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Please commit more blatant academic fraud

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Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#331

Post by cryptica »

fighterpilot wrote: post #328
cryptica wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think that in a globalized environment, there is much stronger selective pressure for psychopathy due to higher competitive pressure and more ways to avoid consequences for misbehavior. Opportunities are fewer and bigger - Those people who are more ruthless and manipulative have a higher chance of qualifying for the few opportunities that are available because they're willing to step over ethical boundaries to g…

I see opportunities tending towards the most competent foremost, with psychopathy potentially helping but in many cases hurting. I've seen many people fired for being assholes, as an example of cases where these traits have hurt. All the psychopaths I've met have had pretty pathetic and lonely lives. People figure them out and they get sidelined. Politicians, quantum healers, fraudster psychics, snake oil salesmen, e…

Only the least intelligent psychopaths get caught. The really smart ones are masters of PR; they can make themselves look more altruistic than actual altruists. They only show their true face once they no longer have a use for you.

They are excellent actors. If the best manipulator in your local community is talented, think of how talented the best manipulator in your country is... Then compare that to how talented the best manipulator in world is. That is the danger of globalization.

World-class psychopaths are as intelligent as other world-class individuals (very intelligent) but the difference is that almost all of their intelligence goes into presentation and manipulation - Very little goes into the actual craft that they are supposedly experts in. But from the perspective of non-experts, they come across as smarter than the actual experts.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#332

Post by wpietri »

pessimizer wrote: post #316
zpeti wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular Opinion: people making these sexist jokes do actually think they are jokes. They aren't using them to push people down. Most people are nice people and don't realise they are being assholes and pushing people down. On the other hand it's completely fair that people feel pushed down by them. HOWEVER - this entire social justice movement is being used to outsource getting into conflict, and standing up for yo…

But this becomes a full-time job for minorities to explain what is bigoted to people they don't even want to be talking to, which 1) gets you attacked for seeing everything as bigoted - especially when you make mistakes because you can't know why everyone is doing everything, just see statistically stuff is happening to you and people who look like you more than everyone else, and 2) alienates you from your co-worker…

Exactly. Very well put.

I once had a Black intern come back to his desk and I could see he was unhappy, which was far from his norm. I asked him what was up and there was this long moment of consideration, clearly deciding whether it was worth even explaining it to a white guy.

It turned out he'd left his badge at his desk and got trapped in the elevator lobby, something many people did going to and from the bathroom. When asking to be let in, a white guy gave him the third degree about who he was and whether he really belonged there. Nothing like that ever happened to me, even though my intern was a sharp dresser and I looked one notch up from a hobo.

After talking with my boss, I wrote this up for HR. At the intern's request, we never even named the interrogator. I explained that it was surely an unconscious bias incident and that I thought they'd want to keep track of things like that. In short order I get an email back from an HR lawyer denying, deflecting, defending. They did jack shit. So I also wrote the Black ERG heads. They jumped on it and raised it up to the level of the CEO, which I was very grateful for. It ended up being a reasonably positive experience for the intern on net; he felt heard and respected.

But it has always stuck with me how instantly this was dismissed by the normal power structure. They did not want to hear it, and no amount of me explaining "what hurts and why" would have made a lick of difference. And that was to a (white) manager with the backing of his (white) manager. I totally get why people targeted with this stuff just keep their heads down most of the time.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#333

Post by loup-vaillant »

wpietri wrote: post #202
berndi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it possible that professors with impeccable academic credentials get fired for jokes nearly instantly [1], yet this student's professor was allowed to carry on until he resigned two years later [2]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_shaming#Tim_Hunt_contro... [2] https://eu.gainesville.com/story/news/education/campus/2021/...

I would encourage you to think more about the social use of "jokes". Once we get past the level of knock-knocks, jokes very often have social meaning. Look at people like George Carlin, for example. His "7 dirty words" routine was deeply political. It was a full-on assault on American government censorship and the cultural elements that demanded it. And looking at history, he's won. Humor can be very powerful. Jokes…

Taking the Wikipedia article at face value, and taking for granted the exact word it cites, I fail to see anything sexist in what Tim Hunt said in that conference. If anything, he was joking about sexism itself. The people who say are offended by his words either read a quote out of context, or did the cherry picking themselves.

Assuming you followed the same Wikipedia link I did, it would seam you are guilty of cherry picking. Let's explore this mistake together:

> Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys and girls?

So at a first glance, it seems to be as you say. That would indeed be disgusting. Wait a minute though. In your haste, it seems you failed to read the words that preceded:

> It's strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists.

…as well as the words that followed:

> Now, seriously, I'm impressed by the economic development of Korea. And women scientists played, without a doubt, an important role in it. Science needs women, and you should do science, despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me.

So first, he tells his audience to take the words that will follow with a grain of salt: "Hey, I'm a monster, don't be surprised if I say monstrous things!". Then he says the thing (with less than ideal words, he could have said "me" instead of using the generic "you"). And finally he explicitly signals that the joke is over ("seriously"), and go on encouraging women to do science, and fight the very misogyny he just incarnated in his joke.

Did he actually used rank sexist stereotypes to suggest that women should be pushed out of men's labs? Of course not, and you know this.

---

Now let's stop the cherry picking, and acknowledge that we have both false positives (people getting fired over misplaced outrage), and false negatives (people not getting prosecuted for serious offences). While I understand the need for getting fewer false negatives (rape prosecution rates for instance are appallingly low), the solution is not to move the cursor all the way to hair trigger sensitivity: you'd just end up with far too many false positives, and not enough attention left to solve the real issues.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#334

Post by curtainsforus »

PicassoCTs wrote: post #265
the_lonely_road wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are Asians PoC? I thought they were not and that was literally the only reason the oft repeated phrase “black and other PoC” didn’t literally translate into “not white”.

So many different terms and abbreviations, for what is just humans..

The most important thing about humans is which ones I'm allowed to attack.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#335

Post by __d »

rscho wrote: post #266
QuinnWilton wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of us have absolutely no problem working in same-sex environments, and plenty of straight people have no issues working in coed environments. This is very clearly a case of the professor being unprofessional and exploitative of his position of power.

Plenty and plenty, yes. Now, what's a solution that would work for everyone, males females and others alike? This is very clearly a professor acknowledging the problems that arise due to interindividual biology in work environments. Unlike PC supporters hiding the issue under the blanket of professionalism.

When you're, like 2 years old, and you want a toy in the sandpit, you grab it. And if some other kid has it, too bad for them, because you want it, and that's what's important.

Somehow, most people manage to figure out that this kind of behavior isn't appropriate, and hide the issue under the blanket of being-a-decent-human-being.

I don't understand how dealing with sexual or romantic feelings is any different.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#336

Post by toss1 »

iamadog3 wrote: post #244
toss1 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Human nature, is what we are put on earth to overcome.” --Katherine Hepburn, in The African Queen A few of the good words to live by

Not really, no. Human nature is what we're dealt, we must embrace both the positive and negative aspects of it. Perhaps the inevitability of two people gravitating towards one another can be leveraged? Perhaps the disparities can elucidate us on unseen proclivities in different populations, things that can also be leveraged and positively. What we should avoid is cramming people into functionary roles and instruct th…

>>things that can also be leveraged and positively.

And, exactly how is this NOT overcoming human nature?

>> should avoid is cramming people into functionary roles and instruct them they must act as would a machine

What in that quote, or its context, ever suggested cramming people into functionary or mechanical roles?

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#337

Post by ErikVandeWater »

Beldin wrote: post #303
dcolkitt wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course a lot of abuse happens in private enterprise. But typically, senior management is much much more proactive about it than department chairs and provosts. There's very few Fortune 500 companies where you could publicly get away with the kind of abuse that's just part and parcel of being a grad student or post doc at a major research university. It might still happen either because it's well concealed. Or it m…

Your rosy picture of industry is surprising to me. It could be right, and the few takes I've heard (eg. recently, google's AI ethics mess) being only one side or exceptions that prove the rule. But I have currently no reason to expect better from industry, and will want some proof before putting it on a pedestal.

Abuse happens to people who don't have other options. If you abuse someone who has a white collar job, they generally leave quickly.

If you abuse a poor grad student who has to complete research to pay back his loans which cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, he will generally put up with it.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#338

Post by monoideism »

wpietri wrote: post #332
pessimizer wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this becomes a full-time job for minorities to explain what is bigoted to people they don't even want to be talking to, which 1) gets you attacked for seeing everything as bigoted - especially when you make mistakes because you can't know why everyone is doing everything, just see statistically stuff is happening to you and people who look like you more than everyone else, and 2) alienates you from your co-worker…

Exactly. Very well put. I once had a Black intern come back to his desk and I could see he was unhappy, which was far from his norm. I asked him what was up and there was this long moment of consideration, clearly deciding whether it was worth even explaining it to a white guy. It turned out he'd left his badge at his desk and got trapped in the elevator lobby, something many people did going to and from the bathroom…

> But it has always stuck with me how instantly this was dismissed by the normal power structure.

Your misunderstanding was believing HR is there to solve human interaction problems in the company. HR is there first and foremost to protect the company. In the case of legal, that’s even more the case.

But good on your for speaking up and trying to make the situation better. But I also believe your intern was smart to ask not to name the interlocutor. That would have only made enemies, and probably made things harder on him.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#339

Post by TwoNineFive »

tlb wrote: post #59

The idea that a field can be reformed by making it worse until it suddenly faces a reckoning and emerges much better is ... I don't know where people keep getting the idea that this might work. It has never worked in any field ever in history. The thing that can happen: fields gradually split into rigorous and non-rigorous camps. Like with evidence-based medicine, or chemistry/alchemy. Depending on the field, either…

You didn't read the article.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#340

Post by om2 »

tlb wrote: post #59

The idea that a field can be reformed by making it worse until it suddenly faces a reckoning and emerges much better is ... I don't know where people keep getting the idea that this might work. It has never worked in any field ever in history. The thing that can happen: fields gradually split into rigorous and non-rigorous camps. Like with evidence-based medicine, or chemistry/alchemy. Depending on the field, either…

If medical research is rigorous then rigor isn’t worth much. It’s one of the fields most affected by the replication crisis, along with social science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
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