University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018) • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by ZeroGravitas » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:32 AM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #38

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #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.

> 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'r…

It's not a small incentive though. It's a toy model where the only thing that the agent cares about is how many of his neighbours are the same color as him. Every single person in this model society will immediately move house if 1/3 of their immediate neighbours are the wrong color and not move to any such neighbourhood for any reason, since there are no other motivations in the model.

Which apparently was considered a 'mild' preference by the person who made the model, in the middle of the civil rights era.

It basically renders any immigration inpossible for example, is that really a mild preference?

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

#42

Post by Ma8ee » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:45 AM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #26

Ma8ee wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you don’t want yourself or the journal your are editor for to be used as a weapon by right wing extremists (i.e. so called conservatives). Even if the research would be true and we could use the knowledge to improve society, the right wing will pick it up and use it to promote sexism and racism.

Except that right wing trolls will pick up literally anything for their own purposes. Trying to avoid that by playing politics about scientific matters is a fool's game, it only compounds the problem further.

Are you sure about that? I’m sure that you probably could find small but significant (in the statistical sense) differences of intelligence between races and genders if you tried hard enough. It would be strange otherwise. Would that knowledge make the world a better or worse place in the current political climate? What would your thoughts be about the motivation behind that research? Do you really think it would be honest, unbiased search for truth?

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

#43

Post by Ma8ee » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:55 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #27

Ma8ee wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you don’t want yourself or the journal your are editor for to be used as a weapon by right wing extremists (i.e. so called conservatives). Even if the research would be true and we could use the knowledge to improve society, the right wing will pick it up and use it to promote sexism and racism.

And thus to degrade the sense that you’re working for truth instead of just your political agenda.

There’s always some kind of bias that direct your research, be conscious of it or not. Thinking that there’s any kind of pure truth seeking in any research that has social implications is utterly naive.

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

#44

Post by V-2 » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 10:01 AM UTC

defrost wrote: post #10

AinderS wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While this has zero bearing on the reality of human evolution It does have bearing. It is proof by example that biology and evolution does not rule out such a possibility. For the actual paper in question, it is proof that such an outcome is not (yet) ruled out even in the specific case of humans.

The possibilities are endless (albeit enumerable), sure - that's the chuckle - it's a given from the outset and flows from the axioms of the game. This paper doesn't take a broad view and show that many things are possible, it takes a narrow view and demonstrates that one specific thing (among many) is possible. ie. a dull trite result. The fact that many possiblies can follow from evolution does bring any specific l…

It's a math paper, not one in evolutionary biology. Only the mathematical aspect is of relevance here, and either it holds water or it doesn't. You can assume a seven-dimensional space, and for analyzing the geometry of such space it is irrelevant whether it actually exists somewhere in the universe or beyond.

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

#45

Post by prvc » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 10:02 AM UTC

>A University investigation cleared two University of Chicago mathematics professors of wrongdoing after they independently criticized a controversial mathematics paper [...]

I'd like to know the sense of "independently" that the author had in mind here, considering the two are married to one another. Also worth wondering whether the paper was intrinsically "controversial", or merely made to be so by virtue of the complaint(s).

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

#46

Post by christophilus » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 10:19 AM UTC

oifjsidjf wrote: post #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 h…

I think you meant “grovel”. Growling like a dog before them would be quite a fun experiment.

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

#47

Post by zozbot234 » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 10:30 AM UTC

Ma8ee wrote: post #42

zozbot234 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that right wing trolls will pick up literally anything for their own purposes. Trying to avoid that by playing politics about scientific matters is a fool's game, it only compounds the problem further.

Are you sure about that? I’m sure that you probably could find small but significant (in the statistical sense) differences of intelligence between races and genders if you tried hard enough. It would be strange otherwise. Would that knowledge make the world a better or worse place in the current political climate? What would your thoughts be about the motivation behind that research? Do you really think it would be…

The "current political climate" around race and gender is so thoroughly screwed up that it's hard to think of any real research activity that might make it actually worse. And if you care about e.g. educational outcomes across races and/or genders (which plenty of people do, seeing as these are highly relevant to broader social goals!), the question you refer to is in fact relevant-- if only to conclusively rule out larger differences as a possible factor, and place the research spotlight on other things-- such as e.g. pervasive, systemic dysfunction within educational institutions themselves.

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

#48

Post by willis936 » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 10:32 AM UTC

civilized wrote: post #11

defrost wrote: post #2

The paper itself is a chuckle fest (as are many Intelligencer submissions) and concludes: > The goal here has been neither to challenge nor to confirm Darwin’s and other researchers’ observations of greater male variability for any given species or any given trait, but rather to propose an elementary mathematical theory based on biological/evolutionary mechanisms that might serve as a starting point to help explain h…

High-energy physicists make up theories for the mechanisms behind phenomena that may or may not even exist all the time. One can question the utility of this but no one strings up such authors for heresy.

Theoretical physics does not aim to influence social policy.

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

#49

Post by oxfordmale » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 10:34 AM UTC

Surely the right wing media will now jump on the fact this paper was "cancelled" as it was communicating an inconvenient truth for the wokerati?

You can't win. The best thing to do is to let such things go as this article would have gone unnoticed.

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

#50

Post by yekoc » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 10:41 AM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #40

fartsucker69 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And the obviously hyperbolical nature of that model still doesn't prevent you from creating it or from it leading to potential further research oppurtunities (in fact,please do release the paper that results from such,I'd love to read it.) and following logically from that it still doesn't prevent anyone from creating a model that disagrees or from following any potential research opputunities that such would lead to.

The validity of a mathematical model is dependent solely upon it's internal (and,depending on the extent of the research,external) consistency.Whether it possess any form of 'accuracy to the real world' only comes into play when people who don't understand this attempt to use it to justify their preconceptions.