Message-Id: <l03102800b09fb606329d@[153.90.236.25]>
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19971123211603.0070d0fc@pop3.1stlink.net>
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 16:35:33 -0700
To: pinhole@exploratorium.edu
From: Steven Eiger <eiger@montana.edu>
Subject: Re: Two more cents worth
John, You are right that whatever you measure, there will be a huge amount
of overlap; but as you know there is a myriad of things one might measure
and women, on average, will be better on perhaps most of them. It is also
important to remember as you and others have brought up that if society
prejudges someone then they may not realize their full potential. It all
seems to point to the uselessness of doing studies which find differences
which are not usefull to even know. Some differences on the other hand,
like learning styles, are useful. My argument of a few weeks ago was that
we ought to try and "level the playing field" and that we might not be able
to measure this by looking at equal outcomes in all fields. I can see men
in the future just as interested in erecting monuments to themselves as
engineers, and women as doctors, caring for people; a disparity in both
professions would not bother me one bit as long as everyone has their
choice. I do think that society views and pays professions somewhat
according to who is doing the work, and that is something that needs a lot
of work.
A cool tidbit; I just came from a clinical genetics seminar and found out
that Mendelian genetics is definetely not the whole story. there is this
thing called genetic imprinting where a messed up gene from you r father
will cause one disease and the same gene inherited from your mother will
cause another disease; so it matters who you got it from! Eiger