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CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

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Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#131

Post by gambiting »

mamon wrote: post #125
paganel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could go the other way, like you might be seen as saying that women don't have hand-spans as big as men, meaning that they're not as good as men when it comes to their physical capabilities and as such "providing" them with smaller pianos might be looked at as "demeaning" towards said women (you're thinking about them as not being as good as men are). Gender politics can be fun like that.

So producing shoes or coat's in women sizes is also "demeaning" towards women? I can't imagine why producing smaller pianos would be any different.

Because someone would say that it shows that a woman cannot play a proper piano like a man can - she has to be provided with a smaller(and therefore obviously inferior) one.

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#132

Post by netsharc »

Udik wrote: post #29
SiempreViernes wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, you do know his actual actions was to misrepresent the contents of his talk, and spend time of it insulting members of a selection comitte that didn’t hire him? The fact is that he thinks open harrasment of people that didn’t judged him less suitable for a position is ok, which in itself is reason to keep him away from any position of imprtance.

The personal attack (or piece of personal anecdata) in the presentation was certainly condemnable and should have been left out- but let's not pretend the problem wasn't the content of the whole presentation, personal attack or not.

Similar to the Googler who got fired after his anti-diversity paper, the content is almost irrelevant, the fact that they're so cocksure of their superiority to dare say what they said meant they were unprofessional beings who didn't belong in a collaborative work environment. It didn't help that they think their research backed up their cocksureness, but in reality the research were painfully biased and incorrect.

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#133

Post by zarkov99 »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #36

>> He also showed cartoons deriding women campaigning for equality in science and presented the results of an analysis that he claimed showed that work conducted by female physicists was not as good as their male counterparts. My underlined sentence, is most likely the reason Cern considered that Alessandro Strumia's actions would bring disrepute to the Centre. Holding and publicly discussing controversial views is o…

Did you see the slides in question? If not take a look:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c_NyUhOZ8erdqU2AGZJZtNfFeA9...

I see no great insults here, one cartoon suggests that the gender studies activists that are so concerned about the lack of women in STEM could have better addressed the problem if they themselves pursued careers in STEM rather than gender studies. The other cartoon is even milder. As to ridiculing his colleagues, from what I can see there is one slide in which Strumia states a female colleague that was hired over him has 10x fewer citations. Assuming that is true, how is that ridiculing a colleague?

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#134

Post by Barrin92 »

duxup wrote: post #111

>Prof Strumia analysed papers available in a database of particle physics research. He produced a series of graphs which, he claimed, showed that women were hired over men whose research was cited more by other scientists in their publications, which is an indication of higher quality. >He also presented data that he claimed showed that male and female researchers were equally cited at the start of their careers but…

Yes, it is completely circular. Because if discrimination against women exists, then the higher citation rate and slower career progress are equally explained by this.

This isn't evidence in favour of some causal explanation about innate differences between men and women, he's just trying to justify his prior assumptions.

This is very much comparable to the circular nature of IQ measurement. People with racist attitudes often conflate innate ability and IQ, because IQ is very much designed to measure the sort of things that people who like IQ tests are good at.

These people will often present evidence in the same way the physicist does, by pointing out that say, people with higher IQs have higher personal income, but this obviously neglects the facts that if IQ tests / degrees etc.. are licenses for success in the first place, so you're just running in circles.

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#135

Post by dang »

_red wrote: post #123
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this. I remember in great detail what happened when Summers was essentially sacked from Harvard, and I thought it did a great disservice to the institution. He was presenting the mere idea, at an academic conference, that innate differences in gender could account for some of the difference in academic achievement in various fields is something that should be studied , and he was pilloried for it.…

As an aside. Are you posting via a throwaway because: (a) You worry about HN attacking you with downvotes, or (b) You have a somewhat publicly identifiable username and worry this type of wrongthink could be punished by the modern-stasi movement? (my money is on B).

Some people have a main account with "throwaway" in the name. Perhaps they just like oxymorons? And many throwaway accounts are not eponymous. You have to look at the account history, not the name, to tell the difference.

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#136

Post by throwawaymath »

titanix2 wrote: post #130
OldFatCactus wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol Firstly, the guy isn't qualified to make such a sweeping statement about the opposite sex. So before we even step into the problems with why it's a dumb idea to say such things, lets just make it clear that he's a physicist and not an anthropologist, biologist, or sociologist. We definitely care about his moral character, but it's also just flat out incredibly naive to discredit women in his field when they've be…

It is comments like yours that is currently fuelling the ‘diversity’ meme pushback. You are denying someone the right to express facts just because of its gender and divergent political opinion. The guy is a physicist, he is way more qualified than any sociologist to deal with statistics. Your position is not only ridiculous virtue signaling but you are also creating a scary world where the messenger is more importan…

[flagged]

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#137

Post by dang »

cotelletta wrote: post #127
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this. I remember in great detail what happened when Summers was essentially sacked from Harvard, and I thought it did a great disservice to the institution. He was presenting the mere idea, at an academic conference, that innate differences in gender could account for some of the difference in academic achievement in various fields is something that should be studied , and he was pilloried for it.…

Where is the utmost sensitivity when people like James Damore are derided as "tech bros" and worse? White male tears? Mansplaining? Face it, tech feminists only want others to be sensitive to their own needs, not to bring greater sensitivity. This guy is voicing his lived experience, speaking from his intersectional perspective as a male scientist... And it falls on deaf ears because all that rhetoric was only ever m…

Could you please not post in the flamewar style to HN, like you did here and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19185203? That's exactly what we're struggling, collectively and slowly, to move beyond. The site guidelines explain: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

For an example of a comment on a divisive topic that stays within the guidelines, I'd say the one you replied to is pretty good.

Besides the guidelines, you might also find these links helpful for getting the spirit of this site:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#138

Post by joshuamorton »

titanix2 wrote: post #130
OldFatCactus wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol Firstly, the guy isn't qualified to make such a sweeping statement about the opposite sex. So before we even step into the problems with why it's a dumb idea to say such things, lets just make it clear that he's a physicist and not an anthropologist, biologist, or sociologist. We definitely care about his moral character, but it's also just flat out incredibly naive to discredit women in his field when they've be…

It is comments like yours that is currently fuelling the ‘diversity’ meme pushback. You are denying someone the right to express facts just because of its gender and divergent political opinion. The guy is a physicist, he is way more qualified than any sociologist to deal with statistics. Your position is not only ridiculous virtue signaling but you are also creating a scary world where the messenger is more importan…

What specific facts did he express?

He expressed many opinions but reading the article none of the controversy was about facts. He just claimed that his opinions about women being worse at physics research were facts and wrongly used the male variability hypothesis to try and justify that.

Please don't fall for his claim that he was just presenting facts.

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#139

Post by tempay »

titanix2 wrote: post #130
OldFatCactus wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol Firstly, the guy isn't qualified to make such a sweeping statement about the opposite sex. So before we even step into the problems with why it's a dumb idea to say such things, lets just make it clear that he's a physicist and not an anthropologist, biologist, or sociologist. We definitely care about his moral character, but it's also just flat out incredibly naive to discredit women in his field when they've be…

It is comments like yours that is currently fuelling the ‘diversity’ meme pushback. You are denying someone the right to express facts just because of its gender and divergent political opinion. The guy is a physicist, he is way more qualified than any sociologist to deal with statistics. Your position is not only ridiculous virtue signaling but you are also creating a scary world where the messenger is more importan…

> The guy is a physicist, he is way more qualified than any sociologist to deal with statistics.

As an experimental LHC physicist myself, his use of statistics is either naive (understandable, he’s a theorist) or negligent. He used his mathematical background to appear knowledgeable despite there being huge flaws in his “evidence”.

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#140

Post by throwawaymath »

dang wrote: post #135
_red wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside. Are you posting via a throwaway because: (a) You worry about HN attacking you with downvotes, or (b) You have a somewhat publicly identifiable username and worry this type of wrongthink could be punished by the modern-stasi movement? (my money is on B).

Some people have a main account with "throwaway" in the name. Perhaps they just like oxymorons? And many throwaway accounts are not eponymous. You have to look at the account history, not the name, to tell the difference.

Bingo. Case in point, this is my "main" account :)
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