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University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018)

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31–40 of 106 posts

Re: University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018)

#31
A great example of Streisand effect.

I would have never heard about this paper if the wife of the editor didn't censor it.

Interesting hypothesis and nothing too far fetched, unless you're hellbent on proving men and women are the exact same.

Re: University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018)

#32
Ironicaly if the Greater Male Variability Hypothesis is true this also means that many more men are more dumber than women since women are more centered towards the gauss average.

Ironicaly this is never mentioned, they just see this is a "many more men can have a higher iq distrubution wise due to the male gauss tail stretching out further than womens, so this is sexist to say that men are smarter".

This shows you how biased all of these critics are, zero scientific discussion, pure emotional and egoistic outbursts.

They see this paper as "men are better", while in reality it says only "men are more in the extremes, both higher AND lower extremes than women."

Also if you read this: https://quillette.com/2018/09/07/academic-activists-send-a-p...

This is a good example of how NOT to handle a situation like this. The authors tried to convience the people that they were just doing science in good faith, but those feminist zaelots just saw it as "men are better".

You cannot argue with such people. Those people in charge are the opposite of intellectual academic scientists.

Sad so to see what academia has devolved to.

Sad that people in such high places have such beliefs.

The correct response in this situation is to tell them to go f** themselves and expose them for the immature brats that they are.

Growling like a dog before them IS ALWAYS THE WRONG COURSE OF ACTION.

If you growel before them you give them authority, this is the worst thing that you can do and will perpetuate this anti-scientific cycle.

Re: University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018)

#33

Retracting a paper should only be done in select situations, like fraud, plagiarism or violating ethical guidelines. Was any of that present? If you retract papers that were just 'wrong' you would be retracting at least 50% of the work published in a lot of fields. Furthermore you would leave a blind spot in the research, other researchers might try and pursue those retracted ideas not realizing they are dead ends.

A retracted paper doesn't disappear from the surface of the world. It is still indexed in commercial and institutional repositories, some of which will also have copies. Retracting is the right thing to do if the authors or editors want to show that they cannot vouch for what they have published.

Re: University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018)

#34

Imagine the 'indirect effect' that these kinds of things have on discussions throughout the industry. Reddit just had a discussion about the video 'Fat' (i.e. 'Bad') by Weird Al Mocking Michael Jackson. It 'couldn't be made today' first because it wouldn't even be pitched in the first place - too much risk. They'll try another idea. Maybe it's 'not nice' in 2022 to use the term 'fat' - or, maybe it's not so bad, and…

> It's a form of systematic oppression.

Against who? Parody artists? Weird Al has a parody along the same lines on his 2014 album and I'm not aware of any outrage.

If your biggest concern in life is being "cancelled" (a dramatic term for being criticized on the internet), I think that says more about you and your intolerance for free speech, than anyone else.

Re: University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018)

#35
There's a whole genre of simple mathematical models that excuse centuries of well documented oppression.

Like the 'only a small amount of desire to live near similar people leads to self-segregation' thing.

You know what else leads to segregation? Actual laws that enforce it at the point of a gun with legal and extra-legal terrorism.

If only there was some way to tell which of these occurred in real history.

Re: University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018)

#36

Imagine the 'indirect effect' that these kinds of things have on discussions throughout the industry. Reddit just had a discussion about the video 'Fat' (i.e. 'Bad') by Weird Al Mocking Michael Jackson. It 'couldn't be made today' first because it wouldn't even be pitched in the first place - too much risk. They'll try another idea. Maybe it's 'not nice' in 2022 to use the term 'fat' - or, maybe it's not so bad, and…

> It's a form of systematic oppression. Against who? Parody artists? Weird Al has a parody along the same lines on his 2014 album and I'm not aware of any outrage. If your biggest concern in life is being "cancelled" (a dramatic term for being criticized on the internet), I think that says more about you and your intolerance for free speech, than anyone else.

Being 'cancelled' in academia and entertainment is a very real thing that happens to artists, but more notably, as I mentioned, suppresses tons of content across the board that won't even get pitched otherwise.

While some people do overstate it, it's definitely real.

Those who diminish it are the fascists of our generation.

Sean Penn (far left activist) and Conan O'Brien (staunch centre left advocate, public supporter of Hillary Clinton etc.) publicly decried the problem as 'Stalinist' - strong words. In their experience, in private conversation in Hollywood people are freaked out about the oppression, while a few virtue signal here and there publicly while towing the party line, everyone is thinks it's nuts.

Stephen Pinker (staunch centre-left, respected academic) has spoken out about this, and faced a 'cancellation' of his own for merely suggesting publicly that the issue with policing in America is more a general problem as opposed to specifically a racial problem. The 'mob' came for him and tried to have his participation on various boards 'cancelled'.

A long list of thinkers, including the likes of Chomsky himself, had to come out and publicly admonish the 'cancellers' (mostly on the far left) for the systematic problem.

It's without modern precedent.

There's a 'civil war' between generations at the NYT (Editorial) about what constitutes 'fair'.

The 'outrage mob' has a measurable effect on academia and especially creative culture.

Producers just don't want to risk a project being annulled, and so they go out of their way to 'sanitize' efforts left and right.

The Wachowski sisters (then brothers) were 'condemned' for 'Cloud Atlas' where they dared to have people of different classes, genders and races, play various characters - frankly in attempt to display the common humanity within all of us (not some arbitrary bit of ugly humour) - though the outrage wasn't enough to hurt them, it's become a 'no go zone' for content in 2022.

Actors playing characters of different source origin i.e. someone 'non Japanese' playing a character from Anime, actors playing historical figures, actors playing arbitrary fictional characters of questionable origin etc. etc. - it's all a minefield, scaring producers away from anything.

30 Rock, made by your typically socially progressive groups, had several episodes pulled.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Go ahead and re-watch 'Superbad' - it could not be made today, it wouldn't even get pitched. Every scene is 'off message' - arbitrary bits about crude porn, jokes involving trans people, 'period' gags. It was always a bit 'outrageous' but that kind of humour will risk too much ire and so it's out. Even the actors just wouldn't want to risk being on the wrong side - look at Seth Rogen's most recent work, it's like a 180 degree shift.

Institutional entities that have been around for some time, notably 'make money' and notably have their own production ability - South Park and Family Guy, basically get a free pass.

But most people in entertainment and academia do not have power like 'Dave Chapelle' or institutional protection like 'South Park' or respect of 'Stephen Pinker' - so they 'stay on message' and 'away from controversy' or else the script does not get approved. And FYI even the people turning it away aren't ideological about it 'it's just business' and an accommodation of the outrage mob, fickle advertisers etc..

The 'outraged' a fairly small group, with a sizeable group of allies particularly among Gen Z, which can be noted in the continuous public furor over ostensibly 'terrible person', JK Rowling. The way they go on about here is medieval.

While I don't think our campuses are overtly hostile, the issue does linger.

Re: University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018)

#37

There's a whole genre of simple mathematical models that excuse centuries of well documented oppression. Like the 'only a small amount of desire to live near similar people leads to self-segregation' thing. You know what else leads to segregation? Actual laws that enforce it at the point of a gun with legal and extra-legal terrorism. If only there was some way to tell which of these occurred in real history.

I don't know what point you're making. Should those models not be allowed to exist? Usually the way this goes is that a scientist proposes a model to describe something, and it's fine. When it goes wrong is usually when the public picks up that science and uses it to do something horrible.

The thing about self-segregation behaviour you mention is a basic fact of life, you can see it everywhere, all the time, chances are you've done it to yourself if you've ever been embedded in a different culture for any amount of time. It's interesting and potentially useful to build a scientific model out of it for analysis or other purposes. There's no problem at all with it until some politician thinks it allows them to be bigoted and oppressive.

If the actual 'science' implied in any way that people should be oppressed based on the models, it was obviously bad science and would not have stood the test of time in any case.

Re: University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018)

#38

There's a whole genre of simple mathematical models that excuse centuries of well documented oppression. Like the 'only a small amount of desire to live near similar people leads to self-segregation' thing. You know what else leads to segregation? Actual laws that enforce it at the point of a gun with legal and extra-legal terrorism. If only there was some way to tell which of these occurred in real history.

> Like the 'only a small amount of desire to live near similar people leads to self-segregation' thing.

> You know what else leads to segregation? Actual laws that enforce it at the point of a gun with legal and extra-legal terrorism.

"Tell me you don't understand social science, without telling me you don't understand social science." The point of these models is not usually to argue for the status quo. Often they're made as a simple sanity check. For instance, if even small incentives towards aggregation can lead to self-segregation, this changes the policies we would choose to try and create a different outcome.

Re: University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018)

#39
post #33

Retracting a paper should only be done in select situations, like fraud, plagiarism or violating ethical guidelines. Was any of that present? If you retract papers that were just 'wrong' you would be retracting at least 50% of the work published in a lot of fields. Furthermore you would leave a blind spot in the research, other researchers might try and pursue those retracted ideas not realizing they are dead ends.

A retracted paper doesn't disappear from the surface of the world. It is still indexed in commercial and institutional repositories, some of which will also have copies. Retracting is the right thing to do if the authors or editors want to show that they cannot vouch for what they have published.

"Retracting is the right thing to do if the authors or editors want to show that they cannot vouch for what they have published."

Alternatively, they might have retracted to have the bullying and intimidation stop.

It's like saying a kid hands over his lunch money everyday to the school bully because he realizes his mom actually wants the bully to have more spending power. Or the business owner truly wants to hire the mobster as clearly you never know when some random pyromaniac decides he feels a bit cold.

Re: University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018)

#40

There's a whole genre of simple mathematical models that excuse centuries of well documented oppression. Like the 'only a small amount of desire to live near similar people leads to self-segregation' thing. You know what else leads to segregation? Actual laws that enforce it at the point of a gun with legal and extra-legal terrorism. If only there was some way to tell which of these occurred in real history.

I don't know what point you're making. Should those models not be allowed to exist? Usually the way this goes is that a scientist proposes a model to describe something, and it's fine. When it goes wrong is usually when the public picks up that science and uses it to do something horrible. The thing about self-segregation behaviour you mention is a basic fact of life, you can see it everywhere, all the time, chances…

I've created a simple mathmatical model that suggests they wouldn't get created in the first place, so we no longer need to discuss whether banning them was a good idea or not, it just happened naturally, and there's nothing anyone could have done to change that.
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