In 2005, January 14, Lawrence H. Summers, ex-President of Harvard, made a speech on the under-representation of women in careers involving science and mathematics. He ignited an uproar when he said, among other hypotheses, that innate differences in math ability between men and women might be one reason as to why fewer women succeed in these fields. One of his main points was that women do not have the same innate ability as men in certain fields and this sparked a massive controversy. In his defense he told the media that he sought to be provocative yet he must have underestimated how the public would react toward his provocative speech. The question is, is there a scientific biological component explaining the under-representation of women in math and science?
A person who supports Summers's view is Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker (2005) who provides a more thorough and coherent analysis, compared to Summer's, on the issue of under-representation of women in higher fields of......
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