Steven Pinker and Co., here's a long overdue STFU.

As a male teacher I take exception to this phrasing. Need I remind a womens' issue blog that the teaching profession is significantly dominated by females? Why is the blame landing with "...because their jerky male teacher never calls on them"? Whether you like it or not, most girls have probably been put off mathematics by a jerky female teacher who didn't encourage her students in that direction or who had little confidence in her own ability to teach math.

Male teachers are not common until high school, long after most students have decided if they 'hate math' or not. I don't think you can blame this one on the guys.

With all due respect, what the heck are you thinking when you said, "Genes influence how all body structures develop, including the brain; and thinking happens in the brain. So there will clearly be some connection"? My goodness. Genes determine if you are black or white too. And so does that mean blacks must think differently than whites and be better at some academic subjects than others? Genes influence whether we are tall or short so does that explain why tall people generally earn more money than shorter - maybe because there's an inherent difference in their abilities? Just trying to point out some counterarguments because it doesn't take a large leap to think that female and male brains probably have the exact same abilities (i.e., the same averages and same standard devs).

And what would be the adaptive positive to loosing brain power? To gain smarts in another area? Probably not. Seems like there'd be enough neurons to go around. In fact, speaking of neurons, environment in the early years influences synapse formation that in turn influences math ability (among other skills of course). There was a study done on boys and girls and their math abilities. The girls who had brothers scored higher on mathematical skills tests. The authors connected this to the girls having more access to mathematical/spatial toys at a young age (like blocks, for example) whereas the girl-only households didn't have as many of these toys around.

indicates there is little or no statistical difference in the innate mathematical abilities of males and females on average. I suspect Larry Summers also agrees with this finding.

Slight digression. Another myth that seems to be making the rounds here is that Summers said that men are better than women at math. I've read his speech, he did not say that men as a group are better than women as a group. He said men have a higher standard deviation than women, which has no effect on the mean but a large effect 3.5 to 4 standard deviations out. ie, the bottom .01% will be mostly men as will the top .01%. In classroom of 30 kids, or even a school of 1000 this effect wouldn't be discernable.

Sounds like we need more faith-based math initiatives. This stuff works better than any pedagogical method I've heard of.

"For any mother of a little GIRL, the idea is a no-brainer. Tell someone they are bad at something because of an invisible substance in their bloodstream and you're going to get different results than if you tell them they're struggling because their jerky MALE teacher never calls on them."

Do we suppose mothers of little boys have trouble figuring out that concept?

It's true that given a chance many people will boil gender differences down to simplistic nonsense that they will use to rationalize any shortcomings and inequalities.

But there are also many people who are fully capable of understanding the concept that whatever differences exist are purely statistical, with plenty of overlap.

To argue that the second group should be denied knowledge because the first group is too dumb and will misinterpret it, seems wrong.

Differences in mathematical ability may be tiny or nonexistent. But we are confronted daily with a myriad of other gender differences that are more significant and can't be ignored so easily.

I grew up with conflicting stories. On the one hand, most of my math teachers (even the females) in school bought into the idea that "girls don't do maths as well as boys." On the other hand, I come from a family of teachers, many of whom taught maths. (There were also quite a few music teachers - a subject that relies heavily, though not always publicly, on maths.)

So, does the double X chromosome mean I shouldn't do maths, or do all the mathematician genetics pile highly enough to allow me to do maths? Or, did I just listen to my mother telling me to ignore the idiots and simply do the best I could in all of my subjects? Or perhaps the conflict explains why I was actually quite good at sussing out a way of doing the maths that completely baffled the vast majority of my teachers, but worked every time.

As a high school teacher, I have no doubt that the conclusions here play out in the classroom. Being told you can't do something is the surest way to ensure that you can't in fact do it.

On the other hand... Larry Summer's exorciation aside, the idea that there might be a genetic influence on math proficiency is simply not a stupid one. Genes influence how all body structures develop, including the brain; and thinking happens in the brain. So there will clearly be some connection. My personal expectation is that -- although almost by statistical necessity, one gender will have a higher average competency than the other, we'd find that the two of them are well within one sigma of each other -- meaning the differences among, say, women completely swamp the difference between the average woman and the average man. But this is just a personal expectation. Studying it to see if it's true is not blasphemy, sexism, evil, or stupid.

It worries me that this piece includes, in its concluding paragraphs, "What's the true cause? Does it matter?" As if all that does matter is the pursuit of a particular agenda, rather than knowing the truth. I happen to believe that knowing the truth leads to greater justice in the end, and that willful ignorance leads relentlessly to tragedy. There is a real, objective world out there and ignoring it -- no matter how well-intentioned -- can't lead to lasting good.