Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole • Hacker News Board

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#161

Post by WillPostForFood » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

api wrote: post #159

ve55 wrote: post #29

When 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.

Just consider that by oppressing the truth, science, and free inquiry, it adds to the inability to discusses issues rationally and maturely, it doesn't protect them.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#162

Post by tzs » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #134

kupiakos wrote: post #73

Earlier 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.

Uhm...what? There are more than two theories.

Here's one I've seen a few articles on within the past year or so. According to test data (SAT, PISA, and I believe others) on teens, girls who are at the top in science tend to also be at the top in other areas too [1]. Boys who are at the top in science tend to be more ordinary in other areas.

People in general tend to to enjoy more and go into careers in areas they are good at.

Result for boys: boys who are at the top in science are highly likely to want to go into science. It's what they are good at and enjoy.

Result for girls. For the girls at the top in science, though, it is just one of the things they are good at and enjoy, and often they are even better at those other things than they are at science. So top girls in science are more likely than top boys to pick some other area to go into.

Roughly, the top girls tend to be more rounded than the top boys. I've not seen anything on why that might be so.

[1] Anecdotally, that fits me. When I first took the SAT in high school, I got 790 on math, and a terrible 540 on verbal. I took it again to see if I could do better on verbal, and got that up to 640, which is still nothing to write home about but is at least good enough to suggest I might actually be able to write. Math dropped to 750 the second time, which was embarrassing.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#163

Post by commandlinefan » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #21

exolymph wrote: post #2

Prediction: This article will get flagged off the front page.

The admins have the ability to turn off flags for specific posts. They would do well to do it here.

OP is flagged already.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#164

Post by WillPostForFood » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

bostik wrote: post #85

js8 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent point! "it's our fault that we only care about the very best" Actually, that might also explain the cultural difference of USA vs the other parts of the world. Perhaps in the U.S. people are more obsessed with the very best, and that's why these things become controversial. It reminds of a recent discussion here about being open about your salary. My conclusion from (based on comments of other people) it wa…

> Perhaps in the U.S. people are more obsessed with the very best It's not just U.S., btw, and you're not even extreme. I remember couple of articles from the mid-90's about Russians who had moved to US after the Cold War and got married. They carried their cultural norms with them, among which there was a ruthless drive for extreme excellence. They ran into recurring problems with their US family members when the of…

Less imbalanced than the UK, but still imbalanced overall. Massively in some areas, like when they talk about inventors:

In the UK, about 4% of inventors are women, whereas the figure is 15% in Russia.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#165

Post by verylongname » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

Assuming the basic facts claimed by the author are correct, this is really bad. I'm not referring to the behavior attributed to the U Chicago professor and her husband, either. That might be exaggerated by the author (the account is only one side of the story) and, even if it isn't, strong feelings are not uncommon when it comes to controversial topics. Systems should work even when individuals or small groups of people behave badly.

The scandal here is the journal editors deviating from their standard procedures. There are procedures in place for re-evaluating articles which have been published or accepted for publication, and for retracting them if they don't meet proper standards. If the members of editorial boards don't think those procedures are proper, they should work to change them, or, barring that, resign. What they did instead undermines the credibility of the journals. How do we know that usual procedures are followed in other cases when they clearly weren't in this one (assuming the facts are as stated in the post)? Are there articles that are accepted for publication because of external pressure, over the objection of reviewers and editors? Are there other papers which have been disappeared without the expected retraction notices? What a disgrace.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#166

Post by thraway180306 » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #157

abecedarius wrote: post #79

This 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.nat…

Sorry, but the ArXiv does have a moderation team and stuff is being removed. Alike, most online journals remove stuff by wholly replacing it with a retraction notice. Journals printed on paper issue retraction letters and leave it at that, but some also do restrict online access afterwards.

What no journal does is to replace erroneously published article with another entirely unrelated one in-place. This is a very poor behaviour on the part of the managing editor here, who is currently on leave and replaced.

Nature is unusual, for example they publish letters complaining about ArXiv's moderation, beside publishing a lot of editorial and opinion stuff.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#167

Post by antidesitter » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

api wrote: post #159

ve55 wrote: post #29

When 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.

You are ambivalent about whether this article should have been censored in the way it was?

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#168

Post by yorwba » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #163

quotemstr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The admins have the ability to turn off flags for specific posts. They would do well to do it here.

OP is flagged already.

The post dropped off the front page a few hours ago, but then suddenly jumped up again, so I guess the mods intervened. Currently it does not appear to have been flagged by a large enough number of people to kill it.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#169

Post by epx » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

I have observed empirically GMVH in cats. Female cats were more "standard" in behavior, and held their own much more consistently. (This is NOT to say that they were run-of-the-mill; every one of them had pretty different personalities. I still miss Maria, my Siamese cat. Hope reincarnation exists.)

The male cats varied from totally dumb to extremely intelligent. One cat "Negro" was almost like a monkey, he managed to walk on my shoulders around my head, while most cats are afraid of being held this high. But he ran the wrong gay when my dad was parking the car and was run over ;( Pretty dumb error for a cat that was so intelligent. An idiot-savant cat, perhaps?

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#170

Post by api » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 5:41 PM UTC

antidesitter wrote: post #167

api wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are ambivalent about whether this article should have been censored in the way it was?

We have political movements that are committed to removing basic human rights from 50% of the population, so sure. Maybe when Roosh doesn't have millions of followers we can discuss this stuff openly.

It's an argument for scientific guilds in areas like this.

God I hate writing this. Ten years ago I would have totally had the opposite opinion. That was back when I thought we'd moved past these things. Recent outpourings of racist and fascist ideologies have proven that we have not. Either that or we have profoundly regressed intellectually in the last 10-15 years. In any case the situation with demagoguery is so bad that extraordinary measures may be needed to prevent real and tangible harm.

Edit:

Let me give you a different example. Let's say there's a study that shows a weak link between a vaccine and autism. If it were published, it would be amplified far out of proportion to its findings and used to convince millions of parents not to vaccinate their kids. Such a paper could have a death toll in the hundreds.

A paper like that should not be published unless it's been replicated multiple times, and even then with profound qualifications front and center indicating precisely which vaccine it applies to, etc.