How Testosterone and Culture Shape Behavior | Human biologist Carole Hooven Carole Hooven argues for the reality of the distinction between male and female, and that masculinity (such as boy’s play) is not necessarily toxic. | TED talk: youtu.be/HYnZy2Cx7UM?si… via YouTube

STEM departments in elite universities should ditch "holistic" admissions, require tougher math tests than the SAT's in applications (or other evidence of extraordinary ability), and admit strictly from the top down by test score. STEM talent is too precious to waste.

Ladies and gentlemen, the director of research at Google Deep Mind.

And speaking for the negative, i/o.

Agreed, with an emphasis on good measures of visual/spatial skills, which captures an important dimension for STEM field. But you can cram only so much into an op ed.

I did, actually, and my mental reaction was that no one in his right mind would try to write a book-length rebuttal of Tom Sowell if there were the slightest chance that Sowell would decide to respond.

That's entirely consistent with wanting elite schools to admit on the basis of extraordinary talent. Of course some people make it to the top in other ways. But let's fill all the scarce slots in terrific STEM departments with kids who can get the most out of them.

Consilience lives! An elite psych department chooses a cognitive neuroscientist as its department chair (his PhD is in psychology, but look at his CV). Now if only a sociology department would choose a behavioral geneticist....

Nah. In Humanities and social sciences, the intellectually most brilliant are often…how shall I put this…in need of contact with reality.

You and Dick Herrnstein would have gotten along just fine.

Since you're on the line, and prompted by the, um, intensity of the tweets attacking you, a question I've wanted to ask: Steve Sailer notes that men who identify as women seem to be disproportionately of aggressive, type A male personalities. Does his anecdotal evidence match

Joe, I published a cover article making this argument in 1984. The New Republic. 40 years ago. Sheesh.

Where on earth does Steve Sailer find the time? stevesailer.net/p/richard-hana…

Nice, Mr. Boudet.

The two other qualities beside ability that determine realized genius are zeal and a capacity for hard labor, so those students should follow their zeal. (Galton spelled it "labour," of course).

1. Out now in molecularpsychiatry “Gene-environment correlation: The role of family environment in academic development”. We investigate how family environments and genetic propensity combine to result in individual differences in academic achievement 🧬🌍nature.com/articles/s4138…

In Edward Grefenstette's case, the examples could be "find me the best 6 available programmers, 3 male and 3 female" or, for that matter, "find me the 6 best available programmers, but 3 have to be from Iowa." The point is, it doesn't make any difference what the nature of the group is.

This is a valuable codicil to the main point. There are indeed some jobs where sex or ethnicity can bring value-added to a person's qualifications. But they are rare. Sex and gender diversity is not a good-in-itself for the vast majority of jobs.