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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

#241

Post by thebooktocome »

zarkov99 wrote: post #68
geofft wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say CERN cut ties because other scientists rebutted the claims - CERN is entirely within their rights, and it is entirely appropriate for the progress of science, to cut ties because the researcher was incapable of collaborating in a productive manner with other scientists. I said that, nonetheless, the claims were rebutted in the end (unless they were not?), and therefore the comment " one would think Physi…

All right, point taken. Reading through the so called rebuttal though, there is not much there, hardly any of the arguments or actual data are disputed, there is suggestion that maybe there is another explanation for the disparity in outcomes with no specific data provided to support it. I think it is fair to say no actual debunking as been accomplished and what is left to explain the dismissal is ideology and the de…

So, to summarize, you did not take the point.

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

#242

Post by octopoc »

At my company, any sort of presentation at trade shows or conferences has to be reviewed by the marketing department first. In fact often the content originated from the marketing department. It seems to me like large scientific organizations like CERN should do something similar. Science has always been political and probably always will be.

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

#243

Post by sonnyblarney »

Udik wrote: post #171
PostOnce wrote: post #128

I went into this leaning towards "they probably are mistreating the guy", but nope, dude's... wrong, manipulative, a liar to further his own goals? The guy quotes the Istanbul Convention, article 4, as being "Discriminations against men 'shall not be considered discrimination'" https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/01A6/production/... But what it actually says is "Special measures that are necessary to prevent…

Why would measures meant to protect somebody from violence ever be considered discriminatory in the first place?

"Why would measures meant to protect somebody from violence ever be considered discriminatory in the first place?"

Well, if it's sanctioned discrimination by law, then it could clearly be seen as problematic.

For example, this convention may make it possible for police to 'err on the side of the female' during domestic 'he said / she said' interventions, i.e. requiring the male to vacate the premises during a cooling off period, even when it's a ambiguous situation.

The problem is that domestic violence is a two way street.

From the CBC (Canada) [1] " it looks like the average rate of violence perpetrated by men in intimate partner relationships is about 22 per cent, and by women it was actually found to be about 28 per cent" i.e. literally women it seems quite substantially more likely to commit violence against men than the other way around, in Canada. (Obviously doesn't take into account things like degree of violence etc.).

The reference to the Istanbul Convention I'm not sure is hugely relevant to the presentation, but on the presenters slide he is identifying that men face institutional discrimination: they are called to war, they die on the job, they have biased laws vis-a-vis domestic violence etc..

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/the180/why-louis-ck-is-wrong-to-pol...

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

#244

Post by tptacek »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #200
tptacek wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you don't believe this (I think Jordan Peterson, who is fond of it, is a charlatan but not at all an anti-Semite), the term obviously occludes more than it clarifies, and was deliberately coined as a powerful negative emotional appeal; the choice to include it in a CERN physics workshop presentation is telling.

How can someone possibly call Jordan Peterson a charlatan? Are we redefining that word now too? Also, describing something as “telling” is a pretty strong signal that one lacks any substantive rebuttals but cannot resist throwing shade. It’s cheap.

Have you read Maps of Meaning? I haven’t, but Nathan Robinson did, and wrote a review of the whole Peterson gestalt, which I found wholly convincing and you should find with no trouble at all.

I feel that what I found “telling” about the use of a controversial, poorly defined, culture-war term like “cultural Marxism” was pretty obvious: that the talk wasn’t given in good faith or with an intent that was productive with respect to the attendees.

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

#245

Post by jmole »

jancsika wrote: post #162
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…

That would be an enormous waste of institutional knowledge and technology (in the form of extant pianos and pianists). If you're going to make such a drastic change to the piano, at least cut the keyboard into two halves at middle c, then invert both halves. Now when the right hand starts at what used to be middle c and plays a chromatic scale upward, it's going from high pitches to low pitches. E.g., middle c is now…

...so your 30 second idea to ruin the keyboard by making it impossible to play a melody that crosses middle C with one hand is better than simply making each key a little more narrow?

This reeks of the silicon valley stereotype of "I don't know why you're doing it this way, let me come in with zero experience and tell you how to do it better, with technology™. In this case, it's really clear that you are not a piano player, and have not attempted to learn in any serious way.

In the case of the 7/8 piano, there have been case studies, physiological research, actual testing of different sizes of keyboards, etc.

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

#246

Post by telotortium »

rosser wrote: post #202
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct that a set of people are unwilling to accept that, but it’s actually the same set. Those who bring up male variability pretty frequently take great pains to state, gratuitously, that it applies to populations in a general sense and not individuals. Damore called this out as well, but the mob rewrote his words for him to omit anything like that. Most men advancing this argument have no problem whatsoev…

That's quite curious to me, since the overwhelming majority of the argument I've seen that cites the Damore memo glosses right over that distinction, or, at best, does an, "I'm not saying the thing, but, you know, the thing ..." with this very question. Maybe that's an inference I'm putting there, in at least some of the cases, but in another nontrivial subset of them, it's a serious exercise in creative interpretati…

Without taking a position on the strength of the arguments in the Damore memo, if most of your news diet comes from the anti-Damore side of the debate, you're more likely to see only the less reasonable people on the pro-Damore side, for the same reason that people on the anti-SJW side mostly encounter the most inflammatory arguments on the pro-SJW side.

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

#247

Post by dominotw »

bhouston wrote: post #6

I 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 p…

> EDIT: What about this comment is causing this to be downvoted?

Perhaps because its not at all like summers's case. Strumia didn't suggest women are not suited for physics or anything like that.

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

#248

Post by rosser »

telotortium wrote: post #246
rosser wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite curious to me, since the overwhelming majority of the argument I've seen that cites the Damore memo glosses right over that distinction, or, at best, does an, "I'm not saying the thing, but, you know, the thing ..." with this very question. Maybe that's an inference I'm putting there, in at least some of the cases, but in another nontrivial subset of them, it's a serious exercise in creative interpretati…

Without taking a position on the strength of the arguments in the Damore memo, if most of your news diet comes from the anti-Damore side of the debate, you're more likely to see only the less reasonable people on the pro-Damore side, for the same reason that people on the anti-SJW side mostly encounter the most inflammatory arguments on the pro-SJW side.

> if most of your news diet comes from the anti-Damore side of the debate

On this particular subject, most of my "news diet" has been the discussion in this very forum — which, net-net, I have an incredibly difficult time filing under "anti-Damore" — and the articles that inspired it. Please try not to make unsubstantiated assertions about the ideological breadth of my input.

Please also consider whether using the term "SJW" is going to serve the point you're trying to make, or if you're (perhaps unintentionally) alienating people by using language that, from their perspective, is tantamount to name-calling.

Even if in this specific instance you weren't doing that, it's going to go over about as well as an "SJW" describing a behavior on the part of the person with whom they're speaking as "racist" or "sexist". From the speaker's perspective, the term may merely seem descriptive, but from the listener's, the speaker has probably just killed the dialogue. No further understanding is likely come from it, because now the listener is primed defensively towards whatever else the speaker has to say.

EDIT: Seriously, HN. How is an autist the one pointing out such basic interpersonal dynamics?

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

#249

Post by davrosthedalek »

natrik wrote: post #240
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.

This isn't an issue in the WNBA and Women's basketball in general where the ball is smaller than the men's ball.

Are they paid the same? Are they the same level of famous? I don't really watch basketball, but I don't think they are, and a "they are not as good as men" bias could very well be at play here.

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

#250

Post by mrjesus »

dang wrote: post #222
mrjesus wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ancient Alien Theorists Believe ... "

Could you please not post unsubstantive comments, and especially not snark or flamebait, to Hacker News? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

How ironic. The whole "Einstein's Wife was the real genius" is an unsubstantiated claim.

Everyone knows that the Ancient Aliens show is essentially begging the question. Much like like the OPs comment.

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