Why is it "stunning" that fewer women than men at Princeton are in leadership positions? It matches the pattern in the outside world. Steven Goldberg wrote a book "Why Men Rule" that explains why.
I don't troll in the sense of saying things I don't believe just to rile people up. OTOH, I won't avoid saying something I think is true and relevant just because some people will disagree. Of course, people should not accept the books "Why Men Rule" or "The Bell Curve" as gospel on my say so. Googling "Why Men Rule" quickly leads to links that summarize the book better than I could in a few minutes.
Well...trolling or goading may not be the intention, but the tone of a message can come across that way when a very short post effectively says "Why are you "stunned??" Someone wrote a book about this!!"
When I'm trying to make a persuasive point, it's MY job to present the ideas I'm advocating for. It's not good enough to say "Someone wrote a book about this idea!" and leave it to the other guy to find the book and go read it. It's up to ME to present the ideas in the book coherently and persuasively.
If persuading people about an idea (such as "Gifted kids often need acceleration") was simply a matter of telling others to go read something, we could all just send a quick email to the schools saying, "It's all in
A Nation Deceived! Just Google the name and you'll see!" And they would read it and say, "Oh yes of course; how about a skip plus 5th grade math?" and everything would be sunshine and light.
But things rarely work out this way. If they did, Nelson Mandela wouldn't have spent so much time locked up (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights explains why!) and no one would get lashes under Islamic law (Voltaire wrote about the duties of a government to its citizens!).
My point is that if you want people to discuss ideas in books like
Why Men Rule or
The Bell Curve, YOU need to present the ideas and make your argument, not assume that everyone else should just go read the book and make your argument for you. The latter comes across (to me anyway) as being dismissive and deliberately goading.
