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

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

#211

Post by thraway180306 » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 11:51 PM UTC

haberman wrote: post #210

thraway180306 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process, as told by the author, was that one of the editors invited to submit, and three weeks later it was published upon which the rest of the editorial board took notice and threatened resignation. By that telling it was published practically on the spot, especially for mathematics where things are famously glacially slow. Browsing through the journal one mostly sees submission and publication dates separated…

According to the article, publication was approved by Editor-In-Chief Mark Steinberger, who founded the magazine 25 years ago. The members of the editorial board did not just threaten resignation, but (according to the article) threatened to "harass the journal until it died."

I find these threats doubtful, I don't see the editorial board wasting their life on sustained activism over the years chasing remnants of something they helped to create and what would be served a deathly blow by their resignation already. The author however has a history of activism I haven't looked into, but that usually involves a spin. There's also the possibility of his correspondents' misguided politeness by throwing him something to chew on to diffuse the blame. Mathematical Intelligencer editor could be seen as doing that in a somewhat more intelligent way blaming the possibility of "international hype".

As for the description of alleged emotional states involved, I'm oblivious and not seeing the relevance. Recounting the events and actions taken sufficed for a horrific story. The author deemed it important however to make it into something even more colourful with threats of some unspecified future actions (how does one harass a journal?).

The managing editor you speak of went on leave and has an interim replacement. I can see that entirely appropriate if only because of how retraction was handled by deletion and overwriting, instead of a proper notice in place. This was extremely unprofessional administration, which is usually a duty of the managing editor solely. The other possibility I described is that it wasn't really published the usual way, which is even more damning.

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

#212

Post by jey » Sun, Sep 09, 2018, 1:21 AM UTC

tasubotadas wrote: post #82

I just love this new concept of inclusivity by exclusivity. And what are those people thinking? They are seriously undermining their credibility in the long term. Imagine this in 50 years - whenever you would mention something about gender-inequality you would be taken as a tin-foiled freak.

> whenever you would mention something about gender-inequality you would be taken as a tin-foiled freak.

Are you sure? We won't be allowed to acknowledge differences in average adult height or differences in the ability to carry children?

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

#213

Post by topmonk » Sun, Sep 09, 2018, 1:30 AM UTC

api wrote: post #180

quotemstr wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered the dangers of giving unreasonable people a monopoly on the truth? If you refuse to candidly discuss the truths of the world, people will turn to those who will. Regarding your autism example: of there were an acknowledged weak link, we could at least have a discussion about it, and maybe do research on mitigating the risk. But if there were a link between autism and vaccination and your scientifi…

You're assuming the discussion would be even slightly rational. It would consist of Jenny McCarthy and a bunch of homeopaths telling parents that this is proof that the Illuminati want their kids to have autism so they will worship Satan, or something about equally inane. I don't see much in the way of rational discussion of anything outside small specialized forums like this. Everything is dominated by loud anti-int…

If children at a school write 1 + 1 = 3, you don't hide mathematics from them.

In the same token, if people are misconstruing facts to mean something they don't, you don't hide the facts.

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

#214

Post by mirimir » Sun, Sep 09, 2018, 2:01 AM UTC

kupiakos wrote: post #73

another-cuppa wrote: post #66

I 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.

I get how you and many other women might reject this idea. If I were a woman, I certainly would. And I'm sad that you didn't get better responses. So I'll attempt one.

Bottom line, notwithstanding ham-fisted commentary by the author, and some here, this paper is not about men exhibiting greater variability in reproductive fitness, or whatever, than women do. It's about gender differences generally among sexually dimorphic species. And given how remarkably humans are unconstrained by biological hardware, it's totally unclear how this work is relevant for us.

Also, this paper reports no observations. It's not even a review. It does list many studies and reviews, but without any substantial critique or discussion. It just presents results of some simple mathematical modeling.

And yes, perhaps the remaining author does display an agenda. But even so, the models presented are either interesting or not, regardless of the agenda. And from my reading of the history, it's arguable that the initial paper would have displayed far less agenda than the somewhat bitter version that ended up on https://arxiv.org/ .

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

#215

Post by shard972 » Sun, Sep 09, 2018, 2:32 AM UTC

majos wrote: post #174

another-cuppa wrote: post #66

I 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…

I used to think this, but I don't any more. One argument that swayed me came from Izabella Laba [1], a math professor at UBC and former IMO competitor. The point that stood out to me is that women tend to be socialized away from extremes, for example it is generally more acceptable (to parents, guardians, and affiliated people choosing for children) for gifted boys to skip many grades than for gifted girls to do the…

Doesn't really dispute the IQ bell curve differences between men and women as we find that IQ is less and less socially constructed than we thought.

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

#216

Post by shard972 » Sun, Sep 09, 2018, 2:33 AM UTC

mnl wrote: post #83

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.

Personally I prefer interacting with women because the odds of having an intelligent exchange are better, that's my experience. Also that there are more dull males than females, and more raw geniuses males than females. But that's cafeteria talk I would never try to make science proper about, firstly because I know basically nothing about that field, secondly because I don't care enough, and thirdly because when the…

> thirdly because when the previous considerations are met it's a suicide getting into a loaded subject every side is eager to misinterpret because of agendas.

So we should corner science off from loaded subjects? That sounds alot like what the church's position on Galileo was.

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

#217

Post by haihaibye » Sun, Sep 09, 2018, 2:41 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #133

maxnoe wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, reality is under no obligation to care about your feelings. I don't like the idea men live shorter than woman, but that's reality. Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. And nobody here said that women are less capable than men. The hypothesis was, that the distribution for some traits for men has more kurtosis, so while the mean is similar, there are more outli…

Reality is under no obligation to care about your feelings, yes. But that does not imply: 1. that humans are not obligated to care about each other's feelings, either. If you are pursuing a course of research that is purely hurtful and has no perceived positive impact, nobody is making you pursue it. (I don't think this paper is in this category, to be clear.) 2. that an idea is more likely to be true simply because…

>> 2. that an idea is more likely to be true simply because it hurts people's feelings.

I suspect, given two hypotheses- one that is politically correct and one that isn't- the politically incorrect one will be held to a much higher standard of evidence required due to confirmation bias and people acting as described in the article.

If you look at psychology, the politically incorrect results (IQ) have much better evidence despite being constantly attacked. Compare that to say, priming and sterotype threat - which everyone wanted to believe in.

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

#218

Post by haihaibye » Sun, Sep 09, 2018, 2:50 AM UTC

ratsmack wrote: post #28

quotemstr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm almost wondering whether Quillette should start a scientific publication arm for unsafe research. The open access model has low overhead, and it might be possible to allow researchers to publish under pseudonyms while upholding publication standards.

And why would publishing controversial subjects be "unsafe"? Isn't one of the merits of ones learning is to have an open mind to new ideas? Why is it that when something is published that a specific group disagrees with or has "feelings" that are troubling do we feel the need to appease them to no ends... I find this troubling myself.

>> why would publishing controversial subjects be "unsafe"? ... Why is it that when something is published that a specific group disagrees with or has "feelings" that are troubling do we feel the need to appease them to no ends

Because humans are coalition forming apes, with a brain built to survive in that environment not to perceive truth.

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

#219

Post by pandaman » Sun, Sep 09, 2018, 4:14 AM 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…

Being unemployed had been a felony in the USSR [1] so the vast majority of women had to work. This naturally would produce different sex distribution in the workforce compared to countries where women had an option to become a homemaker.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitism_(social_offense)#So...

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

#220

Post by tptacek » Sun, Sep 09, 2018, 5:10 AM UTC

jquery wrote: post #203

majos wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this, but I don't any more. One argument that swayed me came from Izabella Laba [1], a math professor at UBC and former IMO competitor. The point that stood out to me is that women tend to be socialized away from extremes, for example it is generally more acceptable (to parents, guardians, and affiliated people choosing for children) for gifted boys to skip many grades than for gifted girls to do the…

Men are much more likely to have a very low IQ and this is uncontroversial. Are they socialized this way or is increased variability only in one direction.

No, that is extraordinarily controversial.