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The Fields Medal should return to its roots

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Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#131

Post by Chris2048 »

rimliu wrote: post #120
addicted wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The penchant for math is probably randomly distributed between men and women. But all that is overshadowed by the fact that culturally and societally women are heavily discouraged from entering and succeeding in fields like math. This begins right from childhood, where an abacus may make a good toy for a boy, while the appropriate toy for a girl would be a mini kitchen set. Fortunately a lot of this is changing, howe…

> The penchant for math is probably randomly distributed between men and women. Source? > But all that is overshadowed by the fact that culturally and > societally women are heavily discouraged from entering and succeeding > in fields like math. Source? > This begins right from childhood, where an abacus may make a good toy for a boy, > while the appropriate toy for a girl would be a mini kitchen set. This is often r…

> Source?

You mis-quoted; the original comment said:

> If you accept the idea that a penchant..

which was a response to:

> why is it shocking?

i.e. It answers the question, "Why might [someone] find this shocking?" - Note that user 'Hasz' was not the user that found it shocking.

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#132

Post by Retric »

Chris2048 wrote: post #130
Retric wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on a wide range of ability testing we see fat tails (edit: more black swans than expected), it would be more surprising if they where skinny. Granted, we can't measure very high ability very well due to sampling bias. I am simply saying even if there is a modest bias that's not enough it would have to be huge to account for these numbers. So, I am bringing up something else with the kind of distribution we are…

> Based on a wide range of ability testing we see fat tails What kind of ability? Mathematical? IQ?

IQ, memory etc, in uncalibrated tests you see something close to a bell curve in raw scores but more people score very high 180+ than you would get from an actual bell curve. So, many tests are given a max score or compressed at the high end.

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#133

Post by majos »

rimliu wrote: post #121
majos wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to believe this, but now I think a confounding factor here is that girls are socialized away from extremes in general.

Ok, I can get you can somehow socialize a person to pretend be dumber than they are, but how do you socialize someone away from being dumb? And why does that not work for boys?

I think poor achool performance is more a function of behavioral issues than "being dumb" -- not because everyone is smart, but because the bar in your average American school is more about following directions than anything else. Boys lagging behind girls in social development is well-documented, right?

And at the Fields medal level it's less about "pretend you're not smart" and more about "we just don't think it's a good idea for you to skip grades".

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#134

Post by bionsystems »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #53

He should institute a Barany medal instead. It's an interesting idea, but the Fields medal is what it is at this point. It would be very slow to change, and even though his article is well researched, it's a bit idealistic and the interpretation of the original intent isn't black & white.

> He should institute a Barany medal instead.

My thoughts exactly.

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#135

Post by bionsystems »

notzorbo3 wrote: post #28
Hasz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you accept the idea that a penchant for math is randomly distributed among all people, then the odds of 55/56 men winning by chance are very, very, very low.

> If you accept the idea that a penchant for math is randomly distributed among all people That would seem rather detached from reality.

Maybe he meant "Even if" ?

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#136

Post by SamReidHughes »

subroutine wrote: post #126
SamReidHughes wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "disorders" but anything that affects math ability. This is plain regression to the mean. If half your cells would make you capable of being an IMO gold medalist, if the whole brain were made from them, but the other half would make relatively stupid so that you could only barely qualify for the USAMO (~top 300 in USA or so), guess what making a brain from the combination of the two will get you.

Like I pointed out above, thats not how it works. And if it were, then women would be at an advantage. If genetics confers any difference in math ability, it's due to the Y chromosome. Period.

What isn't how it works? Why would women be at an advantage? There's clear evidence that different groups of cells are using one X chromosome versus the other. You can see this in cats, and you can see this in mammals' brains using fluorescent genes. If you want to claim it makes women more likely to be in the top 0.001%, you're by all means welcome to explain why. But you haven't.

Edit: You know, it occurs to me maybe you aren't trying to put together statements that make any sense, because when you said "1. Lyonization is a process of inactivation that happens early in embryotic development so only one X is dominant in all somatic cells," you were acting like that's a support for your argument when it's in fact just a description of X-chromosome inactivation. Unless you meant that all cells pick the same chromosome, in which case you're just wrong.

In any case I direct the readers to this New York Times article which has a picture of a slice of the brain with different X chromosomes inactivated. Readers can draw their own conclusion about how this affects the probability of being in the top 0.001% of ability at anything.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/science/seeing-x-chrom...

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#137

Post by louithethrid »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #91

Committee members started talking about criteria such as age and fields of study, even before suggesting nominees. Most thought that focusing on specific branches of mathematics was inadvisable. They entertained a range of potential age considerations, from an upper limit of 30 to a general principle that nominees should have made their mark in mathematics some time since the previous ICM in 1936. Bohr cryptically su…

"..overall can not recommend weighting the Vain to be drowned down with golden medalls and recommend the return to a boulder/concrete bucket. How somebody who gives a scrap about the opionion of his fellow men is supossed to archive true greatness - in particular beyond the boundrys of the knowledge of his fellow men escapes my feable mind."

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#138

Post by wbl »

opportune wrote: post #79
yodsanklai wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is no noteworthy mathematics being done at less prestigious institutions? People with high-potential are detected early on and can choose to work in the most prestigious institutions. It's like a pro-athlete. You don't expect Michael Jordan to be playing with a small local team.

I think people are psychologically averse to acknowledging this level of "filtering" even though it's mostly true, because it suggests an uncomfortable level of inequality. However I do think that there might be just a little too much focus on contest-math when it comes to identifying the country's best mathematicians. It's easily seen that the best contest mathematicians usually become the best professional mathemat…

That's not that true. Plenty of non IMO/Putnam people have won Fields Medals.

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#139

Post by opportune »

wbl wrote: post #138
opportune wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people are psychologically averse to acknowledging this level of "filtering" even though it's mostly true, because it suggests an uncomfortable level of inequality. However I do think that there might be just a little too much focus on contest-math when it comes to identifying the country's best mathematicians. It's easily seen that the best contest mathematicians usually become the best professional mathemat…

That's not that true. Plenty of non IMO/Putnam people have won Fields Medals.

I think you may have misinterpreted my comment, because I'm really in agreement with what you just said: placing near the top in prestigious math contests indicates that you'll probably be a good professional mathematician, but not having top contest-math scores does not preclude you from being a good professional mathematician.

In general I think placement into top math undergrad/PhD programs (e.g. Harvard) should be less focused on contest math.

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#140

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

barry-cotter wrote: post #98
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference with height is that you can train mathematical skill. For women to be trying, presumably as hard as the men, to become good enough to be elligible for a Fields medal, but (almost) never achieving it- they have to really suck at maths to begin with.

Mathematical skill can be trainable without a huge difference in male/female representation implying women are unable to add two and two, your original bar for sucking at math. There are many, many obviously trainable skills where the best men are very obviously superior to the best women, sports and athletics providing endless examples. I would be very happy just to finish a marathon but the Irish men’s world record…

Malright. That was a dumb argument. Mine I mean.
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