The *very first comment* in that thread pissed me off, so I stopped reading it. I mean ... surely, even if you don't care about diversity for its own sake, the question of whether or not diversity of staff helps an academic institution achieve its core teaching mission needs to be addressed.

Isn't that the whole ******* point of an academic institution?

Ah, well. First of all, at many of the most prestigious institutions the science faculty perceive that research is the core of their mission not teaching. In my program teaching is very much considered to be a necessary evil of academic jobs. So-called "teaching schools" are considered lower-tier positions by many scientists at research institutions; depressingly, "education" as an area of study is often regarded as "women's work." This unconscious hierarchy is usually very apparent in the corresponding pay scales.

And yes, in case you were wondering, there is strong tendency for the quality of teaching to be inversely proportional to the research prestige of a given program... we can debate whether or not this is in conflict with a university's mission overall, especially at state schools. But the fact remains: at many research institutions teaching evaluations carry almost no weight whatsoever in the tenure decision for science faculty.

Now we may argue as to whether or not diversity helps achieve the research goals of an institution.

David, I'd like some clarification on the comment you made on the second article at Cosmic Variance.

The original poster says the hypothesis of innate difference "has already been tested and disproved," and offers a list of women doing good work in high-energy physics. Do you believe that this constitutes a refutation of the hypothesis?

I'm reminded of the (classic) example of the difference in height between men and women. One can offer a very long list of tall women without refuting the assertion that an innate difference in height exists.

I tend to agree with the person who posted the first "Switch-Hitting" article on Cosmic Variance: the question of innate differences is subtle and extremely hard to answer, and has very little to do with the gender imbalance in the sciences.

One can offer a very long list of tall women, but one can't offer, to my knowledge, a long list of women basketball players who are among the taller basketball players.

P.S. Perhaps you'd like to take it up with Dr. Hewitt, Ted? Because I don't have the numbers.

Even if you could offer a list of women who were among the taller professional basketball players, that still wouldn't constitute refutation. You'd need lots of statistical data.

By the same token, such a list wouldn't constitute proof that there was no gender bias in professional basketball (just as a list of women in high-energy physics doesn't prove that science is a meritocracy). Again, you'd need more data.

If — for example — you (1) assume that for each gender, height follows a bell curve; (2) assume that height is the only significant determinant of whether or not someone will be chosen to play basketball; and (3) hypothesize that the height curve for women is shifted to the left relative to the height curve for men, and you then examine the population of basketball players, I believe you would expect to find women disproportionately represented among the shorter players. Would you not? If you find that they are instead disproportionately represented among the taller players then, ceteris paribus, doesn't that cast some doubt on your hypothesis?

Again, I suggest you take it up with Dr. Hewitt. Because she knows exactly what she meant (for instance, I believe that what she intended to argue against was the strong form of the innate differences argument, that such innate differences not only exist, that the differences are in the direction of women having inferior aptitude for the sciences, and that these differences are sufficient to explain the underrepresentation of women in the sciences, but I could be wrong) and she knows what she's observed and why she thinks her sample is significant.

Unless you also think that her statement that she believes the hypothesis to be tested and disproved means that she has lost all credibility?

Actually, I took her to be arguing against a much weaker argument: that innate differences exist.

I certainly don't think she's lost all credibility; I just think she's engaging in overstatement for rhetorical effect. But, like you, I could be wrong about that.