The paper outlines a statistical model meant to “explain how a difference in variability could naturally evolve between two sexes of the same species,” a direct reference to the GMVH. The paper relied on strict biological assumptions, such as the idea that genes encoding for variability would be expressed in only in one of the two sexes, that one sex would be more selective than the other, and that the same allele could result both in unusually high and unusually low expressions of a trait. Former Harvard President Larry Summers used the GVMH in a 2005 speech to justify the lack of women in tenured positions in science and engineering.
Both the paper itself and its two retractions have garnered a great deal of media interest since early September 2018. Accomplished mathematicians and computational biologistshave commented on both the paper itself and how it relates to online academic publishing. Jordan Peterson and Steven Pinker have made public comments in support of the paper, with Pinker framing the controversy as an example of academic suppression.
The paper was first accepted for publication in TheMathematical Intelligencer’s Viewpoint column, a section discussing any topic of mathematical interest from readers of the journal.