Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed? • Hacker News Board

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#121

Post by pgeorgi » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 12:25 PM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #106

pgeorgi wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is the mathematics community being pressured to go even lower quality? If quality had been the only argument, I'd buy it - but[0]: - “As a matter of principle,” she wrote, “I support people discussing controversial matters openly … At the same time, I think it’s good to be aware of the effects.” - “but you should know in advance that many (most?) of us have strong disagreements with what you did.” (not "with th…

>If quality had been the only argument, I'd buy it Look, I understand the political argument you are making, but politics has no place in peer reviewed scientific and mathematics journals. Quality is always the argument, or should be. If people want to have a political argument, take it elsewhere. There are a lot of people out there doing serious work who are relying on the reliability of the information presented in…

> If people want to have a political argument, take it elsewhere

For example the Intelligencer? So why did folks cause a ruckus to prevent that?

Not having a political argument in a journal also means having freedom from politics. That was denied to both the Intelligencer (by outside parties) and NYJM (arguably by both outside parties and the editor who rushed in that paper).

> It's particularly galling that the political people had so infested NYJM that they decided to simply dispense with the formality of peer review in the case of this particular paper.

I agree - however, NYJM wasn't the first episode of the paper but (so far) the last.

> Please, TRY to be reasonable here. I'm not saying you can't have the flame wars you want to have, I'm just asking that we not put low quality science or math papers in peer reviewed journals. Especially papers so low quality that you feel the need to exempt them from peer review lest they not get published.

Here I disagree. First, the plea to be "reasonable": I think I'm quite reasonable asking to undo the damage by undue interference. Second, I don't think scientists will have issues handling a properly annotated paper (ie "we publish it here not for its quality but because some people want to keep it hidden for non-scientific reasons") in a sensible way.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#122

Post by Symmetry » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 12:25 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #20

foolrush wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that "race" is a social construct... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-gen...

Could an alien with no human social constructions differentiate between Bantu people and historically native Irish people?

They certainly could. But they wouldn't group Khoisans and Bantus together as "Black" compared to the Irish person being "White". Traditional racial categories fail to carve reality at the joints and modern geneticists will always use terms like "ancestry" rather than "race" because the later just has too much baggage to deal with.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#123

Post by mg96226 » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 12:34 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #120

mg96226 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the differences between sexes are less impactful than differences between individuals, why is virtually every olympic sport segregated by gender, with significant deltas in performance at every part of the performance distribution? Why are purely intellectual competitions like chess also segregated by gender due to a performance disparity?

As stated in a different post, there are differences. Of course there are. My Point is that in a world in which Technology and the capability of using said Technology is getting the deciding factor the physical differences between sexes are getting less relevant. Also, if you take boxing athletes are put into different weight classes. Making it rather futile to tell if Floyd Mayweather or Anthony Jushua is the better…

That is not what you wrote in the gp post. You specifically referred to physical differences and now you're back-pedalling because that argument crumbled. Stop and read what you're writing. All you have to offer are personal anecdotes and personally biased speculation which is contrary to trivial evidence. A rational person would re-evaluate their beliefs at this point.

'There is not a gender skill gap when it comes to using technology' is a very different argument to 'certainly is that the physical differences betwen individuals regardless of sex are bigger than those between sexes'

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#124

Post by bilbo0s » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 12:42 PM UTC

pgeorgi wrote: post #121

bilbo0s wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If quality had been the only argument, I'd buy it Look, I understand the political argument you are making, but politics has no place in peer reviewed scientific and mathematics journals. Quality is always the argument, or should be. If people want to have a political argument, take it elsewhere. There are a lot of people out there doing serious work who are relying on the reliability of the information presented in…

> If people want to have a political argument, take it elsewhere For example the Intelligencer? So why did folks cause a ruckus to prevent that? Not having a political argument in a journal also means having freedom from politics. That was denied to both the Intelligencer (by outside parties) and NYJM (arguably by both outside parties and the editor who rushed in that paper). > It's particularly galling that the poli…

>"we publish it here not for its quality but because some people want to keep it hidden for non-scientific reasons"

You can't be serious.

Here's how it should work, ideas that survive rigorous examination should be published, because that is how merit is measured in the context of peer reviewed journals. What else are scientific and mathematical ideas to be judged on if not merit?

So now we'll allow people to be published because of popularity? Or lack of popularity? Or who has the best hair style?

I think I'm done here.

You guys have a nice rest of your day.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#125

Post by tomhoward » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 12:43 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #109

tomhoward wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no great devotee of Quillette (I haven't come across an interesting article there for a while), but that's not really a fair characterisation. It's not "libertarian" in the way Reason magazine is, or "right-wing" in the way that Fox News is. I think its editors broadly identify as "classical liberals", and they have a stated mission of challenging the "blank-slate" view of human nature. You can disagree with thes…

> I think its editors broadly identify as "classical liberals", and they have a stated mission of challenging the "blank slate" view of human nature. This is incoherent: either you're a believer in something like Locke's "free and equal in the state of nature", or you're not a "classical liberal".

Adam Smith seemed to see things differently, for what it's worth (about the "blank slate", that is; not about freedom or equality).

I guess the point is we've had ~350 years of scientific discovery and philosophical musings since Locke, and we still don't have simple answers to any of this stuff.

I don't think any serious commentator today (on Quillette or elsewhere) would argue that the existence of some degree of innateness of human nature should pre-determine anyone to a lesser level of freedom or equality or ability to thrive in the world.

I think they'd argue that a better understanding of the former is necessary in order to improve the latter.

At least I would, as someone who has significant skin in the game in terms of my own ability to function.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#126

Post by hef19898 » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 12:43 PM UTC

mg96226 wrote: post #123

hef19898 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As stated in a different post, there are differences. Of course there are. My Point is that in a world in which Technology and the capability of using said Technology is getting the deciding factor the physical differences between sexes are getting less relevant. Also, if you take boxing athletes are put into different weight classes. Making it rather futile to tell if Floyd Mayweather or Anthony Jushua is the better…

That is not what you wrote in the gp post. You specifically referred to physical differences and now you're back-pedalling because that argument crumbled. Stop and read what you're writing. All you have to offer are personal anecdotes and personally biased speculation which is contrary to trivial evidence. A rational person would re-evaluate their beliefs at this point. 'There is not a gender skill gap when it comes…

Ok, sorry that I didn't provide a detailed Definition of what I have been talking about. And no, I'm not back pdealling. Physical differences, as I understood them in my original post, are measurable differences in e.g. brain density and weight, volume and such.

Also, I stand by by the argument that the difference betwen individuals is bigger than between sexes. Taking the extreme edge cases will of course show a certain tendency, right? But I did not considere Sports or stuff like that when I first posted.

So, instead of declaring my Argument having crumbled, why didn't you just ask which diferences I referred to?

And by the way, always bringing up the same Arguments (Sports for pure physics and chess for "IQ") whithout further Analysis of how the coresponding data is measured and what could have caused the differenmces doesn't help any discussion.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#127

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 12:43 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #19

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the general physical differences between the sexes or even races are undeniable This was a case some decades ago. Read the introduction to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization) - even the use of the word "race" is problematic today.

Could we use the word 'breed' then, instead of race? I guarantee you that if you showed me a mixed room of hundreds of native Danes and Sentinelese - I could classify them as easily as one could classify chihuahuas vs great danes.

Actually, Danes and Sentinelese would both be classified as belonging to the same, Caucasoid, race. From the Wikipedia article on Caucasian race:

First introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen School of History,[4] the term denoted one of three purported major races of humankind (Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid).[5] In biological anthropology, Caucasoid has been used as an umbrella term for phenotypically similar groups from these different regions, with a focus on skeletal anatomy, and especially cranial morphology, over skin tone.[6] Ancient and modern "Caucasoid" populations were thus held to have ranged in complexion from white to dark brown.[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#128

Post by Turing_Machine » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 12:52 PM UTC

googlryas wrote: post #84

pdkl95 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMqZR3pqMjg

I thought you might be going there with that. That is how our learning teaches us to classify colors into finite groups(/names). That does not mean that color itself is a social construct.

Right. Not having specific names for two colors is an entirely different thing from being unable to recognize that one color is different to the other.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#129

Post by pgeorgi » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 12:59 PM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #124

pgeorgi wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If people want to have a political argument, take it elsewhere For example the Intelligencer? So why did folks cause a ruckus to prevent that? Not having a political argument in a journal also means having freedom from politics. That was denied to both the Intelligencer (by outside parties) and NYJM (arguably by both outside parties and the editor who rushed in that paper). > It's particularly galling that the poli…

>"we publish it here not for its quality but because some people want to keep it hidden for non-scientific reasons" You can't be serious. Here's how it should work, ideas that survive rigorous examination should be published, because that is how merit is measured in the context of peer reviewed journals. What else are scientific and mathematical ideas to be judged on if not merit? So now we'll allow people to be publ…

Either my communication style is horrible or you go to great lengths to misunderstand me. Either way it's sad.

Papers should, in general, be judged by their merit. The editor of the Intelligencer did so and wanted to publish it in "Viewpoints", essentially an op-ed section.

That was shot down. Not for quality, or unsuitability for the medium, but because of a political campaign. Therefore the paper was _not_ judged for its merit.

Somebody ought to make it whole - ideally the Intelligencer, but I can understand if they don't want to take on the dumpster fire again that is political activism in academia. Second best is another journal that could open with a disclaimer like above to clarify what's going on.

Both to give closure to an author who is in a state that shouldn't happen in academic publishing (published but not published) and to make clear that scientific merit is what decides what ends up in a journal and not activists.

--

Somewhat but not quite unrelated:

I predict that we'll see a similar situation (a minor paper left in limbo after it got depublished due to unscientific activism and backroom pressure) in a couple of years again (within the next 5 years), with some progressive topic being suppressed.

I also predict that there will tons of outrage over that by the very same activists that are very pleased with themselves today over the outcome of the current campaign.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#130

Post by hef19898 » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 1:00 PM UTC

mg96226 wrote: post #112

kthejoker2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say FIDE isn't just an under representation gap caused by culture or the federation itself? The number of boys who play chess dwarf the number of girls. If we took 1000 random 5 year olds and subjected them to 3 years of Magnus Carlsen style coaching I'm confident there would be no "FIDE gap."

Because FIDE ratings encompasses the entire distribution, from left tail to right, across every participating nation, age group, and interest bracket. If the delta was due to males getting additional coaching, then the left tail of the distribution would be different in shape for males and females. It is not. Nor do more progressive countries show any signs of closing the gap. The best evidence we have right now sugg…

That kind of ignorance goes both ways. I for my part become suspicious of any Argument that is using data with a limited amount of context and Details on how the data was collected and analysed.

Especially if the aim is to have some kind of "proof" for the superiority of one group of people over another.

Using your specific example of the 100m-record. Women's 100m 1988: 10.49s, men's 100m 1987: 9.93s. Less than a second difference. And I would argue that with a time of 10.49 even a women would have been competitive during the 60s.

And now I stop this arguement, as long we are talking at this level of who is superior there is no way we reach the point where we talk about how we act on those, most of the time only perceived, differences. Which is the more important question, right?