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Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

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

#51

Post by brenschluss »

waterhouse wrote: post #49
brenschluss wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, that's not how the paper defines variability. I did think for a second that your definition was the case, and variability was a function of phenotypical expression, but it (as defined in the paper) is strictly about the statistical distribution of desirability within a population. See p4.

That's how variability is defined, yes, on groups (or, technically, on "probability measures")—which might be the entire population or a subgroup thereof. The term "subpopulation" isn't defined, and it isn't explicitly stated whether the high variability is a heritable trait. I believe your contention is that that the overall population has basically the same genes, everyone rolls the dice, and then the subpopulation…

I'd understand your assumption but think that it is incorrect, since the paper defines desirability not as genetic healthiness but as a mechanism for sex A to select sex B:

"The actual magnitudes of these desirability values are assumed to have no significance, and are used only to make comparisons between individuals. Here and throughout, it will also be assumed that the same desirability value is assigned to each individual by every member of the opposite sex. "

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

#52

Post by barry-cotter »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #25
jostmey wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like a well written paper with some really cool ideas. Too bad about what happened to it

There is nothing original or subtle about it, and it was blatantly intended by the Mathematical Intelligencer editor to stir shit up.

All of that can be true and Amie Wilkinson's campaign of harassment would still be vile and disgusting behaviour, unworthy of an adult of any kind. She got the paper withdrawn from two different journals, and got Dr Tabachnikov to withdraw his name from the paper.

What do you think of Dr Wilkinson's behaviour? Because that’s what the article is about, a campaign of harassment from a woman in a position of power.

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

#53

Post by mirimir »

DanAndersen wrote: post #4

Direct arxiv link to the preprint in question: https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.04184 Kudos to the author for being brave enough to detail these events. Academia and the process of science has enough blind spots without needing activists in the mix to add their own. >“Several colleagues,” she wrote, had warned her that publication would provoke “extremely strong reactions” and there existed a “very real possibility that th…

Yes, and it's still there.

If it goes away, I'll be happy to provide copies. Or put it up somewhere secure.

And FYI:

> At this point, faced with career-threatening reprisals from their own departmental colleagues and the diversity committee at Penn State, as well as displeasure from the NSF, Sergei and his colleague who had done computer simulations for us withdrew their names from the research. Fortunately for me, I am now retired and rather less easily intimidated—one of the benefits of being a Vietnam combat veteran and former U.S. Army Ranger, I guess. So, I continued to revise the paper, and finally posted it on the online mathematics archives.

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

#54

Post by waterhouse »

brenschluss wrote: post #51
waterhouse wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how variability is defined, yes, on groups (or, technically, on "probability measures")—which might be the entire population or a subgroup thereof. The term "subpopulation" isn't defined, and it isn't explicitly stated whether the high variability is a heritable trait. I believe your contention is that that the overall population has basically the same genes, everyone rolls the dice, and then the subpopulation…

I'd understand your assumption but think that it is incorrect, since the paper defines desirability not as genetic healthiness but as a mechanism for sex A to select sex B: "The actual magnitudes of these desirability values are assumed to have no significance, and are used only to make comparisons between individuals. Here and throughout, it will also be assumed that the same desirability value is assigned to each i…

The desirability of an individual is often strongly influenced by heritable traits. In the example with my interpretation, "beauty" is a trait we assume to be desirable (for the sake of illustration I'm assuming it's the only trait considered), and how much of it an individual has is heavily influenced by the coin-flip gene. I see no contradiction here.

I might interpret the sentences you quote as "We can give each individual a beauty score from 0 to 100, and all members of the opposite sex agree on what beauty score an individual gets." And we might imagine the coin-flippers have beauty in the ranges 90-100 or 0-10 (depending on the flip result), while the others are all between 40-60 beauty.

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

#55

Post by mirimir »

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.

From the article:

> At this point, faced with career-threatening reprisals from their own departmental colleagues and the diversity committee at Penn State, as well as displeasure from the NSF, Sergei and his colleague who had done computer simulations for us withdrew their names from the research.

That strikes me as pretty damn "unsafe".

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

#56

Post by mirimir »

jancsika wrote: post #34

> Half his board, he explained unhappily, had told him that unless he pulled the article, they would all resign and “harass the journal” he had founded 25 years earlier “until it died.” Half a board of academics skulking to avoid controversy, ok. But becoming a hive of killer bees threatening to attacking their own hive ? That doesn't pass the smell test.

Do you argue that the author is lying?

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

#57

Post by mirimir »

opwieurposiu wrote: post #27

Amie Wilkinson has managed to do many times more harm to the image of women in science then this paper ever could.

Well, that's going too far, I think. She comes off as extremely unprofessional, but there are lots of unprofessional men, as well.

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

#58

Post by mirimir »

cosmon0t wrote: post #23
quotemstr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened? I call it valence hijacking. Sometimes, a thing --- a word, an institution, a bit of history --- has cultural power. It's surrounded with an aura (or valence, if you will) of gravitas and mystique, usually accumulated over decades, or millennia. Acrivists notice that these things have cultural power and hijack them, turning them into something useful for the cause while denying that anything has change…

I like that term, "valence hijacking" and I don't disagree. Ultimately I think we as a society are approaching a pivotal point where any body (individual or institution) are so afraid of a drag through the public square for their statements/image that we have created de facto censorship on what is "appropriate" and what "is not", which might have negative repercussions on what is allowed under freedom of expression a…

Well hey, there you have it! That's precisely why you see "mirimir" as the author of this comment. Because, you know, my meatspace persona can't tolerate anything at all controversial. I learned my lesson on Usenet :( And the climate is way^N worse now.

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

#59

Post by leibwiht »

DanAndersen wrote: post #4

Direct arxiv link to the preprint in question: https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.04184 Kudos to the author for being brave enough to detail these events. Academia and the process of science has enough blind spots without needing activists in the mix to add their own. >“Several colleagues,” she wrote, had warned her that publication would provoke “extremely strong reactions” and there existed a “very real possibility that th…

>It's as if these people had never heard of the Streisand Effect.

It's not that they don't know about it, it's that the quote in question is an overt threat and the entire point of it is that the person it is said to will give up and stop trying out of fear, which would certainly prevent any sort of Streisand effect from happening.

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

#60

Post by [deleted] »

brenschluss wrote: post #43
quotemstr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've identified the mechanism by which sexual selection operates. It's clearly a powerful force. This paper is arguing that in addition to sexual selection's first order directional effect, there's an overlaid second order effect on variability, and the argument makes sense. Male reproductive success is already highly variable, because male gametes are cheap. Some males end up being disproportionately successful, e…

>The effect doesn't apply to female children, since a female mammal cannot have 200 offspring in her lifetime, but a male mammal certainly can. From the paper: "Note that this theory makes no assumptions about differences in means between the sexes, nor does it presume that one sex is selective and the other non-selective" So the reproduction capacity of sex A and sex B is equal. I'm attempting to debate the paper st…

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