[extropy-chat] Harvard president criticized over comments

[John K Clark]

"Damien Broderick" <thespike at satx.rr.com> Wrote:

> The extraordinary rarity of great male mathematicians also makes me wonder
> if there's any point in training all those very ordinary male scientists.
> No, hang on, there must be something wrong here.

Damien, if I read you correctly you are quite certain about this matter, I'm
not. Is it really inconceivable the innate sexual differences could have
something to do with mathematical ability; is the idea really so stupid that
somebody deserves to get fired for expressing it? Historically I don't think
any female mathematician deserves to be put into the exalted category of
"GREAT".  Sophie Germain was probably the best and she was without a doubt
an excellent mathematician, but I don't know anyone who would claim that she
had anywhere near the bandwidth of a Gauss or a Newton or a Archimedes or a
Euler or a or a Fermat or a Turing or a Galois or a Godel. Now perhaps the
reason for this phenomenon is an unknown sociological factor that has
somehow remained constant in every culture on the planet for 2500 years, or
perhaps there is another reason.

  John K Clark      jonkc at att.net