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

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

#71

Post by waffleiron »

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…

> while in reality it says only "men are more in the extremes, both higher AND lower extremes than women."

The paper explicitly does not say that, have a look at the conclusion of the paper in question.

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

#72

Post by nradov »

NiloCK wrote: post #64
mgamache wrote: post #15

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.

> If you retract papers that were just 'wrong' you would be retracting at least 50% of the work published in a lot of fields. Wouldn't that be a win? Don't people read & reference these published, reviewed, non-retracted 'wrong' papers with the assumption that they are right?

A competent researcher wouldn't make that assumption. Random idiots might do so, though.

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

#73

Post by BlargMcLarg »

sascha_sl wrote: post #62
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…

>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". Because many advocates of GMVH are only interested in justifying the gender imbalance in leadership positions biologically, dismissing any well known social factors (e.g. competence rating on dou…

>Because many advocates of GMVH are only interested in justifying the gender imbalance in leadership positions biologically

This is also a gross oversimplification. Yes, there are a bunch of men at the top willing to take advantage of anything, but there are also hoards of men at the bottom tired of being blamed for things they have no control over and potentially be "indebted" socially, who would never see any benefit from the guys at the top.

Problem being the same, address the elephant in the room and stop having people at the top only interested in themselves and willing to exploit everything.

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

#74

Post by topynate »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #41
zozbot234 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 considere…

You are referring to Schelling's model, and the threshold he found for segregation wasn't 1/3 but 2/3 'wrong', i.e. that everyone prefer not to be in a minority of less than 1/3. This was just was striking about it – that even if every individual is happy with being in a minority, the population can still segregate. I'm not aware that he ever referred to the degree of preference in his model as 'mild', or small. It's relatively small, compared to what you might otherwise expect – I think most people would have guessed that it took a preference of 1/2 to produce self-segregation.

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

#75

Post by feet »

willis936 wrote: post #68
feet wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this paper aim to influence policy?

Of course. All anthropological work about contemporary society seeks to inform public opinion which dictates policy.

That's a pretty broad statement about a broad field. Can you provide any citations that back up your position?

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

#76

Post by ZeroGravitas »

topynate wrote: post #74
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 considere…

You are referring to Schelling's model, and the threshold he found for segregation wasn't 1/3 but 2/3 'wrong', i.e. that everyone prefer not to be in a minority of less than 1/3. This was just was striking about it – that even if every individual is happy with being in a minority, the population can still segregate. I'm not aware that he ever referred to the degree of preference in his model as 'mild', or small. It's…

I think my point still stands.

People will move for one reason only, when they are in a 1/3 minority or smaller, and when they move they will only move to a place where they are not in such a minority, which alters the balance for the other people living there causing the chain reaction.

It's a neat mathmatical toy, but when you spell out what it's doing it's tautological and obvious, which is cool for maths, less so for social policy.

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

#77

Post by willis936 »

feet wrote: post #75
willis936 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. All anthropological work about contemporary society seeks to inform public opinion which dictates policy.

That's a pretty broad statement about a broad field. Can you provide any citations that back up your position?

Could you give any explanation for why anthropological studies on contemporary society would be published if not to share their findings?

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

#78

Post by clucas »

willis936 wrote: post #68
feet wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this paper aim to influence policy?

Of course. All anthropological work about contemporary society seeks to inform public opinion which dictates policy.

They're not prescribing any policy in the paper. But you seem to be saying it's impossible to write about your observations of humans without having some ulterior political motive. This seems pretty tenuous, can you back it up? What policy do you think the authors are trying to secretly advocate for?

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

#79

Post by feet »

willis936 wrote: post #77
feet wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty broad statement about a broad field. Can you provide any citations that back up your position?

Could you give any explanation for why anthropological studies on contemporary society would be published if not to share their findings?

>All anthropological work about contemporary society seeks to inform public opinion which dictates policy.

I'm specifically asking about the goal of informing public opinion and dictating policy which is a wildly different goal than just 'sharing their findings'.

Here is your claim:

>Theoretical physics does not aim to influence social policy.

'aim to influence social policy' is an extremely specific goal that you're prescribing to all anthropology of modern society, I'm asking you to back up that claim

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

#80

Post by willis936 »

feet wrote: post #79
willis936 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give any explanation for why anthropological studies on contemporary society would be published if not to share their findings?

>All anthropological work about contemporary society seeks to inform public opinion which dictates policy. I'm specifically asking about the goal of informing public opinion and dictating policy which is a wildly different goal than just 'sharing their findings'. Here is your claim: >Theoretical physics does not aim to influence social policy. 'aim to influence social policy' is an extremely specific goal that you're…

I said "which", not "and". Public opinion is inherently tied to publishing findings. Their goal is to publish their findings, which informs public opinion, which dictates policy.

You're claiming that I claimed that the authors prescribed policy, which I clearly did not.

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