Harvard Pres Says Females Naturally Bad at Math 1746
Man_Holmes writes "Harvard president says that women lack natural ability in math and science and this explains why fewer women succeed in math and science.
Lawrence H. Summers later said that he was discussing hypotheses based on scholarly work and that it did not necessarily represent his private views."
I'd be interested (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember hearing in a developmental psych class that only 5-10% of the 'standard' gender differences have any biological basis; and the NY Times article on this topic quotes a woman who was angry because, if I remember right, the entire morning of the symposium had been spent dispelling those same myths.
The trouble with this kind of research seems to be that there's too much political intrigue - every scientist is going to be accused of (or possess) some kind of bias in American gender-polarized society, and that is difficult to filter out even if you're aware of it.
Maybe we should just move to Sweden.
Hmmm, cause of effect? (Score:1, Interesting)
Antoine LeBlanc, Ada Lovelace, Sonja Kovelevsky.
Variability (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PC == Keep your mouth shut?? (Score:3, Interesting)
What reason could you have for running a huge study on the intellectual limits of one sex or another, or one race or another, but to use that information to exclude that race or sex on the basis of their supposed lack of ability?
Seriously. I'm not a PC guy, but when I see crap like this, I can only really see one reason for it. He's making a case that Harvard needen't worry about having a balanced enrollment in math or science, because females are too stupid to be in those courses of study. He doesn't cite any studies, he doesn't seem to have any facts except for crap about his freaking 5 year old.
He deserves to be roasted.
Women bad at math eh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Total bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
This is Australia, so maybe things are different in the US. But what I understand talking with other scientists (including male ones) is that first of all the PhD itself is a slog. Secondly after you finish you go through a long period where you get 1-2 year postdocs here and there and you are likely to be constantly moving. It is much easier for a guy to tell his wife that they are moving and that she should quit her job and pack and for the guy to spend years working late at night and expecting his wife to hold the fort at home with the kids and housework than for a woman to do the same thing. Also then you want to have a baby and you have to take at least a year off, sometimes even more, and well you can see how things go. Oh, and also as my (male) supervisor once warned me, some of the older guys are just biased against women. They won't say it outright but it affects how they select people for jobs.
Re:Great! (Score:3, Interesting)
Give it a rest (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's a novel idea though. If you want a man to respect you as a colleague, ladies, then do a man's work and do it LIKE a man. That means you meet or exceed the level of work that a man would in your position. No excuses ladies, just fucking take it like a man.
The girls that I know who make it do that. They don't make excuses, they just compete. They don't whine about sexism, in fact the most successful of them as a "bring it on, fuckers" attitude toward sexism.
Link between musical ability and math talent (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't recall the names of the studies and/or books right now but I have heard that it is very likely that there is a fairly good correlation between ability at music and talent with math. Given this link Prof. Summers would be wrong as there are of course many, many top notch female musicians.
Can anyone point me to research into this idea?
Eh. (Score:3, Interesting)
We also know that a lot of men are bad at science, but that some men are good at science.
So, what it boils down to is that, some men and some women are good at science, and most men and most women are bad at science.
Why do we need a study for that? If you're doing science, hire people who are good at science. Speaking as a science guy, I'd love to have more women around. Unlike science guys, many of them bathe.
Re:Stupid phrasing of the obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand my male cousin despite being pretty macho and a typical gamer dude, loves cooking, sewing, knitting and crocheting and has since he was very young (while I hated these things). He used to force my uncle and aunt to teach him these things and while he *hated* to read borrowed cooking and sewing books (of his own violation) from the library. Oh, and he's studying comp sci as well and no he's NOT gay.
Anyway, anedoctal evidence you say? Well, so is the Harvard guy's evidence as well.
How about we are all individuals? While there may be some difference between males and females, I suspect the overlap between male and female brains is much much larger.
Re:yeah right (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see anything wrong with acknowledging differences between the sexes, where things start to go wrong is when people are abusing the fact there are differences, e.g. men are generally bigger and stronger and can easily abuse that by beating up women fairly easily ( women are better at nagging and can abuse that power ) or misrepresenting the general differences in specific instances to damage people.
Political correctness and facts (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it has been long established that unless other factors play into it, women are driven by different drives than men. I don't pretend to understand whether it's a cultural matter or a genetic one, but there are a variety of biological reasons for women to be less capable of maintaining abilities in math and logic (which are devoid of emotion). Women have a lot of games that their bodies, for better or worse, play on them that men do not suffer or experience.
Now I have seen other studies among toddlers showing that on the large, boys are more successful at getting around obstacles (read as stubborn if it helps you to think so) than the girls who were prone to simply giving up in frustration. The notion is that as a toddler, there is less chance of a child being tainted by learned roles and behavior although there will still be some of that.
But frankly, I am a little annoyed when studies are criticised for reasons that have little to nothing to do with evidence to the contrary and more about a conflict of opinion or ideals. We don't want to hear that men and women are not equals -- that would mean all sorts of problems in our future because after all, look how far we've come by legislating that women are equal to men:
We have an unprecedented number of single-parent families and all of the dysfunctional children that accompany those numbers. We have an unprecedented divorce rate that never stops climbing. (Studies have shown that 80% of all marriages start where men ask the women, but it is in the 90% range where women initiate divorce.) Women in the workplace are supposed to be equal but statistically, they spend less time at work than men do for the same job.
Before women start bashing me on this because it doesn't fit "you" or some smaller group of people -- this is about the country of the U.S. at large. And if you think there aren't cases to the opposite, it would be wrong for me not to acknowledge it.... so here's your bone. I read in a black woman's magazine about some refreshing statistics that the decline of black single mothers collecting welfare is increasing at an almost unexplainable rate. They are becoming far more educated than their white counterparts, and are earning more money than their black male counterparts. I can only attribute that to cultural adjustments within those circles but it does illustrate an important point I'd like to close with.
Natural ability or talent alone do not determine potential for success or limitations. There are thousands of other factors that can come into play when determining these things which can even include the direction of the wind at the moment of determination. So then what would be the purpose of such studies?
It's about understanding ourselves; who we are -- our strengths and our weaknesses. And the sooner we embrace whatever the "facts du jour" are, the sooner we can begin from a proper perspective rather than the basis of some political agenda.
Re:Give it a rest (Score:3, Interesting)
She got a great job and her attitude is I'll treat you like a man if you treat me like a man. It has worked out perfectly. She works with a bunch of ex-sailors and she is as rough as they are.
Re:Hmmm. (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think you'd dispute that some African gene pools make people better able to withstand the sun than my pasty Scottish heritage. So why can there not be other physical areas that one group is stronger at than others? You are right to caution that we don't always jump to this easy explanation. But ethnic groups clearly have particular physical characteristics. So it should not be a matter of principle to to deny (not saying that you are) that there can be differences in ability.
Of course, these are sweeping generalities, and having visited Kenya, I know that the average Kenyan is happier in front of the TV with a beer, just like the white man. But when it comes to the elite (in athletics or mathematics) the small statistical differences can mean large differences in participation.
Also, cultures are affected by what the people like to do and are good at, and people become better at things the culture values and promotes. So I think these things work together.
Re:Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
No. In summary, men tend to have more serious accidents. The other bit could easily be that women are more likely to file an insurance claim for a minor mishap. Maybe men figure they can fix or have someone else fix the problem. Maybe men feel more embarassment over having accidents and thus only file claims when there's no way they can pay for the repairs. Or of course maybe they really do have fewer minor accidents.
Re:PC == Keep your mouth shut?? (Score:3, Interesting)
Every school (especially technology schools) are trying to balance enrollment, but it won't succeed until they try to solove the huge image problem that technology field has. I have seen all the frantic acrobatics that goes on in my own school and still their enrollment was increased by adding non-tech areas (sounds to me as if they are trying to circumvent the balancing by dilution).
More and more people are realizing that it is not just lack of opportunitites, but that engineering field is not attractive or glamourous enough for women.
The Debian Women's page points to an article that makes the observation that women are not properly and positively introduced to engineers [mit.edu] (almost all of whom work behind the scenes). Of course, that is not the only problem, but a very important one.
Someone has suggested that there should be hit shows featuring engineers and computer scientists where they are not portrayed as socially inept outcasts. A tech version of 'Ally McBeal', ER or CSI (CSI does not really show the whole spectrum).
Re:i doubt it (Score:3, Interesting)
No. In fact, they are often told by female teachers that math and science is not anything for girls. Often, these teachers are crap at math and science themselves (if I had a dollar for every mistake I corrected) and pass their inadequecies onto their female pupils.
This female teacher I had in grade school told my mom during a parent-teacher meeting that math and science wasn't important for girls; this was after my mom asked about how I was doing in these subjects and what we were atually learning. Not the smartest thing to say to a mom who has a MsC in chemistry...
Oh, its twue, its twue! (Score:4, Interesting)
According to the BBC [bbc.co.uk], The difference in male vs. female brain size (about 10%) in humans and higher order primates is directly attributable to in increase is the size of the areas of the brain responsible for geo-spatial mapping and visualization. Natural selection is the culprit in this instance. It seems that if you couldn't find your way home after the day's hunt, you got less of an opportunity to pass on your genes!
When you think about it, (and be honest now) in your experience, exactly what is the ratio of male to female Unix admins?
Got 'cha!
Re:Have a baby, see gender differences (Score:3, Interesting)
I have six kids: Three boys; Three girls. I should know. What I've learned is that girls are not -- in any way -- less *capable* of learning math and science. However, *how* they learn is different. Take into account the "how" differences and you can have a science genius, girl or boy.
For example, don't *ever* say, "Good boy!" or, "Good girl!". (Got to be the most common mistake I hear parents make.) Instead, say, "Good job!". Boys won't pay much attention to the difference, but girls will -- even if you say "good job" to her, then turn around and say "good boy" to her brother. They notice all the subtleties of language and attitude.
If you ever so much as hint that your girl can't do something, YOU LOSE! Boys are much more forgetful.
I hate "brain structure" agruments (Score:3, Interesting)
Saying that more men go further in the fields of math and science and then pointing to the brain structure of these particular people versus the not-so-mathy and scientific people really shows nothing other than what a math-and-science wired brain tends to look like. I bet if you look at the brain structure of a highly mathematically/scientifically inclined woman, the same people would say "she's good at this stuff because her brain is structured like a man's".
It's not worth my time at the moment to go off on a "nature v nuture" tangent -- but the whole "brain structure" logic just always annoys the hell out of me because they seem to always look at a brains current structure without considering (or just making assumptions about) how a particular brain came to have that particular structure. In many cases the overlooked how-the-brain-got-this-way question is much more relevant to the case at hand, but doesn't seem to get studied (or referenced) as much.
Feminism destroyed America, and Europe too (Score:5, Interesting)
look how far we've come by legislating that women are equal to men: We have an unprecedented number of single-parent families and all of the dysfunctional children that accompany those numbers. We have an unprecedented divorce rate that never stops climbing. (Studies have shown that 80% of all marriages start where men ask the women, but it is in the 90% range where women initiate divorce.)
Yes, and there you haven't even touched the subject of what happens after that divorce; the woman gets away with the kids and your money. Hell, I know men where the woman, right after they decided to divorce, robbed the entire house clean of all their mutual belongings (with the help of friends), in addition to taking a way too large lump of his future income, and taking all his rights away to see his kids. Judges won't punish this sort of outright criminal behaviour and the woman's part, undoubtedly for a variety of reasons, but justice is not one of them. Feminism is, I suspect. There's a reason for the fact that organisations like Fathers for Justice exist. This happens in Europe, mind you!Feminism destroyed America, the whole western world for that matter. And still there are people (the variery that needs to sit down to pee, that is) claiming that feminism hasn't come far enough yet. Excuse me?! What do they want men to be? Men are more than a monthly income, and a means for women to be able to shit out these godawful screaming shitting smelling monsters they call babies!
On the other hand, there is a difference between what women say (or think) they want, and what they actually want; they claim that they want men and women to be equal, and that they want a man with feminine qualities. Bullshit! What they want, is a man; someone who has the traditional male qualities like confidence, and not being afraid to set limits, etc. Until women see the flaw in their own logic here, the divorce rate will not get better. On the other hand, once you understand this as a man, it's time to get a woman that doesn't think in such a feministic way. Really, they exist :)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Give it a rest (Score:3, Interesting)
There ARE differences. (Score:2, Interesting)
We were taught, and validated by experimentation, that there are indeed differences between women and men. It turns out that women are better communicators than men, and and men have better spatial awareness (i.e. ability to model spatial problems in their mind).
I'd guess mental modeling of spatial problems has a lot of similarity with mental modeling of math problems.
I also find it interesting that these skills coincide with the traditional gender roles of man= hunter, woman=cavewife, that have persisted for hundreds of thousands of years compared to the relatively recent social equalisation of women.
Re:Total bullshit (Score:1, Interesting)
Another country where this is not the case is S. Korea. Once I talked some with a new Korean professor in the U.S.. He was asking me about the strange difference between the male and female grades and also their attitudes when they see him. He told me that in Korea women and men function equally in the class room and he wanted to know about these American differences.
All I could say was that it was probably cultural and I explained to him how American women used to be treated like kitchen slaves, and so this generation of women might have been raised by kitchen slaves. I know I was certainly raised by a completely inept woman who had a brain that could have made her a doctor - but forever she will be dependent on men.
Re:Today's Progressive Views (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm personally quite disgusted how someone throws out the P.C. card when he/she (or she/he if you must) isn't completely satisfied with any statement. If I coulda pulled that card on my parents when I was young, or maybe my principal in school when "fair and equal punishment" (yeah, right) was being dealt, or when I was denied financial aid, because I belong to an increasing minority (male white guy), I sure would have.
I've never had a prejudice to anyone or any group, as I was not brought up that way. I'd love to think that yes, people are created equally and everyone is nice and flowers grow at the north pole, but if I believe that, I'm sure to live a short life. I take away my experiences, learn from them, and apply them to future experiences. It's a dumbed down version of the scientific process, and we all use it to some extent. If we don't learn from our experiences, how will we improve?
I rambled a bit there, but what I was trying to point out is that before anyone jumps on this man and tries to tear him up, recognize that yes, there *are* GENERAL differences, and we ought to understand WHY. Be it social, economical, evolutional, or basic neural programming, we need to know.
If we never learned the earth was round, the Americas would still be an unknown to modern society.
Besides, how many guys do you see give each other hugs when they meet? GENERALLY, not as many as women. That's just something women do. How many women do you see that care about all the internal workings of a computer/some other complex system? GENERALLY, not as many as men.
Re:Great! (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, there is solid data on the elderly - they are more dangerous. But wait, why do older people have the cheapest insurance of all? That is true - elderly people have less accidents per year than middle-aged people, and pay less in insurance.
But why? Are they safer drivers? No. Elderly drivers drive far, far less. Elderly drivers have far fewer accidents per year, but far more accidents per mile. Elderly people drive far less than average.
But once they get on the road, elderly drivers are some of the most dangerous ones out there.
Re:Lack of rational thinking (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Only some sex differences are "negative" to wom (Score:2, Interesting)
This list *could* be due as much to chauvinism and archaic gender roles than to anything inherently physiological. e.g. women are less likely to be killed in war because they're less likely to be front-line combat soldiers due to societal intertia regarding the role of women, not because they happen to have a vagina.
Re:Regression (Score:0, Interesting)
It's this modern bullshit of "we're equal" that totally screws up family structure which makes more broken home which makes more stress on children which means more problems in school due to the stress @ home etc...
I had a girl recently go on a long rant of how she was a "free spirit" and won't let any man control her or run her life... and a week later talks about how she's thankful that her dad provides the food, the house, the money for school, etc... the MAN provides it all. Women belong taking care of the home and the man's needs as the Man provides in life.
So yes barefoot and pregnant is a good thing, I'd have preferred my mom to be that way then to have worked 2 jobs and never been home except when working from home, to manage to save up jack crap of money for retirement so I'll get to support her. Meanwhile my father made millions and is happily retired, he started with nothing and graduated from a crappy public school in a bad part of town.
The 1950s family structure wasn't bad, hell it was damned near perfect. I don't know why people hate on the 50's so much, it was a better time and place.
Stereotyping (was re Jews in Backetball) (Score:3, Interesting)
See Kraft, Phillip, Programmers and Managers [amazon.com] (Springer-Verlag) for details.
--dave
Re:I am a woman and innately different. (Score:4, Interesting)
Before anyone claims I'm flamebaiting...I lived in the South for many years and knew many employers who flat out tell you this stuff. Hell, I like the South. Southern women rule.
Re:Regression (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe her father doesn't try to control her or make her take care of all his needs?
The 1950s family structure wasn't bad, hell it was damned near perfect. I don't know why people hate on the 50's so much, it was a better time and place.
I don't see what stops you from having a 50's family structure. Just find someone who thinks alike. Oh, you want to force someone else to live in a way that will make you happy? Uh.. we kind of got away from that and it's worth some inconvenience.
Different but equal? (Score:2, Interesting)
For example, my team is 75% female. I am male. I do not have a problem working with women, and in fact, until my current position, every supervisor I ever had was female. That's regardless of industry...I've worked in hospitality, IT, and finance/insurance.
The female members of my team consistently require special treatment for scheduling due to their children. When I say "consistently" I mean one or more of them require a day off or out of the office, or a late start or early stop every week. Every single week. Its usually because their children are sick or they can't find a baby sitter, or day care isn't open, or whatever. These scheduling events (I won't say "problems") have seriously harmed my team's productivity, and set us back several months by conservative estimates.
Our HR person has instructed us (team leaders) that we can, in no way whatsoever, force any of our female employees to choose between their job or their children without making the company liable to a lawsuit. In other words, all any of the women on my team have to say is "My kid..." and they get to work whatever schedule they want, and usually less than a typical 40 hours.
Yes, they can work from home, but from the logs, they rarely do. If you call them on it, they say "Well, I was going to, but my kid was sick..." and you have to let them slide.
On the flip side, the male members of the team must be here every day without fail unless calling in sick or using a vacation day. 8-5, no work from home, nothing. Occasionally we get to leave early for a doctor/dentist appointment. Other than that, we are here every day, and we work all day. We are not allowed the same flexibility as the women.
Women demand equality, they demand that they be allowed to have both children and a career, yet when it comes time to actually DO both, they end up choosing one or the other a good portion of the time. You can't say anything against them, you can't write them up for missing too much work and not being productive, you can't write them up for contributing less than others on the team even though they make the same or more in salary (the women on my team do).
Maybe the solution is to allow men the same flexibility as women, even if they don't have kids. I'm single without children...if I was allowed the same scheduling flexibility as the women on my team with children, maybe I wouldn't care as much. At this point, however, there definitely isn't equality, and demanding any would just get me branded a sexist.
So, to me, it is a valid concern for an employer to consider whether you have or are planning to have children. It might not be valid legally, but I have epxerienced firsthand that it DOES have ramifications and DOES effect productivity. Given that it does effect the workplace and productivity, why shouldn't it be a valid concern for an employer?
My point is that you can't have it all. Sometimes you have to compromise. If children are a priority, then maybe the compromise is less career advancement. If career advancement is a priority, then maybe the compromise is not having children.
Re:Lack of rational thinking (Score:3, Interesting)
In my opinion, insurance companies should be required to charge extra only on the basis of actual violations incurred. "You've been in 2 accidents that you were at fault for, totalling $10,000 damage. That puts you in a new insurance rate class."
Maybe I'll grant that they can start you off in a medium-risk category which you can graduate out of after 2-4 years, but even that shouldn't be based on age. Just years you've had a license combined with # of violations and how long ago they were.
Re:While you make good points (Score:1, Interesting)
Wait, Europeans stopped hunting hundreds of thousands of years ago? Or is it that Africans came out of the ancient past via a time machine?
This will slowly change in America as well and the more modernized and technological we become the less genetic strength people will have at birth.
Erm, yes of course. Because we will use technology to rid ourselves of that pesky 'strength' gene.
Re:Lack of rational thinking (Score:3, Interesting)
I know of at least one famous one (David Sedaris), and I have at least two friends who do not have driver's licences for exactly that reason.
Personally, despite some problems with my vision, I've never managed to hit anything. I recently was in my first accident: my car was parked, and a man from up the street ran into it. (I was not in the car at the time.)
Lea
Re:No of phsics majors. (Score:3, Interesting)
You're either a man or a very lucky woman. I'm a PhD student in computer science. I do cryptography, which is a rather logical, math-based discipline.
I have been discouraged from "doing the sciences" more times than I can comfortably count. I have been told "little lady, you can't possibly have any idea what you're talking about. where is your husband?" at a research conference. It didn't stop me, but you'll probably admit that with enough such exposures, it might just stop a pretty high proportion of people.
Hey, I'm good at what I do. What good could it possibly do to perpetuate this sort of crap, when it makes smart people avoid diciplines in which they are capable and qualified?
Lea
Jimmy the Greek (Score:3, Interesting)
The black is the better athlete, and he practices to be the better athlete, and he's bred to be the better athlete because this goes way back to the slave period. The slave owner would breed this big black with this big black woman so he could have a big black kid. That's where it all started.
He was fired for that ignorant comment.
The problem is that such generalizations sound very plausible on a common sense level, but they are never backed up with scientific fact. They are essentially hypotheses designed to prove a certain situation, one that typically involves treating someone of a certain group differently (often less favorably).
I could make the comment that "Men are more aggressive in discipling their children because in the wild, when hunting, if they weren't their child would likely die.".
Sounds plausible, right? And what's the harm in people holding that philosophy?
Now how would you like it when a woman judge has this in her head when deciding to award custody of your children? Or when you're appearing before an all-female hiring panel to be a child care provider. Would you like it if the "genetically more likely to have abusive" is running through everyone's heads?
Mental Capability passed on by X chromosome? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Jokes aside (Score:2, Interesting)
Statements like that bother me. Let's break this down...
I have heard men make comments like this my entire life
All her life she has heard men saying that she is less likely to excel at math or science than the guy sitting next to her? In short, without any test scores, transcripts, etc. She's probably got worse grades than any random guy on the street. Even if that's the case (and I'm assuming that's not what she meant, but I wanted to point out that the statement doesn't fit this situation), what is the significance of this? Not much. It's no different from saying that the average black guy on the street has a better chance of making it into the NBA or NFL than the average white guy on the street.
if I had listened to them I would never have done anything
If she would have given up her dreams just because she thought the odds were slightly against her, then I would have no sympathy for her if she had.
In short, who cares what science says your odds are? If you are confident that your abilities don't fit that trend then why the heck should it affect you? Saying that the odds are not in your favor is not the same as telling people not to try, or that they have no hope, or that you won't even give them a fair shake. I think we can all agree that using a statstical assessment to defend positions like those is not only unscientific, but flat-out wrong. But it's obviously so. No one is going to "get away" with using this study for those purposes.
Re:Lack of rational thinking (Score:3, Interesting)
IATACOAGDS (I am the adult child of a gender-difference scientist) and my mother's research tries to address exactly this issue. While it is an accepted fact that women, on average, do less well than men, on average, on tasks of spatial reasoning (which have been shown to correlate well with performance on mathematics tasks), there is a very interesting subpopulation of women who do as well as men. This subpopulation has two components to it, one nature and one nurture, and both are necessary: the first is that the woman must be right-handed and have an immediate family member (parent or sibling) who is left-handed or ambidexeterous; the second is that she must have had a chance to persue higher education in mathematics, engineering, or science (a bachelor's degree is sufficient).
Much of the research done to date on this subpopulation has been done in adult women. My mother's research attempts to see if the same population can be identified before-the-fact in elementary school where the nurture effects will not be as strong (so goes the hypothesis). She has had some luck in picking out these girls, but since the real study is longitudinal, it will be a few years yet before the conclusions are in.
At some point, we'll get over ourselves, and be able to study such questions openly and without fear of recrimination, as long as the studies are done without the influence of political agendae. Personally, I think my mother's research is a step in the right direction.
Re:There ARE differences. (Score:2, Interesting)
Women have better social/empathy skills then men in general, the gender difference can be explained by autism traits in men. It is better to have social skills then no systemising ability, at least you can ask a friend (Nerd) for help with the VCR/arrow head-harpoon making. It relates to evolutionary biology.
Google Autism + Math's
Re:How to do pullups (Score:4, Interesting)
Not only that, but women endurance in general is far superior. Look at adventure racers. Women kick ass in most teams - though they are harder to find as it is not popular. But they usually can not navigate. :)
But it is all beside the point. The point is that significant differences exist, and it is absolutely normal to acknoledge that. And like many people pointed out - this is just the third, worst type of lying - statistics. Use it appropriately.
Re:How to do pullups (Score:3, Interesting)
Which, sadly, it is. Just look at this whole
Gee, I wonder why not? Thanks for the encouragement, guys.
Re:what stops one having 50's family? (Score:3, Interesting)
My wife and I have digital cable, get a new-for-us but gently-used car every 3-5 years, eat out a couple of times a week or more, support a couple of relatively expensive hobbies, and take two fairly nice week-long vacations a year including a stay in our timeshare, all on just my single middle class income so my wife can stay home and take care of our daughter.
How do we do it? We keep track of how much we spend each year on non-monthly expenses like car and house repairs, vacations, hobbies, gifts, and other unexpected expenses, divide by 26, and put that amount in savings accounts every 2 weeks. It is amazing how much less stress an unexpected expense is on your marriage when you are prepared for it.
Contrast this with typical consumer behavior of charging unexpected expenses on a credit card because they are maxed out on their regular monthly expenses and you can see why most people think they need two incomes to survive.
Someone needs an updated education (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sooo stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)