CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia
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Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia
#2On one hand, in this political climate it's really stupid to say something like that. On the other, someone has to be the first person to say it.
(Not that I necessarily agree with what he said)
Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia
#3On one hand, in this political climate it's really stupid to say something like that. On the other, someone has to be the first person to say it. (Not that I necessarily agree with what he said)
> On the other, someone has to be the first person to say it.
I don’t understand this point. Please could you expand on what you mean?
Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia
#4On one hand, in this political climate it's really stupid to say something like that. On the other, someone has to be the first person to say it. (Not that I necessarily agree with what he said)
> On the other, someone has to be the first person to say it. I don’t understand this point. Please could you expand on what you mean?
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Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia
#5On one hand, in this political climate it's really stupid to say something like that. On the other, someone has to be the first person to say it. (Not that I necessarily agree with what he said)
This wasn't an errant comment, it was a quite a lot of effort. I imagine he knew full well what the potential consequences were. Feels like a deliberate move.
Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia
#6I am reminded of Larry Summers, then the head of Harvard, who said something similar:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/jan/18/educationsge...
I think that previously there was a distinct issue with not enough women going through the degree programs. If the degree programs are 80% men and 20% women, statistically the men will outperform the women in outlier achievements just because there will likely be more positive outliers in the larger group by definition even if the means are similar. I think that just because the sample size for women is smaller, it will appear that the variance is smaller as there are less samples to spread it out. Thus it is possible that this will address itself if women equalize with men or exceed them in terms of graduation numbers in the relevant fields.
Given that women have actually come to dominant a lot of previously male dominated fields, fields where prominent men said women would never succeed at, I think that mathematics and physics could fall as well. It may take longer, but it is very possible.
If male variance is higher, there are likely both benefits and downsides to it, and I wouldn't be surprised if while statistically women are different there are unforseen benefits to that.
I feel like he has found one statistical difference between men and women and believe that this defines forever men and women performance in the very complex field of physics. This is over simplifying everything and I'd never bet on such an oversimplified prediction based on cherry picking by an amateur.
I think that when some people discover there are third rail/hot button issues that "can not be talked about in polite company", they take stronger positions on those issues in a reactionary way than are actually warranted by the evidence.
EDIT: What about this comment is causing this to be downvoted?
Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia
#7He claims that he could proof his assumptions if he were to be published in a journal but I think it would be very strange if somebody published his "research". He is not a sociologist and this is clearly not his area of expertise.
Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia
#8Haha I totally misread that as “sexiest” scientist
Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia
#9On one hand, in this political climate it's really stupid to say something like that. On the other, someone has to be the first person to say it. (Not that I necessarily agree with what he said)
> On the other, someone has to be the first person to say it. I don’t understand this point. Please could you expand on what you mean?
I mean, if you want to say something as controversial as that, and you decide to wait until more people say it first, you may have to wait a lifetime.
(Once again, I haven't looked at the data, so I don't necessarily agree with what he said.)
Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia
#10Lying about the contents of your talk so you can insult members of a selection comitte that didn’t pick you is not a good way to get a contract renewed, who would have known?
Strumia must have really let his victory of the 750 GeV iron throne* dictate his sense of entitlement.
*: http://resonaances.blogspot.com/2016/06/game-of-thrones-750-...