2006-08-09 Debunking the Upper Tail

2006-08-09 \gender disparity http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2006/08/debunking_the_upper_tail_more_1.php Debunking the Upper Tail: More on the Gender Disparity &ldquo;Some of the commenters brought up the issue of the upper tail, and I want to talk about that specifically. It has been suggested that even if the size of the effect -- the differences in averages between a trait like mathematical ability -- is not very large, it becomes magnified at the edges of the distribution. Thus, even a barely statistically significant effect, when observed at the threshold of 4 SD, could result in a several fold skew towards men. The argument goes on that if such a trait were required to participate in a discipline -- like competence in mathematics to become a physicist -- women would then be acting at a natural disadvantage.&rdquo; Article presents a counter-argument to this.   