Talent, Skills In Math And Science Hard To Quantify

I am sure that many Physics and Chemistry and Physics concentrators and perhaps other science concentrators are puzzled, as I was, by the spate of news about Larry Summers’ recent remarks on women in science. As Head Tutor in Physics and Chemistry and Physics, I thought it might be appropriate to pass along some of my own views on the subject.

It would be foolish to deny that different people have different talents. You have only to look around at your fellow students to see that this is true in physics as in other human endeavors. Given the biological differences between men and women, it would be surprising if the distribution of talents were identical for women and for men, though we have no convincing evidence for important differences in the intellectual realm.

However, having taught physics for many years and having interacted with literally thousands of Harvard physics students, I can say some other things about the issue with equal confidence.

1 - Talent is not a unitary thing. It is multidimensional and difficult to measure or quantify precisely.

2 - Many different kinds of talents are critical to the advancement of physics or any other science interesting enough to be worth doing.

3 - The spread of talents within any group, sex, race, etc, is very large compared to any small average differences that may exist between such groups.

4 - Talent can to be developed and enhanced by education, encouragement, self-confidence and hard work.

For these reasons, I think that it is not particularly useful to talk about innate differences to explain the differences in representation of various groups in physics. Instead, I conclude that we need to try harder to teach science in a way that nourishes as many different skills as possible.

HOWARD GEORGI

Jan. 18, 2005

The writer is Head Tutor of Physics and Chemistry and Physics, as well as master of Leverett House.