Obama's Possible Picks for Cabinet
The fact that he has chosen Rahm "Rahmbo" Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff reassures me, somewhat. Emanuel is a tough cookie -- good write-up of him at the Telegraph. And boy, if Obama is serious about appointing Larry Summers as Treasury Secretary, he has my respect. Summers caused jurassic-feminists to have seizures a while back, some of you may recall, by suggesting that maybe, perhaps, one of the many reasons there aren't a lot of women in university tenure-track positions in the fields of math and science was that men have a higher variance in relevant innate abilities or preference. While this is, of course, backed up by plenty of evidence (certainly, we know that men are math genii and math dunces more than women, whereas the sexes balance out in the middle) jurassic-feminists went bonkers and the poor fellow took one hell of a beating. I'd love to see him in an Obama cabinet, if only 'cause it would bug Gloria Steinem.
Still, there is one potential appointment Obama is apparently contemplating that gives me the creeps: RFK Junior as head of the Environmental Protection Agency! The guy's a complete wingnut. Apart from everything listed in the linked Reason post, he is also on record as being against vaccinations. Oh, please.
Still, there is one potential appointment Obama is apparently contemplating that gives me the creeps: RFK Junior as head of the Environmental Protection Agency! The guy's a complete wingnut. Apart from everything listed in the linked Reason post, he is also on record as being against vaccinations. Oh, please.
Labels: American politics, Kennedys, Obama

1 Comments:
At 7/11/08 9:56 AM,
Michael said…
I agree with your RFK assessment but Summers was wrong on the math and the women. Read the marvellous exchange between Gauss and Sophie Germain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Germain) where Germain had to impersonate a man to study at the Sorbonne and one can see the disadvantge women have been under in these fields until quite recently.
Studies this year, (I don't have the reference but I can look it up) have shown that math achievement equalizes in countries with greater equality between the sexes. There's still some gap, boys still have the advantage in geometry, but give it 30 years and they'll be as many women in the math departments as men.
Who would have predicted 30 years ago that women would outnumber men in medical schools.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home