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Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

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Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#141

Post by bubblewrap »

raphman wrote: post #134
bubblewrap wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What prevents you from taking a man as a role model?

A 'role model' is someone who shares your background and is successful in an area of interest where you would like to participate/contribute (science, art, sports, politics, ...) . It's someone who demonstrates that 'someone like you' can be successful, too. Therefore, the closer this role model is to your inherent and unchangeable properties (age, sex/gender, origin, social class), the more it can inspire you. Surel…

I'd say that is just toxic feminism telling women they can't have men as role models. Why not?

Would they say women can not achieve what men can (at least in science, if not in physical endeavors)? Because if they say women can do that, then why shouldn't they take men as role models?

"Someone like you" - is for example a white man from a middle class background more like a white woman from a middle class background, or is that white women more like a black woman from a poor background? I think to say "biological sex" in that context is more defining for "likeness" in academia is a silly, toxic narrative.

In my youth, I personally also enjoyed books and comics with female heroines, and never thought that they shouldn't be my role models. I guess these days that wouldn't be possible anymore.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#142

Post by kakarot »

soVeryTired wrote: post #111
kakarot wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News isn't some monolithic community. Each time, you're seeing different people express their opinions. There's no hypocrisy there. I think it's friggin awesome to see women in science. But even if Bouman was male I would still be cautious of attributing so much of an international collaboration to one person in the form of "Meet the _____ behind the first black hole image". That phrasing disregards too much h…

I don't really think she's getting special treatment because of her gender though. I think she's in the spotlight because: 1/ She led the team and was first author on the image reconstruction paper 2/ She gave a Ted talk on the topic a while back 3/ There's a brilliant photo of her initial reaction to the image that captures the excitement of scientific discovery circulating on the internet

Thanks for mentioning the Ted talk, I'm about to check it out now.

The first headline on Google for me when searching "black hole image" is this very BBC article.

It was clearly written to grab the reader's attention, and it grabs it away from the actual phenomenon as well as all of the other brilliant minds who came together to make this happen.

She led the CS team. But very-long-baseline interferometry has been around for half a century. Heino Falcke proposed the experiment. Shep Doeleman led the entire EHT initiative. Scientists around the world brought techniques to the table.

I imagine even Bouman takes issue with being labeled "the scientist behind the first image of the black hole". She is surely aware and appreciative of the massive international effort involved.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#143

Post by frostburg »

dunslandsboo wrote: post #80
dalemyers wrote: post #44

I've read comments on Hacker News for many years, often finding them a useful source of additional information and insight into details from whatever the linked piece is. Sometimes these threads are full of only subtly veiled hatred and leave me with a feeling of disgust. This thread is one of those. There have been countless threads over the years where a man gets the credit for something a team has worked on and th…

Why do you want to change the behaviour of women regarding their choice of study field?

Optimal application of talent. The concept of "choice" isn't very consistent, especially when applied to populations instead of individuals.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#144

Post by charliepark »

vonseel wrote: post #81
threeseed wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same on Reddit. The sheer toxicity of many of the comments is something I haven't seen for a long time. They really hate that a women is getting credit and that others aren't getting the same level of attention. I wonder how those same people think about Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs etc. They had huge teams behind them as well.

Dumb attitude. For every extraordinarily recognized academic/professional person, there’s always going to be many times more people who are never publicly recognized for their achievements. Maybe they fly under the radar, maybe they picked the wrong subject to focus on or industry for career, maybe their timing is bad, maybe there’s nothing wrong with them. I’m proud of this (stranger to me) girl for accomplishing so…

Agreed with you that her accomplishment is great.

As in engineering, it's helpful to use proper terminology with people:

if using a gender is necessary for the narrative …

- under 13: girl

- 13 – 18: girl / teenager / young woman (depends on context; 16? – 25?)

- 18 or over: woman

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#145

Post by tomhoward »

founderling wrote: post #125
yetihehe wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could you guys please tell me why it is such a bad question to ask? Because it's nitpicking[0]. When scientists show you results of several years of work of many people, you effectively chose to ask question like "Is it really violet? Seems more purple to me". You don't contribute anything to discussion, but just want to sound smart-ass. [0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nitpicking

Thanks! The link says nitpicking is "Looking for small or unimportant errors". That is certainly not what I want to do. The press is full of articles about this "First photo of a black hole". This seems to imply that it is somehow important. But so far, I fail to see what is important about it. So my question still stands. I would really like to know in what sense this is the first image of a black hole. And if there…

Is anyone knowledgeable about the project calling it a "photo" (i.e., the term you used) or are they calling it (more accurately) an "image"?

My take in response to your original question is that it seems like nitpicking or armchair quarterbacking or something else related to that.

I'm always wary of succumbing to the "appeal to authority" fallacy, but this does seem like a case where all the experts and leading figures in a field are saying this is a big deal, and publishing a lot of info about it, so the right approach just seems to be to take the time to read/listen to what they're saying and learn, rather than posting simplistic skeptical questions in web forums.

If you didn't intend to come across that way, then perhaps rethink your question or the way you worded it.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#146

Post by 0815test »

bubblewrap wrote: post #141
raphman wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 'role model' is someone who shares your background and is successful in an area of interest where you would like to participate/contribute (science, art, sports, politics, ...) . It's someone who demonstrates that 'someone like you' can be successful, too. Therefore, the closer this role model is to your inherent and unchangeable properties (age, sex/gender, origin, social class), the more it can inspire you. Surel…

I'd say that is just toxic feminism telling women they can't have men as role models. Why not? Would they say women can not achieve what men can (at least in science, if not in physical endeavors)? Because if they say women can do that, then why shouldn't they take men as role models? "Someone like you" - is for example a white man from a middle class background more like a white woman from a middle class background,…

Yes, "role models" are a good indication of how weak or strong our social capital is. Our society is increasingly fraying apart, so much so that people are now unwilling to view others as fundamentally sharing the same humanity and social outlook as themselves, unless they happen to share some shallow but somehow salient features like gender, ethnic background, religion, sexual orientation and so on and so forth, that make them a part of some increasingly narrow "tribe". This kind of thing used to be seen as a significant social faux pas, but increasingly we see it being accepted.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#147

Post by pbhjpbhj »

nagVenkat wrote: post #105
killjoywashere wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok, so just so everyone is clear, the point between parent and grandparent is Andrew Chael seems to have written a hell of a lot more code than Katie Bouman, for a lot longer * achael 566 commits 850,275 ++ 131,044 -- * klbouman 90 commits 2,410 ++ 1,265 -- However, at least at the level of reading the commit messages, Katie's are pretty math heavy: "fixed bug in the fake briggs weighting" "starting to fix chirp prob…

To add some more context... of the 850k lines, 500k lines are mostly models and machine generated code. Andrew is definitely smart (smarter than an average HN user) and his code is very important but I have never seen so much display of misogyny and sexism against a woman scientist. She never took any credit and clearly said that this was a team effort. Some of the top posts on reddit are trying to mischaracterize th…

I don't see what you're seeing, I see news headlines and comments that are suggesting Dr Bouman worked alone.

They just need "a" instead of "the", or "lead" if she's responsible as leader of a team.

For me, I am slightly primed by the "Apollo code" story: the claim was (paraphrasing) "this programmer created all the code for the Apollo programme" with an image of a person standing with folders of printouts stacked up to their shoulder. Well that person was the lead of teams of coders and didn't personally do it all. The implication, explicit in some cases, was "women's contribution is always hidden, this person did it all and got no recognition because vile men refused to share the spotlight". (Hamilton's contribution as a lead programmer was vital to the Apollo programme, but it doesn't appear to have anything to do with her being a woman).

Now, this story appears to be doing exactly what was claimed there, people's contributions being ignored.

Normally a headline would be "Bouman leads team to image blackhole", but the use of a clearly gendered forename suggests the headline writer is trying to pick out the sex of the subject. "The" suggests singularity (pun attempted!) of contribution. So, it's natural to ask why, and if you've been subject to the social media "women do it all and men get all the credit" one is bound to question the contributions.

Then looking at GitHub and seeing 2k loc vs 850k loc -- paired with the programming vs computer science confusion -- it appears like another exaggeration to forward a feminist agenda rather than an attempt to report science.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#149

Post by jealous_guy »

Well. I think why so many people are bitter, including me, is that when news like that break out - you want to say to yourself "that could've been me". I have interests in science, I might do research one day - that could be me!!! I want fame! :) But then you look at the repo, and you realise that even if you were taking part in such a research, and tried your absolute 1000% you probably would be that nameless guy with most contribs. And that credit for your work would be taken, because you're expected to perform, because you're a guy! Of course you work like crazy, of course you do all the hard bits, but that's only expected. But if a girl does something close - then she's a hero... I haven't been there, and I haven't seen those people, but I work in IT and I know how it goes, guys work unreasonable hours, and put in unreasonable efforts to make projects succeed. Girls usually take more "balanced" approach. I think having mixed teams is absolutely critical for a success of any IT/Scientific endeavour! I think the right balance between masculine and feminine energy is what give the team right motivation, right pace and keeps it sane to accomplish impossible! I enjoy working with female developers perhaps even more than with male devs! But! The article should've said something like "every successful team needs both genders" - or something of that kind. There should be a message of unification... And absolutely - they could've highlighted her contributions, but highlight it as a part of a team! You don't even have to name the guys, just say "among team of 6 male phd scientists was a female who did meaningful contributions to the code and kept team spirit high". But this is incredibly demoralising! After this you want to say - I'm NOT getting on any team - I will own my work, even if that means working 100000%. And yes, after this article more girls will get into science! But LESS BOYS WILL!!! Might as well call this

"Katie's Hole" :P

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#150

Post by cwal37 »

nprateem wrote: post #68
dalemyers wrote: post #44

I've read comments on Hacker News for many years, often finding them a useful source of additional information and insight into details from whatever the linked piece is. Sometimes these threads are full of only subtly veiled hatred and leave me with a feeling of disgust. This thread is one of those. There have been countless threads over the years where a man gets the credit for something a team has worked on and th…

> Stories like this help bring more women into STEM fields How do you know?

This paper[1] gets at it for one.

From the abstract:

" Consistent with the importance of exposure effects in career selection, women and disadvantaged youth are as underrepresented among high-impact inventors as they are among inventors as a whole. These findings suggest that there are many “lost Einsteins”—individuals who would have had highly impactful inventions had they been exposed to innovation in childhood—especially among women, minorities, and children from low-income families."

[1] https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/134/2/647/5218...

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