A hearty congratulations to Elinor Ostrom, who was awarded the Nobel in Economic Science today! She is the first woman to win this award, and the fifth woman to win a Nobel this year. She is being honored along with fellow American Oliver Williamson of the University of California, Berkeley. Ostrom teaches at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Both were recognized for their work analyzing economic governance. Ostrom showed how common resources can be managed successfully by those who use them rather than by government or privatization. The traditional view is that common ownership results in resource exploitation.
Ostrom said she will donate the proceeds to research and graduate students. What a badass.
Heard about this early this morning. Amazing news all around: privatization is unnecessary AND ladybrains can do math.
Unfortunatly, my ladybrain can’t, so much (dyscalculia, anyone?), so if any our mathy readers could give a nice summary of her award-winning work, I would appreciate it…maybe Echidne has something?
Well, Ostrom’s research was on the “tragedy of the commons.” The idea is that if there is a common resource available to everyone (farmable land, for example) people left to their own devices will exploit it and make it less useful for everyone.
In her fieldwork all over the world, Ostrom found that in a wide range of settings, people form voluntary arrangements to govern use and prevent exploitation in the absence of an authority such as a private owner or government.
Is she saying that people will group together to govern use of common resources so as to prevent exploitation by individuals and/or governments? In other words, is the resource referred to in SarahMC’s first paragraph above being exploited by groups of individuals or one person at a time?
For example, say there’s a common grazing ground. Will villagers ruin it by everyone individually deciding to graze their cows on it, resulting in overuse? And is Ostrom saying that this can be prevented by those individuals getting together and deciding how to use the land?
On another topic, is Sarah.of.a.lesser.god okay? I don’t recall seeing here here lately.
I am pretty sure they will group together to determine the best way to manage the resource, but you’d have to read one of her papers to be sure how her research panned out.
S.O.A.L.G. is just fine but very busy so she is taking a break.
Score one for the women! As one who works in finance, I can’t help but be excited when a ladybrain gets a math award. It makes me want to forward the news to all my nay-saying colleagues.
p.s. I do not think she discovered that people will always behave this way, but that they can and they have, which is a departure from the traditional view of economic governance.
Larry Summers was saying that male intelligence is more variable than female, even though both cohorts have the same mean. So, even though 13% more females than males took the SAT in 2007, there are almost twice as many males as females in the 750-800 range:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/SkIXdKjrEiI/AAAAAAAAKcw/x10tUz6noE0/s1600-h/sat5.bmp
The average SAT math score for Harvard professors in math, econ, and the hard sciences must be higher than 750… which is what Summers (whose whole family is brilliant) was talking about. There are way more males than females with the requisite abilities to be Ivy League profs in difficult subjects. But men and women have the same average abilities.
(Take a minute to make a graph from the link. You’ve seen the shape of the data before.)
And if you can’t understand these points, you’re really playing into the stereotype.
@witzelsucht:
You’re so wrong on so many levels with this comment that it’s hard to know where to start.
“which is what Summers (whose whole family is brilliant) was talking about.”
The brilliance of his family is relevant how, exactly? That’s either an incredibly ham-handed non-sequitur, or you’re implying it affects his hiring practices at Harvard.
It’s utterly ridiculous that you would make a statement like “There are way more males than females with the requisite abilities to be Ivy League profs in difficult subjects.”
Because the sciences are the only “difficult subjects?” Languages, economics, politics, social sciences, theology, literature–those are so painfully easy even a woman can do them!
And your statement that women just don’t have the “requisite abilities”? That’s total bullshit.
Women are frequently denied jobs for reasons that have NOTHING to do with their abilities. Gender discrimination was particularly rampant in academia back when people like Larry Summers were climbing the ladder–an ugly reality he seems blissfully unaware of. He’d rather just believe women are underrepresented because we’re stupid/slackers.
It’s been found that the SATs predict achievement in the first year of college and past that, they are not a good predictor of success. “Intelligence” and “SAT scores” are not by any means well-correlated — even the creators recognize this, which is why SAT no longer stands for “scholastic aptitude test” — so you might want to find a different metric if you want to make this point. Everything Becky said is true, too, but the evidence that your premise is based on is faulty, which means that your argument has no validity unless you can present some sort of information to back it up.
“The brilliance of his family is relevant how, exactly?”
It isn’t relevant, but it is interesting. What a family!
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/politics/2008/11/24/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-lawrence-larry-summers.html
“Because the sciences are the only “difficult subjects?” Languages, economics, politics, social sciences, theology, literature–those are so painfully easy even a woman can do them!”
You didn’t look at the graph to which I linked. Even the Verbal scores had the same dynamic, with more males in the highest range even though more females took the test. The distribution looks normal, so it follows that there are many more males than females at Harvard prof level. Also, this is the first econ Nobel to be won by a woman. Finally, politics, “social science,” theology, and literature seem mostly to be subjects that people learn at university because they CAN NOT DO MATH. Most of the bartenders I know got degrees in Anthropology, Psych, or Lit.
“And your statement that women just don’t have the “requisite abilities”? That’s total bullshit.”
I’ll try again. Many women have the abilities to do math-y work at the Ivy level. But because male intelligence is more variable than female (even though their averages are the same) more males will be super-smart than females (just as more males will be really stupid.) Read that last sentence again.
“Gender discrimination was particularly rampant in academia back when people like Larry Summers was (sic) climbing the ladder–an ugly reality he seems blissfully unaware of.”
Maybe the reason that there are more females than males in college today is because of gender discrimination. (Don’t respond to this.)
“He’d rather just believe women are underrepresented because we’re stupid/slackers.”
Probably not, considering his mom was an Econ prof. And here’s Slate’s piece on this:
http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2113742&
Before you go cherry-picking the bits I’ve written that make you FEEL angry, check the links, including the distribution of SAT scores (the closest thing the US has to a ubiquitous IQ test) and think about all the things that you’re wrong about.
@baraqiel: Yeah, even college admissions officers don’t believe that SATs are a measure of intelligence, so to say that Harvard–or anywhere else–hires or grants tenure based on how a candidate did on a standardized test they took at age 16-18 is just ridiculous.
This post is about Ostrom, not Larry Summers.
“Maybe the reason that there are more females than males in college today is because of gender discrimination. (Don’t respond to this.)”
Well, if nothing else comes from this conversation, that was the funniest thing I’ve read in a couple of days. Witzelsucht, your argumentative technique simply sparkles with wit and originality.
baraqiel,
High IQ and high SATs are loosely correlated with financial success. LOOSELY!
“… which is why SAT no longer stands for “scholastic aptitude test” — so you might want to find a different metric if you want to make this point.”
The College Board doesn’t necessarily always tell the truth about why they do things. They are doing an inherently political job so can’t be completely straightforward.
Almost all of the High-IQ societies use the SAT as an entrance exam. Programs for gifted children use it. Before recentering, the quick and dirty way to estimate IQ was to drop the “0″ from one’s SAT score. If you have any friends who are gifted at math or science, ask them their SATs. The scores will be higher than yours.
http://iqcomparisonsite.com/criteria.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT
Oh yeah, baraqiel, we’ve been pwned! WE’R IN UR COMMENTS, QUESTIONIN UR LOGIK.
Seriously, tho, the reason there are more females than males in college today has nothing to do with innate intelligence and everything to do with societal/cultural factors. Which, of course, is exactly the same reason there are fewer women profs in science departments. This is not a revelation to most people.
“@baraqiel: Yeah, even college admissions officers don’t believe that SATs are a measure of intelligence… ”
But they keep insisting that people take them, and get very high scores:
http://collegeapps.about.com/od/sat/a/sat_TopColleges.htm
“… so to say that Harvard–or anywhere else–hires or grants tenure based on how a candidate did on a standardized test they took at age 16-18 is just ridiculous.”
Nobody said that, of course. But all of your professors in difficult subjects outscored you on the SATs. Even though you didn’t go to Harvard. You could learn a lot by following the links. You won’t, because you’re more interested in maintaining your anti-Summers snit than in following a logical argument you disagree with.
“Seriously, tho, the reason there are more females than males in college today has nothing to do with innate intelligence and everything to do with societal/cultural factors.”
Like I said… gender discrimination. If there were more men in college today than women you’d say the reason is… gender discrimination.
Does anyone on this board actually read links to assess arguments, or do you all just emote all the time?
“But all of your professors in difficult subjects outscored you on the SATs. Even though you didn’t go to Harvard.”
This is irrelevant and illogical argument, as you don’t have this information. You don’t know what my SAT scores or my professors’ were. Nor do you know whether or not I went to Harvard.
Also, why do you persist in referring to the sciences as “difficult subjects?” I’ve taught plenty of classes in English, foreign languages and media studies, and I can tell you that there is a huge pool of students for whom those subjects are incredibly difficult (many of them science majors).
Hey Witzelsucht, let’s just compare SAT scores and get it over with. Or does only the math portion count?
Wah-waaaaah. I’m an engineering major — one of the top four in my department. I was also in a gifted program when I was in grade school. The admissions exam for that was an IQ test, not anything like the SATs, and I took it in 2nd grade. I can tell you my SAT and GRE scores if you want, although I’d like to get the Harpies’ permission first since that sort of waving about of metrics is generally frowned upon here.
And yet, I still disagree with you! How shocking!
Financial success: also a perfect indicator of intelligence. I’m so glad that no really smart people died poor, like Nikola Tesla.
“The College Board doesn’t necessarily always tell the truth about why they do things. They are doing an inherently political job so can’t be completely straightforward.”
From your link: “But in 1990, because of uncertainty about the SAT’s ability to function as an intelligence test, the name was changed to Scholastic Assessment Test. In 1993 the name was changed to SAT I: Reasoning Test (with the letters not standing for anything) to distinguish it from the SAT II: Subject Tests.[24]”
“But they keep insisting that people take them, and get very high scores:”
When I was applying to college, I read several books about the admissions process, such as The Gatekeepers by Jacques Steinberg, which explores in detail what elite colleges and universities are thinking when they design their admissions procedures. One element of that process is attracting a high number of applicants but being able to disqualify many of those applicants quickly because they don’t have enough time to read all applications in detail. The SAT is helpful in this. Top colleges and universities get enough applicants with high SAT scores that they can make their classes up entirely from that group, and their rankings and prestige go up because they have a lot of applicants that they reject. The SAT acts like a disqualifier, not a qualifier: having a good SAT score won’t overcome a bad transcript, bad rec letters, or a bad essay. It is the least important thing they look at. It just acts to reduce the number of applications they consider carefully.
You seem really invested, however, in proving that the SAT is correlated with intelligence. Clearly this is in dispute. Do you have any other evidence to promote your claim that the intelligence of men has a wider variability than the intelligence of women? The link you provided cites “conventional wisdom” (not evidence) and then more test scores without ever proving that these test scores correlate exactly with intelligence, perhaps because “intelligence” is not a simple, fixed, measurable quantity.
@baraqiel: No need to flash your SATs scores. Mine would probably take the wind out of his sails too, as would the fact that I’m a Harvard alum (grad, not undergrad). Oh well. Better not to feed the trolls.
Besides, we’d just be accused of “emoting”. He is clearly the kind of man who, when faced with an entirely logical argument from a woman, resorts to chauvinist stereotypes to save face.
@Becky – disappointingly, I feel like this is now the only thing my SAT scores are good for. So much stress for so little payoff! Oops, sorry, stress might be an emotion — better not express it in public.
You guys are really sensitive about minor jibes. It’s no wonder that Summers’ statements caused so much anguish.
Baraqiel, several hours from now I will answer all of your points and errors.
BeckySharper, I hope you’ll have some answer as to why fewer males than females are in college, other than because of the obvious: anti-male gender bias.
SarahMC, as Sharper said, please don’t flash your SATs at me. I don’t care at all to know them.
Mansplainer IN DA HOUSE, ladies!
Baraqiel, your “wah-waaah” is making my day. I keep saying it to myself and giggling. Some good has come of this, is my point.
I think we just reached the troll point. “Several hours from now I will answer all of your points and errors?”
Don’t bother, Witzelsuch. I’ve had just about enough of you. Buh-bye.
ETA: It’s ironic that you’d accuse us of oversensitivity when you came here looking for a lifetime achievement award from the Internet League for the Defense of Larry Summers.
@PSoul: Yep. Along with the typically chauvinistic “sensitive” and “emoting” references, we’re on the downhill misogynist slide. Time to hit the “no trolls” button.
Witzelsucht, it’s been really fun having you drop in and manfully explain things to women who are at least as–if not more–intelligent as you. But the conversation is over.
Y’all know what “witzelsucht” references, right? It’s a neurological syndrome wherein the sufferer blathers on compulsively, telling unfunny jokes (which he finds HI-larious) and generally being a giant self-absorbed gasbag as the result of brain damage.
…yep.
Oh, girls, don’t you love it when a man puts you in your place?
/snerk/