Well that's a fine indication of how corrupt our scientific institutions are these days. Damn shame.
Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole
151–160 of 248 posts
Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may have made the women you've talked to feel better, but personally, I'm not a fan of the idea that I'm simply less biologically capable than men in any way.
The hypothesis makes no such claim; it's compatible with you being smarter than 99.999% of the world's men.
It's also compatible with her being smarter than all men.
Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole
#153I don't even understand why this is controversial. I've explained this to a number of women before and none of them have felt hurt. On the contrary, in fact, it makes them feel better. Humans always fixate on extremes. Men and women. It's a problem in our society. We always want to see the very best and we're not interested in others who are still way above average. There are thousands of women doing great science, e…
It may have made the women you've talked to feel better, but personally, I'm not a fan of the idea that I'm simply less biologically capable than men in any way.
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Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
We may well be forced into geoengineering. Because, by the time enough people/firms/governments are sufficiently motivated, it'll be too late for anything else. Except adapting, I mean. But anyway, CO2 capture is the obviously safest bet. Adding shitloads of iron to the oceans, or injecting shitloads of SOx into the stratosphere, are just a little too likely to have serious downsides. Or putting screens at L1, for th…
I like the L1 screen idea. It's quickly reversible, after all. Besides, in the long run, if we're going to because a Kardashev type I civilization, we're going to need some kind of planetary energy management. Why not start now?
The screen itself can be quickly removed, yes.
But will the effects of it being there for some time be also temporary? No one can say.
edit: better phrased as
On what timeframe the negative effects of a temporary screen will revert?
Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What do you think of Dr Wilkinson's behaviour? I'd need a more authoritative account of it to form a view.
And what authoritative accounts have you used to dismiss the paper and the journal editor? If you believe the editor when they say "I am happy to stir up controversy" why not also believe them when they say "we could make a real contribution here"?
> what authoritative accounts have you used to dismiss the paper and the journal editor?
I read the paper and drew my own conclusion.
> why not also believe them when they say "we could make a real contribution here"?
That snippet in context: "After the Middlebury fracas, in which none of the protestors had read the book they were protesting, we could make a real contribution here by insisting that all views be heard." That's just fancy language for "stir shit up." There's nothing there about the intellectual merit of Hill's paper, just an unobtainable value that "all views be heard."
People should read the paper to make up their own minds, though. I'm with her, there.
Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd also question the premise that Damore was fired merely for bringing up psychological differences. He also bridged the is/ought gap by making several demands of Google's hiring practices. I don't think he made demands. He called for open discussion, and a reconsideration of aggressive recruitment of women.
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Citation please, he never mentions "cultural marxism" in his memo, nor says criticism will prove him correct.
Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole
#157This seems new, and passed over in all the comments so far: > None of them had ever heard of a paper in any field being disappeared after formal publication. Rejected prior to publication? Of course. Retracted? Yes, but only after an investigation, the results of which would then be made public by way of explanation. But simply disappeared? Never. If a formally refereed and published paper can later be erased from th…
> Retracted? Yes, but only after an investigation, the results of which would then be made public by way of explanation.
Just to clarify: when papers are retracted, they are not normally erased from the database and replaced with an explanation. See this Nature paper for an example; the entire paper is kept available online, just as before, except that the words "RETRACTED" is stamped on each PDF page
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10167
Likewise, nothing published to the arXiv is ever removed. A retraction notice can be added as an update, but the complete version history is always available.
Articles are much more likely to be "un-published" (wiped from the archives) in journalism than scientific publications.
Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole
#158I have to issues with it: The write-up seems very one-sided as can already be noticed in the language (1) and the paper, as others have pointed out, is not much of a good scientific paper (2). It seems like the whole controversy was engineered or, at least, he deliberately tried to provoke/"troll" the academic community with his paper. 1) Certain parts of the post ring my alarm bells when it comes to the language use…
I don't see a problem with any of this. For 1) maybe you want to explain more explicitly what bothers you? I don't find the U.S. army ranger thing surprising in a personal blog post. If one cannot write this without losing credibility... now that's something that worries me.
For 2), this looks quite normal in terms of mathematical modelling. You make a model based on some simplifying hypotheses. You show what result you can get from these hypotheses. The conclusion is "these results follow from the hypotheses". You don't pretend to prove that this is how it works in the real thing, you just give one example of a mechanism that gives the observed results. This is basically how you propose a new theory. Then your "opponents" are supposed to show with more scientific work that a) you made a mistake, or b) your simple theory is a bad model, for example because after changing hypothesis X to better reflect reality, the model no longer produces the expected result.
(Your opponents are not supposed to suppress your theory by exploiting their social connections to prevent publication behind your back. Well I guess there is a viable argument for suppressing valid research if the "truth" is harmful to society, but I don't think this was properly argued here).
Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole
#159When opponents think about how 'damaging' papers like this are, they should also consider how damaging things like this are to the field in general, and how they may cause a lot of second-order harm. Many that I know have begun to distrust areas of academia much more recently, and when they see scenarios like this over and over it doesn't help. We all know that no one will support you for saying the truth if it won't…
It's a tough issue because both sides are right. Recent political and social events show that the general public is not yet able to discuss issues like this rationally and maturely. Yet at the same time science must be free to inquire without political restriction. I do not have an answer.
Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may have made the women you've talked to feel better, but personally, I'm not a fan of the idea that I'm simply less biologically capable than men in any way.
As it is, though, there are only two competing theories on why there are fewer women in science than men - the first is that men dominate both ends of the bell curve, and the second is that men are just horrible people who can’t be nice to others. Are you a fan of the second? Or do you have a third explanation? The first seems like the _least_ controversial possibility.
> men are just horrible people who can’t be nice to others
That’s an extremely bad and uncharitable way of summarising patriarchal oppression. It’s not about men being nice or not, it’s about (in part) a society that assigns roles to men and women and expects girls from a young age to be less logical, less mathematical, less interested in technology, etc., thus discouraging them from pursuing scientific careers. This effect, by this point, is extremely well-founded.
That’s not to say GMVH might not also be an effect, but to restate socialised gender roles as “men are just horrible people”, and to call that more controversial, is ridiculous.