CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by fromthestart » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 10:36 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #34

harias wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peer-review will help with that. I strongly support amateurs publishing if they have something real to contribute. Gate-keeping based on degrees is bad.

There is too much crank science in the world to evaluate it all in good faith: if peer reviewers were tasked with reviewing every clever idea from someone who notices a correlation in one data set—and, in particular, at conductor their own experiments to replicate the result—there would statistically be no time for correct science. Scott Aaronson's "Ten Signs a Claimed Mathematical Breakthrough is Wrong" on https://w…

This isn't exactly crank science. This is a valid challenge to an equality assumption which permeates modern academia and industry, with potential negative consequences, which has never actually been proven.

And the same correlative "evidence" for sexism (which really is just a conflation of equality of outcome and equality of opportunity) could just as readily be taken as a manifestation of functional inequality.

But social stigma and an imepenetrable bias in academia keeps any meaningful research in this area from occurring, probably because people are afraid of the potential implications. That's bad science and ultimately is probably bad for society if it turns out these unproven assumptions for equal competence are untrue.

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

#152

Post by OldFatCactus » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 10:37 PM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #144

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's obvious you have chosen not to inform yourself about this particular situation before commenting. You didn't even read the BBC article which had a big bold, "The decision follows an investigation into comments, first reported by BBC News, made by Prof Strumia at a Cern workshop on gender equality." The trigger for all this was his presentation at a workshop dedicated to having CERN physicists making statements a…

yawn more redirection and shifting. He stepped out of his own area of expertise to push an agenda of misogyny. He acted unethically and must face the consequences that entails

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

#153

Post by mrjesus » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 10:38 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #147

lgleason wrote: post #115

I wonder what would have happened if he had done a presentation in favor of the current favored political/pseudo religious orthodoxy with bad/inaccurate poorly done data. We will never know but, I'll bet you not much would have been said about it. I'm not in the field, but from everything I've read the rest of his work is some of the top in the field. So we un-person this individual and start to dis-credit his work,…

> Einstein and many other prominent scientists I'm sure that they could find plenty of issues with their moral character as well. The question has been raised as to whether Einstein's wife Mileva Marić made an uncredited contribution to his work.

"Ancient Alien Theorists Believe ... "

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

#154

Post by jmole » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

iguy wrote: post #110

jmole wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been reading recently about a structural/sociocultural/technological phenomenon that's actually holding women back in a field where women tend to dominate in representation at the academic level, but are regularly outcompeted by men at the professional level. Piano playing. It all comes down to the shape of the instrument, and hand-span, which is unquestionably (and uncontroversially) larger in men than in women…

Thanks that's interesting. I'm astonished there are no 7/8 digital keyboards. Also, is there an explanation for "dominate in representation at the academic level"? Does it need one?

From the website I linked: "Christopher Donison (1998) has commented on the relatively small proportion of female piano competition winners at a senior level, given that they generally greatly outnumber male students in universities."

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

#155

Post by mrjesus » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 10:43 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #142

zarkov99 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, I've seen the slides. They are offensive and the cartoons in them are offensive in the context of the slides. There is no question that they would harm CERN's repuation and that people at CERN would be livid at Strumio's talk as a result.

"Offence is taken and not given".

They are obviously jokes to illustrate a point. The fact that you call them offensive instead of attacking the criticism itself is fuelling the push back against you and it is continuously mounting.

I have seen people's careers and spoken to countless others because people took offence over basically nothing or flat out lined to ruin someone.

Men now are actively just avoiding women at work whenever possible if they are smart. Precisely because of this offence culture.

In the UK we have people going to prison for being "offensive" this can be anything from jokes in poor taste to legitimate political speech.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/02/27/chelsea-russell-and...

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

#156

Post by dukwon » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 10:44 PM UTC

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.

I laughed at this for a solid minute. Statistics is something that theoretical particle physicists frequently and flagrantly ignore, to the point where experimentalists have to be super careful in how we present our results.

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

#157

Post by jmole » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 10:44 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #114

jmole wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been reading recently about a structural/sociocultural/technological phenomenon that's actually holding women back in a field where women tend to dominate in representation at the academic level, but are regularly outcompeted by men at the professional level. Piano playing. It all comes down to the shape of the instrument, and hand-span, which is unquestionably (and uncontroversially) larger in men than in women…

I can relate to that. I am male but I have pretty small hands. When I tried to learn piano and guitar I had a lot of trouble reaching keys that were really easy for others in my group. I remember wondering how I would do if I didn't have trouble already with the most basic chords.

Guitar is definitely similar. Look at most world famous guitarists & you'll see big hands. John Mayer, Jimmy hendrix, Steve Ray Vaughn, etc

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

#158

Post by superkuh » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 10:45 PM UTC

OldFatCactus wrote: post #152

superkuh wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obvious you have chosen not to inform yourself about this particular situation before commenting. You didn't even read the BBC article which had a big bold, "The decision follows an investigation into comments, first reported by BBC News, made by Prof Strumia at a Cern workshop on gender equality." The trigger for all this was his presentation at a workshop dedicated to having CERN physicists making statements a…

yawn more redirection and shifting. He stepped out of his own area of expertise to push an agenda of misogyny. He acted unethically and must face the consequences that entails

Being upset and wanting him punished is a fine and valid view. But maybe you should've actually known anything about the situation being discussed before saying patently false and irrelevant things (about this particular situation).

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

#159

Post by pygy_ » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 10:45 PM UTC

fromthestart wrote: post #146

pygy_ wrote: post #113

There's no doubt Strumia did a dumb, and while he may kind of have a point regarding the variability hypothesis, there's actually more to it. It comes down to chromosomes. XY individuals have a single X chromosome while XX individuals have two (duh). The X and Y chromosomes have a small section that pairs one another (the pseudo-homologous region), but most of their chromatin is different. The Y is mostly made of gen…

People are unwilling, to the point of delusion, to accept the possibility that this higher variance really does explain differences in representation among sexes across various top talent industries. Academic society is in a weird place where this kind of bias is acceptable. Which is antithetical to science and I therefore understand Strumia's frustration.

Industries and other activities (chess comes to mind).

I personally think it is more likely than not to explain the discrepancy. That being said, I'm not necessarily in favor of a blindly meritocratic society for reasons I don't have the time to develop today.

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

#160

Post by iguy » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 10:46 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #34

harias wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peer-review will help with that. I strongly support amateurs publishing if they have something real to contribute. Gate-keeping based on degrees is bad.

There is too much crank science in the world to evaluate it all in good faith: if peer reviewers were tasked with reviewing every clever idea from someone who notices a correlation in one data set—and, in particular, at conductor their own experiments to replicate the result—there would statistically be no time for correct science. Scott Aaronson's "Ten Signs a Claimed Mathematical Breakthrough is Wrong" on https://w…

> There is too much crank science in the world to evaluate it all in good faith

Absolutely. And thus sadly a solid field needs a certain (ideally low) amount of gatekeeping.

But there are also academic fields which are very far from solid, in which the same license to ignore "cranks" is employed, not to save some mathematicians time, but to build a wall around an ideology.

I don't really think there's an easy way to tell the difference "from 10_000ft", the two situations look identical in that there are journals, those who publish can get jobs, and later edit these journals... and without reading any of the work, there's no way to tell if it's basically solid or basically nonsense.