Roger Kimball, the always provocative editor of The New Criterion, has weighed in on Larry Summers and the intellectual capacity of women:
“Poor Larry Summers,” writes Kimball. “The president of Harvard University has good instincts. But he wants people to like him. So he starts off by saying things that are true but unpopular. Then people get angry with him and he apologizes and takes it all back….
Summers — whom Kimball sums up as “spineless” — got in hot water for speculating that men and women may have innate differences with regard to math and science intelligence. Kimball writes:
“Now, I know some pretty smart ladies. I’m sure you do as well. Maybe, dear reader, you are a very intelligent woman yourself. That’s not the issue. The issue is whether the innate difference between the sexes might express itself in differences in intellectual aptitude as well as in other ways (musculature, for example)….”
You should read the whole item. Mr. Kimball says some pretty inflammatory things, but he’s always interesting — and he’s not spineless.