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Larry Summers Comments At Harvard A Disqualification For Treasury Secretary?

Cicero

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NPR's Diane Rehm expressed incredulity that Obama would even consider ex Harvard President Summers for a cabinet positon because of his non politically correct comment that, " The shortage of elite female scientists may stem in part from "innate" differences between men and women."

***.."I felt I was going to be sick," said Nancy Hopkins, a biology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who listened to part of Summers's speech Friday at a session on the progress of women in academia organized by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass. She walked out in what she described as a physical sense of disgust.

"My heart was pounding and my breath was shallow," she said. "I was extremely upset."..***

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19181-2005Jan18.html

A female full professor of biology at MIT getting the vapors from listening to Summers remarks (that he prefaced by saying he intended to be "controversial" and "to provoke you,"), should not disqualify Summers from being Secretary of Treasury.


06:30
Rehm: "Even after what happened at Harvard, I am surprised that his name is up there."

Later on in the hour, Rehm reacts to a phone caller who challenged her opinion about Summer's viability as Treasury Secretary. Jeanne Cummings, "The Politico" reporter, in sister solidarity, propped up Rehm by adding, "Why import the baggage?

37:45
Rehm: "I do think he would be a perfectly qualified and capable treasury secretary. What I was raising were the doubts and the questions that trailed behind him after that experience at Harvard. While he may absolutely have the perfect mind and perfect way forward, why choose someone with that baggage to begin with?"

Why not? Even in Daine's reply, she confirms his attributes, but never explains exactly what these "doubts" are about, or even if they are legitimate.

Summers has been a close advisor to Obama throughout the campaign. Where was Rehm's discomfort with Summers as Obama's economic advisor before Obama won the election?



http://wamu.org/programs/dr/
 
I feel I'm going to be sick. My heart is pounding and my breathing is shallow. I'm extremely upset.

I agree with Cic... No! I just can't do it! [passes out]
 
One hopes that if either of these women were facing surgery for a brain tumor and the most qualified surgeon had, at one point in a long and successful career, said something that could possibly be construed as sexist they would be equally firm in their beliefs.
 
Ausmerican said:
One hopes that if either of these women were facing surgery for a brain tumor and the most qualified surgeon had, at one point in a long and successful career, said something that could possibly be construed as sexist they would be equally firm in their beliefs.
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Diane Rehm's brain surgery is long over due. She put contact lens solution and perfume in two identical clear unmarked bottles for airline travel. During the flight, she cleaned her lens with the contents from the perfume bottle and then placed it in her eye causing a nice burning sensation. Her sense of smell is no better than her common sense.
 
Cicero said:
NPR's Diane Rehm expressed incredulity that Obama would even consider ex Harvard President Summers for a cabinet positon because of his non politically correct comment that, " The shortage of elite female scientists may stem in part from "innate" differences between men and women."

***.."I felt I was going to be sick," said Nancy Hopkins, a biology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who listened to part of Summers's speech Friday at a session on the progress of women in academia organized by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass. She walked out in what she described as a physical sense of disgust.

"My heart was pounding and my breath was shallow," she said. "I was extremely upset."..***
Click to expand...




I believe George Will took care of this one once and for all:

George Will said:
Hysteria -- A functional disturbance of the nervous system, characterized by such disorders as anaesthesia, hyperaesthesia, convulsions, etc., and usually attended with emotional disturbances and enfeeblement or perversion of the moral and intellectual faculties.

...

Someone like MIT biology professor Nancy Hopkins, the hysteric (see above) who, hearing Summers, "felt I was going to be sick. My heart was pounding and my breath was shallow." And, "I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill." She said that if she had not bolted from the room, "I would've either blacked out or thrown up."

Is this the fruit of feminism? A woman at the peak of the academic pyramid becomes theatrically flurried by an unwelcome idea and, like a Victorian maiden exposed to male coarseness, suffers the vapors and collapses on the drawing room carpet in a heap of crinolines until revived by smelling salts and the offending brute's contrition?
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'tis a beauteous thing...
 
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Beerina said:
I believe George Will


'tis a beauteous thing...
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This is why Diane Rehm's protestations about Obama choosing Sommers is all the more phony since she never actually mentioned what all this bad "baggage" is supposed to be as a result of his speech. I don't think Rehm wanted to get into a discussion about how Hopkins swooned at the mere mention of "innate differences between men and women."
 
I heard that too. Good grief, Summers has been punished enough already. He lost his job at Harvard and that was years ago now. He wasn't even making a claim, he was asking a question.

The feminist theory for why there are so few scientists and mathematicians is that sexism is at fault. What is the evidence for that I wonder? Is is a crime even to ask that question? Perhaps we just have to accept it as a first principle that requires no proof because it is self-evident. :rolleyes:
 
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Also, clearly the reason why there are no women in the NFL is sexism! Anyone who asks whether "innate differences" might not be the reason is a sexist pig!
 
Odd that people in the link were pointing to person who statistics to attack a straw man version of Summers point.

The literature on gender differences in cognitive ability is pretty vast. Didn't Pinker even have a public debate on it with some other expert (and argue essentially the same thing summers is)?
 
As Rehm and Cummings have already tipped their hands, if Obama chooses Sommers, he will be the recipient of the Palin treatment by the usual wacky female pundits on the left i.e., Maddow, Clift, Wolf, Steinem, etc.
 
Cicero said:
NPR's Diane Rehm expressed incredulity that Obama would even consider ex Harvard President Summers for a cabinet positon because of his non politically correct comment that, " The shortage of elite female scientists may stem in part from "innate" differences between men and women."

***.."I felt I was going to be sick," said Nancy Hopkins, a biology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who listened to part of Summers's speech Friday at a session on the progress of women in academia organized by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass. She walked out in what she described as a physical sense of disgust.

"My heart was pounding and my breath was shallow," she said. "I was extremely upset."..***
Click to expand...

I am glad the JREF forum and other skeptics don't try to ban people just because they ask a question that leads someone to say, "my heart was pounding and my breath was shallow" etc. It amazes me that academic institutions in this day and age are so unskeptical.

The fact that Mr. Obama had chosen an advisor who was actually hated by some on the kooky left was a sign to me that maybe he is who he claims to be.
 
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I suppose women have shied from hard sciences owing to social conditioning that has for generations identified some occupations as not appropriate for women. The result is that the roster of hard scientists is still predominantly men. But, that doesn't preclude there being some influence by innate differences between men and women, does it? Offhand, I can't imagine what they are, since women seem able to multitask more efficiently than men, which is useful in most careers, and they seem to have abstract reasoning abilities at least equal to men. Although when I was teaching a lab in college freshman chemistry many years ago, it was the girls who couldn't immediately accept that a could equal b, since an a is an a and a b is a b. Perhaps this was just unfamiliarity with basic algebra more than a failure of imagination.
 
Wait, so let me get this right. You .... support? ... Obama sticking to his guns and keeping Sommers?
 
Ausmerican said:
One hopes that if either of these women were facing surgery for a brain tumor and the most qualified surgeon had, at one point in a long and successful career, said something that could possibly be construed as sexist they would be equally firm in their beliefs.
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I think one of the differences between a brain surgeon and a treasury secretary is that the treasury secretary actually needs to be taken seriously by people in order to be effective. Without making any judgment on whether or not Summers's comments at Harvard should have been offensive, it is an objective fact that they did offend, and it may be sensible for Obama to make sure that the public faces of his administration are people with the discretion to not say things that greatly offend people, unless there is some corresponding benefit that outweighs the offense.

Then again, Joe Biden, right?
 
linusrichard said:
I think one of the differences between a brain surgeon and a treasury secretary is that the treasury secretary actually needs to be taken seriously by people in order to be effective. Without making any judgment on whether or not Summers's comments at Harvard should have been offensive, it is an objective fact that they did offend, and it may be sensible for Obama to make sure that the public faces of his administration are people with the discretion to not say things that greatly offend people, unless there is some corresponding benefit that outweighs the offense.

Then again, Joe Biden, right?
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To allow political correctness to muzzle any potential controversial discussions is a far greater offense than the prospect of NOW's budget straining to compensate for extra smelling salts to revive their members everytime Sommers says "there are innate differences between men and women."

Obama is supposed to operate without undue influence from special interest groups. This is his chance to prove he meant what he said.
 
PBS Washington Week's Gwen Ifill, Janet Hook and Karen Tumulty mock Larry Summers as a possible candidate for Treasury because he had the audacity to notice males and females have innate differences.

It seems that NOW and a majority of msm female pundits/reporters/ journalists stirring the pot about Sommers to insure Obama disqualifies him. If Obama ignorss them that would be a step in the right direction that he is actually for change.
 
"The shortage of elite female scientists may stem in part from "innate" differences between men and women."

It may indeeed. And it may not. Who knows?

No one knows at present.

Why would the quoted question make any difference to anyone's reputation, viability or ability to be a part of the Obama administration?
 
Just to clarify, not nominating Summers for Treasury Secretary would not necessarily mean he was bowing to these criticisms.
 
tomwaits said:
Just to clarify, not nominating Summers for Treasury Secretary would not necessarily mean he was bowing to these criticisms.
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Just to clarify, not not nominating Summers for Treasury Secretary would not necessarily mean he was bowing to these criticisms.
 
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