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In a showdown of the sexes on Friday, Johnstone Professor of psychological science Steven Pinker and Professor of Psychology Elizabeth Spelke debated whether innate differences lead to the underrepresentation of tenured women in math and the sciences. In front of a packed Science Center B crowd, they analyzed the data quarter University President Lawrence H. Summers controversial January comments on women in science.Pinker, whom Summers recruited to Harvard last year, cited evidence arguing that male superiority in skills like mental object rotation and bother solving provides a biological basis for the argument that men atomic number 18 more talented at math and science.Spelke countered, acknowledging the existence of differences amongst men and women, and arguing that the reason women are as scarce as hens teeth in academia is due to discrimination. The debate is non, are there sex differences, its, do they add up to an advantage for one gender over the other, Spelke remind ed the audience.Prefacing his comments by saying that he was a feminist, Pinker stressed the importance of distinguishing between the moral and empirical claims about gender differences.The truth can non be sexist, he said.Though Spelke attacked his yardstick indicatorthe SAT mathematics examinationsPinker maintained that the tests are in truth good. They have an enormous amount of predictive power.Pinker also remark that men and women tend to have different priorities in life men seek precondition and money, while women look more for interpersonal relationships.What this means is that there are slightly more men than women who dont care whether or not they have a life, Pinker said.Spelke did not address the argument about motives directly, saying that she did not think there was evidence available to evaluate the claim that motives are biologically determined.She focused on proving the existence of covert discrimination by looking at how gender stereotypes influence the way men a nd women are perceived.She presented studies in which employers were given identical resumeswith only the candidates gender switchedthat found that men were perceived as being more productive than women.She admitted, however, that were not dealing with overt discrimination, saying that in unambiguous situations, where one candidate is clearly superior to the other, there is no evidence of sex discrimination.Pinker later noted that women are not underrepresented everywhere, but only in the hard sciences. Several audience members said they thought the evening concluded in Spelkes favor.