increased artificially.

Third, Motl does not give us a clue as to why girls choose not to participate in science in the numbers they once did. He implies it may be caused by "brain differences" but what is the evidence for it taking effect at this time rather than some other time in life? How about sociological factors as a reason?

In the "Scientific Method" post, Carroll tries to spell out the methodology that led him to his conclusions based on the AIP study (and two other interesting studies that he had reported on earlier). He takes the three hypotheses offered by President Summers (I quote Summers directly),

So my best guess, to provoke you, of what's behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the (1) general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity, (2) that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact (3) lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them. (Numbers added for clarity)

Carroll tests reasonable predictions from each of those interrelated hypotheses. He finds that the AIP study negates predictions drawn from the first two and that two experimental studies tend to strongly support the last hypotheses. Those studies are Paludi, M. A. and Bauer, W D. 1983. "Goldberg revisited: What's in an author's name. Sex Roles" 9, 387-390 (Carroll give several links to summaries of this paper) and Goldin, Claudia and Rouse, Cecilia 1999. "Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of “Blind” Auditions on Female Musicians." They both show considerable sociological bias in judging women (and men) in mathematics on the one hand and music on the other.

Carroll concludes,

Of course, you could claim that the true, unbiased fraction of women receiving Ph.D.'s should be about five percent, and is only 18% now because of the pressures of political correctness forcing unqualified women into this role. You would, to be sure, be implicitly admitting that social factors can easily trump intrinsic differences, except that you'd be thinking that these factors work in women's favor. You should also look into loosening the elastic band on your tinfoil hat.

His second post has drawn 32 comments so far.