i think i came across this when i was looking through some blogs. this is a fascinating transcribed debate between stephen pinker and a woman named elizabeth spelke (who is also at harvard) in response to the president of harvard's um indiscreet comments about his opinions on the natural abilities of women. pinker is pro-biology and spelke is in the environment camp. based on the evidence they provide you'll have to decide yourself about what you think about women's natural science ability, although i have to say that pretty much all the women i met at MIT have proven spelke right. i'm definitely going to be reading some of these other talks also. speaking of blogs, the only one i've gotten into at all (despite seeking out recommendations) is the apparently pretty famous dooce.com. this woman from utah has a very familiar (in a good way) sense of sarcasm and spazziness (sp?), and although she has an obsession with poo and some of her pictures and entries can border on shmaltz (pretty much impossible not to since she has both a kid and a dog), she's pretty entertaining. here's a sample entry, in all its sarcastic and cynical glory. so this makes about the third blog i read now, and the other two don't really count: one is carl's blog, which doesn't count b/c i know him. the other is marthadot, which doesn't count b/c it's a group blog of random time-wastage stuff that i'm part of. but both are good reads.