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Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

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Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#41

Post by doombolt »

hef19898 wrote: post #38
doombolt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E.g. do you want a real eye opener? In a monogamous society, given that Darwin's observation about increased male variability holds, when partitioning by desirability, women in the top half will have access to males with desirability greater than their own, while women in the bottom half will only have access to males with desirability worse than their own. Go figure. (There's a lot of assumptions here but none of th…

Well, it always strikes me how well educated people with a lot of Knowledge in their domain (assuming that point is valid for the majority on Hacker News) have the tendency to totaly over-simplify other scientific fields. In this case evolution, biology and statistics. So what actually happened to humility, scientific literacy and honest curiosity? Not sure if it was intended, but your second post comes across as Sex…

It's not a question of science. It's a question of math. Math is a model which allows you to over-simplify other scientific fields in the first place, and then devise solutions which turn out to be useful even in their over-simplified form.

This is the reason for the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in natural sciences. However, here I'm not pushing any direct resemblance between model and any society anywhere. You're doing that, not me.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#42

Post by pgeorgi »

tptacek wrote: post #8

There is more going on than this. It's important to know a bit about the venues in question. Mathematical Intelligencer isn't really a journal at all; it's literally a magazine, carried on the shelves it bookstores. It runs some original research but also poetry and jokes and general cultural coverage. NYJM is, on the other hand, a serious (if online-only, lower-tier) theoretical mathematics journal. Ted Hill's paper…

Who trolled whom? According to Hill (and supported by the timeline) the revisions were at the request of the editors. In that case, it was these editors who wanted a political axis added to it instead of just publishing an "undergrad applied math problem" to get a discussion started.

There's a proud history of publishers helping each others against outside threats (eg in 1960's Germany during the Spiegel-Affair the right-leaning "Bild" daily paper provided office space and printing presses so the left-leaning weekly "Spiegel" could continue to operate after a police raid shut down their operation).

In that light, I'd love to see a publication of the paper in some journal, maybe an earlier version with less of the political cruft. Potentially prefaced with some explanation: "The following paper may not match our usual standards, but it was subject to political interference which is at odds with scientific freedom."

That would also allow open critique (with proper citation of its subject matter) instead of the back-handed mess that apparently went on for the last 18 months or so: You shouldn't need FOIA requests to find out about counter-points to scientific publications.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#43

Post by hef19898 »

frebord wrote: post #6

Honest question, the general physical differences between the sexes or even races are undeniable, so why is it so taboo to talk about the differences that almost certainly exist in our minds?

One reason certainly is that the physical differences betwen individuals regardless of sex are bigger than those between sexes.

Also, the measurable physical differences in the brain structure of women and men are there but totally insignificant with regards to intelligence.

Side note, there is no way measuring intelligence based on a MRT-scan of ones brain.

Also, history might help, humanity had some bad experience with People judging stuff like intelligence based on visible physical differences. I suggest to leave These questions to actual neuro-scientists and not People who tried to apply mathematics to a question they didn't really understand in the first place.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#44

Post by 6nf »

Arnt wrote: post #24
6nf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure who is downvoting you, this seems to be correct?

Rather dubious. He says three things: a) Only 16% etc b) most people mate now c) due to religious etc The first is well backed up. The second, not so much, it depends on community (look up the number of childless people in, say, Milan). The third, WTF? Mixing up facts with WTF like that attracts downvotes.

I think the first one is the only relevant one in this case anyway

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#45

Post by Knuffer123 »

Arnt wrote: post #33
buboard wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's all about the edges of distribution though. If equality of the means mattered, countries across the world would be very similar economically, which unfortunately is not the case.

It's ALL about the edges? What does that mean? What are the edges, and why does nothing else matter?

I believe he refers to the fact that all "important" positions are selected from the bottom/top tier.

We don't imprison random people from the population, we imprison the most aggressive (in case of violent crime at least).

We hire people with top IQ for engineering and science related endevours.

We promote people who work the hardest ("industriousness")

The most ambitious people get the top jobs.

It doesn't matter if on average two groups are the same for those qualifiers, if only the top 1% are selected, then you would expect which ever group has the flattest bell-curve distribution (and thus more "on the edge") to be over-represented (whether it is gender, "race", age). If it isn't, then racism/sexism/whateverism is at work.

Caveat: with top IQ in engineering, an important factor that only people who "like things more than people" apply, other way around for loads of other fields.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#46

Post by hef19898 »

doombolt wrote: post #41
hef19898 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it always strikes me how well educated people with a lot of Knowledge in their domain (assuming that point is valid for the majority on Hacker News) have the tendency to totaly over-simplify other scientific fields. In this case evolution, biology and statistics. So what actually happened to humility, scientific literacy and honest curiosity? Not sure if it was intended, but your second post comes across as Sex…

It's not a question of science. It's a question of math. Math is a model which allows you to over-simplify other scientific fields in the first place, and then devise solutions which turn out to be useful even in their over-simplified form. This is the reason for the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in natural sciences. However, here I'm not pushing any direct resemblance between model and any society anywhe…

Basing your "top half of females" behaviour on un-specified asumptions, failing to even hinting on what is "desirable" and then subjugating this model of society to some sort of statistical model was not my idea. nAgain not sure whether this was intentional or not or if I got your point wrong, after all we do not know each other.

But again, that is to much oversimplyfication for my taste. Especially when mathematics are applied without any relevant domain knowledge.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#47

Post by iguy »

Arnt wrote: post #24
6nf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure who is downvoting you, this seems to be correct?

Rather dubious. He says three things: a) Only 16% etc b) most people mate now c) due to religious etc The first is well backed up. The second, not so much, it depends on community (look up the number of childless people in, say, Milan). The third, WTF? Mixing up facts with WTF like that attracts downvotes.

> The third, WTF?

Not really. A society where only 16% of men mate has 84% angry young men with nothing to lose. Expect a lot of violence, and not much careful consistent tending of the fields...

My understanding is that this is why state-sanctioned monogamy exists: it is a tool for avoiding this situation.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#48

Post by rectang »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #17
frebord wrote: post #6

Honest question, the general physical differences between the sexes or even races are undeniable, so why is it so taboo to talk about the differences that almost certainly exist in our minds?

> the general physical differences between the sexes or even races are undeniable This was a case some decades ago. Read the introduction to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization) - even the use of the word "race" is problematic today.

In the US, Barack Obama is considered black, even though he is half white. If that doesn't give you pause about "race"...

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#49

Post by roenxi »

iguy wrote: post #47
Arnt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather dubious. He says three things: a) Only 16% etc b) most people mate now c) due to religious etc The first is well backed up. The second, not so much, it depends on community (look up the number of childless people in, say, Milan). The third, WTF? Mixing up facts with WTF like that attracts downvotes.

> The third, WTF? Not really. A society where only 16% of men mate has 84% angry young men with nothing to lose. Expect a lot of violence, and not much careful consistent tending of the fields... My understanding is that this is why state-sanctioned monogamy exists: it is a tool for avoiding this situation.

> A society where only 16% of men mate has 84% angry young men with nothing to lose.

Is it so crazy to think that a man with no partner could live a socially responsible life? The choice isn't a binary "Happy with wife and kids" vs "Flame, looting, violence and plague".

I'm basing my experience on Australian law here, but our 'modern state-sanctioned monogamy' is a comprehensive system to stop fathers from having children then walking away when the going gets tough.

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