I think you need an IQ of 120 to write a good scholarly article on a relatively complicated Talmudic passage, and in that range there are already more men than women. If we say the average IQ in Israel is 95, then that’s 4% of the population. And even women who are in that range aren’t necessarily drawn to the world of Abaye and Rava. So I wouldn’t expect to find many of them.

As for narrowing the gaps in other fields, that isn’t my impression. Let me put it this way: if that were so, I think I’d be seeing a lot fewer false hagiographies about Rosalind Franklin. People would focus on women’s achievements in the present instead of diving into the past and rewriting history.

I’m embarrassed to comment on the level of the statistical argument presented here, and to wonder whether perhaps this is a female writer posing as someone else. 🙂

What’s embarrassing about it, Reb Michi? Come on, help a wandering Jew. “That young Torah scholar whom the townspeople love—it is not because he is better than others, but because he does not rebuke them in matters of Heaven.” And I’m not really observant, so this is about the closest thing to “matters of Heaven” that I’ve got.

The assumptions seem completely reasonable to me. Read Real Education by Charles Murray. The discussions there indicate that an IQ of 120+ is required to understand—really understand—college-level material in America. A lot of Talmudic topics are more complicated than that.

And the statistical point seems simple enough to me if you accept the assumptions, but from all my teachers I have learned. IQ distribution is normal, with a standard deviation of 15 points, so (120-95) divided by 15 is 1.66. Plug that into a z-score calculator and you get that P(x>120) is 0.048 (which is actually closer to 5% than 4%, but I don’t think that’s what you meant :D).

One of the main problems in statistical thinking isn’t the calculation, but its relevance. Sometimes when a person uses learned formulas he feels—and also appears—wise, right, and highly persuasive, and sometimes his formula is not even wrong. The problem is that it isn’t relevant to the discussion. More than once (including on this site) I’ve pointed out that mathematical and logical formalization has a great advantage, but that itself is also its disadvantage. Formalizing an argument gives it great persuasive power. The formal argument looks decisive. People just forget to examine the formalization itself—meaning, whether the formal structure really expresses the problem we are dealing with. In many cases it does not. Therefore, regarding mathematics, statistics, and logic, my approach is: respect them and suspect them. After that important introduction, let me return to your remarks.
You are taking, on the one hand, the average of the abilities required in an American college (120 is, in my opinion, a hysterical overestimate) and setting it against the scholarly peak. What lies below that certainly does not require an IQ of 120, with all due respect to the Torah. That is ridiculous and tendentious, of course. Take, as a more representative example, the study of computer science, physics, or mathematics for a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree, and check specifically there the success of women, and especially the trend over the years (because there are still leftovers of social conditioning and the like. For example, women in religious education almost never go into science and mathematics). The abilities required there are no less than what is required for pretty good Talmudic scholarship (and in my opinion even exceed it). I’m quite sure some big surprises await you.
See, for example, how many female high-tech stars have emerged in recent years. Still not like men, of course, but the trend says a lot. None of this disproves essentialism, of course, but the evidence for essentialism is still five hundred parasangs away from us. And I haven’t even mentioned that the definition of essentialism itself is not clear. Suppose that when we average over the whole population we get differences—so what? Among men too there is a broad distribution of abilities. There still could be masses of women suited to become the leading greats of the generation in scholarship and in science.
An important lesson: it’s worth setting the agenda aside when formulating arguments, and checking them carefully and without bias. Tried and tested.

Ah, well, if you don’t agree with the assumptions, then obviously the calculations aren’t relevant. As for the “hysterical overestimate,” read Murray’s book when you get the chance—I didn’t pull that number out of thin air.

I agree that the abilities required are similar. The trend in the Western world is aggressive inflation of women’s achievements in those fields. But maybe in Israel there are “big surprises” (I doubt it).

I read his book at some point (wasn’t it written by two people?)
He argues that the standard deviation among men is greater than among women.
But I don’t agree with you that to write a decent Talmud article you have to be especially smart; it’s enough to grind away a lot.
Back in yeshiva I saw enough blockheads who managed to make up for lack of talent through persistence.

@y0534372487,

Probably—you’re thinking of an earlier book he wrote with Richard Herrnstein, The Bell Curve. That book aroused liberals’ wrath because of its discussion of differences between different races (and that book has the same status as Mendelssohn’s writings in Haredi society—few have read it, but somehow everyone knows what is written there and why the author should be stoned).

To write a reasonable article you don’t have to be especially smart. But to write an excellent article that shows real understanding of the passage—I think you need to be a smart fellow (of course you also need persistence).