CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia • Hacker News Board

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#51

Post by geofft » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 3:31 PM UTC

rjf72 wrote: post #46

peteretep wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other, someone has to be the first person to say it. I don’t understand this point. Please could you expand on what you mean?

The tale of The Emperor's New Clothes [1] would be appropriate. In society in general we've decided to take as an assumption that everybody is identically capable in everything and thus that any and all differences must then be attributable to some form of discrimination, bias, or prejudice. And this is something that is pleasant to believe in large part because not believing it has led to dystopic outcomes in the pa…

> In my opinion the most important thing here is to ensure as much equality of opportunity as reasonably possible. And this is an effort that should never relent.

Cool, so you agree that a scientist who attacks his colleagues imperils equality of opportunity, then?

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#52

Post by samcday » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

erentz wrote: post #40

samcday wrote: post #16

[flagged]

> what I can't understand is why my white homies feel that it's up to them to speak up about racial/gender issues. I don’t know what your “white homies” are saying (maybe they’re just immature dicks and that’s why you feel that way). But so long as they feel it’s important, are honestly and genuinely basing it on a good intention and with good reasoning, why shouldn’t they be allowed to be part of the conversation? T…

Given the downvotes, I can only surmise that HN isn't really the place to discuss this sort of stuff, which is fair enough!

Anyway, thanks for responding thoughtfully and calmly. :)

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#53

Post by mpweiher » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #24

zarkov99 wrote: post #13

And the fact is his statements were all backed up by real data, one would think Physicists could easily debunk them if they were bogus. Instead his detractors provided nothing but wishful thinking platitudes. Ideology over science, feelings over truth, shrieking, hysterical pronouncements over rational argument, welcome to the age of bullshit. Good luck with your next Physics breakthrough.

I don't follow - the article says that other scientists did debunk his claims. Did they not? There is a lengthy scientific rebuttal at https://www.particlesforjustice.org linked in the article. The fact that it also contains a moral rebuttal does not detract from the scientific one.

They did not. The particlesforjustice is mostly hand-waving and claims about things like implicit bias etc. with little or no empirical support.

See https://justiceforstrumia.org for a lengthy and somewhat more substantial rebuttal of the rebuttal.

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#54

Post by SiempreViernes » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 3:35 PM UTC

Udik wrote: post #29

SiempreViernes wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, you do know his actual actions was to misrepresent the contents of his talk, and spend time of it insulting members of a selection comitte that didn’t hire him? The fact is that he thinks open harrasment of people that didn’t judged him less suitable for a position is ok, which in itself is reason to keep him away from any position of imprtance.

The personal attack (or piece of personal anecdata) in the presentation was certainly condemnable and should have been left out- but let's not pretend the problem wasn't the content of the whole presentation, personal attack or not.

While his whole presentation had serious issues, starting with his misrepresentation of its contents to the organisers, the personal attack is clearly the most important infraction.

It is, on its own, enought cause to sanction him as he was.

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#55

Post by mcguire » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 3:38 PM UTC

rjf72 wrote: post #46

peteretep wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other, someone has to be the first person to say it. I don’t understand this point. Please could you expand on what you mean?

The tale of The Emperor's New Clothes [1] would be appropriate. In society in general we've decided to take as an assumption that everybody is identically capable in everything and thus that any and all differences must then be attributable to some form of discrimination, bias, or prejudice. And this is something that is pleasant to believe in large part because not believing it has led to dystopic outcomes in the pa…

"In society in general we've decided to take as an assumption that everybody is identically capable in everything and thus that any and all differences must then be attributable to some form of discrimination, bias, or prejudice."

This is false, as you partially admit later. The default assumption in society is that many groups are intellectually, morally, emotionally, and physically inferior. This assumption has been made in our society for hundreds of years. And it has led to many poor outcomes---not for the ones benefitting from the assumption, though.

The countervailing hypothesis, that everyone is "identically capable" until clearly demonstrated otherwise, is very recent and hardly universally accepted. And the idea that this hypothesis is "contradicted by reality" is also not clearly true, since the data is not unambiguous.

In other words, if you find that the fundamental research on which your scientific field is based was falsified, you don't start to clean up the mess by assuming the falsified results are true.

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#56

Post by vixen99 » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 3:53 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #50

mruts wrote: post #33

[flagged]

[flagged]

'developers and scientists are characterized by a search for the truth' (whereas...). Selfless desire for truth from a superior caste, eh? Might be true of course (not in my experience which tells me that status and personal advantage always win out) but what evidence do you have for that?

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#57

Post by rjf72 » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #51

rjf72 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tale of The Emperor's New Clothes [1] would be appropriate. In society in general we've decided to take as an assumption that everybody is identically capable in everything and thus that any and all differences must then be attributable to some form of discrimination, bias, or prejudice. And this is something that is pleasant to believe in large part because not believing it has led to dystopic outcomes in the pa…

> In my opinion the most important thing here is to ensure as much equality of opportunity as reasonably possible. And this is an effort that should never relent. Cool, so you agree that a scientist who attacks his colleagues imperils equality of opportunity, then?

Well intentioned ideologies do not inherently produce a non-negative outcome. Negative outcomes are very much a possibility, particularly when views are flawed. And so at some point any ideology that is not extremely well supported by data should be challenged, even if that ideology is the nicest most well intentioned one in the world. Google's recent pay study is one little microcosm that demonstrates this. Under fire for the widely perceived belief that females are underpaid for doing the same work as males, Google engaged in substantial data crunching and analysis to correct any inequities. It turns out they were underpaying their male employees.

Why might this be? We already answered this. There is a widely held belief that females are underpaid for doing the same work as males. This may be true in some instances, but it's certainly nothing like a universal truth. But you can see even on these forums that many Google employees do treat it as something approaching a universal truth, many even refusing to belief it was false following Google's analyses. And so when a manager has discretionary funds to distribute, whom is he going to prefer? People, generally, want to do the right thing. And so in the pursuit of equality, you end up creating inequality. These sort of paradoxical outcomes are not uncommon.

Declaring that a view is not well supported by evidence, even when that view is nice, is not 'attacking'.

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#58

Post by geofft » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

rjf72 wrote: post #57

geofft wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my opinion the most important thing here is to ensure as much equality of opportunity as reasonably possible. And this is an effort that should never relent. Cool, so you agree that a scientist who attacks his colleagues imperils equality of opportunity, then?

Well intentioned ideologies do not inherently produce a non-negative outcome. Negative outcomes are very much a possibility, particularly when views are flawed. And so at some point any ideology that is not extremely well supported by data should be challenged, even if that ideology is the nicest most well intentioned one in the world. Google's recent pay study is one little microcosm that demonstrates this. Under fi…

I don't think you responded to anything I said. From the article: "He also showed cartoons deriding women campaigning for equality in science"

Doesn't that impair equality of opportunity?

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#59

Post by geofft » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 4:19 PM UTC

rjf72 wrote: post #57

geofft wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my opinion the most important thing here is to ensure as much equality of opportunity as reasonably possible. And this is an effort that should never relent. Cool, so you agree that a scientist who attacks his colleagues imperils equality of opportunity, then?

Well intentioned ideologies do not inherently produce a non-negative outcome. Negative outcomes are very much a possibility, particularly when views are flawed. And so at some point any ideology that is not extremely well supported by data should be challenged, even if that ideology is the nicest most well intentioned one in the world. Google's recent pay study is one little microcosm that demonstrates this. Under fi…

BTW, this is factually incorrect:

> Under fire for the widely perceived belief that females are underpaid for doing the same work as males, Google engaged in substantial data crunching and analysis to correct any inequities. It turns out they were underpaying their male employees.

I encourage you to reread the Google post.

Re: CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

#60

Post by zarkov99 » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #24

zarkov99 wrote: post #13

And the fact is his statements were all backed up by real data, one would think Physicists could easily debunk them if they were bogus. Instead his detractors provided nothing but wishful thinking platitudes. Ideology over science, feelings over truth, shrieking, hysterical pronouncements over rational argument, welcome to the age of bullshit. Good luck with your next Physics breakthrough.

I don't follow - the article says that other scientists did debunk his claims. Did they not? There is a lengthy scientific rebuttal at https://www.particlesforjustice.org linked in the article. The fact that it also contains a moral rebuttal does not detract from the scientific one.

CERN did not cut ties because some other scientists rebutted his claims. This was completely ideologically driven. Strumia was presenting on a gender workshop and his crime was to be counter-narrative. Check for yourself:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c_NyUhOZ8erdqU2AGZJZtNfFeA9...

And if you have any question as to CERN's motivation, here is their official statement:

Updated on 1 October 2018

From 26 to 28 September, CERN hosted the first workshop on High Energy Theory and Gender focusing on recent developments in theoretical high-energy physics and cosmology, and discussed issues of gender and equal opportunities in the field.

It is unfortunate that one of the 38 sessions, by a scientist from one of the collaborating universities, risks overshadowing the important message and achievements of the event.

CERN, like many members of the community, considers that the presentation, with its attacks on individuals, was unacceptable in any professional context and was contrary to the CERN Code of Conduct. It, therefore, decided to remove the slides from the online repository.

On Monday, 1 October, CERN suspended the scientist from any activity at CERN with immediate effect, pending investigation into last week’s event.

CERN is a culturally diverse organisation bringing together people of many different nationalities. It is a place where everyone is welcome, and all have the same opportunities, regardless of ethnicity, beliefs, gender or sexual orientation. Indeed, diversity is one of the core values underpinning our Code of Conduct and the Organization is fully committed to promoting diversity and equality at all levels.

CERN always strives to carry out its scientific mission in a peaceful and inclusive environment.