the variability hypothesis has continued to spur controversy within academic circles. one of the most prominent incidents occurred in 2005 when then harvard president, larry summers, addressed the national bureau of economic research conference on the subject of gender diversity in the science and engineering professions. summers confined his comments to "the issue of women's representation in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions" remarking that "it does appear that on many, many different human attributes - height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall iq, mathematical ability, scientific ability - there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means - which can be debated - there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population."