Hello.
How come most famous mathematitians and scientists are all males and none of them are females. Why are males always better than females in these areas?
Amy.

Do you know that, according to the Guinness book of records, Marylin vos Savant, an author and the most famous Parade magazine columnist, has the world highest IQ?

Your question is too general to be entirely true, but definitely in many fields of human activity male preponderance is noticeable. To a large extent it may be explained by historical reasons. The society being what it was just a short time ago (and still is in many countries. Just read what they write about Afganistan and Saudi Arabia), women did not have a chance to get education, not to mention a chance for advancement in science. It may appear rather surprising that under the circumstances some females managed to achieve fame and world renoun.

The question is being discussed on a regular basis, however. Below is a list of links to discussions at the sci.math newsgroup:

WHERE R THE FEMALES???

http://www.mathforum.org/epigone/sci.math/dehvaygoo

Questions on Women and Fields Medals

http://www.mathforum.org/epigone/sci.math/tangsternang

Women In Math

http://www.mathforum.org/epigone/sci.math/poiserdbry

famous femmes in math

http://www.mathforum.org/epigone/sci.math/whansnexsmim

Female test performance in the presence of males

http://www.mathforum.org/epigone/sci.math/clewhahphil

What is fair to women and How to make it fair...

http://www.mathforum.org/epigone/sci.math/leeflarran

>Do you know that, according to the Guinness book of records, Marylin
>vos Savant, an author and the most famous Parade magazine columnist,
>has the world highest IQ?

She was a writer, and had an IQ of 228. I have an older sister(14) and she took an IQ test few weeks ago and she got 156(her first try). How many times do you think Marylin vos Savant took the test before she scored that high? I don't really think that IQ could tell you how smart the person is, you can get better at it just by practicing. My sister is just 14 and in few years when she learns more don't you think she'll score much higher than just 156(now she knows what the test is like).

As for women in math fields, even now at school you can notice that guys think better than girls do, even though most girls try harder. Not many women go into math and science fields just cause they're not good at it, not cause they don't want to or are affraid of it. I don't see why it is that way.

Amy

>She was a writer, and had an IQ of 228.

The point is she is famous and is a woman.

>I have an older
>sister(14)

She also has alll the chances to become famous. Wish her good luck in my name.

>As for women in math fields, even now at school you can
>notice that guys think better than girls do, even though
>most girls try harder. Not many women go into math and
>science fields just cause they're not good at it, not cause
>they don't want to or are affraid of it. I don't see why it
>is that way.

I do not know if you have any factual information to support your claim. Do you?

As an aside, I've been reading some books on the modern evolution theory. There is no doubt that males and females played different evolutionary roles. For all I know, it may be that males grew better suited to mathematical thinking. It well may be, I do not know. It might be a matter for a nice research topic.

Not really,
Your claim cannot be supported by concrete evidence, and it is a false assumption of the concept of intelligence. Vos Savant, has a noticible talent in the verbal area, and may possibly reach an IQ level of 180 or higher. Even if she took the test numerous times her work reveals us she might have a very high intelligence.
Your sister, if she has an IQ of 156, would very likely not have the adult intelligence higher than Vos Savant in the future. In order to that to happen she would have to score on, at least, the 170 level, right now. Note that if she took an online test, the result might be highlly inflated, distorting the real results on as many as 30 points, in some cases. So, assuming she took this type of test even if just once, her IQ might be lower.
However, don't be discouraged by what you know on intelligence distribution, specialists say woomen, intelectually speaking, walk together with men in the bell curve, and maybe us, men, shiuld consider you more in this area.

Israel> the 14 year older.

I don't really think that IQ could tell you how smart the person is, you can get better at it just by practicing. My sister is just 14 and in few years when she learns more don't you think she'll score much higher than just 156(now she knows what the test is like).

Unfortunatly, the Q in IQ is stands for quotient. Thus, as she get's older the test effectivly gets harder ( not really )
If she stayed as smart as she was now, and waited a year, her IQ would drop.

Also practicing for an IQ test rarely works. :D

> I don't really think that IQ could tell you how smart the
>person is,

First, I think it is important to define what is it we are talking about. Whether Marylin is smart because of her high IQ, or the other way around, or not at all, is completely irrelevant to my post, the gist of which is that she is a famous woman, and this is so in part because her IQ is recorded in the Guiness book.

A cursive look into that book will prove that not every item it included is worth a discussion or scientific investigation. Moreover, behind the records, there may be no human achievement to be proud of. I have not expressed an opinion about the IQ, its societal value and the manner in which it may be improved. Whatever these may be, Marylin is a famous woman, that's all.

>Thus, as she get's older the test effectivly gets harder
>( not really )

The test gets harder, but she get's smarter because she learnes more every day.

>If she stayed as smart as she was now, and waited a year,
>her IQ would drop.

She can't be as smart next year as she is now because she really does learn more.

>Also practicing for an IQ test rarely works.

But it does. My sister took second IQ test and got 160 this time.

The tests are designed to be reliable, that is, repeated testing yields the same, or similar scores. Getting four points higher is hardly a massive leap in intelligence, and is probably the result of testing error.

>She was a writer, and had an IQ of 228. I have an older
>sister(14) and she took an IQ test few weeks ago and she got
>156(her first try). How many times do you think Marylin vos
>Savant took the test before she scored that high? I don't
>really think that IQ could tell you how smart the person is,
>you can get better at it just by practicing. My sister is
>just 14 and in few years when she learns more don't you
>think she'll score much higher than just 156(now she knows
>what the test is like).

i agree that the vos savant example is rather poor. while there is some value to any test, standard iq tests have been shown to be quite Americo-centric.

more importantly, you should look up lise meitner, sonya kovalevsky, and the physicist maria goeppert mayer if you want examples of *real* well-known female mathematicians or physicists. i recommend you reading the book _Nobel_Prize_Women_in_Science_ if you really curious (although i don't believe that kovalevsky is included, even though she won the equivalent of a fields medal in her time).

>
>As for women in math fields, even now at school you can
>notice that guys think better than girls do, even though
>most girls try harder. Not many women go into math and

hmm, do you know what it means to 'think better'? i am a 21 year old, female phd student in artificial intelligence still trying to learn what that means. maybe you can teach me. :)

taking into account your stated age of less than 14 years, i'd venture to guess that the boys you encounter like to show off more in class, and the smarter girls are often quieter. as for 'studying harder', i am known to be pretty relaxed when it comes to doing work (although i have a horrible procrastination habit that leads me to stress neurotically for about two weeks every quarter), and i have still often far surpassed the boys in math and science courses and competitions (state level, etc.) throughout my life. i have quite a few other friends and female professors who are similar in that respect. more importantly: each of us have healthy social lives and relationships, and we have other intellectual interests as well as athletic interests.

however, admittedly, there is a severe scarcity of girls in my computer science department (and during my mathematics undergraduate years as well). i am often only one of two girls in courses of 15 to more than 20 students. moreover, none of us have originally come from the U.S.. interestingly, the percentage of women in mathematics and science in the U.S. is significantly lower than that percentage in other countries such as Hungary or my home country of Turkey. in Hungary, the percentage of female physics professors is 50% (from a recent government census). in Turkey that percentage is close to 40%. in the U.S. it is less than 15%! unfortunately, i don't recall the respective percentages of mathematics professors, but i seem to remember that they are somewhat proportional.

now, i doubt that American girls 'don't think as well' as girls from other countries. rather, in Eastern Europe especially, mathematics and science education is so emphasized that girls are also encouraged into mathematics and science. there are surely other factors as well. but, let me just put it this way: in American highschools girls are more encouraged to be cheerleaders than to have a sufficient understanding of mathematics and science, whereas in Turkish highschools girls who prefer something like cheerleading to doing well in mathematics or science are frowned upon.

well, i am quite saddenned that a plausibly bright girl younger than 14 years of age would already succumb to the social stereotype that 'boys think better than girls, even though most girls try harder.' :( your statements in themselves, at such a young age, hint at the answer to your original question. i am happy, however, that you are curious to find some role models to show you that it is not an altogether impossible endeavor to have a healthy female life and still excel scientifically or mathematically. again, i really recommend you to read _Nobel_Prize_Women_in_Science_, which i had happily read when i was a 14 year old girl in the U.S.. i hope that it will at least help you to dispel any doubts you have of your own potential.

on a related tangent, i doubt that even now you would say that girls are less *creative* than boys. well, much of higher level mathematics is quite beautiful and involves enormous creativity. pay no attention to the roteness of most grade-school math courses. if you stick with math, then you might just have a lot of fun with it. :) in case you haven't read it already, i'd advise you to read _The_Joy_of_Mathematics_ by Theoni Pappas as an introduction to that world. of course, thanks to alexb, you also have this very domain cut-the-knot to give a glimpse of that world. :)

>science fields just cause they're not good at it, not cause
>they don't want to or are affraid of it. I don't see why it
>is that way.

see above please -- no pun intended. :)
--Gunes

>
>Amy

Hello,
Pappas was just mentioned... I can recommend another book of hers: Mathematical Scandals... There is an interesting essay about Ada Byron Lovelace, where the author discusses the difficulties of being a female scientist in 1800's Europe...

Gunes, turns out my home country is also Turkey and I have some interest in AI. Could you please send a note to tolga@ozbakan.com if you ever read this message?

-T

And here's another aspect recently discussed at the Standford News Report:

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/report/news/february10/mathpath210.html

thanks alex. it is quite a good article. i had read other related studies previously, but none which considers the effect of succeeding in multiple subject. if such a problem exists even at the highschool level, i wonder what is the case at even the elementary or middle school level, where students are less mature and more easily affected by comments of counselors, teachers, peers etc..

I started a different thread with a (borrowed) article that describes a very recent relevant research. There are a couple of links and references.

dr. b,
i looked at that article the first day you posted it, but now i seem to have lost the link. moreover, i am not sure to which 'ctk exchange' category this thread belongs. although amy seems to have lost interest anyway, for future reference how can i quickly find the ctk exchange category to which a recent thread linked from the front page belongs?

thanks.

"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a
dancing star."
-- Friedrich Neitzsche

>dr. b,
>i looked at that article the first day you posted it, but
>now i seem to have lost the link. moreover, i am not sure
>to which 'ctk exchange' category this thread belongs.

At the bottom of every messay there's a line with links to Previous topic and Next topic. It's the Next one.

You can also search the CTK Exchange for, say, "Gender Differences".

The article is at the Early Math forum.

>although amy seems to have lost interest anyway, for future
>reference how can i quickly find the ctk exchange category
>to which a recent thread linked from the front page belongs?

You can press Read new icon (top row on every page of the CTK Exchange), which will display a list of posts that appeared after you pressed Mark all the last time.

>Your question is too general to be entirely true, but
>definitely in many fields of human activity male
>preponderance is noticeable. To a large extent it may be
>explained by historical reasons. The society being what it
>was just a short time ago (and still is in many countries.
>Just read what they write about Afganistan and Saudi
>Arabia), women did not have a chance to get education, not
>to mention a chance for advancement in science. It may
>appear rather surprising that under the circumstances some
>females managed to achieve fame and world renoun.
Mr. Alex - Why are you looking to find the lowest common denominator! when trying to argue why women are not represented in scientific communities of wetern world (open socities). What does Afganestan or Saudi Arabia have anything to do with this tragedy?!

> Mr. Alex - Why are you looking to find the lowest common
>denominator! when trying to argue why women are not
>represented in scientific communities of wetern world (open
>socities).

Am I? Societies do not change overnight, do not you agree? The western societies seem to be changing in the direction that eventually, as I hope, would render the question moot. What denominator had you in mind?

>What does Afganestan or Saudi Arabia have
>anything to do with this tragedy?!

They may remind one of how the western society looked just a short while back, but does no longer. It's not to say that the current state of affairs is 100% satisfactory.

You may find the biographies of several women mathematicians at

http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/women.htm

It is not that males are necessarily better than females at math, just the type of societies that existed. You have to understand the mind set of the people before modern times... women were considered dirty and stupid. Therefore, if a woman displayed any knowledge in the ways of mathematics, she was either shunned from any mathematical society or beaten. In fact, there was a Greek woman (whose name escapes me for the moment) who was an astounding mathematician. One day she was pulled off of her chariot by a rioting mob and killed her with clam shells- just because she was a mathematician. Then much of her work was burned. So, there were definitely many more women mathematicians that were lost in the volumes of time due to the blindness of man...

>In fact, there was a Greek woman (whose name escapes
>me for the moment) who was an astounding mathematician. One
>day she was pulled off of her chariot by a rioting mob and
>killed her with clam shells- just because she was a
>mathematician.

The woman's name was Hypatia (370-415). She's a legend as a mathematician, although none of your works was ever found.

Just for the sake of truth, she was indeed skinned by the mob, but not because of being a mathematician. This was the time of the propagation of Christendom. The tensions ran high between the rivaling sects. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Hello Mr.Alex,
Resently for my English informative speech, I did a research on who is smarter and who does better in school, boys or girls. So, according to standard tests and overall grades, boys are smarter and score higher than girls on math and science tests, but girls generaly do better in school, and score higher in English.
What do you think about that?
-Liliya

> What do you think about that?

I do not think about that at all.

I do believe, though, that males and females have evolved for different purposes. As such, they may be better suited for different activities. This is in ngeneral. However, no statistics or philosophy applies in any specific case.

Averages are made of extremes. Boys do better on standardized tests; they also predominate the prison population. The average (middle value) is about the same for males and females, but the extremes are further apart in males. As political scientist James Q. Wilson once said, "There are more male geniuses and more male idiots". It isn't a plot or a "vast right-wing conspiracy"; it is natural variation, of which males seem to have more.

just for the sake of truth???

how on earth can anyone know the truth of an event that happened many hundreds of years ago???

they aint u jus fink that.girls are jus as clever.

can i just add that it was not western cultures who were the first to bring equal (almost) rights to women. infact Islam brought equal rights to women a long time ago. Islam gave women the right to own wealth, divorce, educate themselves, and more, long b4 western cultures caught up with this. it is perhaps unfortunate that examples like afghanistan give Islam a bad name

>can i just add that it was not western cultures who were the
>first to bring equal (almost) rights to women. infact Islam
>brought equal rights to women a long time ago. Islam gave
>women the right to own wealth, divorce, educate themselves,
>and more, long b4 western cultures caught up with this. it
>is perhaps unfortunate that examples like afghanistan give
>Islam a bad name

Could you please be more specific about the examples like Afganistan. What other countries do you have in mind?

well the main example is afghanistan. women were not allowed to go even to normal secondary school, had no right to a divorce, were not allowed to work, were not allowed to voice any opinions, and had virtually no status in society. i dont want to give examples of any other countries because i cannot say for sure wat goes on in these other countries. but another example of ppl giving Islam a bad name would be in Palastein/Afghanistan and the idea of suicide bombing.

Because females are better at everything else!

Perhaps it should be sensible to not consider whether one sex is better than other at maths and science, but to focus on the mathematical problems that have not been solved and ask ourselves what is the best way to solve them? Males have so far provided a lot, well practically all of the current level of mathematical understanding. This is not to say that women have not contributed, indeed they have but due to social beliefs etc as discussed above, they have not had a fair chance.

I am of the opinion that if more females are encourged to take up mathematics, they will provide a different perspective on problems that may lead to solutions or at least a greater understanding. Females I believe in general, do think in a different way to males.

After all if you are stuck on a problem, you seek to look at it from a fresh prospective, it is possible that that by discusion with female mathematicians that more light would be shed.

I am not claiming that females are the solution to the problems that remain unsolved, but that mathematics in general would benefit from more active female participation.

I like to see problems solved, regardless of what sex solves them.

Maths for maths sake is my motto.

Ed

Well, don't you think the original question posted is a broblem that needs to be solved too?

I won't agree that only great scientists are male.. there are quiet a bunch of females in this field

famous among them are
Mary curie and shakuntala devi

>Hello.
>How come most famous mathematitians and scientists are all
>males and none of them are females. Why are males always
>better than females in these areas?
>Amy.

Hi Amy
Because Eve is the mother of all living things. Females generally are interested in living things, people, animals, and plants, or things closely tied to living things such as healing medicine, or food.

Some females, granted, are very good at math. But as a general rule, math, mechanics, and things like that are more of interest to males.

John

wellto tell you the truth, there is no such thing as Men better in Math than women: I think it is a matter of Challenge. I have known a lot of women beating me in Math from Advance calc1 and some other various math subject..
we are not better than you in Math, we are maybe more challenging maybe than you do.