Re: Shomer Negiah (Was: Re: What has happened to all the American Jews?)
- From: hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Herman Rubin)
- Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 17:36:18 +0000 (UTC)
In article <11pa44v34clsd95@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Abe Kohen <akohen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>"Herman Rubin" <hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
>> Abe Kohen <akohen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >"J Zangvil" <j.zangvil@xxxxxxxxx> wrote
>> >> Abe Kohen wrote:
>> >> > I read a lot about what Larry Summers said and what he did not say.
>> >First,
>> >> > he did not say what you are saying.
>> >> Actually, he did.
>> >> http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html
>> >> [snipped]
>> >> So my sense is that the unfortunate truth-I would far prefer
>> >> to believe something else, because it would be easier to address what
>> >> is surely a serious social problem if something else were true-is that
>> >> the combination of the high-powered job hypothesis and the differing
>> >> variances probably explains a fair amount of this problem.
>> >As Summers explained he was looking for the answers (sort of stating it
>like
>> >a Talmudic argument which one hopes someone will refute.)
>> >I have to admit I was lost in his variances of MIT aero engineering and
>> >Berkeley chemist discussion. Perhaps Professor Rubin or yourself can shed
>> >some light on this.
>> There used to be specific nepotism rules; these are now gone.
>> But otherwise, the number of sufficiently outstanding women
>> who are denied good positions is not that great in the sciences.
>> When the nepotism rules were dropped, Mary Ellen Rudin was
>> promoted from instructor to full professor.
>> The biggest problem is with married women; getting a position
>> at the same, or sufficiently close, institution for both
>> spouses is what we call the two-body problem. We have had
>> the problem both ways; in one case, we could not offer the
>> man a position.
>> At one time, it was observed that most married women in
>> the sciences were in the east, where it is easier to find
>> institutions. Can Harvard find positions at the same
>> time for both, especially if it is not at a beginning
>> level? This is very unlikely, considering that all
>> tenured positions need to have enough endowment behind
>> them. State universities are somewhat more flexible, but
>> there is still the problem of quality, and it is not
>> always the case that both are of sufficient quality to
>> maintain the two positions, and there is the problem of
>> outside offers to one.
>One at Harvard, the other at MIT (or BU, ...).
>One at Stanford, the other at Berkeley. Actually I believe that both
>Stanford and Berkeley could accomodate both if not in the smae department.
With the current anti-discrimination legislation, it is no
longer a problem in the same department. The problem is
whether both are good enough for a position in a strong
university, and whether the positions exist.
In the east, and to some extent in the San Francisco area,
there are a fair number of lesser quality schools which
can hire one spouse. This is why there is a concentration
of such in the east. I also recall an article in which the
man was at UCSD and the woman at SDSC.
Before this legislation, universities could consider the
pair as a unit. They often do now, although technically
it is illegal. This is also a reason why there is some
reluctance to get into the problem; there is a real fear
of losing one if the other gets an outside offer. Short
of electronic appointments, I do not see any way out of it.
BTW, my late wife was a professor in the Mathematics
Department here, and I have a joint appointment in
Mathematics and Statistics, so it can be done.
>> For whatever reason, the number of strong female theorists
>> in the mathematical sciences is low, and in the physical
>> sciences not too high. Most of the undergraduates are in
>Why????
Nobody really knows. There may be a genuine physical
problem; genes affect everything, and there certainly is
a genetic difference. I have seen one article which
gives an explanation for some of it. Johns Hopkins has
a talent search for gifted youth, giving them the SAT
at about age 13. No striking difference was found,
except in those scoring above 700 on the quantitative
part, where 7 out of 8 were boys. A possible explanation
was found; that of high testosterone levels before birth,
which had already been conjectured to lead to problems,
and these problems were found more than twice as often
in the high-scoring boys.
However, I do not think this is an adequate explanation.
But it might be tied to aggressiveness; research consists
in aggression against the universe, not with the idea of
defeating it, but in being able to master it; see Genesis
1:26 and 1:28.
>> programs for high school teachers, or other terminal
>> positions.
>> >My faulty memory fails me in recalling the names of more than one
>> >mathematician who had his wife write the famous theorem/paper.
>> There are cases in which wives have typed up, and even put
>> together, papers for their husbands. But I know of no cases
>> in which the wife also did the research. Writing it up
>> does not count as scholarship.
>I did my freshman year at Ben Gurion U, and I do remember Professor Goikhman
>telling us stories about mathematical couples where the wife was the true
>brain. Besides learning some Calculus from Goikhman, I will forever remember
>that e=2.718281828, because as he stated 1828 was the year of Lev Tolstoy's
>birth.
>Best,
>Abe
>(Monday 12/5/05)
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
.
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