Bob Park on gender and cold fusion

Bob Park notes: When Lawrence Summers speculated that innate ability might explain why there are fewer women in math and science, it cost him the presidency of Harvard. A study reported in Science by researchers at the University of British Columbia found that women exposed to bogus scientific theories linking their gender to poor math skills performed more poorly on subsequent math tests. Uncertainty over whether they could do it presumably affected how hard they tried.

Of course, the UBC study is addressing a different issue than that of the "genetic differences" expressed by Summers. Recall also how Summers backed up his insight:

His [Summer's] contention that boys outperform girls in science and maths because of genetic differences - he backed up his argument by saying his daughter treated two toy trucks as dolls, calling them mummy truck and daddy truck - is just not supported by the evidence, according to Britain's august scientific academy, the Royal Society.

See earlier IPBiz post:
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2005/01/another-problem-at-harvard.html

Elsewhere on Bob Park's WN:

In June, we mentioned the World Trade Center conspiracy theory of physics professor Steven Jones at Brigham Young University (WN 23 Jun 06) . He believes the Trade Center was rigged with explosives on 9/11, with the connivance of the U.S. government. BYU suspended Jones pending a review of his 9/11 theories, but Jones has now agree to retire. This isn't his first trip into delusion. Seventeen years ago his delusion of geologic cold fusion got Pons and Fleischmann at the U. of Utah started on a cold fusion delusion of their own.