Men, Women, and Ghosts in Science 英文参考文献.docVIP

Essay Men,Women, and Ghosts in Science Peter A. Lawrence At the current pace, European women are not expected to reach parity with men in academic science positions until 2050. —Gerlind Wallon [1] specialist journal in 1997, but did not dare to talk about his ideas in public for several years [2]. One reason for this absurd taboo is that we cannot think objectively because our minds are full of wayward beliefs and delusions— “ghosts” (Box 1). And one of these ghosts is the dogma that all groups of people, such as men and women, are on average the same, and any genetic distinctions must not be countenanced. Such ghosts bias our perceptions and censor our thoughts. Box 1. Ghosts “Mrs. Alving: I almost think we are all ghosts— all of us, Pastor Manders. It isn’t just what we have inherited from the father and mother that walks in us. It is all kinds of dead ideas and all sorts of old and obsolete beliefs.They are not alive in us; but they remain with us none the less, and we can never rid ourselves of them. I only have to take a newspaper and read it, and I see ghosts between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the country. They lie as thick as grains of sand. And we’re all so horribly afraid of the light” [3]. S ome have a dream that, one ?ne day, there will be equal numbers of men and women in all jobs, including those in scienti?c research. But I think this dream is Utopian; it assumes that if all doors were opened and all discrimination ended, the different sexes would be professionally indistinguishable. The dream is sustained by a cult of political correctness that ignores the facts of life—and thrives only because the human mind likes to bury experience as it builds beliefs. Here I will argue, as others have many times before, that men and women are born different. Yet even we scientists deny this, allowing us to identify the “best” candidates for jobs and promotions by subjecting men and women to the same tests. But since these tests