Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed? • Hacker News Board

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#211

Post by reversecs » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 2:23 PM UTC

Yoric wrote: post #31

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?

Three answers to this. 1. Look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17949340 for a more detailed account of what happened. This specific story is not a case of taboo, it's a case of attempting to publish something that's not science in a science journal, being of course rejected, and reframing the rejection as a taboo. 2. It can be discussed, but this kind of discussion invariably attracts people who are not there…

The idea that we need to establish consensus on a false truth before we can reveal a real truth doesn't make sense to me.

1. We can still agree that men and women are humans and that we all deserve ways rights

2. The inevitable differences maybe show that men are less capable than women in a variety of fronts (wouldn't that be great for women's rights?).

3. Once a lie has been installed into every boy and girl, raising the truth will only become more and more difficult.

Making a decision to disseminate a lie constitutes gaslighting in the way that people will have hunches and experiences that society can suddenly deny. Speaking up will get you instant attention and result in a wreck for ones career. We are already seeing this today. I couldn't imagine posting this opinion except anonymously.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#212

Post by LazyCatinWland » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 2:33 PM UTC

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…

I think, you're completely missing the point. The question is NOT whether the paper merits the publication. That should be decided by the experts who review the paper for the journal. For that matter, the opinion of someone working on holomorphic curves about a probabilistic model in biology is interesting, but completely irrelevant. According to Hill, the editor of Math Intelligencer was bullied to withdraw the offer to publish the paper. That's unacceptable regardless the status of the journal. Regarding NYJM and fast track, first, the journal positions itself as a place for "rapid publication", second in a comment to Gower's post, Rivin claims that they obtained two positive reports for the paper. Since this clearly contradicts your story, can you elaborate in which sense the paper bypassed the procedures that are standard for NYJM?

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#213

Post by mattmanser » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

olleromam91 wrote: post #171

mattmanser wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Undeniable? No. Amongst the other issues stated, this isn't necessarily a physical difference, it could be purely a societal one. All these studies suffer from a bias that we can't get rid of unless we assume it's not true for a few generations, namely is the effect due to nature vs nurture. Whether it's race or sex, if society favour one race or sex over the others, how can we ever know if it's due to something in t…

But why would a society favour one race or sex over another in the first place? Where does this bias originate?

Because a particular group entrenches themselves in power.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#214

Post by jaccarmac » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

I'd just like to point out that the paper was never removed from the NYJM site[0]. Note the references to the Damore controversy in the third paragraph of the introduction, which Hill conveniently left out of the version he linked to on arXiv. Also interestingly, its accepted date was later than the paper that replaced it and most of the other accepted papers that I've checked from that edition.

0: http://nyjm.albany.edu/j/2017/23-72v-orig.pdf

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#215

Post by jaccarmac » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

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…

The version published in NYJM is still available on the site: http://nyjm.albany.edu/j/2017/23-72v-orig.pdf

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#216

Post by jaccarmac » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

doombolt wrote: post #54

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…

Can you please add links for your pp. 1-4? Otherwise it looks like you assume the result of this path without helping us actually walk it.

The version published in NYJM is also still available: http://nyjm.albany.edu/j/2017/23-72v-orig.pdf. It contains references to political controversies in the third paragraph lacking from other posted editions.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#217

Post by tptacek » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

jaccarmac wrote: post #215

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…

The version published in NYJM is still available on the site: http://nyjm.albany.edu/j/2017/23-72v-orig.pdf

!!!

Thanks!

This version is some ways worse than the Arxiv version: it opens with an invocation of Summers and Damore, and the "Proofs" section lacks the disclaimer about him "proving" elementary conclusions in probability because he hasn't seen the proofs written down anywhere else.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#218

Post by jaccarmac » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 6:04 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #217

jaccarmac wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The version published in NYJM is still available on the site: http://nyjm.albany.edu/j/2017/23-72v-orig.pdf

!!! Thanks! This version is some ways worse than the Arxiv version: it opens with an invocation of Summers and Damore, and the "Proofs" section lacks the disclaimer about him "proving" elementary conclusions in probability because he hasn't seen the proofs written down anywhere else.

> This version is [in] some ways worse

My impression too, admittedly as a non-mathematician. The Damore invocation is especially damning.

When I dredged this up I couldn't help but find it funny that the standard of "suppression" in an online-only journal is removing a PDF from the HTML listing of said journal while leaving the actual PDFs and abstract up.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#219

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #176

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Danes and Sentinelese would both be classified as belonging to the same, Caucasoid, race. From the Wikipedia article on Caucasian race : First introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen School of History,[4] the term denoted one of three purported major races of humankind (Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid).[5] In biological anthropology, Caucasoid has been used as an umbrella term for phenotypically s…

According to an outdated anatomical taxonomy from the 1700s.

Yes, absolutely. The whole concept of race is obsolete and discussions of it are anachronistic to the extreme. I reckon, the only people who still use those terms in earnest are US law enforcement agents, racist groups and people who just haven't got the memo.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#220

Post by hackinthebochs » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 8:46 PM UTC

kaitai wrote: post #208

hackinthebochs wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because these countries also have very unusual patterns regarding education. Some examples mentioned in the study were non-normal distributions of scores, and a large percentage of religion-focused schooling. If we're trying to draw conclusions about innate differences operationalized as distribution test scores, any kind of biased schooling undermines the ability to draw conclusions from that population.

But schooling in the US is biased in all sorts of ways, and trying to draw conclusions from that is being encouraged in this discussion.

True, but not all bias is created equal. You have to consider the nature of the potential bias and how it might affect measured outcomes. It's much less clear how bias might unnaturally increase variance than reduce it or alter the mean. But my point was mainly to argue against the conclusion that a lack of observed variance differences in some countries demonstrated the hypothesis false. I agree that the observed variance differences in western countries doesn't prove it true either.