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

bbc.com

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

#321

Serious question HN: If Katie was a man do you think people would be going through git histories and their published papers trying to determine if she is being over-credited for her achievements?

Absolutely not.

That said, if Katie was a man, her story would not be as groundbreaking in a social context, and thus she would not be as celebrated.

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

#322
post #317

Serious question HN: If Katie was a man do you think people would be going through git histories and their published papers trying to determine if she is being over-credited for her achievements?

Do you think a man in a similar position would be elevated on a pedestal, to the exclusion of the algorithm designer (Mareki Honma) and the primary software author (Andrew Chael)?

Who gets elevated on a pedestal and who actually did the work appear to be so badly correlated across the entire breadth of human cultures that you would assume that they only share the most tenuous of causal linkages.

So yes, that happens a lot.

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

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is what makes me somewhat feel that this focus on her is not quite fair. Thought experiment: if you saw an article titled "Jony Ive: The Man Behind The iPhone" would you be commenting on how unfair it is to single him out? After all, he just designed the thing, a huge team of people built the software and the hardware that actually made it possible.

this is hard to say, tbh. first: by alluding to Ive, you insert a gender component. i don't want to make this about gender - which is what happened itt. as mentioned, i think the difference in focus is because of geo-cultural reasons. another piece of evidence for this hypothesis comes from the following: over here, the EU also gets a lot of praise for providing the main chunk of the funding for the project. a quick…

> first: by alluding to Ive, you insert a gender component

Personally, I want to say the gender component actually happened right about here:

>> Her story is trully inspiring! She seems like a really likable person

We have interesting ways and subtext when we talk about people that show our biases. Actually beyond that the entire article isn't anything about asking Katie questions or how she came about her algorithm. It's more about her fast rising popularity. It's an article that says a woman did something without saying that. I'm not judging if that's offensive or merely a reflection on how we relay news given our society.

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

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends a bit on the scientific field, but in mine (computer vision, which this was also published in) the first author is the "main" author, usually doing most if not all the "ground work", then you have collaborators and co-authors, and finally the supervisors (in the case of the PhD student that she was at the time). It is becoming more common to see papers with "Author1 , Author2 , Author3..." lists, where the…

I'd argue that in practice science is more of a pile of giants.

Giant turtles. Its giant turtles all the way down.

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

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in most of STEM there are already an equal number of women. As soon as the baby boomers retire itll be obvious. Women get more PhDs than men, and have been for a while.

Do you work in an office with low-level programmers and hardware designers? I do, and I'm one of a handful of women in the building. Actually at the moment, I'm the only one and I'm lobbying for our new hire of managing director to be a woman but it's likely not going to happen because I can't find someone qualified. When I teach in the field at my university, I'm the only woman. And I live in a very popular, large c…

Your "lobbying for our new hire of managing director to be a woman" is fuel for rage and even return fire. I hope you can see how it might be used to justify discrimination in the other direction. You aren't being fair.

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

#326

Reading some of the comments in here and in previous texts, I think everyone should try to heed to the following guidelines: - When an individual/team's work is emphasized by their biological characteristics, it is often meant for clicks or to drive emotions (positive & negative) - When that happens, ask yourself whether the author of the paper did it for nefarious reasons or not. - If the cause doesn't seem nefariou…

Thanks, dad.

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

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is hard to say, tbh. first: by alluding to Ive, you insert a gender component. i don't want to make this about gender - which is what happened itt. as mentioned, i think the difference in focus is because of geo-cultural reasons. another piece of evidence for this hypothesis comes from the following: over here, the EU also gets a lot of praise for providing the main chunk of the funding for the project. a quick…

> first: by alluding to Ive, you insert a gender component Personally, I want to say the gender component actually happened right about here: >> Her story is trully inspiring! She seems like a really likable person We have interesting ways and subtext when we talk about people that show our biases. Actually beyond that the entire article isn't anything about asking Katie questions or how she came about her algorithm.…

The title of the article reveals a lot about the biases at play here. "Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind..." - keyword 'the'. She isn't 'the' computer scientist behind it, she is 'a' computer scientist behind it. If it were merely a case of putting an interesting person with likable facial features at the heart of the story the news articles' titles and descriptions could actually be accurate. In actuality we have misplaced attribution caused by the biases of the news media. Whether they're political or not, its easy to see through them and it adds an unnecessary off-note to the otherwise interesting scientific achievement.

EDIT: it looks like the title of the article has either changed or SEO causes some to see different titles than others. Regardless my initial comment should still be valid.

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

#328
post #212

Title ought to reflect the fact that this woman has a doctorate from MIT and should rightfully be addressed as Dr. Katie Bouman.

The policy on Hacker News, according to their guidelines, is they use the original article title, unless there's a good reason to change it.

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

#329

Her story is trully inspiring! She seems like a really likable person, has been hard working, with great results, making a major contribution. The photo with her and the hard drives is amazing and I am sure she will inspire many to enter science. However, I think to call her "the woman behind the first black hole image" is a hyperbole. It makes it sound as if she was _the one person_ responsible that all this came ab…

I hate it when news outlets and movie production companies focus on individuals and ignore the team effort and dynamic, and it's not because I care about distributing credit. I want them to tell more stories about teams and communities working together to build things, not more lone genius stories.

I get it. I truly do.

But consider the context: This picture of a blackhole is going around along with an iconic picture of a woman with a ton of hard-drives that resembles the iconic picture of Margaret Hamilton with a stack of papers. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who knows little to nothing about this project. What questions do you think people have?

Headlines have to create irresistible questions that lure people in and this one is using the tried and true "Who's this genius?" formula.

Once they've grabbed this casual reader (see headline), they're not going to dive too deep into the project. This isn't serious science journalism, this is a human interest story in the science section.

Why did they pick her? Because she lead the team and was a key figure in conceiving and implementing the algorithm. Because she was already the face, spokesperson and active promoter for this project. Look at her TED talk from 2017.

I get it. Tons of people deserve credit. More importantly, the story of how this team collaborated should be told. But that's not what this profile piece is about.

But let's get serious. You're critiquing the accuracy of a very casual profile piece for average readers. Most of them really don't care what statements are slightly hyperbolic, they just want to understand the gist of the project and her role.

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

#330

Her story is trully inspiring! She seems like a really likable person, has been hard working, with great results, making a major contribution. The photo with her and the hard drives is amazing and I am sure she will inspire many to enter science. However, I think to call her "the woman behind the first black hole image" is a hyperbole. It makes it sound as if she was _the one person_ responsible that all this came ab…

From the article:

"But Dr Bouman, ...insisted the team that helped her deserves equal credit."

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