The three hard science Nobel prizes have now been announced for 2007 and white males (six out of six in this case) continue to oppress the rest of humanity by discovering and inventing stuff.

The hard science Nobels are remarkable untainted by the Diversity Urge. The judges just seem to feel, "Hey, we're the Nobel Prize guys. The N.o.b.e.l. Prize. We don't have to degrade ourselves for political reasons." It's striking how few other prestigious institutions feel that way.

From 2000 through 2007, there have been 61 hard science Nobel Laureates, and one was a woman (Linda B. Buck in Medicine in 2004), or 1.64%. Since 1965, women have made up 2.13% of the hard science Laureates (6 out of 282), compared to 2.50% (6 out of 240) before then.

If this downward trend continues, I expect Larry Summers will have even more speaking engagements canceled.

They don't hate you for being wrong, just for being right.

Note, some of the recent winners have been pretty elderly, so somebody enterprising could go through the Nobel lists and make up a table of Laureates by decade of birth and see what the trend is when looked at that way. Of course, with just 6 out of the last 282 hard science Laureates being women, there's just not a lot there to work with.